portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Lightnin´ Slim - Bell Ringer (1965) | Zero G Sounds




Otis Verries Hicks (March 13, 1913 – July 27, 1974),  known as Lightnin' Slim, was an American blues musician who played Louisiana blues and swamp blues for Excello Records.

One of the two names inextricably linked with the music of Excello Records (the other is Slim Harpo), Lightnin' Slim was born in St Louis but went on to become one of Louisiana's greatest bluesmen. His partnership with harmonica blower Lazy Lester and the Baton Rouge producer Jay Miller defined the Louisiana swamp blues sound. The late Mike Leadbitter said "(Lightnin' Slim)..was, in his own way, one of the truly great unspoiled bluesmen of the post-war era" and, even though that was written some years back, it remains as true today.

In the 1970s, Slim performed on tours in Europe, including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, for which he was often accompanied by Moses "Whispering" Smith on harmonica. He last toured the UK in 1973, with the American Blues Legends package organised by Big Bear Records.

In July 1974, Slim died of stomach cancer in Detroit, Michigan, aged 61. He was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Pontiac, Michigan.


Tracklist:

01-Love Me Mama [2:30]
02-She's My Crazy Little Baby [2:41]
03-Have Mercy on Me Baby [2:21]
04-Winter Time Blues [2:43]
05-If You Ever Need Me [3:11]
06-Mean Ole Lonesome Train [3:18]
07-Baby Please Come Back [2:32]
08-Love Is Just a Gamble [2:48]
09-Somebody Knockin' [3:08]
10-You Give Me the Blues [2:44]
11-Don't Start Me Talking [2:46]
12-You Move Me Baby [2:29]





I’m Evil - Lightnin’ Slim
It’s Mighty Crazy - Lightnin’ Slim

Sunday Song : Sinead O’Connor - The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

american primitives posted this and wanted to share their link but it would work so here ’tis!


we miss her . . . . . . . . 


wait . . . . .wait. . . . . . . wait 


’til it drops!


More Birthdays of the week! CHARLIZE THERON

one of the most effecting films I ever saw watched it several times


 Aileen Wuornos, a notoriously uncooperative person, gave the writer and director of "Monster" (2003), Patty Jenkins, access to hundreds of letters she had written and received in order to gain insight into Aileen's life.

Jenkins said that she screen-tested Kate Winslet, Heather Graham, Brittany Murphy, and Kate Beckinsale. But ever since seeing Charlize Theron's dark turn in "The Devil's Advocate" (1997), Jenkins had known she wanted her. Jenkins decided Theron was perfect when she awoke to a scene of "The Devil's Advocate" on television. She said that an actress that would allow a close-up of her nose running, as Theron did, would be open enough to pull off the challenging role of Aileen Wuornos. 

Theron said in an interview that she was confused when Jenkins approached her for the role. "Why me?" she asked the director. "This stuff doesn't happen to me. These are usually the things that I have to go out there and sweat blood and kill somebody for." Jenkins' reply we "Honestly, I just looked at you, and I looked at everybody else, and I said to myself, 'I could kick the other actors' asses. You, I'm not so sure.'" 


Theron said that after she won an Oscar for her performance, instead of people talking about her acting abilities, she had to deal with every interviewer obsessing over how a pretty, thin person could possibly be "brave" enough to gain weight and, as it has since become known in the industry, "go ugly." "Charlize Theron Sacrifices Great Looks for Great Part in Monster," a typical Vancouver Sun piece exclaimed. "When the first photo stills from 'Monster' were published, no one could believe that Theron would downplay her 'greatest asset' to become a homeless lesbian prostitute and serial killer." 

The biker bar scenes were filmed at The Last Resort, a bar frequented by the real-life Wuornos, and the place where she was arrested. The owner, who capitalized on Wuornos' infamy by hanging a sign in front advertising "cool beer and killer women," has a cameo as the bartender who threatens to cut off Wuornos for being over her tab limit. (IMDb)


The Devil’s Advocate with Pacino and Reeves

 
Mad Max : Fury Road


Is there nothing this actor cannot do . . . . . . the answer is NO!

Happy Birthday, Charlize Theron!

This weeks Birthdays! BILL MURRAY!

 


"I'm a nut, but not just a nut."

We love Bill don’t we?! 

 

By all accounts, Bill Murray is a strange guy. You might pick up on this by his movie roles or his talk show appearances.  But there’s also some pretty compelling evidence in a book titled “The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray” by Robert Schnakenberg. One of the most entertaining aspects is how the book delves into the well-known fact about how much Murray hates agents and Hollywood representation.

“In 2000, he fired his agents — reportedly for calling him on the phone too often — and replaced them with an automated 800 number,” Schnakenberg writes. “Filmmakers who wish to pitch projects to Murray must leave a message on his voice mailbox, which he rarely checks. When he is interested in a script, Murray demands that it be faxed to him care of his local office supply store.” “This unique arrangement,” Schnakenberg says, “has resulted in Murray missing out on a number high-profile job offers.”

Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg originally wanted Murray to play Eddie Valiant in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), but neither could get in contact with him in time. Murray, in turn, has stated that when he read the interview, he was in a public place, but he still screamed his lungs out, because he would have definitely accepted the role.

Murray was considered and tested for the voice role of Sulley in "Monsters, Inc." (2001), but the director, Pete Docter, said that when the filmmakers decided to offer it to Murray, they were unable to make contact with him and took that to mean "No." 

Sofia Coppola wrote the lead role of Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation" (2003, below), with Murray specifically in mind. She did not know the actor and even enlisted the help of her famous father, Francis Ford Coppola, to track down the sometimes quite elusive Murray. Once he finally read the script, though, he agreed to do it on the spot.

"I remember being in Japan 10 years ago for a golf tournament. I turned over a Kirin beer coaster, and there was Harrison Ford's picture. He's a guy who would never be caught dead doing a commercial here. He had a bottle in his hand and the most uncomfortable look on his face, like, 'I can't believe I'm shilling.' When Sofia Coppola, the director of 'Lost in Translation,' sent me the script, she included a photo and said, 'This is what I have in mind.' It was Brad Pitt in an ad for espresso in a can, and he had the same grimace: 'I can't believe I'm selling this can of coffee.' That influenced me when I had to do my own shtick."

(National Post/IMDb)


Happy Birthday, Bill Murray!








Dylan of the Day | George on a Sunny Day . . . . . . . . . IF NOT FOR YOU!

If Not For You

One of the finest love songs ever written , . . .   great arrangement here . . . All Things Must Pass?. . . . . simple! George sings Bob and some say the same year as Bob released it!? 

Beautiful . . . 

Saturday, June 29, 2024

THE RECONSTRUCTOR : Crosby Still and Nash ‘Songs For Beginners (1970)

Crosby, Stills & Nash - Songs for Beginners (1970)


So this is nice from THE RECONSTRUCTOR . . . . . . 


Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released their second studio album, Deja Vu, on March 11, 1970, through Atlantic Records. Mostly recorded during the latter half of 1969, it came as the successor to the highly successful Crosby, Stills & Nash album, which they had toured with the addition of leader Stills' former Buffalo Springfield bandmate Neil Young on guitar and keyboards. It became an even bigger success than its predecessor, with Nash's "Teach Your Children" becoming a hit that summer and the supergroup performing a very successful tour through July 1970. During that tour, they debuted and performed many songs that would later appear on their solo albums, in order to fill out the early acoustic sets and showcase the individual members' talents. It was also probably due to the internal issues the band was facing at the time, with their group spirit giving way to infighting, drug use, and egotism. It was really no surprise when, following the end of the Deja Vu tour, the individual members decided to simply carry on with their solo careers instead of regrouping later in the year to start work on a third LP. It would be three years before the next time CSNY would perform together as a group again.

We will collect the best then-unreleased songs CSN played during their 1970 tour and turn them into a new album, the follow-up to Deja Vu. That way, we have an objective way of selecting the songs, and a way to avoid this turning into a "my favorites" playlist, which has always annoyed me. The reason I chose to exclude Neil Young from this was because I figured the only way CSN could carry on in the 70s would be to leave Neil alone. It seems clear that they could resolve their issues as a three-piece, but not as a foursome, it being no coincidence that when they finally managed to reunite in 1977, Young was nowhere to be seen. When it comes to their quotas, four Stills songs and three each for Nash and Crosby seems fair enough, as Stills was always the domineering one in the group, and he's the one who had the most material available. It would be ten songs long, just like the previous two, and as no high-quality live performances of this tour are available to us, we will have to make do with their solo studio versions. We operate under the assumption they wouldn't save their best songs for their solo albums, so that we can put together the best possible album here. With that out of the way, here's our album:

Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills)
Simple Man (Songs for Beginners)
The Lee Shore (Four Way Street)
Black Queen (Stephen Stills)
Laughing (If I Could Only Remember My Name)
-
Chicago (Songs for Beginners)
So Begins the Task (Manassas)
Man in the Mirror (Songs for Beginners)
Song With No Words (If I Could Only Remember My Name)
As I Come of Age (Illegal Stills)


Of the ten songs selected for the album, nine were mainstays of the 1970 CSNY tour. The exception is "Song With No Words", which was only performed during the early 1969 tour. As we're short on Crosby songs for the album, we'll allow it, making it the only outlier in the reconstruction. In "The Lee Shore" we have our only de facto CSN recording, as the only studio version of it available is a Deja Vu outtake. However, given there are plenty of harmonies in the rest of the songs, it's easy to imagine the trademark Crosby, Stills & Nash vocals in most of these songs. The exception is "Black Queen", which would take "Almost Cut My Hair"'s spot as the harmony-less song on the record. "Chicago" incorporates the "We Can Change the World" coda, as it doesn't feel quite complete without it, bringing its runtime to four minutes. Outtakes include Nash's "Sleep Song" and Stills' "We Are Not Helpless". There's nothing wrong with those two, other than the fact that they were played live only once in 1970. Given that the others were played semi-frequently, I thought it was fair to give them preference. With three songwriters in the band, there are always a few outtakes to their albums, and this one would be no different.

In terms of sequencing, this album opens with its probable lead single, "Love the One You're With", with the second side starting with "Chicago", its probable follow-up. Side one ends with Crosby's magnificent "Laughing", and the album ends with one of the best songs on the album, Stills' "As I Come of Age". Other than that, I simply tried to not have two songs by the same member in a row, and put the songs where I thought they fit best. The result was a 41-minute album with roughly equal sides, which is what we were aiming for. Since they'd already released a self-titled album before, I decided to steal the Songs for Beginners title from Nash's album, as it's a nice name and fits this material well, them starting over after Neil's chaotic passage. I also made a nice album cover to go along with it, them rehearsing backstage at a CSNY gig with Young carefully cropped out. This album, which ideally would come out right before Christmas 1970, is a very good record, a better and more focused album than Deja Vu, but without reaching the heights of the debut, somewhat a compromise between the two. It would be nice to see what they would've done during the 70s, their sound and image evolving as they came of age.

Sources:
- Peter Doggett - CSNY: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Roxy Music + Brian Eno BBC Sessions 1972 -1973 Radio FM |VOODOO WAGON

Roxy Music - BBC Sessions 1972-1973
FM Source @256
with the Brians!

A SILENT WAY SPECIAL 


Track List:

Disc 1:
01. Re-make/Re-model
02. If There Is Something
03. The B.O.B. Medley
04. Would You Believe
05. Sea Breezes*
Recorded 1-4-72
Transmitted 1-21-72
Except   *2-18-72

06. Bitters End
07. 2 H.B.
08. Chance Meeting
09. Ladytron
Recorded 5-23-72
Transmitted 6-23-72

10. Virginia Plain
11. If There Is Something
Recorded 7-18-72
Transmitted 8-1-72

Disc 2:
01. The B.O.B. Medley
02. Grey Lagoons
03. Sea Breezes
04. Virginia Plain
05. Chance Meeting
06. Re-make/Re-model

'In Concert' recorded and transmitted August 1972
07. Pyjamarama
08. Do The Strand
09. Editions Of You
10. In Every Dream Home A Heartache
Recorded 3-5-73
Transmitted 3-8-73

Bonus:
11/6/72
 11-The Bob (Medley)
 12-For Your Pleasure

Bryan Ferry - vocals and keyboards
Phil Manzanera - guitar (except CD1  1-5)
Andy Mackay - oboes and saxes
Paul Thompson - drums
Brian Eno - synthesizers and tape 

Roxy Music - Ladytron (Old Grey Whistle Test, 1972)


What Team Do You Support? Ask your English Teacher he is in his Yard . . . . . .acting careful not to trip on the World’s Biggest Paving Slab!

 . . . . . . . . . . . . so Here’s The Thing

So after posting the magnificent Yard Act - 100% Endurance with the actor David Thewlis (we LOVE him!) and so my son said had I heard English Teacher . . . . . . . . or Sports Team?

Well now I have! . . . . . so like going forward . . . . . . . we like R&B 2






(Later... with Jools Holland)



I like ‘em!

Sounds of The Day II Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band ‘White Shoes’ | still more from O MY SOUL



O My Soul

White Shoes | Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

And if you want to be common
I can claim that I tamed you
A demigod in a bonnet
They’re going to know it ain’t true

Custer’s Last Stand

 Now I have always been fascinated by the stories of the Wild West as I have said before and since a child always been intrigued by what we then called ‘Red Indians’  from Jay Silverheels (The Lone Ranger’s sidekick, Tonto!) onward and researched the history of the 500 Nations as often as I could. 

I have mentioned I think that the story of chief’s like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull especially was one that fascinated me and needed retelling in film, such a good drama it would prove. Also the Battle Of The Little Big Horn from portrayals in Little Big Man (seriously not far from the truth though a caricature none the less), to the biography Son of The Morning Star which is a favourite in my library . . . . . . . . 

here is a Facebook note I found fascinating


"On this day, June 25 in 1876, American Indian forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River.

This is probably the closest anyone can get to an “authentic” photograph of the immediate aftermath of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. This rare photo was taken during a reenactment of the battle near Chamberlain, South Dakota, in 1909 - possibly in connection with the filming of the silent movie, “Custer’s Last Fight.” I believe some of the Indian extras actually fought in the battle 34 years before."

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Big Horn is a nonfiction account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, by novelist Evan S. Connell,

americana-plus 


 





The Wisdom of Tom Waits - an occasional series! Songs . . . . .

TOM WAITS ON SONGWRITING




Tom Waits: Those are the wild sounds. Songs are domesticated, complacent little creatures who will never get out in the wild again. I like my songs raw, with the pulp and seeds. Those are nutrients. It's not good to listen to too much highly processed music. It leads to heart attacks and apparently rheumatic fever.

As soon as the songs hear the crack of that rifle, they go running for cover. But I've usually got three days worth of food and a scope. You want to avoid recording the feathers and throwing away the bird, I guess. You do want something to be living in them. So you sneak up on them. Because the recording process involves putting something through a machine, you have to wonder what falls down into the filter. Sometimes we pull out that lint and make other songs. I thrive on pain and discomfort. I like misunderstandings. I think I have an auditory processing problem. I like when I hear a song from a radio far away and I mishear it. As it limps across, it gets interrupted by the tractor or an airplane or the wind.I like the missing pieces. I don't like things too tidy. Terry Gilliam heard the line "in a Portuguese saloon"(from The Part You Throw Away), and he thought I was saying, "On the porch, the geese salute." That's better! I hope more people misunderstand me.


Source: USA Today (USA), by Edna Gundersen.

Photograph: Robert Yager




Sounds of the Day! | O My Soul does it again! | THURSDAY : Asobi Seksu



O My Soul

Alice does it again and posts something I had never heard ( not THAT difficult TBF!) but enjoy this one 

Friday, June 28, 2024

More Khatia B for Silent Way, Jobe and the boys ( and the gals too!)

 more classics . . . . . ? Of course and this one to see you all to bed! 

Sweet Dreams!

Wot?


Look if it’s good enough for Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift? . . . . . 

DARK WAS THE NIGHT, COLD WAS THE GROUND : BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON | Alice at O MY SOUL



O My Soul

In 2003, John Clarke in The Times wrote that “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” was “the most intense and startling blues record ever made”. Francis Davis, author of The History of the Blues concurs, writing “In terms of its intensity alone—its spiritual ache—there is nothing else from the period to compare to Johnson’s ‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground’, on which his guitar takes the part of a preacher and his wordless voice the part of a rapt congregation.”


Interestingly Alice over at reads 1981 (O MY Soul) pulls an interesting one here and turns Blues historian with this Blind Willie Johnson track . . . . . . . worth paying attention to but not content with making her own really interesting music and sharing ‘new' sounds and singers here she shows us the breadth of her interest in this blues classic! 



THE JAM (DEMOS and OUTTAKES)1976 -1982 | Voodoo Wagon - a Silent Way Re-Boot Special

The Jam - Mama We're All Different Now

A Dave Sez Contribution...
Demos & Outtakes 

 











 

 

NOW BACK FROM THE DEAD ORIGINALLY POSTED 1-11-14

The Jam - Mama We're All Different Now
Demos & Outtakes @ 320

Vinyl rip @ 320 from red vinyl bootleg, "limited edition of 1000", Energia Records ER003, Spain
16 studio tracks of rare demo versions and outtakes between 1976 and 1982.
See http://www.discogs.com/Jam-Mama-Were-All-Different-Now/release/1678899.
Labels: two arrows on one side, target on the other. B&W insert of Jam discography.
Also released on green vinyl


Track List:

A1 Left, Right And Centre (demo '76) 
A2 So Sad About Us (demo '77)
A3 It's Too Bad (demo '78)
A4 David Watts [Kinks] (demo '78)
A5 See-Saw (outtake '79)
A6 Liza Radley (alternate version '80)
A7 And Your Bird Can Sing [Beatles] (outtake '80)
A8 But I'm Different Now (alternate version '80)
B1 England (I Miss You Now)
B2 Dream Time (demo '80)
B3 Dead End Street [Kinks] (demo '80)
B4 No One In The World (demo '80)
B5 Rain [Beatles] (demo '80)
B6 Get Yourself Together [Small Faces] (demo '81)
B7 We've Only Started (demo '81)
B8 Walking In Heaven's Sunshine (demo ’82)

A Silent Way re-boot!

Interview and Funeral Pyre

Demo David Watts


30th Anniversary of The Gift!

The Jam LIVE (and Remastered) 1980