Jack White finished his 5 concert long tour, all acoustic, with a final show in North Dakota April 26. The whole show is now on YouTube, this is a real treat! This show is the final one on a tour where White visited 5 states he hadn’t played in before.
Enjoy!
Continue reading Video of the day: Jack White at Fargo Theatre April 26 2015 (full show)
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
~Duke EllingtonArt is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don’t want it.
~Duke EllingtonBy the time of his passing, he was considered amongst the world’s greatest composers and musicians. The French government honored him with their highest award, the Legion of Honor, while the government of the United States bestowed upon him the highest civil honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
~allaboutjazz.com
Take The “A” Train (Reveille with Beverly from 1943):
April 27: Bruce Springsteen LA Sports Arena 2012 (Videos)
Early-birds in the LA Sports Arena get an unexpected treat – an hour before the show Bruce appears on stage with a party (Bruce claimed they were his relatives, but we’re not so sure!) and plays an acoustic version of “For You“.
~Brucebase
For You:
The three-hour set opens with “No Surrender”, the first of two tour premieres from Born In The U.S.A. – “Bobby Jean” is the other. The “this train” introduction is dropped from “Land Of Hope And Dreams” for the second and final time of the first American leg. Tom Morello joins Bruce on stage for the same songs as the previous night, plus “Land of Hope And Dreams”. Springsteen’s guitar tech Kevin Buell is honoured on the occasion of his 1000th show – Bruce lures him to the front of the stage with a fake guitar failure. “My City Of Ruins” includes “People Get Ready”.
~Brucebase
Continue reading April 27: Bruce Springsteen LA Sports Arena 2012 (Videos)
“Fixin’ to Die” is song by American blues musician Bukka White. It is performed in the Delta blues style with White’s vocal and guitar accompanied by washboard rhythm. White recorded it in Chicago on May 8, 1940, for record producer Lester Melrose. The song was written just days before, along with eleven others, at Melrose’s urging.
White was resuming his recording career, which had been interrupted by his incarceration for two and one-half years at the infamous Parchman Farm prison in Mississippi. While there, White witnessed the death of a friend and “got to wondering how a man feels when he dies”. His lyrics reflect his thoughts about his children and wife:
I’m looking funny in my eyes, an’ I b’lieve I’m fixin’ to die (2×)
I know I was born to die, but I hate to leave my children cryin’ …
So many nights at the fireside, how my children’s mother would cry (2×)
‘Cause I ain’t told their mother I had to say good-bye
Fixin To Die blues by Bukka White (1940 version):
Continue reading The Best Songs: Fixin’ To Die Blues by Bukka White aka Booker T Washington
…Always, the choice of material is a revelation. The Beast In Me (written by former son-in-law, Nick Lowe) could be autobiographical. And while writers like horrorpunk figurehead Glenn Danzig or Tom Waits probably would never have figured on his radar were it not for Rubin; time and again the duo found songs that were, in Cash’s hands, to take on new life. This willingness to experiment was to set a precedent: Subsequent albums were to see him work magic on material from Nine Inch Nails to U2 and Depeche Mode. But Johnny Cash’s final road to redemption and artistic fulfillment starts here…
~Chris Jones (bbc.co.uk)American Recordings did something very important — it gave Cash a chance to show how much he could do with a set of great songs and no creative interference, and it afforded him the respect he’d been denied for so long, and the result is a powerful and intimate album that brought the Man in Black back to the spotlight, where he belonged.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)
#1 – Delia’s Gone
Continue reading April 26: Johnny Cash American Recordings was released in 1994