blues | music clip of the day

Category: blues

Tuesday, 5/8/12

passings

Michael Burks, singer, guitar player, songwriter
July 30, 1957-May 6, 2012

Here’s what I wrote when I first posted this clip (2/28/11):

When something is this lyrical, this convincing, there’s only one thing I want to do when it ends—hear it again.

“Empty Promises”
Live, Falls Church, Virginia, 8/21/09

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Michael came to Alligator Records long after I left. But a few years ago I did some legal work for him and got to know him. Soft-spoken, gentle, warm: these are the words that come to mind. He collapsed at the Atlanta airport after returning from a European tour—heart attack.

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“Fire and Water”
Live, Denmark (Frederikshavn), 2010

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“Since I’ve Been Loving You”
Live, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, 2010

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“House of the Rising Sun”
Live, Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, 2008

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2012

Monday, 5/7/12

Muddy Waters with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, et al., “Mannish Boy,” live, Chicago (Checkerboard Lounge), 1981

Keith and Ronnie understand something many rockers don’t: the importance, in blues, of restraint. They also understand that when you’re a guest you don’t try to upstage the host. Mick, meanwhile, hasn’t got a clue.

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2012

Saturday, 5/5/12

Happy Birthday, Blind Willie and Tammy!

Blind Willie McTell (5/5/1898-8/19/59), “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” (1940)

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Tammy Wynette (5/5/42-4/6/98), medley (“Apartment No. 9,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” “Stand By Your Man”), TV show

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Imagine what this country would be like if everything were as fine as the music.

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2012

Saturday, 4/28/12

James Blood Ulmer, “Are You Glad to Be in America?”
Live, 2008

Imagine this with bass and drums. Can’t? Me, neither. That’s one sign of a great solo performance: accompaniment is unimaginable.

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2012

Monday, 3/5/12

Has there ever been a finer hour of jazz—of music—on TV?

The Sound of Jazz (CBS), 1957*

(A couple excerpts have been posted previously—here and here—but until the other day I’d never seen the whole show.)

*With Count Basie (piano), Thelonious Monk (piano), Billie Holiday (vocals), Jimmy Rushing (vocals), Coleman Hawkins (tenor saxophone), Ben Webster (tenor saxophone), Lester Young (tenor saxophone), Gerry Mulligan (baritone saxophone), Jimmy Giuffre (tenor saxophone, clarinet), Pee Wee Ellis (clarinet), Henry “Red” Allen (trumpet), Roy Eldridge (trumpet), Vic Dickenson (trombone), Danny Barker (guitar), Freddie Green (guitar), Jim Hall (guitar), Milt Hinton (bass), Jo Jones (drums), et al.

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2012

Sunday, 3/4/12

going back home

Davis Sisters, “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home”
TV Gospel Time (introduced by Brother Joe May), early 1960s

More? Here. And here.

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lagniappe

Here’s a secular take.

John Lee Hooker, “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home” (That’s My Story: John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues, 1960)

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reading table

Home is never what you think it is.

Meaning lies in meaning’s absence. The mist
Is always just about to lift.

—J. Allyn Rosser, “Sugar Dada” (excerpt)

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2012

Friday, 2/17/12

Blues is a big tent. Over here is Slim Harpo (“I’m A King Bee,” 2:18-). And over there are the Stooges (“I Wanna Be Your Dog,” 4:48-).

Alejandro Escovedo, live, Austin (Continental Club), 11/29/11
With guests Marc Ribot & David Hidalgo (guitars)

More Alejandro Escovedo? Here. And here.

Marc Ribot? Here. And here. And here. And here. And here.

David Hidalgo? Here.

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2012

Monday, 2/13/12

There are all kinds of love songs.

Sonny Boy Williamson II (AKA Aleck [or Alex] “Rice” Miller), “Your Funeral and My Trial,” live, Europe, 1960s

More? Here.

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lagniappe

reading table

Moonlight in the kitchen is a sign of God.

—Anne Carson, “God’s Work” (excerpt)

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2012

Saturday, 2/4/12

lighter than air, funkier than dirt

Otha Turner (1907-2003) and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band (with guest Luther Dickinson, guitar), “My Babe,” live, Memphis, 1990s

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lagniappe

art beat: more from Wednesday’s stop at the Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent van Gogh, The Poet’s Garden (1888)

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musical thoughts

Last night, at the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall, I heard what may be the finest encore I’ve ever heard. After devoting the second half of his concert to Beethoven’s mammoth Diabelli Variations, pianist Peter Serkin, following several trips offstage to rapturous applause, sat down and played, slowly, meditatively, the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations. As the last note was fading, if someone had turned to me and said, with the kind of confidence one often encounters in Hyde Park, that the greatest achievements in the history of humanity can be heard at the piano, I couldn’t have done anything other than agree.