Category: Music
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Thanks, Gladness, Joy
Beatles, Thank You, Girl Cream, I'm So Glad Suzi Quatro, Glad All Over Jeff Beck, Glad All Over, same title different song, cover of old Carl Perkin's rockabilly number Billie Holiday, Glad to be Unhappy Hoyt Axton, Joy to the World Ludwig van B., Ode to Joy Ode to Joy scene from Immortal Beloved You…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: I Give Chess Lesson to Father of Kim Thayil
Small world. I met a very interesting man last Sunday, Boniface Thayil. He showed up at our little chess club wanting to learn the game. So I gave him his first lesson. He knew nothing, not even the names of the pieces, let alone how they move. Now he knows a little something. I hope…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Recent Dylan Bootleg Releases
Song to Woody. This version from the 1970 New Morning sessions, but not included on that album. Originally heard on Dylan's first album. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues. This version too from the 1970 New Morning sessions. First heard on the 1966 Highway 61 Revisited album. Ramblin' Jack Elliot delivers a haunting version. When I…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Kerouac’s History of Bop
With good video I told myself that, come November, I'd put Jack back in his box until next October. But Kerouac month has bled over into November probably because seeing the movie Big Sur got me all stoked up again. Here is Herbert Gold's review of the book (Saturday Review, 22 September 1962). And here…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen”
Kerouac's Big Sur opens with a reference to a song: The church is blowing a sad windblown "Kathleen" on the bells in the skid row slums as I wake up all woebegone and goopy, groaning from another drinking bout and groaning most of all because I'd ruined my "secret return" to San Francisco by getting…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Beach Boys
Given the shenanigans in Washington, D. C., you would naturally expect me to begin with . . . wait for it . . . . Shut Down! Then I Kissed Her is the Beach Boys' response to the Crystal's Then He Kissed Me. Nice job, boys, but nothing can hold a candle to Phil Spector's wall of…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: A Couple of Suicide Songs
Tastes in music are pretty much generationally-rooted. Just to yank (tug?) Dale Tuggy's chain a bit, I said to him while we were rooming together in Prague, that the heavy metal stuff he likes is "music to pound out fenders by," a phrase that Edward Abbey (1927-1989) applied to all rock music. I claimed heavy…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Days of the Week
Melina Mercouri, Never on Sunday Mamas and Papas, Monday, Monday Marianne Faithfull, Ruby Tuesday. Moodier than the Stones' original. Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM Donovan, Jersey Thursday Easybeats, Friday on My Mind Sam Cooke, Another Saturday Night Bonus cut: Jerry Lee Lewis, Lonely Weekend
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September Songs
September again. A lovely transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October. Dinah Washington, September in the Rain Rod Stewart, Maggie May. "Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you/It's late September and I really should be back at school." Carole King, It Might as Well Rain Until September Frank…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fruits and Vegetables
Mongo Santamaria, Watermelon Man, 1963. 1963 was one great year for popular music of all genres. Peter, Paul and Mary, Lemon Tree, 1962 Harry Nilsson, Coconut, 1971 Chet Atkins, Orange Blossom Special Led Zepellin, Tangerine, 1970 Little Richard, Tutti Frutti, 1956 Harry Belafonte, Banana Boat Song, 1956 …… Booker T and the MGs, Green Onions. …
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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: Dylan’s Civil Rights Songs
The 1963 March on Washington now lies 50 years in the past. Those civil rights battles were fought and they were won. What could be achieved by legislation and government intervention was achieved. Unfortunately, the civil rights movement gradually transmogrified into a civil rights hustle and grievance industry as the original ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. were…
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Some Songs of Summer
Lovin' Spoonful, Summer in the City, 1966 Chad and Jeremy, A Summer Song, 1964 Mungo Jerry, In the Summertime, 1970. Robin Ward, Wonderful Summer, 1963 Seals and Croft, Summer Breeze, 1972 Johnny Rivers, Summer Rain, 1967. It came out the summer we were all listening to the Beatles' Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band, and…
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For a Race-Baiter, It’s Always Selma Again
One protestant asks another, "Why is Rome called the Eternal City?' "Because there is always Rome!" For a race-hustler like Jesse Jackson, It Is Always Selma Again. It's a bit of a paradox: leftist race-baiters fly under the euphemistic flag of 'progressive,' while hopelessly stuck in the past. The civil wrongs were righted, but they want to…
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Philosophical Fatigue and Faded Love
Tompall Glaser, I Ain't Looking for the Answers Anymore Faded Love A Girl I Used to Know Related articles Neglected Philosophers