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
music clip of the day
jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more
Category: harmonica
2010
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”
***
“Folsom Prison Blues”
Vodpod videos no longer available.***
“Orange Blossom Special”
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“Jackson” (with June Carter Cash)
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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)
2010
Friday, 10/22/10
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)
2010
Friday, 10/8/10
Things going wrong?
You’ve come to the right place.
This’ll make you feel all right.
Them (with Van Morrison), “Mystic Eyes,” “Gloria,” live (TV broadcast), France, 1965
2010
Monday, 10/4/10
Anyone can make English sound like English.
Tom Waits, live, California (Mountain View), 1999
Part 1
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Part 2
Want more? Here.
2010
Monday, 8/16/10
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)
2010
Thursday, 7/8/10
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.
2010
Friday, 6/18/10
No one’s played blues harmonica more delicately, more lyrically.
“Shakey,” “Mumbles”—no one’s had weirder nicknames.
No one else in my years at Alligator Records (back in the 1970s), where I worked with a lot of musicians who drank more in a day than most folks do in a month, managed to do this: trip over the drum set, right in the middle of a performance (at Notre Dame), and fall over onstage.
Big Walter Horton, live, Copenhagen, 1970
2010
Wednesday, 4/21/10
Bob Dylan/1965, part 3
“Like A Rolling Stone,” live (with Mike Bloomfield, guitar; Jerome Arnold, bass; Barry Goldberg, piano; Al Kooper, organ; Sam Lay, drums), Newport Folk Festival, July, 1965
*****
Press Conference, San Francisco, December, 1965
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
music clip of the day 