The Saddest Songs: Tank Park Salute by Billy Bragg

Photo: BornToListen @Øyafestivalen

 

“Daddy is it true that we all have to die?”

“You were so tall. How could you fall?”

In 1991 Billy Bragg released the album, Don’t try this at home.

“… (this album) was where Bragg first began to sound completely comfortable with the notion of a full band. With Johnny Marr (who helped produce two tracks), Peter Buck, Michael Stipe, and Kirsty MacColl on hand to give the sessions a taste of star power, Don’t Try This at Home sounds full but uncluttered; the arrangements (most complete with — gasp! — drums) flesh out Bragg‘s melodies, giving them greater strength in the process”
– Mark Deming (Allmusic)

It is one of his best albums and it has a eulogy to his father Dennis who had died of cancer when the singer was only 18.
It is devastatingly beautiful!
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Great Documentary: Joan Baez – How Sweet the sound

Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound (2009)

 

This is, surprisingly, the first comprehensive documentary to chronicle the private life and public career of Joan Baez, How Sweet The Sound examines her history as a recording artist and performer as well as her remarkable journey as the conscience of a generation. Continue reading “Great Documentary: Joan Baez – How Sweet the sound”

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.

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October 13: Paul Simon was born in 1941

“Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die. ”
― Paul Simon

“It’s actually very difficult to make something both simple and good.”
― Paul Simon

Marc Anthony inducts Paul Simon Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions 2001:

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The Best Songs: Clay Pigeons by Blaze Foley

“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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Happy 85th birthday Willie Nelson!

My doctor tells me I should start slowing it down – but there are more old drunks than there are old doctors so let’s all have another round.
~Willie Nelson

We create our own unhappiness. The purpose of suffering is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it.
~Willie Nelson

He [Willie Nelson] takes whatever thing he’s singing and makes it his. There’s not many people who can do that. Even something like an Elvis tune. You know, once Elvis done a tune, it’s pretty much done. But Willie is the only one in my recollection that has even taken something associated with Elvis and made it his. He just puts his sorta trip on it…
~Bob Dylan (28 April 1993)

Bob+Dylan Willie+Nelson

Willie Nelson Induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1993):

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