Drumming’s most prolific exponent who played with the greats of rock and country
During his busy career as a session musician, Buddy Harman, who died on 21 August, 2008, laid down some of the most memorable drum riffs of all time.
He provided the distinctive pounding snare intro to Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman, the atmospheric percussion on Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer and the lazy clickety-click of Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man, and contributed to innumerable other classic songs.
He was one of the key figures in the establishment of the Nashville Sound in the 1950s and worked with the likes of Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Eddy Arnold and many more.
In addition he was the house drummer at the legendary Grand Ole Opry venue and his playing led to percussion becoming more commonplace in the arrangement of country songs.
He also played for Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Ringo Starr - taking up the bass for the latter's 1970 album Beaucoups of Blues.
He was respected throughout the industry for his versatility and a natural feel for judging when to keep things simple and when to let rip. During the course of his 50-year career he is believed to have played on more than 18,000 recordings.
He died at the age of 79 and was survived by his wife Marsha, two sons, a daughter, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. In an interview in June 2008, his daughter Summer said she had recently caught him drumming in his sleep.
Sources:-
There is a bad day at the office and there is a very bad day at the office and there is last night.
Here's hoping for good bouncebackability.......roll on Saturday
Death Magnetic is the upcoming ninth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica. It is scheduled for release on September 12, 2008 by Warner Bros. Records.[3] The album will be the band's first to feature current bassist Robert Trujillo, and the first to be produced by Rick Rubin.[4] Death Magnetic also marks the first time in the band's history in which all band members contributed to each song on an album. It will be their first studio album released through Warner Bros.; although, they still remain with Warner Music Group, which also owns Elektra Records, the band's previous label. Death Magnetic is promoted by the preceding single "The Day That Never Comes," released August 21, 2008.
Based on this track I doubt it will win over any new fans!
Mod fury as European Union axes Vespa scooter
Aug 26 2008 By Kevin O'Sullivan
THE Vespa scooter beloved of 1960s Mods has come to the end of the road after EU chiefs said it was not green enough.
Production has halted on the PX model after European laws ruled the two-stroke engine did not meet rules on emissions.
Andy Gillard, editor of Scootering magazine, said: "It's a shame really because it's the end of a long line of motor scooters.
"The Vespa PX is a design classic. My generation has grown up with it. You could say it was the VW Beetle of the two-wheeled world."
PX models soared in popularity after film Quadrophenia hit cinema screens in 1979 and sparked a Mod revival.
Made by Italian company Piaggio, the trendy Vespa - Italian for wasp - began life in a tiny factory in Pontendera in 1946.
More than 15,000 of the classic machines are sold every year and a million have been sold around the world.
But now tough new laws means only versions featuring a fully automatic gearbox will be allowed.
Vespa UK general manager Tony Campbell said: "In an effort to clean up emissions of all motorised vehicles, the EU government has set a number of standards to be met within certain deadlines.
"The new emission regulations make the production of a two-stroke engine larger than 50cc not economically feasible.
"The Vespa PX will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the best."
Source www.dailyrecord.co.uk
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa for a fullish history of the Vespa
Watch out for my forcoming series on mod culture through the ages, in the meantime this is a good excuse for a track from my all time favourite album.
You were under the impression
That when you were walking forward
You'd end up further onward
But things ain't quite that simple.
You got altered information
You were told to not take chances
You missed out on new dances
Now you're losing all your dimples.
My jacket's gonna be cut and slim and checked,
Maybe a touch of seersucker, with an open neck.
I ride a G.S. scooter with my hair cut neat,
I wear my wartime coat in the wind and sleet.
Love Reign O'er Me.
Love Reign O'er Me.
Love.
I've had enough of living
I've had enough of dying
I've had enough of smiling
I've had enough of crying
I've taken all the high roads
I've squandered and I've saved
I've had enough of childhood
I've had enough of grades...
Get a job and fight to keep it,
Strike out to reach a mountain.
Be so nice on the outside
But inside keep ambition
Don't cry because you hunt them
Hurt them first they'll love you
There's a millionaire above you
And you're under his suspicion.
My jacket's gonna be cut and slim and checked,
Maybe a touch of seersucker, with an open neck.
I ride a G.S. scooter with my hair cut neat,
I wear my wartime coat in the wind and sleet.
Love Reign O'er Me.
Love Reign O'er Me.
Love.
I've had enough of dancehalls
I've had enough of pills
I've had enough of streetfights
I've seen my share of kills
I'm finished with the fashions
And acting like I'm tough
I'm bored with pain and passion
I've had enough of crimes and love.
During my R&B postings earlier this month I forgot to bring to your attention the very important news that the next installment in Dylan's Bootleg Series "Tell Tale Signs" hits the shelves in October, below is a review from www.starpulse.com and the free track available from Dylan's web page.
Bob Dylan's Tell Tale Signs - the 8th installment in the best-selling and critically lauded Bootleg Series which launched 1991 - will be released by Columbia Records on Tuesday, October 7. A treasure-trove of 27 songs spanning two discs, Tell Tale Signs features previously unreleased recordings and alternate versions of tracks from sessions which generated some of Bob Dylan's most acclaimed and commercially successful albums from the last two decades, including Time Out Of Mind, Love And Theft, Modern Times and Oh Mercy.
July 29 also marked the launch of a completely redesigned bobdylan.com as the ultimate platform for Bob Dylan fan interaction. The site encompasses music and images from every one of the artist's recordings, and enables fans to compare their personal journeys and geographies to that of Bob Dylan, who has traveled the world as a troubadour for more than 40 years. For a limited time, the site will also feature a free download of "Dreamin' Of You," one of Tell Tale Signs' many previously unreleased gems. "Dreamin' Of You" is a fully-produced recording from Dylan's 1997 sessions with producer Daniel Lanois, which spawned Time Out Of Mind, the 1998 Grammy Award-winning Album Of The Year.
The two-CD Tell Tale Signs will feature a booklet of rare photos, extensive liner notes by author Larry "Ratso" Sloman, and complete recording credits. A limited-edition deluxe three-CD package of Tell Tale Signs will also be released on October 7, featuring all of the elements of the two-disc set, plus an exclusive bonus disc of 12 additional rare and unreleased recordings and a hardcover book of Bob Dylan singles artwork spanning his entire career. The three-CD package will be presented in a specially-designed hardcover slipcase.
The collection will also be released in a limited-edition 4-LP set, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, packaged in a 12" X 12" box, and including all of the elements of the two-CD set.
Previously unreleased songs on Tell Tale Signs include "Red River Shore," "Dreamin' of You," and "Marchin' To The City" from the Time Out Of Mind sessions, plus "I Can't Escape From You," "Duncan & Brady," "Miss The Mississippi," and "32-20 Blues", Dylan's first ever release of a Robert Johnson song.
Tell Tale Signs also includes Bob Dylan recordings created for the motion picture soundtracks of Lucky You ("Huck's Tune"), Gods and Generals ("'Cross The Green Mountain") and North Country (an alternate take of "Tell Ol' Bill").
Rounding out Tell Tale Signs is a selection of outstanding live performances, including "Girl From The Greenbriar Shore" from 1991; and a consummate rendering of "High Water (for Charley Patton)" from Niagara in 2003.
Some sad news given my recent R&B postings:-
Jerry Wexler, 1917-2008
3:37 PM GMT 18/08/2008
JERRY WEXLER, WHO DIED last Friday aged 91, was a true innovator. It’s a term used too often in music, but his thinking outside the box really did change not only the way soul music was made but the way it was received as well.
He helped shape Atlantic records, introduced the term “rhythm and blues” into common vernacular and – working with Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin – helped bring about the big bang of soul music: nurturing a collision of jazz, R&B pop and gospel to create something entirely new.
But when I spoke to him back in 2006, he was incredibly modest about such achievements. “I just happened to be there, at the right place, at the right time,” he said. “I was lucky because Ahmet Ertegun and I shared the same view. We knew what we wanted. It was just a case of finding artists and musicians who wanted the same thing.”
What they wanted was to put artists totally at ease so they could reach their fullest potential. “I tried to leave them to work on their own as much as possible,” he said. “They knew themselves best and how they worked.”
But again that’s Wexler playing down his part. After all, it was his idea to take Wilson Pickett to Stax studios in Memphis to work with the MG’s. The results were seismic: In The Midnight Hour, Don’t Fight It, Ninety Nine And A Half (Won’t Do) and 634- 5789. “Pickett just went mad in the studio,” Wexler told me. “It was fiery!”
Repeating the same setup with Don Covay yielded the US R&B hits See-Saw and Sookie Sookie but it was when Wexler persuaded a problematic ex-gospel singer called Aretha Franklin to record at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals that he really shook things up. After 10 flop albums at Columbia, she would define the very essence of soul with her Atlantic debut, I Never Loved A Man The way I Love You.
“I just reminded her of what she was good at,” Wexler shrugged. “Sing from the heart, I told her, and she did.”
After Aretha’s success, other labels followed suit. Chess sent their failing divas – Etta James, Irma Thomas and Laura Lee – to work at Fame Studios and they garnered hits too.
Meanwhile Wexler was producing Dusty Springfield’s 1968 masterpiece, Dusty In Memphis. “I still have vivid memories of that one,” he laughed. “We didn’t hit it off at all. She thought I was a tyrant, threw an ashtray at me, called [the engineer] Tom Dowd a prima donna. I said, The only prima donna here, Miss Springfield, is you.” Dusty never actually sang a note in Memphis; the album sessions were eventually completed in New York, Wexler’s hometown.
“You expect artists to behave badly sometimes,” he said. “It goes with the creativity. We all blow our top.”
Wexler lived music from an early age. Born to a Jewish German window-cleaning father called Harry who “taught me about loyalty, and committing to something you believe in” and Elsa, his socialist mother who sold the Daily Worker in Harlem, Wexler lapped up his surroundings: “I’d scour everywhere for jazz 78s, annoy anyone I thought might have some I could rummage through” At nights, he would stalk the clubs in search of big band music: “I couldn’t get enough of it, that sound, it was so alive.”
Academically inclined, he graduated in journalism after a spell in the army, and started work on Billboard magazine in 1947, his major achievement being to persuade his publishers that calling a chart of best-selling black music the “Race Records” chart was insulting. From then on it would be referred to as “Rhythm & Blues”.
Joining Atlantic Records in 1953, he had an immediate hand in the birth of rock’n’roll, handling Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll (1954) and Flip Flop And Fly (1955), Laverne Baker’s Jim Dandy from the same year and Ruth Brown’s Lucky Lips (1956). From there it was but a bagatelle to invent soul music with Ray Charles, Aretha and Solomon Burke (he co-wrote Everybody Needs Somebody To Love) and by the time he left in 1975 he’d overseen the transformation of the label into the industry’s most influential, and seen rock iconoclasts Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones flock to its door.
Post Atlantic, Wexler was just as busy. He worked with Tony Joe White and Willie Nelson and, most notably, took Bob Dylan to Muscle Shoals in 1979 to record Slow Train Coming.
“I’ve been lucky,” he said. “I’ve worked with everybody that mattered and I’ve been present at every important signpost. I wouldn’t change anything at all.”
It was much more than luck, and Jerry Wexler will be sorely missed.
Lois Wilson
The new Franz Ferdinand album isn't due until January 2009, however a "new" track has been released, is this the scrapping of the barrell or an indication of the new way forward for the band.
Judge for yourself, "Lucid Dreams" is delivered in 7" single scatchy vinyl sound!
Out until 1.30am Saturday at the neighbours and out until 1.30am Sunday at Mr & Mrs Big Rab's 25th Wedding Anniversary and in between a sore 2-1 home defeat for the Sons.
Monday morning it had to be this:-
Monday evening and I agree with Cilla
it sure ain't a lotta lotta laffs!
The playing surface at Strathclyde Homes Stadium is now close to being back at it's best and looking out across it today I remembered the song below by The Outlaws who I saw as one of the support acts to The Who at Celtic Park back in 1976.
This track is taken from the bands debut album "Outlaws" released in 1975.
Listen or download via this link:-
Mr Billy has featured many times on this blog in the past, this time the environment is somewhat strange.
As a youngster "Puff The Magic Dragon" was one of the earliest songs I remember on the radio and putting to one side the drug taking references, it remains a childhood favourite.
In 2007 several US artists put together an album of children songs covers called "Songs For The Young At Heart" you can listen and sownload Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's "Puff".
