Category: Music
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: J. J. Cale and Some Songs from the Summer of ’63
J. J. Cale has died at the age of 74. Better known to musicians than to the general public, Cale was the writer behind such songs as Eric Clapton's After Midnight and Lynyrd Synyrd's Call Me the Breeze. Here he is on Mama Don't. The summer of 1963 — 50 years ago! — featured an amazing…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Gene Pitney
Gene Pitney was born 17 February 1940 and died 5 April 2006. Biography here. Pitney was something of a melodramatic crooner in such hits as Town Without Pity, but he also penned upbeat chartbusters like Hello Mary Lou for Rick Nelson when he was called Ricky and He's a Rebel for the Crystals. The latter,…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Suicides
Del Shannon (Charles Weedon Westover), December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990, known prmarily for his Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit, Runaway, 1961. "Suffering from depression, Shannon committed suicide on February 8, 1990, with a .22-caliber rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California, while on a prescription dose of the anti-depressant drug Prozac. Following…
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Time to Fire Up the BBQ
But before I do, I'll wish my American readers a happy and healthy Fourth of July to the strains of Johnny Horton's The Battle of New Orleans.
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Captain Beefheart and Buck Owens
Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, died of complications of multiple sclerosis at age 69 in December, 2010. Obituary here. Apparently, hanging out in the Mojave desert can do strange things to your head. Here is a taste of desert strangeness from the 1969 Trout Mask Replica album. Far out, man. Here is…
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Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland Dead at 83
Obit here. Turn on Your Love Light was a 1961 R & B to Pop crossover hit climbing high in both charts. It certainly got my attention back in '61.
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Rock and Roll Apologetics
A curious sub-genre of meta-rock devoted to the defense of the devil's music. The Showmen, It Will Stand, 1961 Bob Seger, Old-Time Rock and Roll Rolling Stones, It's Only Rock and Roll (but I Like It) Electric Light Orchestra, Roll Over, Beethoven. Amazingly good. Roll over, Chuck Berry! Danny and the Juniors, Rock and Roll…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Two Obscure Masters of the Telecaster
Danny Gatton, the best guitar player you never heard of. Red Neck Jazz. Funky Mama. Beer Bottle Slide and How to Clean Your Fretboard while Playing Pretty Blue Roy Buchanan, Sweet Dreams. An instrumental version of the old Don Gibson number, probably best known in the Patsy Cline version. Amazing Grace. Stanley Bros. version Green…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
I wouldn't call him "America's greatest living poet" (Bob Dylan), but Smokey Robinson is a great writer of popular songs. Moody, soulful, unusual intros. Here are my favorites. What's So Good About Goodbye You Really Got a Hold on Me Mickey's Monkey (with images from Scorsese's Mean Streets) Shop Around. Excellent advice, muchachos.
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) Breaks on Through to the Other Side
He peered over the keyboard bespectacled and thoughtful, playing the professor to Jim Morrison's wild man, an Apollo of musical order to anchor the drunken Dionysian front man. Morrison joined the 27 Club in the summer of 1971, expiring of his excesses in a Parisian bath tub, while Manzarek lived on another 40 some years to die…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Dylan on Rick Nelson and James Burton
Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One (Simon and Shuster, 2004), p. 13: He was different from the rest of the teen idols, had a great guitarist who played like a cross between a honky-tonk hero and a barn-dance fiddler. Nelson had never been a bold innovator like the early singers who sang like they were…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Outstanding Dylan Covers
Steven Stills, The Ballad of Hollis Brown Jimi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather Byrds, Chimes of Freedom Lucinda Williams, Positively Fourth Street Joan Baez, Daddy You've Been on My Mind Judy Collins, Mr. Tambourine Man Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues Peter, Paul and Mary, Don't Think…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Country to Rock Crossovers
I have been listening this last week to George Jones. I was pretty much unaware of his work until his dying brought it to my attention. I linked to a couple of his tunes last week. Here are a couple more. A Girl I Used to Know. Am I That Easy to Forget? Here is…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Zero Through Ten
Before getting on to tonight's scheduled presentation, we pause to remember George Jones who died Friday at 81, his longevity proof of the human body's ability to take a sustained licking from John Barleycorn and keep on ticking. I don't believe Jones ever had a crossover hit in the manner of a Don Gibson or…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs From a Passage in Thomas McGuane
Here is a passage from Thomas McGuane, Nothing but Blue Skies, Houghton-Mifflin, 1992, pp. 201-202, to which I have added hyperlinks. He [Frank Copenhaver] turned on the radio and listened to an old song called "Big John": everybody falls down a mine shaft; nobody can get them out because of something too big to pry;…