guitar | music clip of the day

Saturday, 11/27/10

This guy and the guy we heard Monday (Syl Johnson) are brothers.

Speaking of Syl, he’s getting a lot of attention right now: the cover story in this week’s Chicago Reader; a big new boxed set on the Numero label; and a concert tonight, in Chicago, with a top-flight band and guest Otis Clay (yeah, I’ll be there).

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replay: a clip too good for just one day

This take?

Or that?

Move the voice forward?

Back?

Make the guitar brighter?

Darker?

Enough bass?

Too much?

Enough room sound?

Mixing a record, as I learned when I worked at Alligator Records (back in the 1970s), involves a seemingly countless number of decisions. After a few hours, everyone starts to get a little punch-drunk. By the end of the night, for instance, this track had morphed—in the warped warble of engineer Freddie Breitberg (AKA, in his personal mythology, Eddie B. Flick)—into “Serve Me Rice For Supper.”

Jimmy Johnson, “Serves Me Right To Suffer” (Living Chicago Blues, Vol. 1, Alligator Records, 1977 [Grammy Nominee])

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lagniappe

reading table

The ’net’s filled with enough dreck for a thousand lifetimes; but then, as happened the other day (after hearing about it on the radio), you come across something that’s simply stunning—like the new, complete collection of the letters of Vincent van Gogh.

. . . Van Gogh’s letters are the best written by any artist . . . Their mixture of humble detail and heroic aspiration is quite simply life-affirming.—Andrew Motion, The Guardian (11/21/09)

(Originally posted a year ago [11/27/09].)

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2010

Friday, 11/26/10

Deep, wide, strong: the groove, with this guy at the drums, is like a river.

The Levon Helm Band with guest Jim Keltner (drums), “Deep Ellum Blues,” live, Los Angeles (Greek Theater), 8/15/10

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2010

Thursday, 11/25/10

How many pop stars have given thanks so memorably?

Sly & The Family Stone

“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” live (TV broadcast), 1973

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“Thankful N’ Thoughtful,” 1973

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Michael Jackson and
George Clinton and
Miles Davis

Big influence on all three?

Short list.

James Brown
Sly Stone

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2010

Monday, 11/22/10

Walk into a blues bar on Chicago’s south or west side in the mid-1970s:
this would jump out of the jukebox.

Syl Johnson, “Take Me To The River,” live, 1975, Memphis

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2010

Saturday, 11/20/10

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)

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2010

Friday, 11/19/10

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”

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“Folsom Prison Blues”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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“Orange Blossom Special”

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“Jackson” (with June Carter Cash)

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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)

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2010

Wednesday, 11/10/10

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

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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.

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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)

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2010

Tuesday, 11/9/10

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.”

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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”

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“Night Nurse”

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“Border”

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“Sad Mood Tonight” (1994)

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“Kingston 14” (Made in Jamaica, 2006)

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Want more? Here: “Gregory Isaacs Memorial Broadcast,” Eastern Standard Time, WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University), 11/6/10.

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lagniappe

reading table

No battle that can be won is worth fighting.

—T Bone Burnett (blog comment, 10/9/10)

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2010

Monday, 11/8/10

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

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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)

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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)

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2010

Sunday, 11/7/10

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])

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Take 2

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“It’s A Highway To Heaven,” live (Say Amen, Somebody [1982])

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“Power In The Blood,” live (TV broadcast), mid-1960s

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“He Chose Me,” live

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“He’ll Give You Peace In The Midst Of The Storm,” live, Texas (Dallas), 1981

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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.”

—St Louis Post-Dispatch, 1/17/08

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The O’Neal Twins

Fontella Bass

Chuck Berry

Scott Joplin

Little Milton