This day in 1973, Dolly Parton recorded one of the truly great country songs: "I Will Always Love You," which was made into an even bigger hit by Whitney Houston's version.
But Dolly's version is so much better, as it relies on understatement to get across some pretty heady emotions, in this case, it is believed, her professional break with Porter Wagoner, who helped make her a star. This song can work on so many levels.
David Gray turned 43 today. I discovered him through other Van Morrison fans in the early days of the Internet and paid premiums for his imported CDs before he hit it big in the US in 2001 with White Ladder, which you need to get ASAP.
This track comes from a period before White Ladder and is on his greatest hits package. "Flame Turns Blue" has all the elements that I love about Gray's music: the slight Celtic burr in his voice, intimate vocals and guitar, perfect production.
The final episode of The Sopranos aired this day in 2007, the cold ending prompting everyone to think their cable had gone out (or their downloads were incomplete). Of course the obvious choice for ASotD today would be Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," the song that cut off when the screen went to black.
Instead, I am going to reach back to the song used over the credits of the first episode of the series: Nick Lowe's "The Beast in Me." This is one of my all-time favorite songs, perfectly representing the internal struggles that a man must face.
Les Paul, the motive force of recorded music and the electric guitar, had the anniversary of his birth celebrated Thursday, with that thingy on Google, among other things.
His inventions were what he'll go down in history for, but he was a pretty fair guitar player who, after all, invented all that stuff so he could play and be heard.
Here's Les and Chet Atkins from an album they did the in 1970s; if you listen with headphones, Les should be in the right ear, Chet in the left.
This day in 1969, Brian Jones left the Rolling Stones, which he helped found. I knew he brought the sitar into the band on tracks such as today's ASotD, "Paint it Black," but I didn't realize all the other instruments he played.
This is one of the great rock songs of the 1960s, and currently in Joey Votto's rotation of walk-up music.
June 7 is the anniversary of the late Clarence White's birth. He died young, being hit by a car at a bluegrass festival, but left behind a great body of work on both the acoustic and electric guitar.
An acoustic, he led the Kentucky Colonels bluegrass band with his brother Roland on mandolin before working with and then joining the Byrds in the late 1960s as they made the jump to country rock.
Here is a live cut of the Byrds doing a great Merle Haggard song, with great Telecaster work from White, including on the B-Bender.
June 6 is a momentous day for freedom, not just because of the Allied invasion at Normandy, but because George Orwell's 1984 was published the same day five years later. Orwell has long been a hero of mine, in spite of his lifelong claim to be a socialist. Even though he espoused a path that is, as history shows us, is incompatible with individual human freedom, Orwell had a great eye for catching out the hypocrisy of government and other powerful interests that used inhuman means in the name of achieving humane ends.
This David Bowie track was inspired by the novel and intended as a part of a larger project based on the novel that never came together, instead surfacing on the excellent 1974 album Diamond Dogs.
I neglected to post on Saturdays the last couple of weeks, so the timing of this one is off by a few days. "Angeliou," from Into the Music, which is one of my Top 5 favorite Van Morrison albums, is one of his grandest romantic gestures.
Taking place "in the month of May, in the city of Paris," it conjures up the romance of that city and how it pales in comparison to the love of the woman he is seeking. Great use of horns and fiddle on this one, with one of Van's great spoken word passages in the middle.
The late Curts Mayfield's birthday was Friday. Never a huge star, his work with the Impressions and as a solo artists was pretty darn good, and he produced one all-time classic: this gospel soul number from 1965 which reached #14 on the Billboard pop chart.
The song had a lot of resonance for the time in which it was written, yet it is timeless.
The country song "I Can't Stop Loving You" was Ray Charles' biggest pop hit, hitting the top of the charts this day in 1962. It came from his album Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, a genre-bending career move that he was warned against, but was one of his biggest artistic and popular successes.
Some of the backup singing is pretty saccharine to modern ears, but Ray's voice and piano playing really gets over the love he had for country music. Our ASotD has one genius covering another: a version of Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart."
Recent Comments