Category: Music

Kris Kristofferson–R.I.P.

Another star is gone.

A musical icon from the 60s has died….this time it is one of my favorites….Kris Kristofferson.

Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and A-list Hollywood actor, has died, reports the AP. Kristofferson died at his home in Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday, family spokeswoman Ebie McFarland said. He was 88. McFarland said Kristofferson died peacefully, surrounded by his family. No cause was given. Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas, native wrote such classics standards as “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer himself, but many of his songs were best known as performed by others, whether Ray Price crooning “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin belting out “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine, and Tom T. Hall. “There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson,” Nelson said during a November 2009 award ceremony for Kristofferson. “Everything he writes is a standard and we’re all just going to have to live with that.”

As an actor, he played the leading man opposite Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but also had a fondness for shoot-out Westerns and cowboy dramas. He was a Golden Gloves boxer and football player in college, received a master’s degree in English from Merton College at the University of Oxford in England and turned down an appointment to teach at the US Military Academy at West Point to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studio in 1966 when Dylan recorded tracks for the seminal “Blonde on Blonde” double album.

His music will live on but he will be missed.

In closing I leave you with a couple of my favorite songs …..

This one is from the American Outlaws, The Highwaymen tour with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings….

Great music for the soul of us old farts….thank you Kris!

May he rest in peace.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

JD Souther R.I.P.

Sad news today a musician from my youth in the 60s has died.

As an old fart my musical taste ran to the folk singer side of things in the beginning….Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul and Mary, Dylan, et al….JD Souther was one of those voices that I will always remember because it was so soulful.

When we listen to music, we tend not to look past the name of the artist and the name of the song. That means there can be an assortment of people who worked on the track whose contributions may evade you. It’s not uncommon to have songwriters help out on a track, shaping a hit that is somebody out there’s favorite of all time. In the case of JD Souther, he had credits on a bunch that can be considered all-timers, especially if you’re a fan of the monumental American rock band the Eagles. But sadly, he is now no longer with us…

Establishing himself as a Southern California songwriting legend, JD collaborated with the aforementioned Eagles as well as the likes of Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor. He was also a solo artist, best known for the track You’re Only Lonely.

After forming the band Longbranch Pennywhistle in the ’60s, one of its members Glenn Frey went on to form the Eagles in 1971. JD may not have come aboard as an official band member, but that doesn’t mean his impact on the group wasn’t important.

He worked on some of the band’s tracks including James Dean, Best Of My Love, and New Kid In Town. His songwriting also contributed to the classic song Heartache Tonight, which became a significant hit and cemented the band as rock titans.

He produced Linda’s fourth album, Don’t Cry Now, credited as a writer on a handful of the songs, and then there’s his work on James’ Her Town, Too.

Evidence of his creativity and passion for music was evident throughout that time, as he was also in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band; this was made up of the Byrds’ Chris Hillman and Poco’s Richie Furay.

Tributes are already surfacing fast online, with fans sharing the music that helped make his a name that will never fade.

“JD Souther gave us so many memorable songs,” one tearfully wrote on X.

“Just received the devastating news that American folk singer JD Souther has passed away,” another was shocked to tweet. “He was the greatest songwriter from those shores and Only Lonely – without a doubt, the greatest single ever from America. RIP legend.”

Other posts have remembered him as a “songwriting legend” and a “great talent.”

“One of my most cherished and admired songwriters,” one mourned, with another adding: “Had the honor to hear JD Souther last Saturday in Sellersville Pa. RIP to a master of music.”

(celebritytidbit.com)

May he Rest In Peace.

His music for those that are not familiar with Souther’s body of work.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Irritating ‘Earworm’

It is the Sunday before Labor Day and what better time for some FYI?

As I went into my office to start my day of research and ranting I reached to turn on my light and as I sat down to turn on the ‘puter I started humming a tune and for the life of me I could not remember the song or who did it…..that my friends is an earworm.

In short, an earworm is a song or snippet of music that gets lodged in your head and keeps replaying over and over again. Understandably, it can get very annoying, even when you like the song.

After about an hour or so of irritating myself with the tune that played constantly in my head….it is very distracting….I finally hit on what the song was and who did it….Nora Jones and the tune was ‘Turn Me On’.

Whew!

I do not know if this happens to you but take my word for it it can drive you nuts until you figure it out and then the tune like magic disappears and your mind returns to its normal contemplative state.

So is there a technique to help you rid yourself of an irritating earworm?

I am glad you asked.

This video may help….

I have not had to try it for I have not experienced another earworm since the Nora Jones thing….but if it happens again I shall give it a try.

If you try it please give us your results…..you may be doing mankind a huge favor.

In closing this is the song that got stuck and irritated the crap out of me.  A great voice very ‘smoky’ and torch like.

This is my post for the day…..please enjoy your Sunday and your Labor Day and it will most likely be a slow day for IST…. remember as always….Be Well and Be safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Day The Music Died

Happy Cinco de Mayo….have a beer and enjoy.

I finally got the new PC set-up and all seems to be working well but since it is Windows I am sure something will go off the rails at anytime.

Enough mundane stuff….onward!

It is a Sunday and a time for FYI and a little history or both…but not today…..I want to write about a personal observation….or was it an experience?

If you are awaiting some look back at a retro tune from the 70s then you will be sadly disappointed.

Back in the day I was a crazy music fan….I awaited the release of albums and would dash to the music store to get the newest before they were sold out…..such groups as CSN&Y, Guns N Roses, Eagles, Blues Breakers, Cream,  etc and then there were the individual artists like Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, Johnny Rivers, etc…..but over the years my enthusiasm for the newest music has waned….I just assumed that is was because I was getting old and did not particularly care about the newest groups and individuals.

To me the singers and artist of today sound all alike…..does not matter whether it is so-called country or pop….very little variation so it has become boring to me and I lost interest.  Where’s the imagination?

I just read it is not that I am getting older but rather the quality of the music today.

It’s not so much my skin or my increasingly creaking knees ― the thing that’s been making me feel old recently is my Spotify playlist.

From the Sugababes’ iconic Round Round to Buddy Holly’s Dearest and Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It, most of the tunes on my most-played catalogue come from before this century (a lot of them from before I was even born).

The fear that I’ve become an insufferable, “they don’t make them like they used to” naysayer is real. But fellow cranks, take heart ― new research suggests that the belief isn’t all in our bitter, non-gen-Z heads.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, analysed over 12,000 songs in the English language recorded over the past 40 years.

The researchers looked at rap, country, pop, R&B, and rock genres because those are the most popular ones.

They used listener data from last.fm and Genius’ lyric database to see how popular music’s lyrics have changed over time, looking at Genius page views to see whether listeners were interested in the lyrics in particular.

They assessed lyrics’ “lexical, linguistic, structural, rhyme, emotion, and complexity descriptors.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/study-lyrics-are-getting-worse_uk_6613f41ae4b056f72058bb07

Getting older does not mean that you lose your taste in music.

As I look back at my music choices I recall waiting on pins and needles for the release of Super Session with Stephen Still, Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield…..one of the best albums I ever bought.

Enjoy some great guitar work.

And that is how you enjoy a Sunday!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Beatles Last Song Drops Today

After many years of no Beatles there is a New Hope on the horizon and it comes out today.

Sixty years after the onset of Beatlemania and with two of the quartet now dead, artificial intelligence has enabled the release next week of what is promised to be the last “new” Beatles song. The track, called “Now And Then,” will be available Thursday as part of a single paired with “Love Me Do,” the very first Beatles single that came out in 1962 in England, it was announced Thursday, per the AP. “Now And Then” comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by the late John Lennon, which were taken by his former bandmates to construct the songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” released in the mid-1990s. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison worked on “Now And Then” in the same sessions, but technological limitations stood in the way.

With the help of artificial intelligence, director Peter Jackson cleared those problems up by “separating” Lennon’s original vocals from a piano used in the late 1970s. The much clearer vocals allowed McCartney and Starr to complete the track last year. The survivors packed plenty into it. The new single contains guitar that Harrison had recorded nearly three decades ago, a new drum part by Starr, with McCartney’s bass, piano, and a slide guitar solo he added as a tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001. McCartney and Starr sang backup. McCartney also added a string arrangement written with the help of Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer George Martin. As if that wasn’t enough, they weaved in backing vocals from the original Beatles recordings of “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Because.”

“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” McCartney said. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s quite an exciting thing.” Harrison’s widow, Olivia, said he felt in the 1990s that the technical problems made it impossible to release a song that met the band’s standards. With the improvements, “he would have wholeheartedly” joined McCartney and Starr in completing the song now if he were still alive, she said. On Wednesday, a 12-minute film that tells the story of the new recording will be made public. Later in the month, expanded versions of the Beatles’ compilations “1962-1966” and “1967-1970” will be released. “Now And Then,” despite coming much later than 1970, will be added to the latter collection.

Will this be the hit that all seem to think?

Have a great weekend and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Jimmy Buffet–R.I.P.

Sad news for us ‘Parrot Heads’….

Buffet has been a local favorite for many years down here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for he has ties to Pascagoula and Biloxi and the university of Southern Mississippi….has died at age 76.

I spent many hours listen to his songs and many of us will miss his music.

Jimmy Buffett’s search for that missing salt shaker has just entered a new realm. The millionaire singer-songwriter and businessman described by the New York Times as the “roguish bard of island escapism,” known for such singalong hits as “Margaritaville,” “Fins,” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” has died at the age of 76. “Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music, and dogs,” read a statement on Buffett’s website and social media accounts on Saturday. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.” The AP reports that where Buffett died wasn’t revealed, nor was his cause of death, but it noted that the singer had mentioned in social media posts that he’d been hospitalized after canceling concerts in May due to illness.

The Mississippi-born Buffett had his first top 40 hit with “Come Monday,” a track from his 1974 album Living and Dying in 3/4 Time, his fourth studio album. That song put him on the map, but it was 1977’s Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes, which featured “Margaritaville,” that made him a star. “What seems like a simple ditty about getting blotto and mending a broken heart turns out to be a profound meditation on the often painful inertia of beach dwelling,” noted Spin magazine in 2021. “Margaritaville” was Buffett’s only single to ascend to Billboard’s pop top 10, reaching No. 8. The song was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016 and put Key West, Florida, on the radar.

That laid-back, tropical vibe that suggested a cold drink in the blender could fix all of life’s ills (or at least numb them) permeated most of Buffett’s musics and prompted an obsessive fan base that became known as “Parrot Heads.” It was typical to see them show up at his concerts, where he was accompanied by his traveling Coral Reefer Band, decked out in Hawaiian shirts and leis and sporting shark fins and cheeseburgers on their heads. Buffett was also known for his business empire, including “Margaritaville”-themed restaurants, hotels, and retail outlets, as well as a clothing line and a boutique tequila—”all of which made him a millionaire hundreds of times over,” per the Times.

My heart goes out to his family and friends.

A fitting tribute and a fine way to say good-bye and may he rest in peace.

 

Robbie Robertson–R.I.P.

A member of one of my all time favorite bands, the Band, has died…..Robbie Robertson at age 80.

Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist and songwriter for the Band—a Canadian American group that famously backed Bob Dylan while achieving Rock and Roll Hall of Fame success in its own right—died Wednesday. Robertson, 80, died in Los Angeles after a long illness, CBC News reports. He wrote or co-wrote the Band’s most famous songs, including “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “Up on Cripple Creek.” The group lasted just eight years, but its best work seemed timeless. “I wanted to write music that felt like it could’ve been written 50 years ago, tomorrow, yesterday—that had this lost-in-time quality,” Robertson said in 1995. “It’s like you’d never heard them before and like they’d always been there,” Bruce Springsteen said of the Band in 2020, per the New York Times.

Born in Toronto to a mother of Mohawk and Cayuga heritage and a Jewish father who died before his birth, Robertson became enamored of the music played by relatives when he visited the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario. Robertson received advice there that he said he followed as he built his career: “Be proud you are an Indian, but be careful who you tell.” His first band opened for Arkansas singer Ronnie Hawkins when Robertson was 16, and Hawkins soon recorded of couple of Robertson’s songs. Hawkins’ backup musicians included Levon Helm on drums; the rest of the Band was put together in 1961-62 in Ontario. The Band released its first album, Music From Big Pink, in 1968.

The album landed with seismic effect, a blast of Americana music delivered at the height of the psychedelic movement. It helped lead Eric Clapton to leave Cream, the Beatles to launch a stripped-down Let It Be, and Elton John and Bernie Taupin to write and record their own music, per Rolling Stone. The Band built a following playing the Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals and was proclaimed the “future of country rock” on a Time magazine cover in 1970. “I always thought, from the very beginning, that this music was born of the blues and country music, Southern stuff,” Robertson said, per Variety. “The Mississippi Delta area, and the music came down from the river and from up the river and met, and it made something new.

Robbie and The Band gave me many hours of listening enjoyment.

I was sadden when The Band call it quits and their movie The Last Waltz is a fitting tribute to Robbie and the others…..

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077838/

His talent will be sorely missed.

For those that may be too young to know or remember The Band….I could not think of a better way to say good-bye than “The Weight”.

Good-bye old friend.

The ‘Pink Floyd’ Controversy

50 years ago the icon Pink Floyd album, ‘Dark Side Of The moon’ was released and on this anniversary there is a plan to re-release the album to commemorate the occasion.

And as usual these days nothing goes by without some sort of conspiracy or controversy and Pink Floyd is no different….

Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” turns 50 this year, and just as iconic as the album itself, which spent a jaw-dropping 18-plus years on the Billboard charts, is the cover art designed by British graphic designers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. Widely considered one of the most famous album designs of all time, the artwork features a beam of light refracting through a triangular prism, coming out the other side as a rainbow. Thorgerson said he was inspired by a photo he saw in a physics textbook. On Thursday, to mark the upcoming anniversary and promote its commemorative box set, the band uploaded a new logo to its social media accounts, showing a white triangle against a black background, with the number “50” inside it, and a rainbow filling in the zero.

What should’ve been an exciting time for Floyd fans to join together to celebrate the album, however, turned into an online battle, as some who’d apparently forgotten about the original cover art started accusing the band of suddenly becoming “woke” by using the rainbow, often seen as a symbol of gay pride, to promote LGBTQ rights, per USA Today. “Lose the rainbow, you’re making yourself look stupid,” one commenter wrote, as seen in a viral screenshot now circulating. “Just another band pandering,” noted another. Some even noted they wouldn’t be listening to Pink Floyd anymore because of the logo update.

Louder reports that other fans soon came to the rescue to educate these “less enlightened” detractors. “Boycotting Pink Floyd (as if it would matter) because you don’t understand prisms and can’t remember the original cover is beyond parody,” one person wrote. Still others came just to watch the comments fly back and forth. One of the most popular remarks: “Man, some people took ‘we don’t need no education’ too seriously.” At any rate, as that fight continues on social media, planetariums across the world plan on playing the album in March, along with “stunning visuals [of] the solar system and beyond,” per an announcement from the band. The $300 box set, which will include remastered versions of both the original album and the 1974 live recording, releases on March 24. Watch science at work in creating rainbows in this Pink Floyd promo here.

Maybe these detractors should have stayed awake in science class.

Like I keep saying…..’can’t fix stupid’.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

David Crosby–R.I.P.

One of may favorite groups back in the day was CSN&Y…..sad news from the music world….David Crosby of that same group has died….age 81….

David Crosby, a singer-songwriter and founding member of two hugely influential and successful folk-rock groups—the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young—has died. He was 81. His family announced his death Thursday, saying only that it came after a long illness. Crosby had remained active on Twitter up until Wednesday, Variety reports, when he joked about heaven, posting, “I heard the place is overrated… cloudy.” And he’d released an album, Live at the Capitol Theater, last month. Crosby, who contributed to both groups’ intricate and sublime harmonies, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, once with each band.

Crosby grew up in Los Angeles. His father, Floyd, was an Academy Award-winning cinematographer, per Rolling Stone. He took a brief spin at college, then pursued a music career, starting as a solo act in folk clubs. He joined a band in 1964, when the Beatles had made bands all the rage, that already included Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark. Two incarnations later, the Jet Set were the Byrds, to which Crosby added his signature harmony on such hits as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” As a songwriter, he was overshadowed by McGuinn and Clark, who fired him in 1967 as tensions in the band escalated. They gave him a list of reasons, including his songwriting, and said he was impossible to work with. “All of which is partly true, I’m sure, sometimes,” Crosby later said, adding, “But it was a drag.”

At Joni Mitchell’s house a few months later, Crosby ran into Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. They sang a song together three times, learning how their voices could best blend in harmony. “When we sang that third time,” Nash later said, “my life changed.” The first Crosby, Stills & Nash album came out in May 1969 with three songs written or co-written by Crosby: “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” and “Long Time Gone.” The record was a hit, and the group began a tour after adding Neil Young. Their second concert ever was at Woodstock, in front of an audience of almost 500,000. In his memoir, Crosby wrote: “For that one moment we did something that tells you what’s possible with human beings. … Woodstock was a time where were was a prevailing feeling of harmony.”

His voice and his music will be missed….in memory of his music…..

You will be missed….and thank you for great memories.

Raid Makes Him Stronger

Over 300 classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago…..

The latest New York Times story about the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid revolves around a key number: 300. As in, that’s how many classified documents the government has retrieved in total from former President Trump since he left office. The first was a batch of 150 recovered by the National Archives from Trump’s Florida estate early in the year, followed by a second set turned over by Trump aides in June. The number of sensitive documents in play after these first two retrievals “ignited intense concern at the Justice Department” and prompted the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago this month, during which another 11 boxes of classified material was retrieved.

The Times account is the most specific to date on the volume of classified documents Trump took with him from the White House, some of which had the highest level of classification. Trump’s defenders have made the case that he had standing orders to declassify any such documents. The Times story doesn’t have much new on the types of documents retrieved, though previous reports have said agents were particularly concerned about nuclear information. On Monday, Trump’s eldest son joked about that while ridiculing the search itself.

“By the way, for the record, I’d say that if Donald Trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it’d probably be good,” Donald Trump Jr. said at a campaign rally for Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, per HuffPost. “Our enemies might actually be like, ‘OK, maybe let’s not mess with them,’ unlike when they look at Joe Biden and they say, ‘You know what? We should attack now.’”

The documents could signal criminal activity….and that should saw the people to realize what he has done and is possibly doing…..you would think, right?

If so then you are badly mistaken.

By now we all know of the FBI raid on the Trump property in Florida…..you have your opinion and I have mine……all that aside it seems that the raid, just before an election, has done the opposite of what you may think…..Trump has gotten stronger….

After the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, the walls may feel like they’re closing in on former President Trump, at least from a legal standpoint. In the court of public opinion with fellow Republicans, however, that search may have helped to give Trump a boost, at least according to one new survey. An NBC News poll released Sunday, which surveyed respondents Aug. 12-16 (i.e., after the FBI visit to Mar-a-Lago), asked GOP voters if they considered themselves more supporters of Trump or of the Republican Party. When the same question was asked back in May, 34% picked Trump over party, with 58% choosing the GOP. This time around, the Trump-leaning figure jumped to 41%, while those picking the Republican Party fell to 50%.

Per Axios, other polls have been showing Trump gaining ground in recent weeks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’d previously been “surging in key states.” A June poll out of the University of New Hampshire, for example, showed the two men statistically tied for the GOP nomination in that state. However, a poll released by New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm College last week showed GOP voters preferred Trump over DeSantis 50% to 29%. This is all now leading some “Never Trump” GOP strategists to express concern over how the FBI search might have tipped the scales in Trump’s favor, at least in terms of Republican sentiment. In fact, one source said to be close to Trump tells Axios that fundraising after the Aug. 8 search has been “yuge.”

The NBC poll wasn’t all bad news for Dems, especially regarding how they’ve closed the enthusiasm gap: Although 68% of Republicans said they were highly interested in the midterms, Dems came in close behind at 66%, per NBC. Contrast that 2-point gap with the 8-point gap in May, still in the favor of GOP voters, and the even bigger 17-point gap in March. And last week, the Washington Post‘s Philip Bump analyzed a YouGov poll conducted for the Economist that didn’t seem to show a “a virulent pro-Trump surge.” But Axios notes that the NBC poll’s stats on how Republicans feel about Trump after the raid may signify a “Republican mindset of ‘the more “they” hate him, the more I love him’—an effect Trump instinctively recognizes and exploits.”

Although we have NO official statement from the Trump camp on running in 2024….this should give them a bit more confidence in the next general election.

Scared yet?

Any thoughts on this possibility?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”