Category Archives: Music Calendar

Beatles, Classic Concert, Concert films, Music Calendar

Today: The Beatles played the Rooftop concert, Apple building 30 Jan 1969

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“I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition” – John Lennon 

Trying to come up with a conclusion for the film, Let it be, it was suggested that the band play an unannounced lunchtime concert on the roof of the Apple building. On 30 January, The Beatles with Preston played on the rooftop in the cold wind for 42 minutes, about half of which ended up in the film.

The songs performed in the Rooftop concert, Apple building:

  • Get Back (5 versions)
  • I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
  • Don’t Let Me Down (2 versions)
  • I’ve Got A Feeling
  • One After 909
  • Danny Boy (in between the main songs)
  • Dig A Pony (2 versions)
  • God Save The Queen (incompl.)
  • A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody (between main songs)

The Concert:

The Beatles started with a rehearsal of “Get Back,” then played the five songs which are shown in the film. After repeating “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “Don’t Let Me Down,” takes which were left out of the film, the Beatles are shown in the film closing with another pass at “Get Back” as the police arrive to shut down the show.  (Wikipedia)

The songs were used as a whole or in parts on the album, in the film and later on Anthology 3 and on the re-release/reworking of Let it be, Let it be…naked.

The Apple building concert was the first live gig since The Beatles stopped touring 29. August 1966 (tired of  screaming girls and not beeing able to hear themselves through the screams) and it was to be their last. It’s a fantastic show, sweet and short, really makes us long for more. It gives us a glimpse of what could have been, and it shows us what a magnificent live band they were.

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 “We went on the roof in order to resolve the live concert idea, because it was much simpler than going anywhere else; also nobody had ever done that, so it would be interesting to see what happened when we started playing up there. It was a nice little social study.

We set up a camera in the Apple reception area, behind a window so nobody could see it, and we filmed people coming in. The police and everybody came in saying, ‘You can’t do that! You’ve got to stop.'” – George Harrison (Anthology)

Whatever animosity there was between the four guys it doesn’t show, it looks like they have the time of their life, it is a magnificent live farewell.

It is also one of the most bootlegged shows in rock’n roll history, both on audio and film.

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Let’s hope for an official Let it Be Blu-Ray release, maybe with the rooftop concert as a separate extra feature (with all available footage).

Other January 30:

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Blues, Gospel, Music Calendar, Soul, Sound

Today: Bobby Bland was born in 1930

Bobby Bland 1

Robert Calvin “Bobby” Bland (born January 27, 1930), is also known as Bobby “Blue” Bland. He is an original member of the Beale Streeters, and is sometimes referred to as the “Lion of the Blues”. Along with such artists as Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Junior Parker, Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the bluesand R&B.

It’s my own fault, B.B. King and Bobby Bland live on Soul Train:

Bobby Bland was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. He was also inducted into The Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2012.

Happy birthday Bobby Bland!

 

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This great picture was taken when Elvis returned to the WDIA Goodwill Revue on December 6, 1957, it’s a stylish shot of him ‘talking shop’ withLittle Junior Parker and Bobby ‘Blue‘ Bland and appeared in Memphis’s mainstream afternoon paper, ‘The Press-Scimitar’, accompanied by a short feature that made Elvis’ feelings abundantly clear. ‘It was the real thing’, he said, summing up both performance and audience response. ‘Right from the heart’ (Elvis Australia)

Allmusic.com (Bill Dahl):

Bobby Bland earned his enduring blues superstar status the hard way: without a guitar, harmonica, or any other instrument to fall back upon. All Bland had to offer was his magnificent voice, a tremendously powerful instrument in his early heyday, injected with charisma and melisma to spare. Just ask his legion of female fans, who deemed him a sex symbol late into his career. (Read More)

My Favourite Bobby Bland track is his version of St. James Infirmary, and thankfully it is part of today’s Spotify album, but here is a very nice live version:

From Wikipedia:

Bland was born in the small town of Rosemark, Tennessee. Later moving to Memphis with his mother, Bland started singing with local gospel groups there, including amongst others The Miniatures. Eager to expand his interests, he began frequenting the city’s famous Beale Street where he became associated with an ad hoc circle of aspiring musicians named, not unnaturally, the Beale Streeters.

Bland’s recordings from the early 1950s show him striving for individuality, but any progress was halted by a spell in the U.S. Army. When the singer returned to Memphis in 1954 he found several of his former associates, including Johnny Ace, enjoying considerable success, while Bland’s recording label, Duke, had been sold to Houston entrepreneur Don Robey.

In 1956 Bland began touring with Junior Parker. Initially he doubled as valet and driver, a role he reportedly fulfilled for B. B. Kingand Rosco Gordon. Simultaneously, Bland began asserting his characteristic vocal style. Melodic big-band blues singles, including “Farther Up the Road” (1957) and “Little Boy Blue” (1958) reached the US R&B Top 10, but Bobby’s craft was most clearly heard on a series of early 1960s releases including “Cry Cry Cry”, “I Pity The Fool” and the sparkling “Turn On Your Love Light”, which became a much-covered standard.

Todays chosen album is the classic, Two Steps From The Blues:

Bobby Bland Two Steps from the Blues

Other 27. January:

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Country, folk, Music Calendar

Today: Lucinda Williams is 60, Happy birthday!

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Like som many, I discovered Lucinda Williams when she released the fantastic album, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. I went to the record store (yes, we actually did that in the old days) and bought as many of her albums as I could find. There were four albums before Car Wheels.., great albums, I love them all. Since then I’ve awaited all Lucinda Williams albums with great exitement. She’s always good, most of the time she’s great.

Today she’s 60, happy birthday Lucinda Williams!

Lucinda Williams (born January 26, 1953) is an American rock, folk, blues, and country music singer and songwriter.

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She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams. This release featured “Passionate Kisses,” a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter which garnered Lucinda her first Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994.

Car Wheels ON A Gravel Road (live):

Known for working slowly, Lucinda recorded and released only one other album in the next several years (Sweet Old World in 1992) before her greatest success came in 1998 with Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. This album presented a broader scope of songs that fused rock, blues, country, and Americana into a more distinctive style that still managed to remain consistent and commercial in sound. It went gold and earned Lucinda another Grammy while being universally acclaimed by critics. Since Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, she has released a string of albums that have also been critically acclaimed, though none have sold in the numbers of her 1998 breakthrough. She was also named “America’s best songwriter” by TIME magazine in 2002. (Wikipedia, READ MORE)

Her wonderful song about Blaze Foley, Drunken Angel:

I could have chosen Car Wheels as today’s album, but insted I’ve made a playlist of my top 20 Lucinda Williams songs. It was easy to find 20 songs, but it was hard  to limit myself to just 25. Anyway here it is.

Hallgeir’s top 25 Lucinda Williams songs:

PS: I have a confession, Car wheels is no longer my favourite Lucinda Williams album, that honor goes to World Without Tears.

Other 26. January:

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Music Calendar

Today: The late Warren Zevon was born in 1947 – 66 years ago

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We buy books because we believe we’re buying the time to read them
~Warren Zevon

All the salty margaritas in Los Angeles
I’m gonna drink ’em up
–
And if California slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill
~Warren Zevon (Desperados Under the Eaves)

Few of rock & roll’s great misanthropes were as talented, as charming, or as committed to their cynicism as Warren Zevon.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)

the classic – Warren Zevon’s last Letterman Appearance:

Lawyers, Guns and Money (from BBC 1994):

Send lawyers, guns and money; the shit has hit the fan.

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Warren William Zevon
Also known as Sandy Zevon
Stephen Lyme
Born January 24, 1947
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Died September 7, 2003 (aged 56)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres Rock, Country rock, folk rock,Americana, hard rock, piano rock, blues rock
Occupations Songwriter, musician
Instruments Vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica
Years active 1965–2003

Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. He was known for the dark and somewhat bizarre sense of humor in his lyrics.

Zevon’s work has often been praised by well-known musicians, including Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young. His best-known compositions include “Werewolves of London”, “Lawyers, Guns and Money”, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” and “Johnny Strikes Up the Band”, all of which are featured on his third album, Excitable Boy (1978). Other well-known songs written by Zevon have been recorded by other artists, including “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” (a top 40 hit by Linda Ronstadt), “Accidentally Like a Martyr”, “Mohammed’s Radio”, “Carmelita”, and “Hasten Down the Wind”.

BF: Who are some of your favorite songwriters?
Bob Dylan: Buffett I guess. Lightfoot. Warren Zevon. Randy. John Prine. Guy Clark. Those kinds of writers.
~Bob Dylan (to Huffington Post – May 2009)

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Hasten Down The Wind:

She’s so many women
He can’t find the one who was his friend
So he’s hanging on to half her heart
He can’t have the restless part
So he tells her to hasten down the wind
~WZ (Hasten down the wind)

Along with his own compositions, Zevon recorded or performed occasional covers, including Allen Toussaint’s A Certain Girl, Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and Leonard Cohen’s “First We Take Manhattan”. He was a frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman later performed guest vocals on “Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)” with Paul Shaffer and members of the CBS Orchestra on Warren Zevon’s My Ride’s Here album.

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Live in Passaic NJ, 1982 (The Full Concert):

Album of the day

Warren Zevon (1976)

Warren Zevon album

Other January 24

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Jazz, Music Calendar

Today the late Django Reinhardt was born in 1910 – 103 years ago

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Django Reinhardt

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision that I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.
~Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was the first hugely influential jazz figure to emerge from Europe — and he remains the most influential European to this day…
~Richard S. Ginell (allmusic.com)

a tribute video from youtube – w/ video of our man:

another one – w/ some fantastic audio clips:

From Wikipedia

Birth name Jean Reinhardt
Born 23 January 1910,
Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles, Belgium
Died 16 May 1953 (aged 43)
Fontainebleau, France
Genres Jazz, Gypsy jazz, Romani music
Occupations Guitarist, Composer
Instruments Guitar, Electric guitar
Years active 1928–1953
Associated acts Stéphane Grappelli, Quintette du Hot Club de France

Jean “Django” Reinhardt (French pronunciation: ​[dʒɑ̃ɡo ʁenɑʁt]; 23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953) was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer.

Reinhardt is often regarded as one of the greatest guitar players of all time and regarded as the first important European jazz musician who made major contributions to the development of the idiom. Reinhardt invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique (sometimes called ‘hot’ jazz guitar) that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture. With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, he co-founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France, described by critic Thom Jurek as “one of the most original bands in the history of recorded jazz.” Reinhardt’s most popular compositions have become jazz standards, including “Minor Swing”, “Daphne”, “Belleville”, “Djangology”, “Swing ’42”, and “Nuages”.

Minor Swing – Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli:

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Belleville:

Album of the day

Peche à la Mouche (1992) – recorded 1947-53

Django Reinhardt Peche à la Mouche

 

Legend has it that guitarist Django Reinhardt was at his absolute peak in the 1930s during his recordings with violinist Stephane Grappelli and that when he switched from acoustic to electric guitar after World War II, he lost a bit of his musical personality. Wrong on both counts. This double CD documents his Blue Star recordings of 1947 and 1953 and Reinhardt (on electric guitar) takes inventive boppish solos that put him at the top of the list of jazz guitarists who were active during the era.
~Scott Yanow (allmusic.com)

Other January 23

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