250 America! For my American pals on here ( and there’s quite a few!)

 Farm Aid ’87 - This Land Is Your Land take it away Arlo!

Arlo Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Neil Young & More - This Land Is Your Land (Live at Farm Aid 1987)

she’s only young but heck what a long strange trip it’s been!

I always thought that this was America!

when first I heard Arlo sing this fine fine song it sent shivers as it seemed to summarise for me albeit in a romantic way, all that was good about America and here’s it's author

the sorely missed friend of John Prine, Mr Steve Goodman

"City of New Orleans" is a folk song written by Steve Goodman (and first recorded for Goodman's self-titled 1971 album), describing a train ride from Chicago to New Orleans via the Illinois Central Railroad in bittersweet and nostalgic terms. Goodman got the idea while traveling on the eponymous train for a visit to his wife's family. He performed the song for Arlo Guthrie in the Quiet Knight, a bar in Chicago, and Guthrie agreed to add it to his repertoire. The song was a hit for Guthrie on his 1972 album Hobo's Lullaby, and is now more closely associated with him, although Goodman performed it until his death in 1984. The song has also been covered by Willie Nelson, John Denver, Johnny Cash, The Country Gentlemen, Judy Collins, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, Sammi Smith, Hank Snow, Gerard Cox, Rudi Carell, Joe Dassin, Richard Clayderman and others.

Steve Goodman won a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Country Song at the 27th Grammy Awards in 1985 for Willie Nelson's version, which was included on his 1984 album of the same name. It reached #1 on both the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in the United States and the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada

The Old Grey Whistle Test (usually abbreviated to Whistle Test or OGWT) was an influential BBC2 television music show that ran from 1971 to 1987. It took over the BBC2 late night slot from "Disco Two", which had been running since January 1970, while continuing to feature non-chart music. It was devised by BBC producer Rowan Ayers. According to presenter Bob Harris, the programme derived its name from a Tin Pan Alley phrase from years before. When they got the first pressing of a record they would play it to people they called the old greys—doormen in grey suits. The songs they could remember and whistle, having heard it just once or twice, had passed the old grey whistle test. I believe this video to be from Steve's appearance on the show which aired on July 31, 1973.

Willie Nelson and Trigger (his beloved Martin guitar)

 

A Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic with the serial number 242830, Trigger dates to early 1969, which means it was brand-new when Willie Nelson obtained it that same year. Why was Willie in need of a new guitar? Because he had laid his beloved Baldwin 800C acoustic on stage between sets and, as the story goes, a drunkard stepped on it.

With Nelson’s Baldwin broken, he took it to luthier Shot Jackson, who indeed deemed the guitar unsalvageable. Instead, he sold Willie a brand-new Martin N-20 for $750 – which current inflation puts at more than $5,600 – and installed the Baldwin’s PrismaTone and preamp into it. But rather than remove the Baldwin’s pickup and install it into the Martin’s bridge, Jackson removed the entire bridge from the brand-new Martin and replaced it with the Baldwin’s, which already had the mounting holes drilled into it.

Willie and Trigger, which wouldn’t get its nickname until many years later, formed a tight bond. The sound of an amplified nylon-stringed instrument played, unconventionally, with a pick was unusual. Since they were traditionally played fingerstyle, classical guitars such as the N-20 didn’t even come with pickguards.

The N-20 was first catalogued in 1969, though Martin began building them in 1968. The model wasn’t a bestseller by any means. Only 262 were made in 1969, making it quite rare.

Trigger wears the scars of more than 50 years of life on the road. The frets are all original but have worn down, meaning some notes thump or buzz. Rather than fixing the issue, as is standard procedure, the artefacts have become part of Trigger’s ageing sound through the years. Just as our voices age over time, the tone of Trigger can be tracked over decades of recordings and live performances.

“Trigger’s like me,” Willie once said with a laugh “Old and beat-up.”

Source: Justin Beckner / Guitar
Photo: Platon

Don's Tunes

Willie and Keef! | We Had It All

A coupla youngsters turn to the classics! Country classic (Donnie Fritts November 8, 1942 – August 27, 2019 and Troy Seals November 16, 1938 - March 6, 2025) that is! 

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

Willie Nelson

Keith Richards 

Garrett Atkins - trombone

Bill Churchville - trumpet

Jim Cox - keyboards

Hutch Hutchinson - bass

Jim Keltner - drums

Greg Leisz - pedal steel guitar

Nils Lofgren - guitar

Kenny Lovelace - guitar

Ivan Neville - piano

Mickey Raphael - harmonica

Jimmy Ripp - guitar

Peter Tilden - spoken voice

Biff Watson - guitar

Dave Woodford - saxophone

Backing vocals

Bernard Fowler

Stacie Michelle

Julia Waters Tillman

Maxine Waters Willard

So I will sign off for this Saturday here with this little gem from the ‘boys’!

Funny How Time Slips Away & Night Life - Willie Nelson The Midnight Special on July 9, 1976

signing off with ar Wullie!

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archive"

 Well that’s a weird day and couldn’t find anything from any of the sites I visit that was new!? Where is everybody?

All on a break? Half term? Holidays? . . . . still, time for a catch up on some piccies maybe and if I find some music along the way I’ll let ya know!

Jimmie Rodgers - The Singing Brakeman

Paul and Heather on holiday in Portugal (prolly taken by Linda)

Grace and Spenser Dryden Golden Gate Park SF 

copyright the legendary photographer Jim Marshall 1967

Wonder what the atmosphere was like? A rare photo of George dropping in to see his ex with Eric and the guys! George Harrison visiting Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton at Hurtwood Edge with Jenny Boyd and Carl Radle, late 1974. Ahem!

Linda and Paul strutting their London stuff - happy days, glad he’s found those happy days again!

Blind Willie McTell in case you wondered what he looked like

We miss these guys and if ever we were in need of the peacemakers its now!

Jim Morrison in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. 1969

Oor Wullie

Bob [‘Alias'] on set with Sam Peckinpah - Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

More Alias

Frank!

my favourite line up of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Art Tripp III, Captain, Mark Boston, Bill Harkleroad, John French. 

We featured Paramore t’other day and this is their singer and founder and really only constant member Hayley Williams, in action - we like her!

more Hayley in Paramore

Tom Waits by perhaps my favourite rock photographer and fellow artist Anton Corbijn, Santa Rosa, 2004. 

As per usual, if you own the picture and want a copyright tag or acknowledgment just drop by and let me know, happy to credit (or remove if you must insist!?) just don’t be threatening with Web Sherriffs and Marshalls and all! It’s demeaning!

Around the Internet :: Willie Nelson and ‘Trigger' his beloved Martin N-20 guitar

 

I made a terrible mistake when judging the guitar that Willie Nelson played. I somehow believed it to be a no-mark standard little ‘classical’ gut string guitar not worthy of comment and just allowed to get battered over the years because he didn’t care for it! Boy was I wrong!

This is worth a read today . . . . . . . 

“As long as I got my guitar, I’ll be fine.” - Willie Nelson who was struggling to repay a $16.7 million dollar tax debt that had led the federal government to seize all of his assets on November 9, 1990

Yesterday, Willie Nelson celebrated his 90th birthday with his beloved friend, “Trigger”.

Trigger is a Martin N-20 nylon-string acoustic with the serial number 242830. Trigger dates to early 1969, which means it was brand-new when Willie obtained it that same year. Why was Willie in need of a new guitar? Because he had laid his beloved Baldwin 800C acoustic on stage between sets and as the story goes, a drunkard stepped on it.

With Willie's Baldwin broken, he took it to luthier Shot Jackson, who indeed deemed the guitar unsalvageable. Instead, Shot Jackson sold Willie a brand-new Martin N-20 for $750 – which current inflation puts at more than $5,600.

The N-20 was first catalogued in 1969, though Martin began building them in 1968. The model wasn’t a bestseller by any means. Only 262 were made in 1969, making it quite rare.

Trigger wears the scars of more than 50 years of life on the road. The frets are all original but have worn down, meaning some notes thump or buzz. Rather than fixing the issue, as is standard procedure, the artefacts have become part of Trigger’s ageing sound through the years. Just as our voices age over time, the tone of Trigger can be tracked over decades of recordings and live performances.

Martin N-20s typically sell for between $5,000 and $15,000. Though Trigger is not exactly in mint condition, it’s such an integral part of Willie Nelson’s illustrious career that it might prove one of the most valuable guitars in the world if it ever to hit the auction block – even if that’s unlikely.

Trigger has a life of its own. Willie once saved the guitar from a house fire – along with a pound of weed. In turn, Trigger saved Willie from the IRS.

In the early 90s, Willie landed in some legal trouble with the IRS and was ordered to pay millions in back taxes and fines. He had no money to pay a band, so he went into the studio and recorded solo versions of many of his classic songs using only Trigger.

The proceeds from his grass-roots marketing of the album eventually helped him pay off his debts.

Check below to learn more about Willie’s beloved box from Rolling Stone magazine.

On a personal note my daughter’s fellah, Rob, has done a mini-set up on my acoustic guitars lately and my first ever guitar, bought as new from a music shop in Witney of all places, was a lovely jumbo Eko 12 string which I still love. I had been left a little money in my paternal grandmother’s will and spent the £50 on this. Some time back it developed a hole in the waist as it were, maybe stood next to central heating or some such, an electrical fire or something causing it to come away from the edging and the smallest sliver of a gap. I was bereft and went to see my local music store and luthier to ask him his opinion. He said ’Well you could just leave it.’ to which I responded with surprise and said ‘Well won’t it affect the sound?' He asked my why I thought that. To which I had said ‘Well, it's got a hole in it!!”

 To which he said with a slight sigh ’Well its already got a great hole in the top hasn’t it!?’ 

It had never occurred to me . . . . . . . . I learn . . . . . . . . slowly!                  Very, VERY slowly!

HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY - WILLIE NELSON

 

Song of The Day - WILLIE NELSON :: SUMMERTIME

Lovely version and boy how we miss a ‘normal’ summertime . . . . .roll on Spring . . . . . . its just soaking wet here! Been chucking it down for days so dark and damp it times like nighttime during the day . . . . (doncha just hate that!?)

 . . . . . at the first sign of sun . . .its suddenly bright here . . . .this from Ooor Wullie!

WILLIE

Never got this on time over here in the UK but I dedicate this to my dear brother, Steve Swapp,  who loved the classic country guys and introduced me to Johnny Cash, Willie and Waylon and Merle and many more (not to mention Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Tom T Hall and Ray Wylie Hubbard to name a few more) but also to my daughter Amy who saw Willie at her first Glastonbury back in 2010 enjoyed it and sent me a snap from her iPhone of Willie on stage which is so full of resonance for me as I went to the first Glastonbury and many other festivals but the 'circle was unbroken' with the resonances from this where a photo of one of my brother's favourite artists sent by my daughter at one of the festivals that was my own first experiences of live music. What goes around comes around in a good way too! 

On this day in music history: May 23, 1975 - “Red Headed Stranger”, the eighteenth album by Willie Nelson is released. Produced by Willie Nelson, it is recorded at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland, TX in January 1975. Well established as a songwriter for penning classics like “Crazy”, “Funny How Time Slips Away”, “Hello Walls” and “The Party’s Over”, Willie Nelson’s midas touch as a writer does not transfer to him as a recording artist. He grows frustrated of trying conform to Nashville’s formulaic approach, and decides to retire from music in 1972. He returns home to Texas and settles in Austin. The city’s vibrant music scene inspires him anew. Revamping his musical persona, he becomes a pioneer of the “Outlaw” movement which includes contemporaries like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard. Rooted firmly in honky tonk music and rockabilly, it is a reaction to the slick “Nashville Sound”. Forming a new band that he dubs “The Family”, Nelson signs with Atlantic Records and records the album “Shotgun Willie” in 1973. It helps establish his new sound as well as the follow up “Phases And Stages in 1974. The acclaim those albums receive lead to him signing Columbia Records who offer complete creative control. Willie decides record a "concept album” centering around a fugitive on the run from the law after killing his unfaithful wife and her lover. He titles it “Red Headed Stranger” making reference to “The Tale Of The Red Headed Stranger”, a song he used to perform during his days as a radio DJ. Looking to work without any outside interference, Willie records in a small studio in Garland, TX. Armed with his battered and road weary Martin classical guitar named “Trigger” and accompaniment from his band, it is recorded in only five days for under $25,000. When the finished record is handed in to CBS, the label is initially skeptical about its chances for success. That doubt is immediately quelled with the first single, a cover of “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” (#1 Country #21 Pop). “Stranger” finally establishes Willie Nelson as a country music superstar, winning him his first Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Male in 1976. It is remastered and reissued on CD in 2000, including four bonus tracks. It is also reissued on vinyl in 2008 Sony Legacy, by Music On Vinyl in 2009 and as a 180 gram pressing in 2011 by Impex Records. Regarded as an important and iconic country music album, it is selected for preservation by National Recording Registry of the Library Of Congress in 2010. “Red Headed Stranger” spends five weeks at number one (non-consecutive) on the Billboard Country album chart, peaking at number twenty eight on the Top 200, and is certified 2x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

Help support the Behind The Grooves music blog with a donation by clicking on the link at: PayPal.Me/jharris1228

Willie at Glastonbury 2010 'You Were Always On My Mind'

Nearly forgot Willie's birthday!

Born on this day: April 29, 1933 - Singer, songwriter and Country music icon Willie Nelson (born Willie Hugh Nelson in Abbott, Texas). 
Happy 86th Birthday, Willie!!

This might make up for it . . . . . . . . 





'City of New Orleans' (Steve Goodman) taken by Willie

HAPPY 85th WILLIE!

UPDATE:Willie Nelson :: Happy 85th Birthday, Hoss
lovely tribute and birthday wishes from 

really worth a read and a listen too!

I had reason to pause to post some 'Highwaymen' and especially some Waylon Jennings who my brother loved and he introduced me to,  the Highwaymen consisted of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. 

A Waylon song will always make me think of him and especially in the thirtieth year since his passing . . . . . . . . . .miss my brother every day

• Luckenbach, Texas (Back To The Basics Of Love)
• Waylon Jennings

then Goodhearted Woman

• Good Hearted Woman feat. Willie Nelson
• Waylon Jennings
• Greatest Hits

my favourite song by the Highwaymen of course is Cash's 'Big River' which taught me that Country n Western music could be poetry . . . . . . 




TURN IT UP!





and a personal favourite written by Steve Goodman who I discovered through fellow Country star and one of Bob Dylan's favourites songwriters, John Prime . . . . .here's the Highwaymen doing 'City of New Orleans' 

GOOD MORNING AMERICA, How are ya?!



here s some nice stuff over at the BB Chronicles

if you fancy some more Steve Goodman 

BB Chronicles blogspot - Steve Goodman




Also it's Johnny's birthday!

Born on this day: February 26, 1932 - Country music icon Johnny Cash (born J.R. Cash in Kingsland, AR). Happy Birthday to “The Man In Black” on what would have been his 86th Birthday.

My brother bought this album 'Live at Folsom Prison' which was my first introduction to him and I assumed every word was true, of course Johnny never did any prison time and the song about Folsom and him shooting someone 'just to watch him die' is a song and apocryphal not to say complete hooey! Still a great song tho'!