Tag Archives: Ray Charles

Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen video, Music Calendar

Today: Bruce Springsteen is 64

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bruce springsteen

For me, I was somebody who was a smart young guy who didn’t do very well in school. The basic system of education, I didn’t fit in; my intelligence was elsewhere.
~Bruce Springsteen

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.
~Bruce Springsteen

They call him the Boss. Well that’s a bunch of crap. He’s not the boss. He works FOR us. More than a boss, he’s the owner, because more than anyone else, Bruce Springsteen owns America’s heart.
~Bono (induction speech for at the 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

Thunder Road – live @ Hammersmith 1975:

From Wikipedia:

Also known as The Boss, Bad Scooter
Born September 23, 1949 (age 64)
Long Branch, New Jersey, United States
Genres Rock, folk rock, heartland rock,roots rock
Occupations Musician, Songwriter
Instruments Vocals, guitar, harmonica
Years active 1969–present
Labels Columbia
Associated acts The E Street Band, Steel Mill,Miami Horns, The Sessions Band, Southside Johnny, The Gaslight Anthem, Dropkick Murphys
Website www.brucespringsteen.net

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed “The Boss“, is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running up to an uninterrupted 250 minutes in length.

bruce-springsteen

Springsteen’s recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time, the 96th Greatest Guitarist of all time on their latest list and the 36th Greatest Singer of all time in 2008.

Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can’t quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.
~Bruce Springsteen

Born To Run:

bruce-springsteen

From allmusic.com – William Ruhlmann:

In the decades following his emergence on the national scene in 1975, Bruce Springsteen proved to be that rarity among popular musicians, an artist who maintained his status as a frontline recording and performing star, consistently selling millions of albums and selling out arenas and stadiums around the world year after year, as well as retaining widespread critical approbation, with ecstatic reviews greeting those discs and shows. Although there were a few speed bumps along the way in Springsteen’s career, the wonder of his nearly unbroken string of critical and commercial success is that he achieved it while periodically challenging his listeners by going off in unexpected directions, following his muse even when that meant altering the sound of his music or the composition of his backup band, or making his lyrical message overtly political. Of course, it may have been these very sidesteps that kept his image and his music fresh, especially since he always had the fallback of returning to what his fans thought he did best, barnstorming the country with a marathon rock & roll show using his longtime bandmates.
.. read more over @ allmusic 

Some of his recognition’s: 

  • October 27, 1975: Bruce Springsteen appears simultaneously on the covers of Newsweek and Time
  • Polar Music Prize in 1997.
  • Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999.
  • Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999.
  • Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007.
  • “Born to Run” named “The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey” by the New Jersey state legislature; something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song “is about leaving New Jersey”.
  • The minor planet 23990, discovered September 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor.
  • Ranked No. 23 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
  • Ranked No. 36 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time.
  • Made Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.
  • Won Critic’s Choice Award for Best Song with “The Wrestler” in 2009.
  • Performed at the Super Bowl XLIII half time show.
  • Kennedy Center Honors, 2009.
  • Rolling Stone magazine also ranked 8 out of 16 Springsteen’s studio albums in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list.
  • Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road” in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time list, in 21st and 86th, respectively.
  • Forbes ranked him 6th in The Celebrity 100 in 2009
  • John Steinbeck Award
  • Named 2013 MusiCares Person of the Year
–

Check out:

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Atlantic City (Live):

Album of the day – Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978):

darkness on the edge of town

Other September 23:

Continue reading Today: Bruce Springsteen is 64 →

Blues, Jazz, Video

Newport Jazz Festival 1960 (Videos)

Newport 1960

The Newport Jazz Festival is a music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. It was established in 1954 by socialite Elaine Lorillard, who, together with husband Louis Lorillard, financed the festival for many years. The couple hired jazz impresario George Wein to organize the event to help them bring jazz to the resort town.
Most of the early festivals were broadcast on Voice Of America radio and many performances were recorded and have been issued by various record labels.The Newport Jazz Festival moved to New York City in 1972 and became a two-site festival in 1981 when it returned to Newport and also continued in New York. The festival was known as the JVC Jazz Festival from 1984 to 2008. During the economic downturn of 2009, JVC ceased its support of the festival and was replaced by CareFusion. As of 2012 the festival is sponsored by Natixis Global Asset Management. 
The festival is hosted in Newport at Fort Adams State Park, and is often held in the same month as its sister festival, the Newport Folk Festival.

In 1960 boisterous spectators created a major disturbance, and the National Guard was called to the scene. Word that the disturbances had meant the end of the festival, following the Sunday afternoon blues presentation headlined by Muddy Waters, reached poet Langston Hughes, who was in a meeting on the festival grounds. Hughes wrote an impromptu lyric, “Goodbye Newport Blues”, that he brought to the Muddy Waters band onstage, announcing their likewise impromptu musical performance of the piece himself, before pianist Otis Spann led the band and sang the Hughes poem.The 1960 event was notable also for the presence of a rival jazz festival that took place at the Cliff Walk Manor Hotel, just a few blocks away. This was organized by musicians Charles Mingus and Max Roach in protest against the lower pay that the Newport festival offered jazz innovators in comparison with more mainstream performers; the fact that the innovators were mostly black and the mainstream performers mostly white was also an aggravating factor.

Highlights included:

  • The Dave Brubeck Quartet
  • The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, featuring Nat Adderley
  • Nina Simone
    —
  • The Louis Armstrong All-Stars with Trummy Young and Barney Bigard
  • The Dizzy Gillespie Quintet
    —
  • Ray Charles
  • The Horace Silver Quintet
    —
  • Muddy Waters
  • John Lee Hooker
  • The Bill Evans Trio
  • The Jazz Messengers with Art Blakey

Videos from the festival:

Cannonball Adderley Quintet – Del Sasser:

Muddy Waters – Tiger In Your Tank:

Continue reading Newport Jazz Festival 1960 (Videos) →

Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young

11 favorite performances from The Johnny Cash Show

Johnny cash show

The Johnny Cash Show
The Johnny Cash Show was an American television music variety show hosted by Johnny Cash. The Screen Gems 58-episode series ran from June 7, 1969 to March 31, 1971 on ABC; it was taped at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

The show lasted a little under two years, but in that time it hosted a lot of fantastic musical guests. Johnny Cash had great taste in music and had to fight to get his choices on tv on several occasions.

There are so many great artists and they’re giving some of the best performances ever done for TV.

Here are my 11 favorite  You Tube clips from the magnificent, The Johnny Cash Show:

 

Bob Dylan –  I Threw It All Away ,  Living The Blues  and  Girl From The North Country  (duet with Johnny Cash):

Neil Young – The Needle and the damage done and Journey through the past:

Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson – Sunday Morning Coming Down:

Cash fought hard to keep the word, “stoned” in the lyrics that were broadcast.

Kris Kristofferson – Loving her was easier:

Ray Charles – Ring of Fire:

Continue reading 11 favorite performances from The Johnny Cash Show →

Music Calendar, Rock'n Roll, Soul

Today: Ray Charles recorded “What’d I Say” in 1959 – 54 years ago

Ray_Charles_-_What'd_I_Say

I’m not one to interpret my own songs, but if you can’t figure out ‘What I Say’, then something’s wrong. Either that, or you’re not accustomed to the sweet sounds of love.
—Ray Charles

The feel comes from gospel but the resulting witty, elegant essay on rhythm and sex and why they’re inseparable is purely pagan.
~Dave Marsh (The Heart of Rock & Soul)

wikipedia:

Released July 1959
Format 7-inch single
Recorded February 18, 1959
Genre Soul, blues, gospel, rock and roll
Length 6:30
Label Atlantic
Writer(s) Ray Charles
Producer Jerry Wexler

“What’d I Say” (or “What I Say“) is a song by American rhythm and blues (R&B) musician Ray Charles, released in 1959 as a single divided into two parts. It was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.

 ray charles what'd I say

 After his run of R&B hits, this song finally broke Charles into mainstream pop music and itself sparked a new sub-genre of R&B titled soul, finally putting together all the elements that Charles had been creating since he recorded “I Got a Woman” in 1954. The gospel influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in R&B and rock and roll history. For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002 and ranked at number 10 in Rolling Stone‘s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

ray charles what'd i say

“Ray would call and say that he had a few songs but he wouldn’t usually comment on them beforehand. He called me up before he brought “What’d I Say” in and said, “I think you might like this one pretty well.” That constituted a rave from him and it was very easy to record. It was hardly a song: it was an extended rhythm lick with a few jingle-like verses: “See that girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long”, not exactly Shakespearian innovation. He had strung a few lines together but the essence of that record was the boiling rhythm track and the exchanges between himself and the Raelets.”
– Jerry Wexler (Co-owner of Atlantic Records & legendary producer)

Live – 1960:

Album of the day:

The Best of Ray Charles – Atlantic Years (1994)

Ray_Charles_-_The_Best_of_Ray_Charles_-_The_Atlantic_Years

Other February 18

Continue reading Today: Ray Charles recorded “What’d I Say” in 1959 – 54 years ago →

Bruce Springsteen, Music Calendar

Today: Bruce Springsteen is 63

1 Comment

They call him the Boss. Well that’s a bunch of crap. He’s not the boss. He works FOR us. More than a boss, he’s the owner, because more than anyone else, Bruce Springsteen owns America’s heart.
~Bono (induction speech for at the 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

From Wikipedia:

Also known as The Boss, Bad Scooter
Born September 23, 1949 (age 63)
Long Branch, New Jersey, United States
Genres Rock, folk rock, heartland rock,roots rock
Occupations Musician, Songwriter
Instruments Vocals, guitar, harmonica
Years active 1969–present
Labels Columbia
Associated acts The E Street Band, Steel Mill,Miami Horns, The Sessions Band, Southside Johnny, The Gaslight Anthem, Dropkick Murphys
Website www.brucespringsteen.net

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed “The Boss“, is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running up to an uninterrupted 250 minutes in length.

Springsteen’s recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time, the 96th Greatest Guitarist of all time on their latest list and the 36th Greatest Singer of all time in 2008.

From allmusic.com – William Ruhlmann:

In the decades following his emergence on the national scene in 1975, Bruce Springsteen proved to be that rarity among popular musicians, an artist who maintained his status as a frontline recording and performing star, consistently selling millions of albums and selling out arenas and stadiums around the world year after year, as well as retaining widespread critical approbation, with ecstatic reviews greeting those discs and shows. Although there were a few speed bumps along the way in Springsteen‘s career, the wonder of his nearly unbroken string of critical and commercial success is that he achieved it while periodically challenging his listeners by going off in unexpected directions, following his muse even when that meant altering the sound of his music or the composition of his backup band, or making his lyrical message overtly political. Of course, it may have been these very sidesteps that kept his image and his music fresh, especially since he always had the fallback of returning to what his fans thought he did best, barnstorming the country with a marathon rock & roll show using his longtime bandmates.
.. read more over @ allmusic 

Some of his recognition’s: 

  • October 27, 1975: Bruce Springsteen appears simultaneously on the covers of Newsweek and Time
  • Polar Music Prize in 1997.
  • Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999.
  • Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999.
  • Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007.
  • “Born to Run” named “The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey” by the New Jersey state legislature; something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song “is about leaving New Jersey”.
  • The minor planet 23990, discovered September 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor.
  • Ranked No. 23 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
  • Ranked No. 36 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time.
  • Made Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list.
  • Won Critic’s Choice Award for Best Song with “The Wrestler” in 2009.
  • Performed at the Super Bowl XLIII half time show.
  • Kennedy Center Honors, 2009.
  • Rolling Stone magazine also ranked 8 out of 16 Springsteen’s studio albums in their 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time list.
  • Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road” in its 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time list, in 21st and 86th, respectively.
  • Forbes ranked him 6th in The Celebrity 100 in 2009
  • John Steinbeck Award
  • Named 2013 MusiCares Person of the Year
–

We will post some Bruce Springsteen lists later today / tomorrow.

–

Thunder Road – live @ Hammersmith 1975:

Atlantic City Live:

Album of the day – Hammersmith Odeon London ’75:


Other September 23:

Continue reading Today: Bruce Springsteen is 63 →