Up close & Personal: John Prine with Sturgill Simpson (interview and performances)

Singer-songwriters John Prine and Sturgill Simpson shared the stage last summer at an intimate event for a lucky few Grammy Museum guests. “This is John’s night” Simpson said, “I just wanna be here, but it’s John’s night”.

Part interview and part performance, video of the two country artists together was streamed live on Facebook in two parts.

Great storytellers, wonderful songs and very good playing!

Interview session (with some songs):

Concert part:

“Souvenirs” and “Sam Stone” solo, John Prine
followed by duets with Sturgill Simpson on “Speed Of The Sound of Loneliness” and “Paradise”.

– Hallgeir

Classic concert: Led Zeppelin live Denmark 1969 (full TV performance) plus bonus clip

Here’s a short but sweet film of what Led Zeppelin looked and sounded like in the first year of the band’s history. This was mid March, 1969. Their debut album, Led Zeppelin, had been out in USA for three months.

Led Zeppelin was on a tour of the UK and Scandinavia when they visited TV-Byen studios in Gladsaxe, Denmark, to play four songs from the new album:

0:11 Communication Breakdown
2:58 Dazed and Confused
12:13 Babe I’m Gonna Leave You
19:01 How Many More Times
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Blues Classics: Skip James – “Devil Got My Woman”

I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man
I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man
Aw, nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind
Was nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind
~Skip James (Devil Got My Woman)

Coupling an oddball guitar tuning set against eerie, falsetto vocals, James’ early recordings could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
~Cub Koda (allmusic.com)

Skip James (June 9, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer. He is regarded by most blues writers as a very important artist.

He is one of 3 blues artists to featured in Wim Wenders great documentary film The Soul of a Man (2003). 

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Classic song: The Promise by Bruce Springsteen

The Promise

The first time I heard The Promise (the song)  was when “18 tracks” was released in april 1999. I had read about it and had very high expectations, I was not disappointed. The 1999 release is great and it is a new recording of a song written much earlier. Bruce said he couldn’t find a version he liked enough to release on “Tracks” and re-recorded it for “18 Tracks”. This new recording had just Bruce Springsteen and his piano, and he does a toned down but intense version. The sombre  performance enhances the stark qualities of the song.

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January 5: Bruce Springsteen released Greetings from Ashbury Park NJ in 1973

“This boy has a lot more of the Dylan spirit than John Prine. His songs are filled with the absurdist energy and heart on sleeve pretension that made Dylan a genius instead of a talent.”
– Robert Christgau, Creem magazine

Greetings from Asbury Park NJ is the first studio album by Bruce Springsteen, released in 1973. It only sold about 25,000 copies in the first year of its release, but had significant critical impact. It was ranked at #379 by Rolling Stone on its list of 500 greatest albums of all time. The album also hit the number sixty stop on the Billboard 200 albums listing.

The re-release that is part of the box-set (released autumn 2014) sounds amazing!

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January 5: The late great Sam Phillips was born in 1923

Sam Phillips, the founder of the label Sun Records, poses with Elvis Presley.

Sam Phillips was not just one of the most important producers in rock history. There’s a good argument to be made that he was also one of the most important figures in 20th century American culture.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

Please check out the new book:

Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll
Written by Peter Guralnick

COVER Guralnick_SAMPHILLIPS

Rock ‘n’ roll was born in rural Alabama, 1923, in the form of Sam Phillips, the youngest son of a large family living in a remote colony called the Lovelace Community. His father had a gift for farming, which was brought to an end by the Depression. His mother picked guitar and showed the kind of forbearance that allowed her to name her son after the doctor who delivered him drunk and then had to be put to bed himself. And yet from these unprepossessing origins, in 1951 Phillips made what is widely considered to be the first rock ‘n’ roll record, Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston’s ‘Rocket 88’.

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