Category: Music
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Saturday Night at her Oldies: Forgotten and Unforgotten Folkies
Paul Clayton, Wild Mountain Thyme. Baez version from the "Farewell, Angelina" album. A snippet of the same song by Dylan and Baez with a beaming Albert Grossmann looking on. And while we're at it, here is Joan with Farewell, Angelina. Beautiful as it is, it doesn't touch the magical quality of Dylan's own version which…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sartorial Songs
In Chapter 42 of his Essays, Montaigne remarks that We praise a horse for its strength and speed, not on account of its harness; a greyhound for its swiftness and not its collar; a hawk for its wing and not for its jesses and bells. Why then do we not value a man for what…
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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…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Two Fortuitous Finds
After a long and leisurely breakfast this morning with Peter Lupu, Mike Valle, and Richard Klaus, I stopped by Bookman's and got lucky. I found a used copy of Milton Steinberg's 1939 novel, As a Driven Leaf. The title is from Job 13: 24-25: "Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face. . . Wilt thou harass a…
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John Lennon 34 Years Later
John Lennon was gunned down this night in 1980 by Mark David Chapman. I remember that night well: a student of mine called me in the middle of it to report the slaying. Lennon was my least favorite Beatle due to his silly utopianism, as expressed in the lyrically inane 'Imagine,' but this tune of…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Cat Songs
Harry Chapin, Cat's in the Cradle. A great song with an important message by a songwriter (1942-1981) who died too young. Bob Dylan, Cat's in the Well Bent Fabric, Alley Cat Tokens, The Lion Sleeps Tonight Rooftop Singers, Tom Cat. From those far-off and fabulous hootenanny days. Norma Tanega, Walkin' My Cat Named 'Dog.' Tanega…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs of Gratitude
In keeping with the Thanksgiving theme, some songs of gratitude. Kris Krisofferson, Thank You for a Life Beatles, Thank You Girl Led Zepellin, Thank You Merle Haggard, Thanking the Good Lord Roy Clark, Thank God and Greyhound You're Gone Alanis Morissette, Thank You Joan Baez, Gracias a la Vida Hank Williams, Thank God. Compare Lost…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Coffee
Ella Mae Morse, Forty Cups of Coffee Cream, The Coffee Song Johnny Cash and Ramblin' Jack Elliot, A Cup of Coffee Commander Cody, Truck Drivin' Man. This one goes out to Sally S."Pour me another cup of coffee/For it is the best in the land/I'll put a nickel in the jukebox/And play that 'Truck Drivin'…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Beethoven, Billy Bob, and Peggy Lee
The Man Who Wasn't There is one of my favorite movies, and the best of Ludwig van Beethoven is as good as classical music gets. So enjoy the First Movement of the Moonlight Sonata to the masterful cinematography of the Coen Brothers. Here is the final scene of the movie. Ed Crane's last words: I…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Third-Person Singular Feminine Pronoun
Elvis Presley, She's Not You Patsy Cline, She's Got You Bob Dylan, She Belongs to Me. Bootleg version, 5/7/65. YouTuber comment: Hazy, warm memories of listening to this on the Bringing It All Back Home album . . . with my sweet girl at an after-party in some guy's pad following a night at the Sink…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The First-Person Singular Pronoun
Before we get on to songs with 'I' in the title — the word, not the letter or the Roman numeral — we pause to note the passing of Jack Bruce, bass player for Cream who died a week ago. It is appropriate, therefore, that we should begin with Cream, I Feel Free Cream, I'm…
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Still Perfect After All These Years
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books, tr. R. J. Hollingdale, New York Review Books, 1990, p. 223, Notebook L, Aph. #67: If we did not remember our youth, we should [would] not be aware of old age: the malady of age consists solely in our no longer being able to do what we could do…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Anti-Drug Songs
Sex, drugs, and rock & roll without the drugs. In memory of the recently late Paul Revere of Paul Revere and the Raiders, a '60s outfit with a garage-band sound I never much liked, which had a hit with the anti-drug Kicks with which I shall kick off tonight's offerings. Buffy Sainte-Marie, Cod'ine An equally…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Magic ’60s
These tunes go out to Sally Shoaf. It was great to see you again after 50 years, Sally. I'm So Glad to join you, My Best Friend, as we follow Mr. Tambourine Man on an Embryonic Journey to hear the Chimes of Freedom as we Break on Through to the Other Side.
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Route 66
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…