November 6: The late great Guy Clark was born in 1941

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen
guy clark
Photo credit: Aimee Howell – [email protected]

“Buffett I guess. Lightfoot. Warren Zevon. Randy. John Prine. Guy Clark. Those kinds of writers.”
– Bob Dylan (on the question about favorite songwriters asked by Bill Flanagan in 2009)

I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I’m writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can.
~Guy Clark

Guy Clark doesn’t just write songs, he crafts them with the kind of hands-on care and respect that a master carpenter (a favorite image of his) would have when faced with a stack of rare hardwood.
~Kurt Wolff (allmusic.com)

Desperados Waiting For A Train (FANTASTIC version from the legendary “Heartworn Highways” DVD):

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November 5: The late great Gram Parson was born in 1946

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Gram Parsons, originator of Country Rock music and member of The Flying Buritto Brothers playing at the Altamont Speedway, Livermore, CA December 6, 1969

 

“I think pure country music includes rock and roll. I’ve never been able to get into the further label of country-rock. How can you define something like that?”
~Gram Parsons

“I just say this – it’s music. Either it’s good or it’s bad; either you like it or you don’t.”
~Gram Parsons

In a way, it’s a matter of lost love. Gram was everything you wanted in a singer and a songwriter. He was fun to be around, great to play with as a musician. And that mother-fucker could make chicks cry. I have never seen another man who could make hardened old waitresses at the Palomino Club in L.A. shed tears the way he did.
It was all in the man. I miss him so.
~Keith Richards (Rolling Stone Magazine, 2005)

Keith Richards on Gram Parsons:

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November 5: Grateful Dead released “Europe ’72” in 1972

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grateful dead - Europe72_Cover 3

 

With Bill Kreutzmann masterfully drumming alone following the resignation of Mickey Hart, and augmented the previous fall by Keith Godchaux’s elegant piano, the Dead leaned toward the pared-down sound they’d perfected on their previous studio albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Indeed, Europe ’72 arguably completes an acid-Americana trilogy insofar as it features a handful of sepia-toned new tunes: “He’s Gone,” “Jack Straw,” “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Ramble on Rose,” and “Tennessee Jed.” It also eliminates nearly all crowd noise and contains enough post-tour overdubs (mainly in the vocals department) to suggest a live-studio hybrid, with Jerry Garcia’s joyously apocalyptic “Morning Dew” as its show-stopping closer. The Dead’s best-selling live album also marked the group’s final recording with singer-keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, who died the following year.
~Richard Gehr (rollingstone.com)

Cumberland Blues:

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November 5: Johnny Cash released American IV: The Man Comes Around in 2002

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johnny cash the man comes around

The selection here is at once so obvious and so inappropriate it feels redemptive–as if that old softy Rick Rubin gently advised his fast-failing charge that if there was ever a song he wanted to sing he’d better not put it off till next time, ’cause there probably wasn’t gonna be one.
~Robert Christgau (robertchristgau.com)

Cash’s first three albums with producer Rick Rubin won Grammys, and this one should keep the streak alive. Supplementing his own material with songs from such varied sources as Nine Inch Nails and Hank Williams, it’s an eclectic collection whose highlights convey the adventurism and heart that have characterized this country music great’s best recordings for half a century.
~Robert Hilburn (LA Times)

The Man Comes Around:

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Classic concert: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers at Rockpalast 1977

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This was the first time I saw Tom Petty on the TV, and it blew me away! I was 11 years old and just started to discover music beyond Abba, Beatles and The Eagles.

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers was formed in Gainesville, Florida in 1976 and soon started churning great rock songs. Rockpalast from Germany was one the few things worth watching in our “one-channel Tv-world” back in the late 70s in Norway. It was shown in the middle of the night, because you now, rock’n roll could deprave the minds of children. Some of us, stayed up all night to catch these few glimpses of what was happening in the great exciting world of rock’n roll.

Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Ron Blair, Benmont Tench and Stan Lynch opened their June 14,1977 taping at WDR Studio-L in Cologne with Surrender, a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Jaguar and Thunderbird” came next. The setlist was a wonderful mix of originals and great cover versions. The world was changing.

We miss Tom Petty deeply. Continue reading “Classic concert: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers at Rockpalast 1977” →

November 4: The Allman Brothers Band released their eponymous album in 1969

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allman_brothers_band

 “It might seem strange to apply the adjective “lovely” to a heavy-white-blues album, but that is what this record so paradoxically is. Sometimes it sounds like what Led Zeppelin might have been if they weren’t hung up on gymnastics. Sometimes it sounds like the more-lyrical Louisiana cousins of Johnny Winter. But what it is consistently is subtle, and honest, and moving. “
– Lester Bangs (Rolling Stone Magazine)

The Allman Brothers Band, released in 1969, was the debut album of  the Allman Brothers Band.

“Dreams” and “Whipping Post” would become the basis for two of The Allman Brothers’ most famed epic concert numbers.

In April 1969 the Allman Brothers Band moved from Jacksonville, Florida to Macon, Georgia. They first rented a house at 309 College Street. The front album cover photo was taken at the entrance of the College House (now owned by Mercer University) right next door at 315 College Street. The back cover photo of the album was taken at the Bond Tomb at Rose Hill Cemetery located at 1091 Riverside Drive in Macon. “Don’t Want You No More” is a cover of a 1967 song by The Spencer Davis Group.

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