Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
~Nina SimoneOnce I understood Bach’s music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
~Nina SimoneNina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)
Ain’t Got No…I’ve Got Life:
Ain’t No Sunshine is a song by Bill Withers from his 1971 album Just As I Am, produced by Booker T. Jones. The record featured musicians Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass guitar, Al Jackson, Jr. on drums and Stephen Stills on guitar. String arrangements were done by Booker T. Jones, and recorded in Memphis by engineer Terry Manning.
The song was released as a single in September 1971, becoming a breakthrough hit for Withers, reaching number six on the U.S. R&B Chart and number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 23 song for 1971.
Freddie King (September 3, 1934 – December 28, 1976) was an influential American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of “the Three Kings” of electric blues guitar along with Albert King and B.B. King.
Freddie King based his guitar style on Texas and Chicago influences and was one of the first bluesmen to have a multi-racial backing band at live performances.
Freddie King recorded Ain’t No Sunshine on his 1972 album, Texas Cannonball (re-released in its entirety on King of the blues in 1995)
Continue reading “Great performance: Freddie King – Ain’t no sunshine”
We’ve collected some of the best new videos out at the start of February 2016, enjoy! We had so much fun hunting down these gems, it will hopefully be a returning series of posts.
Lucinda Williams – The Ghosts of Highway 20 (Nic Harcourt’s TRANSMISSIONS):
John Prine with Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell – Unwed Fathers (one of my favourite Prine songs!):
Amy Helm – Good News:
John Moreland – Break My Heart Sweetly (live at Colbert)
Buddy Miller with Watkins Family Hour – All My Tears (Cayamo 2016 music cruise):
– Hallgeir
Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads is a British documentary film, released in 1991, and made by music critic and author Robert Palmer and documentary film maker Robert Mugge, in collaboration with David A. Stewart and his brother John J. Stewart. The film provided insight into the location, cast and characteristics of Delta blues and North Mississippi hill country blues. Filming took place in 1990 in Memphis, Tennessee, and various North Mississippi counties. Theatrical release was in 1991 and home video release in the United Kingdom, the next year, as was a soundtrack album. A United States consumer edition came in 2000.
Stewart initiated and financed the project, inspired by Palmer’s 1981 book of the same name. Palmer provided many of the insights into the background and history of the blues, as a guide to Stewart and the film narrator.
Documentary: Deep Blues – A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads:
Musicians appearing in the film are: Roosevelt Barnes, R. L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill (with Napoleon Strickland amd Abe Young), Big Jack Johnson, Junior Kimbrough (with Little Joe Ayers and Calvin Jackson), Booker T. Laury, Jack Owens, Lonnie Pitchford, Bud Spires and Wade Walton, The film revitalized the recording career of some of the musicians.
– Hallgeir
Photo: Kris Payne (from John Morelands webpage)
John Moreland (born June 22, 1985) is an American singer-songwriter from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We saw him supporting Jason Isbell in January, he was fantastic. Intense, personal and with a voice that can make grown men cry.
Moreland sometimes plays solo with an acoustic guitar, but was often accompanied by two different bands: the Black Gold Band (now defunct) or the Dust Bowl Souls. While his earlier music was more rock-based, his more recent releases are characterized as being sparsely acoustic.
I’ve picked 12 songs, one for each of Jesu’s disciples. All these are from Tom Waits’s musings on God and the Devil, it’s hard to tell if Waits is a religious man, but he sure is fascinated by the afterlife.
Tom Waits in a Religious mood:
Music Video for Jesus Gonna Be Here:
– Hallgeir