"
Birdcloud met in Murfreesboro and
immediately didn’t like eachother. At a party in 2009 they had some
whiskeys and became friends and started dicking around on guitar,
writing their first song, a song about going down on your best friend,
now lost to the sands of time. Despite a lukewarm reception at
Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe, they have been sitting on eachother’s faces
ever since, showing eachother their bruises and generally doing
whatever they want when it works out that way." Songs on the inside NSFW if you can't tell.
[more inside]
posted by cmoj
on Feb 21, 2012 -
14 comments
She's been called "the greatest posthumous success story in music history." But when she died of melanoma at age 33, few people outside of the Washington DC-area had heard of
Eva Marie Cassidy.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 17, 2010 -
62 comments
So, about 9 months ago I started working on this compilation... Until yesterday, however, I hadn't seen a tracklist from the mysterious 10-cd set called the VrootzBox, so this is not a derivative work, however similar it may be...I should mention that not all of these songs are songs that he covered or copped licks from. Most of the music he has made mention to, though a few of the songs were recorded after his formative years and one or two he never would have heard. But they are presented to give an illustration of the styles he drew from (such as gamelan, which he grew up playing in his neighbor's back yard).
Wrath of the Grapevine: The Roots of John Faheyvia FaheyGuitarPlayers
posted by y2karl
on Jun 1, 2008 -
12 comments
And here we have a couple of YouTube productions, screensaverish animations of photos and lyrics to the original recordings:
Robert Petway - Catfish Blues and
Tommy McClennan - It's Hard To Be Lonesome. This is mostly about Petway and
Catfish Blues but you can't mention Petway without mentioning McClennan, as they ran together in their time and as both did versions of
Catfish, a song canonical in Delta Blues, recorded and performed by nearly everyone--
Muddy Waters - Rolling Stone, for example. Petway just happens to be the first person to record
Catfish, and quite possibly the person who wrote it and certainly. to my mind, at least, the person who nailed it... in the uptempo version at the very least.
[more inside]
posted by y2karl
on Feb 28, 2008 -
8 comments
John Fahey - Fare Forward Voyagers
John Fahey - Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Phillip XIVClips from a 2 hour performance at
the Euphoria Tavern in Portland, Oregon from 1976. Among the cognoscenti at
FaheyGuitarPlayers, the consensus is that these clips display Fahey in rare form on a very good night.
Apart from Fahey,
Bohemia Visual Music aka Mike Nastra, the contributor of these clips, provides an interesting assortment of way too hip YouTubery offerings including, among others, Spike Jones, Dimandas Galas, Gene Krupa, Tuxedo Moon, Sun Ra, Pere Ubu and the Holy Modal Rounders.
posted by y2karl
on Oct 16, 2007 -
9 comments
"If you had Bruce playing with you," Dylan wrote, in his 2004 autobiography, Chronicles, "that's all you would need to do just about anything."
Bruce Langhorne has quite the
discography. And a
hot sauce, to boot. And he's led quite the life. Here is Richie Unterberger's interview with Langhorne in Parts
One and
Two. And
here he talks with Unterberger about working with
Mimi and Richard Fariña.
On a personal note, I will add that his hot sauce is hot indeed. Will buy it again.
posted by y2karl
on Apr 13, 2007 -
6 comments
Here is the
Mississippi John Hurt Blues Foundation, the website, which is the creation of one Frank Delaney of Spokane. There's a great deal of guitar related material and a page of mp3's by fans, which includes several interesting originals by one Fred Bolden, a grand nephew. I always knew he had a son who played guitar and wondered why no one had ever tried to record him. Now there is a grand nephew playing, if nowhere near as sublimely as his great uncle, in roughly the same style.
Here is an interview of John Hurt from 1963, courtesy of Stefan Grossman's guitar video empire. It is a real delight.
Consider this a follow up to this
post. Not all of the links there are good. The
Mississippi John Hurt Guitar Tab Book, for instance, is now available only in
PDF format but well worth the download. And here is
an illustrated discography of John Hurt by another Stefan, Stefan Wirz, a subject of yet another
post back in the day.
posted by y2karl
on Oct 4, 2006 -
19 comments
For murder ballads, here's your
Mississippi John Hurt's Louis Collins and your
Grayson & Whitter's Ommie Wise. Then, for some early white blues bottleneck guitar, here's your
Frank Hutchison's K. C. Blues. Not to mention
Charley Patton's Screamin' And Hollerin' The Blues. All courtesy the Internet Archives
78 RPM tag. where there is way more--like Bix Beiderbecke's first record,
Davenport Blues, Louis Armstrong's
Ain't Misbehavin' and Geeshie Wiley's
Last Kind Words, among many others. Then, for more,
Nugrape Records has an
mp3 page. The standout there, at least for me, is Gus Cannon's
Poor Boy Long Ways From Home. As for their namesake, the Nugrape Twins, well, the Archive has the mp3 of
I've Got Your Ice Cold Nugrape. And don't let me omit mentioning
PublicDomain4U. They have
Mississippi John Hurt's Frankie, for one.
Tyrone's Record and Phonograph Links will lead you to more 78 RPM goodness. And don't forget the inestimable and erudite vacapinta first
directed us to
Dismuke's Virtual Talking Machine.
posted by y2karl
on Aug 25, 2006 -
48 comments
John Hurt: Although it was not John (wrong sex anyway) who through a gentle voice and pleasant demeanor (yet he had this about him too) served as my primary impetus to play the guitar, it was nevertheless he, and others who played like him - but mainly he who provided me with my first technical model (emotional model to some extent also) for playing the guitar. He was the first I heard who played in the three-finger, non-choking, "picking" style, and he was one of the best. He was in his quiet way, a very great man, and I deeply mourn our loss of him. John Fahey
Mississippi John Hurt"I just make it sound like I think it ought to" (more
→)
posted by y2karl
on Feb 8, 2003 -
41 comments
John Fahey - American Primitive Guitar. I got an e-mail from a listener about a John Fahey song I played on my show today and it prompted me to revisit his website. I've been listening to him ever since '67 or so. He died last year due to complications during a coronary bypass operation--I realized again today how I miss him. (more inside)
posted by y2karl
on Mar 22, 2002 -
14 comments
