Texas Music

Bob Dylan: Tempest

2012-09-21T10:25:00.002-07:00

Do yourself a favor and get one of Bob Dylan's best albums EVER: Tempest, his first new work in three years.

Some of the best stories Dylan has ever told during any parts of his long career are on Tempest.

The title cut does not involve Shakespearean allusions (not repeatedly, anyway) but is a dramatic telling of the Sinking of the Titanic saga.

The last track, Roll On John, is a spiritual ode to Dylan's friend John Lennon.

That tune is enough to make you cry, even if you are listening to it "sober as a judge."

Dylan has to be feeling the supreme elation felt by the most successful artists late in life -- if one can continue to create good art later in life, it helps put up with negatives of aging, such as having to deal with health matters.

Also, the musicianship of Dylan's supporting band of the last few years (see photo for names) is, as usual, superb throughout Tempest.

PH/NM

You're A Real Texan If:

2011-07-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

(A Good Cold One For A Hot Day And Good Texas Music)

1. On a very hot day, you get into the shower, turn on the cold faucet full blast, and as water is streaming all over your body, you yell: "Barton Springs, Barton Springs."

2. You know the music of Leon Payne, and fully appreciate it.

Words and photograph (c) Paul Heidelberg

( This photo of a great German Schwarzbier, Black beer, was taken in the Auersbach Keller in Leipzig, in the old East Germany. It is similar to Kostritzer Schwarzbier, also from the former East Germany, and available in the USA. The beer pictured here and the Auersbach Keller have more than a little history -- the beer brand, and the keller, both date from the 1500s.)

Madame George and A Day In The Life: "The Sixties" Two Greatest Songs

2011-07-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

"Painter Photographing Sculpture" (c) Paul Heidelberg

Tell 'em PH said that.

Also, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (Madame George is the sixth track on that album) is at least among the top five albums from "The Sixties," right up there with Sgt. Pepper's.

Note: I first went to see Van Morrison perform in the Fall of 1971 in San Francisco at Winterland (this was five years before The Last Waltz was held, and filmed, at that venue). I later saw Van the Man perform a great concert in Granada, Spain in February, 2006.

The Granada concert was a very good one: everything from Brown Eyed Girl to Your Cheating Heart to his familiar tunes about "the wind and the rain." (After I purchased Morrison's great C&W work Pay The Devil, I recognized several of his C&W covers I had heard in Granada.)

A note on that concert: Morrison was backed by about 15 musicians -- they were all hitting it that night, as I yelled to them as I saw them boarding their bus after the concert, gave them the thumbs up and yelled, "Yeah," sounding much like Morrison, I think, like many of his "Yeahs" on many of his works. When he went into "Your Cheating Heart, I yelled "Yeah" and I swear I saw him looking up to me at the balcony, probably wondering, "Who is that person who sounds like me."

And, a strange note: At the time Spain was suffering through a severe drought. I don't know how long it had been since it had rained in Granada, but guess what was occurring, as if tribute to Morrison, as audience members and Van's musicians left the venue: the wind and the rain, that what was occurring.

I was standing in the rain when I gave my thumb's up to Van's band: my succinct music review, you might say. In reply, they all just beamed. They knew they had all just nailed it -- Van included, of course.

Before the concert, I went to a cafe to have a drink while I waited. I listened to an English-speaking woman ordering in English, and assumed she was one of the many British expats who were living in Spain and were also waiting for the show to start.

I thought, "Learn the language of the country you are living in."

Well, one of the highlights of the concert, besides Morrison's great singing, his great Sax work, and others' great Sax work, fine piano work, fine guitar work, was this woman's backing vocals along with another female backing vocalist and a male backing vocalist.

Oh, that is why she doesn't speak Spanish well, I thought. She doesn't live in Spain, and was probably performing in Sweden the night before, etc.

After the concert, I asked one of the crew if the concert had been recorded.

He asked, suspiciously, "Why?"

I answered, "Because it was a great concert."

He then held up a small black object. It had been recorded. I have thought Morrison ought to release an album culled from that night's tunes. (This was far in advance of the live Astral Weeks album.)

I went to the concert to treat myself for completing my novel-written-in-the-highest-mountains in Spain, when I lived there from 2004 to 2006; I lived "sud de Granada" for two years, two months. In my novel CHASING FREEDOM, REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES, I fictionalized my "Night At Winterland" in 1971, which might best be described as harrowing.

Read the book to find out what I mean by harrowing, and to find out what "The Sixties" was really about. FYI, The Sixties was circa 1965-1975. Musically speaking, the early 1960s was a continuation of the 1950s, with songs by such persons as Bobby Vinton and Gene Pitney (Gene Pitney was good, let it be noted: Check out The New Riders Of The Purple Sage's version of his Hello Mary Lou).

Note: the cover illustration to my novel that you see a representation of on this blog was created by using modern computer software to alter a 35 mm transparency taken "in the bowels" of The San Francisco Art Institute, the best art college in the USA "hands down" during The Sixties.

The title of the artwork is: "Painter Photographing Sculpture." (The work is suitable for framing, as they say; I have had paintings and photographs exhibited at many galleries and I must say there is no way I would sell this work in a gallery for the price of this book; my idea is you buy two copies. Take off the cover to frame, and keep one edition of the book intact.)

Regarding the SFAI -- I attended, and graduated from the college, and it was no easy task. The first year reminded me of boot camp in the U.S. Air Force (four years service -- Honorable Discharge).

It took a long time for people there to accept you, including one strange dude who used a painting studio corner as his home. He was a mascot of sorts I guess, but was one strange dude with a very strange look in his eyes, all the time.

As I write in CHASING FREEDOM, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead studied at the SFAI and, "before she made it big," Janis Joplin worked in the school cafe for "bread" -- the kind you spend, not the kind you eat.

Get Astral Weeks. I have the original and the live version recorded in Los Angeles and released in 2009, and prefer the original (sans irritating crowd noises, for one thing; for another, great drumming by Modern Jazz Quartet drummer Connie Kay).

Astral Weeks is not Psychedelia. When I first heard the album in a small, and I mean small, cafe in Matala, Crete, in 1969, I thought: "What a great combination of jazz, folk and rock."

Cover Illustration for CHASING FREEDOM (c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg.

You want to hear some Good Music? Do not delay, and get Muddy Waters Woodstock Album

2011-07-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

Gut Bier Made In Germany For Texan German-Americans And All Texans

Recorded in Woodstock, New York, in 1975, this fine work shows you how good musical, literary or visual art is TIMELESS.

To Paraphrase Muddy (aka Mckinley Morganfield), don't be a cheapskate -- spend some money and get this great music. It is one of the best albums I have ever bought, and that includes Bob Dylan's first 11 albums (and plenty more since), about 19 CDs by Van Morrison, not to mention other works by such people as John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner.

I got my CD "cheap off amazon.com."

I think my www pen pal Bob Margolin, a longtime guitarist with Muddy and his band, first told me about "The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album." (Bob plays on the album.)

You might start with track six, Muddy's tune "Love, Deep As The Ocean."

In the song, Muddy is telling the woman he really loves her when he sings such lines as:

"I loves you honey, like a schoolboy loves his pie."

For all you guitarists out there, on this tune Muddy is showing you how to play slide guitar. He is backed on the work by such great musicians as Levon Helm on drums, Paul Butterfield on blues harp and Pinetop Perkins on piano.

Go out and get yourself some of this pie, brothers and sisters.

(I just checked -- www.amazon.com has the The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album priced at a buyer-friendly $6.17.)

Get it and open up your ears: You won't be disappointed.

(Here is a photo of 20 half liters of Lowenbrau Oktoberfest beers, purchased in Germany the month after they were created; you can have some cold ones vicariously to help you enjoy Music at its Best. Photograph (c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg.)

-- PH

Hank Williams and Leon Payne: The Best C&W Composers Ever...

2010-08-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

...Quite possibly. "Everyone" knows about Hank Williams' great composing and singing, but few know much about Texas-born Payne; Payne authored many great tunes, including Williams' Lost Highway and Things Have Gone To Pieces (To hear an Irishman singing some classic Country & Western well, listen to Van Morrison's version of that song on his "Pay The Devil" CD).

Texas Landscape photograph copyright (c) Paul Heidelberg

Lester Young, Jo Jones, Gene Ramey, Teddy Wilson (Both Ramey and Wilson were born in Austin)/and/ Possibly best work by a Beatle, post Beatles Breakup

2010-01-28T00:52:00.000-08:00

First, The Beatles:

Sorry Paul and John (Rest In Peace, Brother), but Pablo's pick for quite probably the best vocal work and musicianship by a former Beatle during the post-Beatles Era: Great music by "Georgie Boy," as PM called him affectionatedly at times, George Harrison.

To find this out yourself, do as blues great McKinley Morganfield (aka Muddy Waters) urged for years: Don't Be Cheap, one of the deadliest of sins, spend some cash and get the digitally-remastered version of The Traveling Wilburys Volume I ("Google" Traveling Wilburys I to find out some very neat info such as wikipedia's describing how this great supergroup came to be: the info includes Harrison's needing to record side B to an upcoming release; he stops by Tom Petty's house to get his guitar before he and Petty head to Bobby Zimmerman's [aka Bob Dylan's] as Dylan had a studio in his house).

It all comes together with good work by all the musicians, including great vocals by Harrison and Roy Orbison and fine guitar work, including Jeff Lynne's playing on Dylan's "Like A Ship," a bonus track on the digitally-remastered 2007 release. Pablo thinks that Jeff Lynne's guitar work on "Like A Ship" is what Dylan was after in his quest for the Holy Grail of fine electric guitar work for many, many years.

Back to Harrison: First listen to his excellent vocals on "Heading For the Light." The saxophone work by Jim Horn is over the top -- some Lester Young-like sounds would be nice here (see writing about Young below.)

The real treat to Harrison's work on Traveling Wilburys Volume I is the bonus track on the 2007 release: "Maxine." Great story, "told via singing" by Harrison on this tune, especially his pronounciation of "Lover," which takes you right back to "The Beat-les," as Ed Sullivan called them.

Some musing on Dylan's work on The Traveling Wilbury's Volume I: Pablo thinks Dylan needed "a lift" at this point in his career and life and got it here. Pablo thinks the first Wilburys work was an impetus for later work such as "Time Out Of Mind" and "Modern Times."

In "Tweeter and The Monkey Man" Dylan gets into Dylanesque narrative this writer finds reminiscient of some of his best '60s work.

Pablo likes this release far better than the next edition of The Traveling Wilburys. In part because the album was recorded in the Spring of 1988 and Orbison died later that year.

Note: to music company executives (those that are left, I write half-joking) -- Release "Not Alone Anymore" as a single, in part for a tribute to this great Texas born singer (must be the water, you've got Buddy Holly, Lead Belly, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Orbison, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Willie Nelson, Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter and many other musical greats coming from the Lone Star State).

Release this tune as a single, MP3 format, etc. and spotlight this vocalist's unique voice (many younger music aficionados have never heard his music or his name, most likely).

Add 1: Thinking later about this "Best Beatles, Afterwards," I have to think about John Lennon, of course, and works such as "Imagine." I think it is a testament to non-Proustian elements of time that memories of Lennon might fade; in several works, the French writer Marcel Proust kept having vivid childhood memories that made it seem like "Yesterday" was only "Yesterday." But after 30 years -- don't forget what happened 30 years ago this December -- remembrances are not always "Proustian clear."

Also, Ringo Starr has done some great work with his All-Starr (get it) Band; I first caught the group gigging on a late night TV program circa 1989. Use the Internet to check out the line-up in his first All-Starr group (it includes several former members of The Band.) Also, check out the line-up for 2010, which includes Edgar Winter, another great Texas musician mentioned above.

But, I never found McCartney's post-Beatles work to approach what he did with the Beatles (especially the during "Wings Era").

So, let's give "Georgie Boy" some long-deserved, and long-overdue credit. Get that digitally remastered version of "The Traveling Wilburys Volume I" and listen to "Heading for the Light," before you get to "Maxine," which is a bonus track -- released on this new Wilburys work after Harrison's passing, of course. The writing, singing and Harrison's passion are superb.

Take Two on this writing involves some of the best jazz you will ever hear: The Lester Young-Teddy Wilson Quartet's "Pres & Teddy" featuring virtuoso tenor sax man Lester Young, pianist Teddy Wilson, Jo Jones on drums and Gene Ramey on bass.

(Here comes Texas, Again: Wilson and Ramey were both born in Austin.)

Listen to a tune such as the opening track "All Of Me." Great work by all, including great drum work by Jones (if you think the White Stripe drummer, on one well-known release, anyway, was accomplishing any more than imitating a sick five old banging on a drum, you need to check out drummers such as Jo Jones and Art Blakey; people such as Jones and Blakey go virtually unrecognized while people who do not know what they are doing haul in the cash).

So let me close with these thoughts: With the (usually) "wonderful world of the www" and such things as You Tube, you have no excuse not to check out such great musicians as Young, Wilson, Ramey and Jones, Blakey, Lead Belly and Lightnin' Hopkins and others mentioned in this piece.

In fact, after recently buying an Art Blakey album, I "googled" drummer Gene Ramey, which led me to the Lester Young-Teddy Wilson Quartet work, which I then bought after listening to a minute or two of the outstanding "All Of Me."

Musically Yours,

Pablo
aka
Paul Heidelberg
writer, poet and artist

TEXAS' THE BAND OF HEATHENS TAKES ON EUROPE THIS WEEK

2009-06-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

THE ROCKIN' BAND FROM AUSTIN HAS GIGS IN EUROPA THIS WEEK THAT INCLUDE LONDON, AMSTERDAM, AT THE PARADISO, WHERE THE ROLLING STONES HAVE PLAYED, AND GERMANY, THIS SATURDAY, JUNE 6, IN HAMBURG; UPCOMING GIGS IN THE STATES INCLUDE PERFORMANCES AT WHITEWATER AMPHITHEATER, NEAR NEW BRAUNFELS. CHECK www.bandofheathens.com for details. PHOTO BY (C) PAUL HEIDELBERG, GRUENE HALL, 12/31/07.

BON JOUR TEXAS FROM PARIS: FRANCE, NOT TEJAS -- CHARLIE PARKER PARIS STORY HERE IN THIS YEAR 2009

2009-03-30T00:46:00.000-07:00

This is a real, on the run, blog.

So I am getting off the flight from Dulles in DC to CDG in Paris on March 26, 2009, and I am talking to a brother from Chicago about the blues and jazz. I started by telling him I am working on a fiction project, "The Bluesmen."

He says, "Yeah, well I'm from Chicago, home of the blues."

"Yeah," I said, "after the blues greats moved up from the Mississippi Delta -- John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, all those great guys. I was in Clarksdale, Mississippi a year ago this month. The heart of the Delta Blues country. And when you see how big those cotton fields are, you get an idea of how the blues was born there."

Then I thought very quickly of alto sax great, Charlie Parker, The Bird. I got very emotional.

"You know," I said, "Charlie Parker flies into Paris and he's getting off the plane. All these people are applauding and cheering. The Bird looks around, and then realizes: They're cheering for me, man. They're cheering for me."

BUDDY HOLLY/LEON PAYNE

2009-02-05T07:54:00.000-08:00

TWO TEXAS GREATS LIVE ON THROUGH THEIR MUSIC

BUDDY HOLLY:

This musician of the XX Century, born in Lubbock of course, lives on in this XXI Century, and beyond.

After listening to my recently-received CD "The Buddy Holly Story" (this re-issue was not available a few years back -- get it), I write:

Listening to tunes such as "Maybe Baby," "That'll Be The Day," "Peggy Sue" and "Rave On," I had this lucid thought: Presley could not play the guitar like this. (Perhaps Crickets band memeber Waylon Jennings is getting some licks in, too).

Holly "ushered in" the whole Sixties Rock Guitar Thing: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, etc.

Holly, and such great Black guitarists as Elmore James and Muddy Waters, that is, did the ushering.

Get "The Buddy Holly Story" in any format you choose, and when you listen to it, get to the volume control on whatever you are using to hear this great work, and TURN IT UP.

LEON PAYNE:

If you are not familiar with this great Texas-born musician and composer, "Google"

Leon Payne Things Have Gone To Pieces

I had heard George Jones' version of this song years ago, but Van Morrison's great handling of the tune on his recent "Pay The Devil" album is what got me searching the Internet for Payne.

As I read at www.allmusic.com, Payne was born blind in Alba, Texas in 1917. He played for many years with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. His songs were performed by many early Country & Western greats, including Hank Williams, who had a big hit with Payne's "Lost Highway."

Listening to Van wailing out on "Things Have Gone To Pieces" is music as its best. (And, no, Van is not just trying to get in on the "Country and Western bandwagon;" he listened to his father's C&W records while growing up in Ireland, just as he got into his father's Blues, and Rhythm & Blues sides.)

So do yourself a favor, and check out Leon Payne, and get Van's haunting cover of "Things Have Gone To Pieces."

I'll state it simply: You will not find a better example of "White Man's Blues."

Stevie Ray Vaughan, And More

2008-11-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

Stevie Ray Vaughan: The Best Blues Electric Guitarist, Ever, Forever

That’s right, it’s not Jimi Hendrix. As great as Hendrix was, he took his R&B roots and went far out into Psychedelia; that was his specialty, although his Red House is first rate blues.
If you have any doubts about SRV being the greatest blues electric guitarist ever, spend some cash (as Muddy you-know-who would say) and get Vaughan’s Live at Carnegie Hall work, recorded on his 30th birthday in 1983.
Listen to the best start you are ever going to hear from a musician (and I have been fortunate to catch performances by such blues greats as, in order of witnessing them: Lightnin’ Sam Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, Albert King, John Lee Hooker [blues from a different, foot thumping, angle] and BB King, and such jazz greats as George Benson [when I saw him at San Francisco’s Keystone Korner, great guitar work was his specialty and he sang only one song], Charles Mingus and Stanley Turrentine).
On the Carnegie Hall work, you hear the man who “discovered” Bob Dylan, John Hammond, introduce Vaughan as one of the greatest guitarists of all times, before SRV started a blistering-paced tune that will blow you away.
Play track eight, “Dirty Pool” and you will hear the tune that was the genesis for my choosing Vaughan as the greatest.
In a posthumous television tribute to Vaughan, BB King, Eric Clapton, and Buddy Guy all spoke about SRV’s greatness.
I had planned to make a list of the second, third, etc., best blues electric guitarists of all time, but that is really too close to call. In alphabetical order, I choose, as of this writing: Duane Allman, Michael Bloomfield, Roy Buchanan (in my novel CHASING FREEDOM, available at www.amazon.com, etc., I called Buchanan one of the great musical artists of all time), Eric Clapton, Albert Collins, Ry Cooder, Robert Cray, Billy Gibbons, Buddy Guy, Elmore James (creator of great classic blues guitar riffs), Albert King, BB King, Albert Lee, Bob Margolin (Muddy Waters’ longtime guitarist), Keith Richards, Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter. And with folks' continued interest in the blues, and new up and comers up and coming all the time, that list can continually change, with the addition of such guitarists as Doyle Bramhall II and Derek Trucks, for example.
(Allman's and Clapton's work on Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs is some of the best electric guitar music you will every hear. Some of those great riffs, such as on tracks 4, 7 and 10 that you thought were Clapton's weren't his -- they were Allman's (that is some slide guitar: "GET DOWN, BROWN").
For acoustic blues guitarists, the aforementioned Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, and the great Blues Man Robert Johnson have got to be on the list.
Last Spring, I made a “blues pilgrimage” to the Blues Capitol of the World, the Mississippi Delta, and its heart, Clarksdale, where highways 61 and 49 intersect. After an exhaustive search, I found the monument to Johnson I had been searching for.
Texas has the distinction as being the location of the only recordings made by Johnson, probably the most legendary Blues Man of all times.
Johnson recorded those tunes in San Antonio in 1936 and Dallas in 1937.
One of them, about the legendary intersection of highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, is, of course, Cross Road Blues.
And, to Eric and others, it is never too late to correct yourselves. It is Cross Road Blues, not Crossroads.
Ending on a Texas note, and with another recommendation, get Al Kooper /Mike Bloomfield The Lost Concert Tapes 12/13/68.
In his excellent liner notes, Kooper explained how, after this precious music was found decades after it was recorded, the tapes had to be literally cooked in the oven as part of the restorative process.
Native Texan Johnny Winter showed up to the gig as an unknown, who had played with Bloomfield years earlier in “twist joints in Chicago,” Bloomfield said in introduction.
Winter’s amazing vocals and guitar work had this effect: he began that Friday night gig as a “complete unknown.” By Monday, he had signed a lucrative recording deal.
To see how Winter is still very much alive and well, check out his great rendition of Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited at Clapton’s 2007 Crossroads (not Cross Road) Guitar Festival in Chicago.
So, we are in the Texas Music Now on this blog, but, Stevie, here’s to you in the past, the present and the future.
For you surely prove one of my lines from about 1977: There Is No Time In Art And Love.
Note 1: To see some of my photos and videos (some of the smaller MP ones that were uploadable at the time of uploading) from last Spring’s Mississippi blues journey, visit www.myspace.com/paulheidelberg.There you will find photos and videos of such places as The Cross Road of highways 61 and 49 and that monument to Robert Johnson that took me far out into the Mississippi Delta countryside. When you see parcels of cotton-growing land that are measured by the thousands of acres, not hundreds, you appreciate the tortuous work that slaves and their descendants endured. That work was a vital part of the birth of The Blues. The Blues began as work chants in those fields –- those fields of blood, sweat and tears.
Note 2: I had planned for Note 2 to be suggestions for three Dylan digitally re-mastered CDs you need to get. That now becomes Note 3. This Note 2 will be something else, and it is something else. I just used the www to search for some info, just as I used the computer system at the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Fort Lauderdale, to search for things, more than 20 years ago, when I worked for seven years there as a reporter, columnist and editor; the Internet puts the information that used to be available only at such places as a big newspaper’s library into everyone’s hands. That is only one of the amazing things about the www. Also, in the pre-Internet days, I could use my computers at work to search the AP sportswire, or lifestyle wire for stories and information, much as I now use such things as Google.
So I had wanted to mention Dylan’s Under The Red Sky and SRV’s association with it. I bought the work as a cassette tape soon after it was released. I found the lyrics sort of simplistically strange, but I enjoyed the musicianship. When I heard these great guitar licks, I checked the liner notes, or someplace, and found guitar credits for Stevie Ray Vaughan. No wonder that sounded so good, I thought. I remember reading a New Yorker magazine review panning the Dylan work, saying it was the worst thing he had ever done.
Well, if you don’t know it by now, Dylan is a prophet, or at least prophetic. Back to my novel CHASING FREEDOM, which I wrote in Spain, while living there from 2004-2006: I put a line in the book I saw on a bathroom wall at the best art college in the USA, hands down, the San Francisco Art Institute, where I studied Painting, Photography and Creative Writing (I also graduated, no easy feat). This was at a huge art exhibition opening; it may have been the time I met Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a legendary San Francisco poet who goes all the way back to the Beat era and is featured reading a poem in the great concert film, The Band’s The Last Waltz.
Those words were:
Bob Dylan is making mistakes you won’t make for 10 years.
That was about 1973 and it was right on.
So, minutes ago I am searching the www to find out the date of SRV’s tragic death in a helicopter accident after a concert where he had performed with, among others, Clapton and Guy, and I also searched for the release date of Under The Red Sky. If I can believe what I just found at www.amazon.com and at some site I found by using Google, Stevie Ray Vaughan died August, 27, 1990; Under the Red Sky was released on September 11, 1990.
Wow.
I had wanted to say that SRV’s work on Under The Red Sky was some of his last recorded work. Maybe it was The Last. The Last with a fellow great, anyway, I would guess.
Another entry for this note: The release date for Dylan’s critically-acclaimed, as they say sometimes, but not always, such as in the case of Under The Red Sky, Love and Theft , was September 11, 2001.
Another Wow for Dylan.
A friend reminded me of the release date while commenting on some of the lyrics from Love And Theft, such as the “Siamese twins are coming to town.” My friend saw definite connections between that line and the Twin Towers.
Now onto Note 3 and music you must get. I have thought many times, I am glad a lot of these musicians who cut records 40 years ago are still around to hear how great they sound digitally re-mastered, and that includes Van The Man Morrison being able to hear his great, and I mean great, Veedon Fleece and Common One, after digitally re-mastering “brings them up to speed.”
I read two days ago in Rolling Stone magazine that yesterday and today, another Wow, Van is doing concerts at the Hollywood Bowl for a live album of tunes from his great album Astral Weeks, released in 1968.
Speaking earlier of my novel CHASING FREEDOM –- in that book I call Astral Weeks one of the top album’s of “The Sixties,” or maybe The Top Album, right up there with the Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.
I can’t wait to get this Hollywood Bowl performance.
Note 3: For great listening, in Texas, or anywhere, do what I did recently: order digitally re-mastered CDs (or via www download, or whatever) of Dylan’s Another Side of Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited and John Wesley Harding.
All are something else, including Bloomfield’s and Kooper’s work on Highway 61 Revisited.
On these albums, don’t miss:
From Another Side of Bob Dylan: Black Crow Blues, Spanish Harlem Incident, Chimes of Freedom, To Ramona, Ballad in Plain D, My Back Pages and It Ain’t Me Babe.
From Highway 61 Revisited: Like A Rolling Stone, Tombstone Blues, It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, Ballad Of A Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately, Highway 61 Revisited (I don’t think the police car “instrument” holds up, however) and Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.
From John Wesley Harding: John Wesley Harding,(the truly haunting) I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, All Along The Watchtower, Drifter's Escape, Dear Landlord, I Pity The Poor Immigrant and I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (one of Dylan’s first forays into that C&W sound he would later astound the world with on Nashville Skyline). Also, check out the WILD drumming on the title track by veteran Nashville drummer Kenny Buttrey, and be sure to "Google" "Kenny Buttrey" to read about the late musician's work with Dylan, Neil Young and others. Another Add on 11/13/08: Don't miss Charlie McCoy's fine bass work on the title track and other tunes on the album. Also, "Google" "Charlie McCoy" to get to his site and find amazing credits, including sessions with everyone from Perry Como and Elvis Presley to Joan Baez and, of course, Dylan.
Another add to this blog on November 14, 2008: Re: Blonde On Blonde, which Dylan has said had "The Sound" he was always striving for; this was his favorite work in that respect (maybe that opinion has changed now, with the release of Love and Theft and Modern Times). Listening to Blonde On Blonde, and listening for the drumming work of Buttrey, his prowess just leaps out at you on about every track. Listening to Sad-eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, I wrote in my notes that what Buttrey was doing was hard work -- to go on and on like this. It wasn't unlike the hard work required with operatic singers performing sections of Mozartian or Wagnerian operas.
So it was interesting to read at Wikipedia a few minutes ago quotes from Buttrey that explained all the musicians working with Dylan thought this was a two or three minute tune -- so they hadn't expected to go on and on. That even makes Buttrey's laying down that drumming all the more amazing -- that had to be hard physically and mentally.
I ended the notes I made while listening to Blonde on Blonde (this might be Dylan's masterpiece) by writing again that listening to digitally re-mastered music is something else; for one thing, you can better appreciate such work as Buttrey's drumming, and McCoy's bass work on such albums as Blonde On Blonde and John Wesley Harding.
Re: Blonde On Blonde: Years ago I was reading a copy of the New York Observer, after I had been given a subscription by my then-New York City literary agent (that was about the time "Sex And The City" was being serialized in the paper, long before it was a television program or feature film). A writer who had written extensively about Dylan made this remark about lyrics from Sad-eyed Lady Of The Lowlands: "What does, 'my warehouse eyes, my Arabian drum, should I leave them at your gate, or sad-eyed lady, should I wait' mean?"
I thought, are you kidding?
I sent him the following, but never heard from him: It means: these wide eyes I have because I am so in love with you and so enthralled by you, and this Arabian drum ( it might have been any other instrument, a flute, a magical one, in fact, although I heard only lately other references to drums by Dylan in another song that might add more significance to drums, specifically), should I leave them at your gate, meaning, I may soon be down the road, baby, catch you in the next life, or should I wait, meaning I am staying here with you, I am here waiting for you if you want me to."
That's what it means, right, Bob? That's what fellow poet (to you and to me) Ginsberg probably thought, right?
A final note: I had forgotten about the humor in some of Dylan’s early work, in tunes like Motorpsycho Nitemare, from Another Side Of Bob Dylan.

Via the wonders of the www,
Best from
Paul Heidelberg
11/8/08

The Band Of Heathens, A Good Texas Band

2008-11-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

Cinco de Mayo en Tejas 2008

2008-05-05T08:58:00.001-07:00

In honor of today's historical date, here is a tip on how you can hear some very good Tejano music sounds: simply "google" myspace Flaco Jimenez and listen to this master of the Tejano music style. Jimenez's instrument is the accordian, an influence brought to Texas music by the German immigrants who settled the Lone Star State in the mid 1800s.

Be sure to listen to the tune "Ya Volvi De La Guerra" at the myspace site and then scroll down to see a video of Jimenez performing with Oscar Tellez, Freddy Fender and Willie Nelson (on the video, you will see Willie singing en espanol).

For some of the best of what is now termed Americana music, "google" KNBT 92.1 FM to get to a station located in a modest building in New Braunfels, Texas. The building might be small, but the music is large.

I've heard Freddy Fender tunes on KNBT and I first heard the Band of Heathens -- singing a Leadybelly song -- on the station. For a Texas newspaper, I reviewed the Band of Heathens and Leon Russell in October, 2006 playing Texas' oldest dancehall, Gruene Hall in Gruene (Gruene adjoins New Braunfels).

For more about the BOH, visit www.bandofheathens.com.

David Olney, Sergio Webb and Casbeers

2008-04-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

WEB SITE LINKS:
www.davidolney.com
www.redparlor.com
www.casbeers.com

I recently caught vocalist and instrumentalist David Olney and his accompanist, the very versatile-on-several-instruments, Sergio Webb at San Antonio’s Casbeers, a place of good music, good food and good drink for generations.

Willie you-know-who and Kinky-you-know who have performed on the small stage at Casbeers, and Kinky even has a burger named after him, with a dollar from each burger going to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, co-founded by Kinky (several weeks before I caught Olney’s and Webb’s performance, Willie had arrived unannounced and jammed a while, I was told).

The food at Casbeers is very good, including its storied enchiladas, and you can get a bottle of Paulaner beer from Munich at a good price (not bad, for any venue, whether we are talking San Antonio or New York City.)

After the Olney/Webb concert, I got in line with others in the audience, and purchased Olney’s 2007 CD “One Tough Town.” The CD serves as a good reminder of that night’s concert.

The first two tunes, “Whistle Blow” and “Sweet Poison” took me right back. “Whistle Blow” features Olney on a very good blues harp, and “Sweet Poison” is a rockin’ tune -- at the Casbeers concert, Webb added some nice vocal accompaniment and equally good guitar licks.

Also from the CD, “Little Mustang,” “Oh Yeah (Dead Man’s Shoes),” “Snake Song,” “Panama City,” “Postcard From Mexico” all stand out, and were in the repertoire that night in San Antonio.

“Snake Song,” a Townes Van Zandt tune, features some very far out guitar work by Webb.

I couldn’t recall if Olney and Webb performed the final song at the concert, “Rainbow’s End,” but it is a good closer to the CD.

On the CD, “Oh Yeah (Dead Man’s Shoes), which starts off sounding a little like “St. James Infirmary,” features Olney on guitar, ukulele and vocal; Bill Huber on tuba and trombone; Richard Bailey on banjo and Craig Wright on percussion.

It is a neat little tale of buying Dead Man’s Shoes at St. Vincent’s, running off with someone else’s car, meeting a drug store girl who gives the narrator what he wants and the proverbial pullover by the cops, which is resolved through compromise.

The title track “One Tough Town,” features Olney on vocals, acoustic guitar and ukulele; Bill Huber on tuba, Richard Bailey on banjo and Craig Wright on parade drum (it does have a different sound.) The song is a musician’s lament about a tough audience, and a tough town.

So here are two tips: The first is go to the Casbeers web site at the above address (don't skip the intro or you will miss some good things, including a photo of the venue in the really old days), check out the performers who will be performing, and then peruse the menu and see what good food you want to have for your accompaniment for your Night At Casbeers in Old San Antonio.

Secondly, do yourself a favor, and go to the above web sites for David Olney and Red Parlor. As Muddy Waters would say, “Don’t Be Talkin’ Trash –- Get Out and Spend Some Cash.” Buy “One Tough Town” and give it the proper listen-to it deserves.

(Actually, here is a third tip: You can go to www.davidolney.com to get links to some of his work on www.youtube.com, including Olney poetry recitals and a clip of a performance that features some of Webb’s far out guitar work.)