Willie Nelson: Phases and Stages – classic albums

willie nelson phases and stages

..this is not just one of Willie Nelson’s best records, but one of the great concept albums overall.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

As I’m going to visit Muscle Shoals, Alabama next month, and thus I need to post some articles about the best albums recorded there, this is one of many.

Bloody Mary Morning:

It’s a Bloody Mary morning,
Baby left me without warning
Sometime in the night
So I’m flyin’ down to Houston
Forgetting her’s the nature of my flight

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Bob Dylan live 2000 – 2009 (videos & audio)





bob dylan
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-right”]All of that “Never Ending Tour” talk is nonsense. If there’s anything for sure in our world, then it’s the knowledge that everything comes to an end one day. Our mortality is the one thing that connects us all, and nothing but the knowledge about that creates a greater proximity between people. I don’t even think that I give a lot of concerts. In your world it might be a lot, in mine it is normal.
~Bob Dylan (July 2001)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

2000

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Dec 27: Bob Dylan Blood On The Tracks, 5th recording session in 1974


blood-on-the-tracks-album-cover

By November 1974 Dylan had cut a test pressing of “Blood On The Tracks” based on his 4 recording sessions in New York (in September), and Columbia was aiming for a pre-christmas release.

Our earlier posts on the “New York Sessions”:

But after “sleeping on it” & getting advice from his brother David Zimmerman, he decided to re-record several songs @ Minneapolis’ Sound 80 Studios.

Unfortunately, one of the people Dylan had played his test pressing to, his younger brother David, told him that it would never sell, presumably based on the sheer starkness of the sound, rather than the nakedness of his brother’s soul, and convinced him to rerecord half a dozen of the songs in Minneapolis, with a set of local musicians that he would assemble at a studio he knew well, Sound 8o, making himself producer..
~Clinton Heylin (Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited)

Sound 80 Studio
Minneapolis, Minnesota
27 December 1974
Produced by David Zimmerman

Continue reading Dec 27: Bob Dylan Blood On The Tracks, 5th recording session in 1974

Video of the day: My Nashville by Bob Harris BBC documentary 2014

MyNashville

My Nashville by Bob Harris BBC documentary 2014

‘Whispering’ Bob Harris journeys to America’s country music capital to show why Nashville became Music City USA.

From the beginnings of the Grand Ole Opry on commercial radio, through the threatening onset of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, up to the modern mainstream hits of Music Row, this is the story of how music has shaped Nashville and why today it’s a place of pilgrimage for musicians from all over the world.

As well as iconic venues on Lower Broadway and the historic hit factories of 16th Avenue, Bob also explores the East Nashville music scene and discovers a rebellious flip-side to the country coin. With exclusive performances from the city’s top talent, Bob Harris explains why country music owes its enduring success to Nashville’s unique nurturing community of songwriters.

Very nice archival footage combined with fresh insights from today’s  players. He looks not just at the music but all the stuff that goes on around it, the shops, the posters and the studios of Nashville.

Performances from:
Emmylou Harris, John Fullbright, Ashley Monroe, Jason Isbell, Angel Snow and more

Interviews with:
Emmylou Harris, Duane Eddy, Dave Stewart and Rosanne Cash, Kacey Musgraves, Eric Church and more

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December 26: Jay Farrar was born in 1966

jay farrar

As a founding member of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, songwriter Jay Farrar helped popularize the alt-country movement of the 1990s. He also launched a solo career during the following decade, making it plain that his musical ambitions stretched far beyond the retro-leaning twang of his contemporaries.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)

“Woody has always been a reference point for me, as well a source of inspiration along the way. I was brought up around his music at a pretty early age, … The reference in the song relates more to the way my own children have become fans, I guess (laughs). If there was no Highway 61, we may not have had Bob Dylan or Leadbelly .”
~Jay Farrar

Son Volt – Windfall (Austin City Limits, 1996)

Continue reading December 26: Jay Farrar was born in 1966