Category: Americana
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some 1940’s Proto-Rock
Freddie Slack and Will Bradley Trio (1940), Down the Road A Piece. If you like to boogie woogie, I know the place.It's just an old piano and a knocked out bass.The drummer man's a guy they call Eight Beat Mack.And you remember Doc and old "Beat Me Daddy" Slack. Man it's better than chicken fried…
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Patti Smith at Dylan’s Nobel Prize Ceremony
If you are a Dylan fan you will want to read this New Yorker piece.
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Space Tunes in Honor of John Glenn
The third American in outer space, and the first to orbit the earth, John Glenn passed away the other day at 95. So I raise my glass this Saturday night in salute of a great American hero. 1960's psychedelia explored inner space, but there were a few songs from the '60s about outer space themes. …
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs About Kerouac
"Pretty girls make graves." (Dharma Bums) Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) died 47 years ago yesterday, at the age of 47, his years dead now equaling his years alive. Here are some songs that refer to him and his work. Alela Diane, We Are Nothing Jack Kerouac, Tristessa (written 1955-56, first published in 1960), p. 59:…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Did Johnny Mercer Ever Write Songs Like These?
Just Like a Woman, Cutting Edge take. Blonde on Blonde version. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Take a Train to Cry, Cutting Edge take. Perhaps you prefer Mercer's On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe. Visions of Johanna It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall Desolation Row…
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Not Dark Yet: Bob Dylan Turns 75 Today
25 things you might want to know know about Dylan. Excellent, except for the introductory claim that he is "rock's greatest songwriter." A better description is "America's greatest writer of popular songs." Bar none. We can discuss the criteria later, and consider counterexamples. Maybe this Saturday night. His earliest four or five albums are…
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St. Valentine’s Eve at the Oldies: Love and Murder
We'll start with murder. David Dalton (Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan, Hyperion 2012, pp. 28-29, hyperlinks added!): Most folk songs had grim, murderous content (and subtext). In Pretty Polly a man lures a young girl from her home with the promise of marriage,and then leads the pregnant girl to…
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Trump’s America
I thought he would have 'flamed out' by now, but he is still going strong. Might The Donald be on the way to becoming il Duce of America? I ascribed Trump's traction to conservative inaction and Obama's overreach. But cultural factors need to be considered. And who better than Charles Murray to do the job? …
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Mirabile Dictu: Playboy to Drop Nudity
Reports the NYT. Commentary by Mollie Hemingway: Mollie: This is the most interesting paragraph in the New York Times article: When Mr. Hefner created the magazine, which featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953, he did so to please himself. ‘If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is…
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“San Francisco Scene”
Kerouac reads. A video in which Kerouac's words are put to the music of Ode to the Big Sea by The Cinematic Orchestra.
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On This Date 31 Years Ago and 50 Years Ago: Jim Fixx and Bob Dylan
It was 31 years ago today, during a training run. Running pioneer James F. Fixx, author of the wildly successful The Complete Book of Running, keeled over dead of cardiac arrest. He died with his 'boots' on, and not from running but from a bad heart. It's a good bet that his running added years…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Celebrating Freedom and Independence
Not to mention resistance and defiance. 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 into the summer of '69, I lost it somewhere long ago." …
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On Seinfeld
I confess to being a fan of this TV series many of whose episodes are now over 20 years old. I have seen every episode numerous times. I am not a student of the series as I am a student of the great Twilight Zone series, but then numerous episodes of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone,…
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Zimmi Turns 74
Bob Dylan's Love Affair with New York City Happy Birthday Bob Dylan! Bob serenades Studs Terkel with a hauntingly fine version of "Boots of Spanish Leather." A great s0ng covered numerous times. Nanci Griffith's version. Joan Baez's uptempo version. Happy Birthday, Professor Bob Dylan “If I had to do it all over again, I'd be…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Bob Dylan, Traditionalist
The Left owns Dylan as little as it owns dissent. Every Dylanologist will want to read Christopher Caldwell's Weekly Standard piece, AWOL from the Summer of Love. It begins like this: In the mid-1960s the most celebrated folk musician of his era bought a house for his growing family at the southern edge of the…