I don’t know how boys do it these days—grow up, that is, without ever dreaming of being a cowboy.
Sunshine Boys (featuring J.D. Sumner), “We’re Gonna Ride on the Golden Range,” 1951 (Prairie Roundup)
If you have any doubts about the transformative powers of music, watch this. I’ve spent more hours than I could count in prisons, state and federal, in Illinois and Ohio and Wisconsin, meeting with clients. Never have I seen folks so relaxed.
Johnny Cash, live, San Quentin, 1969
“I Walk the Line”
***
“Folsom Prison Blues”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Orange Blossom Special”
***
“Jackson” (with June Carter Cash)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.
—Patti Smith (after winning this year’s National Book Award for nonfiction for her memoir Just Kids)
two takes
Some lyrics sound as though they want to be read; others would look silly on the page but, unlike the page-worthy, they sing.
“If I Had A Boat” (Lyle Lovett)
Lyle Lovett, live (TV broadcast), 2004
*****
The Holmes Brothers, State Of Grace (Alligator), 2007
lagniappe
Gregory Isaacs/p.s.
Yesterday’s link to WKCR-FM’s Memorial Broadcast didn’t work right (only a fraction of the show could be accessed), but it does now.
*****
reading table
To fall into despair is just a high-class way of turning into a dope. I choose to laugh, and laugh at myself no less than at others.
—Saul Bellow, Letters (2010) (as quoted in yesterday’s New York Times review)
Gregory Isaacs, July 15, 1951-October 25, 2010
[Gregory Isaacs’ friend and former manager Don Hewitt] said of Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones that when he was introduced to Mr. Isaacs, “he carried on like he’d met Jesus.”
***
In a 2001 interview, Mr. Isaacs reflected on his legacy. “Look at me as a man who performed works musically,” he said. “Who uplift people who need upliftment, mentally, physically, economically—all forms. Who told the people to live with love ’cause only love can conquer war, and to understand themselves so that they can understand others.”
—Rob Kenner, New York Times (obituary, 10/25/10)
Live, London (Brixton Academy), 1984
“Number One”
***
“Night Nurse”
***
“Border”
*****
“Sad Mood Tonight” (1994)
*****
“Kingston 14” (Made in Jamaica, 2006)
*****
Want more? Here: “Gregory Isaacs Memorial Broadcast,” Eastern Standard Time, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), 11/6/10.
**********
lagniappe
reading table
No battle that can be won is worth fighting.
What makes this guy such a great guitarist?
He doesn’t show off.
“Lead”? “Rhythm”? To him it’s all one.
He doesn’t play over the drummer—he plays with him.
Keith Richards (with Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams, Hank Williams III), “Dead Flowers,” live (TV broadcast), 2002
**********
lagniappe
I’m not here just to make records and money. I’m here to say something and to touch other people, sometimes in a cry of desperation: ‘Do you know this feeling?’
—Keith Richards, Life (2010)
*****
reading table
As the fiftieth birthday approaches, you get the sense that your life is thinning out, and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing . . . . Then fifty comes and goes, and fifty-one, and fifty-two. And life thickens out again. Because there is now an enormous and unsuspected presence within your being like an undiscovered continent. This is the past.
—Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow (2010)
Leon Russell loved these guys so much—both, alas, have since passed—that, in 1974, he recorded them for his Shelter label.
The O’Neal Twins
“Jesus Dropped The Charges,” live
Take 1 (Say Amen, Somebody [1982])
***
Take 2
*****
“It’s A Highway To Heaven,” live (Say Amen, Somebody [1982])
*****
“Power In The Blood,” live (TV broadcast), mid-1960s
*****
“He Chose Me,” live
*****
“He’ll Give You Peace In The Midst Of The Storm,” live, Texas (Dallas), 1981
**********
lagniappe
In a 2005 interview with the Post-Dispatch, Mr. [Edgar] O’Neal spoke about the early challenges. “We always had bookings and recordings, but when we started, black gospel was not readily accepted with the wide range it is today,” he said. “And the money wasn’t there.”
The O’Neals—with Edgar on piano and both brothers singing—challenged gospel tradition. “The main gospel thrust at the time (was) male quartets, and we were a piano group,” Mr. O’Neal said. “We were considered in a different category from the male singing groups. But then the quartets got into piano. It took some years as we stayed out there before our style took hold.”
*****
The O’Neal Twins
Fontella Bass
Chuck Berry
Scott Joplin
Little Milton
Clark Terry
Ike & Tina Turner
When it comes to musical history, few cities are as rich as St. Louis.
Time travel’s easy on the net. With this guy we started, the other day, with music he made just last month. Then we headed back to the ’70s. Today we go back even farther—to the ’60s.
Leon Russell, Shindig! (TV)
“Hi-Heel Sneakers,” 10/28/1964
***
“Roll Over Beethoven,” 11/18/1964
***
“Jambalaya,” 2/3/1965
(Yeah, the guy in front with the banjo—that’s Glen Campbell.)
**********
lagniappe
reading table
Gregory Corso, “Marriage”
Want to read this yourself? Here.
Once upon a time this music was all over Chicago. Going out to hear this guy, for instance, was about as hard as going out for a hamburger.
*****
replay: clips too good for just one day
The first time I stood before a judge at Chicago’s Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California—this was back in the ’70s (when I was working at Alligator Records)—it was to speak on behalf of this man, Hound Dog Taylor. The day before, during a drunken argument at his apartment, he’d shot his longtime guitarist Brewer Phillips (who survived). In his own way, Hound Dog was a pretty canny guy. When he told me about this incident over the phone, shortly after it happened, he put it this way: “Richard, they say I shot Phillip . . .”
(No, don’t touch that dial; these stills are way out of focus—which, for Hound Dog, seems just right.)
*****
Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, live, Ann Arbor Blues Festival, 1973
“Wild About You Baby”
***
“Taylor’s Rock”
***
“I Held My Baby”
**********
lagniappe
Hound Dog . . . . [would] play things that are technically wrong, and [he’d] . . . make people like it. . . . [He’d] just get up there and go for it.—Elvin Bishop
*****
When I saw Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers as a three-piece, I said, ‘There it is. There’s your future right there.’—George Thorogood
*****
Hound Dog Taylor is one of my favorites. He used this raw dog blues, you know.—Vernon Reid
*****
A Facebook page devoted to Hound Dog, who died over 30 years ago (1975), currently lists 434 “Fans” (now over 1,000) who come from, let’s see, Orlando and Indonesia and Cedar Rapids and Sweden and Austin and Australia and . . .
*****
When I die, they’ll say ‘he couldn’t play shit, but he sure made it sound good!’—Hound Dog Taylor
(Originally posted on 10/30/09.)
Here’s more of Leon Russell and J.J. Cale—together.
Leon Russell, J.J. Cale, live, Los Angeles, 1979
“Going Down”
***
“I Got The Same Old Blues”
***
“Boiling Pot”
***
“Corrine, Corrina”
What was it like to grow up, in the 1950s, in the lonesome state of Oklahoma?
Leon Russell knows.
So does this guy.
J.J. Cale (with Eric Clapton), “After Midnight,” live, Texas (Dallas), 2004
Who supplies the juice here?
It ain’t the guitar god from England.
It’s the grizzled guitar player from the state with the funny shape (:38-1:12, 1:41-44, 2:14-48, 3:36-50, 4:20-44).
**********
lagniappe
radio
Last week’s Sinner’s Crossroads (10/28/10) features a lot of wonderful music by the late Albertina Walker.
music clip of the day 