It has been a long time since Mr. Earle has played with The Dukes on record, and this time he has also included The Duchesses. It is sooo nice to hear him with a band again. We’re going to experience them live in a couple of months, things are looking bright!
The new album is fantastic (the songs I’ve heard).
I’ve searched the web for some live previews, they are not many and they’re hard to find. Here are 5 samples, most of them solo performances, but all of them are unbelievably good. This must be his best album in years, even if he has a very high standard.
Jocelyn Eve Stoker (born 11 April 1987), better known by her stage name Joss Stone, is a British soul singer, songwriter and actress. Stone rose to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist. Her second album, the similarly multi-platinum Mind Body & Soul, topped the UK Albums Chart for one week and spawned the top ten hit “You Had Me”, Stone’s most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date. Both the album and single received one nomination at the 2005 Grammy Awards, while Stone herself was nominated for Best New Artist, and in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2004 was ranked fifth as a predicted breakthrough act of 2004. She became the youngest British female singer whose debut album topped the UK Albums Chart. Stone’s third album, Introducing Joss Stone, released in March 2007, achieved gold record status by the RIAA and yielded the second-ever highest debut for a British female solo artist on the Billboard 200, and became Stone’s first Top 5 album in the United States and first non-Top 10 album in the United Kingdom.
I’ve Fallen In Love With You:
Stone released her fourth album, Colour Me Free!, on 20 October 2009, which reached the Top 10 on Billboard. Stone released her fifth album, LP1, on 22 July 2011, which reached the Top 10 on Billboard. Throughout her career, Stone has sold 13 million albums, establishing herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time, best-selling soul artists of the 2000s and best-selling British artists of her time. Her first three albums have sold over 2,722,000 copies in the United States, while her first two albums have sold over 2,000,000 copies in United Kingdom. Stone has won two BRIT Awards and one Grammy Award. She also made her film acting debut in 2006 with the fantasy adventure film Eragon, and made her television debut portraying Anne of Cleves in the Showtimeseries The Tudors in 2009. Stone was the youngest woman on the 2006 Sunday Times Rich List —an annual list of the UK’s wealthiest people—with £6 million. In 2012, her fortune is estimated to be £10 million, making her the fifth richest British musician under 30. The Soul Sessions Vol. 2, a sequel to her debut album, was released on 23 July 2012.
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Harris April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
My two favorite songs by Billie Holiday are Strange Fruit and Speak Low.
Strange Fruit:
Strange Fruit, the haunting song about lynching in America was first recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939.
Strange Fruit is one of the earliest examples of a protest song. It is simple, spare and effective poetry. We must remember that it was written at a time when political protest was not often expressed in music, and still a dangerous thing to do. The three short verses has an unusual and ironic tone and are all the more powerful for it. To take such wonderful scenery and mix it with the brutality of hanging, to speak of lynched men as fruit, to mix up the smell of magnolias with that of burning flesh — this is powerful stuff to this day! We can only imagine the impact of the song when it was released.
Getting the song on record was not easy. Columbia Records, Holiday’s regular label, refused release it. It was Commodore Records, a small outfit run by Milton Gabler that finally released it.
Here is a great documentary about the film that was shown on PBS, it is a must see film:
The film tells a dramatic story of America’s past by using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter. The saga brings us face-to-face with the terror of lynching as it spotlights the courage and heroism of those who fought for racial justice when to do so was to risk ostracism and livelihood if white – and death if black. It examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labor, the Left and popular culture that would give rise to the civil rights movement.
Speak Low:
Speak low when you speak, love Our summer day withers away too soon, too soon Speak low when you speak, love Our moment is swift, like ships adrift, we’re swept apart, too soon Speak low, darling, speak low Love is a spark, lost in the dark too soon, too soon
“Speak Low” (1943) is a popular song composed by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Ogden Nash. It was introduced by Mary Martin and Kenny Baker in the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus (1943). The 1944 hit single was by Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, with vocal by Billy Leach. The tune is a jazz standard that has been widely recorded. The opening line is a (slight mis)quotation from William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1600), where it is spoken by Don Pedro.
Steve Earle got to play with the Allman Brothers, and what do the do? A song he said he always wanted to do with them, Copperhead Road plus a true classic done in a respectful way, Knocking on Heaven’s Door. Bruce Katz also sit in on keyboards.
This happened just a few weeks ago.Lucky are the people who had tickets for that show!
The sound is a bit “sharp” but this was just too good to miss.
“By the time you get close to the answers, it’s nearly all over.”
– Merle Haggard
The first time we met is a favorite memory of mine. They say time changes all it pertains to But your memory is stronger than time. I guess everything does change except what you choose to recall.
Wikipedia:
Merle Ronald Haggard (born April 6, 1937) is an American country music song writer, singer, guitarist, fiddler, and instrumentalist. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster and the unique mix with the traditional country steel guitar sound, new vocal harmony styles in which the words are minimal, and a rough edge not heard on the more polished Nashville Sound recordings of the same era.
My Favorite Memory:
By the 1970s, Haggard was aligned with the growing outlaw country movement, and has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s.
Haggard’s guitar playing and voice gives his country a hard-edged, blues-like style in many cuts.
Merle Haggard is one of country music’s most versatile artists. His compositions ranges wide: ballads , autobiographical reflections, political commentaries and funny drinking songs. Easy dance songs and more serious stuff.
But first of all it’s the voice, man! That voice!
Todays album is the great , Big City. It’s Merle Haggard’s masterpiece and one of my all-time favorite country records:
Big City, both the cut and the album, revisits the seemingly eternal themes in Haggard’s best work — the plight of the honest, decent working man amid the squalor, complication, and contradiction of urban life. Besides the title cut, there are bona fide Haggard classics here — and some that aren’t but should be.
(Allmusic)
The Beacon Theater – New York, NY.
