The legacy content of this blog has been migrated into my loudfastblogs site. There you will find the archives of this blog, as well as new posts and ongoing coverage of and conversation about the realms of music, motorsports, and aerospace.

Please visit:  www.loudfastblogs.net

See you there!

Parking a blog...

Readers with a discerning eye - or at least readers capable of performing date calculations - may have noticed that fresh content has been somewhat… sporadic around here. Sad to say, that’s what happens when two book projects, multiple musical efforts, and a host of Internet-related assignments all barge their way to the top of the prioritization list. My interest in the LOUDFASTBLOGS network subjects remains keen, so revitalization is just a question of time. How soon? Time itself will tell. But keep an eye out here - as Joe Strummer once wrote, the future is unwritten…

My review of the 2014 Led Zeppelin I, II, and III Remasters/Hi-Resolution Downloads

If you are going to sing a verse like this, full of dread and apocalyptic fury:

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde,
Singing and crying: "Valhalla, I am coming!"

...your band had better not suck. 

They did not.

Ruminating on Rubber Soul

This morning I listened to the 1965 album Rubber Soul by The Beatles (you may have heard of them). Curious album title, that…

Rubber Soul cover, US stereo edition.

From the vantage point of 2014 it’s easy to take this collection of music as something that seems to have always existed – but it’s more interesting to put it in the perspective of where in the band’s career timeline it was created.

While the songs generally credited to Paul McCartney remain focused on matters romantic – and masterful displays of pop-craft they often are – John Lennon’s words begin to show the first signs of a new direction for the band and a changing attitude for him. “Norwegian Wood” brings a much more adult take on relationship complexities than the cut-and-dry characterizations that inhabited earlier songs. And in “The Word,” when Lennon announced “Now that I know what I feel must be right, I'm here to show everybody the light,” he set a course that he would follow for the rest of his life.

The band recording Rubber Soul.

George Harrison displays a darker lyrical approach as well, noting in “Think for Yourself” that “I left you far behind, the ruins of the life that you have in mind.”

The shimmering production and spirited performances that abound in Rubber Soul seem like a seamless and logical progression from the album’s predecessor, Help!, arriving quickly on its heels. But the album also offered clues that things were changing. No one could have imagined just how much.

The blog awakens...

...after extended slumber.

What a difference four decades make...

The first time I ever saw Tony Joe White was May 1, 1971. I hated him.

White had the unenviable task of joining Spirit in opening for Jethro Tull, now at the peak of their powers just days after the release of Aqualung.

I, along with many others in Philadelphia’s packed Spectrum, had little time for some dude playing music about swamps and looking kind of like he’d just emerged from one, especially when Martin Barre was waiting in the wings ready to unleash that six-note onslaught that heralded the title track of the new Tull LP. White did not go down the worst of any opening act I saw at the Spectrum; that dubious honor was presented a few weeks after this show, to LaBelle as they crashed and burned in a storm of boos before The Who claimed the stage during the Who’s Next tour. But the crowd did not exactly embrace White in a warm hug of good cheer.

Yesterday, just over forty years later, I saw Tony Joe White for the second time. What a difference a few decades make.



Tony Joe White's 2013 release on Yep Roc Records.

Backed only by drummer Fleetwood Cadillac - yep, that’s how the Mississippian was introduced - White took the stage at Philadelphia’s World Café Live for the weekly WXPN Free at Noon concert series and got things off to a rousing start by discovering his amp was not on. But years of stage experience saw White coolly apprise the folks in front of him - and those listening around the world - about the issue and its resolution.

“Alright - Friday!” White announced in his thick drawl, “A little mid-day swamp…”

A man in black - Tony Joe White on stage at World Café Live.

For the next forty minutes White held the crowd spellbound, his worn Stratocaster emitting notes that led down twisting paths of the blues, backed by Cadillac’s simple but sympathetic drums. White’s tales of hoodoo, voodoo, and a disappearing Southern life were nearly croaked out in a conspiratorial voice that gave the impression the tales were being told just for your ears alone. And no-one could stop listening.

That I found White so mesmerizing this time is a direct by-product of the fact that my musical tastes haven’t refocused over the years, they’ve simply widened to now embrace swamp rock, Tull, and far too much else.

But I’m glad I had the chance to test that theory.



Tony Joe White’s Free at Noon concert can be heard at the following Web site; simply scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the Free at Noon stream for November 15, 2013:

 

Tony Joe White live on Free at Noon, November 15, 2016

Hi-hat of the gods...

Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion was welcomed warmly to the United States last night by a full house at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope PA. The large audience was attentive and applauded in all the right places during the two sets, and the musically brilliant but notoriously combative Baker was appreciative of the reception.

Now 74 years old and in constant pain from a degenerative spine condition, Ginger still displayed the form that influenced a tide of rock drummers. Characteristically, Baker’s relentless hi-hat creates a pulse for every song. The stylistic aspect, so prominent during Baker’s ground-breaking years with Cream, was soon passed down to a second wave of drummers powering 1970s hard rock bands ranging from Mountain to Cactus.

Jazz Confusion on stage in London earlier this year.

YouTube Video of Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion encore, October 8, 2013

That Baker has a legion of rock disciples, of course, has always annoyed him, for Ginger considers himself a jazz drummer.

And that’s certainly the style that Jazz Confusion deftly works through, covering material ranging from a Sonny Rollins tune to a bluesy check-in via a composition written by the late Cyril Davies, a Baker cohort in the early 1960s. With Baker and Ghanaian percussionist Abass Dodoo merging swing with African rhythms, an energetic foundation supported bassist Alec Dankworth and saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis. Ellis, long-time sideman with James Brown during Brown’s most fertile creative period, took lengthy solos that varied intensity with playfulness. Dankworth held the low end, partnering with Baker and Dodoo to support Ellis but also stepping forward with dexterity for his own moments in the spotlight. No surprise that Dankworth should shine: he’s the son of the late horn player and composer John Dankworth and wife Cleo Laine, the only singer nominated for Grammy Awards in jazz, classical, and pop categories.

At one point Ginger said, "I'm 74 years old and have a number of physical infirmities, so I apologize if I can't play what you want to hear." It was an entirely unnecessary apology.