Great 93-concert – 22 years ago today!
The concert (all or some of it) was professionally shot with multiple cameras for an (never happened) upcoming DVD release. Instead a DVD bootleg is circulating:
I’ve always had a weak spot for “Downbound Train“.. and this is a great version:
Continue reading May 22: Bruce Springsteen played Milton Keynes in 1993 (videos)
Marvin Gaye released What’s going on May 21, 1971, we present a great documentary about the album.
Marvin Gaye is one of the great and enduring figures of soul music, but his life was one of sexual confusion, bittersweet success and ultimately death by the hand of his own father.
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 — April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a four-octave vocal range. Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla Records subsidiary of Motown Records. After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label’s top-selling solo artist during the sixties.
Because of solo hits such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, “Ain’t That Peculiar”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned “The Prince of Motown” and “The Prince of Soul”.
His work in the early and mid-1970s, including the albums What’s Going On, Let’s Get It On, and I Want You, helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early eighties, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, “Sexual Healing” and the Midnight Love album before his death. Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984. He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye at number 6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked at number 18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
This fine documentary is directed by Samuel D. Pollard, also an editor and producer, known for 25th Hour (2002), 4 Little Girls(1997) and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006). Including interviews with the singer’s family, friends and musical colleagues.
What’s Going On (2008):
– Hallgeir
God, I’m just a fat bald guy, 60 years old, singing the blues, you know?
~Joe CockerIt’s all a matter of hearing what I like and seeing if I can make it fit into my style.
~Joe CockerMK: Who are your favorite contemporary singers?
BD: Oh, let me see, Joe Cocker, I suppose. Graham Nash can sing. Van Morrison’s fantastic.
And so is Stevie Wonder, but of all of them, Joe’s the greatest.
~Bob Dylan (to Martin Killer – July 1983)
With A Little Help From My Friends– 1969 Woodstock:
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
~Pete Townshend (Behind Blue Eyes)“If you don’t want anyone to know anything about you, don’t write anything.”
― Pete Townshend“Rock ‘n’ Roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them”
― Pete Townshend
Baba O’Riley:
High water risin’—risin’ night and day
All the gold and silver are bein’ stolen away
Big Joe Turner lookin’ east and west
From the dark room of his mind
He made it to Kansas City
Twelfth Street and Vine
Nothin’ standing there
High water everywhere
– Bob Dylan (High Water (for Charley Patton)The premier blues shouter of the postwar era, Big Joe Turner’s roar could rattle the very foundation of any gin joint he sang within — and that’s without a microphone. Turner was a resilient figure in the history of blues — he effortlessly spanned boogie-woogie, jump blues, even the first wave of rock & roll, enjoying great success in each genre.
~Bill Dahl (allmusic.com)
Shake, Rattle & Roll:
Continue reading May 18: The late Big Joe Turner was born in 1911