two takes
“Driftin’ Blues”
Paul Butterfield Blues Band (including Elvin Bishop, guitar), live, California (Monterey), 1967
*****
Charles Brown, 1945
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lagniappe
Thanks so much for sending me this link.
It was a thrill for me to be a part of the tribute concert for Albertina.
I really dig the Blackwell clips also!
—Juli Wood (responding to an email letting her know that her recent performance at the Albertina Walker Musical Tribute was featured here)
Elvis—blues singer
Elvis Presley, “Stranger In My Own Home Town,” live (rehearsal), 1970
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lagniappe
Percy Mayfield, “Stranger In My Own Home Town” (1964)
*****
art beat
Stranger in Paradise: The Works of Reverend Howard Finster, Chicago Cultural Center, through 9/26/10 (in the gallery next to The Jazz Loft Project, W. Eugene Smith in NYC, 1957-1965, there through 9/19/10)
Mr. Coke (1988; tractor enamel on wood)
***
My work is scrubby. It’s bad, nasty art. But it’s telling something. You don’t have to be a perfect artist to work in art.
—Reverend Howard Finster
***
Matthew Arient’s Angel (1987; tractor enamel on wood)
***
Howard Finster Vision House
Here’s more from the guy who, the other day, we heard live in Slovenia.
Bob Dylan, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'” (2009)
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lagniappe
Howlin’ Wolf (with Hubert Sumlin, guitar; Hosea Lee Kennard, piano; Alfred Elkins, bass; Earl Phillips, drums), “Who’s Been Talking” (Chess Records, Chicago, 1957)
More Howlin’ Wolf? Here.
*****
lagniappe
art beat
The New Yorker (8/16/10) writes of Matisse’s Bathers by a River, which is currently on view, in the exhibit “Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917,” at the Museum of Modern Art: “it consumes at least as much aesthetic energy as it imparts.” Except when it’s on loan elsewhere, this painting hangs at Chicago’s Art Institute. Over the years I’ve seen it dozens (maybe hundreds) of times. Never once, as I looked at it, did it occur to me how much “aesthetic energy” it was “consum[ing].”
Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River (1909-16)
Last week I wrote: “Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.”
Actually, all it takes is a single string.
Lonnie Pitchford (diddley bow), live, Mississippi, 1978 (The Land Where The Blues Began [1979])
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lagniappe
? and the Mysterians—still more (take #4 [NYC, Great Jones Cafe; 7/31/10])
*****
mail (makes me want to be [yikes!] a grandfather)
The other day Oran Etkin, whose music was featured here a while back, wrote:
I’ve been checking in every once in a while to your blog— you’ve got some really amazing and diverse music up there!
***
I wanted to let you know about a new project I have and a great video I just posted yesterday. I have a project for kids called Timbalooloo (www.timbalooloo.com), which has music classes for 0-10 year olds using a new approach I developed to reach that age group, CDs, Videos, Books, etc. I am putting out a kids CD next month called Wake Up, Clarinet! based on this whole approach. It’s with my band featuring Jason Marsalis, Curtis Fowlkes, Fabian Almazan, Garth Stevenson and Charenee Wade. Anyways, I put up this video from a live concert, and I thought you might enjoy it and see if it would be cool for your blog.
***I’m loving the videos up on the site!
—Oran
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Oran Etkin, “Wake Up, Clarinet!”; live
Suppose Blind Willie McTell, who died in 1959, came back to life for a day.
How would you explain this to him—a video clip of a pop icon singing a song about him, during a recent concert in Slovenia, captured by a cell-phone camera then uploaded onto the ’net for anyone, anywhere in the world, to see?
Bob Dylan, “Blind Willie McTell,” live, Slovenia (Ljubljana), 6/13/2010
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lagniappe
Blind Willie McTell
hotel room, Atlanta, 1940
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“Statesboro Blues,” 1928 (Atlanta)
The lineup Bambino and Group Inerane use today in the West African desert—two electric guitars, drums—is the one this guy used, 40 years ago, on Chicago’s south side.
Hound Dog Taylor, live, Chicago, 1971
Want more? Here.
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lagniappe
Spiritual Stars Singers
Silver Wings
Amazing Mentholiers
Chosen Wonders
Rev. R. Campbell and His Wonder Boy
Rhythmical Wright Singers
Willie Harris and the Sensational Six
Never heard of ’em? I hadn’t either. Now you can hear all of ’em in the latest installment of Sinner’s Crossroads (8/5/10), Kevin Nutt’s weekly “gospel extravaganza.” (This one’s so good I’ve already played it twice.)
*****
“dark dismal-dreaming night” *
Listen to the Cubs lose at four in the afternoon?
Anyone can do that.
You’ve gotta be crazy to listen to them lose at 1:00 a.m (Giants, 11th inning, 4-3).
*W. Shakespeare
In the wrong hands no genre is more tedious.
In the right hands none is more riveting.
Robert Pete Williams, live, England, 1966
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going forward
It will still be “music clip of the day”—it just won’t be every day. Some weeks, I expect, I’ll be here nearly every day; other weeks less often. Stay tuned.
Simple, subtle, soulful: blues is (as Artur Schnabel said of Mozart’s piano sonatas) “too easy for children, too difficult for adults.”
R.L. Burnside, “Goin’ Down South,” live, early 1970s, Mississippi
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music is the healing force of the universe.
—Albert Ayler
You can learn how to play the harmonica. You can learn how to sing. What you can’t learn is the most important thing—presence.
Junior Wells (vocal and harmonica), Buddy Guy (guitar), “Cryin’ Shame” (AKA “Country Girl”), live, Chicago, 1970 (Chicago Blues)
Want more? Here.
music clip of the day 