This is the 39th time I have celebrated May 10 as the birthday of the love of my life and the most incredible woman I know.
Happy Birthday to you…
This is the 35th time I have celebrated May 10 as the birthday of my cherished wife.
Happy Birthday, dear Andrea…
This is the 31st time I have celebrated May 10 as the birthday of the Mother of my Daughter and the 26th time I have celebrated May 10 as the birthday of the Mother of my Son.
Happy Birthday…
But, in the history of the world as we know it, this is and will be the only May 10, 2013. Therefore, the celebration of this day as your birthday – you: love of my life, incredible woman, cherished wife, amazing Mother of my children and the best friend I still can’t believe how I ever got so lucky to have by my side as I navigate these days of my life – should and will be unique and fantastic and unlike all the birthday celebrations that have come before.
Robert Johnson, the King of the Delta Blues Singers (and Guitarists) was born in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, on this day, May 8, in 1911.
To again celebrate this day – please turn to the archives for November 2011 to read my first “It’s Robert Johnson’s birthday!!!” post – I can think of no better way than with a song from the man himself.
From his very first recording session, held on Monday, November 23, 1936 in San Antonio, Texas for the American Record Corporation and released on Vocalion Records in August of 1937, here is Robert Johnson playing and singing: “Sweet Home Chicago.”
If you’d like to learn more about Robert Johnson’s San Antonio recording sessions, check out my post of November 27, 2011. It contains a link to another Robert Johnson song: “Walking Blues.”
My post of June 20, 2012 about Robert Johnson’s last recording session held in June, 1937 in Dallas, Texas, contains two more recordings: “Hell Hound On My Trail” and “Love In Vain.”
Robert Johnson passed away on August 16, 1938 in Greenwood, Mississippi.
As I entered the room, I heard laughter from the TV.
“Saturday Night Live,” Andrea informed me.
“Is that Jennifer Lawrence?” I asked.
“Mm hmm,” she confirmed. “The Lumineers are going to be on.”
And in a little while, there they were: Wesley Keith Schultz, Jeremiah Caleb Fraites & Neyla Pekarek singing and playing their hit song “Ho Hey.”
Turns out we had been watching an encore broadcast of the January 19, 2013 episode of Saturday Night Live.
I first heard of The Lumineers in August, 2012 in an email.
The email was from a student of mine, a gifted young guitarist and singer who I’d worked with over the course of the previous two school years.
He wrote: “Hey Mr. S! How’s your summer been going? Mine has been a bunch of ups and downs. Been playing a lot of music and making a lot of art for the most part… This band, The Lumineers, has been the main thing I’ve been listening to. My two favorite songs by them: “Stubborn Love” and “Slow It Down.” Keep a spot for me on your roster… See you soon!”
Come September, in his first guitar lesson of the school year, I helped my student figure out the guitar part to “Stubborn Love.” The following week, his lesson ended with both of us singing and playing “Slow It Down.”
Though I had no idea at the time, that would be the last time I’d work with him.
“Slow It Down” and The Lumineers, however, stayed with me.
I bought The Lumineers, their debut CD, at a Starbucks in Plymouth, MA, near the hotel Andrea and I stayed at during the late-September weekend of our daughter’s wedding.
I soon shared my student’s opinion from his August email that “The whole album is fantastic really.”
By year’s end, “Slow It Down” still stood out above the rest – haunted me, actually -and easily made it onto my personal list of The Best of 2012.
Here it is. I hope you’ll take a few minutes and listen.
To my student: I thank you for sharing this song (and the many others!) with me. I wish you all the best and I hope that you are still – and will long continue to be – making a lot of music.
On a recent Saturday evening, my wife and I went to the movies. We saw 42, the excellent new movie about baseball legend Jackie Robinson.
As is our habit, when the film was over, we stayed in our seats and watched – I can’t say “read” because they go by so fast it’s hard to catch more than a handful of names – the credits. Usually though, there’s some pretty good music playing over the credits, music that doesn’t appear anywhere else in the movie, and this time was no exception. Before the cast list was done, Count Basie and His Orchestra were throwing out the first pitch of their classic recording of “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?”
I first heard and learned to play “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?” from the 1997 Hungry for Music CD Diamond Cuts. The version of “Did You See…?” on this eclectic and very entertaining 25-track “compilation of baseball songs and poetry” was by children’s performer Kathy Kallick. The CD’s liner notes said that Ms. Kallick had recorded it in 1995 for her Use A Napkin (Not Your Mom) album but the song had originally been recorded by the Count Basie Orchestra in 1947.
That last bit of info was, may I say, way out of the strike zone.
Pianist Count Basie and his Orchestra, with vocalist Taps Miller on the mound, recorded “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?” at the Victor Records recording studios in New York City on July 13, 1949.
The song itself had been written earlier that year by Woodrow “Buddy” Johnson and submitted for copyright with the Library of Congress in June. Buddy Johnson (1915-1977) was, in 1949, an established New York-based Jazz and Blues pianist, singer, bandleader and songwriter, most well known for his 1945 song “Since I Fell For You.” Buddy Johnson & His Orchestra recorded their version of “Did You See…?” on June 7, 1949 for Decca Records. By August of 1949, their record had reached #13 on the charts.
If you listen closely to the words of either version of the song, you’ll notice that Buddy Johnson very cleverly incorporates the names of four other Negro League Baseball stars who followed in Jackie Robinson’s footsteps as Major League Baseball continued to integrate its rosters.
It wasn’t until I’d located (on the 1989 Rhino Records CD Baseball’s Greatest Hits) and listened to the Count Basie recording that I realized that Kathy Kallick had made a change in Buddy Johnson’s original lyrics. In the first and second verses, Ms. Kallick sang – as I also always did – “Yeah, man! Yes, yes, Jackie hit that ball!”
P.S.: The five baseball cards shown in this post were issued in 1991 by the Topps Trading Card Company as part of a reissue set called: Topps Baseball Archives – The Ultimate 1953 Series. The Don Newcombe and Larry Doby cards were part of a subset of that series: “The Cards That Never Were.”
Among the many music books that I made frequent use of in my musically formative years and that still fill my shelves, one of the most memorable is a collection of songs recorded by Judy Collins.
The Judy Collins Songbook was first published in October, 1969. It contains piano/vocal/guitar arrangements – arranged and edited by Herbert Haufrecht – to 55 songs from Ms. Collins’ first eight albums. Starting with “A Maid Of Constant Sorrow,” the traditional Folk classic and title song from her first album released in 1961, and finishing with “My Father,” an original composition from her 1968 album Who Knows Where The Time Goes, the thick volume also contains “comments, instructions and reminiscences by Judy Collins.”
The instructions accompany only a handful of songs but include such valuable (to a young guitarist) insights as: “I play this with a Travis style pick, in a regular tuning” (“A Maid Of Constant Sorrow”) and “If you want to do this like it is on my record, tune the sixth string to D, and capo up two frets. That puts your E chord in the D position” (“John Riley”).
The comments that accompany the songs are more frequent. With the Malvina Reynolds & Barbara Dane song, “It Isn’t Nice,” Ms. Collins writes: “I hope that when I am as old as Malvina is I am as young as she has been all her life.” With “My Ramblin’ Boy” by Tom Paxton, she relates: “One night in a Detroit theatre a stage hand told me this was the best song he had ever heard and made me write the words out on an unrolled paper cup.”
Of all her comments and reminiscences, the one that to me is the most memorable, is the one included with the music for the Bob Dylan song, “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
On page 104 of her songbook, Judy Collins wrote: “I slept in the attic of Bob’s house in Woodstock one night in 1965. From the little stone-walled writing room at three in the morning I heard this whole song for the first time, with the moon full and the house still except for his singing and guitar.”
Judy Collins’ recording of “Mr. Tambourine Man” can be found on her 5th Album, released in 1965.
Judy Collins was born on this day, May 1, in 1939 in Seattle, Washington.
Happy Birthday, Judy Collins!
P.S.: If you’d like to read another “This Historic Day In Music” post celebrating Judy Collins’ birthday, visit the archives for May, 2012. You’ll be glad you did!
Richie Havens, one of the most instantly identifiable singers, unique guitarists and creative Folk musicians to come from the 1960’s Greenwich Village music scene, passed away yesterday at the age of 72 at his home in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Most remembered for his performance as the opening act of the legendary 1969 Woodstock (N.Y.) Music & Art Fair, I’d like to, on this day, honor and pay tribute to this remarkable man with another of his many memorable performances.
On October 16, 1992, Richie Havens was part of the star-studded cast of musicians who gathered at New York’s Madison Square Garden to partake in Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration. Richie’s contribution was a rendition of his already-classic interpretation of Dylan’s song, “Just Like A Woman.”
If you’re a new visitor to this blog, the purpose of my Wrestling With The Angel series (or category) is to highlight and share individual songs that are on a list of mine entitled: Devastatingly Great Songs. The title phrase, “Wrestling With The Angel,” is my paraphrase of a line from a poem by Herman Melville called “Art.” You can read the complete poem in my archived post of November 4, 2011: “The Source.”
In 1965, in the Southeast corner of New Hampshire, a department store was about the only place a recently-music-obsessed boy could buy the latest hit records. So, one afternoon when my parents informed me that we were going over to Dover after dinner to do some shopping at Sawyer Mills (a sprawling, smorgasbord of a store in an actual converted mill building), I knew that my chance had come again.
Upon arrival, I quickly located the record department on the second floor and carefully began searching the somewhat-meager singles selection. None the less, I soon found exactly what I was looking for: “Eve of Destruction” (b/w “What Exactly’s The Matter With Me”) by Barry McGuire and “California Girls” (b/w “Let Him Run Wild”) by The Beach Boys.
Driving home to Exeter that night along Rte.108, my mother asked me what records I had bought. Right after I’d finished telling her, the radio station we’d been listening to played “Eve of Destruction” and then… “California Girls.” Even my father was surprized.
“California Girls” was not the first or the last Beach Boys record I would add to my collection.
Little Deuce Coupe (1963), the fourth album by Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine had been getting and would continue to get a solid amount of playing time on my Magnavox record player.
It wasn’t until many years later that I came to realize just how much I must have listened to at least side 1 of that album. I’d picked up a CD copy of Little Deuce Coupe and listening to the first six songs – “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Ballad Of Ole’ Betsy,” “Be True To Your School,” “Car Crazy Cutie,” “Cherry, Cherry Coupe” and “409” – was like being at a reunion with a group of old friends. From “Shut Down,” the first song on side 2 of the LP, and on through the remaining five songs on the CD , I felt like I’d stepped into a room full of strangers.
In 1971, not long after my 18th birthday, I bought The Beach Boys’ newest album, Surf’s Up. I listened to this one all the way through both sides and it’s a very good thing I did. The last song on the second side, the title song, written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, was and still is, to me, absolutely spectacular.
With piano, bass guitar, slight percussion and a brief trumpet for accompaniment, the singer starts the first verse: “A diamond necklace played the pawn, hand in hand some drummed along to a handsome man and baton” and finishes: “Columnated ruins domino” in a pure, soaring falsetto.
This is not the land of “Little Deuce Coupe” and “California Girls” any more.
“Canvas the town and brush the backdrop. Are you sleeping?” (Sung twice. The chorus?)
The last verse, with only the piano: “Surf’s up, aboard a tidal wave. Come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave. I heard the word, wonderful thing, a children’s song.”
And finally, the coda: “The child is father of the man.”
Take four minutes and listen. (My apologies for the ugly video graphics.)
Just listen.
John Bush, writing in The All Music Guide To Rock calls that recording: “a masterpiece of baroque psychedelia.”
As of today, April 18, 2013, sixstr stories is three years old.
The twos proved to be not so terrible after all: in the past year this blog was host to more than 3000 visitors/viewings, accepted over 40 comments and raucously woo-hooed! when each new folk signed on and joined the ranks of “followers.”
On behalf of everyone… um, “everyone?”… ok: me… here at sixstr stories, I thank you, one and all!
In preparation for the birthday celebrations, I recently did some “house cleaning” on the blog.
First of all, I went through the archives and made sure that each post was correctly categorized. I retitled one category: the posts once listed as “Uncategorized” are now being identified as “Random Topics.” (Does Rolling Stone magazine still have its “Random Notes” section?)
Then I set up a “widget” (that’s a WordPress term) so that you can now search the archives by category! Simply click on one of the seven category titles in the list at the top right hand corner of the home page and you will be sent to a page containing titles of, the opening sentence from and links to each post in that category. Way cool.
For instance, if you click on the category “EFS Music,” you will find all of the 25 posts that contain audio links to exclusive recordings of (who else?) me, singing and playing original songs and fingerpicking a few acoustic guitar instrumentals. Under the categories of “On This Day In Music History” and “This Historic Day In Music,” you’ll find a combined total of 93 posts, each one celebrating the anniversary of a significant musical event in the histories of Folk, Jazz, Blues, Country or Rock.
Also, in an attempt to spiffy things up a bit (and since I finally figured out how to actually do it), I have been including more photographic images in the posts. So far, I’ve done magazine & songbook covers and sheet music to go along with the embeded video links that I’ve been incorporating for a while. (Speaking of the video links, if you’re browsing through the archives and should find a post with a blank video screen or one that says “This video has been removed,” please leave a comment to let me know. I recently had to re-embed a video with Lead Belly singing “Goodnight, Irene”.)
So, what does the future hold for sixstr stories?
More of the same!
Specifically, I’m planning on expanding the “Wrestling With An Angel” series, finding more anniversaries and birthdays to celebrate and continuing to add recordings from the vaults of EFS Music.
And finally, as sixstr stories ventures forth into its fourth year, I have one last bit of information from the “site stats” page to share.
The next post will be my 201st.
Once more, many thanks. I hope you come back again soon and often in the months ahead. I’ll continue to do my best to make it worth the trip.
Odds & Ends, Vol.1 appeared in this blog on September 30, 2010. I explained the purpose of that post in its second paragraph: “Looking back over my more recent posts, I’ve realized that there are a few things I wished I’d mentioned in some of them.”
Well, that has happened again and thus given birth to – drum roll, please – Odds & Ends, Vol.2!
After writing my March 30 This Historic Day In Music post on Eric Clapton, I dug into my collection of back issues of Acoustic Guitar magazine and found the September/October 1992 edition with Mr. Clapton on the cover.
The cover story was an article entitled “Unplugging The Stars” by Dale Miller about the then-very-popular MTV series Unplugged. On page 47, I found a quote from Eric Clapton about his preparation for the concert that would become not only his episode of the show, but a multiple Grammy-winning CD as well.
He told Mr. Miller: “When I started playing, I played a lot of fingerstyle. I could never really find the right combination of flatpick, fingerpick or thumbpick, so really the easiest way, although it’s quite strenuous on the fingertips, is to play fingerstyle. There is beautiful sound to be gained from the finger actually touching the string, but I haven’t done it for a long time on the acoustic – it’s something I just started to work on again recently…. You need surgical spirits to harden the fingertips up and witch hazel to take the sting out.”
On Sunday, March 31, I didn’t have my copy of the 1982 songbook 20th Century Masters of Finger-Style Guitar handy when I wrote the post with a link to the holiday-appropriate (or so I thought) recording of “Easter And The Sargasso Sea” by Leo Kottke.
If I had, I would have included this quote from the study notes by John Stropes that accompanied the book’s transcription of Mr. Kottke’s haunting instrumental.
“The Sargasso Sea is an area of the North Atlantic noted for its abundance of floating seaweed and its still waters. Since Columbus sailed through the Sargasso Sea in 1492 there have been stories of doom-ridden waters with ships ensnared in masses of impenetrable, floating weeds. The Sargasso Sea was said to be a veritable graveyard of dead and dying ships carrying crazed sailors, gaunt from lack of food and mad from lack of water.”
Leo Kottke added: “I was pretty disturbed about that when I was a little boy. And it was fascinating – the idea of sailors staring at one another, surrounded by kelp, slowly going nuts or thinking the other guy was going nuts. It appealed to my sense of romance.”
(To see more Guitar TAB transcriptions, click on Guitar Music in the Categories list.)
This past February, I wrote a post for this blog called “Songbooks & Sheet Music.” One of the songbooks I mentioned was Jerry Silverman’s Folk Song Encyclopedia, Volume 2, a priceless publication that I purchased in Portland, Maine probably in the 1980’s. One of the many songs that I learned over the years from the pages of that collection was “Deep River Blues.”
I don’t remember how long it took, but with that lead sheet to follow and Doc Watson’s inspirational version of the song in my ears, I eventually came up with my own arrangement of this wonderful old song.
(To hear my 2004 recording of the song, click on the blue link above. Wait for it!)
I even went so far as to write out a transcription of my arrangement, thinking that it would come in handy for use in my guitar teaching. (And it has!)
(If you would like to see Page 2 of this transcription, see my post of May 19, 2018.)
As a matter of fact, a very talented young student of mine started learning my arrangement of “Deep River Blues” two weeks ago. In doing a bit of preparation for her lesson, I did some research on-line and in my home library and I learned a few things about “Deep River Blues” that I probably should have known all along.
“Deep River Blues” is based on a song recorded by The Delmore Brothers back in 1933 called “I’ve Got Them Big River Blues.” In the songbook The Songs of Doc Watson (1971, Oak Publications), Doc writes about “Deep River Blues”: “This blues was introduced to me in the late thirties by a Delmore Brothers recording. When I first began to hear the tune, I was fascinated by the sounds they got out of the little tenor guitar – the four string – and the regular flattop box. I never could figure a way to get even a resemblance of the sound that they got until I began to hear Merle Travis pick the guitar.”
Here is that Delmore Brothers recording.
If you haven’t had enough “Deep River Blues,” you can watch and listen to a 1991 video of Doc Watson himself playing and singing the song as part of my May 30, 2012 post “So Long, Doc.”
As always, my motto is: “Good music doesn’t get old.”
sixstr stories 