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P U N M A S T E R' S M U S I C W I R E b y D a v i d G r o s s
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May 26, 2012
*** All the news that's fit to be tied ***
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* THE HARDEST WORKING NEWSLETTER IN SHOW BUSINESS *
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LIVE ON THE AIRWAVES - THE ROCKABILLY ROADHOUSE WITH BIG DAVE
FOR BIG FUN, LISTEN TO "THE ROCKABILLY ROADHOUSE WITH BIG DAVE".... FRIDAY NIGHTS from 9pm-11pm (pt) and SATURDAY MORNINGS from 9am-11am (pt) for TWO BIG HOURS of amped-up, high-octane roots music....guaranteed to kick start your weekend! STREAM IT LIVE at http://www.krsh.com or listen to The Krush in Sonoma County, CA at KRSH 95.9 FM. Also available on your favorite radio app on your mobile device.
STREAMING LIVE ON iTUNES (Look for "The Krush" in the 'Eclectic Radio' category)......Tell 40 or 50 of your closest friends!
Select show archives available here: at http://www.krsh.com/Rockabilly-Roadhouse-Archive/8911085
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It's time to get down to the Main Gazane!
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Robin Gibb / Bee Gees
1949 - 2012
http://www.robingibb.com/robin.html
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Donna Summer / Queen of Disco
1948 - 2012
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Donald "Duck" Dunn - Legendary bass man of Booker T & The MGs & countless Stax sessions
1941 - 2012
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Chuck Brown, Godfather of Go-Go, Dies at 75
Chuck Brown was a guitarist and singer who is affectionately called "the Godfather of Go-go". Go-go is a subgenre of funk music developed in and around Washington, D.C. in the mid- and late-1970s.
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John Lydon boosts his Public Image with new album
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As bad boy lead singer of the anarchic, trail-blazing and short-lived 1970s punk band the Sex Pistols, John Lydon (then Johnny Rotten) snarled and spat his way across a shocked society and music scene still pleasantly half-high from the mellow 1960s.
Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Lydon left the Pistols in 1978 to form the more experimental - if less commercially successful - Public Image Ltd., and for the next 15 years the band's shifting lineup released a dozen albums and toured the world.
PiL finally sputtered out in 1993, but now Lydon has revived the band, and he talked to Reuters about their new album, ‘This is PiL,' their tour and how butter changed his life.
Q: It's been 20 years since the last PiL album. Why did it take you so long?
A: "Not my choice. The record company and contract obligations kept me in a state of non-recoupment and I had to outwait them. It was a very difficult time for me, almost like a state of mental starvation. You're gagging at the bit to work, and music's my life. But I found that the law worked against me, all the corporations and accountants. So I had a very negative view of business-as-usual."
Q: So what changed?
A: "Three years ago a British butter company approached me with the wonderfully loony idea of me promoting butter (laughs). How brilliant, I thought! Insane, right? Not bonkers money, but it got me working again. And I found everyone involved to be so honorable and decent that I was thrilled. And with that money, I put the band back together."
Q: Were you a bit rusty, despite all the butter?
A: (Laughs) "I was well-buttered, and firstly we wanted to tour. That was important to get me chops and respect back. So we did two years touring, and gradually the idea of a new album came together, along with forming our own record label, PiL Official. And thanks to the tours, we were able to finance it all ourselves."
Q: Is it true you recorded the album at Stevie Winwood's studio?
A: "Yeah, it was the only place we could afford. It was his barn, in the middle of the Cotswolds, with nothing for inspiration but sheep - and I don't like sheep particularly."
Q: Did Stevie Winwood come to the sessions?
A: "He did, but only with one ear to the barn door, and then he pretended to be watering the daisies. So he never contributed, but it was great he rented us the studio."
Q: How did the sessions go?
A: "Fantastic! The 30 years of heartbreak, arguments, problems, animosities and bad management have led to good management, good interaction between band members and a wonderful sense of freedom. It's been worth the wait. So now I view myself as 50 years young. And the next 50 are going to be nothing but gems."
Q: How's the tour going?
A: "Great. We'll start in America in September and I can't wait. Everyone gets on and it's a healthy working relationship. I didn't know there was any such thing! Look at my past. I started in a band that all hated each other apparently, and it's taken me this long to learn what I'm doing and get it all in order. But we're working on hatred. We'll get to that on the next record (laughs)."
Q: What's your view of the music business today?
A: "There isn't one. The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop. But this modernization of sampling and regurgitating of old ideas isn't healthy either. Live music is healthy."
Q: What about TV shows like "American Idol" and "The Voice"?
A: "They're dragging us back into Las Vegas wannabes. And there's the painful tone of humiliation, the smirking at who gets voted off. And people now think that's the universe of music. That's utterly corrupting too."
Q: Back in '77, London's punks protested the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations and the Sex Pistolsfamously performed "God Save the Queen" sailing down the Thames, mocking her river trip. Ironically, she's outlasted all the punks and now it's her Diamond Jubilee. Are you still anti-monarchy?
A: "I never was. But if I'm expected to pay taxes for this kind of hierarchy that demands my oath of obedience, then I'm going to be telling it what to do with my money. Simply said, but simply believed. That's a concept not fully understood 35 years ago. But I was right, wasn't I."
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Gregg Allman is getting married for the seventh time.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member has told several interviewers this week that he's engaged to his 24-year-old girlfriend, Shannon Williams, and Allman's publicist and manager confirmed the news Friday morning.
Allman talked about the unexpected love he felt for Williams in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year for a story about his memoir, "My Cross to Bear," but admitted he was leery about taking the relationship further because of his past difficulties in his love life. But Allman told Howard Stern, Piers Morgan and a SiriusXM town hall audience this week that he's taken the relationship to the next stage.
Little is known about Williams, who entered the 64-year-old rock pioneer's life after a liver transplant and a run of health difficulties. Allman told the AP in a love-struck voice he met her while in Florida on Friday, Jan. 13, and "I am totally in love."
Allman's failed marriages make up a significant part of "My Cross to Bear," a best-seller after its release May 1. He offers a rare glimpse into his private life, detailing the rise and collapse of his relationship with Cher, among other topics. It's clear his failed relationships haunt him. He told the AP he has a distrust of the institution of marriage and has been left with the feeling that few, if any, of his wives were actually deeply in love with him.
No date has been set for the marriage.
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Online:
http://www.greggallman.com
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Howard Stern interviews Gregg Allman (05/22/12)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kl8ZhXP-Yk
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Dylan, Albright to receive Presidential Medal of Freedom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Musical legend Bob Dylan, novelist Toni Morrison and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright are among 13 people who will be awarded the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, byPresident Barack Obama next week, the White House said.
The presentations will be made at the White House on May 29.
Also chosen to receive the award were former senator and astronautJohn Glenn, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens,Israeli President Shimon Peres and Jan Karski, an officer in the Polish underground who carried the first eye-witness accounts of the Nazi Holocaust to the outside world.
The award also will be given to John Doar, a key figure in the Justice Department during the civil rights era; William Foege, who helped spread smallpox immunizations around the world; Gordon Hirabayashi, who fought Japanese-American World War Two internment; civil rights campaigner Dolores Huerta; Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low; and former University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt.
Peres will not attend the ceremony and will receive his medal at a separate event, the White House said.
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Musician Doc Watson has surgery at NC hospital
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Grammy-winning folk musicianDoc Watson is in critical condition but improving at a North Carolina hospital after undergoing colon surgery.
Folklore Productions represents Watson and says he is improving after the surgery Thursday night at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. A hospital spokeswoman said he remained in critical condition Friday morning.
Watson's daughter, Nancy, told The Associated Press that the 89-year-old Watson fell Monday.
The blind singer and guitarist has won several Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award. He also received the National Medal of the Arts.
He's known as a master of the flatpicking style of guitar playing, He also started Merlefest, an annual gathering of musicians in Wilkesboro named after his son, who died in a tractor accident in 1985.
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Thanks to Dave Basner for these news stories...
PAUL SIMON WON’T RECORD WITH ART GARFUNKEL AGAIN
The last time that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel recorded together was for their 1970 album Bridge Over Troubled Water, and it seems that things will stay that way. Paul told the BBC that he won’t ever record with Art again. The pair was set to tour in 2010 but scrapped the trek due to a problem with Garfunkel’s vocal chords. Simon blamed that issue on thwarting any plans for a reunion in the future, adding that he “would just as soon not go back and visit the past.”
TIDBIT: The last time Simon and Garfunkel performed together was at the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fameconcerts in 2009.
GRATEFUL DEAD MUSIC ADDED TO NATIONAL RECORDING REGISTRY
The Grateful Dead’s music has been added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, which only includes recordings that helped shape the American cultural landscape. The band’s famous 1977 Barton Hall concert has been named a sound of cultural significance. It’s been cited as one of the band’s best performances and hailed for its sound quality. Drummer Mickey Hart spoke about his old group to the Associated Press, saying, “The Grateful Dead just touched a nerve, and it’s still relevant in many ways today.” Other artists with music going into the Recording Registry include Bo Diddley, Parliament, Donna Summer, Prince and Dolly Parton. Learn more at LOC.gov.
TIDBIT: Mickey actually had a hand in helping to create the registry, pushing for a law in Congress in 2000.
SPINAL TAP ACTOR STRUCK BY A CAR
Actor Michael McKean, star of This Is Spinal Tap and Laverne and Shirley, was hit by a car Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan. According to E! News, a car ran into the actor causing him to bleed from the head. He was transported to St. Luke’s Hospital in critical condition. However, his condition was eventually upgraded to stable after a doctor’s examination and the discovery of just a broken leg. According to his publicist, McKean is expected to be okay. McKean was scheduled to perform Wednesday night at 8 PM in Gore Vidal’s The Best Manon Broadway. According to his publicist, “It’s the first time he will have ever missed a curtain in his entire life.”
OUT THIS WEEK
Tuesday, May 22nd
Slash – Apocalyptic Love
Joe Bonamassa – Driving Towards the Daylight
Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney – Ram [Special Edition]
Joey Ramone – Ya Know?
Great White – Elation
Tedeschi Trucks Band – Everybody’s Talkin’ [Live]
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Thanks to Richard Young...
Jack Bruce On Music & LIfe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixttxXjviTU
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Thanks to Bob Merlis
ERIC BURDON RELEASES THE MOST PERSONAL ALBUM OF HIS CAREER
‘TIL YOUR RIVER RUNS DRY OUT SEPTEMBER 18
SNEAK PEEK OF FIRST SINGLE "MEMORIAL DAY" TO BE RELEASED AS A FREE AUDIO STREAM TO FANS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
DAYTROTTER SESSION POSTING FRIDAY MAY 25 INCLUDES 4 BURDON CLASSICS, RECORDED WITH BRENDAN BENSON AND ERIC'S BAND DURING SXSW 2012
Eric Burdon has completed his most personal album to date, titled ‘Til Your River Runs Dry to be released September 18 by ABKCO Records. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and hailed by Rolling Stone as one of the “100 Greatest Voices of All Time,” Burdon has long forged new ground while maintaining a commanding presence in the music marketplace as front man of The Animals, with WAR at its inception and simply as Eric Burdon. In 2012, Eric’s influence is enjoying resurgence with both new artists and superstars.
During his 2012 SXSW keynote address Bruce Springsteen said of The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place," "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. 'Born to Run,' 'Born in the USA,' everything I've done for the past 40 years, including all the new ones." At that very moment, in another part of Austin, Eric was jamming with emerging artist Brendan Benson for a Daytrotter session which will go live on Daytrotter.com, Friday May 25, 2012. Just a few hours after Springsteen’s “confession,” he and Burdon joined forces for an electrifying duet on ‘We Gotta Get Out of This Place.”
As a special and very timely preview of ‘Til Your River Runs Dry, one track from the album, aptly titled “Memorial Day,” premieres via audio stream this Memorial Day weekend. Click here to listen and feel free to share: http://soundcloud.com/abkco-1/memorial-day
‘Til Your River Runs Dry features original tracks written by Eric Burdon including “Bo Diddley Special,” “The River Is Rising,” “Water,” “Wait” and and the aforementioned “Memorial Day.” ABKCO will support the album’s release with an extensive promotion and marketing campaign in conjunction with a full slate of tour dates by Burdon.
The album was produced by Burdon and Tony Braunagel and recorded in New Orleans in 2010 and 2011 in California at Playback Studios in Santa Barbara and at Ultratone Recording in Studio City where Eric recorded his last two albums, My Secret Life and Soul of a Man. The new album was mixed by Ed Cherney and mastered by Doug Sax and Eric Boulanger at The Mastering Lab in Ojai, California.
Eric recently discussed ‘Til Your River Runs Dry and its lengthy gestation period:
“I started feeling that I needed to use this album as a catharsis, to express my own truth. It took longer than any other album, not because of time spent in the studio, but because of the subject matter of the songs I wanted to put out there,” Eric explains. The result is a deeply intimate, honest self-portrait as well as unsparing look at religion, politics and the environment. “During the making of this record, we lost Bo Diddley, one of my greatest influences. There were many things I would have said to him, if I’d realized that his time was limited.”
"I traveled to New Orleans to record with the Fats Domino’s band, something I wrote when Fats was presumed missing in the days after Katrina. The whole Katrina situation touched me deeply. It’s the birthplace of all the music that I love. A friend sent me a photo of Fats being rescued and it brought me such joy. I knew I had to put in words – and music – the relief that I felt. The struggle I had writing the material for this record was intense."
"Global warming, the potential disaster of the water crisis.. too much water, too little water. I chose the title, because there are so many times in one’s life, when one feels he has nothing more to offer. But no, my river has not run dry. I offer this as a bit of hope that we, as the human race, will find new sources of replenishment and inspiration."
"I never looked for money or fame, but I always knew I had to follow my own journey. As a kid in Newcastle, it was extremely unlikely that I would have an international career as a singer, lasting 50 years. I’ve been very fortunate. I’m a survivor, who doesn’t take his good fortune for granted."
"When I started out with the Animals I never dreamed that I would grow old, much less be singing on stage at the age of 70,” said Eric. “There I was, in my twenties, singing “When I was Young,” as if I was already an old man. Now, I can look back at a life with many ups and downs, and thankfully, I can reflect on where I am and where I’ve been. I’m privileged to be able to look back at the many paths and highways that I’ve traveled. At this point in my life, I’m very comfortable in this place where I am.”
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Thanks to Cary Baker for the following releases.....
JON DEE GRAHAM TURNS OFF-THE-CLOCK STUDIO SESSIONS INTO GARAGE SALE
Gift becomes emotionally compelling disc due June 28
AUSTIN, Texas — Forget the spring-cleaning metaphors. Though Jon Dee Graham chose Garage Sale as the title of his June 28 release on Freedom Records, the 11 songs it contains are anything but cast-offs. It’s just that, unlike the tracks on his seven previous solo releases, they weren’t carefully written in advance, clustered around a theme, then recorded at breakneck speed.
In fact, Graham confesses, this time around, he initially had no idea he was creating an album at all. He was simply using a generous gift from John Harvey and Mary Podio, his pals at Austin’s Top Hat Recording: one day a month of studio time to spend as he pleased. He’d show up with a skeleton of an idea — or no concept at all — and they’d just experiment. (They called themselves “the Panda Project”; Graham has a thing for bears.) Before he knew it, he had several release-worthy tracks. They capture an adventurous side he allowed to surface because, he says, nothing was at stake. There was no attempt to make a statement; heck, there wasn’t even a plan to expose these songs to the public.
“Six months in, we started looking at each other and no one wanted to say it, but we all realized, ‘Yeah, we’re making a record,’” Graham recalls. “But we didn’t change the process. It was beautiful. Recording without having the clock breathing down my neck was delicious.”
Though Graham regards these songs as “little orphans that all got together under their own power,” there’s no question they’re his — and they’re every bit as compelling as anything this Americana troubadour and former Skunk/True Believer/L.A. sideman (and law-school dropout) has done before.
The opener, “Unafraid,” serves as what he calls “the mission statement.” As cymbal taps overtake an elegiac organ and thumping kick drum, Graham declares in his famously cigarette-scratched voice, “I’ve pulled the thorn from the paw of the lion/I’ve snatched the fang from the jaw of the snake.”
After raising a son with a life-threatening illness and almost losing his own life in a 2008 car crash, Graham says, “With everything I’ve been through, what is the point of being afraid now? I’ve pretty much seen the best and the worst that I and the world have to offer. And we were pretty damned fearless making this record.”
Whether he’s drawing on personal experience or knitting vivid imagery into starkly real tales, Graham unequivocally affirms just what a master he is at turning a melody, a beat and some words into songs filled with so much emotional intensity, they almost burn. In “The Orphan’s Song,” he relates, “If you need some help/Some help to see you through/Then stand next to me/And I will stand next to you. I will be your brother for tonight.” In “Yes Yes,” he freezes time with the line, “and somehow everything holds its breath.”
Then there’s “Just Like That,” in which he laments that he can’t freeze time: “The perfect moments, they come and go/Like days and weeks and months they go/No matter how you hold on/you think you know . . .”
Maybe that’s why Graham has been working on so many different projects of late. In March, he and pals Freedy Johnston and Susan Cowsill — a.k.a. the Hobart Brothers & Lil’ Sis Hobart — released At Least We Have Each Other, also on Freedom Records. Graham also has stepped up his visual arts career after staging his first solo exhibit in 2010. With fellow musicians/artists Jon Langford (Waco Brothers, the Mekons) and Walter Silas-Humara (the Silos), Graham hopes to organize a 12-city exhibit that would include opening-night performances in each city.
Named Austin Musician of the Year at the 2006 Austin Music Awards, Graham is a three-time inductee into the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame for his solo, Skunks and True Believers work. He also was the subject of a 2006 documentary titled Swept Away. His last solo album, It’s Not As Bad As It Looks, was named for his optimistic utterance to first-responders after his accident.
But Graham’s always been a glass-half-full kind of guy. And recording this album, on which he played most of the instruments himself, may have made him even more so.
“One of the things I learned was to trust my instincts and my process more than I ever have,” Graham says. “It made me a lot more open . . . and I think it sounds like that, too. The scope of it, the breadth of it, is a lot wider than anything I’ve ever done.”
Come to think of it, this album is the embodiment of a garage sale: You show up with no expectations, but with enough digging, you unearth amazing treasures.
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ROUNDER TO RELEASE RARE RECORDINGS OF PIVOTAL NEW ORLEANS R&B
Complete digital release of Ric and Ron record labels,
plus box set of ultra-rare material on ten 45 RPM records
BURLINGTON, Mass. — Rounder Records has released the complete catalog of the pivotal New Orleans R&B labels, Ric Records and Ron Records. All 140 songs released by the labels on 45 RPM singles, by artists such as Johnny Adams, Eddie Bo, Al Johnson and Irma Thomas, will be released on seven 20-song digital albums.
In addition, in conjunction with the Numero Group and Ace Records, Rounder will release a box set of ten 45 RPM records of almost all newly discovered material, including the audition recording by Johnny Adams for his first recording, "I Won’t Cry."
Between 1958 and 1962, the Ric and Ron labels captured the sound of a unique period in New Orleans music, when the first era of classic R&B was waning, and before the sounds of funk and soul music became the city’s new signature. In these recordings, you can hear incipient funk in Eddie Bo, and the sanctified sensibility of soul music in everything Johnny Adams sang. It was, in every sense, its own era, when shuffling second-line parade beats laid the foundation for a new and uniquely New Orleans groove, and musicians broke free of the strictures of standard jump blues and 6/8 ballads.
The box set, From the Vaults of Ric & Ron Records: Rare and Unreleased Recordings 1958-1962, affords us an incisive window into the workings of these small but significant record labels, with, among other treasures, demo recordings of Eddie Bo's “Every Dog Has Its Day” and Al Johnson’s “Carnival Time.” In the finished recordings, also included, there is a high level of musicianship and craft, with arrangements by Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack and guitarist Edgar Blanchard. The sound of the records, often made in Cosimo Matassa’s legendary studio, is superb, especially with these new transfers made from the original tapes. And hearing this music on these new records is just the way they were intended to be heard, one song at a time at 45 RPM.
The songs on the box set, which is limited to a worldwide edition of 1,500, will not be available digitally for the time being. They include:
Johnny Adams: “I Won’t Cry” (audition),* “Who Are You” (audition),* “My Baby Done Closed the Door” (demo),* “No Way Out for Me,”* Walking the Floor Over You”*
Edgar Blanchard & The Gondoliers: “Blues Cha Cha,”* “Bopsody in Blue”*
Eddie Bo: “Nothing With Out You,”* “Satisfied With Your Love,”* “Every Dog Has Its Day,” “Every Dog Has Its Day” (demo),* “Ain’t You Ashamed,”* “I'll Do Anything for You”*
Al Johnson: “Carnival Time, Carnival Time” (demo),* “Lena, Let Come What May”(demo)*
Barbara Lynn: “Found My Good Thing,”* “Question of Love”*
Paul Marvin: “Hurry Up” (alternate take),* “Goofer”*
*previously unreleased
The complete Ric and Ron recordings are available at all digital stores.
The box set is distributed in the U.S. by the Numero Group, and in the U.K. by Ace Records.
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JIMBO MATHUS TO RELEASE BLUE LIGHT,
A SIX-SONG EP ON BIG LEGAL MESS RECORDS JULY 20
Mississippi musician, veteran of Squrrel Nut Zippers
and South Memphis String Band, will tour in May
OXFORD, Miss. — The late Memphis producer Jim Dickinson once called Jimbo Mathus “the singing voice of Huck Finn.” Outside the South, Mathus is likely best known as the ringleader of the defunct hyper-ragtime outfit Squirrel Nut Zippers, or as the catalyst for Buddy Guy’s breakthrough Sweet Tea in 2001 and Guy’s Grammy-winning Blues Singer album.
This July, Mathus will soon release a six-song vinyl EP on the Big Legal Mess label titled Blue Light, which he recorded with producer Bruce Watson at Watson’s Water Valley, Miss., studio, Dialed Back Sound.
Blue Light perfectly captures Mathus’ style of Southern musical alchemy. From the proto garage rock of “Haunted John” (“up and down Saint Charles/rides the streetcar all night long”), to the sideways-with-the-law Southern rock of “Blue Light” to the dead-end gospel-fueled country weeper of “Burn the Honky Tonk,” Mathus shows the diversity of his vision. The conviction of his singing and storytelling will make you believe every word is true. “I’m singing from absolute experience on this recording. Raw stories of real events,” he says.
Engineer Lynn Bridges and Dial Back Sound enhanced the artist’s raw, rough and tumble approach, adding warm textures and mournful pedal steel to make a sound akin to a late ’60s roadhouse jukebox.
In his native Mississippi, and throughout the South, Mathus is recognized as the prolific songwriter of born-in-the-bone Southern music, the torchbearer for Deep South mythology and culture. Think Delta highways, bowling-pin Budweisers and “interplanetary honky-tonk” for the masses.
His credits include the North Mississippi Allstars’ Electric Blue Watermelon, and he was Grammy-nominated as a member of Luther Dickinson & the Sons of Mudboy for the Jim Dickinson memorial album Onward and Upward. Mathus also recently joined forces with Luther and Alvin Youngblood Hart, forming the retro-roots “supergroup” the South Memphis String Band.
Beyond his solo work, Mathus hit paydirt with fans and critics alike in 2011 with the release of Confederate Buddha, on which he’s backed by what he says is “the best band in the land,” the Tri-State Coalition. Featuring solid talent cut from the same Delta cloth, the band’s sound is “ . . . a true Southern amalgam of blues, white country, soul and rock ’n’ roll,” according to bandleader Mathus. The group formed when Mathus was living in Memphis, Tennessee, and for nearly a decade, he’s been working with these same players — fellow Mississippians Justin Showah (bass, vocals), Eric Carlton (keyboards) and Arkansan Matt Pierce (guitar). They brought in drummer Ryan Rogers last year, and together the boys laid down the sound that is White Buffalo, the forthcoming 2012 release from Jimbo Mathus & the Tri-State Coalition, produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel (Steve Earle, The Bottle Rockets, Del Lords).
Of the band’s recording, Mathus says, “White Buffalo is a collaboration with our producer, ‘Roscoe’ Ambel, who brought a fierceness, a keen edge to our sound. I’ve never been prouder of any recording.” Ambel offers, “There is an effortless, natural feeling that comes from Jimbo & Tri-State’s music that in today’s times cannot be mistaken for anything less than ‘great.’”
And this from Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes), writing in the liner notes for Confederate Buddha: “The Confederate Buddha, the Katfish King, people have a lot of names on a riverboat. Just a little time to dream, dark and murky, only to emerge fire and brimstone. Lightning and kudzu wisdom and wine oh . . . He’s feeling fine, besides either you look cool with a gold tooth or you do not. So listen to the Mississippi mystic and believe . . .”
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WILLIE NILE’S “ONE GUITAR” SONG TO BE CENTERPIECE OF MULTI-CHARITY INITIATIVE
Will the tune break the Guinness record for “Most Recorded Song”?
Artists from all genres are invited to submit their covers.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Willie Nile’s “One Guitar” is set to be centerpiece of a multi-charity initiative, aiming to raise more than $500,000 and break the Guinness World Record for most recorded song.
Inspired by veteran NYC singer/songwriter Willie Nile, Concrete Marketing officially announces the launch of the One Guitar charity campaign. The brainchild of Concrete CEO Bob Chiappardi and song co-writer Willie Nile, the campaign has garnered support from such music industry innovators as 4Fini, ReverbNation, and Indaba Music.
This is an artist-driven charity effort with a twist. Unlike campaigns of the past that brought together high-profile musicians to collaborate on the recording of a single song, the One Guitarcampaign takes almost the opposite path: Artists and bands will each record their own version of the same song, and instead of one beneficiary, half the proceeds will go to the T.J. Martell Foundation and half to a participating charity of the artist’s choice. Willie Nile will donate all the publishing royalties generated by these charitable versions of the song.
Chiappardi explains, “With the One Guitar initiative we are looking to support a number of worthwhile charities and are doing so through several promotions organized by our different supporters. Kevin Lyman has graciously offered participating artists the chance to win a coveted spot on one of each of his tours next year; ReverbNation will be championing the cause by reaching out to its 2.25 million members inviting them to take part; and we are receiving invaluable support from companies like Indaba Music, who will help participating artists create their own version of the song.”
Here, established and emerging musicians are offered the chance to be involved creatively in the campaign itself, and be part of the attempt to smash the world record for the most recorded song in history; a record that currently stands at 3,049 versions. Artists from every genre are encouraged to participate, from rock to reggae, pop to punk, blues and beyond. To enlist support across the genres, Kevin Lyman has extended the offer of a spot for one band/artist on each of his countrywide tours embarking in 2013:
Van’s Warped Tour
Country Throwdown Tour
Rockstar Mayhem Festival (selected dates)
For a chance to win a spot on one of the above tours, artists are required to submit their version of the song through ReverbNation, where they can register for a free profile if they do not already have one.
Participation is easy. Artists should head over to http://www.oneguitar.org to hear the original version of “One Guitar,” read the lyrics and have the option to download pre-recorded stems for guitar, bass and drum parts of the song. The website also features more about the companies and charities involved with the campaign, and the song submission process.
“‘One Guitar’ is about what one guitar and one voice can do to help change the world.”
—Willie Nile
About . . .
Willie Nile
The New York Times called him “one of the most gifted singer-songwriters to emerge from the New York scene in years.” He has been hailed as a “one-man Clash” and counts amongst his fans Bono, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Jim Jarmusch and Little Steven, and has shared a stage with many of them.
Willie describes his song “One Guitar” as being “a song about what one guitar and one voice can do to change the world,” and goes on to say, “I still believe that a guitar, a voice and a good song can be a voice for change and for good in this world whether it’s on a global stage or at a local level.”
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PAUL THORN’S NEW ALBUM, WHAT THE HELL IS GOIN’ ON?,
SHIPS MAY 8. RELEASE TO BE CELEBRATED WITH
LIVE WEBCAST ON STAGEIT.COM
NPR All Things Considered, Bob Edwards Show and kudos from Lefsetz
Latest effort features songs by a who’s who of songwriters: Buddy Miller,
Elvin Bishop, Lindsey Buckingham, Rick Danko & Bobby Charles,
Wild Bill Emerson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Foy Vance, Donnie Fritts,
Paul Rodgers and Eli “Paperboy” Reed, to name a few.
TUPELO, Miss. — Paul Thorn will celebrate his new album What the Hell Is Goin’ On? (Perpetual Obscurity/Thirty Tigers, May 8) with a live webcast on StageIt.com (performance portal at http://bit.ly/IGYBI8) on Tuesday, May 8 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. During the event, the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter will discuss and play tracks off his new album from Watson’s Icehouse in Tupelo, Miss. All proceeds from the webcast, which allows fans to donate whatever they feel is a fair amount, will be given by Thorn to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis.
The album release will also be greeted with artist interviews on both NPR’s “All Things Considered” and on SiriusXM’s “The Bob Edwards Show,” with airdates to be announced. Thorn, who recently concluded his “Soul Salvation” tour with Ruthie Foster, will remain on the road continuously into early fall.
Music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz recently raved about the Elvin Bishop-penned title track: “You've got to check this out . . . It’s about the groove, the feel. And this track is so in the pocket it’s like you've just swallowed a jumping bean, you can’t help but get up from your seat and start flailing your limbs like Gumby. To paraphrase our forebear Ahmet Ertegun, this is the kind of cut that you hear on the radio that makes you jump out of bed and go to the all-night record store in your pajamas to buy. You won’t hear this on Top Forty radio. Paul Thorn is never going to be on American Idol, never mind Elvin Bishop, but this is the essence, this is what this wonderful business was built upon. SOUND!!!”
Thorn has completed a video for the title track "What the Hell Is Goin' On?" which may be viewed at http://youtu.be/HulJhHWTBTo.
Paul Thorn took an unexpected detour on the road to recording a follow-up to his most successful release, 2010’s Pimps and Preachers. After writing many discs of semi-autobiographical tunes that have drawn comparisons to John Hiatt and John Prine, Thorn — once hailed as the “Mark Twain of Americana” — decided to record an album of covers. “I wanted to take a break from myself,” he reveals, “do something different, and just have fun.”
No slouch as a songwriter himself, Paul chose songs from some of America’s greatest: Buddy Miller, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Elvin Bishop, Lindsey Buckingham, Rick Danko & Bobby Charles, Big Al Anderson, Foy Vance, Donnie Fritts and Eli “Paperboy” Reed among them. Delbert McClinton (singing on Wild Bill & Martha Emerson’s “Bull Mountain Bridge”) and Elvin Bishop (singing and playing guitar on his own “What the Hell Is Goin’ On?”) appear as guest performers on the album as well.
The idea for a covers album grew as Thorn encountered tunes that meant something important to him. “I would hear them in the tour van or I’d be at a festival and see someone perform them live,” Thorn says, “and I’d say, ‘That’s a great song, I wish I had written it!’” One thing all the writers have in common, according to Thorn, is that they are true artists. “They don’t just write songs in an effort to become popular or follow trends,” he explains. “At the risk of sounding corny, they write with their hearts. None of these songs are cookie-cutter tunes like you hear on the radio today. They all have real depth, which is very appealing to me.”
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THE ELECTRIC PRUNES COMPLETE REPRISE SINGLES
AND TIMI YURO COMPLETE LIBERTY SINGLES
HEADLINE JUNE RELEASES FROM REAL GONE MUSIC
Also due on June 26 are the Tokens,
New Christy Minstrels and Rita Pavone.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — With its June 26, 2012 releases, Real Gone Music will offer music fans too much to dream. Featured will be three definitive packages — the Electric Prunes’ The Complete Reprise Singles, Timi Yuro’s The Complete Liberty Singles and the New Christy Minstrels’ A Retrospective: 1962-1970 — as well as the Tokens’ It’s a Happening World and Rita Pavone’s The International Teen-Age Sensation, each with bonus tracks.
Though the Electric Prunes were responsible for some of the boldest and most experimental pop of the late ’60s, they always were, more than just about any band of their ilk, a singles-oriented act, at least in their earliest incarnation. In fact, according to vocalist James Lowe, the engineers at American Recording, where many of their early singles were recorded, used to transmit the single mixes to a radio in a car parked outside the studio to make sure the songs sounded good in the medium through which most people would hear them. As a result, the Prunes singles (including the 1967 smash hit “Too Much to Dream [Last Night]”) were punchier than their album counterparts, and were, above all, mono. Yet to date, no legitimate collection has ever compiled these singles, which span several band line-ups and several legendary producers (Dave Hassinger, David Axelrod) with very different visions, yet remain of remarkably consistent high quality. The Complete Reprise Singles features all 23 of their single sides, with notes by Richie Unterberger that include track commentary from the band and shots of the original singles themselves plus photos provided by lead singer James Lowe.
Before Amy Winehouse, before Adele, there was the Little Girl with the Big Voice, Timi Yuro, the greatest white soul singer of the ’60s, male or female. Previous Timi collections have featured after-the-fact stereo remixes or album tracks — no collection has concentrated on the actual recordings that made her famous, the singles that took her to the charts in the ’60s. Now, Real Gone Music’s The Complete Liberty Singles double-CD collection includes for the first time the A- and B-sides of all of the U.S. singles Timi released on Liberty Records during her two stints with the label, featuring the original mono single mixes, all fittingly remastered for CD release at Capitol Studios. Among the highlights are, of course, her recording of “Hurt” (also here in an Italian version in homage to Timi’s heritage), a performance so deeply emotional and mature that viewers of her first television performances were shocked to discover that she was (a) white, (b) a female (c) barely five feet tall and (d) a 20-year-old from Chicago; the Phil Spector production of “What’s A Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You),” in which his studio bombast met its match in Timi’s booming vocal, and the legendary Northern Soul single “It’ll Never Be Over for Me/As Long as There Is You,” which in its original 7” vinyl form trades for princely sums. Co-Producer Ed Osborne pens notes that trace Timi’s journey from Chicago to the charts along with a singles discography and photos. Listeners can find out why everybody from Elvis to Morrissey counted Timi among their favorite singers.
There has been a few New Christy Minstrels hits collections before, but none like The New Christy Minstrels: A Retrospective 1962-1970. Here, at last, is a comprehensive (75 minutes-plus), single-CD chronicle of the evolution of the folk group, beginning with their earliest recordings with founder Randy Sparks in 1962 through the turbulent ’60s and ending with a sampling of their first recordings in the next decade. Sequenced in chronological order, the 25 tracks have been carefully chosen to include their biggest hits (“Green Green,” “Today,” and “Saturday Night”), standout album tracks (“This Land Is Your Land,” “Preacher and the Bear,” “Julianne” and “Blacksmith of Brandywine”), as well as recordings that represent their best efforts to adapt to changing times (“The Girl From Ipanema,” “Highflyin’ Bird”). Featured are the voices of the key players who defined the early sound — Randy Sparks, Barry McGuire, Nick Woods, Art Podell and Karen Gunderson — as well as rare tracks by Bob Buchanan (later a member of the International Submarine Band with Gram Parsons) and a young fellow from Texas by the name of Kenny Rogers. The set also includes four Christy tracks making their CD debut and contains rare photos and behind-the-scenes liner notes by Christy historian Tom Pickles.
One has only to hear The Tokens’ remake of their 1961 hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (here entitled “Wimoweh 5½ Years Later”) that leads off the album It’s a Happening World to appreciate how far this vocal group and pop music in general had come by 1967. A loping bass line, Beatle-esque horn choruses and a jazzy baritone sax accompany the trademark yodeling melody lines, and that same happy marriage of flawless vocal arrangements with studio experimentation permeates this entire album, which sounds at times like such baroque pop favorites as the Merry-Go-Round, the Left Banke and Pet Sounds. But it wasn’t just the heady times that gave the album its flavor — legendary engineer Brooks Arthur was behind the board for this one, and the arrangements were by Jimmy Wisner of Kokomo fame. An added bonus is the Tokens’ non-LP Warner Brothers singles, which at times range even farther afield than the album — “Animal” in particular could have come fit right into a Flo & Eddie album. Original Token Phil Margo makes sense of it all in Richie Unterberger’s liner notes.
Record labels have never been accused of going easy on the hype, but with the title of the 1964 album The International Teen-Age Sensation, RCA was simply stating a fact: Rita Pavone was an international teen-age sensation. After winning a talent contest in 1962 at the age of 16, her first singles shot to the top of the charts in Germany, Argentina, Spain and in her native Italy, where her recording of “Cuore (Heart)” was #1 for nine full weeks. She then was brought to the biggest market of all, the United States, to record this album with producer Joe Rene in 1964, an album which, while it didn’t duplicate her success abroad, did reach #60 on the charts and spawn a #26 hit, the bitter break-up song “Remember Me.” But that hit — which is, we kid you not, almost punk-rock as Pavone spits out the lyrics in her accented English over a spare electric guitar figure — is not the only reason why early rock ’n’ roll aficionados have been craving the reissue of this album for decades. Rita’s version of Chip Taylor’s “Don’t Tell Me Not to Love You” is definitive, and “Too Many” and “I Can’t Hold Back the Tears” are just plain classic girl-group anthems. Added is a bonus track, her 1964 English-language version of “Heart,” along with liner notes by Bill Dahl and period photos, to complete the first Stateside reissue of Rita Pavone (who, by the way, is still a big star on the Euro continent).
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LEGENDARY TEXAS TROUBADOUR
RAY WYLIE HUBBARD PLANS SPRING/SUMMER TOUR
IN SUPPORT OF THE GRIFTER’S HYMNAL
On the album, currently #2 at Americana Radio,
Ringo Starr contributes vocals, guitar, handclaps and shakers
to his own composition.
AUSTIN, Tex. — Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard will begin his Spring/Summer tour in support of his new album, The Grifter’s Hymnal, currently at #2 on the Americana Music Association’s radio chart, on May 31st in Seattle.
Whether you’re short on time due to an impending apocalypse or simply need a tidy introduction to bring you up to speed on Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard, the opening track on The Grifter’s Hymnal, “Coricidin Bottle,” tells you everything you need to know in just under two minutes.
And what it tells you about Ray Wylie Hubbard — who will shortly head out on the road for June, July and August tour dates across America — is, he’s the kind scrapper poet with the devil-may-care wherewithal to write both “lay down a groove like a monkey gettin’ off” and “shakes the mortal coil round my amaranthine soul” into the same song, and the lethal charm and chops to pull it off.
“Words are funky,” chuckles Hubbard, a voracious reader and seeker who draws as much inspiration from the likes of poet Rainer Maria Rilke as he does from Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb. “That ‘amaranthine soul’ line . . . I went somewhere and that word came up, and it means either purple or forever. And I thought, ‘yeah, that’s the kind of soul I’ve got.’”
The “lay down a groove like a monkey gettin’ off” line speaks for itself.
“The album really does have a lot of attitude,” Hubbard says proudly. “We made it to play loud, and I think the sonic quality of it is just beautiful. Even if you don’t like the singer or the songs, you’ll like the way it sounds.”
The sound he was aiming for — and bulls-eyed — recalls many of his favorite rock records of the ’60s, with equal doses of Small Faces, Rolling Stones, and Buffalo Springfield. But take his characteristic self-deprecation with a pinch of salt, because for all his love of nailing down a groove (especially over the past decade of his career), Hubbard’s ragged-but-right vocals and lyrical wits continue to get better and better with age. So, too, it seems, does his knack for tying his projects up with just the right title.
“The whole idea was, I really like those words, grifter and hymnal,” he says. “The grifter kind of came out of the ’20s, kind of like the con man in Paper Moon. He’s not really a bad guy, because usually they would only grift people who maybe had it coming because of their own greed. I just like the idea of it — not that I’m so much of a con man, but . . . I’m 65 and still scuffling! I didn’t want to peak too soon and I don’t want to be a nostalgia act, so I keep trying to learn new things and make it work. The carrot’s still out there for me.” Hubbard’s been chasing that carrot since the ’60s, when he started his journey as a folk singer in his native Oklahoma before falling in with the wild and wooly cosmic/outlaw Texas country scene of the ’70s — in large part by way of penning the immortal “Up Against the Wall (Redneck Mother),” which Jerry Jeff Walker recorded on his seminal 1973 album ¡Viva Terlingua!. Hubbard gigged constantly and recorded sporadically throughout the rest of the ’70s and ’80s, but it wasn’t until he stumbled out of his “honky-tonk fog” and into sobriety that his career as a songwriter’s songwriter began in earnest, with 1994’s Loco Gringo’s Lament. He’s moved from strength to strength ever since, recording a handful of acclaimed albums with noted producers Lloyd Maines and Gurf Morlix and cementing his standing as one of the most respected artists on the modern Americana scene.
The Grifter’s Hymnal, like A. Enlightenment, B. Endarkenment before it, was co-produced by Hubbard and George Reiff, with tracks recorded at both Reiff’s home studio in Austin and at the Edythe Bates Old Chapel, located on the scenic grounds of the Round Top Festival Institute halfway between Austin and Houston. “George’s musical knowledge is great, and he’s an incredible engineer and incredibly open minded,” raves Hubbard. “And he really cares about arrangements and making each song work from beginning to end. For instance, he’s a bass player — he’s played with Chris Robinson, Joe Walsh, Kelly Willis, Jakob Dylan, the Dixie Chicks — and yet there’s five songs on this album that don’t have bass on them, which tells you that as a producer, he knows what’s best for each song.”
Reiff and Hubbard (acoustic, electric and slide guitar; harmonica) are joined on the record by drummer Rick Richards, legendary keyboard player Ian McLagan (Small Faces, Faces, Rolling Stones), and guitarists Billy Cassis, Brad Rice, Audley Freed, and Hubbard’s 18-year-old son, Lucas. And, just for good measure, a Beatle: Ringo Starr contributes vocals, guitar, handclaps and shakers to the album’s one cover, his own “Coochy Coochy.” “I’m a grifter — I figured if I did a Ringo Starr song and sent it to him, maybe he’d sing on it!” Hubbard confesses with a laugh.
Actually, Starr has been a Hubbard fan since hearing 2006’s Snake Farm, which prompted him to invite both Hubbard and Richards to his home in Los Angeles and to his all-star birthday celebration at Radio City Music Hall. “He loved Rick,” Hubbard says. “He was introducing us to people like, ‘This is Ray and this is his drummer. He travels with a drummer — not a bass player, a drummer!’ And one afternoon at his house he said something about how he liked my songwriting, and I said, ‘Well, I really like your songwriting, too.’ And he said, ‘Very few think of me as a songwriter, nobody ever cuts any of my songs.’ And I said, ‘I will!’”
“Coochy Coochy” (which first surfaced as a Starr B-side in 1970) provides The Grifter’s Hymnalwith one of its lighter moments, but it fits right in as part of an album that above all else is a celebration of getting one’s rock ’n’ roll ya-ya’s out. Admittedly, Hubbard notes that a handful of the songs “kind of mention God or salvation,” while “Lazarus” and “Moss and Flowers” both address mortality and the haunting “Red Badge of Courage” offers a somber meditation on the psychiatric battle scars of war. But sonically, the spirit of the album is best summed up by the call to arms he issues in “South of the River”: “Wake that thing up and put some clothes around it/You lost your prescription, I found it/You need some good rocking, nothing painful . . . ”
That’s not to say The Grifter’s Hymnal is all about good times, even when it rocks. “New Year’s Eve at the Gates of Hell” revisits the songwriter-as-Dante motif of one of Hubbard’s most popular (and funny) anthems, “Conversation with the Devil,” although this time around he turns up the heat and drags a former record-industry business associate down with him, just to watch him burn. Hell, it seems, hath no fury like a call-it-like-he-sees-it grifter/poet/artist screwed. “Some of the songs should offend the right people, I hope,” Hubbard says with a devilish grin. “Or offend the wrong people, let me put it like that.” Hubbard stirs up even more smoke — but holds the venom — on the nearly six-minute-long “Mother Blues,” an exhilarating, mostly factual account of his days paying his dues in a storied Dallas nightclub that hosted all-night parties stocked with dealers, gamblers, strippers, young white hipsters and grizzled black blues legends. That’s one of the songs his son Lucas plays lead guitar on, which was only fitting given that the boy’s mentioned in the last verse, along with his mother and Hubbard’s wife/manager, Judy. (Unbeknownst to Hubbard back in the day, Judy was employed at the time as Mother Blues’ teenaged door girl.) It’s an epic story song, destined to be a crowd favorite at shows for years to come — and not just because it features what is arguably Hubbard’s best (and certainly funniest) line to date: “We hit it off like a metaphor.”
That line is pure Ray Wylie, but he credits his wife with the song’s even more memorable endnote. “I heard her say one time that the days she keeps her gratitude higher than her expectations, she has really good days. I filed that away in my head, and it came back to me when we were playing this song live one time, before I really had an ending for it. I told the crowd, ‘I’m really grateful to you all for showing up, and I’m grateful for being here with Rick and my kid . . . the days I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations are really good days.’ And it seemed like the right way to end the song.”
It’s a theme that comes up again two tracks later, in the chorus to “Count My Blessings.” For a 65-year-old rock ’n’ roll grifter obsessed with the blues, blackbirds and all manner of scoundrels (himself included) having to dance with the devil, Hubbard has no qualms admitting that he’s got an awful lot to be thankful for — not the least of which being the opportunity to make records like this one, with longtime friends (Reiff and Richards), personal heroes (McLagan and Starr), and, of course, his boy.
Truth be told, he can’t even gripe about current label, Bordello Records, at least not if he knows what’s good for him: his wife Judy is the president.
“This really was a very special record to me,” Hubbard says. “It wasn’t easy, and some of it really was a struggle, but it was fun. I think each record to me has been a struggle in a way, and I like it that way. I like it that they’re all hard to do, because I think that makes them all have more value to me. It makes me kind of reach for a better part of myself. It keeps me from settling.”
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JON CLEARY JOINS DR. JOHN’S TOUR
Cleary’s new album, Occapella! hailed as JazzFest’s #2 best-seller
NEW ORLEANS, LA — On the heels of playing his own national tour dates, Jon Cleary will join Dr. John’s (a.k.a. Mac Rebennack) Locked Down tour across the U.S. and Europe as a featured player in Mac’s band, The Lower 911. Jon Cleary’s sixth solo CD, Occapella!, now in its fourth week of release, became one of the best selling records during Jazz Fest 2012, second only to Anders Osborne’s latest, according to the Louisiana Music Factory, carrier of the widest selection of New Orleans music in the world.
Occapella!, featuring Cleary’s interpretations of songs penned by his musical touchstone, Allen Toussaint, was described by Blurt magazine as “12 songs of pure pleasure.” Blogcritics called it,“an infectious romp through the mind and music of [the] New Orleans legend . . . every track a tour de force of performing virtuosity.” And USA Today, in its “Playlist” column featuring single tracks, cited “Let’s Get Low Down,” in which “vocals from Bonnie Raitt and Dr. John sweeten the pot . . .”
Behind-the-scenes footage and interviews from Occapella!, featuring Cleary on keys, bass, guitar, drums and vocals, can be seen and shared at
http://vimeo.com/41186107.
Dr. John 2012 Tour Dates (“Dr. John and The Lower 911 featuring Jon Cleary”):
Fri., June 1 ALEXANDRIA, VA The Birchmere
Sat., June 2 AUGUSTA, NJ Sussex County Fairground
Sun., June 3 ST. LOUIS, MS Bay Bridgefest *
Tues., June 5 PORTLAND, ME The Asylum
Wed., June 6 BOSTON, MA Paradise Rock Club
Thurs., June 7 TARRYTOWN, NY Tarrytown Music Hall
Sat., June 9 CHARLOTTE, NC Uptown Amphitheatre (w/ Gov’t Mule)
Sun., June 10 HIGHLAND PARK, IL Ravinia Pavilion (w/ Iron & Wine)
Tues., June 12 MYRTLE BEACH, SC House of Blues (w/ Gov’t Mule)
Wed., June 13 RALEIGH, NC Raleigh Amphitheater (w/ Gov’t Mule)
Thurs., June 14 LOUISVILLE, KY Iroquois Amphitheater (w/ Gov’t Mule)
Fri., June 15 OAKLAND, CA Paramount Theater **
Sun., June 17 ATLANTA, GA Chastain Park Amphitheater
Fri., June 29 PADDOCK WOOD, UK Hop Farm Festival
Sat., June 30 SAMOIS-Sur-SEINE, France Django Reinhardt Festival
Mon., July 2 AMSTERDAM, Netherlands Paradiso
Wed., July 4 PARIS, France La Cigale
Thurs., July 5 STASBOURG, France Strasbourg Jazz Festival ***
Fri., July 6 LUGANO, Switzerland Lugano Estival Jazz
Sat., July 8 ROSKILDE, Denmark Roskilde Festival
Mon., July 9 MONTREUX, Switzerland Montreux Jazz Festival
Tues., July 10 NICE, France Nice Jazz Festival ***
Fri., July 13 STUTTGART, Germany Jazz Open Stuttgart
Sun., July 15 CAHORS, France Cahors Blues Festival (w/Eric Sardinas)
Wed., July 18 LONDON, UK Under the Bridge
Thurs., July 19 LONDON, UK Under the Bridge
Sun., July 22 GATESHEAD, UK The Sage Gateshead (w/Phantom Limb)
Tues., July 24 DUBLIN, Ireland Vicar Street
* Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen
** SFJAZZ Presents Another Night in Treme
*** w/Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
More dates to follow.
http://joncleary.com
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>>> INSERT JOKE HERE <<<
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*** PUNMASTER'S TRIVIA CORNER ***
The trivia question from the last MusicWire was:
After a tragic moment in history this individual got real pissed off and stopped being a hippie and started to develop the idea which gave him his band's name.
The first person that they met under their new name was a famous musician who asked them to be in his movie. Who are we talking about?
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ANSWER: Jerry Casale of Devo on meeting Neil Young
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the champions are... (in order of appearance)
Pete Tomlinson
Matthew Bolin
Tim B
Derk Richardson
Bill Stewart
Bill Stewart
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Answer to trivia question:
The person you're referring to is either Gerald Casale or Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo; the tragic event was the Kent State massacre of 5/4/70; and the famous musician was/is Neil Young, though Devo did not appear in his film Human Highway until some years later.
Pete Tomlinson
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Okay, by the way you wrote "who" in your question, I don't know whether you meant the individual or the band, so I'll say both, I guess:
The band is Devo, which came into existence after the Kent State shootings.
The individual, I would reckon, is Mark Mothersbaugh, who was a Kent State art student before Devo began.
They met up with Neil Young after they formed, and he had them appear in his movie "Human Highway".
-Matthew Bolin
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Are we not men????
That would be Jerry Casale talking about forming Devo, and about the band appearing in Neil Young's Human Highway movie.
(I forgot the Kent State part)
Tim B
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David,
The May 4, 1970 National Guard killings of four students at Kent State further convinced Jerry Casale (who was there during the shootings) that society was in a state of devolution; hence, his band with the Mothersbaugh brothers became Devo in 1972. Later in the decade, Neil Young invited them to appear in his film Human Highway.
Derk Richardson
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A: Jerry Casale and his band was DEVO
Bill Stewart
New Port Richey, FL
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*** TODAY'S EASY BAKE TRIVIA QUESTION ***
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the guest trivia shot from Art Fein:
What do these record titles and band name have in common?
Can't Buy A Thrill
Brain Salad Surgery
The Mystery Trend
INCLUDE YOUR NAME WITH YOUR ANSWER OR YOU MAY SLIP THROUGH THE CRACKS!
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Only one answer in particular will be accepted...
If you want to be listed...INCLUDE YOUR NAME!
Give it your best shot...you may not get a yes/no response until the next Wire is published.
Thanks!!
The answer will appear in the next MusicWire...
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THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY - MAY 26
1937 - Lionel Hampton and his band recorded "Flying Home."
1953: After hitchhiking to the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Show in Meridian, MS, Elvis Presley wins second prize in the talent competition there.
1956: Liberace plays to a huge crowd of 16,000 at Madison Square Garden in a three-hour solo performance that draws mostly ladies.
1956: Two months after heading to his scheduled television appearance and nearly dying in a car crash, Carl Perkins finally appears on NBC-TV's Perry Como Show.
1958: On the third date of his first English tour, Jerry Lee Lewis is booed off the stage, having two days previously revealed that he was married to his 14-year-old cousin, Myra Lee Brown. The scandal forces Jerry Lee to end this tour immediately, flying back to America, where he finds the scandal has unfortunately followed him.
1965: At their insistence, the Rolling Stones perform "How Many More Years" with one of their influences, bluesman Howlin' Wolf, on tonight's episode of ABC-TV's Shindig!
1969: Still on honeymoon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono check in to room 1742 in Montreal's Hotel La Reine, where they begin their second "bed-in" for peace.
1972: With Mott The Hoople threatening to disband due to public indifference, David Bowie gives the band two of his new, unrecorded songs. The band passes on "Suffragette City" but decides to cut a song called "All The Young Dudes," a massive hit that revives the group's career.
1974: An overenthusiastic crowd at a David Cassidy concert in London rushes the stage, injuring a thousand screaming fans and crushing 14-year-old Bernadette Whelan, who died from her injuries four days later. A distraught Cassidy refuses to tour for the next eleven years.
1976: On a transatlantic British Airways flight, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin get drunk and verbally harass the other first-class passengers on the flight, including actors Dudley Moore and Telly Savalas.
1977: The rock group KISS provides Marvel Comics with a small vial of their blood to be mixed with printers' ink for their upcoming faux-autobiographical comic.
1977: Beatlemania! a Broadway tribute to the music of the Beatles, starring sound- and look-alikes, opens at the Winter Garden Theater to rave reviews.
1982: The late Bobby Darin is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1735 Vine St.
1993: Singapore lifts its decades-old ban on the music of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Chicago.
1994: Michael Jackson marries his first wife, Lisa Marie Presley, only daughter of Elvis, in a secret ceremony held in the Dominican Republican. The couple would divorce twenty months later.
1996: Firemen arrive at the burning home of Eric Clapton to find the guitarist running in and out of the home to save his guitar collection. The house is gutted, with about three million dollars' damage.
2008: Yale awards Paul McCartney an honorary Doctorate of Music.
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VIDEO CLIPS OF THE WEEK
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The Artist's Plight - New Edition
Music by George Michalski...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUi5MCmwZ50
------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Mike Hart
THE BAND live at Big Pink 1969 "Up On Cripple Creek"
http://youtu.be/lOlq2dHCZOA
“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”
http://youtu.be/eoyy0GjBGKI
Rory Gallagher with Jack Bruce - Politician
http://youtu.be/DXk--eL5-kQ
Warren Zevon - Mutineer - Jon Stewart Show, 1995
http://youtu.be/5wxVmWmJqKM
"Melting Pot" (live) Booker T & The MG's
http://youtu.be/fuyBlR_23gc
Billie Holiday - Don't Explain
http://youtu.be/C1F1PJB4pRA
Willie Nelson - 1997 - Funny How Time Slips Away
http://youtu.be/iZaZqx9v3dU
Freddie King - Goin' Down (Live At The Sugarbowl 1972)
http://youtu.be/TK8-Gb8osOQ
Nina Simone - Born under a bad sign - Paris Olympia 1968 4/16
http://youtu.be/KrxKpD66zLw
Jaco+Toots - Three Views of a Secret
http://youtu.be/yBhoDaS5SKQ
Majic Hands of Chet Atkins
http://youtu.be/G744uZ2B8Ic
Paul Butterfield on David Letterman 1985 Late Night
http://youtu.be/hS_x1A4LXCM
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You Can Quote Me On That...
I've been through more cold turkeys than there are freezers." - Keith Richards
"Mick needs to know what he's going to do tomorrow. Me, I'm just happy to wake up and see who's hanging around. Mick's rock, I'm roll." -Keith Richards
"I don't know anything about music, In my line you don't have to." - Elvis Presley
"I opened the door for a lot of people, and they just ran through and left me holding the knob." - Bo Diddley
"The only Maybelline I knew was the name of a cow." - Chuck Berry
"A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B." - Fats Domino
"It's not the size of the ship; it's the size of the waves." - Little Richard
"Hippies? Why, I'm the original." - Jerry Lee Lewis
"The older I get, the harder to get around....gravity's got me down." - Barry Goldberg
“I'm one of those regular weird people.” - Janis Joplin
"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another." - Frank Zappa
"I've always felt that blues, rock 'n' roll and country are just about a beat apart." - Waylon Jennings
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." - Jimi Hendrix
"Rock is so much fun. That's what it's all about -- filling up the chest cavities and empty kneecaps and elbows." - Jimi Hendrix
"I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know." - James Brown
"David Gross (Punmaster's MusicWire) is the Arianna Huffington of music news!" - Barry "The Fish" Melton
"The older you get, the better you were!" - Leslie West
"It's much too late to do anything about rock & roll now ..." - Jerry Garcia
"Albert King wasn't my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues" - B.B. King
"More bass." - Jerry Wexler
"I'm as country as a dozen eggs." - Elvin Bishop
"I liked the first sixties better...." - Al Kooper
"I still have all my vinyl. You can’t roll a joint on an iPod.” - Shelby Lynne
"I think I just killed somebody." - Phil Spector
"The problem with history is, the folks who were there ain't talking. And the ones who weren't there, you can't shut 'em up." - Tom Waits
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson
"I want my more money & I want my more fame" - Chubby Checker
"When you don't know where you're going, you have to stick together just in case someone gets there." - Ken Kesey
"I smash guitars because I like them." - Pete Townshend
"It's a good thing I had a bag of marijuana instead of a bag of spinach. I'd be dead by now." - Willie Nelson
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk in order to provide articles for people who can't read." - Frank Zappa
"You can learn something, both good or bad, watching any guitar player. You learn what to do or what not to do. Over the years I've learned things from Carlos, Mike Bloomfield, Clapton, George, Garcia, Knopfler and let's not forget Robbie Robertson." - Bob Dylan, 2002
"There 'is' a difference between rock and rock and roll; beware of inferior imitations (avoid contact with any musician who doesn't know how to play Chuck Berry music)." - Cub Koda
"This heah is Rufus Thomas....I'm young and loose and full of juice. I got the goose, so what's the use." - Rufus Thomas
"Mike Love, not war." - Scott Mathews
"I have outlived my dick" - Willie Nelson (2008)
"Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A welder, a carpenter, an electrician. They don't necessarily need to retire...Every man should learn a trade. It's different than a job. My music wasn't made to take me from one place to another so I can retire early." -Bob Dylan
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