Let’s end the week where we began—Europe, 1967, Sam & Dave.
“Hold On, I’m Comin'” (with Booker T. & the M.G.’s* and The Mar-Keys**), Norway
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lagniappe
random thoughts
The Internet, which reminds us, repeatedly, that there is here and then is now, may make Buddhists of us all.
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*Booker T. Jones, organ; Steve Cropper, guitar; Donald “Duck” Dunn, bass; Al Jackson, Jr., drums.
**Wayne Jackson, trumpet; Andrew Love & Joe Arnold, tenor saxophones.
You can only hear with the ears you’ve got. And the ones I’ve got came of age in another era. But is it merely reflexive nostalgia to ask: Is there anything today—anything at all—that can compare with this?
Otis Redding (1941-1967), with Booker T. & the M.G.’s* and The Mar-Keys,** “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” (O. Redding & J. Butler), live, Monterey Pop Festival, 1967
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lagniappe
reading table
What advice would you give to people who are looking to be happy?
For starters, learn how to cook.
—“Questions for Charles Simic: In-Verse Thinking,” interview by Deborah Solomon, New York Times, 2/3/08
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*Booker T. Jones, organ; Steve Cropper, guitar; Donald “Duck” Dunn, bass; Al Jackson, Jr., drums.
**Wayne Jackson, trumpet; Joe Arnold, alto saxophone; Andrew Love, tenor saxophone.
Happy New Year!
Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan, TV show (In Session, Canada), 1983
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lagniappe
musical thoughts
Once upon a time there was a common musical culture. Certain dialects, like blues, were known to nearly everyone. No more.
Sometimes you can’t help but shout (3:05-).
Rev. James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir (with guest Albertina Walker), live, Chicago, 1972*
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lagniappe
random thoughts
Life isn’t short. It isn’t long, either. It’s nothing more, or less, than a series of moments, each beyond measure.
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*That same year Rev. Cleveland and his choir backed Aretha Franklin on Amazing Grace.
Nearly forty years have passed since I first heard him; still I can’t get enough.
Vernard Johnson, “Amazing Grace,” live, Memphis, 1988
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lagniappe
reading table
Life tears us apart, but through those wounds, if we have tended them, love may enter us.
—Christian Wiman, “Mortify Our Wolves,” The American Scholar, Autumn, 2012
Dorothy Love Coates (1928-2002), “The Lord Will Answer Prayer,” 1981
More? Here. And here. And here.
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lagniappe
Were gospel to be more publicly acclaimed, she [Dorothy Love Coates] might have the stature of a Billie Holiday or a Judy Garland. Instead, for thousands of black people, she is the message carrier.
—Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (6th ed. 2002)
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[I]t was obvious that Keith [Richards] and Gram [Parsons] enjoyed spending time together. . . . [W]e just all cared deeply about the same things. We just loved, for instance, to sit and listen to Dorothy Love Coates, the gospel singer.
(Quotes originally posted 3/28/10.)
Michael Burks (7/30/57-5/6/12), “Twenty-Four Hour Blues”
Live, Belgium (Zingem), 5/5/12
One day he makes these sounds, the next no sound at all—not the world I would have designed.
More? Here.
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
The tree of country music has lots of eccentric branches.
The Handsome Family, “My Friend” (2009)
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lagniappe
reading table
The Everyday Enchantment of Music
by Mark Strand
(Almost Invisible [2012])
A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble. Then suddenly there was sun and the music came back and traffic was moving and off in the distance, at the edge of the city, a long line of clouds appeared, and there was thunder, which, however menacing, would become music, and the memory of what happened after Venice would begin, and what happened after the home of the troubled heart broke in two would also begin.
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Happy Birthday, Billie!
music clip of the day 