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.
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.’
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.
The young man who was struck by lightning and died just short of the finish line of a 50K trail race in Kansas rekindles a longstanding debate I have had with myself.
How do I want to go out? Instantly doing something I love, like playing basketball — the way Pete Maravich went out; The way this 33-year-old Kansas runner, Thomas Stanley went out.
I have Lewy body dementia and my lifespan — based on averages — is 4 to 8 years after diagnosis or symptoms begin. I’m in my third year. So unless I get hit by a bus or struck by lightning, I have received plenty of advance warning about what will happen to me as these excess proteins continue to clog up and kill brain cells. Slowly, it seems, and that’s a good thing. I think.
I’ve written about lightning a lot. As I’ve explained here before. As you can see I’m almost metaphysical in my feelings surrounding lightning. What random bad luck messed up universe would strike down a person. Very rarely, the average is 27 a year and there have only been 19 this year.
Part of my interest in lightning was living in central Florida, lightning capital of the U.S., where there are daily thunder-boomers, as my kids used to call them.
Stanley was 33 years old and from Andover, Kansas. He was the Director of Business Initiatives at the Kansas Leadership Center where he has worked since 2008, according to the center’s website.
He was the third person this year who has been killed by lightning while running.
I am 59 years-old and have lived a lot more life than Stanley. I wonder if I would have taken Stanley’s place if I had been offered.
I think I might have. It would be slam dunk ‘yes’ if it was a friend or relative. But I’m not sure, (uh oh, here I go debating my brain again.) I know this disease will take hold but I am also working on living every moment. I do enjoy life.
Stanley probably didn’t know what hit him. I know what is hitting me. I think I’ll stick around — and hit back.
Oh, and though Stanley didn’t make the finish line, the race officials gave him a finish because he had run the distance.
We love lists in the media business. Readers sometimes complain about list stories but then read them voraciously.
But if you came for a list story here, you aren’t going to get one. This is more a Behind-the-List Story story.
They are very subjective, you know. Lists, rankings. Take best guitarists.
Is Eric Clapton really better than Carlos Santana? Was Jimi Hendrix really better than Stevie Ray Vaughn?
How about Nick Drake and Leo Kottke with their innovative acoustic folk, blues, rock? Is Pete Townshend on rhythm better than Keith Richards or their teacher, Chuck Berry?
I’d be hard pressed to find a better rock guitarist than Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin but there’s some old(er)-timers our there that say Alvin Lee of 10 Years After was the man. Listen to this live version of Woodchopper’s Ball.
Slow down, I’m getting to the point here. These lists usually encapsulate three things going on:
(1) Popularity of the artist and his or her songs, Clapton and Page are famous for working with some of the biggest selling bands of all time. Are they truly better guitarists than Steve Morse. Who? Steve Morse who played with the Dixie Dregs and is now with Deep Purple. He can play. Glenn Phillips, of the Atlanta area, is pretty much the best guitarist you’ve never heard of. In the same neighborhood, his student Bob Elsey of the Swimming Pool Q’s plays tasty licks without walking over anyone. How many of these guitarists can play Nancy Wilson’s intro to ‘Crazy on You.? Probably most of those in this company, with time and study, but I would venture to say Nancy’s would be the best version..
(2) Speed and long solo skills A lot of guitarists get noticed because they can shred. That is, hit X number of notes in x number of seconds, usually going up and down scales. That’s a useful skill set especially in metal, hard rock, punk and even guitar-based jazz. But it’s one tool. The best shredder may be mediocre playing folk blues, for example.
(3) Flamboyant style. Jimi Hendrix was truly innovative but it wasn’t all flamboyance in the cause of the music, it was aimed at the ‘show.’ I’m pretty sure Hendrix can play better with his fingers than his tongue. But tonguing a guitar solo will leave people with their jaws hanging.
These three factors I’m saying play a role in these ranking and probably should. But before you start talking about who is better, Eddie Van Halen or Yngwie Malmsteen, Prince or Queen’s Brian May, the Schenker brothers of Scorpions and UFO fame, let me proffer that perhaps the best guitar players are those that do what’s best for the song. Delivering a fine song with a guitar solo that lasted 5-minutes too long is not necessarily being a great guitarist.
So it comes to this: Duane Allman.
I’m not saying he’s the top guitarist of all time or anything. But he had an unusual grasp of what sound to put forth while playing a song. How loud. How soft. When to fill and when to cut loose. The story goes that Duane was doing some session work at like age 22 or so, at Muscle Shoals studios, backing the great Wilson Pickett on a cover of the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude.’
Listen for the guitar in this as it starts. You have to concentrate because it’s in the background.
But it’s perfect, the fills. And as Pickett winds up, Allman with electric guitar is right there supporting the singer, whip snapping Pickett into his famous ‘yow’ screams.
“He stood right in front of me, as though he was playing every note I was singing,” Pickett said months later. “And he was watching me as I sang, and as I screamed, he was screaming with his guitar.”
Duane’s legend was picking up steam.
[If you secretly do like list stories and want to take a peek at the most underrated artists, albums and songs in my collection. CLICK
ALBUMS: Astral Weeks (1968 ); Moondance (1970); Tupelo Honey (1971); ): St. Dominic’s Preview (1972 ); Hard Nose the Highway (1973); T.B. Sheets (1973 ); Common One (1980); No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986); World of Them (1973)
MVC Ratings: Astral and Moondance get top scores with 5. Both come with $$$$, but it might be hard to find in good condition under $20. Tupelo Honey, St. Dominic’s and No Guru comes in at 4.5 with $$$$ for Tupelo and St. Dominic’s; and TB Sheets at $$$; World of Them is 4.0 with a $$$.
Just after I learned of my illness, my wonderful friends and colleagues raised several thousand dollars to fund a trip to Europe. Ireland was one of four countries we visited on this ‘bucket list” trip. We went in this order: Spain, Scotland, Ireland, England and back to Spain where my daughter was living.
In Dublin, Ireland , I had to go see the Irish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a small-ish building, having moved into a place that used to be a pub. I loved it but I had one major criticism, and told the museum people — who were good folks — about it. There was not enough Van Morrison. One could argue that he should have dominated that museum, based on artistry, talent and influence on the music.
They had lots of Thin Lizzy and U2. Don’t get me wrong I love both of those Irish artists. Check one of the streaming services for the Phil Lynot/Thin Lizzy documentary. He had an interesting life growing up mixed race in a 90-plus percent white population. His mother, the museum folks told me, still comes by the museum and visits, occasionally bringing memorabilia to display. There could be couple of things going on here. First, Morrison is considered ‘Dad-music.’ Not many under 30 could name three songs by Van the Man, or any at all, for that matter. Also, Morrison grew up in Belfast not Dublin meaning Morrison’s family and possible sources of memorabilia are in another part of the country.
In the United States, Morrison had a home north of San Francisco in Marin County. He said it was the place in the US that reminded him most of the rolling green hills of Ireland. I lived in that county some called paradise for a decade in San Anselmo. Van even wrote a song called ‘Snow in San Anselmo’ on one of his lesser known albums called ‘Hard News the Highway.’ The song says it hadn’t snowed there i n 30 years. It did not snow the 10 years I was there as the ocean moderated what was essentially a Mediterranean climate.
One morning in 2006, I came to play my usual pick-up basketball on Saturday morning at the Lagunitas elementary school. It was a game that had been ongoing for long time before I wandered up one day. On this day, a couple of players said they had seen Morrison the night before in a secret word-of-mouth event at this place in the San Geromino Valley called Rancho Nicasio — not far down the road where I played hoops every week. Damn, I said, why didn’t y’all call me! (I still broke out the y’all in California.) The Marin Independent Journal — a newspaper I had written for — said Morrison concert was the worst kept secret in Marin. Well, I didn’t know about it. Of course I’ve always had this feeling I was the last to know.
I don’t know what else to say about Van Morrison. He’s a rocker, a great writer. His songs are equally imbued with the blues and jazz. He always has great musicians around him. He sings a little like Mick Jagger if Jagger ventured deeper into jazz.
I’m not going to give a history here, that would be long. But he was in a band called Them in the beginning. He wrote a song called ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ whose opening riff is one of the most recognizable in rock. He journeyed through mystical observations. In the mid-to-later part of his career, he became a little more overt with use of Christian language wrapped around his deep spiritual explorations in words and music. Albums representing this would be ‘Common One‘ and “No Guru no Method no Teacher.’ And actually, thinking back, he’s always had that philosopher/poet quest that shape songs like “Into the Mystic,” or the whole album Astral Weeks, for that matter.
He’s still putting out music. I saw that an album is about to be released in November. Lastly, I’d like to make bring out some teaching points for lyricists and poets. I’m not saying I am that good at it, but I know good when I see it and hear it. Morrison’s style was to weave in and out of mystical explorations with repetitive chants and jazzy excursions. But he often wrote plain slices of scenes. a little portrait or a scene that draws you to a place so you can begin to feel what Van feels.
On the song ‘And it Stoned Me’ from the Moondance album, see how Van sets the scene without over describing.
Half a mile from the county fair And the rain came pourin’ down Me and Billy standin’ there With a silver half a crown
Hands are full of a fishin’ rod And the tackle on our backs We just stood there gettin’ wet With our backs against the fence
Oh, the water Oh, the water Oh, the water Hope it don’t rain all day
Oh the water, let it run all over me
He drops in detail but with a deft touch leaves a little wiggle room for you, the listener, to put in your own details: These kids, adolescents, had just been to the fair? Or were going? Had a silver half a crown.
I don’t know what the song is about. Or, wait, maybe I do: Life.
One group I absolutely enjoyed during my college years was the Pretenders led by Chrissy Hynde. As I posted my Kinks timeout yesterday, I recollected that she and Ray Davies were at one time married.
If you saw my list (scroll down to find) you will see my write-up on Smith (or a Group Called Smith). They didn’t achieve the fame of the Pretenders but they are similar in that both sang well fronted a male band, and did great with rockers as well as ballads. Here’s Middle of the Road:
In the middle of the road you see the darnedest things Like fat guys driving ’round in jeeps through the city Wearing big diamond rings and silk suits Past corrugated tin shacks full up with kids Oh man I don’t mean a Hampstead nursery When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world The babies just come with the scenery
This one is ‘7 underrated songs.” Already published on MyVinylCountdown.com are 7 underrated artists and 7 underrated albums.
Full story with all the lists plus more will appear on AL.com over the weekend.
Smithereens ‘Behind the Wall of
Sleep’ This is just straight head rock and roll from a great band. But
while the song was played in its day (late 1980s), you don’t hear it much anymore.
It’s as good as rock and roll gets people.
UFO ‘Can you Roll Her’
UFO was called a heavy metal band because of the instant shredding guitarist
Michael Schenker could put forth at any given time. However songs off this
album such as Belladonna and Martian Landscape showed softer, tuneful, side. This
song ‘Can you roll her’ showed both a tuneful touch with the guitar power rock
that was the band’s staple.
Squeeze ‘Pulling Mussels
from a Shell’ This conjures up a summer beach setting, but there’s
something going on behind the chalet? I’m not 100 percent sure what it is or
what it has to do with mussels, but I have long liked the song. (And I love mussels
from a shell).
Tina Turner Better Be Good to Me Tina Turner was a longtime R&B singer with her husband Ike whom she said beat her and abused her. When she broke out in the 1980s with a solo album and the worldwide hit ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It,’ she was a superstar. But while Better be Good to Me was a hit, it seemed overshadowed by others including What’s Love Got to Do with It. ‘Better be Good to Me’ was the stronger song, powerful rock and roll sung by one of the best entertainers ever, who sang from real life pain and passion. Underrated? Many would say no. I say yes it is so.
Steve Harley’s ‘Make me Smile (Come
Up and See Me)’ I discovered this on a British Rock compilation and then
realized I had a live Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel double album obtained at a
flea market that had a live version of the song. What a great catchy song. The
pause for effect part is genius. The acoustic guitar solo is cool. The
over-the-top Dylan imitation is also groovy.
Waterboys ‘Whole of the Moon”
The Waterboys could have been on Underrated Artists list. They put out a really
nice body of water, er, work. Mike Scott was the driver of this band, which did
nice work with a core band that used a lot of violin, saxophones, trumpets and piano
in addition to guitar. Best album is probably ‘This is the Sea’ although I
really like ‘A Pagan’s Place’ as well, which really introduced the band as one
that plays ‘Big Music.’ “Whole of
the Moon,’ with its upfront piano, sounds like a timeless classic. Maybe it
already is.
Lou Reed ‘Strawman’ An angry sing-along about corruption in the world. Lou Reed is not underrated I’d say, but given his long career, he had few radio hits. Radio stations must be afraid of him. Of course there was the anomaly ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ which falls in the ‘Lola’ basket – it may be controversial but it has a tune that just won’t be denied.
