All posts by Hallgeir

Bootleg, Playlist, Tom Waits

The Best Bootlegs: Tom Waits Tales From The Riverside (no audio, sorry)

Tom Waits - Tales From The Riverside - Front

The Best Bootlegs: Tom Waits  Tales From The Riverside

A compilation of various tracks from various sources and I don’t think it was ever released commercially. But, quite a few of the songs has been released on Orphans and that’s why I’m inclined to call it a playlist rather than a bootleg. Anyway, I think it is a good compilation and one of the most played Tom Waits playlists in my home.

The track listing is taken right from the original artwork scans from the people at tomwaitsuper.blogspot.com (now sadly closed), with a few additions from myself.

Tom Waits - Tales From The Riverside - Back

As we all know, the Tales From The Underground bootleg series is a great thing, for it features a huge collection of rare Tom Waits-songs that can’t be found on his official albums. Nevertheless, the folks who produced those bootlegs made some mistakes and forgot some great recordings. And there were a lot of new songs released after Tales From The Underground Volume 5 came out.

This compilation is meant as an addition to that great set.  It’s entitled Tales From the Riverside.

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Concert films, Jack White, Live

Video of the day: Jack White at Fargo Theatre April 26 2015 (full show)

Fargo

Video of the day: Jack White at Fargo Theatre, ND April 26 2015 (full show)

Jack White finished his 5 concert long tour, all acoustic, with a final show in North Dakota April 26. The whole show is now on YouTube, this is a real treat! This show is the final one on a tour where White visited 5 states he hadn’t played in before.

Enjoy!

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Blues, Bukka White, The Best Songs

The Best Songs: Fixin’ To Die Blues by Bukka White aka Booker T Washington
Drawing by the incredible William Stout
Drawing by the incredible William Stout

The Best Songs: Fixin’ To Die Blues by Bukka White aka Booker T Washington

“Fixin’ to Die” is song by American blues musician Bukka White. It is performed in the Delta blues style with White’s vocal and guitar accompanied by washboard rhythm. White recorded it in Chicago on May 8, 1940, for record producer Lester Melrose. The song was written just days before, along with eleven others, at Melrose’s urging.

White was resuming his recording career, which had been interrupted by his incarceration for two and one-half years at the infamous Parchman Farm prison in Mississippi. While there, White witnessed the death of a friend and “got to wondering how a man feels when he dies”. His lyrics reflect his thoughts about his children and wife:

I’m looking funny in my eyes, an’ I b’lieve I’m fixin’ to die (2×)
I know I was born to die, but I hate to leave my children cryin’ …
So many nights at the fireside, how my children’s mother would cry (2×)
‘Cause I ain’t told their mother I had to say good-bye

Fixin To Die blues by Bukka White (1940 version):

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Country, folk, Johnny Cash, Music Calendar

April 26: Johnny Cash American Recordings was released in 1994


cash american 1

April 26:  Johnny Cash  American Recordings was released in 1994

…Always, the choice of material is a revelation. The Beast In Me (written by former son-in-law, Nick Lowe) could be autobiographical. And while writers like horrorpunk figurehead Glenn Danzig or Tom Waits probably would never have figured on his radar were it not for Rubin; time and again the duo found songs that were, in Cash’s hands, to take on new life. This willingness to experiment was to set a precedent: Subsequent albums were to see him work magic on material from Nine Inch Nails to U2 and Depeche Mode. But Johnny Cash’s final road to redemption and artistic fulfillment starts here…
~Chris Jones (bbc.co.uk)

American Recordings did something very important — it gave Cash a chance to show how much he could do with a set of great songs and no creative interference, and it afforded him the respect he’d been denied for so long, and the result is a powerful and intimate album that brought the Man in Black back to the spotlight, where he belonged.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)

#1 – Delia’s Gone

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Blues, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Gospel, Jazz, Johnny Cash, Soul, The Best Songs, Video

The Best Songs: Just a Closer Walk With Thee

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Just a Closer Walk with Thee is a traditional gospel song that has been covered by many artists. Performed as either an instrumental or vocal, “A Closer Walk” is perhaps the most frequently played number in the hymn and dirge section of traditional New Orleans jazz funerals.

Rebirth Brass Band – A Closer Walk With Thee:

The ‘jazz funeral’ starts off sombre. On its way to the cemetery, the brass band plays soulful, sad funeral hymns called ‘dirges’,  it should be something that reminds mourners of life’s ups and downs. The slow tune lasts until the procession reaches its final destination, at which point they ‘cut the body loose’ – send the hearse off into the cemetery.

I really love this song and have “dug up” a few examples of great artists doing their version of this old tune.

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