Have you heard . . . . . . . . . 

 . . . . . . . this before?

On this day in music history: July 25, 1966 - “Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘66”, the debut album by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 is released. Produced by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, it is recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders in Hollywood, CA from May - June 1966. Having originally set his sights on becoming a classical pianist, musician Sergio Mendes begins playing jazz in nightclubs in and around Rio De Janeiro in the late 50’s. While playing these clubs, Mendes meets Antônio Carlos Jobim, regarded by many as one of the fathers of bossa nova. Jobim takes the young musician under his wing. Soon after, Mendes travels to the US in 1962 to play with American jazz musicians and further his own career. After meeting his future attorney and manager Richard Adler, Sergio forms Brasil '65, recording three albums for Atlantic and one for Capitol, all sell poorly. Adler suggests that Mendes put together a new band with two female vocalists singing in both English and Portuguese. While touring in late 1965, Sergio is in Chicago, when he encounters a young singer performing in a coffee house. Lani Hall impresses Mendes so much that he invites her to move to Los Angeles to join his new band. Soon after, he finds singer Bibi Vogel to sing with Hall, as well as musicians Bob Matthews (bass), José Soares (percussion) and João Palma (drums). The new band dubbed Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, audition for various labels, and are turned down by all of them. While holding another audition, A&M Records co-founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss walk in. Alpert is immediately blown away by the band and offer to sign them. After Atlantic releases Mendes from his contract, Brasil '66 begin recording their first album in the Spring of 1966. With Hall nor Vogel actually able to speak Portuguese, Mendes teaches them how to sing in his native language phonetically. A perfect balance of pop and bossa nova songs by prominent American (Henry Mancini, Norman Gimbel), British songwriters (Lennon-McCartney, Newley & Bricusse) and Brazilian composers like Jobim, Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes put to Mendes’ arrangements, it does not take long to find an audience. Led by their cover of Jorge Ben’s infectious “Mas Que Nada” (#47 Pop, #4 AC), they become a worldwide sensation. Like iconic bossa nova albums like Stan Getz’s “Getz/Gilberto”, “Jazz Samba” and Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “The Composer of Desafinado, Plays” before it, “Brasil '66” further popularizes the genre. It is the first of eight best selling albums the band release over the next four and a half years. Originally released on CD in 1989, it is remastered and reissued in 2006. The album is also inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2011. “Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66” peaks at number seven on the Billboard Top 200, number two on the Jazz album chart, and is certified Gold in the US by the RIAA.

thanks as ever to Jeff Harris at his wondrous Behind The Grooves 

Moments in Music History No 137

On this day in music history: July 25, 1965 - Bob Dylan performs an “all electric” set at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, RI. Backed by guitarist Mike Bloomfield and members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, this is a radical departure for the formerly acoustic based folk rock musician. Having released his fifth album “Bringing It All Back Home” in March of 1965, his first to feature electric instruments, it is immediately controversial among Dylan’s contemporaries. The act of a folk musician playing an electric guitar is considered by the audience to be musical heresy, and react negatively by booing Dylan. He leaves the stage after just three songs. The incident inspires Dylan to write and record the song “Positively 4th Street” four days later, a rebuke of former friends in the folk music community who have criticized him for “going electric”. Bob Dylan accidentally leaves the guitar that he plays during his set at Newport behind on the private chartered plane he travels from the venue on. The sunburst 1964 Fender Stratocaster thought to have been lost for over the last four decades, is found in the possession of the pilot’s family in 2012. The guitar is found with several sheets of paper in the case containing early drafts of several unfinished songs. The instrument sells at auction (from Christie’s auction house) for a record breaking $965,000 (to an anonymous bidder) in December of 2013. It surpasses the amount paid for the previous record holder, Eric Clapton’s black Fender Stratocaster nicknamed “Blackie”, which had sold for $959,000 in 2004.

BBC News - Bob Dylan's guitar is auction for nearly $1m

UPDATE If you did pay nearly a million bucks for it here's some news from Dylan's attorney "Bob has possession of the electric guitar he played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965," New York attorney Orin Snyder wrote in an e-mail to The Star-Ledger on Wednesday. "He did own several other Stratocaster guitars that were stolen from him around that time, as were some handwritten lyrics. In addition, Bob recalls driving to the Newport Folk Festival, along with two of his friends, not flying."

What you see and what you read . . . . . 

JERRY RUBIN

is on fire at the moment and as well as a new lagniappe session on 'Wilder Maker' worth listening to (they always are)
there's a piece on counter culture hero figure Jerry Rubin and Pat Thomas' book Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary. 

It's really worth checking out and has its own playlist too!

Jerry Rubin at Aquarium Drunkard

LOS LOBOS

(The Wolves)

I loved Los Lobos thanks largely I think to Ry Cooder introducing me to Mexican style music with his work with Flaco Jimenez and such and I bought 'How Will the Wolf Survive' when it came out over here (still love that album) and then they did the music for this, the biopic on Ritchie Valens one of the stars who died in the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly terrible aircrash. 
I was obsessed with collecting early prints and books on the wolf back then for reasons best known to someone else. 

We tried to learn the Mexican Spanish to understand what on earth was being sung about (it didn't help much) and my dear friend Leo could sing all the songs and, guitarist eatrxaordinaiore, he could play pretty much everything anyhoo. We laughed and laughed at 'I am not a sailor, I am the Captain!" WTF was he singing about?
We didn't care, it ROCKED! 
Los Lobos still do!

On this day in music history: July 24, 1987 - “La Bamba”, the biopic of Mexican-American Rock & Roll pioneer Ritchie Valens is released in US theaters. Directed by Luis Valdez (“Zoot Suit”) and produced by Taylor Hackford (“An Officer And A Gentleman”, “Against All Odds”, “Ray”) and Bill Borden, the film stars Lou Diamond Phillips (as Valens), Esai Morales, Rosana DeSoto, Joe Pantoliano, and Elizabeth Peña. The soundtrack is performed by Los Lobos (scored by Carlos Santana and Miles Goodman) who hit number one with both the title song and album.  Released through Columbia Pictures and made for only $5.6 million, the modestly budgeted film is a huge success grossing over $52 million in domestic box office.

thanks as ever to Jeff Harris at his wondrous Behind The Grooves 

Check the vocals on this and don't they remind you of Stevie Winwood wonderful voice!

a favourite song . . . . . TURN IT UP!

PAPER MOON

Ryan and Tatum O'Neil in 'Paper Moon' 

Another favourite Peter Bogdanovich film 'Paper Moon' 1973







But I don't have it . . . . . .. . . well, get it!


we love Madeline Kahn too . . . . .

oh and a favourite song too . . . . . . . 
probably my favourite version

Well I wish it would rain! . . . Irma is an early obsession after checking out all the people from New Orleans like Mac Rebennack and Professor Longhair Tuts Washington etc and thinking it's all a bit male orientated  . . . . . . . This voice hit me! From 'Breakaway' as a teenager (later covered by Tracey Ullman and curiously I don't really care for it but the Nawleans  Tin Pan Alley tried like heck to get pop hits while us Euro folk wanted the raw rhythm n blues and Zydeco if we could) and to later hits 'It's Raining', 'Time is On My Side', and the Otis Redding alleged steal 'Ruler of My Heart' (N Neville) Gorgeous too!

   

     

 

DAVID LYNCH

so many of my favourites . . . 

Favourite Film Director? Well Lynch is right up there  . . . 

I love it when Aquarium Drunkard get's all newsletter(ish) . . . . . and today's is no exception. We have mentioned Joan Shelley before thanks to the Aquarium but this is another stellar talent linked to her . . .Mr Nathan Salsburg

Diversions :: Nathan Salsburg / Beyond ‘Third’

Diversions, a recurring feature on Aquarium Drunkard, catches up with our favorite artists as they wax on subjects other than recording and performing.

The first time I heard “Impossible Air,” the third track from Kentucky guitarist Nathan Salsburg’s third lp Third, I was overwhelmed. Though like the other nine songs that accompany it, “Impossible Air” features nothing more than the sound of Salsburg’s unaccompanied acoustic guitar, each low string buzz and striking string bend captured simply and cleanly. Like the best guitar soli, Salsburg’s songs offer a gift to the listener: the gift of space. His songs, formed from elements of ancient American traditons and elegant Celtic ballads, create room to feel, articulating that weird middle ground between melancholy and sweetness. Like Salsburg’s previous works, it’s wonderful, but there’s something new at work here, on his finest album yet, a new sense of lightness and grace.

“The songs that came out — and the songs that are still coming out — there’s an ease,” Salsburg says over the phone from his home in Kentucky, nursing his first cup of morning coffee following a string of West Coast shows with his musical partner Joan Shelley. The years between Third and his last solo record, 2013’s Hard For To Win And Can’t Be Won have found Salsburg on the road and collaborating in the studio with Shelley, James Elkington, Wooden Wand, Bonnie Prince Billy, and others. Working with friends has opened his approach up, and made “the joy of playing more acute and more readily available.”

“My first two records, I felt like they needed to be representatives of some inchoate yearning or the need to express myself in some big way,” Salsburg says. “I say this with some sarcasm, because everyone who plays an instrument wants to do that. But [I was inspired by] the fun of playing with Jim and Joan, and when I came back to doing solo guitar music, I didn’t ask it to do so much, or really anything for me. The fun of playing with those two extended itself into playing solo.”

if you listen to one thing today make it this

then check out the whole article here . . . . . AQD

Of course, I mentioned before I think, and 'My Aim Is True' is a seminal album bought when it came out and still have the original vinyl of this and still love it

If you don't have it I don't know what's wrong with you and please don't speak to me EVER again (you DO know there's nobody there right? ED)

On this day in music history: July 22, 1977 - “My Aim Is True”, the debut album by Elvis Costello is released (US release is in November 1977). Produced by Nick Lowe, it is recorded at Pathway Studios in London circa Late 1976 - Early 1977. After six years of performing in pubs and clubs around his native Liverpool, Costello receives his big break in 1976 when he submits demo recordings of several songs to Stiff Records in the hopes of being signed to the new label. Initially, the label is only interested in him as a staff songwriter (for musician Dave Edmunds), but are persuaded to sign him as a recording artist. The album is recorded in twenty four hours of studio time (cut in six four hour sessions at a cost of £1,000) spread out over several weeks. Recording with members of the band Clover, Costello often takes time off (calling in sick) from his day job as a data entry clerk in order to rehearse and record the material. It spins off the classics “Alison” and “(The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes”. Originally released as a stand alone single in the UK in October of 1977, the track “Watching The Detectives” is added to the US version of the album, when it is issued four months after its UK release. The original US LP cover art also differs from its UK counterpart, with the UK version featuring the front cover photo in black & white, with the background on the back airbrushed pink, beige, blue, green, purple, yellow, orange or crimson red. The US version features the front cover photo airbrushed yellow, with the back cover photo, using either a yellow or white background.  A mid 80’s reissue of the album reverts to the original UK cover with the black & white front photo, and yellow background back cover. The album is remastered and reissued numerous times over the years since its first CD release in 1986, with expanded reissues on Rykodisc and Rhino Records. “My Aim” is also reissued as a hybrid SACD in Japan by Hip-O Records in 2011, with 180 gram vinyl LP pressing released by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2009, and UMe in 2015. “My Aim Is True” peaks at number thirty two on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Gold in the US by the RIAA.