Living with Lewy Body Dementia
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease
On Saturday I pulled the best lines that I could find in a reasonable amount of time and compiled them in a post on AL.com.
I broke them up into 10 categories of 5 song lyrics with the artist and name of the song on each one.
People weighed in via comments or emails some of their favorites. All good and fun. But no one to my knowledge has gotten it yet — it, being a larger message, a not-so-hidden message.
It’s as if one needs an Oracle to find the message.
ALBUM: Court and Spark (1974)
MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$
A poet, a poetess,
Does she know it, Heck yes.
Sorry, I couldn’t help that. Mitchell was one of the more literate pop stars in the 1970s and 80s. And the confidence in her word selection and playfulness in her jazzy delivery makes me think: She knows she is good.
She also is considered a top guitar player, usually playing on her acoustic.
“Free Man in Paris,’ and ” Help Me” were all over the radio in the mid-1970’s. Up until then she was known for ‘Big Yellow Taxi.” (They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.) It was a minor hit in the U.S. in 1970. (Counting Crows covered it not too many years ago.)
I was 14 or so and was discovering Queen, Aerosmith, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Actually Elton John was a favorite as well. But to be honest the beauty of Court and Spark failed to hook me at that age. They were pleasant jazz/pop songs with intelligent lyrics. I must have absorbed it in the car. many years later before I found this album — her best I’m told — for about $4.
I’m not fond of the cover though. Mine is Tang-colored with art that is too small and too faded. Looks like a tattoo on a recipient with mottled yellow orange skin. Maybe QT accident.
Here’s part of a post by Vintage Guitar magazine senior writer about a classic 7-string guitar and an Alabama man who owned one. In fact the Alabama man was integral in having it created.
Here’s a snippet written by Willie Moseley. Click on this link to see entire story on AL.com
Certain locations in the middle portion of Alabama are often cited as part of “Hank Williams Territory,” and for good reason—two thirds of a century after the country music icon’s passing, legends still abound regarding memorable Williams performances, as well as people and locations that inspired his songwriting.
However, one hasn’t heard too much about famous jazz musicians that hail from the same region, although Nat King Cole was born in Montgomery, and trumpeter Andres Ford, who was also from the Capitol City, gigged with Duke Ellington.
While musical genres such as country and western, rhythm and blues, rock and pop are usually saturated with (primarily-electric) guitars, notable jazz guitarists—Wes Montgomery being an obvious and handy example—have always had to compete with pianists, saxophone players, and other talented musicians plying their trade on their own respective instruments.
Jazz guitarist Relfe Parker Jr. (1918-2002) wasn’t famous, but he stuck to his guns regarding the music he loved to play. Moreover, he was the first guitarist to order and play a seven-string guitar handcrafted by a famous guitar builder (such artisans are known as a “luthiers”).
A resident of Wetumpka, Parker aspired to play jazz music for most of his life, even though he was compelled to perform other styles of music at times.Again you can click here for full story.
Also online at AL.com right now is a revisit to a song that one scientific study is the best they had found for lowering anxiety. Listen to the extended version (30 minutes) of the song and see if you can stay awake. There is a 24-hour version which I’ll try to find and post here. That means you could have reduced anxiety — by 65 percent these scientists say — all day long. (They should put it in dentists and doctors’ offices or wherever there is a stressful environment.
Here’s link. Remember don’t operate heavy machinery after listening to this: ‘Weightlessness.’
ALBUM: The Rose (1978)
MVC Rank: 3.5/$$
I saw this movie many years ago. Good date movie. Not so great a soundtrack, though, unless the idea of live songs by studio musicians trying to sound like the boozy Janis Joplin and her various boozy bands appeals to you.
The soundtrack is noisy. Sure if they are ‘loosely’ basing this on Joplin, you expect some blues based rock and roll and there is — but it is as if the musicians and director were trying too hard to channel Joplin and her mythology. So we got noisy rock live in concert. Stuff Like “Whose side are you on” and ‘Love Me with a Feeling.’
Don’t get me wrong Midler has a strong powerful voice. But Janis was a force of nature, hard to emulate and that’s why they say it was only loosely based on Janis. So here we get snippets of the Rose, played by Midler, of drunken, drugged- out ramblings between songs and then .. then… there’s the title track. She snaps out of unconciousness somehow and delivers a beautiful poignant ballad that gave goose bumps to the movie audience.
The last song on the album, the name of the movie, the name of the character. It’s the best thing about it all.
The slow building ballad played too much on the radio in 1978, but that doesn’t take away its power. The song was my future wife’s favorite song when we decided we liked each other. We were seniors in high school, and like I said: Good date movie.
My recommendation is get the movie, not the soundtrack.
Willie G. Moseley, senior writer at Vintage Guitar Magazine, contacted me to weigh in on the ‘Best Guitarist’ debate that I instigated last week with posts on this blog and AL.com
The debate was great. Many put forth that it isn’t a contest and that it is a matter of personal taste.
But we got names, lots of names. From Hendrix to Robert Johnson. From Clapton to Steve Howe. Ana Popovic to Jeff Beck.
Wait a minute, did we forget Beck? I’ll have to go check because before I got into the Yardbirds I loved to listen to ‘Blow by Blow,’ a jazz rock guitar album of the highest order. Steve Howe’s comes closes.
But Moseley came at me with a name I never considered.
Mike Oldfield of Tubular Bells fame. Yep, that Tubular Bells which accompanied the movie where the devil possessed a little girl. So I checked it out on YouTube a live Tubular Bells concert and, yes, indeed; it didn’t make me vomit and it nearly had my head spin around.
Mr. Oldfield puts forth some scintillating guitar runs, some supersonic laser beam tones. And Moseley said that album is his least favorite of about five Oldfield albums.
“I think any discussion of this subject should also address how much innovation a “nominated” guitarist exhibited/exhibits, Moseley wrote in an email, “be it style and/or tone and/or composition skills…as well as other possible factors.”
He continued: “With that in mind, I’d probably champion Mike Oldfield of Tubular Bells fame. Not only did he have a unique and lightning fast style, his album was, IMO, the first New Age album; i.e., it was so fascinating and hypnotic you couldn’t boogie to it; you were compelled to sit still and listen.
“In some of my lectures, I cite the original Tubular Bells as a “bookend” on the most productive half-dozen years in popular music history.
In the video above, the guitar is unleashed about the 5:20 mark.
“That said, the original is among my least favorite Oldfield albums. … There’s an orchestral-sounding passage on the sophomore album, Hergest Ridge, that reportedly has 72 guitars.
“Unfortunately, in more recent times Oldfield seemed to be mired in a “techno” mode for his newer albums. I used to call that sound “disco.””
Mosley also said he would place Randy California of Spirit not far behind Oldfield.
And so there you have it:
Oldfield officially becomes the most intriguing nomination for this honor of best guitarist of all time, a title which will likely never be bestowed.
A commenter mentioned Ana Popovich. And given that I have been for some time making a list of top guitarists who happen to be women, I looked her up on YouTube. And, indeed, she proceeded to make my face melt.
NOTE: I spelled Moseley’s last name wrong after I had spelled it right. Now it is correct: Moseley.