Michael Gray's Blog, page 19
December 20, 2012
December 18, 2012
December 17, 2012
LOOK, NO Es
Thanks to an inspiring ‘Anticipatory Plagiarism’, by Paul Grimstad, in an LRB this month (Vol.34, no.23), I’m constructing this blogpost in an Oulipian way: that is, with a voluntary artificial constraint upon its composition. So: a roughly chronological listing of thirty classic tracks - and, as with this paragraph’s wording, no song or artist on my tracklist can contain any word with that oh-so-common, hard to banish vocal (as Rafa Nadal and his compatriots would say):
1. Jambalaya - Hank Williams2. Black Hills Of Dakota - Doris Day3. Midnight Shift - Buddy Holly4. Goin’ Down Slow - Howlin’ Wolf5. Chicago - Frank Sinatra6. Diana - Paul Anka7. I’m Walkin’ - Fats Domino8. Raunchy - Bill Justis9. Hoots Mon - Lord Rockingham’s XI10. Splish Splash - Bobby Darin11. Rockin’ Robin - Bobby Day12. What Do You Want? - Adam Faith13. Mona Lisa - Conway Twitty14. North To Alaska - Johnny Horton15. A Thousand Stars - Billy Fury16. Asia Minor - Kokomo17. Cryin’ - Roy Orbison18. Hurt - Timi Yuro19. Any Day Now - Chuck Jackson20. Sukiyaki - Kyu Sakamoto21. Turn, Turn, Turn - Judy Collins22. Colours - Donovan23. Homburg - Procol Harum24. Abraham, Martin And John - Dion DiMucci25. Lay Lady Lay - Bob Dylan26. Waiting For A Train - Boz Scaggs27. Domino - Van Morrison28. Solid Air - John Martyn29. Waka/Jawaka - Frank Zappa 30. Up Town Top Ranking - Althia & Donna
December 13, 2012
PATSY, RAVI'S DAUGHTER & BONNIE, WALTZING
Patsy Cline's unarguable voice made hers
the finest early version
of the Redd Stewart & Pee Wee King song ‘Tennessee Waltz' - a song I loved when Jerry Fuller had a hit with it at the end of the 1950s. I didn't know he'd copied the superior Bobby Comstock version, but neither sounds any good at all anymore. This does, though: an immaculate live performance by one of the late Ravi Shankar's two daughters, Norah Jones, and Bonnie Raitt - both in fine voice and with a lovely, all-too-brief slice of slide guitar:
December 12, 2012
MAP 7: AN OLD PULVERISED LONDON
A newly created interactive map showing exactly where all the bombs fell on London during the Blitz. Astonishing. This is just the YouTube preview. The real thing is here .
December 11, 2012
December 5, 2012
LITTLE RICHARD, 80 YEARS OLD TODAY
The remarkable Richard Wayne Penniman is 80 years old today (December 5, 2012). I saw him live only once, at the long-demolished Plaza in Birkenhead, not long before this video was shot in France. In Birkenhead it was a ring he threw into the crowd (while standing on top of the piano), and everyone, even those 50 yards too far back to have a hope, leapt forward and grabbed at the air when he threw it.
The entry I wrote on Little Richard in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia begins and ends like this:
Richard Penniman, the self-styled King of Rock’n’Roll, was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 5,1932. Such was his explosive impact in late 1955 that many babyboomers remember better where they were when they first heard Little Richard than when they heard that Kennedy was killed - the assassination of ‘melody’ being more vividly felt.
To comprehend his impact, picture yourself stuck in the mid-1950s as puberty strikes. Life has been drab. The grown-ups talk about ‘before the war’ all the time; it has cast a long shadow over your childhood. In Britain, ration-books have only just disappeared. Few people have TV. School is like the army. Everybody’s house is cold and you must eat up your liver and rice-pudding. Your parents listen to awful, syrupy music on their radiogram by people like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, who think they’re so smooth and sophisticated and who imagine that these are virtues.
By the time you’re halfway through hearing Little Richard’s first hit, ‘Tutti Frutti’, your mind has been mangled by this mad, wild, delicious gibberish from a human voice like no other, roaring and blathering above a band cranking along like a fire truck running amok in the night. By the time the record finishes, you have glimpsed the possibilities of a whole new universe. All those sophisticats defeated at a stroke. Enter glorious barbarity, chaos and sex...
...Few people can shock a whole new world into existence by sheer creative conviction. Little Richard came close. He placed his unique persona at the service of sexual freedom, black pride and anti-stereotyping, way back in the drab Dwight Eisenhower world, before these were even known concepts, and in this way he dragged us forwards into the future. By shaping rock’n’roll, he shaped us all.
The entry I wrote on Little Richard in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia begins and ends like this:
Richard Penniman, the self-styled King of Rock’n’Roll, was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 5,1932. Such was his explosive impact in late 1955 that many babyboomers remember better where they were when they first heard Little Richard than when they heard that Kennedy was killed - the assassination of ‘melody’ being more vividly felt.
To comprehend his impact, picture yourself stuck in the mid-1950s as puberty strikes. Life has been drab. The grown-ups talk about ‘before the war’ all the time; it has cast a long shadow over your childhood. In Britain, ration-books have only just disappeared. Few people have TV. School is like the army. Everybody’s house is cold and you must eat up your liver and rice-pudding. Your parents listen to awful, syrupy music on their radiogram by people like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, who think they’re so smooth and sophisticated and who imagine that these are virtues.
By the time you’re halfway through hearing Little Richard’s first hit, ‘Tutti Frutti’, your mind has been mangled by this mad, wild, delicious gibberish from a human voice like no other, roaring and blathering above a band cranking along like a fire truck running amok in the night. By the time the record finishes, you have glimpsed the possibilities of a whole new universe. All those sophisticats defeated at a stroke. Enter glorious barbarity, chaos and sex...
...Few people can shock a whole new world into existence by sheer creative conviction. Little Richard came close. He placed his unique persona at the service of sexual freedom, black pride and anti-stereotyping, way back in the drab Dwight Eisenhower world, before these were even known concepts, and in this way he dragged us forwards into the future. By shaping rock’n’roll, he shaped us all.
December 3, 2012
25 YEARS SINCE THE DEATH OF JAMES BALDWIN
James Baldwin died on December 1st, 1987. He was poor, black and gay at a time when being any one of those would have made life difficult enough. He became an important 20th Century American writer - of essays as well as novels - and yet, modishness being what it is, he's very under-attended and seems little regarded today. I was reminded of his importance, not least in shaping public consciousness about the Civil Rights struggle, by finding his book Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961) when I was researching Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell. Among much else, Baldwin writes there with great perspicacity and passion about his own first impressions of visiting McTell's home state of Georgia.
This video section is actually not about Malcolm X, but about growing up in Harlem, New York, as the son of a southern family. He's as likeable as he is mesmerising, and to see this clip now is also to see just how much TV has dummed down. It's not that he's a writer and therefore A Cut Above Your Average Talking Head: rather, that his care of expression and his moderate tone both seem remote, now, from how anyone on television, writer or no, ever chooses to comport themselves:
I admire this too, again for its tone, his comportment:
I wish he was still alive. He'd be in his late 80s and he'd still be interesting.
This video section is actually not about Malcolm X, but about growing up in Harlem, New York, as the son of a southern family. He's as likeable as he is mesmerising, and to see this clip now is also to see just how much TV has dummed down. It's not that he's a writer and therefore A Cut Above Your Average Talking Head: rather, that his care of expression and his moderate tone both seem remote, now, from how anyone on television, writer or no, ever chooses to comport themselves:
I admire this too, again for its tone, his comportment:
I wish he was still alive. He'd be in his late 80s and he'd still be interesting.
November 28, 2012
38 MILLION PEOPLE CAN'T BE WRONG?
Almost 38,500,000 people have viewed this video. Golly...
