not everybody listens to music, but for those who do, everybody's tastes are different, curiously so.
the last few days i've been struck by two pieces of music that i cannot get out of my head. i drive a truck for 10 or 12 hours a day, can't get out, can't stop, can't do anything else. so the stuff i think about has a long time to work.
i don't see how these two pieces of music could be so different, and yet both have affected me strongly. so this is what i'm listening to, at the moment. what about you?
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The deaths of most people in Show Business don’t usually get to me. Hell death doesn’t usually make me too emotional until it’s somebody REAL close. Call me jaded or whatever. After so many people in my life have died, I’ve come to view it as the same as birth. Just one of the three parts of living: birth, life, & death, in which birth and death are interchangeable and life is what you make it.
John Prine tho. His first album came out in 1970 or so. I’ve felt all along as though I’ve known him- having friends in Nashville, I’ve gotten to hear stories lately- recently, of his hanging out in town, of his being right in there as an active and socially engaging and totally accessible member of the local music scene and their community.
John Prine has some special stuff going on without a doubt. Yet remained humble and acted as if even he wasn’t 100% sure where his words came from or how he even managed to get them all together to form songs. I’ve been listening to his songs, to interviews, and reading articles about him. Fortunately I got to see him perform definitely on 2 occasions, decades apart- and I FEEL like I saw him a third time in there somewhere between the 2. Although maybe it’s just because he’s always been in my head? Been a significant part of my life’s music? The most recent time I saw him perform was just 2 years ago. Maybe 1/3 or more of his performance was songs from that first record! They still had the exact same impact as they did when I first heard them, when I was 16. I laughed, I cried, my heart soared! I rejoiced in wonder at how a set of songs could have that kind of lasting impact. That touches you the same after all these years, after hearing them hundreds and hundreds of times.
No other musician’s work does that to me- with the possible exception of Jackson Browne whose first few records came straight at me in a more deeply personal way. John Prine’s songs are far more accessible to everybody because his folksy way of writing is so naturally.... all inclusive? Straightforward? Down-home-y? The magic of John Prine’s songwriting is that his words cut across all barriers of time and aging and place. They are written in such a way that your great grandmother can relate to them as easily as your 14 year old son would. Some songwriters write from within; their songs, as a result, can only be felt by those who’ve experienced similar things. John Prine’s songs come to us, through him, from the entire universe, seemingly from all human existence.
I feel like I’ve lost a brother. We have lost an American Treasure. This ARTICLE is great and seems so typical of the guy I thought I knew all these years, all these DECADES, all my life.
John Prine: turns out he is exactly the guy you always wanted to believe he was. Sweet. Humble. Loving. An accidental genius. I hope he Rests In Peace, where ever he is now.
A singing friend who also happens to ride bicycles and I have been getting out for social distanced rides -- and there is an old Railroad tunnel in the middle of nowhere on our route -- about a 900 foot of tunnel. Nine seconds of natural reverb is hard to pass up for choral singers. We go to the center and set up the zoom digital recorder with a Dead Cat Cover* and in between the other riders, passing airplanes and crow or two, we get recordings. They are not perfect but they have had an effect on people who are stuck indoors. Here is one of those recordings from what we call The Tunnel Tunes Project. When I can get a Bass and an Alto to join us I'll post an updated version.
Karen O + Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross covers Immigrant Song. Not the best audio tho... still cool, and the graphics of the opening title sequence to the film are just great
...hi Ricochet; as you know I am more into the parallel World of music than the mainstream: also I prefer the music; sound and concepts than the lyrics based songs but this artist seems good; specially "mustang"where music and lyrics are working together to have a high quality level of song. Thank you
tom hope you are safe/well in july 1970 an up and coming group called the allman brothers performed at the Love Valley Rock Festival in the cowboy town of Love Valley, NC near Statesville around 100,000 people showed up including me i was 18 years old......some school teachers from florida camped next to me i was sleeping in my 1960 chevy they invited me over to their campfire and got me stoned for the first time i can still hear "Tied to the Whippin Post" like it was yesterday http://www.shelbyinfo.com/anniversary-of-ncs-woodstock-is-here-cms-16427