Search Results for: sunday morning coming down
April 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Merle Haggard died eight years ago yesterday at the age of 79 — to be exact, on his seventy-ninth birthday. Haggard is finally the subject of a full-scale biography — The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard (2022), by Marc Eliot. Mark Pulliam reviewed it at Law and Liberty in the excellent column “Our redneck poet.” He “expand[s] upon Eliot’s respectful (but not hagiographic) treatment of the
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March 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
John Sebastian celebrates his 80th birthday today. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008. I had a great time compiling a set of videos in his honor last year. I can’t let Sebastian’s big 8-0 pass without inviting readers to take another look back with this revised and expanded edition. Sebastian grew up in Greenwich Village in a musical family. He is saturated in American music
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March 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Listening to a show on the SiriusXM Grateful Dead channel a few years ago I heard one of the announcers mention that Nicky Hopkins played with the Jerry Garcia Band. I hadn’t known that. Hopkins was a fantastic English pianist whose session work is virtually ubiquitous on great rock recordings of the ’60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Take a look, for example, at this Nicky Hopkins discography. I have been a
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February 25, 2024 — Scott Johnson
George Harrison was born in Liverpool on this date in 1943. He died on November 29, 2001, in Los Angeles. He added to the beauty of the world as a member of the Beatles and in his subsequent solo career. He also founded HandMade Films to produce Monty Python’s Life of Brian, still funny after all these years. I want to celebrate the anniversary of his birth this morning. In
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January 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson
When Don Everly died in August 2020 I put together a set of videos with previous reflections on the music of the Everly Brothers. This is the season of their birthdays — Don was born on February 1, 1937, Phil on January 19, 1939. I thought I would use the occasion to replay it one more time in the hope that it might capture the interest of readers who may
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January 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson
We went to see the The New Standards perform one of their annual pre-New Year’s shows at the Dakota on December 30 — the first of two shows they played that night following two shows the night before. We’ve gone for at least the past 10 years and have loved the band since we first saw them at one of their pre-New Year’s shows (they call them “preeners”). The band
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December 24, 2023 — Scott Johnson
This is my slightly revised and expanded edition of secular pop songs that seize on Christmas in one way or another for their own artistic purposes. Here they are in chronological order of release along with notes that might help place them. Noel Paul Stookey (Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary) adapted and arranged “A’Soalin” with Elena Mezzetti and Tracy Batteast including Christmas references – using “God Rest Ye Merry,
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September 17, 2023 — Scott Johnson
David Bromberg is a master of the blues and just about every other genre of popular American music. Tuesday he turns 78. To celebrate the occasion I want to revisit my comments after seeing him perform live over two nights in April 2022. When my friend Tom Edelstein invited me to see him perform at the Dakota back in 2019, I only vaguely remembered Bromberg as the blues virtuoso I
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August 27, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I researched and wrote this for Van Morrison’s 75th birthday three years ago. I slightly downsized it to pay tribute to Van when he turned 77 last year. I’d like to turn it into an annual celebration as he turns 78 this week. Van is a brilliant, eccentric, enigmatic, essential singer/songwriter, performer, and multi-instrumental musician. He may not be for everyone. If you respond to his aesthetic, however, there is
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August 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Band’s Jaime Robbie Robertson died this past Wednesday at the age of 80. The Band’s Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Levon Helm predeceased him. Only Garth Hudson survives, at age 85. Among the obituaries worth reading to situate Robertson and his work are those by Jim Farber for the New York Times, Chris Morris for Variety, and Benjamin Kerstein for Quillette. I want to pay my respects this morning.
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July 30, 2023 — Scott Johnson
After paying tribute to the career of Tony Bennett last week, a friend wrote to recall the effect Sarah Vaughan’s Live At Kelly’s and the John Coltrane/Johnny Hartman album had on him. I love Sarah Vaughan and I love Sarah Vaughan’s I Love Brazil, her second album on Norman Granz’s Pablo label. Granz founded Pablo a decade after he sold Verve, the label he had founded to popularize Ella Fitzgerald.
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July 23, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Tony Bennett died on Friday at the age of 96. He was a year older than my dad, who died 31 years ago. He was a star longer than I’ve been alive. It seemed like he might live forever. Bennett was not only an effective proponent of the Great American Songbook in his art, he contributed to it himself. What a legacy he leaves. The New York Times posted Bruce
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July 16, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Dion — Dion DiMucci — turns 84 on Tuesday. Three years ago he released a new set of recordings titled Blues With Friends. The friends ranged from Jeff Beck and Joe Bonamassa to Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen. I thought Dion sounded like an artist in his prime. When I saw that the disc was going to be released in 2020 it served as the occasion for a special life
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July 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
“Walk Away Renee” is the beautiful pop song written by Michael Brown, Bob Calilli, and Tony Sansone. Brown played keyboards in the Left Banke — “Banke” is a giveaway that we are in the era of the British Invasion. Brown was 16 when he wrote the lyrics. The song broke through to reach number 5 in 1966. Brown’s father, Harry Lookofsky, had the keys to the studio and helped produce
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June 25, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I had wanted to see vocalist Tracy Nelson sing since I was a college freshman and I came close. Having bought tickets to see her perform with Mother Earth in Boston in early 1970 or so, I waited patiently in the theater for her to take the stage. Some time after the appointed hour, Tracy came out to announce that the band’s instruments hadn’t made it from San Francisco. I
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June 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
John’s post about “Both Sides Now,” “Hermits’s Hermits,” and the New York Times has had me thinking. I have been thinking of other British Invasion groups (other than Herman’s Hermits, that is) such as The Zombies. How long before the Times attributes “The Rhyme of the Reason” to Harry and the Racefakers? I actually went to see Herman’s Hermits at the old Minneapolis Auditorium in July 1966. They headlined a
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June 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I extracted this from our archives to post as one of my favorites this past Memorial Day weekend and changed my mind at the last minute. I thought a few readers might enjoy a dose of beauty and joy courtesy of Ann Hampton Callaway this morning. This is from December 2018. * * * * * I had not heard of Ann Hampton Callaway before her audacious 1999 release To
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