Category: Americana
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ramblin’ Charles Adnopoz
At a book giveaway hereabouts the other day I did snag me a copy of Dave van Ronk's memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street. I'll have to dig into it one of these Saturday nights and pull out some tunes that you've never heard before. In memory of the Mayor, here is his version of…
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It’s Only Rock and Roll
Christopher Caldwell reviews Jann S. Wenner, Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir at Claremont Review of Books. Theme music.
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The Everly Brothers
Tunes and commentary by Scott Johnson. With a tip o' the hat to Bro Inky.
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William Faulkner on Privacy
Harper's Magazine, 1955.
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Not Dark Yet
Tomorrow, Bob Dylan turns 81. 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 eye, to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young must give…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: More Americana
Tim Hardin, Lady Came from Baltimore Arlo Guthrie, Percy's Song. Dylan's 1963 original Byrds, Pretty Boy Floyd Marty Robbins, El Paso Bob Dylan, Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache Bob Luman, Let's Think About Livin' Charley Ryan, Hot Rod Lincoln, the original. Before Johnny Bond, before Commander Cody. Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road…
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Such Sweet Sorrow
Part of what makes "parting such sweet sorrow" (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet) is the realization that one may never see the beloved again alive. Death presides over all of life; in leave-taking he steps out of the shadows. You see the glint of his scythe from the corner of the eye. In the twilight glow,…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
The last two horrible years make my annual Thanksgiving homily ring somewhat hollow, especially the penultimate line: And don't forget the country that allows you to live your own kind of life in your own kind of way and say and write whatever you think in peace and safety. Still and all, we have much to…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Route 66 and Kerouac’s Favorite Song
Jack Kerouac in a letter from 17 January 1962: "Everybody is making money off my ideas, like those "Route 66" TV producers, everybody except me . . . ." (Selected Letters 1957-1969, ed. Charters, Viking 1999, p. 326; see also p. 461 and pp. 301-302.) Here is the Nelson Riddle theme music from the TV series. …
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Bob Dylan at 80: A Sober Assessment
Graham Cunningham: It pains me a little to say it, given my own past devotion, but some cold perspective is needed here. Bob Dylan was—from 1962 to the early 1980s—an extraordinary singer-songwriter and, in terms of quantity of great material, simply without equal. For the last 40 years, though, he has mostly been trading on…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Torch Songs
"A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on." (Wikipedia) Sarah Vaughn, Broken Hearted Melody. YouTuber comment: "Late 1959. I was in 4th grade, listening to…
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The Self-Reliant Don’t Snivel
I quote Louis L'Amour.
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Happy Thanksgiving
This annus horribilis of 2020 makes my annual Thanksgiving homily ring somewhat hollow, especially the penultimate line: And don't forget the country that allows you to live your own kind of life in your own kind of way and say and write whatever you think in peace and safety. Still and all, we still have…
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The Self-Reliant Don’t Snivel
Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man, Bantam, 1989, p. 180: Times were often very rough for me but I can honestly say that I never felt abused or put-upon. I never felt, as some have, that I deserved special treatment from life, and I do not recall ever complaining that things were not better. Often…
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POTUS at Rushmore: A Great Speech
If you agree with the speech, you are either an American or appreciative of American values; if not, a hate-America leftist. The speech could be taken as a test of where one stands. There was nothing "dark and divisive" about it. Trump is not a divider, but the Great Clarifier. He is not a divider…