All posts by Egil

Today: Albert Ammons passed away in 1949 – 63 years ago

Chicago in mind:

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Albert C. Ammons
Born September 23, 1907
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died December 2, 1949 (aged 42)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres Jazz, blues, boogie-woogie
Occupations Pianist
Years active 1920s–1949
Labels Vocalion, Blue Note, Delmark,Mercury

Albert Ammons (September 23, 1907 – December 2, 1949) was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, abluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.

 

In 1938 Ammons appeared at Carnegie Hall with Johnson and Lewis, an event that helped launch the boogie-woogie craze. Record producer Alfred Lion who had attended John H. Hammond’s From Spirituals to Swing concert on December 23, 1938, which had introduced Ammons and Lewis, two weeks later started Blue Note Records, recording nine Ammons solos including “The Blues” and “Boogie Woogie Stomp”, eight by Lewis and a pair of duets in a one-day session in a rented studio.

Shout of Joy (1938):

Ammons’s played at President Harry S. Truman’s inauguration in 1949. He died on December 2, 1949 in Chicago  and was interred at the Lincoln Cemetery, at Kedzie Avenue in Blue Island, Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois.

Album of the day:

The First Day (1992):

Other December 02:

Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to[who?] as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”. Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she was influential to many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time included her song “Take This Hammer” on its list of the All-Time 100 Songs, stating that “Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music.”

-Egil & Hallgeir

Video of the day: Van Morrison – Born To Sing – Live in East Belfast, Sep 2012

Van Morrisons latest album is magnificent.

Here is a live video of  the title cut “Born To Sing”:

Lyrics:

They can be keen
To be everything
But it comes with the state
When you were born to sing

Reasons as I walked in
It’s not done on a whim
Passions everything when
You were born to sing

Feeling good singin the blues
It aint easy – keep on payin them dues
When it gets to the part
Well let’s not stop and start
Deep down in your heart you know
You were born to sing

Instrumental Bit

When you came in
No original sin
You were a king because
You were born to sing

Reasons as I walked in
[. From: http://www.elyrics.net .]

It’s not done on a whim
Passions everything when
You were born to sing

Yeah – feeling good singin the blues
Keep on keepin on – keep on
Payin them dues
When it comes to the part
Well let’s not stop and start
Deep down in your heart – baby
You were born to sing

When it gets to the part
When the band start to swing
Then you know everything
Cause you were born to sing

When it gets to the part
When the band start to swing
Then you know everything
Cause you were born to sing Instrumental to end

-Egil

Van Morrison: Exile, Place & Eternal Movement – Part.1

OLD post … You’re being redirected to a newer version……

This post is inspired by a chapter in Peter Mills great book Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison.

Some of the musicians I was working with very early on were very good, but they didn’t want to leave home, so they didn’t go any further…. but I did [want to leave home] or I felt like I had to
~Van Morrison

Exile

Wikipedia: Exile means to be away from one’s home (i.e. city, state or country), while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return. It can be a form of punishment and solitude.

Exile i a key theme in Morrison’s work & he also named his recording company ‘Exile’.

His foremost song about exile has to be “Too Long in Exile” – the title cut from his 1993 double album.

Robert Christgau – review of the album:
You know, exile — like Joyce and Shaw and Wilde and, oh yeah, Alex Haley. All on account of those “Bigtime Operators” who bugged his phone back when he was green. Now getting on to grizzled, he seeks guidance from the kas of Doc Pomus and King Pleasure and “The Lonesome Road,” an unutterably sad spiritual recast as an upbeat vibraphone feature. And especially, on three cuts, his old soulmate John Lee Hooker, who doesn’t come close to sounding overexposed on Them’s “Gloria” and Sonny Boy’s “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” and something new by Van called “Wasted Years,” about how the dumb stuff is behind them now. I don’t know about Hook, but Van’s just jiving–when he wanders “In the Forest,” it’s never a safe bet that he’ll get out. A-

 last part of the lyrics:

Too long in exile
You can never go back home again
Too long in exile
You’re about to drive me just insane

Too long in exile, been too long in exile
Just like James Joyce, baby
Too long in exile
Just like Samuel Beckett baby
Too long in exile
Just like Oscar Wilde
Too long in exile
Just like George Best, baby
Too long in exile
Just like Alex Higgins, baby

Continue reading Van Morrison: Exile, Place & Eternal Movement – Part.1

Today: Carter Stanley passed away in 1966 – 46 years ago

In The Pines:

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Carter Glen Stanley
Born August 27, 1925
Big Spraddle Creek, Virginia,U.S.A.
Died December 1, 1966 (aged 41)
Bristol, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Genres Bluegrass, Old-time
Occupations Guitarist, singer, songwriter
Instruments Guitar
Years active 1946–1966
Labels Rich-R-Tone, Columbia, Mercury,Starday, King
Associated acts The Stanley Brothers, Ralph Stanley, Bill Monroe

Carter Glen Stanley (August 27, 1925 – December 1, 1966) was a bluegrass music lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitar player. He formed the Stanley Brothers band together with his brother Ralph. The Stanley Brothers are generally acknowledged as the first band after Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys to play in the bluegrass genre. According to some historians, their recording of “Molly and Tenbrooks” (aka “The Racehorse Song”) marked the beginning of bluegrass as a genre.

Weeping Willow:

Album of the day:

Complete Columbia Recordings (1996)

 

Other December 01:

Continue reading Today: Carter Stanley passed away in 1966 – 46 years ago

Today: The late Robert Nighthawk was born in 1909 – 103 years ago

robert-nighthawk

 

Of all the pivotal figures in blues history, certainly one of the most important was Robert Nighthawk. He bridged the gap between Delta and Chicago blues effortlessly, taking his slide cues from Tampa Red and stamping them with a Mississippi edge learned first hand from his cousin, Houston Stackhouse.
~Cub Koda (allmuisc.com)

Continue reading Today: The late Robert Nighthawk was born in 1909 – 103 years ago