Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
This post includes my favourite cover of a wistful, very famous Johnny Cash song, and a singular version of a less famous, more urgent song, authored by Stuart Adamson.
Both are “live” performances.
Darrell Scott is their American singer-guitarist, Danny Thompson their English double bassist.
And that’s not all…
Comments closedAll photos copyright Doug Spencer, taken on recent walks on local streets and footpaths.
The lovely, spacious musical bonus comes from the northern hemisphere…
One Comment
Did I stumble upon his/their avatar in a Tibetan Plateau marketplace?
Peter Lewis’s essay is an amusing and perceptive look at “Scotty”and Billy, as fellow “masters of pastiche”.
Morrison doesn’t even pretend to try to build his own coherent body of work. It’s not that he can’t come up with a tune. Far from it, there is a ditty for every occasion. It’s just that it’s not leading us anywhere.
Comments closedArguably the quintessential nostalgic song, I’ll Be Seeing You was composed in 1938. (music by Sammy Fain, words by Irving Kahal)
That year it was inserted into a Broadway musical…which flopped.
The song, however, became a “standard”, covered by countless singers…and not a few instrumentalists.
It was a #1 hit for Bing Crosby in 1944.
Frank Sinatra recorded it more than once.
Even Eric Clapton did so, in 2016.
The most celebrated recording – Billie Holiday’s 1944 version – is the one which reached Mars in 2018, as the conclusion to NASA’s final transmission to its Explorer rover.
However, the most “out of this world” version to reach this Earthling’s ears is a “live” and exploratory instrumental trio treatment, delivered in “the city of fallen angels”, in June 2016.
Comments closed…as chosen by other famous musos.
In most cases, the article will take you directly to Dylan’s performance of the relevant song.
Would Mick Jagger make an interesting choice?
What about Gillian Welch, Tom Jones, Marianne Faithful, Billy Bragg or Judy Collins?
Would some/none/all have anything interesting to say about his or her choice?
One Comment(four times, if you are new to Bob Dylan’s not-altogether-original “original”)
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
One Comment
Not all deciduous trees have home addresses in cool temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
This one’s home is in a very particular part of tropical Australia.
This individual is circa 750 years old, weighs 36 tonnes, and is thriving in a place with quite the “wrong” climate, 3200 kilometres from home.
Even more amazingly, to get “here” it survived uprooting, followed by almost certainly the longest road trip ever undertaken by a large, living tree.
One Comment(the “metaphorical” featured image shows climbers on what many believe to be the world’s tallest sheer rock-face…it isn’t)
This very poignant song was written a quarter of a century ago.
Its co-authors, separately, have recorded it, but the most celebrated version is a “cover”, issued 20 years ago.
None of those recordings quite “nailed” it, I think.
As of February 21, 2021, there is a “definitive” version, performed “live”…
One Comment
In the USA, it is currently “yesterday”, Tuesday, 11 May, 2021.
I hope that Carla Bley is enjoying a very happy birthday with her beloved, Steve Swallow.
For rather more than my entire adult life, Carla Bley has composed, arranged and played singular music, variously – sometimes, simultaneously – provocative, surprising, very amusing, satirical, sublimely lyrical, complex, seemingly-simple…
Her three most recent releases – all, new trio recordings of new music, made between 2013 and 2019 – are some of her finest, ever.
Comments closed
