portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Monday, March 18, 2024

BBChronicles posted this for KARL WALLINGER 1957- 2024

World Party (Karl Wallinger, R.I.P. 1957-2024) - 1990-09-10 - Warfield Theater, San Francisco, CA


 
World Party 
(Karl Wallinger, R.I.P. 1957-2024) 
1990-09-10
Warfield Theatre,
San Francisco, CA
Soundboard recording, very good quality
Available in both Lossless (FLAC) and Mp3 (320 kbps) versions

I heard that Welsh multi-instrumentalist musician, songwriter, and producer Karl Wallinger died this week. Although the name may not be very familiar to many, his musical contributions were substantial. He is best known for his band World Party, which essentially was a solo project with Wallinger playing all the instruments and vocal parts (but in later years added additional musicians and guest artists), as well as earlier for being the keyboard player for UK folk-rock band The Waterboys in the mid-eighties. He also worked on some film soundtracks and produced records for other artists. He worked with Peter Gabriel in performing, producing, and putting together the Real World Records album of International artist collaborations, Big Blue Ball (2008), which included a mix of western, African, and Asian musicians and took many years to create. In fact, it was from a post from Gabriel that I learned of Karl's death this week, as in referring to that album collaboration, Gabriel wrote of Karl: "I had admired his work from afar but it was when we did a Real World Recording Week together that I had the most creative and fun week I have ever had in the studio. Karl was overflowing with wonderful musical ideas that blew us all away, all delivered with terrible jokes that had us laughing uncontrollably all day and night. He was such a gifted, natural writer and player, it was a tap that he could turn on at will, effortlessly...Karl was an abundant talent and we have been given extraordinary music and memories from this extraordinary man."
As World Party, Karl released Five studio albums, Private Revolution (1986), Goodbye Jumbo(1990), Bang (1993), Egyptology (1997), and Dumbing Up (2000), in addition to a couple compilation albums. Private Revolution and Goodbye Jumbo are both classics, with Goodbye Jumbo being my favorite, and one of the best albums of the nineties. Karl's music is a mix of rock, folk, funk, and other genres, and the influences of his musical heroes, The Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan, Kinks, and motown are readily apparent in Wallinger's songs and style, but he constricts his own musical world from these elements to create a marvelous blend. Some singles from his albums, including Ship of Fools, Way Down Now, Put the Message in the Box, and She's the One were modest hits. To honor Karl, here is a World Party show from 1990 in fine quality.  

Tracklist:
01. Private Revolution
02. All Come True
03. When The Rainbow Comes
04. Put The Message In The Box
05. Is It Too Late
06. Love Street
07. World Party
08. Way Down Now
09. Thank You World
10. Take It Up
11. Ship Of Fools
12. outro music

ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST : Natalie Merchant Cover Songs Vol III 2007 -2019

 

Natalie Merchant - Cover Songs, Volume 3: 2007-2019

This is the third and last album of cover versions by Natalie Merchant, former lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs. I really enjoyed the music here, she has a very interesting and enjoying voice.

This album takes us as close to the current day as I could get. Although it ends in 2019, I didn't find any worthy covers from the next few years. (She has done some in her latest concert tour, but sound quality is an issue.) 

As Merchant's solo career went on, she got increasingly interested in older, more traditional music forms. For instance, in 2003, she released the album "The House Carpenter's Daughter," with entirely consisted of cover songs, the vast majority of them traditional, with the composer or composers unknown. Her next album, "Leave Your Sleep" in 2010, consisted entirely of poetry from the 19th and 20th centuries put to music. I should mention I haven't included any cover songs from albums such as these, just her non-album stuff.

Given all that, it's not surprising that some of her non-album covers are traditional too. Indeed, that's the case with five of the songs here. But she mixes that with a good number of better known songs from the 1960s to more current times.

Only two of the songs here are unreleased. There would have been more, but again I wanted to keep the sound quality standard high. The two happen to both be Beatles covers: "Let It Be" and "I'm Only Sleeping." They're both from concert bootlegs.

As for the rest, most are from a mix of appearances on other artists' albums, various artists compilations, and two songs from an E.P. Additionally, four of the songs (tracks 11 to 14) are from her 2017 album "Rarities (1998-2017)." They were probably recorded at unknown earlier years, but that's when they were released. I've included them because this album is generally only available as part of a ten album box set called "The Natalie Merchant Collection."

This album is 53 minutes long.

Natalie sings the songs of:

01 To Love Is to Bury - Cowboy Junkies
02 If I Only Had a Brain - Judy Garland & Ray Bolger (from "The Wizard of Oz")
03 Political Science - Randy Newman 
04 Order 1081 - David Byrne
05 Learning the Game - Buddy Holly
06 Child of a Blind Man - Hazmat Modine
07 Joseph and Mary [The Cherry Tree Carol] - traditional
08 Let It Be - Beatles
09 The Butcher's Boy - traditional
10 Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier - traditional
11 The Village Green Preservation Society - Kinks
12 My Little Sweet Baby - traditional
13 Too Long at the Fair - Joel Zoss / Bonnie Raitt
14 Sit Down, Sister - traditional 
15 I'm Only Sleeping - Beatles

TWILIGHT ZONE | Stephanie Finch and The Company Men ‘CRY TOMORROW'


 Anybody heard of these guys or this lassie?! She is Chuck Prophet’s missus so some calibre there but this is great! She has written six of the ten songs here and thus I would call it her album but she is self effacing enough to included the band name with hers. Chuck produces so you know it’s quality 

I hadn’t and RYP over at the Zone (TWILIGHT that is!) excels and I love it when guys post bands I have never heard of and the work makes me sit up and listen . . . enjoy, go out and buy!




Stephanie Finch and The Company Men - 'Cry Tomorrow’ TWILIGHTZONE

RYP reports:

I can't remember the last time I waited in such anticipation to receive a CD. Stephanie and her company of men have created a very hip album with catchy melodies, and nice space in the arrangements. The rhythm section is just the slightest muffled, an effect I like a lot because it highlights the guitars, keys, and vocals. Chuck Prophet adds some tasteful texture with his signature electronic effects such as the scramble on "Tina Goodbye".....The musicians are like good painters, they know when to let space augment their art. Less, they say, is more, creating Cry Tomorrow's retro chic. The first impression is novelty, but it quickly becomes apparent that Cry Tomorrow doesn't wallow there. It has all the earmarks of standing the test of time: in ten years it will probably be just as cool as it is today.

As good as the Company Men are, Stephanie is the star. Her straight-forward, unadorned alto rings as clear as a bell. It requires no affectations or synthesized modulations. It is an instrument in its own right, copping irony and earnestness in just the right doses. Yeah, this lady can sing the phone book and make you scream for an encore - Encyclopedia Britannica, anyone?

This is a catchy, head bobbing release that is as well suited for driving as it is celebrating at home with your friends, swaying and sashaying with your favorite sassparilla in hand. Every tune's tasty. Too bad there's only ten of 'em, but don't worry your pretty little heads, dearies, we can just hit PLAY over and over again. - P. Swinford

Stephanie Finch: The Power Of Simplicity : NPR 

Stephanie on NPR

Lovely!

Song of The Day : ‘Goin’ Back ‘ - Nils Lofgren | Le Ramasseur De Mégots

Goin' Back

a favourite Nils track (him on piano here!) and a cover that excels against many others (all?) as I bought this album when it came out . . I loved it! . . . . . . .                                . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .                                                               thanks to 

Le Ramasseur De Mégots

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Steve Harley, Cockney Rebel frontman, dies aged 73 . . .


 Come up and See Me! TOTP!

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel 

Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)

Steve Harley, the frontman of the British rock group Cockney Rebel, has died aged 73.

The English singer and songwriter, best known for his 1975 song Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), had been receiving treatment for cancer. He died at his Suffolk home on Sunday morning.

In a statement, his family said: “We are devastated to announce that our wonderful husband and father has passed away peacefully at home, with his family by his side.

“The birdsong from his woodland that he loved so much was singing for him. His home has been filled with the sounds and laughter of his four grandchildren. Whoever you know him as, his heart exuded only core elements. Passion, kindness, generosity. And much more, in abundance.”

THE GUARDIAN


A smiling Steve Harley
Steve Harley during a recording of a charity single for the Jo Cox Foundation in 2016.Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA
Just an additional post but you can tell what sort of wonderful chap  Steve was by joining in this tribute to our wonderful MP Jo who was shot dead by our very own alt right lunatic!

SUNDAY MUSICS : The Roches - Clothes Line Sage (Bob Dylan Cover) | out flanked again! | Le Ramasseur De Mégots

Clothes Line Saga

Le Ramasseur De Mégots

THEY’RE PLANTING STORIES IN THE PRESS | FLAGGING DOWN THE DOUBLE Es : Ray Padgett’s BOB DYLAN Newsletter

Stories in the Press: Pittsburgh 1965 (w/ Joan Baez)

1965-03-17, Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, PA

On today’s date in 1965, Bob Dylan played the first of two all-but-forgotten shows in Pittsburgh, his first time in the city. They’re all-but-forgotten for a simple reason: No recordings. But I decided to see what info I could piece together from contemporary news reports.

The first show was announced on February 21, a little less than a month before. These were co-headlining dates with Joan Baez, and it’s interesting that in both this and the other major news clip we’ll see, Joan is still being treated as the real star. Dylan is not technically an opener; everything in the ads, tickets, etc puts him at equal billing with Joan. But the press in Pittsburgh don’t treat him that way.

Remember, this is 1965! Dylan has already released four albums, which include all his folk-era standards, and recorded a fifth. Peter Paul and Mary had made “Blowin’ in the Wind” a massive hit two years earlier. So I was surprised to see that, even this late, he was being treated as second-banana to Baez.


Read on here . . . . .

Three From The Yardbirds (feat. Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page) Live in France

 This is fun!


although there was some dispute on the chat this is clearly The Yardbirds in ’66 with 

Keith Relf on lead vocals
Jeff Beck - Les Paul lead guitar
Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar (a 335?) - vastly underrated 
Jimmy Page - semi-acoutic bass
Jim McCarty - Drums

tracks 

1/ Train Kept a Rollin’

2/ Shapes of Things

3/ Over Under Sideways Down

*wiki notes:

Soon after the release of album 'Roger The Engineer', Samwell-Smith quit the band at a drunken gig at Queen's College in Oxford and embarked on a career as a record producer. Jimmy Page, who was at the show, agreed that night to play bass until rhythm guitarist Dreja could rehearse on the instrument. The band toured with Page on bass, and Beck and Dreja on guitars, playing dates in Paris, the UK, the Midwestern US, and the California coast. 

Beck fell ill late in the latter tour and was hospitalised in San Francisco. Page took over as lead guitarist at the Carousel Ballroom (San Francisco) on 25 August and Dreja switched to bass. Beck stayed in San Francisco to recuperate with his girlfriend Mary Hughes, while the rest of the band completed the tour. After the Yardbirds reunited in London, Dreja remained on bass and the group's dual lead guitar attack was born. 

Top Hat Crew "Live Music Archivists"

 

Painting of The Day : Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 | For Connel in Normal People . . . .

 I think it was this that Conn is recommended to go see when they go to Europe and stay with Marianne in the family villa . . . . it meant a lot to me as we had enjoyed a ‘study group’ on Duchamp at college run by the peerless Art Historian Fred Orton and the wonderful composer Gavin Bryars which remains one of the few high points of my time at art school


Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (French: Nu descendant un escalier n° 2) is a 1912 painting by Marcel Duchamp. The work is widely regarded as a Modernist classic and has become one of the most famous of its time. Before its first presentation at the 1912 Salon des Indépendants in Paris it was rejected by the Cubists as being too Futurist.

The hanging committee objected to the work, on the grounds that it had “too much of a literary title”, and that “one doesn’t paint a nude descending a staircase, that’s ridiculous… a nude should be respected." Duchamp’s brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, sent by the hanging committee, asked him to voluntarily withdraw the painting, or paint over the title and rename it something else.

“But I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not be very much interested in groups after that.” – Marcel Duchamp

I focused my attentions on Man Ray and Francis Picabia during this time and wrote papers on them both so we went on to meet Richard Hamilton (and his lovely partner fellow artist Rita Donagh) on whom I did my final thesis. We also went to the ICA Man Ray exhibition and were able to meet Sir Roland Penrose and his then wife, the Man Ray muse and artist, model and keen photojournalist herself (the first photographer into Bergen Belsen no less) Lee Miller


Happy Days . . . . . 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

MUSIC OF THE DAY | BRIAN ENO - ALL I REMEMBER

 ALL I REMEMBER - BRIAN ENO

Directed and produced by Anamorph.
All I Remember’ is a brand new unreleased recording and the closing song from the upcoming ‘Eno’ biopic, a career spanning documentary with a UK premier at the Barbican on April 20. Not the usual documentary, ‘Eno’ is a unique generative film that’s different every time it’s screened. Accompanying this ground breaking new film is a soundtrack that serves as a companion audio journey touching on Eno’s output throughout his rich career. The 17 tracks included on the album feature work from early solo outings such as 1974’s ‘Taking Tiger Mountain’ and 75’s ‘Another Green World’, acclaimed collaborations with the likes of David Byrne, John Cale, Cluster and more recently, Fred again… all the way through to music from his latest album, ‘FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE’, and a live recording of By This River from his 2021 appearance at the Acropolis in Athens with brother, Roger. Stream and save ‘All I Remember’ on your music service:
https://BrianEno.lnk.to/AllIRemember Pre-order ‘Eno: The Official Motion Picture Soundtrack’ here: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/EnoOST Explore more about Brian Eno on... Facebook: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/Facebook Twitter: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/Twitter Instagram: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/Instagram YouTube: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/YouTube Official Store: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/OfficialStore Official Website: https://BrianEno.lnk.to/OfficialWebsite

Eno_rosegarden_3

ENO--digital-packshot

ENO_animated


WORLDWIDE ‘ENO’ DOCUMENTARY SCREENINGS
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GET TICKETS

Remembering James Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) | Don’s Tunes [Facebook]

Otis Spann and James Cotton rehearsing in Muddy Waters's basement in Chicago in February 1965, taken by Raeburn Flerlage


Cotton’s uncle took him to live with Sonny Boy Williamson when he was but a mere nine years old.


“I didn’t really know nothing about the blues then, but I did know Sonny Boy because he played on that radio show. And then my uncle took me to (live with) him and I stayed with him for six years,” said Cotton. “When we first met, I just walked up and started playing for him and he started paying attention. Whatever he played today, I could play tomorrow.”


The thought of a pre-teenager living and juking all over the south with the notoriously irascible Sonny Boy Williamson might be cause for a bit of concern, but according to Cotton, that was not the case at all.


“He was really a sweet guy and he had a sweet wife … a really nice woman,” he said. “But they got on bad terms and she finally left him and went to Milwaukee.”


The teen-aged Cotton and Sonny Boy gigged all over Arkansas and Mississippi, with Cotton opening the show by playing outside the juke joints because he was too young to officially go inside the club.


“One day Sonny Boy went up to Milwaukee (after his wife) – just like that. He left and he left me his band. I was 15 years old then,” Cotton said. “But they (the band) was so much older than me … I was just a kid … I did everything that I could do to help, but that didn’t last too long and I couldn’t hold things together … maybe three or four months.”


Even though he was still just a teenager – and had no real home at the time – Cotton managed to survive in Memphis by playing on Beale Street. But it wasn’t long before his musical education hit chapter two, this time as part of Howlin’ Wolf’s band, The Houserockers.


Just as he had with Sonny Boy, even though he was a bit on the under-aged side of things, Cotton played juke joint after juke joint with The Wolf.


“I met him in West Memphis, Arkansas. He knew that I could play and that I was needing a job, so he asked me to come play with him,” Cotton said. “And I was with him for about two years. I played on his first recordings, ‘Moanin’ at Midnight’ and ‘How Many More Years.’ I thought he was a nice guy. If you left him alone and didn’t cause no trouble, you wouldn’t get none back.”


The story about how Sam Phillips first heard The Wolf sing and immediately fell in love with his voice is well-documented. But Phillips was also responsible for bringing Cotton into the studio to cut his first recordings, just as he had done for Howlin’ Wolf.


“I had this radio show on KWEM in West Memphis (when he was 17 years old) – and Sam Phillips called me up one day and said, ‘How’d you like to make a record?’ And I said, ‘I’d love it.’ So he told me to meet him the next Wednesday,” Cotton said. “Then we went in and he asked me to play some songs and I had a couple of blues songs – one called ‘Oh, Baby’ and one called ‘Straighten Up Baby’ – and I played them and he recorded them and they played those records a lot around Memphis.”


Cotton ultimately ended up cutting four sides for Sun Records.


- Terry Mullins / Blues Blast Magazine


Don's Tunes

Odetta with James Cotton - Key To The Highway

WILLAM BURROUGHS' BURIAL | 3 poems by John Giorno

William S Burroughs iPad sketch 5/08/2012 ©️Andy Swapp


What Went Into William Burroughs Coffin With His Dead Body. John Giorno three poems.

kind of reassuring to know he was a silly old sod in death just as he was in life!

( … ) About ten in the morning on Tuesday, August 6, 1997, James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg came to William’s house to pick out the clothes for the funeral director to put on William’s corpse. His clothes were in a closet in my room. And we picked the things to go into William’s coffin and grave, accompanying him on his journey in the underworld.

His most favourite gun, a 38 special snub-nose, fully loaded with five shots. He called it, “The snubby.” The gun was my idea. “This is very important!” William always said you can never be too well armed in any situation. Of his more than 80 world-class guns, it was his favourite. He often wore it on his belt during the day, and slept with it, fully loaded, on his right side, under the bedsheet, every night for fifteen years.

Grey fedora. He always wore a hat when he went out. We wanted his consciousness to feel perfectly at ease, dead.

His favourite cane, a sword cane made of hickory with a light rosewood finish.

Sport jacket, black with a dark green tint. We rummaged through the closet and it was the best of his shabby clothes, and smelling sweetly of him.

Blue jeans, the least worn ones were the only ones clean.

Red bandana. He always kept one in his back pocket.

Jockey underwear and socks.

Black shoes. The ones he wore when he performed. I thought the old brown ones, that he wore all the time, because they were comfortable. James Grauerholz insisted, “There’s an old CIA slang that says getting a new assignment is getting new shoes.”

White shirt. We had bought it in a men’s shop in Beverly Hills in 1981 on The Red Night Tour. It was his best shirt, all the others were a bit ragged, and even though it had become tight, he’d lost a lot of weight, and we thought it would fit. James said, “Don’t they slit it down the back anyway.”

Necktie, blue, hand painted by William.

Moroccan vest, green velvet with gold brocade trim, given him by Brion Gysin, twenty-five years before.
In his lapel button hole, the rosette of the French government’s
Commandeur Des Arts et Lettres, and the rosette of the American Academy Of Arts and Letters, honours which William very much appreciated.

A gold coin in his pants pocket. A gold 19th Century Indian head five dollar piece, symbolising all wealth. William would have enough money to buy his way in the underworld.

His eyeglasses in his outside breast pocket.

A ball point pen, the kind he always used. “He was a writer!”, and wrote long hand.

A joint of really good grass.

Heroin. Before the funeral service, Grant Hart slipped a small white paper packet into William’s pocket. “Nobody’s going to bust him.” said Grant. William, bejewelled with all his adornments, was travelling in the underworld. ( … )


© John Giorno: 


“The questions, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in the other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict’s special need. You don’t decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you’re an addict.” 


William S. Burroughs, Junky

William S Burroughs iPad drawing [treated] 5th Aug 2012

 

Start the Weekend = HONKY TONKIN’!!

 THE ROLLING STONES - HONKY TONK WOMEN


For Bobby Keyes