three takes
I don’t often feel like listening to someone named after a punctuation mark, but when I do I know just where to turn.
? and the Mysterians, “96 Tears”
With Ronnie Spector, live, New York, 2010
*****
Live, New York (1998)
*****
TV broadcast, 1966
**********
langiappe
inscrutable instructions
Amazon: Express Checkout with Payphrase
To use Express Checkout on Amazon.com and across the web,
create a PayPhrase like “Richard’s Overarching Dentist”
How quaint they seem today—the predictions made, years ago, that drum machines would make flesh-and-blood drummers obsolete.
The Black Keys, “Too Afraid To Love You”
Recording Studio (Muscle Shoals, Alabama), Brothers (2010)
***
Live, New York, 2010
**********
lagniappe
record shopping with a Black Key
replay: a clip too good for just one day
Great drummers are like great basketball players—they lift everybody’s game.
Trixie Whitley with Brian Blade (drums) and Daniel Lanois, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” recording session, 2008
lagniappe
Johnny [Vidacovich, featured on 9/30/09], man . . . what an inspiration. His playing is so liquid but at the same time just the street of it is so intoxicating. Studying with him, the drumming aspect was never about fundamental things. It was never about the drums as much as it was about the music and playing with this melodic sensibility. That sticks with me even more than the thickness or the groove, which he never spoke about, really. That was like a given. If you have it inside of you, that groove, you need to lay it down. But also need to be able to sing through the drums.—Brian Blade
(Originally posted on 2/13/10.)
two takes
“I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)
Dusty Springfield, TV broadcast, 1964
*****
The White Stripes, live, Australia, 2006
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
**********
lagniappe
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 . . .
They weren’t glamorous. And they couldn’t have been paying a whole lot. But everybody, it seemed, wanted to play with them.
Delaney & Bonnie
With Eric Clapton (guitar), Dave Mason (guitar), Bobby Whitlock (vocal); “Poor Elijah-Tribute to Robert Johnson”; live (TV broadcast), England, 1969
•••••
With Eric Clapton (guitar), George Harrison (guitar), Bobby Whitlock (keyboards), Carl Radle (bass), Jim Gordon (drums); “Comin’ Home”; live, England, 1969
*****
With Duane Allman (guitar), Gregg Allman (organ), King Curtis (tenor saxophone); “Only You Know And I Know”; live, 1971
(The bass player, whoever he is, is the MVP here—he lights up everything [check out, for instance, 1:06-1:56].)
What the world needs now?
Nah, not love.
What the world needs now—what it cries out for, daily—is inspired silliness.
Brave Combo, live
“The Denton Polka,” Texas (Denton), 2007
*****
“Louie, Louie,” Illinois (Berwyn [FitzGerald’s]), 2008
Brave Combo played a wild set Sunday night (the 4th) at FitzGerald’s American Music Festival—everything from “Beer Barrel Polka” to a hard-rockin’ “Hokey Pokey” to a polka-inflected “Ode to Joy” (“Any Beethoven fans in the house?”) to a Tejano-style “America the Beautiful.” By the end of the 90-minute set, everybody’s IQ, it seemed, had gone up 15 points. Or was it down?
How many songs are so 4th-of-July perfect?
The Blasters, “American Music”
Take 1
Live, Illinois (Champaign), 1985
*****
Take 2
Live, Los Angeles, 2010
On Saturday night these guys played this, in overdrive, at FitzGerald’s American Music Festival, a wonderful 4-day event that just celebrated its 30th anniversary.
looking back
Today, celebrating our 300th post, we revisit a few favorites.
**********
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.
**********
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”
**********
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
**********
lagniappe
musical thoughts
Music . . . carr[ies] us smoothly across the tumult of experience, like water over rocks.
—Vijay Iyer, liner notes, Historicity (2009)
We still have this song . . .
—my 19-year-old son Luke, at the end of a long, hard day—one full of setbacks—as he played this (again) on the car CD player
Mike Posner, “You Don’t Have To Leave” (2009)
Want more? Here.
music clip of the day 