[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!
~John Lennon
From the Liverpool docks to the red light Hamburg streets
Down in the quarry with the Quarrymen.
Playing to the big crowds
Playing to the cheap seats
Another day in your life on your way to your journey’s end
Shine your light, move it on, you burn so bright, roll on John
~Bob Dylan
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
― John Lennon[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Well, I’m stranded in the city that never sleeps
Some of these women they just give me the creeps
I’m avoidin’ the Southside the best I can
These memories I got, they can strangle a man[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
“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)
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]This album sort of wrote itself. It was bigger than me and faster than me and so it took me awhile to get a handle on what it was about. Basically, it comes down to stuff I care about. That’s where the title comes from.
-Steve Earle (steveearle.net)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”].. the album kicks off with a tremendous one-two punch, the rousing acoustic ballad “Christmas in Washington” and “Taneytown,” a harrowing story of race and violence backed with gale-force electric guitars. El Corazón is also a good bit more eclectic than much of Earle’s previous work, dipping into bluegrass (“You Know the Rest,” featuring backing from the Del McCoury Band), old-school country (“The Other Side of Town”), hard rock (“N.Y.C.,” co-starring the Supersuckers, and “Here I Am”), and vintage R&B (“Telephone Road”). As its title suggests, El Corazón often deals with matters of the heart, expressed with particular eloquence on “Poison Lovers” and “If You Fall,” though the song’s most emotionally resonant moment comes with its closing song, “Ft. Worth Blues,” a moving farewell to Earle’s longtime friend and mentor Townes Van Zandt.
-Mark Deming (allmusic.com)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Great album, one of Earle’s best!
It’s a mix of country, folk, rock, soul, pain, redemption and politics. What a magnificent brew it is ! Truly remarkable.
Taneytown (live, Sidney, 2013):
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]This song, which is graced with Emmylou Harris singing backup, is told from the point of view of a 22 year old retarded black man. I also wrote it in the form of a short story that will be in my book. Taneytown is a real place – you can see it on maps of The Battle Of Gettysburg – but it (the story) could reallytake place anywhere racism exists. I took a risk writing the story and a risk doing this song and I don’t claim to have it well…. But just taking the chance made it worthwhile for me.
-Steve Earle (steveearle.net)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
““What good am I if I’m like all the rest?” the 70-year-old singer nearly whispers to open the album. Is the question rhetorical? Is he talking to himself? The performance, a cover of a somewhat obscure Dylan tune where Jones is backed up by only a sparse rhythm section, is almost prayer-like in its gentle quietness and with its heartfelt vocals. Yet no answer is given to this or Jones’ other questions throughout the song, leaving the listener to ponder the answers and making it a quite haunting piece of music.”
– Adam Sheets (NoDepression)
Tom Jones – What Good Am I? – The best Dylan covers
Bob Dylan released What Good Am I? on his classic album, Oh Mercy in 1989.
Oh Mercy is notable for its sustained moodiness and resignation, often in relation to romantic dissolution. This is immediately apparent on the atmospheric Most of the Time, which features the richest production on the album. Described as “magisterial” by Allan Jones of Melody Maker, the narrator in Most of the Time sings of an estranged lover whom the narrator can’t quite shake from his memories. The song addresses an irreconcilable, personal relationship, and this theme would continue through What Good Am I?, a frank look at the narrator’s moral worth.
What good am I some like all the rest If I just turn away when I see how you’re dressed If I shut myself off so I can’t hear you cry What good am I?
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, “This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem”
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
