Category: Music

Two country music immortals

… were born on September 8th.

Jimmie Rodgers, considered the “Father of Country Music,” was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on September 8, 1897. He died from TB in 1933. Jimmie Rodgers was the first person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

James Charles Rodgers, known professionally as the Singing Brakeman and America’s Blue Yodeler, was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was honored as the Father of Country Music, “the man who started it all.” From many diverse elements—the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American blues—Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations of country artists.

Blue Yodel No. 9

Patsy Cline, the most popular female country singer in recording history, was born in Winchester, Virginia, on September 8, 1932. She died in a plane crash in 1963. Patsy Cline is an inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Cline is invariably invoked as a standard for female vocalists, and she has inspired scores of singers including k. d. lang, Loretta Lynn, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, and Wynonna Judd. Her brief career produced the #1 jukebox hit of all time, “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson) and her unique, crying style and vocal impeccability have established her reputation as the quintessential torch singer.

Crazy

Redux post of the day

First posted here seven years ago today.

Country lyrics

  • “Cause he’s gonna live forever if the good die young” — Tracy Lawrence
  • “You can’t help how you don’t feel” — Lonestar
  • “I’ve always been crazy, but it’s kept me from going insane” — Waylon Jennings
  • “I’m much too young to feel this damn old” — Garth Brooks
  • “I’m a little past Little Rock but a long way from over you” — Lee Ann Womack
  • “It’s too hot to fish, too hot for golf, and too cold at home” — Mark Chesnutt
  • “She said: ‘I’m gonna’ hire a wino
    to decorate our home,
    So you’ll feel more at ease here,
    and you won’t have to roam.
    We’ll take out the dining room table,
    and put a bar along that wall.
    And a neon sign, to point the way,
    to our bathroom down the hall.'” — David Frizzell

New Rolling Stone 500

In May Rolling Stone published a new list of “the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, as voted on by an all-star panel that included Chris Martin, Slash, Lil Wayne and more.”

The previous 500 had been published in 2004 and I’ve mentioned it here. (Here’s an archived copy of the 2004 list.)

Rolling Stone isn’t posting, so far as I can tell, the new 500 list on line. They want you to buy the special issue. I was able to find it though, and by my calculations there are 26 additions (and 26 deletions) to the 2004 500. Many other songs shifted a few positions up or down.

I’m not arguing here for the validity of the list or not.

But here are the new tracks:

100. “Crazy” – Gnarls Barkley
118. “Crazy in Love” – Beyonce Feat. Jay-Z
160. “Moment of Surrender” – U2
172. “99 Problems” – Jay-Z
194. “Rehab” – Amy Winehouse
236. “Paper Planes” – M.I.A.
260. “Mississippi” – Bob Dylan
273. “Jesus Walks” – Kanye West
286. “Seven Nation Army” – The White Stripes
307. “One More Time” – Daft Punk
327. “Take Me Out” – Franz Ferdinand
345. “Beautiful Day” – U2
386. “Maps” – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
412. “Umbrella” – Rihanna Feat. Jay-Z
424. “Juicy” – The Notorious B.I.G
432. “American Idiot” – Green Day
448. “In Da Club” – 50 Cent
466. “Get Ur Freak On” – Missy Elliot
467. “Big Pimpin'” – Jay-Z Feat. UGK
478. “Last Night” – The Strokes
482. “Since U Been Gone” – Kelly Clarkson
484. “Cry Me a River” – Justin Timberlake
490. “Clocks” – Coldplay
493. “Time to Pretend” – MGMT
494. “Ignition (Remix)” – R. Kelly
497. “The Rising” – Bruce Springsteen

And here are the songs no longer among the “500 greatest”:

114 Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home) – The Crystals
166 Lose Yourself – Eminem
215 Sh-Boom – The Chords
391 Band of Gold – Freda Payne
400 Kicks – Paul Revere & the Raiders
406 I Believe I Can Fly – R. Kelly
409 Crossroads – Cream
422 Lola – The Kinks
428 Devil With a Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly – Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels
442 Keep a Knockin’ – Little Richard
450 By the Time I Get to Phoenix – Glen Campbell
456 Stagger Lee – Lloyd Price
460 One Fine Day – The Chiffons
468 Search and Destroy – The Stooges
469 It’s Too Late – Carole King
470 Free Man in Paris – Joni Mitchell
471 On the Road Again – Willie Nelson
474 One Nation Under a Groove — Part 1 – Funkadelic
485 Graceland – Paul Simon
488 Rhiannon – Fleetwood Mac
491 You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me – Dusty Springfield
493 Then He Kissed Me – The Crystals
494 Desperado – The Eagles
498 Rainy Night in Georgia – Brook Benton
499 The Boys are Back in Town – Thin Lizzy
500 More Than a Feeling – Boston

And yes, I have a playlist in iTunes with all 526.

Just like ringing a bell

Voyager 2, the first of two Voyager spacecraft (Voyager 2 was launched before Voyager 1 — go figure), was sent to explore the planets of our solar system on August 20th in 1977.

For nearly 33 years, the venerable spacecraft has been returning unprecedented data about the giant outer planets, the properties of the solar wind between and beyond the planets and the interaction of the solar wind with interstellar winds in the heliosheath. Having traveled more than 21 billion kilometers on its winding path through the planets toward interstellar space, the spacecraft is now nearly 14 billion kilometers from the sun. Traveling at the speed of light, a signal from the ground takes about 12.8 hours to reach the spacecraft.

Voyager – The Interstellar Mission

NewMexiKen wrote about The Golden Record on board each spacecraft some years ago. The record is “a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth” so that extra-terrestials might learn about life on our planet. Among the music is Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, various native music and Chuck Berry performing “Johnny B. Goode.”

If we ever hear from extra-terrestials, I imagine their message to us will be, “Send more Chuck Berry.”

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which was released [51] years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution. Everyone, even people who say they don’t like jazz, likes Kind of Blue. It’s cool, romantic, melancholic, and gorgeously melodic. But why do critics regard it as one of the best jazz albums ever made? What is it about Kind of Blue that makes it not just pleasant but important?

Fred Kaplan tells us Why Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is so great.

The sextet consisted of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Cannonball Adderley (alto sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Bill Evans (piano). Wynton Kelly replaced Evans on “Freddie Freeloader.”

Everyone — every one — should own this album (if you own it, you will listen to it). It rarely costs more than $10, and you can get it from iTunes right now.

“Kind of Blue isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence.” — allmusic

To this day Kind of Blue sells 5,000 copies a week.

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold ran in April 1966 and became one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published, a pioneering example of what came to be called New Journalism — a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction.”

A long, but exceptionally rewarding article for any fan of Sinatra’s young or old, and for anyone who appreciates great writing.

July 17th should be an annual national day of mourning

Billie Holiday died 51 years ago today. She was 44.

Considered by many to be the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, Billie Holiday lived a tempestuous and difficult life. Her singing expressed an incredible depth of emotion that spoke of hard times and injustice as well as triumph. Though her career was relatively short and often erratic, she left behind a body of work as great as any vocalist before or since.

American Masters

Woodrow Wilson Guthrie

… was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, on this date in 1912. We, of course, know him as Woody Guthrie.

This from David Hajdu in a review in The New Yorker in 2008 of a new biography of Guthrie:

…”This Land Is Your Land,” a song that most people likely think they know in full. The lyrics had been written in anger, as a response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” which Woody Guthrie deplored as treacle. In addition to the familiar stanzas (“As I went walking that ribbon of highway,” and so on), Guthrie had composed a couple of others, including this:

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people—
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God Blessed America for me.

There’s an American Masters program on Guthrie currently in circulation on PBS.

I ain’t never got nowhere yet
But I got there by hard work

If I owned a baseball team and if I thought a patriotic song was necessary during the seventh inning stretch, “This Land Is Your Land” would be my choice.

Woody Guthrie died in 1967.

This land is your land and this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
And I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I roamed and rambled and followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
All around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
Sign was painted, it said private property
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing
This land was made for you and me

When the sun come shining then I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting as the fog was lifting
This land was made for you and me

This land is your land and this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me

From a 1944 Guthrie recording.

Nipper

The trademark His Master’s Voice was registered 100 years ago today. It was based on a painting done in 1898 by Francis Barraud of his mutt Nipper. Nipper had died in 1895, but Barraud remembered the scene of the dog, which had belonged to his brother, listening to a gramophone.

250px-His_Master's_Voice.jpg

When Barraud visited the Gramophone Company to see if they would lend him a horn so he could repaint the work, Gramophone asked to buy the painting (with their instrument in it).

The work went on display as advertising in January 1900. Emil Berliner bought the copyright for America and his company eventually became Victor Talking Machine Company and ultimately RCA Victor.

VictorTalkingLogo.jpg

Redux post of the day

First posted here six years ago today. I wrote the Bonnie Raitt review in 2002. I have made two minor corrections to the post.

Sadly, the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater is scheduled to be torn down in another incredibly stupid and insensitive action by the Santa Fe Indian School, which controls the property, and the All Indian Pueblo Council, which controls the school.

NewMexiKen spent late afternoon and early evening Thursday on the Plaza in Santa Fe, the nation’s oldest capital city (1610). It had been a year or possibly two since I’d been there (though it is one of America’s premier tourist attractions and I live just an hour away). I am always ready to dislike Santa Fe — and it’s always like a new love when I get there. Yes, it has the so-so affected galleries and their so-so affected clientele; and yes it has too many places to buy T-shirts (I got two) and laser art. Still, the setting itself is authentic — like me, people have been drinking tequila or something like it on the plaza for nearly 400 years. And weather! Yesterday evening was stunning. Low 80s, clear, with a few white clouds, slight breeze. Blue sky that North Carolinians can’t even imagine.

Two years ago NewMexiKen saw Bonnie Raitt in Santa Fe at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater (four days after seeing the Eagles in Albuquerque). Here’s the review I wrote then:

Saturday was entirely different. The Paolo Soleri is an outdoor amphitheater behind the Santa Fe Indian School. It seats maybe 2,500 and most of the seating is unreserved. We had reserved ninth row center seats for just $45 each, close enough to see the welt on the performer’s forehead after she whacked herself with a guitar.

Bonnie Raitt, 52, has also been recording and performing since 1971. She came into her own in 1989 when she won the Grammies for Album of the Year (Nick of Time); Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female, and Best Traditional Blues Recording (for a duet with John Hooker on I’m in the Mood). She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago.

Unlike the Eagles (excepting Joe Walsh) Bonnie Raitt was an entertainer, not just a musician. She had a lot of banter with the crowd, giving every impression she was having a great time. “You can leave if you have too, I’ll understand, but I’m staying a little longer.” It actually appeared as if her third encore was genuine; that is, a salute to a particularly appreciative audience. She had a guitar player and bassist behind her that have been with her for more than 20 years, plus a great new keyboard player and a fine drummer. She included all the essential hits, except sadly not Runaway, but a fair number of new songs as well from her new album, Silver Lining.

Bonnie Raitt is a great guitarist. I think I wasn’t as aware of that as I should have been before last night. She’s got the blues down when she needs to, and she can rock. It was wonderful to be close enough to see the playing; close enough to count the picks on her fingers (and not on a big screen – there are no screens at Paolo Soleri). Her voice was great, though she complained a little about some smoke from a concession early in the performance – it was like being at someone’s backyard charcoal barbeque for a while. She commented she preferred the “smoke” at Red Rocks (near Denver), which she claimed had been thick enough to make her high by the third song. She may have been particularly chatty Saturday night, as she needed to catch her breath between numbers at Santa Fe’s 7000 feet. Whatever, it was welcome and fun.

The Santa Fe Birkenstock crowd was interesting on its own. Seldom have I seen so many Earth people this side of Fourth Avenue, Tucson. I was expecting the glitterati of Santa Fe I suppose, and they are probably waiting for the Santa Fe Opera to begin its season.

Nevertheless, we did have one celebrity in the audience, two rows down, and five seats over. Jane Fonda, an apparent friend of Ms. Raitt. She looked good, but not unlike any other 64-year-old, exceptionally rich woman might. No Birkenstocks on Jane.

Best redux line of the day

First posted two years ago today — so I guess Oliver Sacks is 77 today.

“I still do not have a computer, but having resisted an iPod as long as I could, I have now succumbed. On my iPod at the moment I have nothing but Bach, but I have all of Bach …”

Oliver Sacks, who turns 75 today. He has the entire 157-CD Bach set on his iPod.

Sacks has recently resumed piano lessons after a 60-year break.

Pinetop Perkins

97 today and still making music.

“Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” is one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. It was recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis more than 50 years ago.

By this time, Pinetop had developed his own unmistakable sound. His right hand plays horn lines while his left kicks out bass lines and lots of bottom. It was Pinetop, along with Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Little Brother Montgomery, who provided the basic format and ideas from which countless swing bands derived their sound – whole horn sections playing out what Pinetop’s right hand was playing. Although Pinetop never played swing, it was his brand of boogie-woogie that came to structure swing and, eventually, rock ‘n’ roll.

Pinetop Perkins Official Web Page

And he’s played everywhere, from Arkansas juke joints and Chicago blues dens to the White House.

“I played there before with Muddy Waters,” Perkins says. “I can’t remember the name [of the president]. Since I got older, I am so forgetful of the names.”

Pinetop Perkins: At 95, A Grammy Nominee : NPR

Pinetop will be appearing at the Hondarribia Blues Festival in Spain this Saturday, at the Pocono Blues Festival in Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania, later this month, and at the Riverfront Blues Festival in Wilmington, Delaware, a month from now.

Pinetop Perkins begins playing in the video below at 35:24.

Watch the full episode. See more Austin City Limits.

Treme’s violinist

If you’re watching David Simon’s Treme on HBO you may be taken as I am with the violin playing of the street musician Annie. You may not know, as I did not know, that the part is played by Lucia Micarelli, a rock-star among actual concert violinists. This is her first acting job; fortuitous it seems because she cut her left hand on a wine glass last Independence Day and severed nerves, damage from which she hasn’t fully recovered. Ms. Micarelli is 26.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8NN4fpdm40

Playing “Emmanuel” with Chris Botti.

Performing Led Zeppelin’s “Kasmir” with Jethro Tull.

I’d be happy with a recording of her Treme street violinist’s “Careless Love.”

Pete Seeger

… is 91 today.

Pete Seeger’s contribution to folk music, both in terms of its revival and survival, cannot be overstated. With the possible exception of Woody Guthrie, Seeger is the greatest influence on folk music of the last century.
. . .

Seeger is responsible for such folk standards as “If I Had a Hammer” (originally written by Seeger and Lee Hays of the Weavers as “The Hammer Song”) and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” Seeger’s one dalliance with the pop charts came in 1964, when his version of folksinger Malvina Reynolds’ exercise in suburban mockery, “Little Boxes,” reached #70. Seeger’s songs were also popularized by others, principally Peter, Paul and Mary (“If I Had a Hammer,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”) and the Byrds (“Turn! Turn! Turn!,” “The Bells of Rhymney”).

. . .

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNopQq5lWqQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WT6-BIav2I

‘Trigger’

Willie Nelson’s much-used Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic guitar, looking it’s age even more than Willie looks his — but both sounding beautiful still.