Category Archives: Music Calendar

Today: Bessie Smith passed away in 1937 76 years ago

September 26, 2013 Hallgeir

Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer.

Nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on later jazz vocalists.

She scored a big hit with her first release, a coupling of “Gulf Coast Blues” and “Downhearted Blues”, which its composer Alberta Hunter had already turned into a hit on the Paramount label. Smith became a headliner on the black T.O.B.A. circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter months and doing tent tours the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Columbia nicknamed her “Queen of the Blues,” but a PR-minded press soon upgraded her title to “Empress”.

Smith was gifted with a powerfully strong voice that recorded very well from her first record, made during the time when recordings were made acoustically. With the coming of electrical recording (circa 1925), the sheer power of her voice was even more clear.

She made 160 recordings for Columbia, often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, most notably Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, and Charlie Green.

Selective awards and recognitions:

Grammy Hall of Fame
Recordings of Bessie Smith were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. This special Grammy Award was established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have “qualitative or historical significance.”

Year Recorded	Title	Genre	Label	Year Inducted
Bessie Smith: Grammy Hall of Fame Award
1923	“Downhearted Blues”	Blues (Single)	Columbia	2006
1925	“St. Louis Blues”	Jazz (Single)	Columbia	1993
1928	“Empty Bed Blues”	Blues (Single)	Columbia	1983

National Recording Registry

In 2002 Smith’s recording of the single, “Downhearted Blues”, was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. The board selects songs on an annual basis that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

“Downhearted Blues” was included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001. It is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 songs that shaped rock ‘n’ roll.

Inductions

Year Inducted	Category	Notes
2008	Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame	Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC
1989	Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
1989	Rock and Roll Hall of Fame	“Early influences”
1981	Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
1980	Blues Hall of Fame

St. Louis Blues (1929):

Baby Won’t You Please Come Home (1923):

Album of the day – The Essential Bessie Smith (1997):

Other September 25:

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Music Calendar, Ryan Adams

September 25: Ryan Adams released ‘Gold’ in 2001 – 12 years ago

September 25, 2013 Egil 1 Comment

“All the songs had to work completely and honestly by themselves on acoustic guitar or on piano. If they didn’t, they weren’t worth putting on the record.”
~Ryan Adams (about ‘Gold’)

“[Gold is] me not buying my own bullshit for two seconds.”
~Ryan Adams

New York, New York:

From Wikipedia:

Released	September 25, 2001
Recorded	The Sound Factory (Hollywood, California)
Genre	Rock, alternative country
Length	70:26
Label	Lost Highway
Producer	Ethan Johns

Gold is the second studio album by Ryan Adams, released September 25, 2001 on Lost Highway Records. The album remains Adams’ best-selling album, certifying gold in the UK and going on to sell 364,000 copies in the U.S. and 812,000 worldwide. Adams noted that “with Gold, I was trying to prove something to myself. I wanted to invent a modern classic.”

Adams intended for the album to be a double album, but his record label, Lost Highway, condensed the album into a single disc. According to Adams, the label “took the last five songs, made it a bonus disc and put it on the first hundred and fifty thousand copies. Fucking my fans over and making them pay extra for a record I wanted to be a double album. They counted that as one record.” This bonus disc is known as Side Four; the disc’s title reflects the fact that the bonus material makes up the fourth side of the double LP edition of the album.

The album includes “When the Stars Go Blue”, which has been covered by artists such as The Corrs and Bono, Tyler Hilton, Bethany Joy Galeotti, and Tim McGraw. “New York, New York” became a notable MTV and VH-1 favorite following the September 11 attacks. “The Rescue Blues” was featured in the end credits of the 2001 film Behind Enemy Lines.

Adams’ friend and former roommate Adam Duritz (lead singer of Counting Crows) lends background vocals to several tracks.

Adams received three Grammy Award nominations in 2002: Best Rock Album, Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “New York, New York”, and Best Male Country Vocal Performance for “Lovesick Blues”.

Stephen King’s 2006 book Lisey’s Story includes part of the lyrics to “When the Stars Go Blue”. Also, the song “The Rescue Blues” was featured in an episode of Scrubs. In 2011, “Answering Bell” was featured in the film and on the soundtrack to Bridesmaids.

RollingStone.com – David Fricke:…… Gold lacks the concise ache of Adams’ indie solo prize from last year, Heartbreaker, but it is stronger on naked truth. In “Harder Now That It’s Over,” a messy tale of jealousy, gunplay and handcuffs co-written with Chris Stills, Adams sings with the straight, clear sorrow of a fool who beat doing hard time but sentenced himself to life alone. “I’m less than nothing now/I’m the one between the bars,” he admits over whispered accordion and a slender stream of steel-guitar tears — an age-old story told be a young singer-songwriter wise enough to let his heart speak for itself.
read more: rollingstone.com

Andrew Gilstrap @ popmatters.com:…… Overall, though, Gold feels like a record hiding behind masks. Maybe Adams has spent so many years laying his heart out on the line that he’s trying to create a little distance. In some cases, especially on the uptempo numbers, that works just fine. However, the album’s surprisingly minimalist lyrics and derivative arrangements make it stronger on vibe than actual content. Adams recently complained that he’s sick of himself and sick of being deep, and Gold may very well be his respite from that, exercising his inner music geek rather than his soul. Or maybe he’s just trying to say what he needs to say without revealing as much as in the past. Whatever the case, most of Gold lacks the universality and the heart-wrenching beauty of much of Adams’s earlier work.
read more over @ popmatters.som

Track Listing:

All songs written and composed by Ryan Adams unless otherwise stated.

“New York, New York” 3:46
“Firecracker” 2:51
“Answering Bell” 3:05
“La Cienega Just Smiled” 5:03
“The Rescue Blues” 3:38
“Somehow, Someday” 4:24
“When the Stars Go Blue” 3:31
“Nobody Girl” (Adams/Ethan Johns) 9:40
“Sylvia Plath” (Adams/Richard Causon) 4:10
“Enemy Fire” (Adams/Gillian Welch) 4:09
“Gonna Make You Love Me” 2:36
“Wild Flowers” 4:59
“Harder Now That It’s Over” (Adams/Chris Stills) 4:32
“Touch, Feel and Lose” (Adams/David Rawlings) 4:15
“Tina Toledo’s Street Walkin’ Blues” (Adams/Johns) 6:10
“Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.” (Adams/Causon) 3:25

Bonus disc: “Side Four”

“Rosalie Come and Go” 3:54
“The Fools We Are As Men” 4:01
“Sweet Black Magic” (Adams/Johns) 2:35
“The Bar Is a Beautiful Place” 5:58
“Cannonball Days”

Personnel:

Ryan Adams – Vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, piano
Bucky Baxter – Steel guitar
Andre Carter – Trumpet
Richard Causon – Piano
Jennifer Condos – Bass
Milo De Cruz – Bass
Adam Duritz – Choir, background vocals
Keith Hunter – Choir
Rami Jaffi – Accordion
Ethan Johns – Drums, electric guitar, chamberlain strings, lead guitar, hammond B-3, background vocals, acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, mando-cello, vibes, string arrangement, guitar, slide guitar, mandolin, bass, electric piano, celeste, harmonium, congas
Rob McDonald – Choir
Sid Paige – Concert master
Julianna Raye – Background vocals, choir
Chris Stills – Background vocals, electric guitar, bass, acoustic guitar, acoustic 12-string guitar
Benmont Tench – Hammond B-3, piano
Kamasi Washington – Saxophone
C.C. White – Background vocals, choir, solo vocals

Firecracker – live:

When The Stars go blue – Live:

Album of the day – Gold (2001):

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Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen video, Music Calendar

Today: Bruce Springsteen is 64

September 23, 2013 Egil 1 Comment

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.

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:

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

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Check out:

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Atlantic City (Live):

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

Other September 23:

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Music Calendar, Nick Cave

Today: Nick Cave is 56 Happy birthday

September 22, 2013 Hallgeir

“If you got a trumpet, get on your feet, brother, and blow it!”

― Nick Cave

“I was about 12 years old and I was sitting watching the television and it was some kind of talent show, you know, and on marches this monkey, this ape, in a pair of red-checked trousers with a little matching jacket holding a ukulele and it started jigging around playing it, and it was looking straight into the camera, straight at me, and I remember thinking, that’s it, that’ll be me, you know, that’ll be me.”
― Nick Cave

Nicholas Edward “Nick” Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional film actor.

He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1983, a group known for its eclectic influences and musical styles. Before that, he had fronted the group The Birthday Party in the early 1980s, a band renowned for its highly gothic, challenging lyrics and violent sound influenced by free jazz, blues, and post-punk. In 2006, he formed the garage rock band Grinderman that released its debut the following year. Cave’s music is generally characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences, and lyrical obsessions with religion, death, love and violence.

Upon Cave’s induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame, ARIA Awards committee chairman Ed St John said, “Nick Cave has enjoyed—and continues to enjoy—one of the most extraordinary careers in the annals of popular music. He is an Australian artist like Sidney Nolan is an Australian artist—beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute.”

“O we will know, won’t we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don’t, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die
~Nick Cave ((Are You) The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?)

From allmusic – Steve Huey:

After goth pioneers the Birthday Party called it quits in 1983, singer/songwriter Nick Cave assembled the Bad Seeds, a post-punk supergroup featuring former Birthday Party guitarist Mick Harvey on drums, ex-Magazine bassist Barry Adamson, and Einstürzende Neubauten guitarist Blixa Bargeld. With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk, although in a more subdued fashion than his work with the Birthday Party. Cave also allowed his literary aspirations to come to the forefront; the lyrics are narrative prose, heavy on literary allusions and myth-making, and take some inspiration from Leonard Cohen. Cave’s gloomy lyrics, dark musical arrangements, and deep baritone voice recall the albums of Scott Walker, who also obsessed over death and love with a frightening passion. However, Cave brings a hefty amount of post-punk experimentalism to Walker’s epic dark pop.
… read more over @ allmusic.com

Here is a brilliant live version of “People Ain’t No Good” (one of his best):

The Mercy Seat:

My Nick Cave Spotify playlist for today:

Nick Cave’s best album – The Boatman’s Call (1997):

Other September 22:

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Leonard Cohen, Music Calendar

Today: Happy 79th birthday Leonard Cohen

September 21, 2013 Hallgeir 1 Comment

Like a Bird on a Wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
~Leonard Cohen, Bird On A Wire

“The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.”
― Leonard Cohen

“I don’t remember
lighting this cigarette
and I don’t remember
if I’m here alone
or waiting for someone.”
~Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing

From Wikipedia:

Birth name	Leonard Norman Cohen
Born	21 September 1934 (age 79) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Genres	Folk, folk rock, rock, pop rock,spoken word, synthpop
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter,poet, novelist
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano,keyboards, synthesizer
Years active	1956-present
Labels	Columbia
Associated acts	Sharon Robinson, Jennifer Warnes

Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (born 21 September 1934) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour.

While giving the speech at Cohen’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008, Lou Reed described Cohen as belonging to the “highest and most influential echelon of songwriters.”

The critic Bruce Eder wrote an assessment of Cohen’s overall career in popular music, writing:
“[Cohen is] one of the most fascinating and enigmatic. . .singer/songwriters of the late ’60s. . . [and] has retained an audience across four decades of music-making. . . Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon) [in terms of influence], he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s who is still working at the outset of the 21st century.”

The Academy of American Poets has commented more broadly on Cohen’s overall career in the arts, including his work as a poet, novelist, and songwriter, stating that “[Cohen’s] successful blending of poetry, fiction, and music is made most clear in Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs, published in 1993, which gathered more than two hundred of Cohen’s poems . . .several novel excerpts, and almost sixty song lyrics. . .While it may seem to some that Leonard Cohen departed from the literary in pursuit of the musical, his fans continue to embrace him as a Renaissance man who straddles the elusive artistic borderlines.”

From allmusic.com – Bruce Eder:

One of the most fascinating and enigmatic — if not the most successful — singer/songwriters of the late ’60s, Leonard Cohen has retained an audience across four decades of music-making interrupted by various digressions into personal and creative exploration, all of which have only added to the mystique surrounding him. Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon), he commands the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the 1960s who is still working at the outset of the 21st century, which is all the more remarkable an achievement for someone who didn’t even aspire to a musical career until he was in his thirties.
read more over @ allmusic.com

Leonard Cohen – Tower of Song – Live, London 2009:

Leonard Cohen – Dance me to the end of love (live. Later with Jools):

Album of the day – Ten New Songs (2001):

Other September 21:

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