One of my old friend Stephen Blackman’s favourite Dylan songs . . . . that it made me reassess and think twice as I didn’t really considerate it much before!
The Fairest of the Seasons | Nico
Saturday, November 30, 2024
John Cale - Andalucia (Paris 1919) | O My Soul
O My Soul
Reissued lately the master version of Paris 1919
with as O My Soul points out Andalucia
another favourite and album track and album!
Art (and Artist) of the week - Wayne Edson Bryan / Neopop
This struck me as fascinating and absolutely brilliant . . .fearing the worst I wondered, pondered and kept coming back to this image and my concern about the format and medium used here obviously therefore checked it out . . . . . . pity other folks didn’t think to do the same!! As Wayne reports . . . . . .
Wayne Edson Bryan
"When I first started posting these new neopop collages, I thought I’d leave the description OPEN and see what people’s reaction was to the images. Must everything must be explained, pigeonholed, categorised in advance of delivery to the public? I quickly learned that I was tapping into some very raw emotions. I recently had a few folks verbally attack me on Instagram because they thought I was using Al and pretending that I made it myself. They said they were sad for me because I had to lie and couldn’t make real art. They couldn't wrap their heads around anyone going through the effort to create something that resembled Al, but wasn't. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to tell them about Photorealism, trompe l'oeil, and come to think about it, a whole lotta other both high and low art history that's commenting on and/or portraying something that it's not. All of these hostile negative criticisms that I’ve been recently experiencing have me thinking that I’m on the right track."
Genius!
Donald Trump ROCKS!
Bargain - highly strung and with a varnished walnut finish,
Donny is expected to be inaugurated Monday, January 20, 2025
Trickle down economics
John Frusciante - Song To The Siren / This Mortal Coil / Sinead O’Connor versions
After playing the Tim Bickley original of The Song To The Siren the other day really in response to my love of the 'This Mortal Coil' version I had contact from my dear ‘cousin’ Geoff who asked me if I had heard this version . . . . . I had but it gave me cause to send him the breathtaking TMC version sung by
such fun!
These are for Geoff Swapp . . . . . . .
THIS MORTAL COIL
Robin Guthrie on guitar and the astonishing vocals of Elisabeth Fraser (from Cocteau Twins) first released on a single then included on This Mortal Coil's debut album, It'll End In Tears:
http://4ad.com/releases/40
Also . . . . not to forget our beloved Sinead O’Connor (we miss her . . . .)
Sinead O'Connor - Song To The Siren
(I will give Robert Plant’s perfectly acceptable go at it but the unforgivable and execrable version must be the dreadful Bryan Ferry cover . . . . . . truly awful as he plainly cannot really sing so you need to some sizeable ego to think you can pull it off.
He CAN’T!)
Remembering George - February 25, 1943 - November 29, 2001
Remembering George Harrison, The quiet Beatle
February 25, 1943 - November 29, 2001
“George was a giant, a great great soul with all of the humanity
all of the wit & humour ~ all of the wisdom ~ the spirituality ~
the common sense of a man & compassion for people.
He inspired love & had the strength of a hundred men.
He was like the sun, the flowers & the moon
& we will miss him enormously.
The world is a profoundly emptier place without him.”
Bob Dylan
"The Concert for George" was a tribute to George Harrison, held one year after his passing on November 29, 2002, at London's Royal Albert Hall. Unable to attend, Dylan instead performed "Something" in Harrison's honor as a special, extra third encore at his show on November 13, 2002 at New York's Madison Square Garden.
In an emotional voice Dylan told the audience, "There’s a tribute going on, I guess it’s next week or the week after, it’s over in England, for George Harrison. And, you know there’s all kinds of people going over there, I’m not sure who. But we can’t make it, and that’s why I'm going to do this song now in remembrance of George."
“I just want to do this song for George,” he told those present, “because we were such good buddies.”
Something - Bob Dylan (Madison Square Garden)
Bob and George at Dylan’s 1968
If Not For You George and Bob Bangladesh rehearsals 1971
HARD ROCK CLASSICS REVISITED! DEEP PURPLE - SMOKE ON THE WATER
John French (yes THAT John French!) just posted this for Black Friday!
Recorded for French TV this took me a second . . . . . . . .
It is of course Deep Purple (re) doing Smoke On The Water
Ian Gillan – lead vocalsSteve Morse – guitarDon Airey – keyboardsRoger Glover – bassIan Paice – drums
Birthdays | Des'ree - You Gotta Be
Mo’ music for a Saturday . . . sound advice . . . . . .you gots this!
Des'Ree - You Gotta Be (1994)
Happy Birthday to Des'ree, born as Desirée Weekes in Croydon, London on this day in 1968. (56!?)
Listen as your day unfolds, challenge what the future holds, try and keep your head up to the sky.
Bryan MacLean (LOVE) - ifyoubelievein [1966-1982]
Bryan MacLean - Ifyoubelievein (1966-82, Sundazed issue)
Bryan MacLean guitarist, singer and songwriter of the cult 60's Californian band Love, died of a heart attack on Christmas day 1998 in the city of Los Angeles where he was born.
Love were responsible for producing the album 'Forever Changes' in 1967 which has long held the reputation with music critics for being one of the finest albums ever made and although Arthur Lee did most of the song writing for the band, it is Bryan's song 'Alone Again Or' from that classic album that Love are generally remembered for.
Born in Beverley Hills, California in 1946, Bryan's father was an architect to the Hollywood stars and his mother an artist and a dancer. Neighbour Fritz Loew of the composers Lener and Loew recognised him as a melodic genius at the age of three as he doodled on the piano. Bryan's gift for music was duly noted and he was given piano lessons and taught classical arrangement theory. Bryan's early influences were more Billie Holliday and George Gershwin rather than Robert Johnson, although he confessed a strong obsession for Elvis Presley. During his childhood he wore out show music records from 'Guys and Dolls', 'Oklahoma', 'South Pacific' and 'West Side Story'.
His first girlfriend was Liza Minelli and they would sit at the piano together and sing songs like 'The Wizard of Oz'. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor's pool and his father's best friend was Robert Stack from T.V's 'Untouchables'. At 17 Bryan encountered the Beatles, "Before the Beatles I had been into folk music. I had been showing my art work at a panel shop (I wanted to be an artist in the bohemian tradition) - where we would sit around with banjos and do folk music, but when I saw 'A Hard Days Night' everything changed. I let my hair grow out and I got kicked out of three high schools."
Bryan started playing guitar in 1963/64. He got a job at the Balladeer before it changed its name to the Troubadour Club, playing back-up blues guitar. It was here he met the pre Byrds Jet Set while dating Jackie De Shannon and he became 'fast friends' with David Crosby. He moved away from home and by early 1965 he became road manager for the Byrds on their first Californian tour with the Rolling Stones. He managed one more cross-country tour with the group after they hit big with 'Mr Tambourine Man' but the exhausting 30 one nighters broke him physically and when the Byrds left for their first U.K. tour in the summer of 1965 they left Bryan behind.
After an unsuccessful audition for a part in the Monkees Bryan got into a car on Sunset Strip which Arthur Lee was driving. Arthur had a band called the Grass Roots doing a residency at the Brave New World Club and being street wise knew Bryan's 'connections' with the Byrds. He knew all of the scene that followed the Byrds would follow Bryan if he invited him to see the band play at the club as the Byrds were out of town and sure enough after a couple of weeks the crowds were lined up and down the street for blocks. Bryan desperately wanted to join the band and he said, "I'd give my right arm to be in your group." To which Arthur responded "No - you're going to need it!" The Grass Roots became Love when another group registered a hit with the name.
"The music that is presented in this collection was written, decades ago, when I was in the band LOVE, and was written with that band in mind, and had been intended to be performed by, and associated with the band, LOVE... So what did happen? ... why weren't they? well...
Arthur was the leader, and he made the final decisions, and we did, primarily his songs. Oh, I didn't mind really, Arthur was my (best) friend, and I was having a ball.
I firmly believe if things had been the other way around, by now, you probably would've already heard a great deal, if not all, of what is assembled here. For one thing, I would have stuck around the band alot longer, not feeling the frustration of having such a backlog of unpublished, and unperformed material, and the natural unfulfilled desire for recognition, or even vindication. But things weren't, and I didn't, and after all, it's not what happens, so much, it's how you end up."
Bryan MacLean
1. Barber John - 4:03
2. Fresh Hope - 4:13
3. Kathleen - 2:03
4. Orange Skies - 4:19
5. Strong Commitment - 3:22
6. Alone Again Or - 3:32
7. Tired Of Sitting - 2:33
8. Blues Singer - 3:23
9. Friday's Party - 2:56
10.People - 2:49
11.Claudia - 3:01
12.If You Believe In - 3:06
13.Orange Skies (Second Version) - 4:34
14.Alone Again Or (Second Version) - 3:46
15.She Looks Good - 3:59
16.Old Man - 3:05
All songs by Bryan MacLean
*Bryan MacLean - Vocals, Guitar
Now I have mentioned Bryan before and that he wrote songs on Forever Changes is a given (my top album of all time frequently!) so here is another download of the solo album he released and always worth mentioning he is related to the Lone Justice singer Maria McKee (she’s his half-sister) so those pipes do run in the familyEnjoy! I loved revisiting and feel aloneagainor or somewhere between Clarke and Hilldale
Photos of Rock - Annie Lennox Reality Effect | Gered Mankowitz
Annie Lennox - cover session of Reality Effect,
the second album by her band The Tourists
by Gered Mankowitz -1979
Mystery objects . . . . . The OATH SKULL
A 16th century German 'oath skull' (a human skull on which defendants swore their oath in Vehmic courts) engraved with the 'magical' Roman 'Sator square', mysterious palindromic word-squares found across the Roman world, comprising the words
SATOR, AREPO, TENET, OPERA, ROTAS
Saturday is it? Have this! Woo Hoo - 5678s - The 5678s at the Reading Festival, 2004
To blow the fog away!
‘Woo Hoo’ - The 5678s at the Reading Festival, 2004
Friday, November 29, 2024
THANK YOU! Giving thanks to all my Merkin pals! From Otis to Dido - Thank You!
Classic pop revisited |
Track Name
I Want to Thank You
Artist
Otis Redding
Otis Redding - I Want to Thank You (1964)
an authentic look at the traditional Macy's Parade!
[wot?]
Apache by the Shadows had lyrics!?
I think I got this factoid from Q.I but maybe not . . . . . . it got me researching with VERY mixed results! Enjoy!
'Apache': Sonny Jamesthis which most folk think of as the original is so early (61) the Shads featured Jet Harris (smoking here) and Tony Meehan.
“Lonely Silver Dove
Sweet Apache maid
Lonely Silver Dove
Sweet Apache maid
Alone, all alone by the campfire
She dreamed of her love, her delight
Away, far away on the prairie
Her love Golden Hawk shared the night
Sometimes at night with the moon, he would come
Sweet were the moments they shared
But with the dawn, he was gone with the sun
A smoke sign arose from the prairie
A breeze sighed a sad mournful song
The brave Golden Hawk had departed
Had gone to that great, great beyond
Sometimes at night when there's rain in the sky
She hears her love high above
He and his pony go thundering by…” đŸ¤¢
Music: Jerry Lordan
Lyrics: Johnny Flamingo and sung by Sonny James
Jorgen Ingmann 1961 heard by the Shadows although Bert Weedon recorded it first though never released it! (go figure! maybe he heard the song!?!??!?)
The truly AWFUL song
Sonny sings from his 1967 RCA album "Young Love". Apache was released in February 1961. First RCA session for SONNY JAMES on February 14, 1961 at Nashville's RCA Victor Studio. A vocal version of the Shadows hit "Apache" is coupled with "Magnetism" for release on RCA 47-7858 at the end of February. It charted at #87 on the Pop charts.Written by Jerry Lordan and Johnny Flamingo.
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/jorgen-ingmann/apache
ALTERNATIVELY!!
Hal Leonard Marching Band . . . . . . say what now!?
How most of us old fogies remember it! I HATED THIS schtick and this number! Foot Tapper finally got to me and was more my style but by and large my dear brother and I disagreed on this . . . . Steve loved The Shadows!
Picture of The Week | Linda McCartney - Paul, Mary and Heather Scotland 1970
Paul, Mary and Heather McCartney, Scotland, 1970
© Linda McCartney | Scanned by lindamccartneysphotography
Birthdays (contd) : Chris Bailey - THE SAINTS - I’M STRANDED
Chris Bailey was born in Nanyuki, Kenya on this day in 1956.
He's stranded far from home.
Route they’re a publisher!
from the sublime to . . . . nah I’kl leave it
TURN IT RIGHT UP!
Birthdays | Remembering John Mayall (29 November 1933 – 22 July 2024)
Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images
I am pretty sure I have mentioned how important John Mayall was to this burdegeoing precocious blues man as a mere stripling child (13+) following (on and off) all my life but the first few albums were impossibly cool to me. That the irony of his band leadership was not lost on him as his leadership lead to fame for so many of his alumni; Green, Clapton, McVie, Tayor to name a few but that fame never really beckoned for him personally so much no hits and no adulation but this is what befalls the Mayall's and the Horners, the Graham Bonds and the Chris Barbers. They illuminate the pantheon of great British musical institutions and without trying to hammer the hyperbole John shone through the history books brighter than most forever!
"I'm a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band — who can be good friends of mine," Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. "It's definitely a family. It's a small kind of thing really."
A small but enduring thing. Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues. The lack of recognition rankled a bit, and he wasn't shy about saying so.
"I've never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me," he said in an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent in 2013. "I'm still an underground performer."
Known for his blues harmonica and keyboard playing, Mayall had a Grammy nomination, for "Wake Up Call" which featured guest artists Buddy Guy, Mavis Staples, Mick Taylor and Albert Collins. He received a second nomination in 2022 for his album “The Sun Is Shining Down.” He also won official recognition in Britain with the award of an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 2005.
He was selected for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class and his 1966 album “Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton,” is considered one of the best British blues albums.
Mayall once was asked if he kept playing to meet a demand, or simply to show he could still do it.
“Well, the demand is there, fortunately. But it’s really for neither of those two things, it’s just for the love of the music,” he said in an interview with Hawaii Public Radio. “I just get together with these guys and we have a workout.”
By The Associated Press
Dave Swarbrick - The Brides March * The Keelmans Partition * Shew Me The Way To Wallingford * Sword Dance
A selection of reels from the Swarb's Flittin’ Album and mostly because Wallingford is just up the road . . . . [Diamond Dave knows . . . . . . he’s from a similar village nearby!)
Thursday, November 28, 2024
Cheer Up!
Kim Cypher was on Radio 4’s Women’s Hour (I’m allowed to visit! I’m a senior citizen and identify as a unicorn!) playing this hypnotic tune that by turns made me dance around the kitchen and bursting out laughing! ❤️
It should now be adopted as the Theme Tune!
Bertie Bertie Bertie (he’s a rabbit!)
Classic songs, birthdays and singer songwriters! | RANDY NEWMAN : SHORT PEOPLE!
Took me a while Randy (81 today) to get this level of humour . . . . . . sheesh but then when you get it . . . .you know by LISTENING! then you get it . . . . . probably couldn’t sing it no mo’!
Happy birthday to Randy Newman, born as Randall Newman in Los Angeles, California on this day in 1943.
Short people got no reason to live.
but then I have always been tall! . . . . . getting shorter by the day mind! [true story]
I wasn’t the biggest fan until my brother liked him and played him to me and when you GET it . . . you get it!
Sail Away!