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Today: Bruce Springsteen is 64

bruce springsteen

For me, I was somebody who was a smart young guy who didn’t do very well in school. The basic system of education, I didn’t fit in; my intelligence was elsewhere.
~Bruce Springsteen

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
~Bruce Springsteen

They call him the Boss. Well that’s a bunch of crap. He’s not the boss. He works FOR us. More than a boss, he’s the owner, because more than anyone else, Bruce Springsteen owns America’s heart.
~Bono (induction speech for at the 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

Thunder Road – live @ Hammersmith 1975:

From Wikipedia:

Also known as The Boss, Bad Scooter
Born September 23, 1949 (age 64)
Long Branch, New Jersey, United States
Genres Rock, folk rock, heartland rock,roots rock
Occupations Musician, Songwriter
Instruments Vocals, guitar, harmonica
Years active 1969–present
Labels Columbia
Associated acts The E Street Band, Steel Mill,Miami Horns, The Sessions Band, Southside Johnny, The Gaslight Anthem, Dropkick Murphys
Website www.brucespringsteen.net

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed “The Boss“, is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running up to an uninterrupted 250 minutes in length.

bruce-springsteen

Springsteen’s recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time, the 96th Greatest Guitarist of all time on their latest list and the 36th Greatest Singer of all time in 2008.

Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can’t quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.
~Bruce Springsteen

Born To Run:

bruce-springsteen

From allmusic.com – William Ruhlmann:

In the decades following his emergence on the national scene in 1975, Bruce Springsteen proved to be that rarity among popular musicians, an artist who maintained his status as a frontline recording and performing star, consistently selling millions of albums and selling out arenas and stadiums around the world year after year, as well as retaining widespread critical approbation, with ecstatic reviews greeting those discs and shows. Although there were a few speed bumps along the way in Springsteen’s career, the wonder of his nearly unbroken string of critical and commercial success is that he achieved it while periodically challenging his listeners by going off in unexpected directions, following his muse even when that meant altering the sound of his music or the composition of his backup band, or making his lyrical message overtly political. Of course, it may have been these very sidesteps that kept his image and his music fresh, especially since he always had the fallback of returning to what his fans thought he did best, barnstorming the country with a marathon rock & roll show using his longtime bandmates.
.. read more over @ allmusic 

Some of his recognition’s: 

  • October 27, 1975: Bruce Springsteen appears simultaneously on the covers of Newsweek and Time
  • Polar Music Prize in 1997.
  • Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999.
  • Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999.
  • Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007.
  • “Born to Run” named “The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey” by the New Jersey state legislature; something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song “is about leaving New Jersey”.
  • The minor planet 23990, discovered September 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor.
  • Ranked No. 23 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
  • Ranked No. 36 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time.
  • Made Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.
  • Won Critic’s Choice Award for Best Song with “The Wrestler” in 2009.
  • Performed at the Super Bowl XLIII half time show.
  • Kennedy Center Honors, 2009.
  • Rolling Stone magazine also ranked 8 out of 16 Springsteen’s studio albums in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list.
  • Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road” in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time list, in 21st and 86th, respectively.
  • Forbes ranked him 6th in The Celebrity 100 in 2009
  • John Steinbeck Award
  • Named 2013 MusiCares Person of the Year

Check out:

Atlantic City (Live):

Album of the day – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978):

darkness on the edge of town

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Today: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds released “Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus” in 2004, 9 years ago

abattoir-blues--the-lyre-of-orpheus

I’ve always had an obligation to creation, above all.
~Nick Cave

People think I’m a miserable sod but it’s only because I get asked such bloody miserable questions.
~Nick Cave

Everything’s dissolving, babe, according to plan
The sky is on fire, the dead are heaped across the land
I went to bed last night and my
moral code got jammed
I woke up this morning with a Frappucino in my hand
~Nick Cave (Abattoir Blues)

Get ready for Love:

From Wikipedia:

Released 20 September 2004
Recorded March–April 2004 at Studio Ferber in Paris, France
Genre Alternative rock
Length 82:30
Label Mute
Producer Nick Launay

Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is the thirteenth studio album by the Australian alternative rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 20 September 2004 on Mute Records. It is a double album with a total of seventeen songs—nine on Abattoir Bluesand eight on The Lyre of Orpheus.

nick-cave-the-bad-seeds

The album was produced by Nick Launay at Studio Ferber in Paris in March–April 2004 and Nick Cave used The Bad Seeds line up of Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler, Martyn Casey, Conway Savage, Jim Sclavunos, Warren Ellis, and James Johnston. It was the first album by the group for which Blixa Bargeld did not perform – English guitarist and organist Johnston, of the group Gallon Drunk, replaced Bargeld. Cave decided to split drumming duties for the two parts, with Sclavunos on Abattoir Blues and Wydler on The Lyre of Orpheus. According to Launay, the whole album was completed in twelve days.

The album’s release was supported by the Abattoir Blues Tour, which travelled through Europe from 2 November to 5 December. In January 2007 a double live album and DVD was issued as The Abattoir Blues TourAbattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus’s last track, “O Children”, was featured in the 2010 film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and the song is referenced as an achievement in Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7. In March 2005, to complement the success of the double album, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released B-Sides & Rarities, a three-disc, 56-track collection of B-sides, rarities, and tracks that had appeared on film soundtracks.

Nick_Cave

From allmusic.com – Thom Jurek:

When Blixa Bargeld left Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, who would have predicted his departure would result in one of the finest offerings in the band’s catalog? Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is a double CD or, rather, two completely different albums packaged in one very handsome box with a stylish lyric booklet and subtly colored pastel sleeves. They were recorded in a total of 16 days by producer Nick Launay (Kate Bush, Midnight Oil, Girls Against Boys, Silverchair, INXS, Virgin Prunes, et al.). Abattoir Blues, the first disc in the set (packaged in pink, of course), is a rock & roll record. Yeah, the same guy who released the Boatman’s Call, No More Shall We Part, and Nocturama albums has turned in a pathos-drenched, volume-cranked rocker, full of crunch, punishment — and taste. Drummer Jim Sclavunos’ aggressive, propulsive kit work is the bedrock of this set. It and Mick Harvey’s storm-squall guitar playing shake things loose on “Get Ready for Love,” which opens the album. As Cave goes right for God in the refrain — “get ready for love” — in the maelstrom, a gospel choir roaring “praise Him” responds. His tense, ambivalent obsession with theology is pervasive; he mocks the Western perception of God in the heavens yet seeks the mystery of His nature. … read more @ allmusic

Personnel:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
  • Nick Cave – vocals, piano, production, mixing
  • Mick Harvey – guitar, production, mixing
  • Warren Ellis – violin, mandolin, bouzouki, flute, production, mixing
  • Martyn P. Casey – bass, production
  • Conway Savage – piano, production
  • James Johnston – organ
  • Jim Sclavunos – drums, percussion, production on Abbattoir Blues
  • Thomas Wydler – drums, percussion, production on The Lyre of Orpheus
Technical personnel
  • Nick Launay – producer, engineer, mixing
  • Lars Fox – digital audio editor
  • Ian Cooper – mastering

….. Bargeld’s departure seems to have shaken Cave and his cohorts in the best way imaginable. The Bad Seeds sounded reined in on Nocturama, a waste of perhaps the most distinctive backing band in rock. Here, they sound energised and unfettered. There is a surfeit of breathtaking moments: Hiding All Away’s finale, where they shift from queasy funk to full-on hellfire-and-brimstone mode; the angular repetitions of The Lyre of Orpheus; the opening of Windswept, with Cave singing “through the windswept coastal trees, where the dead come rising from the sea”, over a frantic, rolling backing of hammering piano and pattering drums, whose the cumulative effect is enough to give you motion sickness…. Abattoir Blues is packed with standard apocalyptic Cave imagery, but he sounds most horrified about a visit to Starbucks: “The sky is on fire, the dead are heaped across the land,” he moans. “I woke up this morning with a Frappucino in my hand.”

You can’t really imagine anyone else in rock writing lyrics like that, but then, you really can’t imagine anyone else making an album like this. Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus is an entirely unique return to form.
~Alexis Petridis (The Guardian)

 

Nature Boy:

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Bob Dylan & The Band at Isle of Wight 1969

bob dylan isle of wight 1969

 

I once held her in my arms
She said she would always stay
But I was cruel
I treated her like a fool
I threw it all away

Woodside Bay
Near Ryde, Isle Of Wight, England
31 August 1969

  • Bob Dylan (guitar & vocal)
  • Robbie Robertson (guitar)
  • Richard Manuel (piano)
  • Garth Hudson (organ)
  • Rick Danko (bass)
  • Levon Helm (drums)
  1. She Belongs To Me
  2. I Threw It All Away
  3. Maggie’s Farm
  4. Wild Mountain Thyme (trad.)
  5. It Ain’t Me, Babe
  6. To Ramona
  7. Mr. Tambourine Man
  8. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
  9. Lay Lady Lay
  10. Highway 61 Revisited
  11. One Too Many Mornings
  12. I Pity The Poor Immigrant
  13. Like A Rolling Stone
  14. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
  15. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
  16. Minstrel Boy
  17. Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35

isle1

 

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-Egil

 

Today: The late Hank Williams was born in 1923, 90 years ago

hank williams

It can be explained in just one word: sincerity. When a hillbilly sings a crazy song, he feels crazy. When he sings, ‘I Laid My Mother Away,’ he sees her a-laying right there in the coffin. He sings more sincere than most entertainers because the hillbilly was raised rougher than most entertainers. You got to know a lot about hard work. You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly. The people that have been raised something like the way the hillbilly has…. knows what he sings about and appreciates it
~Hank Williams (on the success of Country Music)

Nobody had a talent for making suffering enjoyable like Hank Williams
~Kris Kristofferson

Hank Williams was the first influence I would think.
~Bob Dylan (to Billy James, Oct 1961)

I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams.
~Bob Dylan (The Les Crane Show, 17 Feb 1965)

Cold Cold Heart:

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Hiram King Williams
Also known as The Lovesick Blues Boy
Lovesick
Luke the Drifter
Hank Williams, Sr.
The Hillbilly Shakespeare
Born September 17, 1923
Mount Olive, Butler County, Alabama
Died January 1, 1953 (aged 29)
Oak Hill, West Virginia
Genres Country, Western, gospel,blues, honky-tonk, folk
Occupations Songwriter
Musician
Instruments Vocals, guitar
Years active 1937–1952
Labels Sterling, MGM
Associated acts Drifting Cowboys
Audrey Williams
Website www.hankwilliams.com

Hank Williams (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953), born Hiram King Williams, was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most important country music artists of all time. Williams recorded 35 singles (five released posthumously) that would place in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that ranked number one.

From allmusic – Stephen Thomas Erlewine:

Hank Williams is the father of contemporary country music. He was a superstar by the age of 25; he was dead at the age of 29. In those four short years, he established the rules for all the country performers who followed him and, in the process, much of popular music. Hank wrote a body of songs that became popular classics, and his direct, emotional lyrics and vocals became the standard for most popular performers. He lived a life as troubled and reckless as that depicted in his songs. ….  read more @ allmusic.com

Legacy:

  • Alabama governor Gordon Persons officially proclaimed September 21 “Hank Williams Day”
  • In 1961, Williams was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
  • he was inducted in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985
  • In 1987, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame under the category Early Influence
  • He was ranked second in CMT’s 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003, behind only Johnny Cash
  • His son, Hank Jr., was ranked on the same list
  • In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time
  • In 2011 Williams’s 1949 MGM number one hit, “Lovesick Blues,” was inducted into the Recording Academy Grammy Hall Of Fame.
  • In 1999, Williams was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame. 
  • On April 12, 2010, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Williams a posthumous special citation that paid tribute to his “craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.” 
  • Keeping his legacy, Williams’s son, Hank Williams, Jr., daughter Jett Williams, grandson Hank Williams III, and granddaughters Hilary Williams and Holly Williams are also country musicians.

Lovesick Blues:

Hey Good Lookin’:

Album of the day – 40 Greatest Hits (1979):

hank williams 40 greatest hits

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Today: B.B. King is 88

B.B. King

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.
~B. B. King

I never use that word, retire.
~B. B. King

Universally hailed as the reigning king of the blues, the legendary B.B. King is without a doubt the single most important electric guitarist of the last half century. His bent notes and staccato picking style have influenced legions of contemporary bluesmen, while his gritty and confident voice — capable of wringing every nuance from any lyric — provides a worthy match for his passionate playing.
~Bill Dahl (allmusic.com)

The Thrill Is Gone (Live at Montreux 1993):

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Riley King
Also known as B.B. King, King of the Blues
Born September 16, 1925 (age 88)
Origin Itta Bena, Mississippi, United States
Genres Blues, soul blues, jazz, blues rock, electric blues, rhythm and blues, soul
Occupations Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments Vocals, guitar, piano
Years active 1949–present
Labels Geffen/Interscope/Universal,Bullet Records, RPM Records,Crown, ABC, MCA,Reprise/Warner Bros.,Virgin/EMI
Associated acts Bobby BlandEric ClaptonPappoBig Krit

 

Riley B. King (born September 16, 1925), known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American songwriter, vocalist, and famed blues guitarist.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No. 6 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. and No. 17 in Gibson’s Top 50 Guitarists of All Time. According to Edward M. Komara, King “introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that would influence virtually every electric blues guitarist that followed.” King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He is widely considered one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, because of this he is often nicknamed ‘The King of Blues’. He is also known for performing tirelessly throughout his musical career appearing at 250-300 concerts per year until his seventies. In 1956 it was noted that he appeared at 342 shows, still at the age of 86 King appears at 100 shows a year.

Over a period of 63 years, King has played in excess of 15,000 performances.

Over the years, King has developed one of the world’s most identifiable guitar styles. He borrowed from Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and others, integrating his precise and complex vocal-like string bends and his left hand vibrato, both of which have become indispensable components of rock guitarists’ vocabulary. His economy and phrasing has been a model for thousands of players, from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. King has mixed blues, jazz, swing, mainstream pop and jump into a unique sound. In King’s words, “When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.”

Everyday I have the Blues:

Honors & awards:

  • In 1977, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music by Yale University
  • In 1980, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
  • In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
  • In 1990, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
  • In 1991, he was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship from the NEA.
  • King was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1995. This is given to recognize “the lifelong accomplishments and extraordinary talents of our nation’s most prestigious artists.”
  • In 2004, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music awarded him the Polar Music Prize for his “significant contributions to the blues”.
  • On December 15, 2006, President George W. Bush awarded King the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  • On May 27, 2007, King was awarded an honorary doctorate in music by Brown University.
  • On May 14, 2008, King was presented with the keys to the city of Utica, New York; and on May 18, 2008, the mayor of Portland, Maine, Edward Suslovic, declared the day “B.B. King Day” in the city. Prior to King’s performance at the Merrill Auditorium, Suslovic presented King with the keys to the city.
  • In 2009, TIME named B.B. King No.3 on its list of the 10 best electric guitarists of all time.
  • Each year during the first week in June, a B.B. King Homecoming Festival is held in Indianola, Mississippi.
  • A Mississippi Blues Trail marker was added for B.B. King, commemorating his birthplace.
  • On May 29, 2010, Sabrosa Park (at the small town of Sabrosa, north of Portugal) was renamed B.B. King Park in honor of King and the free concert he played before 20,000 people.

How Blue Can You Get (Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll):

Album of the day – Live At The Regal (1965):


 

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