Merle Haggard

1976: 20 Songs you Must hear from 1976

Posted on by Egil Mosbron


Alldylan / Borntolisten @ Facebook

Check out:

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The Year 1976 summary

  • Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot becomes prime minister (and virtual dictator) of Cambodia after Prince Sihanouk steps down (April 2).
  • Israeli airborne commandos attack Uganda’s Entebbe Airport and free 103 hostages held by pro-Palestinian hijackers of Air France plane; one Israeli and several Ugandan soldiers killed in raid (July 4).
  • 19-month civil war ends in Lebanon after threatening to escalate to global level (Nov.).
  • US: US Supreme Court rules that blacks and other minorities are entitled to retroactive job seniority (March 24).
  • US: US Supreme Court rules that death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual and is a constitutionally acceptable form of punishment (July 3).
  • US: Jimmy Carter elected US President (Nov. 2).
  • –
  • Movies: Rocky, Taxi Driver, Network, All the President’s Men
  • Deaths: Agatha Christie, Andre Malraux

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My rules:

  • Only one song per artist/group
  • The song must be released that specific year
  • Songs from live albums not allowed
  • Restricted to only 20 songs

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As usual.. a lot of wonderful music was released in 1976, again hard to pick only 20.

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January 2: Merle Haggard released Sing Me Back Home (album) in 1968

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Sing Me Back Home is the fifth studio album by singer and songwriter Merle Haggard, released in 1968 on Capitol Records.

“Sing Me Back Home follows the blueprint of Merle Haggard’s first three albums, balancing a hit single with album tracks and a couple of covers, but there is a difference. Where the previous album Branded Man was a transitional album, hinting that Haggard’s talents were deepening substantially, Sing Me Back Home is the result of the flowering of his talent.”
– Thomas Erlewine (allmusic)

Merle Haggard appeared on Austin City Limits nine times over the course of his legendary career. Here’s “Sing Me Back Home” from his appearance in 1978:

A little slowed down beautiful version! Continue reading “January 2: Merle Haggard released Sing Me Back Home (album) in 1968” →

1968: 20 Songs Released in 1968 You Must Hear

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

My rules:

  • Only one song per artist/group
  • The song must be released that specific year
  • Songs from live albums not allowed
  • Restricted to only 20 songs

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A shitload of great music was released in 1968, here are my 20 chosen songs.

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  • Madame George – Van Morrison

    Madame George is the album’s whirlpool. Possibly one of the most compassionate pieces of music ever made, it asks us, no, arranges that we see the plight of what I’ll be brutal and call a lovelorn drag queen with such intense empathy that when the singer hurts him, we do too.
    -Lester Bangs

    A song from the album Astral Weeks, released in 1968. It was recorded during the first Astral Weeks session that took place on September 25, 1968 at Century Sound Studios in New York City with Lewis Merenstein as producer.

    In 1974, after he had recorded eight albums, Morrison told Ritchie Yorke when he asked him what he considered his finest single track and the one that he enjoyed the most that it was: “Definitely ‘Madame George’, definitely. I’m just starting to realize it more and more. It just seems to get at you… it just lays right in there, that whole track. The vocals and the instruments and the whole thing. I like that one.”
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    Down on Cyprus Avenue
    With a childlike vision leaping into view
    Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
    Ford and Fitzroy, Madame George
    Marching with the soldier boy behind
    He’s much older now with hat on drinking wine
    And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
    The cool night air like Shalimar
    –

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    Continue reading “1968: 20 Songs Released in 1968 You Must Hear” →

1967: 20 songs released in 1967 you must hear

Posted on by Egil Mosbron




Our series of posts on the best music from specific years continues.. this is 1967.

Alldylan / Borntolisten @ Facebook

Check out:

My rules:

  • Only one song per artist/group
  • The song must be released that specific year
  • Songs from live albums not allowed
  • Restricted to only 20 songs

–

A lot of wonderful music was released in 1967, here are my 20 chosen songs.

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  • All Along the Watchtower – Bob Dylan

    Written and recorded by Bob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan’s subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan’s live albums.
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    There must be some kind of way outta here
    Said the joker to the thief
    There’s too much confusion
    I can’t get no relief
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    Continue reading “1967: 20 songs released in 1967 you must hear” →

July 30: Johnny Cash recorded “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1955

Posted on by Egil Mosbron

Folsom Prison looms large in Johnny Cash’s legacy, providing the setting for perhaps his definitive song and the location for his definitive album, At Folsom Prison. The ideal blend of mythmaking and gritty reality, At Folsom Prison is the moment when Cash turned into the towering Man in Black, a haunted troubadour singing songs of crime, conflicted conscience, and jail.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

Wikipedia:

Single by Johnny Cash
B-side “So Doggone Lonesome“
Released December 15, 1955
April 1968 (re-recording)
Format 7″ single
Recorded July 30, 1955, Sun Studio, Memphis, Tennessee
Genre Rockabilly, country blues, rock and roll
Length 2:50
Label Sun
Songwriter Johnny Cash
Producer Sam Phillips

Continue reading “July 30: Johnny Cash recorded “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1955″ →

1964: 20 Songs Released in 1964 You Must Hear

Posted on by Egil Mosbron





The Year 1964 world events

  • Nelson Mandela sentenced to life imprisonment in South Africa (June 11).
  • Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution after North Vietnamese torpedo boats allegedly attack US destroyers (Aug. 7).
  • Khrushchev is deposed; Kosygin becomes premier and Brezhnev becomes first secretary of the Communist Party (October).
  • China detonates its first atomic bomb.
  • Three civil rights workers—Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney—murdered in Mississippi (June).
  • President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy issues Warren Report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
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My rules:

  • Only one song per artist/group
  • The song must be released that specific year
  • Songs from live albums not allowed
  • Restricted to only 20 songs

–

  • The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll – Bob Dylan

    Bob Dylan_The times they are a changin
    A topical song written by the American musician Bob Dylan. Recorded on October 23, 1963, the song was released on Dylan’s 1964 album, The Times They Are a-Changin’ and gives a generally factual account of the killing of a 51-year-old barmaid, Hattie Carroll, by William Devereux “Billy” Zantzinger.
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    William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
    With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
    At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’
    And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
    As they rode him in custody down to the station
    And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder
    But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
    Take the rag away from your face
    Now ain’t the time for your tears
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Continue reading “1964: 20 Songs Released in 1964 You Must Hear” →