Category: Music
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: September Songs
But first an old Marvelettes tune to mark the passing of Hugh Hefner. But how can you listen to just one Marvelettes number? Beechwood 45789. Don't Mess with Bill Please Mr. Postman ………………….. September ends. A transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October, Kerouac month in the MavPhil 'liturgy.' Dinah Washington, September in the…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘Daddy’ Songs
Marty Robbins, That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine. While we have old Marty cued up, let's enjoy his signature number, El Paso. Joan Baez, Daddy, You've Been on My Mind Shep and the Limelites, Daddy's Home, 1961 The Rivingtons, Papa Oom Mow Mow Louis Armstrong, I'm a Dong Dong Daddy (from Dumas) Emmylou Harris, To Daddy…
-
Musical Plagiarism?
Beverly Maher and Gordon Jenkins, Crescent City Blues. Does this 1953 tune remind you of something? How about Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues? 1955 version. Live San Quentin 1969 version.
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Forgotten and Underplayed
Betty Everett, You're No Good, 1963. More soulful than the 1975 Linda Ronstadt version. The Ikettes, I'm Blue, 1962. Lee Dorsey, Ya Ya, 1961. Simplicity itself. Three chords. I-IV-V progression. No bridge. Paul Anka, A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine, 1962. Carole King, Crying in the Rain, 1963. The earnest girl-feeling of young Carole makes it better…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Water High, Wide, Dirty, Troubled, and Moody
In Dispatch from Houston, our friend Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence reports: Power out. Car flooded. Books dry. So all is well. But I don't reckon Dean Martin will be returning to Houston for a spell even if he could, he being dead and all. Not to make light of the suffering of those sorely…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Help
Before we get under way, a song in celebration of President Trump's pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. A stinging rebuke to Obama & Co. and their contempt for the rule of law. Bobby Fuller Five, I Fought the Law and the Law Won ……………………….. Canned Heat, Help Me. Help me consolate…
-
My Wife
Other wives say to their men: "Why can't you be like so-and-so?" My wife regularly tells me that she's glad I'm not like so-and-so. Grateful wife, happy life. I bless the day I found her.
-
Victor Davis Hanson on Joan Baez and Abolitio Memoriae
In Our War Against Memory, Hanson writes (hyperlinks added), How about progressive icon Joan Baez? Should the Sixties folksinger seek forgiveness from us for reviving her career in the early 1970s with the big money-making hit “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”— her version of The Band’s sympathetic ode to the tragedy of a…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘The King’ Dead Forty Years
Elvis Presley died on 16 August 1977, 40 years ago. We can't let this weekend pass without a few tunes in commemoration. First a couple of 'Italian' numbers modeled, respectively, on O Sole Mio and Torna a Surriento: It's Now or Never Surrender Continuing in the romantic vein: Can't Help Falling in Love. A version…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: So Long, Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell dead at 81. Gentle on My Mind. Impressive guitar solo. I didn't realize what a good guitar player he was. Classical Gas Glen Campbell Session Player Wichita Lineman. A great song penned by Jimmy Webb. Country music meets existentialism. Galveston. Another great Jimmy Webb composition.
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Los Angeles Bands
Buffalo Springfield, Blue Bird. Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing. (Features a time signature change.) Dick Dale and the Deltones, Misirlou. Before Clapton, before Bloomfield, my first guitar hero. "King of the Surf Guitar." Pipeline (with Stevie Ray Vaughan). Nitro (with So Cal scenes). Let's Go Trippin', 1961. Not a drug reference. Pre-LSD. The first surf instrumental? Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby Little…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia
Punch Brothers, Rye Whisky Lonely Heartstring Band, Ramblin' Gamblin' Willy Bonnie Owens, Philadelphia Lawyer Cowboy Jack Clement, A Girl I Used to Know Bobby Bare, Lullabies, Legends, and Lies Brewer and Shipley, One Toke Over Line. Forgot how good this song is! The Flying Burrito Brothers, To Ramona. A very nice cover of a song…
-
Guest Post: On the Vapidity of the Popular Music of the 1950s
By London Ed. Possibly vapid music Bill writes ‘The creativity of the 1960s stood in stark contrast to the vapidity of '50s popular music’, citing as a prime example Perry Como’s Magic Moments (1960). This is a sentiment I recognise and still identify with. I grew up with what is now called ‘British light music’,…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Monterey Pop Festival, June 16-18, 1967
It transpired 50 summers ago, this June, the grand daddy of rock festivals, two years before Woodstock, in what became known as the Summer of Love. Your humble correspondent was on the scene. Some high school friends and I drove up from Los Angeles along Pacific Coast Highway. I can still call up olfactory memories of…
-
Saturday Night at the Oldies: ‘Spengler’ on Dylan
In mid-October, 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 still maintain…