music clip of the day

jazz/blues/rock/classical/gospel/more

Category: R&B

2010

Friday, 9/3/10

Mr. Excitement

Jackie Wilson, “Higher and Higher,” “Lonely Teardrops,” live (TV broadcast), introduced by Roy Orbison and (I think) Del Shannon, 1974

More? Here. Here. Here.

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lagniappe

art beat

While at the Art Institute the other day, I wandered into a small room of paintings by this guy—who, in his early 20s (in the 1950s), moved to New York to study music with Lennie Tristano.

Robert Ryman, from The Elliot Room (Charter Series), 1985-87

*****

radio

Looking for something different?

How ’bout an hour of NYC traffic reports, uninterrupted?

(I stumbled onto this last night—Kenny G’s Hour of Pain—while waiting for Sinner’s Crossroads.)

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2010

Monday, 8/23/10

Who would’ve thought this would be so good?

Tom Jones & Janis Joplin, “Raise Your Hand,” live (TV broadcast), 1969

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2010

Tuesday, 7/20/10

recipe

1 cup funkiness

1 cup elegance

Mix until thoroughly blended.

Professor Longhair (AKA Henry Roeland [“Roy”] Byrd), December 19, 1918-January 30, 1980

“Tipitina,” live

*****

“Hey Little Girl,” live

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lagniappe

mail

Mike Kinnamon, Bonnie Bramlett’s Nashville-based manager, in response to an email letting him (and Bonnie) know that her music was featured here (Delaney, alas, is no longer alive), left a voice-mail message yesterday:

. . . I just love it when somebody like you cares enough to send stuff like that around. It’s really cool, and it lifts her [Bonnie] up, too. Thank you so much, buddy . . .

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2010

Thursday, 7/1/10

looking back

Today, celebrating our 300th post, we revisit a few favorites.

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3/12/10

Both Chicago blues artists. Both guitar players. Both influenced by other kinds of music.

Musical personalities? They could hardly be more different.

Buddy Guy, “Let Me Love You Baby,” live

*****

Fenton Robinson, “Somebody Loan Me A Dime,” live, 1977

***

Back in the 1970s, when I was at Alligator Records, I had the pleasure of working with Fenton, co-producing his album I Hear Some Blues Downstairs (a Grammy nominee). He didn’t fit the stereotype of a bluesman. Gentle, soft-spoken, serious, introspective: he was all these things. He died in 1997.

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3/3/10

What other pop star has made such stunning contributions as a guest artist?

Sinead O’Connor

With Willie Nelson, “Don’t Give Up”

*****

With the Chieftains, “The Foggy Dew”

*****

With Shane MacGowan, “Haunted”

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5/28/2010

two takes

“La-La Means I Love You”

The Delfonics, live, 2008 (originally recorded 1968)

*****

Bill Frisell, live, New York (Rochester), 2007

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lagniappe

musical thoughts

Music . . . carr[ies] us smoothly across the tumult of experience, like water over rocks.

—Vijay Iyer, liner notes, Historicity (2009)

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2010

Friday, 6/25/10

The other day, as I waited for a train at an underground station in downtown Chicago, an older black guy started singing this song, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, and at that moment everything—this song, this singer, this place—seemed all of a piece and I was no longer waiting.

Curtis Mayfield (with David Sanborn, alto saxophone; Hiram Bullock, guitar; David Lindley, steel guitar; George Duke, piano; Phillipe Saisse, keyboard; Tom Barney, bass; Omar Hakim, drums), “It’s All Right,” live (TV broadcast [Sunday Night]), 1989

Want more? Here. Here.

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2010

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

so much depends

upon

a  jacket’s

unbuttoning

—William Carlos Williams (after seeing Jackie Wilson)

Jackie Wilson, “No Pity (In The Naked City),” live (TV broadcast), 1965

Want more? Here. Here. Here.

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lagniappe

At the 1984 Grammy Awards, Michael Jackson dedicated his Album of the Year award (for Thriller) to Jackie Wilson, telling the audience:

In the entertainment business, there are leaders and there are followers. And I just want to say that I think Jackie Wilson was a wonderful entertainer . . . I love you and thank you so much.

*****

Michael Jackson studied Jackie Wilson, mimicked him, emulated him, subjected himself to his discipline. He covered ‘Lonely Teardrops’ when he was a teenager, and to some extent sang it the rest of his life.—Tom Junod

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2010

Friday, May 28, 2010

two takes

“La-La Means I Love You”

The Delfonics, live, 2008 (originally recorded 1968)

*****

Bill Frisell, live, New York (Rochester), 2007

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2010

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Chicago, Texas, Louisiana, West Coast—blues comes in lots of different shades.

Freddie King, with Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown; live (TV broadcast [The !!!! Beat]), 1966

Part 1

*****

Part 2 (“Funnybone”)

*****

Part 3 (“Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”)

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2010

Friday, May 21, 2010

Jenny said when she was just five years old
There was nothin’ happening at all
Every time she puts on the radio
There was nothin’ goin’ down at all
Not at all

Then one fine mornin’, she puts on a New York station
You know, she couldn’t believe what she heard at all
She started shakin’ to that fine, fine music
You know, her life was saved by rock and roll . . .

—Lou Reed, “Rock & Roll” (The Velvet Underground, Loaded [1970])

*****

Bo Diddley, “Hey, Bo Diddley,” “Bo Diddley,” live (TV broadcast [Ed Sullivan Show]), 1955

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lagniappe

This well may be the human race’s greatest ever achievement.

—YouTube comment

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2010

Thursday, May 20, 2010

These guys sounded awfully good the other day—let’s hear some more.

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, “Orleans & Claiborne,” live, New Orleans, 2010

There are a lot of things to like about this performance. One is the way Shorty, following two hot solos (tenor, baritone), doesn’t try to out-blow those guys. Instead, he changes directions (3:20). Sometimes nothing packs more punch than restraint. (Yeah, I don’t know why this clip cuts off when it does, either.)

Want more? Here.

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lagniappe

passings

Soon I’ll be leaving for a funeral—my uncle, Hugh Frebault. Nine days ago we sat and talked and laughed for over an hour; now he’s silent. Does life get any more understandable as you get older? I don’t think so—if anything, it seems to become only more mysterious, more unfathomable.

Blind Willie Johnson, “Dark Was The Night – Cold Was The Ground” (1927, Dallas)

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