Category: Music
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Say ‘When’
Scene from "Tombstone." B. B. King, Nobody Knows You when You're Down and Out John Fogerty, When Will I Be Loved? This cover of the old Everly Bros. tune is now my favorite. Beach Boys, When I Grow Up (to be a Man) Bob Dylan, When the Ship Comes In Clancy Bros., When the Ship Comes In Laura Nyro, And When…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia
A mixed bag for your enjoyment, but mainly mine. I post what I like and I like what I post. And I post what I've posted before. Links go bad, and even when they don't I never get tired of the old tunes I like. It's Saturday night, friends, pour yourself a stiff one and…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Women and Girls
Where would we be without them? Languishing in the sphere of the merely possible. On the other hand, "Pretty girls make graves." (Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums) Roy Orbison, Pretty Woman. Mercy! See how many of the sidemen you can identify. A great song that blends the tender and romantic with the thrustingly Dionysian. James Burton wins the…
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Curiously Apropos of Current Developments
Time to wake up, kiddies. It's going on 5:30 local time. Me, I've been up since 1:58, filled two notebook pages with hand-scribble, and did my time on the black mat with a black cat in my lap.
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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; Big John…
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New Year’s Eve at the Oldies: ‘Last’ Songs for the Last Day of the Year
Happy New Year, everybody. Not that there is much to be happy about. As as our great republic approaches its end, whether with a whimper or a bang remaining to be seen, Irving Berlin's "The Song is Ended" seems an appropriate way to convey the thought that happiness in the coming year is more likely…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Christmas Tunes
Merry Christmas everybody. Pour yourself a drink, and enjoy. Me, I'm nursing a Boulevardier. It's a Negroni with cojones: swap out the gin for bourbon. One ounce bourbon, one ounce sweet vermouth, one ounce Campari, straight up or on the rocks, with a twist of orange. A serious libation. It'll melt a snowflake for sure. The…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Americana
Buffy Sainte-Marie, I'm Gonna be a Country Girl Again Buffy seems to have got herself into a heap o' trouble making like Elizabeth 'Fauxcahontas' Warren. No time to weigh in on this tonight, but the combox is open. She had me fooled, high cheek bones and all, but I've loved her music since the far-off and…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia
Lonnie Mack and Co. Mack has been around a long time. I first picked up a guitar around the time this tune climbed the charts. "If I could only play like that!" Never got close. But I played in bands that got paid. If you get paid for doing something, then someone must think it's worth paying…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies II: Varia
We appear to be back on the Eve of Destruction. We have Biden and his supporters to thank. Barry Maguire from 1965. Gene Pitney, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. A Burt Bacharach and Hal David composition. You cannot reason with evildoers. Nor can you appeal to their (nonexistent or ill-formed) consciences. You have to…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: October Jazz
The 14th already! October's a bird that flies too fast. Time herself's such a bird. I would freeze her flight, but not that of Charley 'Bird' Parker, Ornithology It's a sad October for me: my main man from college days, Thomas C. Coleman, Jr. died in September, too young, a mere 74 years of age. I…
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Sunday Night at the Oldies: A Day Late and a Dollar Short
Chiffons, One Fine Day Ruby and the Romantics, Our Day Will Come Derek and Dominos, It's Too Late She's Gone. Studio version. Chuck Willis original, 1956 Robert Johnson, 1937, Four Until Late. Cream version. Hoyt Axton, Greenback Dollar Austin James, Last Silver Dollar Randy Newman, Short People Dionne Warwick, Take the Short Way Home
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Celebrating Freedom and Independence
Not to mention resistance and defiance in these waning days of a great republic. Great minds on "All men are created equal." 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…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs of Summer
Some of them, just a few, in keeping with my Summer Slowdown of '23. More later. Lovin' Spoonful, Summer in the City, 1966, with period-appropriate video. Joe Cocker cover. Johnny Rivers, Summer Rain Bob Dylan, Summer Days Eddie Cochran, Summertime Blues, 1959
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Winning and Losing
From great music, music that appeals to the highest in us (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and a few others) to the people's music. My German neighbor when I lived in Freiburg im Breisgau, Frau Schmidt, upon hearing the strains of Beethoven, let loose with the expletive, Scheissmusik! There is no disputing (lack of) taste. Hank…