Tag Archives: Ian Hunter

Ian Hunter – Is Your Love In Vain (Dylan), Happy Birthday Ian Hunter!

ian hunter

Do you love me, or are you just extending goodwill?
Do you need me half as bad as you say, or are you just feeling guilt?
I’ve been burned before and I know the score
So you won’t hear me complain
Will I be able to count on you
Or is your love in vain?

Is your love in vain? is a song from Dylan’s Street Legal album, but my favourite version (official, that is…) is from Live at Budokan. It’s a heart achingly honest love song, he really bares his heart, and I feel for the man. The song is profoundly touching, and in my book, one of Bob Dylan’s best love songs. It received a fair amount of negative response when it was released, some critics meant it was degrading women. I think that is harsh, I simply cannot see it.

Ian Hunter performed the song for a TV-show in 1981 (aired 1982?) and has been released on a bootleg/semi-official compilation album, Bald At The Station (2012).

bald_at_the_station

“The CD ends with one song from a 1982 Don Kirshner performance and finds Hunter diving back to his roots, dirging up Dylan’s “Love in Vain” and making it his own. If a better-quality recording exists, let’s hope it turns up somewhere soon. In the meantime, it’s a marvelous end to a surprisingly useful odds ‘n’ oddities collection, and proof that we were all severely shortchanged when the Ian Hunter anthology turned out to be a mere two discs. He deserved at least four.”
– Dave Thompson (allmusic.com)

Continue reading Ian Hunter – Is Your Love In Vain (Dylan), Happy Birthday Ian Hunter!

Ian Hunter Is Your Love In Vain (Dylan) – Happy Birthday Mr. Hunter!

ian hunter

Do you love me, or are you just extending goodwill?
Do you need me half as bad as you say, or are you just feeling guilt?
I’ve been burned before and I know the score
So you won’t hear me complain
Will I be able to count on you
Or is your love in vain?

Is your love in vain? is a song from Dylan’s Street Legal album, but my favourite version (official, that is…) is from Live at Budokan. It’s a heart achingly honest love song, he really bares his heart, and I feel for the man. The song is profoundly touching, and in my book, one of Bob Dylan’s best love songs. It received a fair amount of negative response when it was released, some critics meant it was degrading women. I think that is harsh, I simply cannot see it.

Ian Hunter performed the song for a TV-show in 1981 (aired 1982?) and has been released on a bootleg/semi-official compilation album, Bald At The Station (2012).

bald_at_the_station

“The CD ends with one song from a 1982 Don Kirshner performance and finds Hunter diving back to his roots, dirging up Dylan’s “Love in Vain” and making it his own. If a better-quality recording exists, let’s hope it turns up somewhere soon. In the meantime, it’s a marvelous end to a surprisingly useful odds ‘n’ oddities collection, and proof that we were all severely shortchanged when the Ian Hunter anthology turned out to be a mere two discs. He deserved at least four.”
– Dave Thompson (allmusic.com)

Continue reading Ian Hunter Is Your Love In Vain (Dylan) – Happy Birthday Mr. Hunter!

June 03 in music history

Today: The late Curtis Mayfield was born in 1942 – 72 years ago (Read more)

Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999)  is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music. He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums.

Curtis Mayfield’s songwriting and his distinct guitar playing have influenced a lot of artists.

Bob Dylan played Mayfield’s People Get Ready , and it is obvious he liked Curtis Mayfield’s work . The Impressions’s Keep On Pushing, the album, is on the Bringing It All Back Home cover.

Photo: David Reed
Photo: David Reed

Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” is a soul single by Stevie Wonder, recorded for Motown’s Tamla label. Released June 3, 1970, the song spent six weeks at number one on the U.S. R&B chart and peaked at number three on the U.S. Pop chart. In the same year, the song was also released on the album Signed, Sealed & Delivered.

The song was a series of firsts for the 20-year-old Wonder: “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” was the first single Wonder produced on his own, and was also the first to feature his female backup singing group composed of Lynda Tucker Laurence (who went on to become a member of The Supremes),Syreeta Wright (who also co-wrote the song), and Venetta Fields.

During a 2008 appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, he credited the song title and chorus “signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours” to his mother Lula, who exclaimed the words after listening to her son experiment with the melody. This song also marked Wonder’s first Grammy nomination.

220px-Swonderssd

Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973)

American blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.

She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being “Bumble Bee”, “Nothing in Rambling”, and “Me and My Chauffeur Blues“. Her performances and songwriting made her well known in a genre dominated mostly by men. She died on August 6, 1973, in Memphis, Tennessee.

 Memphis_Minnie_Portrait_Walls_MS
Ian Hunter Patterson, (born 3 June 1939)English singer-songwriter who is best known as the lead singer of the English rock band Mott the Hoople from its inception in 1969 to its dissolution in 1974, and at the time of its 2009 reunion. Hunter was a musician and songwriter before joining Mott The Hoople, and continued in this vein after he left the band.Mott The Hoople achieved a certain level of commercial success, and attracted a small but devoted fan base. As a solo artist, Hunter charted with lesser-known but more wide-ranging works outside of the rock mainstream. His best-known solo records are “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” and “Cleveland Rocks” 800px-Ian_Hunter2009
William Norris “Billy” Powell (June 3, 1952 – January 28, 2009) American musician. He was the longtime keyboardist of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, from 1970 until his death in 2009. 

Billy remained a member of the Skynyrd crew (as a roadie) for two years (which included, amongst the grittier shows, highlights such as Skynyrd landing a support slot for Leslie West’s “Mountain”) In his second year with them, 1972, Skynyrd played one particular gig, a show at the Bolles school prom. After his usual routine working with Kevin Elson, Billy had time to rest for a short while. In the corner he spotted a piano, so Billy went over and sat down with it. Just fooling around, Billy launches into his piano based version of Freebird for the boys in the band to listen to. Ronnie, astonished at his roadie’s hitherto secret ability said ‘You mean to tell me, you’ve been playing the piano like that and you’ve been workin’ for us for a year….’. Billy replied, “Well, you know, I’ve been classically trained most of my life.’ He was then told Skynyrd were looking for a keyboard man, and Billy was in!

 billy powell
Koko Taylor, sometimes spelled KoKo Taylor (September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009)American Chicago blues singer, popularly known as the “Queen of the Blues.” She was known primarily for her rough, powerful vocals and traditional blues stylings.  220px-KokoTaylor2006

Spotify Playlist – June 03: