November 12: Happy 72nd birthday Neil Young

neil-young

“I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It’s a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That’s a real danger.”
-Neil Young

“It’s bettet to burn out than to fade away”
― Neil Young

“If you follow every dream, you might get lost.”
― Neil Young

Eddie Vedder inducts Neil Young into R’nR Hall of Fame:

Birth name Neil Percival Young
Also known as Bernard Shakey, Phil Perspective, Shakey Deal, Clyde Coil, Ol’ Neil, Joe Canuck, Joe Yankee, Marc Lynch, Pinecone Young
Born November 12, 1945 (age 72)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Origin Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Genres Rock, folk rock, country rock,experimental rock, hard rock
Occupations Musician, songwriter, producer,director, screenwriter
Instruments Guitar, vocals, harmonica, piano,banjo, ukelele
Years active 1960–present
Labels Reprise, Motown, Atco, Atlantic,Geffen
Associated acts The Squires, The Mynah Birds,Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crazy Horse, The Stray Gators, The Stills-Young Band, The Ducks, Northern Lights,Pearl Jam, Booker T. Jones, Leon Russell, Elton John
Website neilyoung.com

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November 8: Bonnie Bramlett was born in 1944

Bonnie Bramlett (born Bonnie Lynn O’Farrell; November 8, 1944) is an American singer and sometime actress known for her distinctive vocals in rock and pop music. This began in the mid 1960s as a backing singer, forming the husband-and-wife team of Delaney & Bonnie, and continuing to the present day as a solo artist.

Good Thing:

Bonnie Bramlett was born in Alton, Illinois. She started her musical career at the age of thirteen as a backup singer for blues acts such as Fontella Bass, Albert King, and Little Milton. Continue reading “November 8: Bonnie Bramlett was born in 1944”

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

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

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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September 23: The Late Legend Ray Charles Was Born in 1930

Ray Charles

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Sinatra, and Bing Crosby before him, had been masters of words. Ray Charles is a master of sounds. His records disclose an extraordinary assortment of slurs, glides, turns, shrieks, wails, breaks, shouts, screams and hollers, all wonderfully controlled, disciplined by inspired musicianship, and harnessed to ingenious subtleties of harmony, dynamics and rhythm… It is either the singing of a man whose vocabulary is inadequate to express what is in his heart and mind or of one whose feelings are too intense for satisfactory verbal or conventionally melodic articulation. He can’t tell it to you. He can’t even sing it to you. He has to cry out to you, or shout to you, in tones eloquent of despair — or exaltation. The voice alone, with little assistance from the text or the notated music, conveys the message.
~Henry Pleasants[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

What’d I Say part 1 & 2:

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August 20: Happy 69th Birthday Robert Plant

Robert-Plant

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]It’s sort of a feeling of power onstage. It’s really the ability to make people smile, or just to turn them one way or another for that duration of time, and for it to have some effect later on. I don’t really think it’s power… it’s the goodness.
~Robert Plant

My vocal style I haven’t tried to copy from anyone. It just developed until it became the girlish whine it is today.
~Robert Plant[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Whole Lotta Love – live 1970:

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