Released on this Day in 1994. Just love the guitar work on this one. The video kicks as well.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Anniversary Music for the Folks Back Home
You just had to be there at one time or another to know what it really means...
Saturday, August 28, 2010
New Orleans, Home of the Blues - Rollin' and Tumblin' up the Mississippi
Powerful Stuff - Lyrics below by Cyril Neville, Taj Mahal and Friends. Tab with Carl Dufrene on bass and Darryl White on drums were as tight as could be back in the day.
The Blues Is Here To Stay
Long before I learned how to tie my shoes
I learned that New Orleans was the home of the blues
Not long ago one mornin' the sun in the city
The blues went rollin' and tumbin' ya'll up the Mississippi
Up through the delta
Up to Memphis Tennessee
Where every people struggled ya'll
struggled to be free
The blues is the music
That fanned the flame
That burned in the soul
Little Walter and Elmore James
The blues is a music
That anyone can feel
It comes from the crowds of the people that worked the cotton field
The blues grew out of pain, but now it can heal
and the more I sing it, the better I feel
and nobody can give it away
nobody can take it away
nobody can throw it away
and you can't even pray it away
and the blues is a feelin' that will never die
and the blues is a feelin' to stay
what would this world be without BB King
without Bobby Blue Bland doin his thing
without T Bone Walker and Howlin' Wolf
without Bessie and Big Mama struttin' their stuff
there'd be no Elvis no Jerry Lee
a young Eric Clapton would have never crossed the sea
without old Lightnin', Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters to grow up on
hey the Beatles and the Stones they'd of never left home, no no
the blues is the gospel of the common man
the story of a people in a hostile land
built on a foundation that will never fall
thanks to Robert Cray, Stevie Ray,and Taj Majal
and nobody can give it away
nobody can take it away
nobody can throw it away
and you can't even pray it away
and the blues is a feelin' that will never die
and the blues is a feelin' to stay
The Blues Is Here To Stay
Long before I learned how to tie my shoes
I learned that New Orleans was the home of the blues
Not long ago one mornin' the sun in the city
The blues went rollin' and tumbin' ya'll up the Mississippi
Up through the delta
Up to Memphis Tennessee
Where every people struggled ya'll
struggled to be free
The blues is the music
That fanned the flame
That burned in the soul
Little Walter and Elmore James
The blues is a music
That anyone can feel
It comes from the crowds of the people that worked the cotton field
The blues grew out of pain, but now it can heal
and the more I sing it, the better I feel
and nobody can give it away
nobody can take it away
nobody can throw it away
and you can't even pray it away
and the blues is a feelin' that will never die
and the blues is a feelin' to stay
what would this world be without BB King
without Bobby Blue Bland doin his thing
without T Bone Walker and Howlin' Wolf
without Bessie and Big Mama struttin' their stuff
there'd be no Elvis no Jerry Lee
a young Eric Clapton would have never crossed the sea
without old Lightnin', Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters to grow up on
hey the Beatles and the Stones they'd of never left home, no no
the blues is the gospel of the common man
the story of a people in a hostile land
built on a foundation that will never fall
thanks to Robert Cray, Stevie Ray,and Taj Majal
and nobody can give it away
nobody can take it away
nobody can throw it away
and you can't even pray it away
and the blues is a feelin' that will never die
and the blues is a feelin' to stay
New and Improved Sunday Morning Ritual
Stopped getting the newspaper delivered since they were not capable of delivering the (traditionally much desired) Sunday issue for some reason. Reported it repeatedly and eventually they would show up with it but never before Sunday noon and believe it or not with attitude on display. Who the hell my age wants their Sunday paper delivered at noon?
Then the evening phone calls came with the tired "what can we do to make it right?" After discussing the questionable merits of quality control, the near impossibility of hiring decent talent these days, delivering your product with even just a bit of the intensity of their commitment to the follow-up calls and the obligatory "I'll think about it," it dawned on me.
"Hey Mrs. J___ (we were on a first name basis by now), how are you? Thanks for calling yet again." Yes, I have given it more thought and appreciate the free one-year offer but I've already found a replacement. No, no dear, I'm not receiving an out of town, large city publication. I now sit by my pool early Sunday morn with Eclectipundit.com. Never heard of it, yourself? Oh dear, do I detect attitude and I thought that we were becoming fast friends. Why not stop by and join me poolside for some coffee this coming Sunday and I will introduce you to my new Sunday morning reading? What, Mr. J___ might not approve so you better be going now. Sure, it's ok if you or perhaps one of your coworkers calls me in the future but only if you check out my new source of news and information. Promise Mrs. J___? No, no, you have to promise before you call again. Seems we were disconnected - oh dear, someone should check with quality control...
For Buddy - Congrats on the New Gig
Celebrate with some music from the 'dudes who are headed to Port St. Joe next month. Should be there if the creek don't rise...
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Some Cajun Storytelling - Justin Wilson Would Be Proud
This is funny stuff. Houma's own Tab Benoit is always a crowd favorite. Cover the little ears.
Dog's Eye View - Just Wondering About...
State Your Full Name. So, how are you? I'm fine too. Thanks for asking.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Tommy Bolin 1975
He lived a lifetime in a single year. Just 24 when his masterpiece Teaser was released. He also found time to join Deep Purple for their Come Taste the Band release where he helped write seven of the nine songs on the album. Found his peace one year later but sure left his mark... Thanks Blazer!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Good Advice from Steve Marriott
Tour de force (and best IMHO) cover of a tune co-written by Ashford & Simpson and recorded by Ray Charles in '66. Rock on, Artful Dodger.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Good Advice from Cyril Neville -- Performing Over at Tip's
Baby brother is one bad dude but never stare down a voodoo queen...
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Simpatico - A Night to Remember
Can't help but think that if E and me had become successful musicians rather than corporate misfits then well, we would just have to sound and look something like this...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Six Strings Down - Neville Brothers' Tribute to Stevie Ray
Just didn't feel like waiting until August 27 to post. It was on that day in 1990 when SRV, only 35 years of age, lost his life. Legend has it that a concerned Eric Clapton once asked Buddy Guy's advice on how to go on stage following one of Stevie Ray's performances - the simple answer from someone who well understood was "Man, just do the best you can." Truly one of the greatest guitarists of all time...
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Last Goodbye - Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
One of my favorites by KWS - the vocals and guitar work are spot on. Fond memories of the venue too.
Cool Article for Sunday Morn
Talent lost too soon be it a jail cell or the back of a Cadillac...
Lives
Sharing Demons With Hank Williams
By MARTHA WOODROOF
Published: August 13, 2010
A month or so ago my husband, Charlie, and I left our home in the Shenandoah Valley and headed West on a summer driving trip. Our first stop was just a couple of hours away: a gas-station parking lot in Oak Hill, W.Va., where Hank Williams was found dead in his Cadillac convertible on New Year’s Day in 1953.
As we wound into Oak Hill, it occurred to me that every small town in West Virginia sits wedged between mountains, which makes driving through them something you choose to do, rather than something that just happens. Once you do take the trouble to visit, however, it’s my experience that small-town West Virginians are generally glad to see you. If you need something, all you have to do is ask. So Charlie and I pulled into a convenience store to buy sodas and fried pies and do just that. Could you tell us, please, at which gas station Hank Williams was found dead?
The counter clerk didn’t know, which surprised me. After all, if you Google “Oak Hill Hank Williams,” you get a lot of hits. She asked a man who’d come in to buy cigarettes, but he wasn’t sure, either. A conversation developed. Finally, a woman came in who did know. Down the street, she said. Just across from the church.
She walked outside with us to point out the right direction. “Used to be Burdette’s Pure Oil,” she said. “You can’t miss it. There’s nothing there now. Nothing at all.”
Musically speaking, I was raised on classical and educated on rock ’n’ roll. Then in my 30s, someone gave me an Emmylou Harris album, and I began listening to more country music. At the time, I was doing a lot of driving on America’s highways in a pickup with a camper, so songs about heartache, not enough money and rolling down the road seemed, somehow, more real. Bourbon, small-town fried chicken and Emmylou’s music kept me more cheerful than I had any right to be during those creative, chaotic, self-destructive years.
Back then I was still a bit of a snob, toting around a snob’s attendant limitations. Hank Williams’s music was too raw, too hayseed to have meaning. He sang completely in his head and through his nose. His songs were too simplistic, too plonka-plonka in their production. The same person could not possibly embrace Wallace Stevens and Hank Williams. It was only after I’d had a lot of the pretentiousness knocked out of me by my own addiction struggles that I came to understand all this was beside the point. Hank Williams didn’t write songs for hillbillies; he wrote songs for anybody interested in facing life with a modicum of openness and honesty.
Charlie and I drove down the street. There was indeed nothing left of Burdette’s Pure Oil except a concrete slab with a couple of grease spots, a few sprouting wires and some building scraps. I had seen pictures of Burdette’s on the Internet, and it looked to have been built in the ’30s: two gas pumps, peaked blue roof, small double-bay garage, outside restrooms, a soda machine. That’s what it must have been like 57 years ago when a college student named Charles Carr pulled in driving Hank Williams’s Cadillac, the 29-year-old singer slumped in the back seat, dead of too much alcohol, too many drugs, not enough peace. He probably died sometime earlier, somewhere on the road; no one is quite sure where. Not that it matters.
To me, there is no romance in such a death; and not much in the life that leads to it. I get to say this because I, too, once flirted seriously with self-destruction and know that when you’re an addict, the rest of your life is a shadow no matter how many songs you write or places you go or people you please. Or how many good times you have, for that matter. There’s no bargaining with alcohol and drugs once you have to have them. You either stop drinking and using or you die.
Charlie and I stayed around for about an hour, long enough to pick up some chips of Pure Oil’s signature blue roof tile. I plan to keep mine on my desk at work, along with fortune-cookie slips that tell me “curiosity is life” and I am “almost there”; six smooth pebbles from some river somewhere; and my 24-hour A.A. chip.
After close to two decades of sobriety, I do pray in a kind of haphazard fashion, and I am open to all things being possible, even after death. So, at Burdette’s Pure Oil, I said a quick howdy to old Hank. And a quick thanks for the songs. And then I offered him a cross-dimensional high-five. For me, as for him, life is a road trip. We’d both been on the road through Oak Hill, W.Va., yet for some reason, I got to keep going.
Martha Woodroof is the author of a novel, “Small Blessings.” She reports for WMRA public radio in Virginia.
Lives
Sharing Demons With Hank Williams
By MARTHA WOODROOF
Published: August 13, 2010
A month or so ago my husband, Charlie, and I left our home in the Shenandoah Valley and headed West on a summer driving trip. Our first stop was just a couple of hours away: a gas-station parking lot in Oak Hill, W.Va., where Hank Williams was found dead in his Cadillac convertible on New Year’s Day in 1953.
As we wound into Oak Hill, it occurred to me that every small town in West Virginia sits wedged between mountains, which makes driving through them something you choose to do, rather than something that just happens. Once you do take the trouble to visit, however, it’s my experience that small-town West Virginians are generally glad to see you. If you need something, all you have to do is ask. So Charlie and I pulled into a convenience store to buy sodas and fried pies and do just that. Could you tell us, please, at which gas station Hank Williams was found dead?
The counter clerk didn’t know, which surprised me. After all, if you Google “Oak Hill Hank Williams,” you get a lot of hits. She asked a man who’d come in to buy cigarettes, but he wasn’t sure, either. A conversation developed. Finally, a woman came in who did know. Down the street, she said. Just across from the church.
She walked outside with us to point out the right direction. “Used to be Burdette’s Pure Oil,” she said. “You can’t miss it. There’s nothing there now. Nothing at all.”
Musically speaking, I was raised on classical and educated on rock ’n’ roll. Then in my 30s, someone gave me an Emmylou Harris album, and I began listening to more country music. At the time, I was doing a lot of driving on America’s highways in a pickup with a camper, so songs about heartache, not enough money and rolling down the road seemed, somehow, more real. Bourbon, small-town fried chicken and Emmylou’s music kept me more cheerful than I had any right to be during those creative, chaotic, self-destructive years.
Back then I was still a bit of a snob, toting around a snob’s attendant limitations. Hank Williams’s music was too raw, too hayseed to have meaning. He sang completely in his head and through his nose. His songs were too simplistic, too plonka-plonka in their production. The same person could not possibly embrace Wallace Stevens and Hank Williams. It was only after I’d had a lot of the pretentiousness knocked out of me by my own addiction struggles that I came to understand all this was beside the point. Hank Williams didn’t write songs for hillbillies; he wrote songs for anybody interested in facing life with a modicum of openness and honesty.
Charlie and I drove down the street. There was indeed nothing left of Burdette’s Pure Oil except a concrete slab with a couple of grease spots, a few sprouting wires and some building scraps. I had seen pictures of Burdette’s on the Internet, and it looked to have been built in the ’30s: two gas pumps, peaked blue roof, small double-bay garage, outside restrooms, a soda machine. That’s what it must have been like 57 years ago when a college student named Charles Carr pulled in driving Hank Williams’s Cadillac, the 29-year-old singer slumped in the back seat, dead of too much alcohol, too many drugs, not enough peace. He probably died sometime earlier, somewhere on the road; no one is quite sure where. Not that it matters.
To me, there is no romance in such a death; and not much in the life that leads to it. I get to say this because I, too, once flirted seriously with self-destruction and know that when you’re an addict, the rest of your life is a shadow no matter how many songs you write or places you go or people you please. Or how many good times you have, for that matter. There’s no bargaining with alcohol and drugs once you have to have them. You either stop drinking and using or you die.
Charlie and I stayed around for about an hour, long enough to pick up some chips of Pure Oil’s signature blue roof tile. I plan to keep mine on my desk at work, along with fortune-cookie slips that tell me “curiosity is life” and I am “almost there”; six smooth pebbles from some river somewhere; and my 24-hour A.A. chip.
After close to two decades of sobriety, I do pray in a kind of haphazard fashion, and I am open to all things being possible, even after death. So, at Burdette’s Pure Oil, I said a quick howdy to old Hank. And a quick thanks for the songs. And then I offered him a cross-dimensional high-five. For me, as for him, life is a road trip. We’d both been on the road through Oak Hill, W.Va., yet for some reason, I got to keep going.
Martha Woodroof is the author of a novel, “Small Blessings.” She reports for WMRA public radio in Virginia.
Some Jet for Jetboy
Talk about a live performance to remember. Thanks to Evan for the recommendation.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Powerful Stuff from Roy Buchanan's When a Guitar Plays the Blues
My younger brother came home with this album back in the day and I remember that we were some blown away that afternoon. Blaise had a knack for finding really good music when you had to make that $5 count. Not long after, Roy was found dead under questionable circumstances in a Virginia jail cell. His passing was on this day in 1988.
Friday, August 13, 2010
"Play It, Big Town"
Had one of those days today and just needed something Old School - thanks Kim Wilson.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Double Dose of the One and Only Trombone Shorty
Talked to a friend today about her plans to visit New Orleans. Until then, here's some of the finest young talent the Easy has to offer...
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
15 Years Ago Today
A great debate took place between Ole E and me in the main hallway of the Whitney Building, a rather fine institution of days gone by. Onlookers of all walks stared in amazement as emotions ran high with no quarter given by either party. J. Carville, the Ragin' Cajun himself, would have been proud.
And still to this day, the question remains - was she looking at you or was she looking at me?
And still to this day, the question remains - was she looking at you or was she looking at me?
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Subdudes on a Saturday Afternoon
Great song with some wonderful photos - very nice combination indeed.
Vintage Steely Dan
Heard this masterpiece this morning on the drive from Tally to the Easy. More great lyrics and the guitar work of Elliot Randall is unmistakable. Seems strange but Bill Cosby (on the Intro) was young once upon a time.
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