We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I didn't realize that Ricky Skaggs wrote this tune. We made friends with Ricky back when he was playing in bars in Kentucky. In fact, Mrs. BD hired him for a few performances. Dylan used a rousing rock version as his opening tune for a year or two, which I have from a bootleg on my iTunes.
Saw him perform, as a lad. Bridgeport, Ct., in that stadium behind the county jail. Wrote the review for the local paper too. I am too dumb to write reviews anymore about anything. You have to be young to know what to say. Older you get, the less you have to say about anything: you just say what it is. I think that's wisdom, but maybe it's brain cell death.
If I had to pick my favorite song by The Band, I think this would be it (or maybe Acadian Driftwood, or The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, or The Weight, or their version of Dylan's Tears of Rage, or I Shall Be Released) :
On this day in 1959, the "Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson, Buddy Holly, and Richie Valens died in a plane crash. This video is "Chantilly Lace," one of my favorites from that era. (My boys hid behind their chairs when I sang it at karaoke on a cruise. -- Today, I'm tormenting them with my version of James Brown, together with my imitation of that great performer's dance steps -- wish I had a cape, too, singing "I feel good.")
It must be midwinter, because we have been posting so many New York City items. Much more than usual. Hunting season is over, Spring is far off, we don't all ski, and we all like to ingest some culcha on weekends. Where else can you find more and better of everything, without having to spend a lot of money (except for parking)?
On MLK Day, let's not forget that all of us have slaves or serfs in our ancestries. Few of our ancestors owned them. It's the natural human thing, if history tells us anything. However, we stand as American rebels with MLK against any form of impingement on our personal, God-given freedom of self-determination against all forms of power or self-anointed authority. Especially the powers of the State, which is what MLK stood up against.
These two NOLA piano-men did a few duets at the festive event I went to a couple of weeks ago. Yes, including Iko Iko and Let The Good Times Roll. Good to see Dr. John - hadn't seen him perform in many years, but I always enjoyed that cranky SOB. Found this duet on Youtube:
Also performing at the cool event I attended: Davell Crawford, with the Davell Crawford Singers (a 25-person NOLA gospel group). I had a nice chat with Davell afterwards. His grandpa wrote Iko Iko.
Attended an event recently where Buddy Guy was performing (along with some other NOLA folks I'll mention later). Sweet guy, heavenly-sweet music. He played this set, same band.
How many times do you need to listen to a Beethoven Piano sonata to really get it? My dumb ears require at least 40 times to get the feel and flow, the intended tone, and to learn the notes.
I am slow to allow a piece of music (or of anything else) to become a part of my soul. I try to maintain high, discerning walls - which frequently fail.
Somebody at NRO said they couldn't stop listening to this. A Chopin earwig. Listen to it two or three times, and see if it does the same to your ears. He zooms around his simple theme like a whirling dervish.
In 1802 Beethoven retreated to the then-countryside outside Vienna in an effort to deal with his despair over his increasing deafness and other family issues. There he wrote this letter (found after his death), to his brothers.
It begins:
Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me? You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on, me heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was ever inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly I was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed.--Oh I cannot do it; therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would have gladly mingled with you.
Readers may recall that Beethoven moved from Bonn to Vienna to study with Mozart. He never did that, and probably never met Mozart, but he did study with Papa Haydn - and with Salieri too.
I have always wondered why pop music, blues, and folk music so often refer to a female beloved or a female object of desire in those terms. Terms of endearment. I don't want to go all Pomo on our readers, but it's sort of interesting, isn't it?
I like this, even though I enjoy any silly terms of endearment or desire:
If Elvis Presley were still alive, he’d be 75. If you weren’t there, it may be hard to believe what a shocking and refreshing tonic Elvis was to the 1950’s, not only his melodic voice that reached into our hearts but his sexuality. The nation tuned in to the Ed Sullivan Show every Sunday night for the best variety of entertainers in the world. It was a compromise of the times, that didn’t last long, that Elvis’ wiggles were not seen on Ed’s show. Here’s a medley of Elvis classics from 1957 on Ed Sullivan.
Here’s Elvis in one of his hit movies, 1957's Jailhouse Rock. (Notice the early pole dancing.)
A decade later, the Beatles ruled. But, Elvis Presley is always the King. In 1968 Elvis was on the comeback trail, performing his Love Me Tender, one of his best to express our longings. The Beetles came close but never matched the King.
Elvis became, was Las Vegas, as in this medley from his show in 1970.
By 1977 his excesses and addictions can be seen catching up to Elvis, as the King performed before the King of Greece. He loses the words to Are You Lonesome Tonight, which he prefaces with “I am and I was”, probably reflecting on his divorce from Pricilla after 5-years of marriage – whom he never stopped loving, and just hear Elvis’ voice singing “shall I come back again.” Elvis has never left us.
Elvis died on August 16, 1977. His fans haven’t forgotten him. He recorded 711 songs. Others have “covered” his songs, but none have ever captured the soul of the King and how he connected with each person individually in his audiences.
Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys - Blue Moon of Kentucky. I tried to find Tom T. Hall's amazing Kentucky in the Morning on video, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere.
I once booed Jewel at a performance. It was the year she toured with Bob Dylan, and I saw them in New Haven. (She once said that she thought Bob was gay because he didn't hit on her during the tour. Disappointed by that, it seems.)
I booed because she had to bring some political snark into her chatter, assuming as such folks do that their audiences are all on the same page politically. Rude of me, but that sort of presumption bugs me. As usual, my friends were embarassed by my behavior. She was not really known, then.
Here's the whole song that was chopped up on Dr Merc's fun post:
I always thought Johnny had a bit of the redeemed sociopath in him, but it's just my intuition and it might just be his stage persona. Anyway, there is a darkness in all of us. God bless good ol' Johnny Cash.
The problem with CPR is remembering what to do when your adrenaline begins surging because it looks like somebody is trying to die. (Some of the other problems are those of cracking some ribs of some guy who doesn't need it, or of keeping "alive" somebody whose brain is already dying or dead. Knowing when to use CPR is as important as knowing how.)
"Favorite" is not a helpful word. Let me ask our scientific poll questions a better way:
Beethoven's Pastoral, with Charles Hazelwood discussing
Any 
In 1802 Beethoven retreated to the then-countryside outside Vienna in an effort to deal with his despair over his increasing deafness and other family issues. There he wrote