The Story of Bluesman Robert Johnson’s Famous Deal With the Devil Retold in Three Animations

by Josh Jones, Open Culture: 
http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-story-of-bluesman-robert-johnsons-famous-deal-with-the-devil-retold-in-three-animations.html

So many hugely successful and talented musicians have died at age 27 that it almost seems reasonable to believe the number represents some mystical coefficient of talent and tragedy. But several decades before Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, or Amy Winehouse left us too soon, Robert Johnson—the man who pioneered selling one's soul for rock and roll—died in 1938, at age 27, under mysterious and likely violent circumstances. He was already a legend, and his story of meeting Satan at the crossroads to make an exchange for his extraordinary talent had already permeated the popular culture of his day and became even more ingrained after his death—making him, well, maybe the very first rock star.

Johnson's few recordings—29 songs in total—went on to influence Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, 27 clubmember Brian Jones and so many others. And that's not to mention the hundreds of Delta and Chicago blues guitarists who picked Johnson's brain, or stopped short of selling their souls trying to outplay him. But Johnson, begins the animated short above (which tells the tale of the bluesman's infernal deal) "wasn’t always such an amazing guitarist." Legend has it he "coveted the talents of Son House" and dreamed of stardom. He acquired his talent overnight, it seemed to those around him, who surmised he must have set out to the crossroads, met the devil, and "made a deal."

The rest of the story—of Robert Johnson’s fatal encounter with the jealous husband of an admirer—is a more plausible development, though it too may be apocryphal. “Not all of this may be true," says the short film's title cards, "but one thing is for certain: No Robert Johnson, No Rock and Roll." This too is another legend. Other early bluesmen like Blind Willie Johnson and Robert's hero Son House exerted similar influence on 60s blues revivalists, as of course did later electric players like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and B.B. King. Johnson was a phenomenal innovator, and a singular voice, but his repertoire—like those of most blues players at the time—consisted of variations on older songs, or responses to other, very talented musicians.

Most of the songs he recorded were in this vein—with at least two very notable exceptions: "Cross Road Blues" (or just "Crossroads") and "Me and the Devil Blues," both of which have contributed to the myth of Johnson's pact with Lucifer, including the part about the dark angel coming to collect his debt. In the latter song, animated in a video above, Satan comes knocking on the singer's door early in the morning. "Hello Satan," says Johnson, "I believe it's time to go." Much of what we think about Johnson's life comes from these songs, and from much rumor and innuendo. He may have been murdered, or—like so many later stars who died too young—he may have simply burned out. One blues singer who claims she met him as a child remembers him near the end of his life as "ill" and "sickly," reports the Austin Chronicle, "in a state of physical disrepair as though he'd been roughed up."

Johnson scholar Elijah Wald describes his history like that of many founders of religious sects: "So much research has been done [on Johnson] that I have to assume the overall picture is fairly accurate. Still, this picture has been pieced together from so many tattered and flimsy scraps that almost any one of them must to some extent be taken on faith." Johnson's "spiritual descendants," as Rolling Stone's David Frickecalls his rock and roll progeny, have no trouble doing just that. Nor do fans of rock and blues and other artists who find the Robert Johnson legend tantalizing.

In the film above, "Hot Tamales," animator Riccardo Maneglia adapts the myth, and quotes from "Crossroad Blues," to tell the story of Bob, who journeys to the crossroads to meet sinister voodoo deity Papa Leg, replaying Johnson's supposed rendezvous in a different religious context. In "Crossroad"'s lyrics, Johnson is actually "pleading with God for mercy," writes Frank DiGiacomo in Vanity Fair, "not bargaining with the devil." Nonetheless—legendary or not—his evocation of devilish deals in "Me and the Devil Blues" and gritty, emotional account of self-destruction in "Crossroads" may on their own add sufficient weight to that far-reaching idea: "No Robert Johnson, No Rock and Roll."

Bootleg Series #21: Jack Bruce & Friends: Fillmore East, New York, NY, USA // 31st January 1970

by Tom Caswell: https://tomcaswell.net/2017/10/25/bootleg-series-21-jack-bruce-friends-fillmore-east-new-york-ny-usa-31st-january-1970/

Jack Bruce has long been one of my all time favourite bassists due to his work with Cream but I’m ashamed to say that aside from his 1969 solo album Songs For A Tailor, I’m not overly familiar with the rest of his solo career. However that changed after hearing this excellent recording of a show he played at Fillmore East in New York with Jack Bruce & Friends, which includes Mitch Mitchell on drums, Larry Coryell on guitar and Mike Mandell on organ. The band only played seventeen dates together between the 24th January and 1st March 1970 and sadly there are less than a handful of live recordings of them. Thankfully, however, this late show recording from the 31st January is one of them.

The band open with the Cream song Politician. Immediately it’s obvious that Bruce has no hesitation in playing old material from previous bands unlike Eric Clapton who refused to play any Cream songs in Blind Faith aside from the odd track when the crowds demanded it. From Bruce’s point of view, he wrote them, so why shouldn’t he play them? While this version of Politician lacks Clapton’s explosive lead guitar work you can really get a sense of how the song sounds with an expanded lineup and the addition of a keys player. Mike Mandell on organ doesn’t do anything extraordinary here but he manages to lay down beautiful tones behind the bass, guitar and drums that gives the song a steady foundation that perhaps wasn’t there in the Cream version. It’s an extremely enjoyable listen which makes me wonder if this is what Cream’s sound would have gone on to become had they invited Steve Winwood to join them.

1. Politician
2. Weird Of Hermiston/Tickets To Waterfalls
3. HCKHH Blues
4. We’re Going Wrong
5. The Clearout
6. Sunshine Of Your Love
7. Smiles And Grins (Jam)

A two song medley follows Politician which features two tracks from Bruce’s 1969 debut album Songs For A Tailor. The first is Weird Of Hermiston which is one of my favourite tracks on the album. Before listening to this bootleg I hadn’t heard a live version of this song before and while parts of the song are a little different in a live setting, I absolutely love it. Bruce’s strong vocal performance dominates the song and manages to control the band and audience perfectly. The band themselves are on top form here and you can really sense they are starting to get into things as they go straight from Weird Of Hermiston into Tickets To Waterfalls. The two songs are actually the other way around on the studio album but the rotation works perfectly and the band kick it up a notch in the process. The jam sections of this particular song are some of the best from the whole show and emphasise how great the band sound together, even though they were only a unit for a short amount of time.

The fourth song is taken from Bruce’s 1970 solo album Things We Like which was actually recorded when he was still with Cream in August 1968. The album wouldn’t be released until late 1970 in the UK but the band performed the song HCKHH Blues at Fillmore East. Whereas the studio version is all jazz the band transform the song into a blues/rock monster reminiscent of Cream with the addition of a more jazz based guitarist and an organ. It’s a wonderful track with an incredible amount of energy from start to finish. This is the first time you get to fully appreciate Mitch Mitchell on drums who lays down some incredible grooves from start to finish in a way only he can. It’s a sublime performance that lasts just short of nine minutes and even though the track changes directions numerous times the band never lose the energy or focus. We’re Going Wrong comes next which gives the show a needed mellow moment after the previous track. It’s impossible to compare these Cream numbers to when Cream actually performed them because they are just so different. The music may be the same, the lyrics might not have changed, but the way the songs are performed are different with Jack Bruce & Friends. It’s a really good rendition with the organ playing a key role although it’s sometimes difficult to hear on this particular recording.

After a brief break the band return with a song Bruce originally wanted to include on Cream’s 1967 album Disraeli Gears called The Clearout. This song can be heard being played by Cream in the studio on the expanded set Those Were The Days which was released in 1997 but it was left off and eventually included on Bruce’s debut Songs For A Tailor. It’s a great track and to be honest suits his solo album a lot more than Cream so I think it was the right choice in the end, although I would have liked to have heard a finished Cream version. While the album version is just two minutes and forty three seconds long the band here extend it to seven minutes which really gives it the life and depth that it deserves as a song. It’s great. Then, out of nowhere, the explosive riff that could only be Sunshine Of Your Love sends tremors through the auditorium and the crowd goes wild. The organ here sounds excellent paired with the bass and guitar, giving the riff some added depth. Mitch Mitchell on drums lays down the kind of grooves that he did when performing the track with Hendrix and then it hits you that two members of arguably the two best trios of all time are playing together on stage. It’s a monumental moment.

Nine minutes later the final song begins called Smiles And Grins, a song which wouldn’t be released in studio format until Bruce’s 1971 album Harmony Row. The studio song itself wasn’t recorded until a full year after this show so this is an early jam rendition which rounds the show of perfectly. In 1970 there were a lot of bands that copied Cream’s lead of jamming entire songs like The Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead so it’s great to hear Bruce do what he did best in Cream once again. I’ve long thought that jamming brings out the best in musicians to the point where they have to think things up on the spot and this is exactly what happens here. The audience obviously feels the same as they explode with applause as the song comes to an end, capping off a magnificent show.

Peter Iacontino – Audience Member: “I was at that show. Mountain was also on the bill, we went to see Jack. I think Jack opened the show, Mountain was the headliner. Jack and the band were good. Played about one hour, I remember it filled the whole 60 minute tape. It was a more jazzy show with Larry Coryell on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums and Mike Mandel on organ. I think Jimi Hendrix was at the show also! It was a great night for music!

The cassette recorder I used for the show was new technology for 1970. It had a built in mic. The reason I’m telling you is because we had first row seats. I put the recorder on the stage. No one said anything. The Fillmore East was such a cool place to see concerts!”

I’d spoke to Peter previously about other concerts at Fillmore East including Derek and the Dominos, so to find out that this recording of Jack Bruce & Friends was his was very special. There are a vast number of great bootlegs recorded at Fillmore East and it was obviously a very special place not only to go and see bands but also to bootleg. As Peter says, no-one said anything to him when he put his recorder on the stage. And as far as recordings go it is extremely good to the point where a bit of remastering could result in an official live album, or at least some kind of official bootleg release like The Allman Brothers Band have done over the years.

This particular period of Bruce’s career isn’t widely talked about which is disappointing given the great music the band played right here on this bootleg. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Jack Bruce & Friends weren’t together for that long and less than a handful of good recordings are known to exist. But thankfully Peter brought his cassette recorder that night because it was a great show. We can’t thank him enough.

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VIDEOS: Watch David Gilmour Play the Songs of Syd Barrett with the Help of David Bowie and Richard Wright

by Josh Jones, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2017/10/watch-david-gilmour-play-the-songs-of-syd-barrett-with-the-help-of-david-bowie-richard-wright.html

Though he eventually disappeared from the public eye, Syd Barrett did not fade into obscurity all at once after his "erratic behavior," as Andy Kahn writes at JamBase, "led to his leaving" Pink Floyd in 1968. The founding singer/songwriter/guitarist went on in the following few years to write, record, and even sporadically perform new solo material, appearing on John Peel’s BBC show in 1970 and giving a long Rolling Stone interview the following year. He even started, briefly, a new band in 1972 and worked on new recordings in the studio until 1974.

Barrett released two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, in 1970. Like the solo work of Roky Erickson and Skip Spence—two other tragic psychedelic-era geniuses with mental health struggles—Barrett’s later compositions are frustratingly rough-cut gems: quirky, sinister, meandering folk-psych adventures that provide an alternate look into what Pink Floyd might have sounded like if their original intentions of keeping him on as a non-performing songwriter had worked out.

Assisting him during his studio sessions were former bandmates Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. The band still admired his singular talent, but they found working, and even speaking, with him difficult in the extreme. As Gilmour has described those years in interviews, they carried a considerable amount of guilt over Barrett’s ouster. In addition to the heartbreaking tribute “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,” Gilmour has often performed Syd’s solo songs onstage in affecting, often solo acoustic, renditions that became all the more poignant after Barrett’s death in 2006.

In the videos at the top, you can see Gilmour play two songs from Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs—“Terrapin” and “Dark Globe”—and further up, see him play “Dominoes” from Barrett, with Richard Wright on Keyboards. Gilmour has also revisited onstage Pink Floyd’s earliest, Barrett-fronted, days. Just above, we have the rare treat of seeing him play the band’s first single, “Arnold Layne,” with special guest David Bowie on lead vocals. And below, see Gilmour and Wright play a version of the early Floyd classic “Astronomy Domine,” live at Abbey Road studios.

It was, sadly, at Abbey Road where the band last saw Barrett, when he entered the studio in 1975 during the final mixes of Wish You Were Here. Overweight and with shaved head and eyebrows, Barrett was at first unrecognizable. After this last public appearance, he felt the need, as Waters put it, to “withdraw completely” from “modern life.” But the tragic final months with Pink Floyd and few sightings afterward should hardly be the way we remember Syd Barrett. He may have lost the ability to communicate with his former friends and bandmates, but for a time he continued to speak in hauntingly strange, thoroughly original songs.

This collection of videos comes to us via JamBase.

VIDEOS: The First Episode of The Johnny Cash Show, Featuring Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell (1969)

by Josh Jones, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/the-johnny-cash-show-with-dylan-and-mitchell.html

Whether you hate-watched, love-watched, or ignored last night's Academy Awards, you may be tired today of Oscar talk. Take a break, unplug yourself from Facebook and Twitter, and travel with me back in TV time. It’s June 7th, 1969, and The Johnny Cash Show makes its debut on ABC, recorded—where else?—at the Grand Ole Opry (“I wouldn’t do it anywhere but here”). Featuring Cash ensemble regulars June Carter, the Carter family, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and the Tennessee Three, the musical variety show has a definite showbiz feel. Even the opening credits give this impression, with a decidedly kitschy big band rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues.” This seems a far cry from the defiant Johnny Cash who gave the world the finger in a photo taken that same year during his San Quentin gig (where inmate Merle Haggard sat in attendance).

But showbiz Johnny Cash is still every inch the man in black, with his rough edges and refined musical tastes (in fact, Cash debuted the song “Man in Black” on a later episode). As daughter Rosanne showed us, Cash was a musicologist of essential Americana. His choice of musical guests for his debut program—Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw—makes plain Cash’s love for folk songcraft. The appearance on the Cash show was Kershaw’s big break (two months later his “Louisiana Man” became the first song broadcast from the moon by the Apollo 12 astronauts). Mitchell, who plays “Both Sides Now” from her celebrated second album Clouds, was already a rising star. And Dylan was, well, Dylan. Even if all you know of Johnny Cash comes from the 2005 film Walk the Line, you’ll know he was a huge Dylan admirer. In the year The Johnny Cash Show debuted, the pair recorded over a dozen songs together, one of which, “Girl from the North Country,” appeared on Dylan’s country album Nashville Skyline. They play the song together, and Dylan plays that album’s “I Threw it All Away,” one of my all-time favorites.

Initially billed as “a lively new way to enjoy the summer!” The Johnny Cash Show had a somewhat rocky two-year run, occasionally running afoul of nervous network executives when, for example, Cash refused to censor the word “stoned” from Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and brought on Pete Seeger, despite the furor his anti-war views caused elsewhere. Ever the iconoclast, Cash was also ever the consummate entertainer. After watching the first episode of his show, you might agree that Cash and friends could have carried the hour even without his famous guests. Cash opens with a spirited “Ring of Fire” and also plays “Folsom Prison Blues,” “The Wall,” and “Greystone Chapel.” And above, watch Johnny and June sing a sweet duet of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”

VIDEO: The Night John Lennon & Yoko Ono Jammed with Frank Zappa at the Fillmore East (1971)

by Josh Jones, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/the-night-john-lennon-yoko-ono-jammed-with-frank-zappa-at-the-fillmore-east-1971.html

It’s unfortunate, I think, that legions of Beatles fans turned on Yoko Ono with such ferocious animosity after the breakup of the band. Most fans still absolutely despise Yoko. (See the legion of often crudely misogynist comments under every Youtube video in which she appears.) Sure, her voice and music is certainly not to everyone’s taste, but without her artistic and conceptual influence on John Lennon post-Beatles, it’s unlikely his amazing solo albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) and Imagine (1971) would sound the way they do. Yoko, in fact, more or less gave Lennon the seeds of “Imagine,” the song, in her quirky 1964 self-published book, Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings, though she never took the credit for it.

Like it or not, if we love solo Lennon, we have no choice but to take the more traditionally great songwriting with the messy, experimental, and sometimes unlistenable. They cannot be completely untangled, to the dismay of a great many people. As Damian Fanelli at Guitar World comments on Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s impromptu performance/jam with Eric Clapton in Toronto in 1969, “Yoko screams—very loudly—during the entire otherwise-decent performance.” This is not an exaggerated or especially biased characterization. “Someday,” Fanelli then goes on, “I’ll vent about how terrible and depressing this is.” Fine, but whether we think of her singing as challenging performance art or “depressing” caterwauling, we’re stuck with it. But do the dynamics of John and Yoko onstage change when we add another polarizing weirdo—Frank Zappa—to the mix? See for yourself in the videos here, from an onstage jam session the two did with Zappa and the Mothers of Invention at the Fillmore East in 1971.

See Zappa, Lennon, et al. do Walter Ward’s “Well (Baby Please Don’t Go),” which Fanelli declares “the highlight of the jam, for sure.” Zappa announces to the band the key and “not standard blues changes,” then Lennon introduces the tune as “a song I used to sing while I was in the Cavern in Liverpool. I haven’t done it since.” Zappa rips out a fantastic solo and the band—though seemingly in the dark at first—lays down a righteous groove. And Yoko? Well, it’s true, as Fanelli notes, “all she did was scream her head off.” In this straight-ahead blues number, I have to say, it’s pretty obnoxious. But her vocal tics play much better in more freeform, oddball, Zappa-lead jams like “Jamrag” and “King Kong,” and the shouty, repetitive “Scumbag,” which sounds almost like a Can outtake.

Zappa and band, as always, are in top form. Lennon at times looks out of place and uncertain in their improvisatory environment, but he gamely keeps up. Yoko… Yoko does her usual lot of screaming, howling, yodeling, etc. But before you gin up to tear her to pieces in yet another nasty online comment, bear in mind, for what it's worth, no Yoko, no “Imagine."

As Fanelli notes, “the performance was released as part of Lennon and Ono’s poorly received (and not very good at all) 1972 studio/live album, Sometime in New York City.” See Allmusic’s review for a much more thorough, fair-minded assessment of that recording, which “found the Lennons in an explicitly political phase.”

via Guitar World

A Symphony of Sound (1966): Velvet Underground Improvises, Warhol Films It, Until the Cops Turn Up

by Colin Marshall, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/ia_symphony_of_soundi_1966_the_velvet_underground_improvises_warhol_films_it_until_the_cops_turn_up.html

"We’re sponsoring a new band," announced Andy Warhol at the end of the 1966 documentary posted here yesterday. "It’s called the Velvet Underground.” Brian Eno would much later call it the band that inspired every single one of its listeners to start bands of their own, but that same year, Warhol produced The Velvet Underground: A Symphony of Sound.

The film shows the group, which features young but now much-discussed rock iconoclasts like John Cale, Lou Reed, and (on tambourine) the German singer Nico, performing a 67-minute instrumental improvisation.

Shooting at his New York studio the Factory, Warhol and crew intended this not as a concert film but as a bit of entertainment to be screened before actual live Velvet Underground shows. It and other short films could be screened, so the idea developed, their soundtracks and visuals intermingling according to the decisions of those at the projectors and mixer.

"I thought of recording the Velvets just making up sounds as they went along to have on film so I could turn both soundtracks up at the same time along with the other three silent films being projected," said director of photography and Factory member Paul Morrissey, best known as the director of Flesh, Trash, and Heat.

"The cacophonous noise added a lot of energy to these boring sections and sounded a lot like the group itself. The show put on for the group was certainly the first mixed media show of its kind, was extremely effective and I have never since seen such an interesting one even in this age of super-colossal rock concerts." Alas, someone's noise complaint puts an end to the Symphony of Sound experience: one policeman arrives to turn down the amplifier, and Warhol tries to explain the situation to the others. But the bustle of the Factory continues apace.

VIDEOS: Psychedelic Scenes of Pink Floyd’s Early Days with Syd Barrett, 1967

by Mike Springer, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2013/09/psychedelic-scenes-of-pink-floyds-early-days-with-syd-barrett-1967.html

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd turns 70 years old today. Waters was the principal songwriter and dominant creative force during the band's famous 1970s period, when it released a string of popular and influential concept albums such as Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall. But today we thought it would be interesting to take you all the way back to 1967, when Waters was 23 years old and the band was led by his childhood friend Syd Barrett.

The video above is from a May 14, 1967 broadcast of the BBC program The Look of the Week. Pink Floyd hadn't released an album yet. Only two nights earlier the band had staged its attention-getting "Games for May" concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. In the TV broadcast, Pink Floyd plays its early favorite "Astronomy Domine" before Waters and Barrett sit down for a rather tense interview with the classically trained musician and critic Hans Keller. It's amusing to watch Keller's face as he expresses his extreme irritation at the band's loud, strange music. "My verdict is that its a little bit of a regression to childhood," he says with a grimace. "But after all, why not?"

Waters and Barrett manage to hold their own during the interview. Barrett comes across as lucid and well-spoken, despite the fact that his heavy LSD use and mental instability would soon make him unable to function within the band. By December of 1967, Pink Floyd would add guitarist David Gilmour to the lineup to compensate for Barrett's erratic behavior. By March of 1968 -- only 10 months after the BBC broadcast -- Barrett would quit the group.

We'll close with an even earlier video of Pink Floyd onstage. Filmed on January 27, 1967 at the legendary UFO club in London, the clip is from the February 7, 1967 Granada TV documentary So Far Out It's Straight Down. It shows the band playing another major song from its psychedelic era, "Interstellar Overdrive."

VIDEOS: Miles Davis Opens for Neil Young and “That Sorry-Ass Cat” Steve Miller at The Fillmore East (1970)

by Josh Jones , Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/miles-davis-opens-for-neil-young-and-the-steve-miller-band-1970.html

The story, the many stories, of Miles Davis as an opening act for several rock bands in the 1970s make for fascinating reading. Before he blew the Grateful Dead’s minds as their opening act at the Fillmore West in April 1970 (hear both bands’ sets here), Davis and his all-star Quintet---billed as an "Extra Added Attraction"---did a couple nights at the Fillmore East, opening for Neil Young and Crazy Horse and The Steve Miller Band in March of 1970. The combination of Young and Davis actually seems to have been rather unremarkable, but there is a lot to say about where the two artists were individually.

Nate Chinen in at Length describes their meeting as a “minimum orbit intersection distance”—the “closest point of contact between the paths of two orbiting systems.” Both artists were “in the thrall of reinvention,” Young moving away from the smoothness of CSNY and into free-form anti-virtuosity with Crazy Horse; Davis toward virtuosity turned back into the blues. Miles, suggested jazz writer Greg Tate, was “bored fiddling with quantum mechanics and just wanted to play the blues again.” The story of Davis and Young at the Fillmore East is best told by listening to the music both were making at the time. Hear "Cinnamon Girl" below and the rest of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s incredible set here. The band had just released their beautifully ragged Everybody Knows this is Nowhere.

When it comes to the meeting of Davis and Steve Miller, the story gets juicier, and much more Miles: the difficult performer, not the impossibly cool musician. (It sometimes seems like the word “difficult” was invented to describe Miles Davis.) The trumpeter's well-earned egotism lends his legacy a kind of rakish charm, but I don’t relish the positions of those record company executives and promoters who had to wrangle him, though many of them were less than charming individuals themselves. Columbia Records’ Clive Davis, who does not have a reputation as a pushover, sounds alarmed in his recollection of Miles’ reaction after he forced the trumpeter to play the Fillmore dates to market psychedelic jazz-funk masterpiece Bitches Brew to white audiences.

According to John Glatt, Davis remembers that Miles “went nuts. He told me he had no interest in playing for ‘those fu*king long-haired kids.’” Particularly offended by The Steve Miller Band, Davis refused to arrive on time to open for an artist he deemed “a sorry-ass cat,” forcing Miller to go on before him. “Steve Miller didn’t have his shit going for him,” remembers Davis in his expletive-filled autobiography, “so I’m pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfu*ker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then when we got there, we smoked the motherfu*king place, and everybody dug it.” There is no doubt Davis and Quintet smoked. Hear them do “Directions” above from an Early Show on March 6, 1970.

“Directions,” from unreleased tapes, is as raw as they come, “the intensity,” writes music blog Willard’s Wormholes, “of a band that sounds like they were playing at the The Fillmore to prove something to somebody… and did.” The next night’s performances were released in 2001 as It’s About That Time. Hear the title track above from March 7th. As for The Steve Miller Blues Band? We have audio of their performance from that night as well. Hear it below. It's inherently an unfair comparison between the two bands, not least because of the vast difference in audio quality. But as for whether or not they sound like “sorry-ass cats"... well, you decide.

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VIDEO: What Miles Davis Taught Herbie Hancock: In Music, as in Life, There Are No Mistakes, Just Chances to Improvise

by Ted Mills, Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/2016/04/what-miles-davis-taught-herbie-hancock-about-mistakes-and-improvising.html

One of my favorite Brian Eno quotes, or rather one that became an Oblique Strategy, is “Honor Your Mistake as a Hidden Intention.” (Or to be pedantic, the original version was “Honor Thy Error...”).

As a teenager growing up and trying to make art (at that time music and comics) there was no advice more freeing. It was the opposite of what I thought I knew: mistakes were shameful, the sign of an amateur or of the lack of practice. But the more art I made, the more I referenced Eno’s idea, and the more I read and listened, the more I realized it wasn’t just Eno. The Beatles left in an alarm clock meant for the musicians on “A Day in the Life” and the sound of empty booze bottles vibrating on a speaker was left in at the end of “Long Long Long” (along with tons more). The Beastie Boys left in a jumping needle intended for a smooth scratch on “The Sounds of Science.” Radiohead left in Jonny Greenwood’s warm-up chord that became essential to “Creep.” (There’s a whole Reddit thread devoted to these mistakes if you choose to go down the rabbit hole.)

But those examples relate to the recording process of rock music. What about jazz? Surely there’s “wrong” notes when it comes to playing, especially if you’re not the soloist.

In this very short video based around an interview with pianist Herbie Hancock, the master improvisor Miles Davis honored Hancock’s mistake as a hidden intention by playing along with it. It’s both a surprising look into the arcane world of jazz improvisation and a revealing anecdote of Davis, usually known as a difficult collaborator.

“It taught me a very big lesson not only about music,” says Hancock, “but about life.”

h/t Jason W-R

VIDEOS: Muddy Waters and Friends on the Blues and Gospel Train, 1964

One of the most unique and intimate concerts from the British blues revival of the 1960s was the "Blues and Gospel Train," filmed in a suburb of Manchester, England. In 2011 we posted an excerpt featuring Muddy Waters singing "You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had." Today we're pleased to bring the whole show--or at least most of it.

The "Blues and Gospel Train" was staged on May 7, 1964 by Granada TV. Fans who were lucky enough to get tickets--some 200 of them--were instructed to meet at Manchester's Central Station at 7:30 that evening for a short train ride to the abandoned Wilbraham Road Station in Whalley Range.

When the train pulled in at Wilbraham Road, the audience poured out and found seats on the platform, making their way past Muddy Waters, who was singing "Blow Wind Blow." The opposite platform, decorated to look like an old railway station in the American South, served as a stage for a lineup of now-legendary blues artists including Waters, Sister Rosetta Sharpe, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Cousin Joe, Otis Spann and Reverend Gary Davis.

The complete concert is available on DVD as part of American Folk -Blues Festival: The British Tours 1963-1966. The version above is not of the greatest quality, but it's still interesting to watch. Rev. Gary Davis's contribution appears to have been cut, but much of the show is intact. The taping was interrupted by a heavy downpour. Fittingly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe begins her set with a performance of "Didn't It Rain." Here's the full list of performances, in order of appearance:

1. Muddy Waters: "Blow Wind Blow"
2. Cousin Joe: "Chicken a la Blues"
3. Cousin Joe: "Railroad Porter Blues"
4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: "Didn't It Rain"
5. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: "Trouble in Mind"
6. Muddy Waters: "You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had"
7. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee: "Talking Harmonica Blues"
8. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee: "Rambler's Blues" medley
9. Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee: "Walk On"
10. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"

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by Mike Springer | Permalink | Comments (6) |