Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
17 Jul 2017 Leave a comment
in Did You Ever Realize, General Posts Tags: alice cooper, billion dollar babies, Did You Ever Realize, tell me to my face, the hollies
24 Jun 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: bob dylan, free bird
(via SFGate)
You’ve seen that guy.
He emerges from some dark corner of the audience, maybe drunk, gawkily shoving his way through the crowd as the audience stands contented, mesmerized by the rock god onstage. He leans forward next to your ear, brutishly disturbing your daydream with a shrill, piercing shout:
“FREE BIRD!”
Eyes roll in the audience. The man’s face snarls with wretched delight. He is the only one laughing.
But just before your disgust impels you to jam your elbow into this troll’s ribcage, a guitar rings out. Everyone turns to the stage.
Holy hell, Bob Dylan is actually playing “Free Bird.”
To the shock of a Berkeley audience, Dylan closed out his set at the Greek Theater last week — which featured covers of some of Frank Sinatra’s most famous songs from his newest album “Fallen Angels” — with a take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 hit “Free Bird.”
24 Jun 2017 1 Comment
in General Posts Tags: electric guitar
(via The Washington Post) By Geoff Edgers June 22, 2017
The convention couldn’t sound less rock-and-roll — the National Association of Music Merchants Show. But when the doors open at the Anaheim Convention Center, people stream in to scour rows of Fenders, Les Pauls and the oddball, custom-built creations such as the 5-foot-4-inch mermaid guitar crafted of 15 kinds of wood.
Standing in the center of the biggest, six-string candy store in the United States, you can almost believe all is well within the guitar world.
Except if, like George Gruhn, you know better. The 71-year-old Nashville dealer has sold guitars to Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift. Walking through NAMM with Gruhn is like shadowing Bill Belichick at the NFL Scouting Combine. There is great love for the product and great skepticism. What others might see as a boom — the seemingly endless line of manufacturers showcasing instruments — Gruhn sees as two trains on a collision course.
“There are more makers now than ever before in the history of the instrument, but the market is not growing,” Gruhn says in a voice that flutters between a groan and a grumble. “I’m not all doomsday, but this — this is not sustainable.”
The numbers back him up. In the past decade, electric guitar sales have plummeted, from about 1.5 million sold annually to just over 1 million…
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/the-slow-secret-death-of-the-electric-guitar/?utm_term=.471017b5534a
12 Apr 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: the midnight special
(via Culture Sonar) by John Visconti
Before MTV, VH1, or, for that matter, YouTube and Vevo, chances to watch footage of your favorite musicians in action were fairly rare. Sure, bands would occasionally pop up on The Dean Martin Show and Sonny & Cher or lip sync on American Bandstand or Soul Train, but one of the only showcases for live rock was NBC’s weekly late night series The Midnight Special (1973-81). While there are DVD compilations from the show, frustratingly no easy streaming of the entire series exists. Below are six videos — from the “Legendary Performances” DVD set — suggesting that someone needs to stream these shows in their entirety pronto. Who owns a DVD player nowadays?
29 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: shondells, tommy james
(via CultureSonar)
How would you feel if a mobster cheated you out of $30 million, and threatened your life in the process? “Grateful” might not be your top answer, but that’s how 60’s/70’s hitmaker Tommy James really feels. James enjoyed a career most anyone would envy. With his band, The Shondells, Tommy sold over 100 million records worldwide and enjoyed 32 Billboard Hot 100 charting hits, 23 gold singles and 9 platinum albums. His hits include “Crystal Blue Persuasion”; “Mony, Mony”; “I Think We’re Alone Now”; “Hanky Panky”; “Draggin’ The Line”; and “Sweet Cherry Wine.” His songs have been covered by major artists including Prince, Joan Jett, Billy Idol, Bruce Springsteen, Carlos Santana, REM, Kelly Clarkson, Dolly Parton, Boyz ll Men and even the Boston Pops.
But before all of that, there was Morris Levy and Roulette Records…
Read more and hear the podcast here: http://www.culturesonar.com/podcast/tommy-james-podcast/
26 Mar 2017 2 Comments
in Best of the Blog, General Posts
(via Purple Clover) by Jess Tardy
The casting call found its way to me by email, a strange, urgent request from a booking agent who’d previously altogether ignored me. A beautiful young woman was planning her memorial service, he wrote. She was just weeks, if not days, from her death, and she wished for the story of her life to be told through a series of her favorite songs, and for those songs to be sung by an Eva Cassidy-ish singer.
I’d recently returned to Boston from a doomed stint in Nashville. A development deal with a major label went south, and I fled north with my hat in my hand. I joined a wedding band upon my return and was promptly fired for refusing to sing a Destiny’s Child cover. I sulked at a copyediting job by day and played a few divey gigs singing sad Dinah Washington songs by night. I was bummed out and broke, the subject of me and my tanked music career a sore one, my future a big, hazy question mark. Even 1,100 miles from Music Row, I felt surrounded by singer-songwriter types bent on making it, frenetically promoting shows and breathlessly extolling their latest recording projects. They made me tired. I didn’t see the point in singing, for fun or profit. I didn’t have the heart for it anymore.
When the agent offered me the memorial service performance, I took it anyway. It was a sad way to make rent, but beggars can’t be choosers. I assumed it would be just another weird, unfulfilling rent gig on my resume, like the time I sang the national anthem at a near-deserted horse track. Nothing I’d ever want to tell anyone about, and certainly not a game changer…
Read more: http://www.purpleclover.com/relationships/3849-songs-key-amy/
Every Moment Has A Song 