Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Band, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen sing “Long Black Veil”

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Ten years ago, on a cold dark night
Someone was killed, ‘neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the slayer who ran, looked a lot like me[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

William Orville “Lefty” Frizzell was born March 31, 1928 (and died on July 19, 1975). He is one of the greatest vocalists in country music and one of his best songs is “Long Black Veil” a 1959 country ballad, written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin.

Many great artists have covered this wonderful song, I’ve collected some of them here.

Lefty Frizzell

Original recording from 1959

Continue reading “Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Band, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen sing “Long Black Veil””

January 2: Elvis Presley released Elvis Country in 1971

“Elvis has come out with a record which gives us some of the very finest and most affecting music since he first recorded for Sun almost 17 years ago”- Peter Guralnick (Rolling Stone Magazine 1971)

“…Elvis was at his peak when he cut Elvis Country. Actually, Elvis Presley was positively on a roll at the time. A decade after the end of what were thought to be his prime years, he was singing an ever-widening repertory of songs with more passion and involvement than he’d shown since the end of the 1950s…”
~Bruce Eder (allmusic.com)

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Sarah Jarosz – Ring Them Bells – The Best Dylan Covers

Photo: Justin Higuchi (wikipedia)

 

Sarah Jarosz – Ring Them Bells – The Best Dylan Covers

Ring Them Bells is included on the Bob Dylan album Oh Mercy, his twenty-sixth studio album, released on September 18, 1989 by Columbia Records. Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums.

Continue reading “Sarah Jarosz – Ring Them Bells – The Best Dylan Covers”

The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash (Official Documentary)

“Redemption,” observes an off-camera Springsteen. “For Johnny, that was an enormous part of his whole career.” With “The Gift,” Cash’s 71-year reckoning with the wages of sin and salvation is put in eloquently humbling, myth-busting perspective.
– Los Angeles Times

YouTube Originals presents The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash stands among the giants of 20th century American life. But his story remains tangled in mystery and myth. This documentary, created with the full cooperation of the Cash estate and rich in recently discovered archival materials, brings Cash the man out from behind the legend.

Taking the remarkable Folsom Prison recording as a central motif and featuring interviews with family and celebrated collaborators, the film explores the artistic victories, the personal tragedies, the struggles with addiction, and the spiritual pursuits that colored Johnny Cash’s life.

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November 11: Dave Alvin was born in 1955

dave-alvin

I started writing poetry before I started writing songs. In my checkered college past I was a creative writing major at Long Beach State University, which had a great writing program, and that’s where I learned all the nuts and bolts that helped me out in songwriting. They forced us to write in traditional forms — sonnets, iambic pentameter — just so we could understand that writing wasn’t just splaying free verse all over the page. But then the more songs I wrote using all those poetic forms, the more my poetry become like prose, almost to the point of journalism…
~Dave Alvin (Interview by Jim Catalano)

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Classic TV concert: Emmylou Harris at the BBC 1977

Emmylou Harris was 30 at that time, and she is here accompanied by The Hot Band: Albert Lee, Emory Gordy, John Ware, Glen D Hardin, Rodney Crowell, Hank Devito. Superb band! They run through what was to become a greatest hit set, lovely rendition of well-known songs. The Highlights for me are, Making Believe and Luxury Liner.

Emmylou recorded some of her best albums with The Hot Band, one of the best backing bands in country history.

The concert was recorded for the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977. Continue reading “Classic TV concert: Emmylou Harris at the BBC 1977”