Discovery

Posted on August 22, 2011 by sixstrstories

The “Premiere Issue” of Acoustic Guitar magazine arrived in my mailbox in July of 1990.

With a black & white photo of classical guitarist Sharon Isbin on the cover, the feature article was called “My First Guitar” and subtitled “Tales of Childhood Passion.” In the article, author and editor Jeffrey Pepper Rogers presented stories gathered from master guitarists Doc Watson, Ms. Isbin, Michael Hedges, Ferron, Norman Blake and others about their “life-changing moments of passion, pain and magic with their first instruments.”

In the twenty-one years since then, I have been a loyal subscriber and avid reader of Acoustic Guitar. From the pages of that magazine, I have learned much about the music, history, construction, recordings and players of my favorite instrument. I have discovered “new” artists such as Guy Clark and Gillian Welch and made many trips to the music store in search of a CD recommended by a reviewer or author writing in those happily-received monthly issues. 

The September 2010 issue was a good example of this.

The cover proclaimed this issue as being the “Blues Guitar Special!” and the featured artist was “Nashville’s Roots Guitar Genius” Buddy Miller. (If you’ve never heard Buddy Miller, you should definitely check him out. Besides his prodigious talents as a guitarist, singer and songwriter, his version of “With God On Our Side” from the album Universal United House of Prayer is, in my mind, one of the best covers of a Bob Dylan song ever. The 2009 CD Written In Chalk by Buddy and [his wife] Julie Miller is quite amazing as well.)

On page 28, there was an article entitled “The Mississippi Sheiks Rediscovered” by Kenny Berkowitz.

Berkowitz wrote about the ideas behind and the making of the recently released CD Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute to the Music of the Mississippi Sheiks. The collection was the brain child of multi-instrumentalist and producer Steve Dawson. Over one and a half years of work, Dawson colaborated with an international array of stellar acoustic musicians. Each artist/group recorded a cover version or interpretation of  a favorite number from the large catalogue of songs written and recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks, the highly-influential 1930’s string band.

Being a fan of the Sheiks, their songs and of several of the musicians who contributed to the album, I was definitely intrigued. I added Things About Comin’ My Way to my mental list of “CDs to find.” And finally, this summer, thanks to a chance visit to the Newbury Comics on Newbury Street in Boston, I found it. (See my post of June 4, 2011: “Summer’s Here… Again” for more about that eventful day.)

(I can hear the questions: “Why not iTunes? Why not Amazon? The internet, the internet…!” Simply, I enjoy the hunt and making the catch.)

The CD is well worth the search. Among the artists I knew before, Bruce Cockburn, Bob Brozman, John Hammond and Kelly Joe Phelps all do themselves proud. The producer, Steve Dawson  contributes his outstanding talents on slide guitar to many tracks and, in turn, adds a flow and cohesiveness that compilations of this type often lack.

Among the artists who were new to me, Oh Susanna, aka Suzie Underleider, recorded the song “Bootlegger’s Blues” with arrangement help from the legendary Van Dyke Parks. This is my favorite cut on the album. Besides introducing me to an exceptional vocalist, I’d never heard this great song before either. The lyric: “you’ve got to make it to the woods, if you can” has been ringing in and out of my head all summer.

Discovering new music, however old it may be, is for me, one of the great joys of life.

Thanks to Acoustic Guitar magazine, I’ve had many years of making wonderful discoveries. Who knows what’s to come?! 

I’ll be checking the mailbox.

P.S.: I wish I could post a link to this recording so that you can listen to it, but my youtube search came up empty.

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Three Days In August

Posted on August 15, 2011 by sixstrstories

The first day was Friday, August 12th.

It was, as you readers know, my wedding anniversary and, after a delicious and leisurely dinner at the Blue Latitudes restaurant in downtown Dover, my wife and I strolled over to Henry Law Park for the Cochecho Arts Festival’s final concert of their 25th season.

The Spectras were the act performing that night and they are among our favorites. A local, nine-piece (including a horn section) classic rock cover band that has been around since the 1960’s, I could tell this was going to be a good night by the way they launched into their opening number,  Chicago’s “25 of 6 to 4.” 

Having not seen them in a couple of years though, we were quite surprised when, half way through the first set, on came four young women (three in matching glittery black dresses) introduced as the “Spectrelles.” Well, well, the Spectrelles (Meghann, Brenda, Jess and Sajin) were really something. With the addition of these outstanding vocalists the now-13-piece ensemble really kicked into high gear and delivered a wide array of songs including superb renditions of the Aretha Franklin version of “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman,” the B-52’s “Love Shack” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”

The second day was Saturday, August 13th. 

My wife and I love to dance and a few years ago we discoverd a fabulous local band called “Soulmate.” This hard working, six-piece cover band does Motown, Soul, Disco and Funk and is fronted by Mona Lisa Comeau, a dynamic vocalist and exuberant performer.

We knew they were playing at the temporary pavilion on (literally) Hampton Beach, NH, that night and, after a busy day around the house, we mustered the energy for the the 40-minute drive down to the seacoast.

Well, we were very glad we did. Through two 50-minute sets, we danced and danced and danced some more as this incredible band poured out song after song of rocking, good-time, party-all-night energy. The weather was perfect, the crowd on the dance floor was into it as much as we were and we didn’t stop until the very end. “Respect,” “My Girl,” “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” “Love Train,” “Brick House” and many more. Soulmate has never let us down and they were awesome once again.

The third day was Sunday, August 14th.

The Prescott Park Arts Festival in Portsmouth, NH, gets better and better every year.

Starting in early July, they have a mid-week “Concert Series,” each show featuring an individual act. On the weekends, they have their “festivals.” First was the Showcase Music Festival, then the Tommy Gallant Jazz Festival, the Americanna Festival, the Folk Festival and on the 14th, the last one: the Roots & Rhythm Festival.

The announced acts were: Dala, Catie Curtis and Redhorse. I went because of Dala.

Dala had performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 2009. I saw them there on Sunday, August 2nd. Because of the success of their small-stage, morning show, they were invited to do a “tweener” on the main stage, in between afternoon sets by Neko Case and Arlo Guthrie. I remember that suddenly they appeared on stage, sang their hit song “Levi Blues” to the 10,000-or-so of us and were gone.

“Levi Blues” is one of those stick-in-your-head kind of songs, but I love it and find it irresistible to sing along with in the car, or anywhere.

Dala is a duo: songwriters Sheila Carabine (vocals, guitar, ukulele and piano) & Amanda Walther (vocals, guitar and piano). They have beautiful voices individually, but they blend and harmonize those perfectly-complementary voices together into a sound that is nothing short of breathtaking.

They sang “Levi Blues” in Portsmouth on Sunday in a stunning set that also included their songs “Marilyn Monroe” and “Sunday Dress” along with a gorgeous, slowed down version of “Both Sides Now” written by their fellow Canadian musician, Joni Mitchell.

I bought their latest CD, a live-in-concert recording called “Girls From The North Country” (it contains all the songs mentioned above) and waited in line to get them to autograph it. Pretty cool.

The other “highlight” of the afternoon came when Redhorse, the Folk super-group trio of Eliza Gilkyson, Lucy Kaplansky and John Gorka, were playing the traditional classic “Wayfaring Stranger” at the end of their set. During the song, the air exploded with the roar of fighter jets (in town for an air show at the Pease International Tradeport) flying in formation overhead. It was one of the oddest juxtapositions of sounds I’ve ever heard.

Three music-filled days in August: Friday the 12th, Saturday the 13th and Sunday the 14th, 2011.

P.S.: On this day, August 15, in 1969, a series of four music-filled August days got started: the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, NY. “We are stardust, we are golden…”

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33 Years

Posted on August 12, 2011 by sixstrstories

Late in the afternoon

Of Saturday, August 12, 1978,

In the sanctuary of the First Congregational Church of Park Ridge, NJ,

The Reverend Herbert B. Yeager officiating,

In front of family and friends,

I sang this song

To my bride.

“Tell You Very Simply (Wedding Song)” words, music, guitar & vocal by Eric Sinclair

Happy Anniversary to Us.

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70/14/58/100

Posted on August 8, 2011 by sixstrstories

This past May, Bob Dylan celebrated his 70th birthday.

In the May 23rd edition of The New York Times, author and educator David Hajdu had an essay published entitled “Forever Young? In Some Ways, Yes.” Mr. Hajdu puts forth the suggestion that although 70 is a significant milestone for Bob, it is his 14th birthday that was “the truly historic” one.

Mr. Hajdu quotes Daniel J. Levitin, professor of psychology at McGill University: “Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes. Pubertal growth hormones make everything we’re experiencing, including music, seem very important. We’re just reaching a point in our cognitive development when we’re developing our own tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity.” 

When Bob was 14, he was a freshman at Hibbing (Minnesota) High School. It was 1955. That year Elvis Presley released his records “Baby, Let’s Play House” and “Mystery Train.” Mr. Hajdu quotes Dylan as remembering about Elvis: “Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”

Mr. Hajdu goes on to list other musicians with 70th birthdays in the year around Bob’s including Joan Baez and Paul Simon. He also mentions the soon-to-be-septuagenarians Brian Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Carole King and Paul McCartney. (Paul is quoted as once saying about first hearing Elvis Presley: “When I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ I thought, this is it.” That was 1956 and Paul was 14.)

The article’s list of those who would have turned 70 around this time includes John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia. 

I’ve been sitting on Mr. Hajdu’s essay and this topic, waiting for today, my birthday. I may not be turning 70, only 58, but the article did get me thinking back on what I was doing musically and what music I was listening to when I was the obviously-important age of 14.

My year of being 14 ran from August 1967 to July 1968. That was my freshman year at Exeter (NH) High School.

I had been playing the drums for a couple of years and had procured a full set, with the bass drum, tom-tom and floor tom sporting blue sparkle shells. I entered high school still playing with guitarists Gerry and Ricky in the trio we’d started at the end of the seventh grade. But I soon moved up to a full, four-piece rock band with Alan on bass guitar and vocals, Danny on lead guitar and Jim on rhythm guitar.

The only song I can remember that we played was a rock version of “Born Free.” (Yes, from the movie.) I used model car tires and strips of terrycloth to turn two drum sticks into a pair of tympani sticks for this number. During a performance of this piece at a “Battle of the Bands” in Exeter High School’s Talbot Gym, the amplifier of our rented PA system stared to smoke, bringing the song, and our set, to a complete halt.

Some musical badge of identity. 

During my 14th year, my record collection grew substantially. The top hits of that time included the singles: “Windy” and “Never My Love” by the Association; “I Can See For Miles” by the Who; “Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock; “Hello, I Love You” by the Doors; “Hello Goodbye” by the Beatles; and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones.

Among the albums I purchased that year, three still stand out: “Their Satanic Majesties Request” (Nov. 1967) by the Rolling Stones, “The Beat Goes On” (Feb. 1968) by Vanilla Fudge and “Live At The Village Vanguard” (Oct. 1967) featuring Dizzy Gillespie. (The last one I received as a bonus for renewing my subscription to Down Beat magazine.)

Listening to the radio was a big part of my 14-year-old life and I can remember the two stations, both from Boston, that were my favorites: WBZ-AM 1030 and WBCN-FM 104.1. 

I remember one night, lying in bed and listening to WBZ on my black, boxy Philco and hearing Dave Maynard play the first music I’d heard by this oddly-named San Francisco band called “The Grateful Dead.” I also first heard a cut from that Vanilla Fudge album on Mr. Maynard’s show.

WBCN, which started broadcasting on March 15, 1968, played anything and everything, each DJ having their own tastes and style. I can remember hearing one DJ play different versions of the same song back-to-back (“Corrine, Corrina,” I think) in what my pubertal growth hormones thought was a rather cool attempt to both entertain and educate his listeners.

Finally, I’m pretty sure that the first concert I ever went to was during that year: Judy Collins with a band at the University of New Hampshire Field House.

So, I guess 14 was a pretty good year.

I was a year or so away from starting to listen to Bob Dylan. Led Zeppelin, the blues (according to Albert King and B.B.King) and the jazz of the Dave Brubeck Trio with Gerry Mulligan were yet to enter my life.

Seeing B.B.King, Nina Simone and the Sun Ra Arkestra at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival with bandmate Alan and his dad was coming up in January of 1969. 

Borrowing an acoustic guitar from bandmate Jim wouldn’t happen until May of 1970. 

As music evolves, so does a musical life. Playing, singing, listening, collecting, writing: there’s always something new and old to discover. On and joyously on it goes.

What were you listening to when you were 14?

P.S.: This is my 100th blog post.

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This Historic Day In Music: Mick Jagger

Posted on July 26, 2011 by sixstrstories

A few years after Ringo Starr inspired me to learn to play the drums (see my post of July 9, 2011: “Belated Birthday Wishes”), my young infatuation with the Beatles began to fade.

By the time I entered high school, I was a Rolling Stones fan.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman were fascinating, mysterious and, or so it seemed to this small-town-New-Hampshire boy, rather dangerous characters. And though I somehow sensed even then that Keith and Charlie were the glue that kept this band musically together, Mick was, quite clearly, the Man.

As a growing guitar player in the early 1970’s, my most-turned-to song book was a Rolling Stones collection which featured the music printed in white ink on deep blue paper. I built my left-hand fingertip calluses mastering the chord progressions to many Jagger & Richards creations including: “Play With Fire,” “Paint It Black,” “Lady Jane” and “Mother’s Little Helper.” 

One of my favorite listening albums in those days was the Rolling Stones’ 1966 release Big Hits: High Tides and Green Grass. But the 1967 Stones LP Flowers, an American compilation of British-released B-sides and album tracks,  delivered more songs (“Back Street Girl” and “Sittin’ On A Fence”) that I just had to learn how to play.

Many years later, taking my cue from how the Byrds transformed Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages,” I re-arranged “Ruby Tuesday” into an up-tempo waltz. In performance, I would introduce the song by proposing that, if the Stones had been a Folk band, this is what “Ruby Tuesday” might have sounded like.

I could go on.

(The Rolling Stones at Boston Garden, November 29, 1969, 2nd show? I was there.)

The instigation for all of this reminiscing was my amazing wife who asked me last night: “Do you know that tomorrow is Mick Jagger’s birthday?”

“No!” said I.

Mick Jagger was born Michael Philip Jagger on this day, July 26, in 1943, in Dartford, Kent, England.

The Rolling Stones did their first gig on July 12, 1962, in London, England and released their first album, The Rolling Stones (England’s Newest Hitmakers), on May 30, 1964.

They were, and still are, The World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band.

If you don’t believe me, watch (and listen to) the DVD of  “Shine A Light,” the 2008 Martin Scorsese-directed film of the Stones’ 2006 concert at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

Very Highly Recommended.

Happy 68th Birthday, Mick.

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This Historic Day In Music: Johnny Hartman

Posted on July 13, 2011 by sixstrstories

This story has nothing to do with the guitar.

It is about my very most favorite Jazz vocal recording ever.

It is: “Lush Life” by vocalist Johnny Hartman and the John Coltrane Quartet.

When I learned, thanks to my good friend and colleague, Charlie Jennison, (a fabulous Jazz musician in his own right), that today was the anniversary of Johnny Hartman’s birthday, I knew that I simply had to write this post.

Johnny Hartman was born on July 13, 1923 in Chicago, Illinois.

He started singing in high school with his school’s jazz orchestra.

On March 7, 1963, Johnny recorded an album for Impuse Records with John Coltrane and his now-classic quartet: John on tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums.

The album was released later that year as: “John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman”

The first song on the second side was the Billy Strayhorn ballad “Lush Life.”

This recording of this song by these musicians is, in my how-humble-can-you-be-if-you-have-a-blog opinion, one of the most devastatingly gorgeous pieces of music ever. Period.

Listen to it.

It is five minutes and thirty seconds of shear beauty, start to finish.

Yes? Wasn’t I right?

Truely awesome.

Johnny Hartman passed away on September 15, 1983.

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Belated Birthday Wishes

Posted on July 9, 2011 by sixstrstories

When I was ten years old, Jeanette lived next door.

Along with her mother and her aunt, Jeanette had moved into the elegant, white, extended ranch that sat a bit further back from the road, along the top of a small rise on the Exeter side of my house. 

Jeanette was a teenager and, during the fall and winter of 1963-1964, I went over to her house after school and she would look after me until one of my parents got home from work.

Jeanette had a record player and records and she was crazy about this musical group from England that I’d never heard of called “The Beatles.”

Thanks to her, I was soon crazy about the Beatles as well. During those afternoons, we’d listen to their records, study the pictures in the many fan magazines she had and discuss their up-coming visit to America.

Ringo was my favorite.

I don’t remember which one was Jeanette’s favorite, but I do remember a conversation we had when we tried to decide which one of the Beatles should survive if their plane crashed on the way to the US. She said that it should be John because he was married and had a child. I said that it should be Ringo. Because… he was Ringo!

Inspired by Ringo, I decided that I wanted to play the drums.

My parents approved and got me a blue-sparkle-and-chrome snare drum with a collapsible chrome stand, a golden cymbal with its own, taller, chrome stand and my first pair of wooden drum sticks.

They arranged for me to take drum lessons from Mrs. Prebble, a music teacher who gave lessons out of her home on High St. in Exeter. Mrs. Prebble also opened my young eyes and ears to the wide world of music. 

In the Fall of 1964, the Beatles came back to the United States for their “First American Tour.” They came to Boston for a concert at the Boston Garden on September 12.

Jeanette had a friend whose father had a friend who knew someone somehow connected to someone who had something to do with the Beatles. So, Jeanette was not only going to the concert, but she was going to meet the Beatles in person!

The excitement ran very high on Newmarket Road during the weeks leading up to September 12.

When I saw Jeanette the following Monday, she told me that she didn’t get to meet the Beatles after the concert. Something happened and it didn’t work out, but her friend’s father’s friend brought the girls some consolation gifts. Jeanette showed me a pair of hand-drawn, pencil portraits of two of the Beatles. They had been done by Ringo. 

I was not lucky enough to get to see the Beatles, but, thanks to my good friend, Andy Inzenga, I did see Ringo perform with one of the editions of his All Starr Band. They played the Bank of America Pavilion on the Boston waterfront on June 25, 2008. Ringo was in fine form and obviously having a wonderful time. Midway through the evening though, when he sat down behind his drum set and kicked off  “Boys,” (his featured number from the early Beatles’ shows) the crowd and I went  completely wild.   

Ringo Starr was born Richard Starkey, on July 7, 1940, in Liverpool, England.

Thank you, Ringo. I hope you had a very happy 71st birthday.

Thank you, Mrs. Prebble.

And most of all, thank you, Jeanette.

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This Historic Day In Music: Stephen Foster

Posted on July 4, 2011 by sixstrstories

The first time I can remember that I paid much attention to a song by Stephen Foster was while listening to a James Taylor album.

Tucked into the last track on side 2 of the 1970 LP Sweet Baby James, is a really wonderful, acoustic guitar and vocals rendition of “Oh! Susanna.” It is pure James Taylor, done with a sense of both playfulness and deep respect for this American classic. I loved this recording as a high school student and to this day, listening to it never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Five years later, after college, I again “discovered” the songs of Stephen Foster. While getting ready for the first day of my first year as an elementary school music teacher, I came upon a tattered, paper songbook entitled Collection of Stephen C. Foster Songs in a drawer of the classroom’s large and well-worn wooden desk.

Published in 1937 by the Belmont Music Co. of Chicago, Illinois, it contained (actually: contains  – I am looking at it as I write this post) 25 songs, each in a one-page, piano-lyrics-guitar chords arrangement. There were songs I recognized: “Oh Susanna,” “De Camptown Races,” “Old Folks At Home” and “My Old Kentucky Home” and some I didn’t: “Nelly Was A Lady,” “Gentle Annie” and “Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming.”

In those days and in the years since, I have taught and performed several  Stephen Foster songs. My favorites have been “Oh! Susanna,” “Old Folks At Home” and “Hard Times Come Again No More.” I have also learned much about the man who wrote these incredible songs.

For instance…

Stephen Collins Foster was born on July 4, 1826 in Lawrenceville, PA. He was the seventh child of William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Foster.

Stephen Foster is regarded as America’s first professional songwriter. The date of the first public performance of his first “hit” song – “Oh! Susanna,” on September 11, 1847 – is seen by some as the birth date of American Popular Music.

In 1844, “Open The Lattice Love” had become Stephen Foster’s first published song. He wrote continuously throughout his career and, in 1863, the year before his death, he published a total of 49 songs.

In Stephen Foster’s time, a songwriter made his money through the sales of sheet music.  (Also in those days, many middle and upper class homes had pianos. Many people could read music and play the piano and an evening spent gathered around the keyboard in the parlor singing the latest numbers was a popular form of family entertainment.) To get a publisher interested in producing sheet music for a song, the songwriter had to find someone to perform the song in public and thus generate interest and demand for its publication.

For a songwriter looking to showcase a song, the most accessible type of public entertainment was the very popular minstrel show, with its now-infamous, blackfaced performers. “Minstrel songs” combined the perceived dialect of 19th century African-Americans with an attractive and catchy melody. Songwriters also found that if they added a strong dose of sentimentality to the lyrics of a minstrel show song, the resulting number was even more appealing for those in-house, ’round the piano singing sessions. These songs became known as “parlor songs.”

Stephen Foster wrote masterfully in both genres and had much to offer the late-18oo’s sheet-music buying audience. But during the mid-to-late 20th century, because of their original language and use, some felt that the songs of Stephen Foster should be dismissed and forgotten altogether.

Over the same decades, though, given the undeniable quality of Stephen Foster’s music, songbook publishers gradually “up-dated” his lyrics. “They” eliminated the glaring racism (an aspect which even Foster became increasingly uncomfortable with during his career) and converted them into songs that can now be proudly passed from generation to generation and revered as the timeless masterworks they are.

Back in January, 2010, during Hope For Haiti, the star-studded, fund-raising telethon/concert broadcast after the earthquake, R&B singer Mary J. Blige followed Bruce Springsteen’s offering of “We Shall Overcome” with a contemporary, heartfelt and soaring rendition of the even-more-appropriate “Hard Times Come Again No More.” As I watched and listened to Ms. Blige as she sang: “Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears while we all sup sorrow with the poor,” I imagined Stephen Foster smiling. He wrote those words and that song in 1855, inspired by the distress and economic hardship of the poor in and around where he lived in Pittsburg, PA.

Stephen Foster Collins passed away on January 18, 1864.

For your listening pleasure, click on the link below to hear a recording of a fingerstyle guitar arrangement of “Old Folks At Home” that I put together from the transcription in that 1937 songbook and inspired by James Taylor’s fingerpicked introduction to his version of “Oh! Susanna.”

“Old Folks At Home”   Guitar & Arrangement by: Eric Sinclair.

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This Historic Day In Music: Mississippi John Hurt

Posted on July 3, 2011 by sixstrstories

Long time readers of this blog will know that when I started writing “anniversary” posts – inspired by the anniversary of a favorite musician’s birthday or the recording date of an important piece of music – I titled them with the preface: “On This Day In Music History.”

That changed in October of 2010, when I discovered a book by that title while searching around in Amazon.

“On This Day In Music History” (“Over 2,000 Popular Music Facts for Every Day of the Year”) was compiled and written by Jay Warner and published by Hal Leonard Corporation in 2004. Among the back cover reviews, D.A.Sonneborn, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is quoted thus: “The entire panorama of popular music is illuminated in Jay Warner’s joyous journey across its days, with hundreds upon hundreds of its particulars and peculiarities.”

Really? Well…

On the page (there is one for each day of the calendar year) for July 3, Mr. Warner (a six-time Grammy-winning music publisher) commemorates these events: the birthdays of Fontella Bass (1940) and Laura Branigan (1957); hit records by Carole King (1971) and Cher (1965); three Beatles going to a party in London for the Monkees in 1967; the 1969 Newport Jazz (not so much) Festival; and the 1971 death of Jim Morrison in a bathtub in Paris, France.

No Mississippi John Hurt.

“The entire panorama of popular music” has not been “illuminated” if you’ve not mentioned Mississippi John Hurt.

So, under my new (as of October 18, 2010) heading of “This Historic Day In Music,” I again invite you to celebrate with me the anniversary of the birthdate of singer and fingerstyle guitarist Mississippi John Hurt.

First, if you haven’t read it before, please go to the blog Archives for July 2010 and read my post for today, July 3, entitled: “On This Day In Music History: Mississippi John Hurt.”

Then, if you have any recordings by Mississippi John, listen to them. (My collection includes “Mississippi John Hurt – Today!” (1967) on vinyl, “Avalon Blues 1963” on cassette and “Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 OKeh Recordings” on CD.)

Finally, or, if you’ve only got a few minutes to devote to partying right now, click on this link to YouTube and watch the video of the man himself playing and singing “You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley” from an episode of Pete Seeger’s 1965-66 public TV program Rainbow Quest.

If you do, I think you will agree that the three minutes and twenty-five seconds it takes to watch the video was time well spent.

Mississippi John Hurt passed away on Nov. 2, 1966 in Grenada, MS.

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A Coda: Clarence Clemons

Posted on June 26, 2011 by sixstrstories

Coda: “A concluding section or passage, extraneous to the basic structure of the composition but added in order to confirm the impression of finality.” Harvard Dictionary of Music.

Can you imagine the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band without Clarence Clemons’ saxophone?

Songs such as “Spirit In The Night,” “Incident On 57th Street” or “Jungleland.”

I seem to remember Bruce being quoted once as saying something like “Clarence always plays the solo you want to hear.”

When Clarence Clemons’ tenor sax took centerstage in a Bruce Springsteen song; his tone color, his phrasing, his dynamics, his melodic sensibility, always combined to create the solo that perfectly fit the song. His “voice” served not only as an extension of Bruce’s voice but carried the melody to a level of intensity and expressiveness and glory that Bruce-the-vocalist could only dream of. 

But, however essential and glorious Clarence Clemons’ saxophone was to the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, my other favorite music by the Big Man was on an album he put out under his own name in October of 1983.

“Rescue” by Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers is an album of foot-tapping, butt-shaking, rock-and-rollin’ party music. When I put this one on the stereo, the songs just leap out of the speakers and fill the room with all of the excitement and energy of his other band’s records, but with no time for the angst or gravity. And, in every one of the eight songs, when lead vocalist J.T. Bowen has had his say, Clarence takes over and produces the kind of extended, perfectly-tailored solo,  overflowing with the same soulfull, exuberant, joyfully-melodic lines and thick, luxurious tone that made him the beloved player that he was and will always be.

Songs like “Jump Start My Heart,” “Money to The Rescue” and “Resurrection Shuffle” are guaranteed to jump, rescue and resurrect not only your heart, but your spirits and your feet as well. 

Thankfully, I had the good fortune to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform live several times. Whether the venue was Boston’s Music Hall (now the Wang Center), the old Boston Garden or Fenway Park; Clarence Clemons, the Big Man, was an irreplaceable part of the show. When he stepped into the spotlight and his tenor saxophone took flight, he commanded the attention of everyone in the room, and never failed in giving a performance that was visually and musically unforgetable.

So. Can you imagine the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band without Clarence Clemons’ saxophone?

Take just one song. “Jungleland.”

Clarence’s solo is a classic, created, as the legend goes, in a marathon 16-hour recording session; but the arrangement makes you wait for it.

Listen.

After Suki Lahav plays her violin, accompanied by Roy Bittan on piano; after Bruce sings and then adds his electric guitar to the explosive entrance of Garry Tallent’s bass guitar and Max Weinberg’s drums; then, after crescendo and decrescendo, all the intense epic swirl, Bruce, in a hushed voice, sings “Just one look and a whisper, and they’re gone…”

Then: Clarence Clemons plays.

Listen.

Clarence  Anicholas Clemons, born January 11, 1942 in Norfolk, Virginia, passed away on Saturday, June 18, 2011 in Palm Beach, Florida.

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