|
Soundz: Free (and Legal!) Internet Music
Note to readers: This section is still ongoing, so before you gripe
that I've left out your favorites, keep this in mind. - TSM, ed.
"One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity."
Rush, "The Spirit of Radio"
"Listening for the secret, searching got the sound
But I could only hear the preacher, and the baying of his hounds."
Grateful Dead, "Unbroken Chain"
|
Editor's Choice:
Phil 2006-02-12 Beacon, Trey night.
Phil (Lesh) & Friends with Trey Anastasio (formerly of Phish)
and Joan Osborne (Standing in the Shadows of Motown/The Funk Brothers Tour); featuring "Help on the Way" >
"Slipknot" > "Franklin's Tower" > "Up on Cripple Creek" plus "All Along the Watchtower", "Dark Star" >
"St. Stephen" > "Eyes of the World" and "Gimme Shelter."
|
Vault Radio from Wolfgangsvault.com: "Bill Graham and his concert promotion company, Bill Graham
Presents, produced more than 35,000 concerts all over the world. His first venue, the legendary Fillmore Auditorium, was home
to many of rock's greatest performers - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Otis
Redding, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Prince - and the list goes on and on...Graham taped thousands
of live performances and stored the tapes in the basement of the BGP headquarters. These tapes and the concerts they captured
lay dormant until the Bill Graham archive was acquired by Wolfgang's Vault (Bill Graham's given first name was Wolfgang) in
2003...Vault Radio is now playing selected tracks from these concerts in an FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream. Songs will
be added to and removed from the radio show on a regular basis. We will be broadcasting unaltered live performance music from
many of the greatest bands of the last 40 years. The music you hear on Vault Radio has not been sweetened or polished. You'll
be listening to what the band played that night - nothing more, nothing less."Don't do it! Don't
go through life without hearing 107.1 KGSR Austin, Texas: true blue community radio!!
Sugarmegs.org: Pinch yourself, you're not dreaming: free access to thousands of hours of "over 6,000 shows with new shows added
daily" in Windows media streaming format, plus over 1500 shows of "the original SugarMegs RealAudio collection"
-- decades of free concerts by The Grateful Dead (and new music by Phil and Friends and Ratdog), and free
musical gems from The Allman Brothers to Frank Zappa.
Archive.org Live Music Archive or etree.org "is a community committed to providing the highest quality live concerts in a lossless, downloadable format.
The Internet Archive has teamed up with etree.org to preserve and archive as many live concerts as possible for current and
future generations to enjoy. All music in this Collection is from trade-friendly artists and is strictly noncommercial, both for access here and for any further distribution. Artists'
commercial releases are off-limits. This collection is maintained by the etree.org community."
Yahoo Music : "Internet radio, Music Videos, Artists, Music News, Interviews, Performances."
Discuss music with editor T.S. Minton's
"Interfusion Music Blogs" (coming soon!) --
What I'm trying to accomplish with this blog:
Goal #1) First, just to have fun vigorously discussing the music I love and immerse
myself in, with others who have similar (ahem) refined taste; to form a community of happy bloggers blissfully confirming
our own biases; and occasionally, to encounter wise guys who will challenge my assumptions (fat chance changing my preferences,
but sometimes it's fun to engage educated, opposing points of view), much like I will do on these blogs, from time to time,
to self-appointed sacred cows of the rock critic world like Robert Christgau and Greil Marcus.
Goal#2) To become less long-winded. Just kidding.
Goal #3) To strongly promote the concept of rock history canonization for a new generation which
both benefits and suffers from the easy access to whatever fractionalized form of music strikes their fancy. The Wired Generation
enjoys obvious conveniences: ipods, free downloads and streaming music, cheap CDs, satellite radio, etc. But I want to help
ensure that this new crop of eager beaver music seekers won't go through life unaware of, e.g. those rare gems of rock music
from past decades, which have achieved near universal critical consensus, but little commercial exposure: the melodic hippie
heaven of Love's Forever Changes (1967) and the self-titled first album by Moby Grape (1967); the eponymous Manfred
Mann's Earth Band (1972) ("Living Without You": the creme de la creme of non-pretentious art/jazz rock, an amazing feat);
Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic (1974): twist your mind around Watergate-era lyrics of jaded despair, immersed in virtuoso
musicianship with every note and jazz-rock noodle logically calculated; Television's Marquee Moon (1977): strangled
vocals of visionary punk poet Tom Verlaine and searing, ecstatic guitar duels on the title track; and Freedy Johnston's indelible
singer-songwriter workhorse Can You Fly (1992).
I owe my exposure to all of these sleeper classics to their
canonization by list-making mavens like Marcus and Christgau. IMHO, you owe it to yourself to check them out if you haven't
already. Of course different critics have different canons, but when music aficionados (of the styles I'm promoting on this
blog) see overlaps, they should really take heed, and scramble off to their nearest CD store or go online to, say, the link
below and buy 'em up ASAP.
I recommend you check out the following versions of "The Canon," compare notes and look for common denominators. There's
a reason certain vaunted albums have caused so much fuss over the decades: they are uncategorically great. To go
through life without hearing,
say, Pet Sounds or London Calling would be, IMHO, a form of insanity.
Yes, of course there can be intelligent differences of opinion and taste. But to muddle along without a visceral, gut-level
appreciation for, say, the indisputable pillars of rock like Dylan, The Beatles, Motown, and The Clash is a reality-tunnel
I do not care to visit, let alone live in. Some of my other faves like The Grateful Dead and Shawn Colvin are admitedly more
acquired tastes -- but I still feel the same way toward their greatness, i.e. if you don't love 'em, what planet are you
from??
"The" Canon
That said, here's some good lists to use as guideposts in building a comprehensive collection...
Robert Christgau
I vehemently contend with self-appointed "Dean of Rock Critics" on, e.g. Shawn
Colvin's Fat City and Patty Griffin's Flaming Red (the albums by his beloved New York Dolls
seem like endearing triflings in comparison to these deeply felt, soaringly melodic and exquisitely crafted masterpieces).
However, he's still turned me on to lots of great music over the years and can do the same for you...
Christgau's
Consumer Guide A+ list
http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_gl.php?g=A%2B
A Basic Record Library: The Fifties and Sixties
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg70/basics.php
The Seventies and 1980
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg70/lists.php
Rock Library: Before 1980
http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg80/rocklib.php
Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the 90s (see 'the A lists")
http://www.robertchristgau.com/bk-cg90s.php
Greil Marcus
See his list of essential recordings up
through 1979 in the book Stranded: Rock and Roll For a Desert Island, and his updated version of that list at http://www.rockcritics.com/interview/greilmarcus2.html
Rock Lists (see especially lists of Christgau, Dave Marsh, and Rolling Stone)
http://www.rocklist.net/
Allmusic.com
T.S. Minton's Version of the Canon/Favorites/Top 10
A handful
of great songs deserve special recognition, nay deification, above and beyond any place they may or may not have on my lists
below: "Holy River" and "Nothing Compares 2 U" (with Rosie Gaines): dig any deeper and you'll
be at the center of the earth; "Left of the Dial" and "Little Mascara" by The Replacements, which define teenage
angst, yearning, and the button-bursting urge to be somewhere, anywhere but here; many of the impossibly poignant and
classy selections from the Burt Bacharach tribute album One Amazing Night and The Very Best of Burt Bacharach ;
"True" by Spandau Ballet; the nonsensical ecstasy of "Band on the Run" and "Jet" by Paul McCartney and Wings (Manfredd Mann's
Earth Band's version of Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light" falls in this same category); and "Life in a Northern Town" by
Dream Academy.
T.S. Minton's Top Ten
First off, I realize such list making is a fan-boyish thing, and
there's no such thing as a "definitive" list, plus it's ever-changing. I swear however I won't jerk you around with specious
nonsense like the usually urbane and sensible Greil Marcus, who in some list-making book published around 1990 was called
upon to produce his list and proceeded to put Germ Free Adolescents by X-Ray Spex at #1 and other 1977-era U.K. punk
classics for the other 9. Yes, those albums were all thrilling, revolutionary, ass-kicking, idol-smashing etc. -- BUT WHERE
THE HELL were Layla, Abbey Road, Blonde on Blonde, Every Picture Tells a Story etc. etc., i.e.
the classics that define the form (many of which Marcus himself spent many insightful pages touting)???
Anyway, here's where it stands for me now:
I could play dirty and place The Grateful Dead's live
recording One From The Vault at #1, from the invitation-only performance at the Great American Music Hall, San
Francisco 08/13/1975. That really wouldn't be fair, though, since it was a live show not an album. It was, though, in my opinion
and those of many other aficionados, the Dead's finest hour, and probably the best set of music ever played on American soil
(or at least in a dead heat with the best moments of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins.) So let's come down from
the aery spheres and get real:
1) Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan. The great troubabdor of our times, or one man
wrestles with life's most bitterweet emotions, creating complex allegories and endlessly rich emotional palettes to process
his wrenching divorce. Not that the songs are the most transcendent individually; as a whole, however, it's rock's
best example of a supremely intelligent, sustained artistic sensibility at work.
2) Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan. A snotty, acerbic, inpenetrably profound and poignant amphetamine-fueled
punk/poet visionary in the thrall of his own genius.
3) Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan. "An explosion of vision and humor that forever changed pop music,"
says Greil Marcus. Inconsistent, yes, (i.e. not all of it is as moving as "Queen Jane Approximately") and his self-conscious
word-salad absurdism can grate, but imagine an album where individual songs can stand on their own as among the greatest,
most influential artworks of the 20th century: "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Desolation Row," for starters.
4) A
Few Small Small Repairs, Shawn Colvin. Sure, she lacks the edginess of early Liz Phair or the avant garde elan of PJ
Harvey (nor does she need to wear her sexuality on her sleeve, or stick heroin needles in her arm to win critical cachet
like Courtney Love). BFD, in a flash of inspiration she produced the greatest non-Dylan album in this catalog. Never in my
wildest dreams could I have imagined music as endearing, nuanced and beautifully melodic as "You and the Mona Lisa" (with
instrumental breaks by John Leventhal as indescribably delicious and richly textured as Steely Dan's Pretzel
Logic) or "Wichita Skyline" (a satori above the clouds).
5) Fat City, Shawn Colvin. The greatest vocal performance in rock history (although "Set the Night to
Music" by Roberta Flack with Maxi Priest, the best of Smokey Robinson and Al Green, and "More Than Words" by Extreme are also
strong contenders). "Polaroids" is as multi-layered lyrically as a story of the memory of a dream in which photographs capture
images of the deepest love, that vanished into thin air. Every second of every hiccup and heave of her richly timbred voice
contains more nuance and emotion than many singers achieve in their entire careers.
6) Exile on Main Street,The Rolling Stones. The male version of of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville...an
album about the limits of decadence, the peak of rock's most raucous band that also plumbs Mick's depths ("Loving Cup"). (Sorry I
couldn't also squeeze in Between the Buttons, Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Some Girls
-- all among rock's best.)
7) Flaming Red, Patty Griffin. Little would you know if you were relying solely on the likes of Christgau
and Marcus (shame, shame) of rock history's great unsung masterpiece.
8) White Album, The Beatles. Yeah, but what about Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Abbey Road?
9) Purple Rain, Prince. The one-man-band plus The Revolution, at his ecstatic, passionate best (or is it Sign
O'The Times?).
10) Layla, Derek and The Dominoes. The highest highs and the lowest lows of a man (Eric Clapton) madly in
love, in peak form, dueling tit for tat -- furiously, lyrically, elegiacally -- with Duane Allman.
I realize I'm
leaving lots out; Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual, Let it Be by the Replacements, Blondie's
Parallel Lines, and Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps, and many other great records mentioned below deserve
a special place at the summit of any comprehensive collection. I'm derelict in my duty to leave out Elvis, Ray Charles,
and other heavyweights, I know. And of course if the range of my knowledge extended much beyond rock, I would have to list
the best recordings of Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, Woodie Guthrie, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis, i.e.
Kind of Blue as absolutely unsurpassed.
There's other ways of looking at "best-of" rock history list-making. We can categorize by best of breed: punk (London
Calling by The Clash is surely the greatest punk album); psychedelia (Grateful Dead's Live/Dead is the peak
of that particular trip); soft rock (name me a better example of soft rock than "Sailing" and "Arthur's Song: The Best That
You Can Do" by Christopher Cross and I'll hit you with a wet noodle, or with James Taylor); Brian Eno defines ambient
art rock with Another Green World (with mind-boggling help from Robert Fripp); Bob Dylan and Shawn Colvin
are the male/female apotheosis of the singer-songwriter; nothing in heavy metal has surpassed Led Zeppelin IV/Zoso,
the best hard rock has gotta be AC/DC's Back in Black, the best metal would be whatever is Metallica's best; country
rock fans can do no better than Gram Parsons' Return of the Grievous Angel; and so forth. And I can't name great
individual albums by the following, but it would be insanity not to include their best-ofs or greatest hits in your collection:
Crosby, Still and Nash, Elton John, and to some extent Billy Joel.
Here some more highlights by decade of what I, and
many other rock historians and list-mavens consider essential, A+ level recordings that will fire off endless endorphins,
open the heart, stretch the mind, and shake the booty of any discriminating listener .
1950s
I'm
no expert here, except of course to mention Elvis, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Buddy Holly and other greats better anthologized in
the Christgau links above.
1960s
Any comprehensive collection of hits by Motown, Stax/Volt
and Philly soul, girl groups and Phil Spector (and Motown's 80s counterpart, the monster hits of Madonna like "Crazy
For You", "Into the Groove" and "Cherish")
Bob Dylan, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Another Side of Bob Dylan,
Bringin' It All Back Home (1965)
Bob Dylan and The Band, The Basement Tapes (1967, released 1975)
The
Band, Music From Big Pink (1967), The Band (1969)
Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and
Nico (1967), The Velvet Underground (1969), Loaded (1970)
Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?
(1967), Axis: Bold As Love (1967), Electric Ladyland (1968)
The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
(1966), "Good Vibrations"
The Beatles, Help! (1965), Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) (parts), Magical Mystery Tour, 1968 (parts)
The Rolling Stones, Between
the Buttons (1966), Beggar's Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969)
Van Morrison, Astral Weeks
(1967)
Elvis Presley, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
1970s
Elvis Presley, "Suspicious Minds" (1970)
Van Morrison, Moondance (1970), "Wavelength" (1978)
Sly and The
Family Stone, Greatest Hits (1970), There's a Riot Goin' On (1971)
The Who, Who's Next (1971),
"Squeeze Box," "Who Are You"
Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells A Story (1971), "Gasoline Alley," "You Wear It Well"
Pink
Floyd - never a big fan, but can't live without "Wish You Were Here"
The Eagles Greatest Hits I and II
Steely Pretzel, Countdown To Ecstasy , Pretzel Logic
Blondie,
Parallel Lines (1978)
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run (1975), Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
The
Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers, Some Girls
Jerry Riopelle, Take a Chance, A Little Bit at a Time
Grateful
Dead, Mars Hotel (except for the stinker "Money Money")(1974)
The Clash, The Clash (U.S. and U.K. versions,
1977 and 1979), Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978)
Bob Marley, Live! At the Lyceum (1976), Exodus
The Harder They Come
Bob Seger Night Moves, Greatest Hits
Elvis Costello, This Year's Model, Armed Forces
Neil
Young, After The Gold Rush, Rust Never Sleeps, Decade, Live Rust
Stevie Wonder, Talking Book, Innervisions
David
Bowie, Changes One, "Heroes"
1980s
The Clash, London Calling (1980), Sandinista! (1981)
Elvis Costello,
Trust (1981), Get Happy!
Prince, Sign O' The Times (1987)
Bruce Springsteen, Born in
the USA (1985)
The Replacements, Let It Be, Tim
Steve Winwood, "Arc of a Diver" (1981), "While You See
a Chance"
Dream Syndicate, "Life in a Northern Town"
R.E.M., "Reckoning" (1987)
Cyndi Lauper, She's So Unusual
(1983)
Foreigner, "I Want To Know What Love Is"
The Cure, "Greatest Hits"
1990s
Nirvana, Nevermind
Sonic Youth, A Thousand Leaves
Shawn Colvin, Cover
Girl
PJ Harvey, Stories From The City, Stories From the Sea
Freedy Johnston, Can You Fly, "Bad
Reputation"
Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Collective Soul, "World I Know", "Shine"
Eric
Clapton & Baby Face, "Change The World", Babyface MTV Unplugged NYC (1997)
And some recent stuff that I consider some of the best pop music of the last 25 years...
Alicia Keys, "If I Ain't Got You"
Backstreet Boys, "I Want It That Way," of which Christgau says, "I now regard as one of the great pop songs of the history
of rock 'n' roll." I've come to agree with the stamement, and "Quit Playin' Games (With My Heart)" (The Concert for New
York City version) is even better.
Five For Fighting, "Superman," "Easy Tonight"
Norah Jones
Shawn Colvin, "Anywhere You Go"
U2, "Stuck in a Moment"
Sugar Ray, "Fly," "Every Morning"
Deep Blue, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
Goo Goo Dolls, "Name"
Lisa Loeb, "I Do," "Stay"
Vanessa Carlton, "A Thousand Miles" *
Sixpence None the Richer, "Kiss Me"
And yes, the department of Guilty Pleasures...
The better songs of Bryan Adams and Journey, which as a critically minded egghead I would've once bashed as "shit-rock",
have come to mean a hell of a lot more to me than, say, the New York Dolls.
Kelly Clarkston, "Since You Been Gone"
Plus there's wonderful music currently being made by...
Counting Crows
Bare Naked Ladies
Snow Patrol, "Chocolate"
Tori Amos, "Sleeps With Butterflies"
John Mayer
Jack Johnson (for all his finesse and charm, he needs more deep feeling, though -- a little angst would do his
art some good.)
Wheezer
Wallflowers, "The Beautiful Side of Somewhere"
Jet, "Look What You've Done"
Wheat, "I Met a Girl"
Carbon Leaf, "Life Less Ordinary"
Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart (with Sheryl Crow), "Old Habits Die Hard"
Aqualung, "Brighter Than Sunshine"
Trey Anastasio, "Shine"
|
FAQ: Who is this T.S. Minton
guy anyway and why should we care what he has to say about pop music criticism and history?
Good
question. The "T" stands for "that's none of your business" and the "S" can stand in for "Steve." As for my credentials to
wax authoritative on pop music...hmm, get back to me on that one. I have little formal knowledge of music theory, and have
little experience in (what I regard as mainly the) jerk-off field of rock journalism. I wrote a few music-related pieces for
Tucson-based publications around the mid-90s (Entertainment Magazine, The Echo Recycler, K? Magazine,
and my own Whoof Session one-shot). What should matter, however, to avid music collectors who are here to separate
the wheat from the chaff and build comprehensive collections, is that I'm a guy who has been immersed in the music for all
of my 37 years, from my birth into the swirling psychedelic chaos of the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s; I've been
a rock history geek since at least 25 years; and I've heard and agree with most of what generally intelligent critics have
agreed to call "The Canon." As such, I hope to provide intelligent discrimination and an informed perspective to help afficionados
on their quest to hear what must be heard. I realize that collectors will build around their tastes not mine, but my goal
is provide some useful guideposts and recommendations along the way.
If you are heavy into heavy metal, country, rap,
techno, and other genres and sub-genres, I probably won't be of much assistance (besides making token nods to the manifest
greatness of, e.g. much of the material of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Johnny Cash, Public Enemy and Eminem, Metallica,
and Moby, I have little interest in or knowledge of these forms). If your notions of pop history approximate mine, however,
i.e. if you can nod along with most if not all of the following statements:
1) Louis Armstrong, as the most influential musician of the 20th century, laid the groundwork for
modern pop singing and set the template that lead to jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. He also smashed the distinction
between "high" and "low" art (George Herriman of "Krazy Kat" and film director Orson Welles did the same in other mediums),
i.e. he made it possible for the greatest and most impactful music of the 20th century to become popular not classical music.
Thus, the unmatched lyrical heights and artistic richness achieved by Dylan in e.g. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and The Beatles
with "Eleanor Rigby" rest on Armstrong's musical and creative foundation, as do the unmatched musical adventures of Miles
Davis and his peers John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins.
2) Ray Charles was the essential bridge between rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
3) The name "Elvis" is sacrosanct, as rock and roll's greatest singer and the central catalyst
for rock and roll as the earth-shattering, hip-shaking social/artistic movement that followed after his deluge.
4) If you can't second the heart-felt emotion of Motown and the early 60s girl groups, as well
as Stax/Volt and the Philly Sound, and if you don't believe names like Diana Ross and The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and
The Miracles, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye are synonomous with "pure bliss" and "supreme talent," leave now.
5) The Beatles derived their unparallelled greatness from synergy: the absorbed influences of Elvis,
Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and other founding fathers; their friendly rivalries with the more lyrically sophisticated Bob Dylan
and the more ribald and thrilling Rolling Stones; the unique chemistry of the Fab Four themselves (imagine, for starters,
a band with not one but TWO geniuses: the acerbic/surreal/trippy Lennon and the droll/sincere/lovey-dovey McCartney,
each balancing the other's weaknesses and bringing out the best in each other); and their unique ability to always be one
step ahead, as the bellwethers of the Cultural Revolutions of the 60s.
6) Although the bland corporate Shit-Rock of the 70s (Bay City Rollers, Toto, et al.) badly needed its kick
in the ass from the pure vitality, tuneful barbaric yawp, and undeniable adrenaline rush of punk (as provided by The Ramones,
The Sex Pistols, the Clash, X Ray Spex, The Buzzcocks et al.), aging Baby Boomers and Gen Xers should take it under advisement
that fully realized adults need to encompass a deeper range of emotions than either corporate rock or punk can generally provide.
Example of this range include "This Love" by Don Henley, "Wichita Skyline" or "Anywhere You Go" by Shawn Colvin,
or "Mississippi" by Bob Dylan -- all of them river deep, mountain high.
7) The music of the Grateful Dead is in its own category: psychedelic quasi-jazz, countrified "laid back
brilliant" to quote Christgau, "electric ragtime" as Elvis Costello called it (referring to songs of pure Americana like "Ramble
on Rose" and "Mississippi Halfstep Uptown Toodleoo"). While they sure could be erratic and soggy on a bad night,
no other band of the rock era took more daring chances and therefore earned the right to reach their heights,
the pay-off of the "golden yummies" that other jam bands can only aspire towards, the pure bliss of which it can be said:
If you don't get it, you're hopeless. (To wit: Live/Dead, 1969, to quote the often caustic Christgau again: "the
finest rock improvisation ever recorded.") As master of jazz, classical, and occasional jam partner Branford
Marsalis put it: "There were two bands. There was the Grateful Dead and then there was the Dreadful Greats. It just depended
on the night. When they were the Grateful Dead, they were a joy." And to quote America's greatest composer Bob Dylan on the
occasion of Jerry Garcia's passing: "There's no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player.
I don't think eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great - much more than a superb musician with an uncanny ear and
dexterity. He is the very spirit personified of whatever is muddy river country at its core and screams up into the spheres.
He really had no equal. To me he wasn't only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me
more than he'll ever know. There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette
Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome,
sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There's no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep." And while nothing
will ever fill the void of Jerry's loss, thank God for Phil and Friends, The Dead, and Ratdog for continuing to carry
the torch and move the music "further." It surely helps their efforts that Phil, Ratdog and co. (e.g. Joan Osborne, national
treasure and Branford Marsalis) get to draw on the greatest American songbook this side of Dylan.
...if you can agree
with the majority of these statements, then let's break bread together, drink some red, red wine, and turn up the volume!
| 
Yes, Virginia, there is such thing as
"Free internet radio"!
 |
Listen to Online Music. Classics, Country, Oldies, Rock, Top 40, Urban/Dance, 80s/Rock more ...
 |
|
|
|
Select the HTML code below and paste in your website to add the content to your site.
|
