There’s a repeat of my 5th Amazing Songs & Other Delights #5 – The Poetry edition tomorrow, Monday 2nd, 3-4pm (gmt) on Yé Yé Radio: yeyeradio.com (or on the app).
Tracklist: 01 – Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis – Ode to a Nightingale (Keats poem) 02 – Suede – Heroine (Byron She Walks in beauty 1st lines) 03 – The Cranberries – Yeats Grave 04 – Amália Rodrigues – Barco Negro (David Mourão-Ferreira poem) 05 – Secos Molhados – Não não digas nada (Fernando Pessoa poem) 06 – Annie Lennox – Live With Me And Be My Love (Christopher Marlowe poem) 07 – The Waterboys – Stolen Child (Yeats poem) 08 – Bob Dylan – On the Road Again (Bob Dylan poem) 09 – Radio Bukowski – The Genius of The Crowd (Charles Bukowski poem) 10 – Carla Bruni – If You Were Coming In The Fall (Emily Dickinson poem) 11 – Rufus Wainwright – When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29th) 12 – Fagner – Fanatismo (Florbela Espanca poem) 13 – Ralph Schuckett and Richard Butler – Alabama song (Bertolt Brecht poem, Kurt Weill music) 14 – Patti Smith – Changing of the Guards (Bob Dylan cover and poem) 15 – Phil Ochs – The Bell (Edgar Allan Poe poem) 16 – Quilapayun – Complainte de Pablo Neruda 17 – The Smiths – Cemetery Gates (Keats, Yeats, Wilde came to play)
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!
For tomorrow, Monday, January 1st,, Amazing Songs & Other Delighs is a repeat. Issue #5 The Poetry edition, 9ne of my favourite editions that fits beautifully on New Year’s Day. You can hear it on Yé Yé Radio: /yeyeradio.com/ (or on the app), 3-4pm (gmt).
The poetry edition starts with Marianne Faithfull reading Ode to a Nightingale by Keats with music by Warren Ellis and ends with The Smiths’ Cemetry Gates. Between those there are other 15 songs ranging from Suede’s Heroine to Amália Rodrigues singing Barco Negro, a fado with a David Mourão Ferreira poem, through The Cranberries, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Carla Bruni or Rufus Wainwright.
Tracklist: 01 – Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis – Ode to a Nightingale (Keats poem) 02 – Suede – Heroine (Byron She Walks in beauty 1st lines) 03 – The Cranberries – Yeats Grave 04 – Amália Rodrigues – Barco Negro (David Mourão-Ferreira poem) 05 – Secos & Molhados – Não não digas nada (Fernando Pessoa poem) 06 – Annie Lennox – Live With Me And Be My Love (Christopher Marlowe poem) 07 – The Waterboys – Stolen Child (Yeats poem) 08 – Bob Dylan – On the Road Again (Bob Dylan poem) 09 – Radio Bukowski – The Genius of The Crowd (Charles Bukowski poem) 10 – Carla Bruni – If You Were Coming In The Fall (Emily Dickinson poem) 11 – Rufus Wainwright – When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29th) 12 – Fagner – Fanatismo (Florbela Espanca poem) 13 – Ralph Schuckett and Richard Butler – Alabama song (Bertolt Brecht poem, Kurt Weill music) 14 – Patti Smith – Changing of the Guards (Bob Dylan cover and poem) 15 – Phil Ochs – The Bell (Edgar Allan Poe poem) 16 – Quilapayun – Complainte de Pablo Neruda 17 – The Smiths – Cemetry Gates (Keats, Yeats, Wilde came to play)
Mondo Bizarre Magazine 