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Buck Owens - Act Naturally
So there I was, listenin' away to Buck Owens, when he commences to singin' "Open Up Your heart." My ears wagged, and did a double take, as I recalled hearing that very same tune on TV back when I was a young 'un.
The Buck Owens was a change of pace from listening to King Tubby Meets Scientist at the Dub Station this morning
Buck Owens. Nice.
Now I'm on Sidney Bechet, off a contraband record I picked up in the DDR.
I listened to a great Dave Brubeck special last night while the Canucks were fumbling away on CBC. If I had chosen to stay up it was being followed by a T. Monk special. Brubeck is still great at 90.
I used to hum that as a tyke too! "Open up your heart and let the sun shine in!"
But later - as a teenager - I was far more moved by this version of Let the Sunshine In. Still am, I guess. What a change from one decade to another.
The Bongettes got me one of those eyepawed electronic gramophones for Father's Day, so last night we uprooted a bunch of tunes onto it. Here's what I listened to on the walk to work this morning:
"No Quarter" - from Led Zep's The Song Remains the Same
All of Six Days of Paper Ladies by Humphrey and the Dumptrucks
Side One and a couple of other tunes from Scatterlings by Juluka
The only record (cassette, actually) I got in the DDR wasn't contraband, it was a DDR pressing of T-Rex "Children of the Revolution". I seriously doubt that Erich Honnecker paid Marc Bolan any royalties.
As for East German artists like City and the Inchtabokatables, those I picked up in the west.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p0M1Sn-jNw
I have seven Slim Gaillard CDs uprooted onto the eyepod. I've been listening to these, played in "shuffle" mode, lately.
I can't get over how technology has made more types of music more accessible. I downloaded these records, although I do have a couple of other Slim Gaillard CDs.
Not that long ago I had trouble finding anything by this guy. I went so far as to buy a broken record (a chunk was busted off the outside, so a couple of songs were missing) that included "Cement Mixer" at a flea market, just because I had no other source for Slim's music. Later I got a buddy to tape about three or four Gaillard tunes from a jump blues LP he had, so at least I had a cassette with a few songs.
I also once paid way too much dough for a used Charlie Parker record, just because it included "Slim's Jam."
Oh, a jazz fan ... why am I not surprised? :)
Billy Bragg: Never Buy The Sun
I'm actually watching and listening to Joan Baez: How Sweet The Sound on PBS - two hours and forty-five minutes (interrupted with about a half hour of PBS fundraising). She's had an amazing career of music and activism (has performed for 53 years now) and had an important impact on my life: having listened to her music for about six years, at age 18 I decided to be an anti-war pacifist, and have remained true to this ever since. That year - 1968 - my first year of protest - I was picked up by the cops in Ottawa for demonstrating against the Viet Nam War in front of the old American Embassy on Wellington Street and burning the American flag, along with a dozen League Of Young Socialists compatriots. Released later - after having been fingerprinted and photographed. I'm amazed I ever was able to enter the USA - which I have done on many occasions, as I used to vacation in both Vermont and New Mexico (my girlfriend was American). In 2000 I tried to enter the White Sands missile weapons testing range in New Mexico to protest, but was blocked by a guard with a machine gun. I wanted to enter the facility and sit down in front of their latest weaponry, cause an international incident if I could, to draw attention to outrageous spending on weapons while people were starving in the US. All I had with me was a Pentax camera. I have photos, however, of their museum exhibit next to the parking lot - I was told if I aimed my camera in the direction of the testing range, it would be confiscated. It was a new expensive camera, so I didn't take the risk. But their mothballed missile weapons display was pretty impressive by itself. (In the background I could see huge long 18-wheelers with stuff wrapped in canvas so nothing could be viewed) I'll post photos if I ever figure how to move my photos online. Like I said, she's had an enormous influence on my life. I have almost all of Joan Baez's albums - on vinyl, cassette, and CD. I don't think anyone sings Dylan's songs better than Joanie and Dylan himself.
ETA: Nothing to do with music, but it follows the narrative above: White Sands testing new laser weapon system (2009)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/163148/top-ten-labor-day-songs
Billy Bragg reccommended a recent Ry Cooder song for this Labour Day. It's called No Banker Left Behind.
Caissa listens to Jazz eh? I wonder what else we might have in common....
---
As a jazz fan I have the self-imposed duty to explore "different stuff", and I found some old Eno "ambient music" that I put on late at night with the lights down low. Great for acid trips I suppose, lol. [kidding!!]"My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" is a fav.
Adrian Belew and Fripp, the "1984 era King Crimson" is along the same lines.
---
But REALLY GREAT music is Robbie Robertson's two "native american" and "Redboy" CDs. What makes it great is the harmonies applied to traditional native chanting, and the perfection of arrangements and production that comes from Robbie's professionalism over so many years, so many albums, so much studio time.The rhythmns move your feet for you. I really love this stuff.
Robbie Robertson is a real Canadian icon.
I love the peyote healing song from those albums.
I've put together a mix of my latest favorite songs. Listen to it here.
I was listening to Collapse Into Now and checking out the Globe's website and ran across this.
Is it appropriate to observe they lasted about three times longer than the Beatles?
This is what Toronto sounds like this September. Music from evalyn parry, Red Slam Collective, Amai Kuda et Les Bois, Saidah Baba Talibah, Ian Kamau and others.
What's new in the rest of Canada?
If I wasn't completely deaf before, I probably soon will be - I'm going through my reggae collection on headphones while I'm reading babble and other forums.
Today:
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Natty Dread; Legend; Catch A Fire (Catchfire???)
Toots and the Maytals: Millenium Collection (including, get this: a reggae version of "Take Me Home, Country Roads"
)
The Best Of Johnny Nash
Jimmy Cliff : The Harder They Come
Peter Tosh: Equal Rights, Legalize It
Lessig uploaded a speech he gave in Portland Oregon Oct. 28 2010 focusing on striking at the root of corruption. Musicians went on to make a plethora of songs from it.
Here are some of my favs:
http://ccmixter.org/files/zep_hurme/31607
http://ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/31651
Manfred Mann "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" - wow!
(I used to listen to this while growing up in 1960s Ottawa)
Wow that's an oldie, BB. Okay, here goes... Fancoise Hardy, All the boys and girls
The Doors: LA Woman
Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed
John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band (brutal stuff)
Blox Box: Strike It Up yeah baby this band is gonna play my tune
INXS: What you need
Bowie: rebel rebel They really weren't sure if I was a boy or a girl ... long story
Gen X: dancing with myself
Eric Burdon and the Animals: Sky Pilot / To Love Somebody (45 RPM single)
Thanks for the Lessig speech, ebodyknows!
And Boom Boom: love the Stones (Gimme Shelter is one of my all-time favourite rock songs) and LA Woman. Did you know that wonderfully strange album turned 40 this month?)
I've been listening to Jelly Roll Morton on the ivories when I'm not listening to X's Los Angeles.
Yeah, all the good stuff is rapidly aging, as am I, arthritis and all.
ps: did you know the Animals recorded a song called "Boom Boom"? (rock trivia)
Stones? I lllike it!
...and, I used to have this album: Tommy James & the Shondelles "Cellophane Symphony". Or at least, it was my hippie big sister's album I absconded with after she moved in with the flower people across the street for a year. I remember them because they put flowers in my blond hair and flew box kites in the field all summer long. I think Crimson and Clover was all I listened to on that one. Over and over.
"Mony Mony" is what got me listening to TJ&TS all those many decades ago. Probably the most annoying song ever recorded!
ETA: aw, crap, now I've got a "Mony Mony" earworm. Damn you, Fidel!
I'm listening to African Guitar Summit at the moment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Guitar_Summit
LOL!