Old School Fridays: Prince

Today's theme is Prince. I remember back in 1984 when Purple Rain had just come out. I wasn't that familiar with the Purple One at the point, not having his previous albums. But everywhere you turned there was Prince. And than when I heard the music....woah! I was a fan. I went out and bought Purple Rain, I still have it on vinyl. It's still one of my favorite songs by Prince. Unfortunately you can't find it, or any Prince on You Tube to upload so I'm just presenting the song here.



This meme was developed by Marvalus View and Ms. Grapevine. The rules are simple:

1. Anyone can participate; any music genre
2. Old School is defined as music created before 1999
3. No offensive words allowed, please use edited radio version
4. Post a video of your favorite Old School song to take us back down memory lane
5. Add your name to the meme list so that others can check you out
6. Have fun & don't forget to leave comments for other participantsIf you want to join in on the fun,

Love

I know it's been a long week when I forgot to post this yesterday.

October 9, 1980......a day that I will always remember. Like many people of another generation remember where they were when John Kennedy was killed I will always remember the moment I heard of John Lennon's murder.

Edit: Thanks to Malcolm for pointing it out, but today is the day John Lennon was born, not killed. I really did know this, but just mixed it up.

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Thursday Thirteen: 13 Last Albums I Downloaded into My IPod

Ok, it's late, I've been at work all day and I'm trying to think of what to make a Thursday 13 while I'm downloading some more albums into the Ipod and than it hit me. I'll list the last 13 albums I just downloaded. Pretty simple, huh?

1) Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Volume 8 by Bob Dylan - already talked about this one so I won't bore you except to mention again how amazing awesome it is.
2) Breaking Up Concrete by The Pretenders - their newest and falling more towards country and rockabilly.
3) These Days by Vince Gill - four albums at one time. I'm still waiting on the four album package from Ryan Adams that his label promised a year ago.
4) Blood Money by Tom Waits - maybe not classic Waits but still good.
5) Econoline by Mike West and Myshkin - two used to be New Orleans locals before Katrina, bluegrass and americana.
6) Greatest Hits by the Weavers - old style folk music.
7) Living With The Living by Theo Leo - alternative and good.
8) The Complete Plantation Recordings by Muddy Waters - Muddy recorded before he ever did an album, on the plantation he lived by Alan Lomax.
9) Our New Orleans by Assorted New Orleans Artists - A Benefit album made after Katrina
10) The Big Bill Broonzy Story by Big Bill Broonzy - a three cd set with interviews with the blues great inbetween the songs. Listening to him tell the story of the song is fascinating.
11) Saturday Morning by Various - Theme songs from Saturday morning cartoons sung by a host of punk/alternative singers. The Ramones do Spiderman.
12)Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration by Various - the best of Stax, one of the best labels for soul music.
13)Song of America by Various - a collection of songs from America's history as sung by today's singers.

It's A Right

If I wasn't already for Senator Obama I would be now, when asked if health care was a right or responsibility for the American people he said it was a right, while Senator McCain said it was a responsibility. It's a shame that a country as great as ours can't provide health care for its citizens.

New Bob Dylan

The first Rock bootleg is considered to be the Great White Wonder by Bob Dylan. It was a double album with a completely white cover with the words GWW stamped on the cover. It featured studio out takes of Dylan's music, some pre-electric and seven songs he made with the Band that would later surface as the Basement Tapes.

Very few recording artists have been bootlegged as much as Dylan. But than there are probably very few recording artists that have as much unreleased material laying around. Dylan is one of the few artists that can sing a song three times in a row and every version will be completely unique. That's one of the exciting things about seeing Dylan in concert, to see how he is going to interpret his catalog this time.

In an effort to block some of the bootlegging going on Dylan and his record label began issuing a series of official "bootlegs" some years back. This has been a fascinating series with some great material. Hearing some of the songs that didn't make it on some of his albums makes you wonder what they were thinking. He's released one of his most famous concerts in the Bootleg series, the concert where he was called a "Judas" for going electric.

Today the eighth volume of "The Bootleg Series" comes out. (And every volume has been at least a double cd, some three, so that's a lot of bootleg material.) This series, unlike the previous seven which focused on older material, looks at his work since 1989 and his album "Oh, Mercy" which is considered the start of his most recent come back.

The two songs are examples of how he changes his songs. They are two different versions of his song "Mississippi" from his Love and Theft album. The first version is the one that didn't make the album, the second one is the one that is featured on the album.

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Pass It On

The Real Maverick

They claim to be Mavericks, but it's not true! The real Maverick is:

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Old School Fridays: Baby Making Music

The great Aaron Neville and "Tell It Like It Is." (With Special Friends.)



This meme was developed by Marvalus View and Ms. Grapevine. The rules are simple:

1. Anyone can participate; any music genre
2. Old School is defined as music created before 1999
3. No offensive words allowed, please use edited radio version
4. Post a video of your favorite Old School song to take us back down memory lane
5. Add your name to the meme list so that others can check you out
6. Have fun & don't forget to leave comments for other participantsIf you want to join in on the fun

Muddy Waters

I just finished Can't Be Satsified: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters by Jim Gordon. It was a fascinating book. Muddy, along with Johnny Cash, are two singers that I will always wish I had a chance to see live. So I thought I'd just post this video from You Tube of Muddy performing at the Newport Jazz Fest in 1960.

Scary, Very Scary

I've decided the worst aspect of a McCain Presidency is the fact that this woman would be just a heartbeat away from being the President. Does she even listen to herself? Now we now why the Republicsns don't let her do much press.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Neko Case Videos

This week's 13 continues my last post. I was talking about Neko Case and figured I'd follow it up with 13 songs/videos of hers.

1. Maybe Sparrow


2.Furnace Room Lullaby


3. Behind The House


4. Brown Eyed Handsome Man


5. I Was Your Favorite


6. Buckets of Rain


7. The Tigers Have Spoken


8. Blue Blue Baby


9. Don't Forget Me


10. That Teenage Feeling


11. John Saw The Number


12. Things That Scare Me


13. Dirty Knife

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Neko Case

Neko Case is an amazing singer. Singing backup behind her in this video is Kelly Hogan, another pretty amazing singer.

New Additions to IPod

Ipod has just come out with some new additions. It's called Genius. You can take a song from your playlist and when you activate genius it will play songs from your Ipod that are in a similar vein as that song. Even cooler it will add a sidebar to your Itunes when you click on an artist of similar songs that you don't have.

Also your songs can be arranged in a grid format with a picture of the artist with a listing of how many albums and songs you have by said artist, click on it and you can see all the albums.

Pretty cool.

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New Theresa Andersson Album

Ok, after two death posts in a row I needed something bright and cheerful and fun. And this song "Na Na Na" by Theresa Andersson is just that. Her new album Hummingbird, Go!came out this week and the whole album is filled with music like this. Anyone reading this blog for very long will know I've been championing Theresa for a long time now, but I have to say that if you were going to start with anything from hers this would be the album. Over at my other site Voices to hear I posted a review of the album.

And yes,she pretty much did everything on the album. Live she uses this set up you see in the video to start off her shows. She does a few songs solo from the new album before her band comes out to join her.

Gregory McDonald Dies

Image via WikipediaGregory McDonald, the creator of the series of novels starring the journalist Maurice Fletcher or as he was better known Fletch, died of prostate cancer on Sept 7. This information went under my radar until today when I was reading the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly. The Fletch novels are not great mystery stories, but are very well told stories that entertained me years ago when I read them. Please, if all you know of Fletch is the horrid movie do yourself a favor and read the books.

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• Gregory McDonald, R.I.P.

Earl Palmer Dies

The legendary drummer Earl Palmer died yesterday after a lengthy illness. He was 84 years old. Palmer was born in New Orleans and started his career as a tap dancer with his Mother on the black vaudeville circuit. Palmer helped create the early sound of rock and roll with Fats Domino, Little Richard and Smiley Lewis. His playing on "The Fat Man" features the strong backbeat that has become part of the rock and roll sound. In 1957 Palmer moved to California and played on more people's albums than I have space to list. A partial list includes: Ricky Nelson, Ray Charles Eddie Cochran, Frank Sintra, The Monkees...he played on The Righteous Brothers' hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'".

He is quoted as saying "I've been asked if people could borrow my drums because they like their sound. What the hell, they think the drums play themselves? I said, 'You really want 'em? Really? Okay. Cost you triple scale and cartage.'"

Fats Domino "The Fat Man"

Old School Fridays: Road Trip Songs

Driving down the road, windows wide open, this song blaring out of the speakers. It doesn't get any better than this. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Running Down A Dream."

This meme was developed by Marvalus View and Ms. Grapevine. The rules are simple:

1. Anyone can participate; any music genre
2. Old School is defined as music created before 1999
3. No offensive words allowed, please use edited radio version
4. Post a video of your favorite Old School song to take us back down memory lane
5. Add your name to the meme list so that others can check you out
6. Have fun & don't forget to leave comments for other participantsIf you want to join in on the fun

Save The Superman House

This post is being put on my other blog Life in 4 Colors also.

The house where Jerry Siegel created Superman is falling down. The city of Cleveland where the house is located has done nothing to save this house, where one of the most recognizable literary figures in the world was created, so Brad Meltzer is trying to save it. He's organized a group called The Siegel & Shuster Society to this end. Go to this page and read more about it.

Their auction is only half done and they've already raised $53,000, more than their goal of $50,000. Go check out their auction, or if your pocket book isn't quite that big go buy a t shirt.

Superman is an American Icon and his history needs to be preserved.

McCain and the Economy

Obama Ad