Country, Film, Waylon Jennings

Documentary: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys a musical documentary with Waylon Jennings

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“I think everybody secretly dreams of being a cowboy, no matter where they`re from.”
– Waylon Jennings

It is “roundup” time in Texas. In a ritual that has changed little since the times of “the wild west”, cowboys ride out twice a year to gather up the cattle and prepare them for the market.

Waylon Jennings spent 10 days roaming the 250 square miles of the 06 Kokernot Ranch with these cowboys to tell the story of his experience in this musical documentary, “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”

Waylon Arnold Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Jennings began playing guitar at 8 and began performing at 12 on KVOW radio. He formed a band, The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J. on KVOW, KDAV, KYTI, and KLLL. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’s first recording session, of “Jole Blon” and “When Sin Stops (Love Begins).” Holly hired him to play bass. During the “Winter Dance Party Tour,” in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered a plane to arrive at the next venue. Jennings gave up his seat in the plane to J. P. Richardson, who was suffering from a cold. The flight that carried Holly, Richardson, and Ritchie Valens crashed, on the day later known as The Day the Music Died. Following the accident, Jennings worked as a D.J. in Coolidge, Arizona, and Phoenix. He formed a rockabilly club band, The Waylors. He recorded for independent label Trend Records, A&M Records before succeeding with RCA Victor after achieving creative control of his records.

During the 1970s, Jennings joined the Outlaw movement. He released critically acclaimed albums Lonesome, On’ry and Mean and Honky Tonk Heroes, followed by hit albums Dreaming My Dreams and Are You Ready for the Country. In 1976 he released the album Wanted! The Outlaws with Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi Colter, the first platinum country music album.
– Wikipedia

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It is fascinating and educational with a fantastic soundtrack.

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys – a musical documentary with Waylon Jennings:

– Hallgeir

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July 29 in music history

July 29: Bob Dylan: The third recording session for Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 (read more)

“I never wanted to write topical songs,…. Have you heard my last two records, Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61? It’s all there. That’s the real Dylan.”
~Bob Dylan (to Frances Taylor – Aug 1965)

  Bob_Dylan_-_Highway_61_Revisited
 On July 29, 1966, Bob Dylan crashed his 500cc Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle on a road near his home in Woodstock, New York, and was thrown to the ground. Though the extent of his injuries was never fully disclosed, Dylan said that he broke several vertebrae in his neck. Mystery still surrounds the circumstances of the accident since no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not hospitalized. Dylan’s biographers have written that the crash offered Dylan the much-needed chance to escape from the pressures that had built up around him. Dylan confirmed this interpretation of the crash when he stated in his autobiography, “I had been in a motorcycle accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race.” In the wake of his accident, Dylan withdrew from the public and, apart from a few select appearances, did not tour again for almost eight years.  bob_dylan_triumph+
 Ina Anita Carter (March 31, 1933 – July 29, 1999), the youngest daughter of Ezra and Mother Maybelle Carter, was a versatile American singer who experimented with several different types of music and played upright bass with her sisters Helen Carter and June Carter Cash as The Carter Sisters. The trio joined the Grand Ole Opry radio show in 1950 (Anita was 17 years old at the time), opened shows for Elvis Presley, and joined The Johnny Cash Show in 1971. As a solo artist, and with her family, Carter recorded for a number of labels including RCA Victor, Cadence, Columbia, Audiograph, United Artists, Liberty and Capitol.  anita carter
 Vivienne Patricia “Patti” Scialfa, born July 29, 1953, is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. She is married to Bruce Springsteen and they have three children.  Patti Scialfa2
 Geddy Lee Weinrib, OC (born Gary Lee Weinrib; July 29, 1953), better known as Geddy Lee, is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush. Lee joined what would become Rush in September 1968, at the request of his childhood friend Alex Lifeson, replacing original bassist and frontman Jeff Jones.  Geddy Lee

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July 28 in music history

July 28: The late Mike Bloomfield was born in 1943 71 years ago (read more)

Michael Bloomfield was one of America’s first great white blues guitarists, earning his reputation on the strength of his work in the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. His expressive, fluid solo lines and prodigious technique graced many other projects — most notably Bob Dylan’s earliest electric forays — and he also pursued a solo career, with variable results. Uncomfortable with the reverential treatment afforded a guitar hero, Bloomfield tended to shy away from the spotlight after spending just a few years in it; he maintained a lower-visibility career during the ’70s due to his distaste for fame and his worsening drug problems, which claimed his life in 1981.
~Steve Huey (allmusic.com)

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 Bob Dylan recorded Romance in Durango in Studio E – Columbia Recording Studios, NYC in 1975. This was the 2th Desire session, produced by Don DeVito.  bob dylan desire
David “Junior” Kimbrough (July 28, 1930 – January 17, 1998) was an American blues musician. His best known work included “Keep Your Hands Off Her” and “All Night Long”. Music journalist Tony Russell stated “his raw, repetitive style suggests an archaic forebear of John Lee Hooker, a character his music shares with that of fellow North Mississippian R. L. Burnside”. Junior Kimbrough
 Hell Among the Yearlings is the second album by Gillian Welch, released July 28, 1998. All the songs on the album are written by Welch and David Rawlings.  GillianWelch_HellAmongTheYearlings
 Richard William “Rick” Wright (28 July 1943 – 15 September 2008) was an English musician, composer, singer and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. A multi-instrumentalist, Wright’s richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd’s sound. Wright frequently sang harmony and occasionally lead vocals on stage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs “Time”, “Echoes”, “Us and Them”, “Wearing the Inside Out”, “Astronomy Domine” and “Matilda Mother”).  rick_wright

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July 27 in music history

Bobbie Gentry is 70 Happy Birthday (read more)

Roberta Lee Streeter (born July 27, 1944), professionally known as Bobbie Gentry, is an American former singer-songwriter notable as one of the first female country artists to compose and produce her own material. Her songs typically drew on her Mississippi roots to compose vignettes of the Southern United States.

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July 27: Bob Dylan: North Country Blues, Newport, Rhode Island 1963 (read more)

On July 26, 1965, Johnny Cash performed at Newport with this great band:

 

  • Johnny Cash (v, acg)
  • Luther Perkins (eg)
  • Marshall Grant (b)
  • WS Holland (d)

 

 Bob Dylan Newport 1963

Leon Russell Wilkeson (2 April 1952 – 27 July 2001)

Bassist of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd from 1972 until his death in 2001

With its outlaw/party-hearty image, tough southern rock, and solid touring, Skynyrd quickly became one of the top bands of the 1970s, scoring such hit albums as 1974’s Second Helping, 1975’s Nuthin’ Fancy, 1976’s Gimme Back My Bullets and One More from the Road, plus 1977’s Street Survivors—and such hit singles as “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” It was also during this classic era that Wilkeson picked up the gimmick of wearing colorful hats onstage, garnering the nickname “Mad Hatter.”

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Conway Savage (born 27 July 1960) is an Australian rock musician best known as pianist/organist/backing vocalist for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.Savage joined the group in 1990 for their The Good Son tour of that year, and has since appeared on albums such as Henry’s Dream, Let Love In, Murder Ballads, The Boatman’s Call, No More Shall We Part and Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. One of his more noticeable performances is on the song “The Willow Garden”, a b-side of “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, where in a rare occasion for the Bad Seeds, Conway does lead vocals. conway_savage_pola
New York Dolls is the debut studio album by the New York Dolls, released on July 27, 1973, by Mercury Records. The band formed in 1971 and developed a following while playing regularly in lower Manhattan. However, they were unappealing to record companies because of their onstage cross-dressing and vulgarity, while most record producers were reluctant to work with them. For shock value, the band was photographed in exaggerated drag on the album cover. NewYorkDollsNewYorkDolls

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July 26 in music history

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Mick Jagger is 71 Happy Birthday! (read more)

Mick Jagger’s career has spanned over fifty years. His performance style has been said to have “opened up definitions of gendered masculinity and so laid the foundations for self-invention and sexual plasticity which are now a part of contemporary youth culture”.

 

Read more about Mick Jagger and Rolling Stones

 mick jagger

July 26: Johnny Cash: Newport Folk Festival, Freebody Park, Newport 1964 (videos & audio) (read more)

On July 26, 1965, Johnny Cash performed at Newport with this great band:

 

  • Johnny Cash (v, acg)
  • Luther Perkins (eg)
  • Marshall Grant (b)
  • WS Holland (d)

 

 Johnny Cash, NFF64, #2

July 26: Bob Dylan: Visions of Madonna, Tramps New York City, New York 1999 (read more)

On the 26th of July, 1999, in a club in Manhattan, Bob Dylan delivered one of his greatest performances ever of his well-loved 1966 epic “Visions of Johanna.” As if to acknowledge and signal his awareness of the power and freshness of this latest reinterpretation, the singer-bandleader effectively changed the title of the song halfway through, by starting to sing the chorus as: “And these visions of Madonna are now all that remain/ … have kept me up past the dawn.”
~Paul Williams (Bob Dylan: Performing Artist Volume 3: Mind Out Of Time 1986 And Beyond)

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“Harper Valley PTA” is a country song written by Tom T. Hall that was a major international hit single for country singer Jeannie C. Riley in 1968. Riley’s record sold over six million copies as a single. The song made Riley the first woman to top both Billboard’s Hot 100 and the U.S. country single’s charts with the same song, a feat that would go unrepeated until Dolly Parton‘s “9 to 5 ” in 1981. According to several sources – it was recorded in July 26 – 1968.

 Harper Valley PTA
Darlene Love (July 26, 1941)
American popular music singer and actress. She gained prominence in the 1960s for the song “He’s a Rebel,” a No. 1 American single in 1962, and was one of the Phil Spector artists who produced a celebrated Christmas album in 1963		 DarleneLove_HerMySpace
Mary Esther Wells (May 13, 1943 – July 26, 1992) was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s. Along with the Supremes, the Miracles, the Temptations, and the Four Tops, Wells was said to have been part of the charge in black music onto radio stations and record shelves of mainstream America, “bridging the color lines in music at the time.”With a string of hit singles composed mainly by Smokey Robinson, including “Two Lovers” (1962), the Grammy-nominated “You Beat Me to the Punch” (1962) and her signature hit, “My Guy” (1964), she became recognized as “The Queen of Motown” until her departure from the company in 1964, at the height of her popularity. She was one of Motown’s first singing superstars. 200px-Mary_Wells_1964

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