Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.
~Winston Churchill
In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.
~Dwight Eisenhower
I’ve visited Memphis once before (October 2009), and I loved it. Sun, Stax, Graceland, Beale Street, The Peabody, Dyer’s, A. Schwab, etc..
I’m finally going back & will also drive from Memphis to Orlando visiting Muscle Shoals & Montgomery. Being given such an opportunity, I feel obligated to produce some material. It is also deep embedded in my nature to always plan well before important ventures – planning is indeed essential.
In this post I’ve collected info on the different places I plan to visit & created relevant playlists for the different sites.
Sam Phillips was not just one of the most important producers in rock history. There’s a good argument to be made that he was also one of the most important figures in 20th century American culture.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)
If you’re not doing something different, you’re not doing anything.
~Sam Phillips
Great Sam Phillips documentary in two parts(Host: Billy Bob Thornton):
“Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.”
― Keith Richards
“When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.”
― Keith Richards
He’s acknowledged as perhaps the greatest rhythm guitarist in rock & roll, but Keith Richards is even more legendary for his near-miraculous ability to survive the most debauched excesses of the rock & roll lifestyle. His prodigious consumption of drugs and alcohol has been well documented, and would likely have destroyed anyone with a less amazing endurance level.
~Steve Huey (allmusic.com)
Well Nashville had country music but Memphis had the soul
Lord, the white boy had the rhythm and that started rock and roll
And I was here when it happened don’t you all think I ought to know
I was here when it happened, yeah, yeah, yeah
I watched Memphis give birth to rock and roll, Lord, lord yeah.
~Carl Perkins (Birth Of Rock And Roll)
In the early years, when the King [Elvis Presley] and the Four Horsemen [Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins & Roy Orbison] reigned over American music, Memphis music was the life force of teenage rebellion. It influenced clothing styles, created movie idols, helped end a war in Vietnam, and eventually changed the politics of a nation unaccustomed to listening to the voices of youth. By 1985, three decades after that rebellion had been hatched in the tiny studio of Sam Phillip’s Sun Records, popular music had gone through many cycles, as had the artists who invented it, but seldom had the music, or the artists who created it, ever returned to it’s birthplace.
~James L. Dickerson (Goin’ Back to Memphis: A Century of Blues, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Glorious Soul)
Johnny Cash (Lewis, Perkins & Orbison) – We Remember The King:
As the swift bird flies o’er the mountains
How we wished, we were there at its wings
No Sir, by far, to a friend, we have lost We remember the King
We remember (we remember the King)
We recall (we recall everything)
We will treasure all of the gifts, that he did bring
We remember the King
The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin A nuclear error, but I have no fear
London is drowning-and I live by the river
I walked home from the local grocery store Ringdal exactly 35 years ago today with a plastic bag containing this double album by The Clash. It was priced as a single LP but had two vinyl records tucked inside. It was a frosty day, and when I was half way home I had to take off the plastic wrapping. To this day I can remember the smell, that wonderful smell of new vinyl on a frosty day.
The inner sleeves had “hand written” lyrics and it has to be the lyrics I’ve read most often. As a 13 year old boy from norway this was much more important in learning the english language than any class at school. Both historically and personally The Clash, London Calling was massively crucial.
Released
14 December 1979
Recorded
August–September and November 1979, Wessex Sound Studios, London
Length
65:07
Label
CBS, Epic, Legacy
Producer
Guy Stevens and Mick Jones
London Calling is the third studio album by the English rock band The Clash. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 December 1979 through CBS Records, and in the United States in January 1980 through Epic Records. The album represented a change in The Clash’s musical style, featuring elements of ska, funk, pop, soul, jazz, rockabilly, and reggae more prominently than in their previous two albums.
London Calling is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time. In 1987, it was ranked number 14 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years”. Rolling Stone also ranked London Calling at number one on its 1989 list of the 100 best albums of the 80’s (it was released in December 1979 in the UK, but in January 1980 in the US, thus qualifying as an 80’s album for the US published magazine). In 1993, NME ranked the album at number six on its list of The Greatest Albums of the ’70s. Vibe magazine included the double album on its list of the 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century. Q magazine ranked London Calling at number four on its 1999 list of the 100 Greatest British Albums, and, in 2002, included the album in its list of the 100 Best Punk Albums. (wikipedia – read more)
London Calling (Official video):
From allmusic.com:
…London Calling is a remarkable leap forward, incorporating the punk aesthetic into rock & roll mythology and roots music. Before, the Clash had experimented with reggae, but that was no preparation for the dizzying array of styles on London Calling. There’s punk and reggae, but there’s also rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock; and while the record isn’t tied together by a specific theme, its eclecticism and anthemic punk function as a rallying call. While many of the songs — particularly “London Calling,” “Spanish Bombs,” and “The Guns of Brixton” — are explicitly political, by acknowledging no boundaries the music itself is political and revolutionary. But it is also invigorating, rocking harder and with more purpose than most albums… (read more)
)
