A remarkably diverse group of legendary
musicians have graced the stage of Tulsa's
Cain's Ballroom over the years: Jerry Lee Lewis,
Little Richard, the
Sex Pistols (one of seven stops on their one and only 1978 U.S. tour…the
hole in the drywall left by Sid Vicious’ fist is still backstage), the Ramones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Blondie, The Talking Heads, U2, Ani DiFranco, Elvis Costello, Snoop Dogg, Morrissey, Beck,
Wilco, to name a few.
A
documentary featuring Costello and several other artists who’ve played there is in the works, with proceeds supporting music education in Oklahoma and the upcoming Cain’s Ballroom Museum. Cain’s was recently named one of the
top 10 live music venues in the U.S.
From 1935 to 1942, Cain’s was home to
Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys, who popularized
western swing music with weekly dances and a
national radio show.
posted by Kelly Tulsa
on May 9, 2012 -
12 comments
A decade on, the Coen brothers' woefully underrated
O Brother, Where Art Thou? [alt] is remembered for
a lot of things: its sun-drenched, sepia-rich
cinematography (a pioneer of
digital color grading), its
whimsical humor,
fluid vernacular, and
many subtle references to Homer's
Odyssey. But one part of its legacy truly stands out:
the music.
Assembled by
T-Bone Burnett, the soundtrack is a cornucopia of American folk music, exhibiting everything from
cheery ballads and
angelic hymns to
wistful blues and
chain-gang anthems. Woven into the plot of the film through radio and live performances, the songs lent the story a
heartfelt, homespun feel that echoed its cultural heritage,
a paean and uchronia of the Old South.
Though the multiplatinum album was recently
reissued, the movie's medley is best heard via famed documentarian
D. A. Pennebaker's
Down from the Mountain, an
extraordinary yet
intimate concert film focused on a night of live music by the soundtrack's stars (among them
Gillian Welch,
Emmylou Harris,
Chris Thomas King, bluegrass legend
Dr. Ralph Stanley) and wryly hosted by
John Hartford, an accomplished
fiddler,
riverboat captain, and
raconteur whose struggle with terminal cancer made this his last major performance. The film is free in its entirety on
Hulu and
YouTube -- click inside for individual clips, song links, and breakdowns of
the set list's fascinating history.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2011 -
107 comments
Inside Pop - The Rock Revolution is a CBS News special, broadcast in April 1967. The show was hosted by Leonard Bernstein and is probably one of the first examples of pop music being examined as a 'serious' art form. The film features many scenes shot in Los Angeles in late 1966, including interviews with Frank Zappa and Graham Nash, as well as the now legendary Brian Wilson solo performance of "Surf's Up." (MLYT) [more inside]
posted by overeducated_alligator
on Apr 29, 2011 -
15 comments
In 1969 banjo virtuoso and bluegrass innovator Earl Scruggs parted ways with his
longtime musical partner
Lester Flatt and the band they led to
great popularity and acclaim,
The Foggy Mountain Boys. Scruggs wanted to push his musical gifts as far as they could go. In 1970 he was the subject of a PBS documentary where he played with artists such as Bob Dylan, Doc Watson, The Morris Brothers, The Byrds, Charlie Daniels, Bill Monroe, Joan Baez, various friends and family members, and even records a track accompanying a Moog. You can watch the whole thing online:
Earl Scruggs, His Family and Friends.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 28, 2011 -
17 comments
Written in 1967 by Bob Dylan, it was originally
quiet, lowkey... and vaguely menacing. But when Jimi Hendrix
redefined it the following year, even
Dylan knew that the song had changed forever.
Since then, it's been
covered (
over and over again),
praised almost as often,
analyzed,
referenced, and, of course,
found to be encoded in the minds of Cylons.
Originally released 40 years ago, erm, yesterday: All Along the Watchtower.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher
on Dec 28, 2007 -
41 comments
In 1971, George Harrison
RIP and
Ravi Shankar organized,
promoted, and put on
The Concert for Bangladesh – the first high-profile rock concert to
raise money (administered by UNICEF) for humanitarian causes – at NYC's Madison Square Garden.
Performances: Ravi Shankar
{ Bangla Dhun } George Harrison and band
{ Wah Wah, My Sweet Lord, Awaiting On You All, That's The Way God Planned (composed/performed by Billy Preston), It Don't Come Easy (composed/performed by Ringo Starr), Beware of Darkness (featuring Leon Russell on guest vocals), While My Guitar Gently Weeps (featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar), Jumping Jack Flash/Young Blood Medley (performed by Leon Russell), Here Comes The Sun (featuring Pete Ham) } Bob Dylan
{ A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall/It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, Blowin' In The Wind, Just Like A Woman, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, If Not For You (soundcheck duet with George Harrison) } [Encore!, Encore!]
posted by Poolio
on Aug 30, 2007 -
37 comments
Modern times... suck? Bob Dylan has heavily criticised the sound of modern music recordings, claiming that,
There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like — static,
and that,
CDs are small.
Not to exclude himself, he's included his
own new album in this criticism, saying that,
Even these songs probably sounded ten times better in the studio when we recorded ‘em.
Maybe he's just being a curmudgeon, or maybe he actually has a point about
modern music production. It's not like he's opposed to all things modern: after all, he seems OK with file-sharing and
iTunes. And, umm,
Alicia Keys...
posted by chorltonmeateater
on Aug 24, 2006 -
68 comments
On
"Love and Theft" & On
On "Love and Theft" and the Minstrel Boy &
The Annotated Love And Theft... In melody,
Bye and Bye comes by way of Billie Holiday's
Having Myself A Time and
Floater by way of Bing Crosby's
(& Eddie Duchin's & Kate Smith's & Isham Jones's...) Snuggled On Your Shoulder--and lyrically, by way,
in part, of Junichi Saga's
Confessions Of A Yakuza, which was not a crime novel, as
StupidSexyFlanders once surmised, but an outright
As told to memoir, which makes it four or five degrees from Yakuza to Dr. Saga to translator to Dylan to
Plagiarism in Dylan, or a Cultural Collage? Oh, who's going to throw that minstrel boy a coin ?
posted by y2karl
on Apr 14, 2005 -
18 comments
Be careful what you wish for, the cliché goes. Having aspired from early youth to become stars, people who achieve that status suddenly find themselves imprisoned, unable to walk down the street without being importuned by strangers. The higher their name floats, the greater the levy imposed, the less of ordinary life they can enjoy. In his memoir, Bob Dylan never precisely articulates the ambition that brought him to New York City from northern Minnesota in 1961, maybe because it felt improbable even to him at the time. Nominally, he was angling for Leading Young Folksinger, which was a plausible goal then, when every college town had three or four coffeehouses and each one had its Hootenanny night, and when performers who wowed the crowds on that circuit went on to make records that sometimes sold in the thousands. But from the beginning Dylan had his sights set much higher: the world, glory, eternity—ambitions laughably incommensurate with the modest confines of American folk music. He got his wish, in spades... 'I Is Someone Else'
posted by y2karl
on Feb 19, 2005 -
34 comments
"It was surprising how thick the smoke had become. It seems like the world has always needed a scapegoat --someone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire. But America wasn't the Roman Empire and someone else would have to step up and volunteer. I really was never any more than what I was -- a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze. Now it had blown up in my face and was hanging over me." -- from
Bob Dylan's new autobiography,
Chronicles, with a brief
interview, via
Newsweek
posted by digaman
on Sep 26, 2004 -
14 comments
The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the 'Blonde on Blonde' album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.
Bob Dylan 1978
Blonde On Blonde--Seven mixes, four or five covers, four or five women,
some missing photographs and one leather coat...
(story within)
posted by y2karl
on Nov 19, 2003 -
26 comments
The Mysterious Norman Raeben, the son of
Shalom Aleichem, the man behind
Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks.
Norman Raeben was one of the most influential people in Bob Dylan’s life. It was Norman Raeben, Dylan said, who, in the mid ‘70s, renewed his ability to compose songs. Dylan also suggested that Norman’s teaching and influence so altered his outlook upon life that Sara, his wife, could no longer understand him, and this was a contributory factor in the breakdown of the Dylans’ marriage. (More inside)
posted by y2karl
on Jan 11, 2003 -
16 comments
Bob Dylan Live at Newport, 1965: Maggie’s Farm. 10 MB Quicktime mp3 A
notorious and historic
moment, that began a legendary year of
touring , stolen moments of which are available in
several sometimes bootlegged formats .Sometimes, perhaps
revised ,
stories differ at
what happened, and, now,
post-
ironically enough, He appears at
Newport again
this Saturday.
posted by y2karl
on Aug 2, 2002 -
35 comments
American Magus Without Harry Smith I wouldn’t have existed!
Bob Dylan
… I put Harry Smith with the three most dear to me GRAND INTELLIGENCE!! Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Harry Smith…These were sharp motherfuckers… and heavy… talk about heavy!!
Gregory Corso
Harry Smith, a central figure in the mid-20th-century avant-garde, was a complex artistic figure who made major contributions to the fields of sound recording, independent filmmaking, the visual arts, and ethnographic collecting. Along with Kenneth Anger, Jordan Belson, and Oskar Fischinger, Smith is considered one of America’s leading experimental filmmakers. He would often hand-paint directly on film creating unique, complex compositions that have been interpreted as investigations of conscious and unconscious mental processes. Smith began as a teenager to record Native American songs and rituals. He is best known for his Anthology of American Folk Music, a music collection widely credited with launching the urban folk revival.
The Anthology is the focus here, but Harry Smith, the artist, avant garde film maker, polymath, musicologist and quintessential hipster must be mentioned, too.
Details Within
posted by y2karl
on Jul 10, 2002 -
32 comments
Boy are the times a changin'.
Kids and Parents disagree about music.
Nothing special about that.
But when your Dad is Bob Dylan, it makes the newspapers .
posted by BentPenguin
on Sep 10, 2001 -
15 comments
