This time I’ll go with a repeat. My Amazing Songs & Other Delights #32 – The Autumn Is Here edition airs Monday 4th, 3-4pm (gmt) on Yé Yé Radio: yeyeradio.com (or on the app).
As the name says it’s an Autumn edition. You can read about it here here.
Tracklist: 01 – Arkadia Jazz All-Stars – Don’t Get Around Much Anymore (feat. Buster Williams & Carl Allen ) (Duke Ellighton original) 02 – António Vale da Conceição – Love Is The Storm 03 – Billy Childish & The Singing Loins – Pocahontas Was Her Name 04 – Blache – Garbage Picker 05 – Charlie Megira – Fear and Joy 06 – Cream – World of Pain 07 – David Bowie – Breaking Glass 08 – Francie Moon – Everything Goes 09 – Heavenly – I Fell in Love Last Night 10 – Japan – Canton (Live from Hammersmith Odeon, 1983) 11 – Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler – Footnotes On The Map (Live From The Green Note) 12 – Miguel Feraso Cabral – Indo Por Ali Longe 13 – Taylor Kingman – Heaven Ain’t Hiding 14 – The Shins – The Celibate Life 15 – Weyes Blood – It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody 16 – Wolf Manhattan – Five Years
Good morning! It’s Halloween time. Our Middle of the Week song for today, Spiderweb by Venamoris (Paula and Dave Lombardo) vibes with the season. Have a nice day and a spooky Halloween!
My Amazing Songs & Other Delights #72 – The Ecosystem edition is now on mixcloud.
Of late, I’ve been coming upon the word ecosystem from different sources. Or happen upon lyrics, or otherwise that mention the concept that we’re all one, we’re connected, that we depend on each other.
That concept is part of Body Count’s Comfortably Numb version of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb the song that opens this edition. Ice-T writes and says: “Listen… ’cause I’ve been on both sides of the gun As you stand before me we’re all here as one We gotta come together or our chances are none Maybe I’m just a dreamer, too many obstacles” (full lyrics here)
An ecosystem implies environment and those in it interacting, forging connections, relationships, one thing leading to another. That is how both Mondo and Yé Yé came to be. The longer text about My Amazing Songs & Other Delights #72 – The Ecosystem edition can be read here.
Tracklist: 01: Body Count – Comfortably Numb (feat. David Gilmour) 02: Raveloe – Passing Place 03: 12 Roads – Waiting For JB 04: Rowland S. Howard – Shut Me Down 05: Ned Swarbrick – Somebody, Something, Somewhere Else (live York City FC) 06: Mick Harvey – October Boy 07: Johnny Marr – New Town Velocity 08: The Birthday Party – The Friend Catcher 09: Saint Sappho – Grass is Gold 10: Oh Bobby (Bill Rivers and Simon Hayward) – Are You Still There 11: Sorry Monks – One Rule For Them 12: Paradise Lost – The Last Time 13: Harry Howard And The NDE – Sensitive To The Cold 14: Mark Robin White & Adam Lato – Rabbit Hole (Tranquility mix) 15: The Courettes – Shake! 16: A Resistência – Maré Alta
The Blues is a 2003 seven episodes documentary film produced by Martin Scorsese. In each episode a different different director goes into a step of the history of the Blues. It’s worthy every second of footage, stories, music.
01: Feel Like Going Home. directed by Martin Scorsese, featuring Ali Farka Touré, Corey Harris, Salif Keita, Son House, Taj Mahal, John Lee Hooker, Keb’ Mo’, Willie King
02: The Soul of a Man. directed by Wim Wenders with music by Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir.
03: The Road to Memphis. directed by Richard Pearce, featuring B. B. King, Bobby Rush, Rosco Gordon, Ike Turner.
04: Warming by the Devil’s Fire. directed by Charles Burnett, featuring: Tommy Hicks and Nathaniel Lee Jr., and performances by Big Bill Broonzy, Elizabeth Cotten, Reverend Gary Davis, Ida Cox, Willie Dixon, Jesse Fuller, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Vasti Jackson, Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Victoria Spivey, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Dinah Washington, Muddy Waters and Sonny Boy Williamson.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
05: Godfathers and Sons directed by Marc Levin, featuring Marshall Chess and Chuck D.
06: Red, White and Blues. directed by Mike Figgis. This episode is focused on the blues in Britain and the British Invasion effect on American blues.
07: Piano Blues. directed Clint Eastwood, featuring Marcia Ball, Dave Brubeck, Ray Charles and Pinetop Perkins.
The Blues A Musical Journey is a cd box-set companion of the documentary with recordings from August 10, 1920 to April 9, 2003. It’s over six hours of all sorts of blues! It goes from Othar Turner & the Rising Star Fife & Drum to Bonnie Raitt through Sun House, Jimmi Hendrix, Blind Willie McTell, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson Howlin’ Wolf with dozens of blues players. The Blues A Musical Journey is more standard and geographically confined than my Amazing Songs & Other Delights #71 The Desert Blues and Not Just edition, but it’s an absolute joy.
Blind Willie McTell
My beloved Blind Willie McTell titles my favourite Bod Dylan song on Dylan’s voice because “… no one can sing the blues / Like Blind Willie McTell. Dylan is on piano and voice, Mark Knopfler on acoustic guitar. Blind Wille McTell, the song, has been providing endless hours of conversation with a musician friend. Is it a song? A poem? A criticism? A critique? An observation? What are the lyrics really about? To me, they’re about America and its History and ways. It’s also a testament to Dylan’s lyric brilliancy.
Blind Wille McTell I seen the arrow on the doorpost Saying this land is condemned All the way from New Orleans To Jerusalem Well, I travel through east Texas Where many martyrs fell And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Wille McTell
Mmm, I heard that hoot owl singing As they were taking down the tents The stars above the barren trees Was his only audience Them charcoal gypsy maidens Can strut their feathers well But nobody can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell
See them big plantations burning Hear the cracking of the whips Smell that sweet magnolia blooming See the ghosts of slavery ships I can hear them tribes a moaning Hear that undertaker’s bell And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell
There’s a woman by the river With some fine young handsome man He’s dressed up like a squire Bootleg whiskey in his hand There’s a chain gang on the highway I can hear them rebels yell And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell
God is in His heaven And we all want what’s His But power and greed and corruptible seed Seem to be all that there is I’m gazing out the window Of that old Saint James Hotel And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan)
Stealing from The Legendary Tiger Man – the blues, like folk, is all about inspiration and ideas passed around – don’t firetruck Christmas, but I’ve got the Blues!