Author: Hallgeir Olsen

Bob Dylan sings a fantastic Sara – Live Madison Square Garden – 1975

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

This is a very special upload. This was recorded on December 8, 1975, the final night of the first leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue. The next tour date was January 22, 1976.
– Swingin’ Pig (Youtube)

As usual from Swingin’ Pigs’ uploads, the video and especially the audio is excellent. It is very well edited and part of his alternative Rolling Thunder film.

Just too good to not share.

“I was just sitting outside my house one day thinking about a name for this tour, when all of a sudden, I looked into the sky and I heard a boom! Then, boom, boom, boom, boom, rolling from west to east. So I figured that should be the name.”
– Bob Dylan on why he called it The Rolling Thunder Revue

Sara by Bob Dylan last concert of the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue:

The Rolling Thunder Revue was a concert tour  Bob Dylan with a traveling caravan of notable musicians, including Joan Baez,Roger McGuinn, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Bob Neuwirth assembled the backing musicians, including T-Bone Burnett, Mick Ronson, David Mansfield, Steven Soles, and from the Desire sessions, violinist Scarlet Rivera, bassist Rob Stoner, and drummer Howie Wyeth. The tour included 57 concerts in two legs—the first in the American northeast and Canada in the fall of 1975, and the second in the American south and southwest in the spring of 1976.

October 10: The Kinks released Arthur or the decline and fall of the British Empire in 1969

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

The Kinks released one of their best albums, Arthur (or the decline and fall of The British Empire) October 10 in 1969. It  is the seventh studio album by the band.  Ray Davies constructed the concept album as the soundtrack to a Granada Television play and developed the storyline with novelist Julian Mitchell; however, the television programme was cancelled and never produced. The rough plot revolved around Arthur Morgan, a carpet-layer, who was based on Ray Davies’ brother-in-law Arthur Anning.

It is a natural successor to The Village Green Preservation Society, but it is even more British in its tone and storyline.

The Kinks – Victoria (from the concert film One For The Road):

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October 10: The late great John Prine was born 1946

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

john-prine

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“And you may see me tonight with an illegal smile. It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while. Won’t you please tell the man I didn’t kill anyone.
No, I’m just tryin’ to have me some fun.”
― John Prine[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

We lost this great artist about half a year ago, we miss him very much.
In accordance with Prine’s wishes as expressed in his song “Paradise”, half of his ashes were spread in Kentucky’s Green River. The other half were buried next to his parents in Chicago

His last recorded video performance, I Remember Everything:

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Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash – It Ain’t Me, Babe – The Best Dylan Covers

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash – It Ain’t Me, Babe – The Best Dylan Covers

 

“You say you’re looking for someone
Never weak but always strong
To protect you and defend you
Whether you are right or wrong
Someone to open each and every door
But it ain’t me, babe”

 

It Ain’t Me Babe is a song by Bob Dylan that originally appeared on his fourth album Another Side of Bob Dylan, which was released in 1964. According to music critic Oliver Trager, this song, along with others on the album, marked a departure for Dylan as he began to explore the possibilities of language and deeper levels of the human experience.

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October 9: Tunnel of Love by Bruce Springsteen was released in 1987

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“On his right hand Billy tattooed the word love and on his left hand was the word fear. And in which hand he held his fate was never clear”

I think Darkness on the edge of town is Springsteen’s best album, but I think Tunnel of Love is his most overlooked record. This is a quiet, often acoustic country-tinged album that has become more important to me the older I get.

It might sound less than Springsteen than his earlier albums, and he really goes a long way towards country music, but that’s ok, I really like it.  He released it while still touring with the E Street Band, but its sound signified a marked departure from the driving rock of his earlier albums.

“God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of.”

It’s a mix of Nebraska and Darkness with strong melodies and more melancholy. The Songs are about lost opportunities, misplaced love and regrets. It is a very sad album, maybe that is why Springsteen rarely play these songs in concert. He should play them, they are among his best.

The sleeve notes to the record Springsteen writes “Thanks Julie”.

Bruce Springsteen comes off as a tired man, is it his break-up record, his divorce album? It certainly sound like it. Great art sometimes comes from pain, and this album contains great art.

Brilliant Disguise:

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The Best Songs: Clay Pigeons by Blaze Foley

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

“Feed the pigeons some clay,
and start talking again,
when I know what to say…”

Michael David Fuller (December 18, 1949 – February 1, 1989), better known by his stage name Blaze Foley, was an American country music singer-songwriter, poet, and artist active in Austin, Texas.

There are two great films about Blaze Foley, the documentary, Duct Tape Messiah and Ethan Hawk’s dramatisation of the Blaze Foley memoir by Sybil Rosen, Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze, called Blaze. Both are good movies, well worth checking out.

Allmusic:
Blaze Foley was raised in West Texas and sang with his mother, brother, and sisters in a gospel act called the Fuller Family. Taking a pseudonym borrowed from Red Foley, Blaze performed in Houston, New Orleans, and Austin through the 1970s and ’80s, developing a strong following and respect from fellow musicians. But it was the Austin music scene, among friends like Van Zandt and Timbuk 3 — whose work Foley was an early champion of — that would become his spiritual and geographical home.

He only released one album in his lifetime, Live at the Austin Outhouse (on cassette). There have been released some good compilation albums after his, much too early, death.

“Through the bleed of a guitar microphone, you can hear stools squeaking, snatches of conversation, and general bar ambience — but at the center of it all is Foley, his deep gritty voice and songs that, much like Van Zandt’s, seem to emerge from a place of bruised, yet hopeful, solitude.”
– Eric Hage (Allmusic)

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