Peter Dennis Blandford “Pete” Townshend (born 19 May 1945) is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career. His career with The Who spans more than 40 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 1960s and 1970s, and, according to Eddie Vedder, “possibly the greatest live band ever.”
Townshend is the primary songwriter for The Who, having written well over 100 songs for the band’s 11 studio albums, including concept albums and the rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia.
One of my fav Townshend songs – I Can See For Miles:
In this spirit-numbing information age, we gorge on the web and on CNN, we cannot free our hands of our Blackberrys and lap-tops and cellphones, but, in the end, we know less and less … of each other … of our hearts … of our souls.
But Johnny Cash singing “I Walk The Line” or Hank sorrowing through “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” still gives us more insight in three minutes, tells us more about what matters most in our lives, than we get in an entire twenty-four-hour news cycle.
- Dana Jennings, in his magnificent book “Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music“
This is our first article in a series highlighting the best country songs. We start off by nominating songs from the start up till 1955. The next post will focus on songs from 1956-1965.
When we are through nominating songs.. probably around 70-80 songs.. we will pull it all together and put a list of the 20 best Country songs ever.. in JV’s humble opinion.
Our goal is to only nominate one song from each artist.. I’ve managed to do so on this first article (although it was tough only including one Hank Williams song….)
… and btw .. the songs are presented in random order…
Can The Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye), The Carter Family
Produced by Art Satherley
Written by A.P. Carter
1935
For Americana, Neil Young’s first album with the band Crazy Horse in nearly nine years, the singer-songwriter revisits classic American folk songs and delivers the tunes, which encompass familiar protest songs, murder ballads and campfire songs, with electrifying ferocity. In spite of — or perhaps because of the approach, the universal appeal of the songs is neither lost nor diminished and they retain their relevance in these challenging times.
Wikipedia says of the history of the song:
The words are those of a bereaved lover singing about his darling, the daughter of a miner in the 1849 California Gold Rush. He loses her in a drowning accident, though he consoles himself towards the end of the song with Clementine’s “little sister”.
The verse about the little sister was often left out of folk song books intended for children, presumably because it seemed morally questionable.
Another theory is that the song is from the view of Clementine’s father, and not a lover.
Gerald Brenan attributes the melody to originally being an old Spanish ballad in his book South from Granada. It was made popular by Mexican miners during the Gold Rush. It was also given various English texts. No particular source is cited to verify that the song he used to hear in the 1920s in a remote Spanish village was not an old text with new music, but Brenan states in his preface that all facts mentioned in the book have been checked reasonably well. The song is using the melody placed on Romances, in particular the one of Romance del Conde Olinos o Niño, a sad love story very popular in the Spanish folk some of which were compiled at the court of Alfonso X and others like the Cancionero de Uppsala later by the House of Trastamara.
It is unclear when, where and by whom the song was first recorded in English for others to hear.
The video for “Clementine” as for all of the clips produced for Americana is authentic found footage, adding a unique visual element to a project steeped in America’s rich, lyrical history.
Clementine:
Neil Young:
“The Americana arrangement extends the folk process using many of the original words and a new melody. The song tells the story of either a bereaved lover recalling his lost sweetheart, or a father missing his lost daughter. In both cases the daughter has drowned in an accident. The verse about Clementine’s sister has been omitted from most children’s versions. This verse has different meanings depending on whether the point of view of the singer is taken as the lover or the father.”
Big Joe Turner (born Joseph Vernon Turner Jr., May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri.According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, “Rock and roll would have never happened without him.” Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly “Shake, Rattle and Roll“, Turner’s career as a performer stretched from the 1920s into the 1980s.Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
Tributes:
The late The New York Times music critic Robert Palmer, said: “…his voice, pushing like a Count Basie solo, rich and grainy as a section of saxophones, which dominated the room with the sheer sumptuousness of its sound.”
In announcing Turner’s death in their December 1985 edition, the British music magazine, NME, described Turner as “the grandfather of rock and roll.”
Songwriter Dave Alvin wrote a song about an evening that he spent with Turner titled “Boss Of The Blues”. It was on his 2009 release, Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women.
The Rolling Stones performing “Angie” at the Los Angeles Forum, California, USA on Sunday 13th July 1975, part of the legendary Tour of the Americas (TOTA). The track is from the album Goats Head Soup (1973). Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and produced by the Glimmer Twins, the song went straight to number one in the US charts when it was released.
La Forum 1975 version:
Wikipedia:
“Angie” is a song by rock and roll band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup.
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and recorded in November and December 1972, “Angie” is an acoustic guitar driven ballad which tells of the end of a romance. Rolling Stones-recording regular Nicky Hopkins plays the song’s distinctive piano accompaniment. The strings on the piece (as well as “Winter”) were arranged by Nicky Harrison. One unusual feature of the original recording is that singer Mick Jagger’s vocal guide track (made before the final vocals were performed) is faintly audible throughout the song (an effect sometimes called a “ghost vocal”).
Released as a single in August 1973, “Angie” went straight to the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and reached number five on the UK singles chart. The song was also a #1 hit in both Canada and Australia for five weeks each and topped the charts in many countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
Popular belief has it that the song was about David Bowie’s first wife Angela or even about actress Angie Dickinson. Another belief was that the song was about Richards’ daughter Dandelion Angela who had just been born. The song was written almost entirely both lyrically and musically by Keith Richards and in Richards’ own biography he claims that the name Angie is a pseudonym for heroin and his attempt to quit while detoxing in Switzerland.
Official video:
The Rolling Stones have frequently performed the song in concert; it was included in set lists on their 1973, 1975 and 1976 tours, and on every tour since their 1982 European tour. Concert renditions have been released on the albums Stripped and Live Licks. Two music videos were shot to promote the song.
In the documentary Protagonist, the former German terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein explains that he adopted the moniker “Angie” during his militant activities in the 1970s in reference to the song. In 2005 the German party CDU used the song for its election campaign for Angela Merkel; the Rolling Stones had not given Merkel permission to use the song.
Another great video (I’m guessing 1974 but not really sure…):
Lyrics, Angie:
Angie, Angie
When will those clouds all disappear?
Angie, Angie
Where will it lead us from here?
With no loving in our souls
And no money in our coats
You can’t say we’re satisfied
But Angie, Angie
You can’t say we never tried
Angie, You’re beautiful
But ain’t it time we said goodbye
Angie, I still love you
Remember all those nights we cried?
All the dreams we held so close
Seemed to all go up in smoke
Let me whisper in your ear
Angie, Angie
Where will it lead us from here?
Angie, don’t you weep
All your kisses still taste sweet
I hate that sadness in your eyes
But Angie, Angie
Ain’t it time we said goodbye?
With no loving in our souls
And no money in our coats
You can’t say we’re satisfied
But Angie, I still love you, baby
Everywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain’t a woman that comes close to you
Come on baby dry your eyes
But Angie, Ain’t it…
Ain’t it good to be alive?
Angie, Angie
You can’t say we never tried
Yesterday the greatest studio album ever released celebrated it’s 46th birthday… and today the greatest rock concert ever performed celebrates it’s 46th birthday… should be easy for Dylan people to remember :-)
This was the first bootleg concert I ever heard.. and it’s still my fav one.
Here is my top 5 concerts:
Bob Dylan & The Hawks – Manchester – 17.05.1966
Bruce Springsteen - Passaic, New Jersey – 19.09.1978
Bob Dylan - Fort Collins, Colorado – 23.05.1976
The Rolling Stones - Brussels – 17.10.1973
Bruce Springsteen - Brixton Academy, London – 24.04.1996
Top 2 is “locked” forever… the others are movable.
Maybe we should make a list of Dylan’s 10 greatest concerts… nice idea….indeed
Setlist:
1. She Belongs To Me
2. Fourth Time Around
3. Visions Of Johanna
4. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
5. Desolation Row
6. Just Like A Woman
7. Mr. Tambourine Man
8. Tell Me, Momma
9. I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
10. Baby Let Me Follow You Down (Eric von Schmidt)
11. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
12. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
13. One Too Many Mornings
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man
15. Like A Rolling Stone
Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert is a two-disc live album by Bob Dylan, released in 1998. Recorded at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. It is from Dylan’s famous world tour in 1966, having been extensively bootlegged for decades, and is an important document in the development of popular music during the 1960s.
The setlist consisted of two parts, with the first half of the concert being Dylan alone on stage performing an entirely acoustic set of songs, while the second half of the concert has Dylan playing an “electric” set of songs alongside his band The Hawks. The first half of the concert was greeted warmly by the audience, while the second half was highly criticized, with heckling going on before and after each song.
Doug Dillard (born March 6, 1937, died May 16, 2012), brother of Rodney Dillard and a band member of The Dillards, was the banjo-playing brother of the The Darling Boys on The Andy Griffith Show. He appeared in the films The Rose and Popeye and in the TV movie Return to Mayberry. He also wrote the songs “Doug’s Tune” and “Banjo in the Hollow”.
Banjo player and TV performer Doug Dillard, who gained fame for his appearances on “The Andy Griffith Show” with musical group the Dillards (known on the TV series as the “Darlings”) has died following a lengthy illness. A family spokesperson tells The Boot that Dillard was taken to a Nashville emergency room on Wednesday night (May 16) and died shortly thereafter.
Doug Dillard was born in Salem, Mo., in 1937 and was playing guitar by age 5. He received his first banjo as a teenager and soon began performing with various bands on radio and TV. He had been encouraged to pursue his instrument by banjo legend Earl Scruggs. According to his official bio, at 16, Dillard wrote a letter to Scruggs and received a positive reply. He then pestered his parents into driving him to Scruggs’ home in Madison, Tenn., some five hundred miles away from Salem. Doug brazenly walked up to the front door and rang the bell, introducing himself and asking the iconic banjo picker to install Scruggs’ tuners on his banjo.
Along with his brother Rodney, Doug soon formed the Dillards. Their folk-bluegrass blend became popular on college campuses and elsewhere, which led to their move to California and resulted in a recording contract and their stint on the hit CBS series starring Andy Griffith. After parting ways with the Dillards, Doug joined folk-rock group the Byrds on their first European tour. After the tour, Doug teamed up with former Byrds member Gene Clark, forming the influential Dillard & Clark, one of the first acts to popularize the country-rock sound that would include other artists such as Gram Parsons and the musicians who would later form the Eagles. Comedian and banjo player Steve Martin recently told The Boot that Doug Dillard was among the first influences on his banjo playing.
For me he always will be remembered especially for his collaborations with Gene Clark.
Why not your baby(audio):
Train Leaves Here This Morning & This Plan (audio):
May 16 was the official date… it was not generally available till late june/ early july. But we need a date to celebrate the best album ever!
From Wikipedia:
Blonde on Blonde is American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan‘s seventh studio album, released in May or June 1966 on Columbia Records and produced by Bob Johnston. Recording sessions commenced in New York in October 1965, with numerous backing musicians, including members of Dylan’s live backing band, The Hawks. They continued until January 1966, but yielded only one track that made it onto the final album—”One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)“. At Johnston’s suggestion, Dylan, accompanied by keyboard player Al Kooper and guitarist Robbie Robertson, moved to the CBS studios in Nashville, Tennessee. These sessions, augmented by some of Nashville’s top session musicians, were more fruitful, and in February and March all the remaining songs for the album were recorded.
Released
May 16, 1966 (Official date, possibly delayed until late June or early July)
Recorded
January 25, 1966, Studio A, Columbia Recording studios, New York; February 14–17 and March 8–10, 1966, Columbia Music Row Studios, Nashville, Tennessee
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born 15 May 1948), commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno, is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.
Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex, England, taking inspiration from minimalist painting. During his time on the art course at the Institute, he also gained experience in playing and making music through teaching sessions held in the adjacent music school.
Just a Closer Walk with Thee is a traditional gospel song that has been covered by many artists. Performed as either an instrumental or vocal, “A Closer Walk” is perhaps the most frequently played number in the hymn and dirge section of traditional New Orleans jazz funerals.
From the excellent series, Treme, here’s a funeral scene from the first episode:
The ‘jazz funeral’ starts off sombre. On its way to the cemetery, the brass band plays soulful, sad funeral hymns called ‘dirges’, it should be something that reminds mourners of life’s ups and downs. The slow tune lasts until the procession reaches its final destination, at which point they ‘cut the body loose’ – send the hearse off into the cemetery.
I really love this song and have “dug up” a few examples of great artists doing their version of this old tune.
1. Visions Of Johanna
2. Like A Rolling Stone
3. Tangled Up in Blue
4. Ballad Of A Thin Man
5. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
6. Blind Willie McTell (electric version)
7. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
8. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
9. Desolation Row
10. Idiot Wind (New York version)
-Egil
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