Led Zeppelin

May 31: The late John Bonham was born in 1948

bonham in action

I think that feeling is a lot more important than technique. It’s all very well doing a triple paradiddle – but who’s going to know you’ve done it? If you play technically you sound like everybody else. It’s being original that counts.
– John Bonham

John Henry Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980) was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer of Led Zeppelin. Bonham was esteemed for his speed, power, fast right foot, distinctive sound, and “feel” for the groove. 

Led Zeppelin – Full concert Live at the Royal Albert Hall in 1970:

“Bonzo had very broad listening tastes. When we weren’t listening to James Brown or Otis Redding, he might be listening to Joni Mitchell or Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Bonzo was a great lover of songs.” – John Paul Jones

He is widely considered to be one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock music by many drummers, other musicians, and commentators in the industry. Over 30 years after his death, Bonham continues to garner awards and praise, including a Rolling Stone readers’ pick in 2011 placing him in first place of the magazine’s “best drummers of all time”.
Continue reading May 31: The late John Bonham was born in 1948 →

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylans's best songs

Bob Dylan’s best songs: Simple Twist Of Fate

1 Comment

bob dylan 1974

[Simple Twist Of Fate]  conjures the smell of the air on an early spring morning…  Dylan on this album has become a master of textures. “Simple Twist of Fate” unmistakably creates the time, holds it, breathes it in, and stops it; the tools it uses to accomplish this arc storytelling, imagery, phrasing, timing, vocal texture, rhyme, melody, and ensemble sound. The bass playing (content, timing, attack) is revelatory. The harmonica solos sum up the song’s essence and push it out to the furthest corners of the universe.
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist, Vol 2: The Middle Years 1974-1986)

As ‘Girl From The North Country’ had been triggered by the breakup with Suze Rotolo, casting him back to an older affair, so ‘Simple Twist Of Fate’ set him reflecting not on Sara, but on Suze – hence the song’s subtitle in the notebook, ‘4th Street Affair’.
~Clinton Heylin (Still on the Road: The Songs of Bob Dylan Vol. 2, . 1974-2008)

bob dylan & suze rotolo

@ #49 on my list of Bob Dylan’s 200 best songs.

Continue reading Bob Dylan’s best songs: Simple Twist Of Fate →

Leonard Cohen, The Best Songs

The Best Songs: Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen)

1 Comment

OLD post … You’re being redirected to a newer version……

leonard cohen

It’s four in the morning, the end of December
I’m writing you now just to see if you’re better
New York is cold, but I like where I’m living
There’s music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
–

The problem with that song is that I’ve forgotten the actual triangle. Whether it was my own – of course, I always felt that there was an invisible male seducing the woman I was with, now whether this one was incarnate or merely imaginary I don’t remember, I’ve always had the sense that either I’ve been that figure in relation to another couple or there’d been a figure like that in relation to my marriage. I don’t quite remember but I did have this feeling that there was always a third party, sometimes me, sometimes another man, sometimes another woman. It was a song I’ve never been satisfied with. It’s not that I’ve resisted an impressionistic approach to songwriting, but I’ve never felt that this one, that I really nailed the lyric. I’m ready to concede something to the mystery, but secretly I’ve always felt that there was something about the song that was unclear. So I’ve been very happy with some of the imagery, but a lot of the imagery.
~Leonard Cohen (BBC Radio Interview 1994)

Sometime in the early 1970s, a thief stole Leonard Cohen’s old raincoat from Marianne Ihlen’s New York apartment. God only know what happened to it, but the thief almost certainly had no idea he was stealing an object that belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, if not the Smithsonian. It was that very coat that inspired Cohen to write one of his most beloved and mysterious songs. It’s written in the form of a letter, possibly to the narrator’s brother, who stole his lover, Jane.
~rollingstone.com

Famous Blue Raincoat (from the album – Songs of Love and Hate)

Continue reading The Best Songs: Famous Blue Raincoat (Leonard Cohen) →

Country, Johnny Cash

Unreleased – I witnessed a crime by Johnny Cash

cashfront

Unreleased – I witnessed a crime by Johnny Cash

The Unreleased series

This is our eighth song in the Unreleased series, I Witnessed a Crime sung by Johnny Cash. Written by Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) and he also does some nice electric guitar on the track.

His late years were spent under the umbrella of Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label, and with Rick at the helm, Johnny recorded some of his finest material to date. From 1993 until his death in 2003, Johnny recorded a boatload of material, and, to date, his label has released American Recordings (1994), Unchained (1996), American III: Solitary Man (2000), American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), Unearthed (2003), American V: A Hundred Highways (2006), and American VI: Ain’t No Grave (2010).

Continue reading Unreleased – I witnessed a crime by Johnny Cash →

Great albums, Music Calendar

May 29: Crosby, Stills & Nash released their self-titled debut LP in 1969

crosby stills nash

Jimi Hendrix called CSN “groovy, Western-sky music.” The trio first combined their golden-hippie harmonies on this debut, featuring “Marrakesh Express” and the seven-minute “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.”
~rollingstone.com (500 Greatest albums of all time)

Suite Judy Blue Eyes

Continue reading May 29: Crosby, Stills & Nash released their self-titled debut LP in 1969 →