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
**********
lagniappe
Blind Willie McTell
hotel room, Atlanta, 1940
***
“Statesboro Blues,” 1928 (Atlanta)
three takes
“Milky White Way”
The Trumpeteers (1947, Baltimore)
*****
Elvis Presley (1960, Nashville)
*****
The Trumpeteers, live (TV broadcast, with “I John Saw the Number”), 1960s
**********
lagniappe
all roads lead (on Friday, anyway) to Bay City, Michigan
Friday morning: I post ? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears,” which was recorded in 1966 in, yep, Bay City, a town of about 35,000 on Lake Huron that also gave the world Madonna (she was born there) and the Bay City Rollers their name (the first dart landed on Arkansas but “Arkansas Rollers” lacked pizazz).
Friday afternoon: I stop by a book fair in Chicago, where I buy one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen—a rare one by a favorite poet (William Bronk, Careless Love And Its Apostrophes, Red Ozier Press, 1985, limited edition [175 copies])—from a dealer (Jett W. Whitehead) based in, where else, Bay City.
replay: a clip too good for just one day
I first heard this music—Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello—nearly 40 years ago. At the local public library where I was going to college, I happened upon some recordings—a boxed set of three LPs on the Mercury label—by Janos Starker, which I proceeded to check out over and over again. In the years since, first on my turntable and then my CD player, a lot of music has come and gone. These pieces have remained.
Bach, Suite No. 3 in C Major for Unaccompanied Cello/Janos Starker, cello, live, Tokyo, 1988
1st Movement (Prelude)
2nd Movement (Allemande)
3rd Movement (Courante)
4th Movement (Sarabande)
5th Movement (Bourree)
6th Movement (Gigue)
(Originally posted on 10/19/09.)
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”
my new mantra
Say ‘bye bye, bogeyman.’
—Whispering Jack Smith
Whispering Jack Smith, “Happy Days” (Happy Days [shot in 1929, released in 1930])
**********
lagniappe
more music to chase away the bogeyman
Sidney Bechet (clarinet, with Henry “Red” Allen, trumpet; J.C. Higginbotham, trombone; James Tolliver, piano; Wellman Braud, bass; J.C. Heard, drums), “Egyptian Fantasy” (1941)
The lineup Bambino and Group Inerane use today in the West African desert—two electric guitars, drums—is the one this guy used, 40 years ago, on Chicago’s south side.
Hound Dog Taylor, live, Chicago, 1971
Want more? Here.
**********
lagniappe
Spiritual Stars Singers
Silver Wings
Amazing Mentholiers
Chosen Wonders
Rev. R. Campbell and His Wonder Boy
Rhythmical Wright Singers
Willie Harris and the Sensational Six
Never heard of ’em? I hadn’t either. Now you can hear all of ’em in the latest installment of Sinner’s Crossroads (8/5/10), Kevin Nutt’s weekly “gospel extravaganza.” (This one’s so good I’ve already played it twice.)
*****
“dark dismal-dreaming night” *
Listen to the Cubs lose at four in the afternoon?
Anyone can do that.
You’ve gotta be crazy to listen to them lose at 1:00 a.m (Giants, 11th inning, 4-3).
*W. Shakespeare
Guitar, drums—that’s all it takes.
Bombino (AKA Bambino), live, Niger (Agadez), 2010
Part 1
*****
Part 2
Let’s lift the bandstand.
—Thelonious Monk
Woody Shaw/Johnny Griffin Quintet (Woody Shaw, trumpet; Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophone; John Hicks, piano; Reggie Johnson, bass; Alvin Queens, drums), “Night in Tunisia,” live, Germany (Koln), 1986
**********
lagniappe
Now there’s a great trumpet player. He [Woody Shaw] can play different from all of them.
—Miles Davis
*****
Anthony Braxton on playing with Woody Shaw.
*****
reading table
Look after the sound and the sense will take care of itself.
—Adam Phillips, London Review of Books, 7/22/10 (reviewing Christopher Ricks’ True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht and Robert Lowell Under The Sign Of Eliot And Pound)
