Category: Americana
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Cowboys of the Open Road
Advanced AI and robotics may push us humans to the margin, and render many of us obsolete. I am alluding to the great Twilight Zone episode, The Obsolete Man. What happens to truckers when trucks drive themselves? For many of these guys and gals, driving trucks is not a mere job but a way of…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Gambler He Broke Even
Kenny Rogers died in 2020 at the age of 81. A few days after he died, on my way back from a traipse in the local hills, I encountered a couple the female half of which suffers from Parkinson's. Being the over-clever fellow that I am, I asked her what condition her condition was in,…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ramblin’ Charles Adnopoz
David Dalton, Who is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan, Hyperion, 2012, p. 65: As Dave van Ronk pointed out in his autobiography, many of the people involved in the first folk revival of the 1930s and '40s were Jewish — as were the folkies of the '60s. Van Ronk reasoned that for…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Remembering Suze Rotolo and the Songs She Inspired
Suze Rotolo, depicted above, died on 25 February 2011 at 67 years of age. Dylanologists usually refer to the following as songs she inspired: Don't Think Twice. This Peter, Paul, and Mary rendition may well be the best. It moves me as much as it did 62 years ago in 1963 when it first came…
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Peter Yarrow (1938-2025)
Guardian obituary. Malcolm Pollack's tribute. And here is a rare photo taken by an unknown German photographer at Gerde's Folk City, Greenwich Village, 1961. (HT: Tony Flood)
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Radosh and ‘Spengler’ on Dylan
In October of 2016, I wrote, This brings me to Bob Dylan who was recently awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. Now I've been a Dylan fan from the early '60s. In the '60s I was more than a fan; I was a fanatic who would brook no criticism of his hero. And I…
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A Complete Unknown
A lot happened to young Bob in a few short years, from Song to Woody to Like a Rolling Stone. I saw the movie and it moved me. How about you? Here is a good article about Dylan's falling out with Seeger. A Complete Unknown isn’t that interested in clarifying this point. Because the film almost…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Water High, Wide, Dirty, Troubled, Moody
Bob Dylan, High Water. This is a late-career Dylan gem from Love and Theft (2001). A tribute to Charley Patton. Demonstrates Dylan's mastery of the arcana of Americana. Our greatest and deepest singer-songwriter. My favorite verse: Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the JewYou can't open up your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
Carl Orff, Carmina Burana, O Fortuna (With Latin and English). Better performance without lyrics. Joan Baez, There But For Fortune. The best rendition of a song written by Phil Ochs. Watch the short video. Ochs' version. I agree with this analysis of Ochs: The short, triumphant, tragic career of Phil Ochs illustrates one of the harder lessons of American popular culture: that audiences…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs of Freedom and Liberty
Metallica, Don't Tread on Me Rascals, People Got to Be Free Tom Petty, I Won't Back Down Johnny Cash, I Won't Back Down Merle Haggard, The Fightin' Side of Me The Who, Going Mobile Richie Havens, Freedom Cream, I Feel Free The Band, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down Arlo Guthrie, City of New Orleans Highwaymen, City of New Orleans My Country 'tis…
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A Platonist at Breakfast
Amazing what one can unearth with the WayBack Machine. This one first saw daylight on 3 March 2005. ………………………… I head out early one morning with the wife in tow. I’m going to take her to a really fancy joint this time, the 5 and Diner, a greasy spoon dripping with 1950's Americana. We belly…
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Dylan Turns 83
Scott Johnson of Powerline offers a couple of thoughtful retrospective pieces. Not Dark Yet Chimes of Freedom Can one get tired of Dylan? That would be like getting tired of America. It would be like getting to the point where no passage in Kerouac brings a tingle to the spine or a tear to the…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Lawrence Auster on Bob Dylan
I was surprised, but pleased, to find that the late Lawrence Auster, traditionalist conservative, photo above, 1973, had a deep appreciation and a wide-ranging knowledge of Dylan's art. Born in 1949, Auster is generationally situated for that appreciation, and as late as '73 was still flying the '60s colors, if we can go by the…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Celebrating Freedom and Independence
Not to mention resistance and defiance in these waning days of a great republic. Great minds on "All men are created equal." Johnny Cash, I Won't Back Down. Tom Petty wrote it, with Jeff Lynne. Byrds, Chimes of Freedom. One of Dylan's greatest anthems. Byrds, I Wasn't Born to Follow Good YouTuber comment: "I keep searching for that door back…