All posts by Hallgeir

Concert films, Johnny Cash, Live

Video of the day: Johnny Cash Live from Austin, TX 1987 (concert video)

1 Comment

Johnny Cash Austin TX 1987

“In case you’ve been born since ‘56 and never heard it…this is the way it sounded 31 years ago when we recorded it.”
– Johnny Cash (introducing I Walk the Line)

“At one point, while introducing his band, Cash tells the audience, “I don’t even remember the bad times, there’s been so many good times,” but on the best moments of this performance, it’s clear he never forgot the valleys of his life, and they informed his work even on what should have been just another television gig following the release of an album (Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town) destined to be lost in the shuffle.It’s the strength of ordinary moments like this that serve as a reminder of how remarkable Johnny Cash really was, and while Live from Austin TX is hardly his definitive live album (that honor would go to Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison), it’s a potent and thoroughly enjoyable disc that fans will want to hear.”
– Mark Demming (allmusic.com)

Recorded on January 3, 1987, Live from Austin, TX is Johnny Cash’s performance from the Austin, Texas television show, Austin City Limits. It was released on New West Records in 2005. Cash performs many old hits, and performs new ones from his latest releases on Mercury Records, where he just recently moved to. The CD and DVD do not contain the whole show — the songs “The Big Light”, “A Wonderful Time Up There”, and “The Fourth Man in the Fire” were left out.

Continue reading Video of the day: Johnny Cash Live from Austin, TX 1987 (concert video) →

Country, folk, Music Calendar, Singer Songwriter

November 13: Ray Wylie Hubbard is 68 Happy Birthday

Ray Wylie Hubbard 1
Photo Credit: Todd Wolfson

“We’re in the mud and scum of things, moaning, crying and lying
At least we ain’t Lazurus and had to think twice about dying.”
– Lazurus, Ray Wylie Hubbard

“I’m very grateful. I’m an old cat, but I feel very fortunate to have seen Lightnin’ Hopkins and Freddie King. I saw Ernest Tubb play and Gary Stewart, so it’s kind of a combination of not just the different forms of music that’s influenced me, but the great musicians in that form of music. I guess it’s the ‘character’ in their songwriting that’s influenced me.”
– Ray Wylie Hubbard (to The Current)

Continue reading November 13: Ray Wylie Hubbard is 68 Happy Birthday →

Blues, Country, Music Calendar, Singer Songwriter

November 11: Dave Alvin is 59 – Happy Birthday

2 Comments

dave alvin
I started writing poetry before I started writing songs. In my checkered college past I was a creative writing major at Long Beach State University, which had a great writing program, and that’s where I learned all the nuts and bolts that helped me out in songwriting. They forced us to write in traditional forms — sonnets, iambic pentameter — just so we could understand that writing wasn’t just splaying free verse all over the page. But then the more songs I wrote using all those poetic forms, the more my poetry become like prose, almost to the point of journalism…

~Dave Alvin (Interview by Jim Catalano)

Continue reading November 11: Dave Alvin is 59 – Happy Birthday →

Country, folk, The Best Songs, Townes Van Zandt

The Best Songs: Tecumseh Valley by Townes Van Zandt

The Best Songs: Tecumseh Valley by Townes Van Zandt

I first heard this song when Emmylou Harris sang it, then I heard Nanci Griffith’s version on the album, Other voices other rooms. Great interpretations both of them. It made me seek out Townes Van Zandt’s versions, they’re even better!

John Townes Van Zandt I (March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997), best known as Townes Van Zandt, was an American singer-songwriter. Many of his songs, including “If I Needed You” and “To Live Is to Fly”, are considered standards of their genre.

While alive, Van Zandt had a small and devoted fanbase, but he never had a successful album or single and even had difficulty keeping his recordings in print. In 1983, six years after Emmylou Harris had first popularized it, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covered his song “Pancho and Lefty,” scoring a number one hit on the Billboard country music charts. Despite achievements like these, the bulk of his life was spent touring various dive bars, often living in cheap motel rooms, backwoods cabins, and on friends’ couches. Van Zandt was notorious for his drug addictions, alcoholism, and his tendency to tell tall tales. (Wikipedia)

Early version from the album, For the sake of the song:

Late version (more like the one on Our Mother The Mountain):

Continue reading The Best Songs: Tecumseh Valley by Townes Van Zandt →

Bob Dylan, Cover versions, The Best Songs

Five good and two GREAT versions of Bob Dylan’s Abandoned Love

2 Comments

Bob Dylan & Sara Dylan

Abandoned Love is a beautiful song, one of Dylan’s finest. A lovely song that Bob Dylan recorded for (but left out of) Desire in NYC, July 31, 1975. It was later released on Biograph in 1985. The only live version Dylan did of the song is even better. We include both of Dylan’s takes on the song here (the two great ones), but first we will present five cover versions (the three good ones).

Five good cover versions:

Chuck Prophet – Abandoned Love (live):

Continue reading Five good and two GREAT versions of Bob Dylan’s Abandoned Love →