(Seen in the video performing "Going Back To Memphis" with The Band 1983)
"On May 26, 1940, Levon Helm was born! The heartbeat to The Band. Whether as a musician, actor or community builder, Levon brought charisma and charm to his work and that resonated with audiences worldwide."Always remembered on your Birthday, Levon!
Now I awoke this morning with the refrain going through my head of
“I set my monkey on a log and ordered him to do the dog, he waged his tail and shook his head and turned and did the cat instead . . . he ’s a weird monkey, pretty funky!”
and of course in the moments as I emerged from sleep I struggled to place precisely which Dylan song it actually was so googled it and of course found it from Another Side of Bob Dylan as ‘I Shall Be Free No.10’ and in googling found the article from Far Out Magazine that puts forward the thesis that there are Bob Dylan songs that should never have seen the light of day and indeed should be consigned to the dustbin heap of time!
Such a humourless po-faced piece as this belongs of course with the book burners and fascists who would ban the written word in whatever form and censor for censorship’s sake! Now I grant you I too struggled when first I bought my [vinyl] 'Under a Red Sky’ album from the bargain bins discovering Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle which I quote quite often (sic!) and yet . . . . .somehow I would rather it existed than not! I certainly think the early humorous songs of our Bobby deserve better treatment and this peculiarly humourless article is so severely lacking in depth and study it is almost laughable (sic!)
This song is in a strong tradition from the left wing of nonsense songs and silly ditties that goes back to vaudeville and an even stronger tradition of Jewish humour dare I say it!
Wherefore Pete Seeger’s execrable 'Little Boxes' with it’s sophomoric wit? Why Woody was known to spears a humorous ditty or two and it is a a strong tradition!Wash-y Wash Wash (Warshy Little Tootsy) anyone? Riding in My Car? Presumably Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream doesn’t derive the same derision
read an academic paper on Bob’s 115th dream here https://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=library_prize
"It’s hard to talk about lyrics and the very art of poetic pop musings without dangling our fingers over Bob Dylan, one of the most accomplished lyricists of his day. But he also had a stinker or two.
Trying to find the worst lyric of your everyday artist is usually something enjoyable to do. Despite our best intentions, as humans, we enjoy revelling in the worst parts of the creative spectrum just as much as we do celebrating the finest.
In fact, there’s a good argument – one found in the collection of algorithms located within our pockets – that diving into the unpleasant waters of our favourite artists can cleanse us as neatly as bathing in their more beautiful work. However, things get a little tricky when the artist in question is Bob Dylan.
At this point, it seems a little redundant to speak on the huge impact Dylan had on lyric writing as a whole. The troubadour was a convenient spark for the counter-cultural revolution who was able to carry the burning embers of poetry into the pop world and create a collection of folk songs that would soon transcend their homestead in the smoky coffeehouses of Greenwich Village, New York, to become worldwide hits that would inspire not just contemporaries like The Beatles, Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell but pretty much every artist you love today, too.
Few pop singers have been awarded a Nobel Prize for literature for their magnetic songs and
Dylan’s position as perhaps the greatest lyricist of all time is guaranteed because of this. He has delivered over 600 songs in his time as one of the icons of the music world, and his hefty back catalogue also netted him $300million when he sold it to Columbia recently. But with every expanse of work like Dylan’s, there is undoubtedly a spectrum of quality to dive into.
That’s the strange paradox of someone like Dylan. The higher the pedestal, the more noticeable the cracks become. When an artist spends so much of their career redefining what lyrics can achieve, even the smallest misstep feels magnified. It’s not just about a bad line here or there, it’s about how those lines sit alongside some of the most revered writing in popular music, creating a contrast that’s almost impossible to ignore.
At the same time, those weaker moments offer a glimpse into the sheer volume and freedom of his output. Dylan was never the kind of writer to self-censor into silence, and that willingness to follow an idea wherever it led is part of what made him so vital in the first place. Not every experiment was going to land, but without that openness, the brilliance wouldn’t have existed either, leaving behind a catalogue that feels as human as it does legendary."
“I got a million friends"
EMILY BARKER - UNPAID BILL
. . . for David Lynch we miss him and the poorer for our loss of a great artist, filmmaker, painter, iconoclast
Well it IS Friday and the weather has eased off a tad down to the high twenties!
Los Lobos LIVE The Paradiso - Amsterdam, NL - 1993-07-20
LIVE
The Paradiso - Amsterdam, NL
1993-07-20
FM From Dutch broadcast
SET LIST
. . . . speaking of guitarists . . loving this one and don’t pay enough attention to Phil Manzanera
Covered: George Harrison, Volume 2: 1972-1989
When this album starts, in 1972, Harrison was seemingly on top of the world. His 1970 solo album "All Things Must Pass" was a huge critical and commercial success, hitting Number One in the U.S., Britain, and many countries. It surprised many by outselling the solo albums of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
For the first half of the 1970s, Harrison maintained a very active musical career. In addition to putting out his own solo albums, he produced and/or played on albums by other musical acts. We can see that here, especially with his help for fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr. There are no less than five songs here performed by Starr.
"Back Off Boogaloo" follows the pattern of "Octopus's Garden" and "It Don't Come Easy" on the previous volume, in that it was solely credited to Starr when in fact it was co-written by Harrison. It was a big hit in 1972, especially in Britain, where it made it all the way to Number Two in the singles chart. But while those two songs I just mentioned are still credited only to Starr, in 2017, the official credits for "Back Off Boogaloo" changed to be a co-write with Harrison.
The same pattern continued for Starr's next big hit, "Photograph," which went all the way to Number One in 1973 in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. But this one was the first one to be officially credited to Starr and Harrison from the very beginning. Like all the other Starr songs mentioned above, it seems Starr started it, but needed a lot of help from Harrison to finish it off. Starr later said he was good at writing a verse or two, and a chorus, but then he often would get stuck. He also said of Harrison helping his songwriting in this era, "I only know three chords and he'd stick four more in, and they'd all think I was a genius."
But Harrison also wrote or co-wrote songs for others during this time period: "The Holdup" by David Bromberg, "So Sad (No Love of His Own)" by Alvin Lee and Mylon Lefevre, "Far East Man" by Ron Wood, and "I'll Still Love You (When Every Song Is Sung)" by Cilla Black. In all those cases, the cover versions included here came first. For "So Sad" and "Far East Man," Harrison released his own versions a year or two later.
Here's a fun fact about the version of "Something" by James Brown. That great song has been covered around 1,000 times, making it one of the most covered songs of all time. But Harrison said that Brown's version was his favorite out of all the covers he'd heard. In an interview many years later, he said, "There are a lot of really good versions of 'Something.' But the one that is just a killer, and nobody even knows about it except for a few friends of mine, is the James Brown version of it. He put it out as the flip side to a revamped version of 'Think.' And you gotta play it, it's just unbelievable." He even sent Brown a postcard complimenting him on it and suggesting that it should be released as an A-side instead.
Unfortunately, in the mid-1970s, Harrison lost a lot of the passion he'd had for his music career up until then. Here's a quote taken from a Wikipedia article: "Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Mikal Gilmore commented that 'the crises [Harrison] faced in the mid-1970s changed him,' and that depression was a key factor. Depression permeated many of the songs that Harrison wrote during this period, an issue that was not helped by his continued heavy drinking and cocaine use." As a result, he mostly stopped writing songs for others, and put out fewer albums himself. This trend deepened in the 1980s, when he only put out three studio albums, compared to six in the 1970s (with one of them being a double album).
As a result, Harrison's music didn't get the same attention in the 1980s, so there weren't as many covers. That's especially the case since he did very little to promote his career. The only concert tour he took in the 1970s and 1980s was in 1974. Only the last three songs here are from the 1980s. One of those, by the way, "Run So Far," was written for a 1989 album by Eric Clapton. However, Harrison's own version would be released in 2002.
This album is one hour long.
01 Back Off Boogaloo (Ringo Starr)
02 What Is Life (Olivia Newton-John)
03 The Holdup (David Bromberg)
04 Photograph (Ringo Starr)
05 Something (James Brown)
06 Don't Let Me Wait Too Long (Rotten to the Core)
07 You and Me [Babe] (Ringo Starr)
08 I'd Have You Anytime (Ralfi Pagan)
09 So Sad [No Love of His Own] (Alvin Lee & Mylon Lefevre)
10 Sunshine Life for Me [Sail Away Raymond] (Ringo Starr)
11 Far East Man (Ron Wood)
12 I'll Still Love You [When Every Song Is Sung] (Cilla Black)
13 Dark Horse (Thomas Harris)
14 Wrack My Brain (Ringo Starr)
15 Cloud Nine (Gary B.B. Coleman)
16 Run So Far (Eric Clapton)
Offshore Blues
Nathan Abshire featuring The Balfa Brothers - Offshore Blues (1975)
Nathan Abshire
from:
“The Good Times are Killing Me” (LP)
Personnel:
Thomas Langley: Vocals
Nathan Abshire: Accordion
Dewey Balfa: Fiddle
Rodney Balfa: Guitar
w/ Unknown Studio Musicians
Album Recorded:
@ The Swallow Records Recording Studio
in Ville Platte, Louisiana USAThis album represents a collection of Mr. Abshire’s recordings
made over a period of several years.Album Released:
in 1975
Swallow RecordsCanadian Release:
Nathan Abshire Accompagnée par Les Frères Balfa - Offshore Blues (1976)
from:
“Laissez Le Bon Temps Rouler” (LP)
Disques Bleu Records
