#is my harmonica era cool to you guys

[nerdloser]

chat do i post harmonica content. i have a video of me playing. do i do it. is there a market. do we want a face reveal or like. face reveal for the first time in like half a year.

[iantimony]

Another Doublepost

last monday i was told, surprise, you are giving a presentation on your work to a small group of experts! and i shat my pants a little and hyperfocused on that for two days so no tuesday last week. presentation went really well, i survived!

listening: saw ELO concert last week, that was good ... ngl the lead singer guy was not looking too hot but it was a good concert nonetheless.

the fine art of takin' it slow (milly raccoon): i forget how i got recommended this? maybe some list of queer/alt country? only listened to a little bit of this album so far but i liked this song a lot.

found freshman biology on instagram but i think i have to be in a very specific mood to listen to them. very goblin-core type of thing, really interesting instrumentals, but i tried some of it and i definitely have to be in a very chill headspace to not get uptight listening to them.

chips & dip (extra chunky) (sam greenfield): finally listened to the whole album 'sam greenfield sucks', it whips ass, highly recommend; this version of the song on the album is only like 90 seconds which is criminal and i guess this is not an unpopular opinion because a month ago he did an extended version. delicious.

love and death (ebo taylor): also forget how i got this one. some really jammy jazz.

the next few from daylist:

mountains (message to bears), the sense of me (mud flow): smooth guitar. would be good for yoga background music probably.

but wait, there's more (ben folds): anxiety song

last night i did a terrible thing (fever dolls): kind of song that makes one sway side to side. harmonica doin a lot in this one.

runner up (al olender): sleepy lil song.

clean slate (mountain goats): went on a brief mountain goats kick when i thought i would go to their concert in [redacted]; did not do so but still have been enjoying their songs coming back up in my rotation.

really sad because .. i forget if it was last weekend or the upcoming weekend .... but basically there's a lot of good local events in my town that i am not there for :( including performances by some really dope bands.

amchoor (balkan paradise orchestra): as a horn player i am in physical pain to miss this performance :(

allenby (yemen blues): really good overlaying of instruments with the brrrrr sound in the guitar.

and chopin :) classic.

reading: Chappell Roan Confronts The Sickness Of Modern Fandom (kelsey mckinney): did hear about this in a dangelo wallace video. man this fucking sucks for her but good for her for setting hard boundaries and not letting angry weirdos dictate what she should be okay with.

Don't Prep Plots (justin alexander): good tabletop gm philosophy, one that i think i have unconsciously been doing for a while simply because like it says in there, it's so much more work to prep Plots capital P as if it were a novel, and i have always been a work smarter not harder kinda gal. definitely one of my biggest strengths as a gm is my ability to make situations and let the players fill it in, i think. one of the reasons i am still running that dnd group despite it all is because of the validation of being told how good a gm i am, lol.

the two fics in Shang Qinghua Becomes An Isekai Protagonist Love Interest by daddykeehl; cute and fun.

i was looking into Bra Alternatives and ended up on reddit where some articles on shortstays and regency clothing were linked: Underwear: what was worn under Regency gowns? and Historical costume pics: gowns, petticoats, dolls, even men. honestly pretty interesting! i have never really touched regency era in any capacity or media - art, fiction, fashion history, any of it - so this was definitely a cool first peek.

Is it possible to keep your voice and soul while writing for an international market? (Sascha Stronach) and The Uncanny Valley of Culture by damon: two articles from nz and australia respectively about how man, all english-speaking media really does focus on and cater to the american audience, and that fucking sucks.

also the wikipedia page for the ham sandwich theorem. just because.

watching: this video linked in this post. interesting!!!! i love optics i love physics.

some weird history food videos - pizza hut and papa johns, specifically.

playing: fallow but bonus screenshot from playing stray a few weeks ago (already that long. god)

making: incredibly funny and weird but my friend discovered a scifi/fantasy writing contest that is. like. funded? inspired by?? l ron hubbard. my friend did Not know who that guy was so i got to explain that which was fun. but there's a Free Online Workshop that my friend was like hey. we should do this together. and i was like sure why not. so now i am doing the free l ron hubbard writing workshop tm. so that's back in the writing zone for the first time in. a while.

sorry did not crop my images before uploading them to postimages and i simply cannot be assed to reupload.

can finally share these !! embroidered some patches for my friend's bachelorette party :) she does read these sometimes so i didn't want to accidentally spoil it. the bachelorette was summer camp themed and it was very cute. we made tie dye shirts and smores and played board games and all around had a lovely time.

finished painting the underglaze on this bird bowl. have literally been micromanaging it since april. enough.

started painting some new fat horses and cave painting hands but i am unsatisfied. dunno yet. don't love the mug shape either and given how long it's gonna take to paint all those fucking hands on there ... i wonder if i could make a stamp. that would be really helpful actually. hmm.

some glaze kiln came out! bf made the world's goofiest chopstick rest based on sacabambaspis, i glazed it for him, and it's so silly. a very boring flowerpot came out. disappointing because i was going for this glaze layer. didn't do a thick enough coat of the vert lustre? the vert luster itself is too watered down? not enough texture on the piece despite the ridges? all of the above? idfk. i even made an insane chart of all the amaco glazes in the studio and how they might layer. sigh.

pillbug coaster in progress to match my worm coaster which i thought i posted but now i don't remember. i think i posted it before the kiln but it has since kilned and i can't actually find a photo? it came out well though lol. when i get back to apartment i will take a photo of it.

my magic the gathering gaming group made our friend some coasters at one of those paint pre-made pottery places and they came out cute!

eating: last night made some deb smittenkitchen and by god she's done it again. fall bliss salad: yeagh. really good. i simply was not going to blitz the shallots in anything so i just chopped em up after roasting and mixed them in. had to use dried cranberries instead of pomegranate because grocery store limitations but that was still very tasty and served a similar niche. lemon chicken with potatoes and chickpeas: so because of a different oven chicken thighs recipe i like that has radishes i added radishes to the veggies. i also had to double the recipe and, uh oh, potatoes super would not fit in there, so i just did normal-ass baked potatoes and they were good. really satisfying meal, the amount of chopping means it's definitely more than 10 min prep but once all was chopped it all came together nicely.

i've started looking at some of her rosh hashanah recipes for next week ... she has a crazy russian layered honey cake that looks great but is a multi-day project so i think not. her normal honey cake looks great, and so does her brisket, so that's what i'll be doing. i haven't done rosh hashanah with my family in years so it will be nice.

misc: bonus image from my apartment. i miss her.

my brother is having A Procedure done today and we're all shitting our pants only a little bit about it. my mom dropped his ass off at 6am and now we're just ... waiting.

[ylojgtr]

ooh this is perfect! i can tell you all about revolutionary harmonica players!! i will give neil a little credit since he introduced me and im sure many other harmonicists to the instrument, but i assure you there are SO many better players out there

definitely gotta check out deford bailey (pronounced dee-ford). he was a master at and greatly popularized the train imitation and fox chase styles (<this video has flickering for some reason just fyi) and is largely responsible for country harmonica, being a founding member of the grand ol opry

little walter is obviously a must. his approach to the instrument, melodic, dirty and presice, set the standard for chicago blues playing. while he probably wasn't the first to do it, he certainly popularized the use of a microphone while playing which helped the harmonica stay relevant in the age of electric instruments and added a unique distorted tone

sonny terry is also blues, but a very different style. he used a lot of chordal rhythms for accompaniment and really was the first person to play anything like what he did, it's kinda hard to explain

all three of those guys influenced charlie mccoy, one of the most recorded session musicians in history and sort of the pioneer of country and bluegrass harmonica.

there's a direct lineage from mccoy to one of my personal favourite players, jason ricci (solo @1:48), whose mentor pat ramsey (solo @1:50) applied super-fast bluegrass style licks to blues. jason took it a step further, delving into punk, hard rock and funk with an extremely idiosyncratic style. (i had a hard time choosing which song to link but i think this one is a succinct, flashy example of an iconic era of his career. more are in the playlist!)

jason's style also makes heavy use of a technique called overbending, which is probably the most common way to play chromatic notes on a diatonic harmonica. typically, a harmonica is tuned to have only the notes of one major scale, which is why most players have different harmonicas in different keys. but it is possible to play some notes between the scale degrees by bending, which was pioneered by black american musicians before being widely recording, but there are still some notes that can't be played bent

that's where howard levy (solo @1:50 but you should watch the whole thing 😳) comes in (probably my favourite harmonica player ever). he was a jazz piano player before picking up harmonica and decided to start practicing scales on harp the same way he did piano. of course, not all the notes were there, but somehow in trying to bend a note that didn't bend he got a different sound. he ended up becoming the first person to really master this technique, finally bringing the diatonic harmonica into jazz and other more complex music.

last major suggestion, brendan power. his early influences include sonny terry and charlie mccoy but his style has become defined by his harmonica inventions. after learning that charlie mccoy tuned his harmonicas differently (there's a really cool story about how he started doing that) brendan set out to create the ultimate diatonic tuning, since standard tuning wasn't intended to be used in any of the stuff it's used in now, it just happens to work pretty well. but what if it worked PERFECTLY for whatever style you were playing? his most famous tunings include paddy richter (for irish music) powerdraw (for more ease of playing blues) and powerbender (my personal favourite that's great for everything from jazz to hard rock). he also invented half-valving, which i won't get into but basically gives you the ability to bend all notes in different ways, which works on diatonic and chromatic harmonicas. his work has really bridged the gap between the two instruments. he's also created double decker harmonicas, modular reed harmonicas, switchable octave harmonicas, extended range harmonicas and all sorts of harmonicas with extended expressiveness in about a hundred different ways. his playing is also exceptional. he's a very diverse but recognizable player capable of fitting in just about anywhere but you're always sure it's him when you hear that distinctive sound

so those are the main harmonica players id suggest. if you're looking for more id recommend will wilde (hard rock/metal player who uses his own tuning and WILL BLOW YOUR MIND), todd parrott (incredible bluegrass player who takes advantage of modern harmonica techniques in a traditional setting), carlos del junco (a blues/jazz/roots player with a very unique, technical style), jimmy reed (blues singer with a highly influential harmonica sound), joel andersson (innovative european folk player who uses many novel harmonica designs and is also a fantastic harmonica technician), p.t. gazell (western swing and jazz player who uses half-valved diatonics to get chromatic notes instead of overbends) and konstantin reinfeld (he really plays everything, from jazz to classical to hip hop to tango to bollywood music. all on diatonic harmonica)

here's a playlist with all the songs i linked and more! i hope other people will see this post too if there's one thing i can't stand it's harmonica ignorance

Like any person of culture, tonight I sought out a list of musical artists who revolutionized the usage of the humble harmonica. The list I found involved Neil Young's Heart of Gold.

Needless to say, I entered a berserker state.

[aragima]

hannibal questions! 🍖🔪

@nietzscheantrout @horrorlesbians and @hanniba1 wanted me to answer these hannibal questions and i wrote too much but oh well! thanks to all 3 of you ilu!!!

favorite episode and why: oh we’re just goin straight to the hard questions huh um OKAY so i think i can only do an ep a season - s1: SORBET SUPREMACY! you get to see the exact moment will looks at hannibal and thinks “.........shit. it’s him isn’t it. he’s The One. SHIT.” and that is so important to me - s2: this one is really hard maybe naka-choko? it’s so fucking gay and sexy. but tome-wan... but mizumono............ yeah idk - s3: torn between digestivo and the wrath of the lamb cuz they both hurt SOOO good much; i love will breaking up with hannibal and hannibal manipulating the situation so will can’t leave asldkjansk it’s so toxic we have to stan..... and for twotl i mean do i really have to give a reason every scene LIVES in my mind and it contains my favorite shot in the whole show:

that is LOVE baby! that is DESIRE! that is being ENTHRALLED!!!!

least favorite episode and why: i feel like they’re all so necessary that it’s kind of impossible to say but probably antipasto. i get sick of hannibal and bedelia’s shenanigans really quickly and as much as i hate to admit it... i miss will. i also think it was an extremely weak season opener and i blame it for getting the show canceled sjshshsgsg the resentment...

favorite side character: chiyoh or jimmy or actually wait— RANDALL TIER 🖤

if you could bring back one character who died, who would it be?: RANDALL FUCKING TIER. i want there to be a weird thing with him and hannibal and will going on. but also i love what his death did for will so idfk, other than him it’s gotta be beverly

dish prepared in the show that you would like to try eating/making: i was supposed to make hannibal’s osso bucco recipe like 3 weeks ago but it completely slipped my mind so i guess i’ll get on that my next grocery trip  

which side character would you kill off?: chilton just because for god’s sake just let the man DIE ALREADY poor guy <- i’m taking ava’s answer because YEAH

was there any scene that you didn’t like to look at?: nah. the skin ripping scenes at the beginning of either kaiseki or sakizuki (idk i don’t remember, i hardly watch s2a) are particularly brutal but i tough it out

biggest ship: i mean do i even have to say

why did you start watching hannibal?: my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, and her dad were watching it as it was airing and i was like “oh cool hannibal lecter origin story” but due to inconsistent access to the episodes i would just watch it randomly and that is... not the way to watch hannibal. i gave up around the end of s2 but knew hannigram was It regardless. i decided to watch s3 for the first time earlier this year just to have finished it and was like HOLD UP and did an immediate rewatch that left me... well, how i am now

favorite hannibal fic if you’ve read any?:

oh boy. yall ready for this? all of these can be found on ao3 obviously (i’m so sorry this is so long but i guess i’ve been asked to put together a fic rec anyway)

as soft, as wide as air by blackknightsatellite, the ladders series by emungere, blackbird by emungere, consenting to dream series by emungere, taken for rubies by emungere, at first meeting by emungere, protect me from what i want by @alienfuckeronmain, god of the cold, cold wars by highermagic, the abyss smiled back by highermagic, pomegranate seeds by highermagic, absolute zero by highermagic, in the truly gruesome do we trust by sidnihoudini, TKO by sidnihoudini, oh dear by lunarwench, each according to its kind by chapparral_crown, a flood in our hearts by nanoochka, let me sinful be by darlingred, uncomplicated by stratumgermanitivum & youaremydesign, good bones by @damnslippyplanet​, like they do in babylon by @damnslippyplanet​, your obedient servant by kareliasweet, past our satellites by shotgunsinlace, only the tender meat by isagel, the shape of me will always be you by missdisoriental, a white-walled room by rodabonor, spleen et idéal by rodabonor, the paper doll series by rodabonor, a common point of interest by rodabonor [i do NOT like a/b/o stuff but if i did... it’s this fic], just thought you should know by earthsickwithoutyou, the sacrificial lamb by princesskay, transcendent suffering by itsbeautiful, not something polite by moistdrippings, leave your message after the tone by onewhositswithturtles, holes in the floor of the mind by feverdreamblood, crossing caina by feverdreamblood, the archipelago series by melusine10, but seas between us braid hae roar’d by kareliasweet

have you watched any of the hannibal films?: yeah all of them except manhunter! i grew up watching silence of the lambs because my mom loved it and i went thru a big edward norton phase as a teen so i’ve seen red dragon like 10 times

have you read the thomas harris books?: no and i’m not going to lmao #fakefan

favorite murder tableau: if we’re talking just hannibal’s- the judge. if we’re talking Murder Bad But Kinda Pretty like in general probably the mushroom people or the totem

favorite blood spill: will imagining hannibal while he beats randall to death or The Gutting of Will Graham

what’re some of your headcanons?: - will is good at shibari (backed up in canon: his fishing knots, the firefly man’s full body hishi karada harness) - hannibal rarely listens to modern, non-classical music but he’s a björk fan and he saw one of her chapel performances during the vespertine era and was Moved - will listens to classic rock (zeppelin, the doors, pink floyd) with some classic country (patsy, merle, johnny) and blues (billie, muddy, bessie) thrown in. he’s also a sucker for early/mid-90s college rock/alternative/grunge - will plays the piano (because of the piano in his living room) and the harmonica (because he’s country white trash); he’s kind of shit tho - hannibal fell for will somewhere between “my thoughts are often not tasty” and “you won’t like me when i’m psychoanalyzed” (love at first sight! at last sight! at ever and ever sight!!!) - will’s circumcised, hannibal isn’t 🤪 - hannibal’s a gemini!!!! adaptable, creative, intelligent, outgoing, impulsive, etc - will’s an aquarius!!!!! analytical, a loner, temperamental, unique, compassionate, etc - will’s mom was jewish go read my fic about it https://archiveofourown.org/works/26774326 - hannibal is an agender man (tbh i think of this as canon, it’s just unstated/undefined) - hannibal can speak russian, spanish, and a teensy bit of portuguese in addition to the other languages we know he speaks (lithuanian, english, french, italian, japanese) - will speaks limited amounts of french; he learned it as a kid in louisiana - ED TW will sometimes has a Difficult relationship with food due to food instability by the way of poverty as a kid and goes through periods where it’s hard to keep himself fed, but hannibal is so good for him in that way because he keeps him from going hungry 😓 (yes this is me projecting but also it makes SENSE) - hannibal typically bottoms but THEY DEFINITELY ARE BOTH VERS and will never stops being surprised by how much he loves catching a dick. every time is like religious experience. okay? okay - they’re also both very kinky and switches but tbh.... will was made to Dom hannibal like that’s the reason he exists he could drag that old bitch around by a leash and hannibal would be in heaven HANNIBAL WOULD CALL HIM SIR - the first time they have sex hannibal comes like immediately but he isn’t embarrassed because he’s hannibal fucking lecter and hannibal lecter doesn’t get embarrassed - i have a hc for their favorite sex positions but i’m not gonna put that here because i don’t want yall calling me crazy any more than you probably already do but if you wanna know just DM me all i do is think about them fucking it’s a curse - okay no more dirty stuff abigail called hannibal “dad” on more than one occasion and it was half-joking but it also felt comfortable to her; she never thought to call will “dad” because he’s a weirdo and never knew her as much as he knew his idea of her - hannibal taught her to play piano at the cliff house - beverly is pansexual!!! - brian and jimmy kissed one time when they were drunk and they NEVER talk about it EVER - chiyoh is straight probably. i know, i know, everyone says she’s a lesbian and if she’s a lesbian to you that’s awesome! she’s a lesbian! but idk i just think she’s SO fucking straight and tbh i mourn bc that’s my wife. she could MAYBE be bicurious... - chiyoh is non-monogamous and doesn’t do serious relationships, she doesn’t like the idea of being tied to one person ever since she left the lecter castle - she helped hannibal and will escape after The Fall; she told hannibal she would continue to watch over him and i think she did, she got them a boat and got them the fuck out of there - MOLLY IS DOING SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT WILL. SHE’S SO GLAD SHE GOT OUT OF THAT WHEN SHE DID. she has a good, long talk with alana and finds out all the shit about him and hannibal that will never told her (and it was a lot), gets drunk and burns all his shit, and then washes her hands of the whole thing; moves to a different state, gets a girlfriend, and never thinks about will again

okay i’m capping it there or i’m never gonna stop!! i’m not tagging anyone cuz i think everyone has done this by now lmao but if you’re a mutual who hasn’t and you want to just do it and say i tagged you!! mwah!!!!

[blackkudos]

Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer, and a bandleader of the swing era. He was noted for his rich, resonant, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. Eckstine's recording of "I Apologize" (MGM, 1948) was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. 

The New York Times

 described him as an "influential band leader" whose "suave bass-baritone and "full-throated, sugary approach to popular songs inspired singers like Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock and Lou Rawls."

Biography

Eckstine's paternal grandparents were William F. Eckstein and Nannie Eckstein, a mixed-race, married couple who lived in Washington, D.C.; both were born in 1863. William F. was born in Prussia and Nannie in Virginia. His parents were William Eckstein, a chauffeur, and Charlotte Eckstein, a seamstress of note. Eckstine was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; a State Historical Marker is placed at 5913 Bryant St, Highland Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to mark the house where he grew up.Billy's sister, Maxine (married name Whedbee), was a well-respected Spanish teacher at Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh.

He attended Peabody High School before moving to Washington, DC. He attended Armstrong High School, St. Paul Normal and Industrial School, and Howard University. He left Howard in 1933, after winning first place in an amateur talent contest. He married his first wife, June, in 1942. After their divorce in 1952, he remarried shortly after to actress and model Carolle Drake in 1953, and they remained married until his death. He was the father of four children by second marriage and two step-children, including Ed Eckstine, who was a president of Mercury Records, Guy Eckstine, who was a Columbia and Verve Records A&R executive and record producer, singer Gina Eckstine, and actor Ronnie Eckstine.

Heading to Chicago, Eckstine joined Earl Hines' Grand Terrace Orchestra in 1939, staying with the band as vocalist and trumpeter, until 1943. By that time, Eckstine had begun to make a name for himself through the Hines band's juke-box hits as "Stormy Monday Blues" and his own "Jelly Jelly."

In 1944, Eckstine formed his own big band and it became the finishing school for adventurous young musicians who would shape the future of jazz. Included in this group were Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, and Fats Navarro, as well as vocalist Sarah Vaughan. Tadd Dameron, Gil Fuller and Jerry Valentine were among the band's arrangers. The Billy Eckstine Orchestra is considered to be the first bop big-band, and had Top Ten chart entries that included "A Cottage for Sale" and "Prisoner of Love". Both were awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.

Dizzy Gillespie, in reflecting on the band in his 1979 autobiography To Be or Not to Bop, gives this perspective: "There was no band that sounded like Billy Eckstine's. Our attack was strong, and we were playing bebop, the modern style. No other band like this one existed in the world."

Eckstine became a solo performer in 1947, with records featuring lush sophisticated orchestrations. Even before folding his band, Eckstine had recorded solo to support it, scoring two million-sellers in 1945 with "Cottage for Sale" and a revival of "Prisoner of Love". Far more successful than his band recordings, these prefigured Eckstine’s future career. Eckstine would go on to record over a dozen hits during the late 1940s. He signed with the newly established MGM Records, and had immediate hits with revivals of "Everything I Have Is Yours" (1947), Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s "Blue Moon" (1948), and Juan Tizol’s "Caravan" (1949).

Eckstine had further success in 1950 with Victor Young’s theme song to "My Foolish Heart," and the next year with a revival of the 1931 Bing Crosby hit, "I Apologize".

His 1950 appearance at the Paramount Theatre in New York City drew a larger audience than Frank Sinatra at his Paramount performance.

Eckstine was the subject of a three page profile in the 25 April 1950 issue of LIFE magazine, in which the photographer Martha Holmes accompanied Eckstine and his entourage during a week in New York City. One photograph taken by Holmes and published in LIFE showed Eckstine with a group of female admirers, one of whom had her hand on his shoulder and her head on his chest while she laughed. Eckstine's biographer Cary Ginell, wrote of the image that Holmes "...captured a moment of shared exuberance, joy, and affection, unblemished by racial tension." Holmes would later describe the photograph as the favorite of the many she had taken in her career as it "...told just what the world should be like". The photograph was considered so controversial that an editor at LIFE sought personal approval from Henry Luce, the magazine's publisher, who said it should be published. The publication of the image caused letters of protest to be written to the magazine, and singer Harry Belafonte subsequently said of the publication that "When that photo hit, in this national publication, it was if a barrier had been broken". The controversy that resulted from the photograph had a seminal effect on the trajectory of Eckstine's career. Tony Bennett would recall that "It changed everything...Before that, he had a tremendous following...and it just offended the white community", a sentiment shared by pianist Billy Taylor who said that the "coverage and that picture just slammed the door shut for him".

Among Eckstine's recordings of the 1950s was a 1957 duet with Sarah Vaughan, "Passing Strangers", a minor hit in 1957, but an initial No. 22 success in the UK Singles Chart.

The 1960 Las Vegas live album, No Cover, No Minimum, featured Eckstine taking a few trumpet solos and showcased his nightclub act. He recorded albums for Mercury and Roulette in the early 1960s, and appeared on Motown albums during the mid to late 1960s. After recording sparingly during the 1970s for Al Bell's Stax/Enterprise imprint, the international touring Eckstine made his last recording, the Grammy-nominated Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter in 1986.

Eckstine made numerous appearances on television variety shows, including on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Nat King Cole Show, The Tonight Show with Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson, The Merv Griffin Show, The Art Linkletter Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Flip Wilson Show, and Playboy After Dark. He also performed as an actor in the TV sitcom Sanford and Son, and in such films as Skirts Ahoy, Let's Do It Again, and Jo Jo Dancer.

Culturally Eckstine was a fashion icon. He was famous for his "Mr. B. Collar"- a high roll collar that formed a "B" over a Windsor-knotted tie. The collars were worn by many a hipster in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In 1984 Eckstine recorded his penultimate album, I Am a Singer, arranged and conducted by Angelo DiPippo and featuring Toots Thielemans on harmonica. Eckstine's final recordings were made in November 1986, with saxophonist Benny Carter and released on the 1987 album Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter.

Illness & Death

Eckstine suffered a stroke while performing in Salina, Kansas, in April 1992, and never performed again. Though his speech improved in hospital, Eckstine later had a heart attack, and died a few months later on March 8, 1993, aged 78. Eckstine's final word was "Basie".

Tributes

His friend Duke Ellington recalled Eckstine's artistry in his 1973 autobiography Music is My Mistress: "Eckstine-style love songs opened new lines of communication for the man in the man-woman merry-go-round, and blues a la B were the essence of cool. When he made a recording of Caravan, I was happy and honored to watch one of our tunes help take him into the stratosphere of universal acclaim. And, of course, he hasn't looked back since. A remarkable artist, the sonorous B." ... "His style and technique have seen extensively copied by some of the neocommercial singers, but despite their efforts he remains out front to show how and what should have been done."

Sammy Davis, Jr. made several live appearances and impersonated Eckstine. Not just for comedy reasons, but because Eckstine was a close friend and a supporter of Martin Luther King. Eckstine was a pallbearer at Davis' Funeral in 1990.

Quincy Jones stated in Billboard: "I looked up to Mr. B as an idol. I wanted to dress like him, talk like him, pattern my whole life as a musician and as a complete person in the image of dignity that he projected.... As a black man, Eckstine was not immune to the prejudice that characterized the 1950s." Jones is quoted in The Pleasures of Jazz as also saying of Eckstine: "If he’d been white, the sky would have been the limit. As it was, he didn’t have his own radio or TV show, much less a movie career. He had to fight the system, so things never quite fell into place."

Lionel Hampton: "He was one of the greatest singers of all time.... We were proud of him because he was the first Black popular singer singing popular songs in our race. We, the whole music profession, were so happy to see him achieve what he was doing. He was one of the greatest singers of that era ... He was our singer."

The Title of a 1956 promotional movie by the C. G. Conn Company, Mr. B Natural, is derivative of Eckstine's nickname "Mr. B." (The title character bears no resemblance to Eckstine.)

Discography

Albums

With Howard McGhee

1948 Howard McGhee and Milt Jackson (Savoy [rel. 1955])

LP/CD releases/compilations of note

1960 Mr. B: The Great Billy Eckstine and His Orchestra (Audio Lab) – 12" LP reissue of The Great Mr. B from DeLuxe/King

1963 Billy & Sarah [with Sarah Vaughan] (Lion) – compilation

1971 Billy Eckstine Together (Spotlite) – 1945 live "radio broadcast" recordings

1979 Billy Eckstine Sings (Savoy Jazz) – compilation

1986 Mister B. and the Band: The Savoy Sessions (Savoy Jazz) – compilation

1986 I Want to Talk About You (Xanadu) – This compilation features Eckstine's earliest recordings, thirteen selections from his 1940–1942 Bluebird sides with the Earl Hines Orchestra; plus three ballads from a 1945 live "radio broadcast" with his big band.

1991 Everything I Have Is Yours: The Best of the MGM Years (Verve/PLG) – 2-CD anthology with 42 tracks (note: the original 2–LP set was issued in 1985 with 30 tracks)

1991 Compact Jazz: Billy Eckstine (Verve/PLG) – compilation

1994 Jazz 'Round Midnight: Billy Eckstine (Verve/PLG) – compilation

1994 Verve Jazz Masters (Volume 22): Billy Eckstine (Verve/PLG) – compilation

1996 Air Mail Special (Drive Archive) – reissue of the 1945 live "radio broadcast" recordings.

1996 The Magnificent Mr. B (Flapper/Pearl) – anthology/compilation of material recorded with Earl Hines (for the Bluebird label), and Eckstine's recordings with his orchestra (for the DeLuxe and National labels).

1997 The Chronological Billy Eckstine And His Orchestra 1944-1945 (Classics) - anthology/compilation

1999 The Chronological Billy Eckstine And His Orchestra 1946-1947 (Classics) - anthology/compilation

2001 Mr. B (ASV/Living Era) – anthology/compilation

2002 Timeless: Billy Eckstine (Savoy Jazz/Denon) – compilation

2002 The Legendary Big Band 1943–1947 (Savoy Jazz/Denon) – 2-CD anthology (all of Eckstine's recordings for the De Luxe and National labels).

2003 The Motown Years (Motown/UMe) – 2-CD anthology

2004 Love Songs (Savoy Jazz/Denon) – compilation

2004 A Proper Introduction to Billy Eckstine: Ballads, Blues and Bebop (Proper) – anthology/compilation

2005 Jukebox Hits 1943–1953 (Acrobat) – anthology/compilation

2005 Early Mr. B: 1940–1953 (Jazz Legends) – anthology/compilation of material recorded with Earl Hines (for the Bluebird label), and Eckstine's recordings with his orchestra (for the DeLuxe, National and MGM labels).

2006 Prisoner of Love: The Romantic Billy Eckstine (Savoy Jazz/Denon) – this is a reissue of Timeless: Billy Eckstine.

2008 All of My Life (Jasmine) – 2-CD anthology (contains 35 tracks recorded for MGM; includes all 10 of his 1956 RCA recordings; and 10 of his 1957–1958 Mercury recordings).

2013 Billy Eckstine: Seven Classic Albums (Real Gone Jazz) – 4-CD reissue package includes these 7 albums, Billy Eckstine's Imagination; Billy Eckstine & Sarah Vaughan Sing the Best of Irving Berlin; Billy's Best!; Basie-Eckstine Incorporated; No Cover, No Minimum; Once More With Feeling; At Basin Street East.

Wikipedia

[disappearingground]

She’s not afraid to make key changes

Los Angeles Times September 24, 2008

Jenny Lewis, 32, involved her family - blood and musical - on her new solo album, "Acid Tongue." 

By Ann Powers

Jenny Lewis no longer calls Silver Lake home, but she hasn’t moved to Laurel Canyon. The woodsy bungalow she shares with her companion and musical collaborator, Johnathan Rice, sits in an obscure corner of the San Fernando Valley, not too far from either of the neighborhoods favored by L.A.'s rock elite, but on its own ground.

“I feel like this is an undiscovered area,” said the 32-year-old singer-songwriter on a recent Friday afternoon.

As Lewis discussed her latest solo album, “Acid Tongue,” out this week on Warner Bros. Records, Rice padded around in his swim trunks, tending to some barbecue. Domestic bliss, interrupted by the occasional interview; such is life for a modestly famous member of the city’s creative class.

“Lewis, is that you squeaking? What is that noise?” Rice called into the room at one point.

“No babe,” she said. “That must have been a bird.”

Lewis is comfortable in undiscovered neighborhoods, off to the side of the action. You hear some cool, weird sounds in places like this.

Fans of well-wrought pop have been following Lewis’ quest for the unexpected since she co-founded Rilo Kiley with Blake Sennett, a former child actor like herself, in 1998. That band was part of a shift in indie music away from heavy, primal rock toward a more eclectic, self-consciously literate sound. Along with allies including Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes and the Decemberists, Rilo Kiley picked up the line that connects J.D. Salinger to Elvis Costello to David Foster Wallace to the guitar-strumming, creative writing undergrads of today.

For Lewis, however, Rilo Kiley isn’t enough. All the members of that now on-again, off-again band have side projects; her solo efforts have found the biggest audience. “Rabbit Fur Coat,” the 2006 album she made with the vocal duo the Watson Twins, was a critical favorite and one of Billboard’s Top 10 Independent Albums of 2006.

Rilo Kiley’s fourth album, last year’s “Under the Blacklight,” wasn’t as well-loved as that release; since then, fans have pondered whether Lewis might leave the band for good.

“We’ll see what kind of songs I’ll write, and that’s going to guide me,” she said. “We don’t hang out as much as we used to, but it’s been that way for a couple of years, Jason [Boesel, Rilo’s drummer] played on my record, and Pierre [de Reeder, bassist] and I did the album art together. So we’re involved in each others’ lives. We’re family, really. And even if we don’t make another record, we’ll still be a family.”

Musicians often naturally move beyond the nuclear unit of a band, but Lewis hasn’t given up on family. Scattered or shattered kinship is a dominant theme in her songs, especially on “Rabbit Fur Coat,” which was partially a meditation on her parents’ broken marriage. “Acid Tongue” forms family in a different way. There are special appearances by her sister, Leslie Lewis, and her father, Eddie Gordon, a harmonica virtuoso who spent much of Lewis’ childhood touring in a group called the Harmonicats.

“The act was very schticky,” Lewis said, smiling.

Lewis had never played music with her dad, but the sessions for “Acid Tongue” provided the right atmosphere. This was due to her other family, the circle of musicians she’s been cultivating for the past 10 years.

“I knew I was surrounded by my friends and that they would treat him with respect, and he’d feel comfortable,” she said. “And it was really lovely having him. He hung out in the studio for a couple of days, and my sister came down and she sang on a couple of songs, which was incredible.”

“Acid Tongue” has an all-star roster -- Elvis Costello, Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, A Perfect Circle bassist Paz Lenchantin and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes all participated -- but these better-known names represent just a fraction of Lewis’ crew. Other key players include Rice, who co-wrote several of the new album’s songs; producers Farmer Dave Scher and Jason Lader; and singer-songwriters Benji Hughes and Jonathan Wilson.

Lewis wanted to capture the atmosphere she’d encountered at Wilson’s Laurel Canyon house parties. “We’d go to these jams in the canyon,” she said. “They’re fantastic. Jonathan invites older session musicians from the real Laurel Canyon era, and younger people who are just starting their bands who happen to live in the canyon, and we all get together and sing Grateful Dead covers and J.J. Cale songs.”

She sighed. “ ‘Jam,’ a word I don’t often use. That and ‘gig bag,’ those are the two I try to avoid!”

Her joke exposed a conflict within Lewis, between a longing for the connections artists shared when Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young wandered Laurel Canyon, and her suspicions about the nostalgia that longing represents. The tension, not unrelated to Lewis’ fragmented upbringing, becomes artistically fruitful when she feels safe enough to explore it musically.

“She is the songbird of the scene,” said Wilson, reached by phone in Chicago, where he is touring. “I see her cut loose when she comes over and maybe she does a song that she’s hearing for the first time. I definitely hear it on the album, that sense of freedom. Who better to implement that than her? Because she’s a bird. Not only can she write songs but she’s got the technical thing, it’s just completely effortless.”

“Acid Tongue” abounds with genre experiments that take dangerous turns. “Black Sand” is a “Teen Angel"-style car-crash ballad that substitutes misogynistic murder for the dead man’s curves of the early 1960s. “Fernando” is a rockabilly romp that celebrates Mexican vacationing as a route to oblivion.

The gospel-flavored “Jack Killed Mom” is about, you guessed it, matricide. And in the title track, a country-pop ballad Dolly Parton could have written if she’d gone to Woodstock, Lewis presents herself as a female adventurer whose ultimate prize is exhaustion.

“Everything tends to be a response to the thing that I’ve written before,” Lewis said of her songwriting process. “It’s even as simple as, ‘OK, I’ve written a ballad, now I want to push myself to write something that’s uptempo.’ If I’m writing about myself, well, that subject can be tiresome, so then I focus on character-driven songs. So I’m always doing this back-and-forth just to keep myself interested.”

This drive to try new approaches is a quality Lewis shares with Costello, her onetime admirer (a few years back, he started declaring Lewis his favorite young songwriter) and current occasional collaborator. The alternative rock statesman proves a spirited duet partner on “Carpetbaggers,” a Rice composition on “Acid Tongue.” The session inspired Costello to make his 35th album, “Momofuku,” upon which Lewis and her posse appear.

“On the day we finished my record he booked the studio for about a week and finished what would become ‘Momofuku,’ ” Lewis said. “I was like, ‘I’m backing him?’ I truly can’t believe it. And he’s so cool. He’s a chiller, that’s what we’d say in Southern California.”

Chill is a state Lewis favors these days. She kept the sessions for “Acid Tongue” as open as possible, inviting her friends to drop by and join in on the analog equipment at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, near where she grew up. Each song was left more or less intact after recording -- no fixing on Pro Tools. This approach was a typical switch for the songwriter, away from the slicker “Under the Blacklight” and toward that more grass-roots feel.

She’s still proud of “Blacklight,” though it divided Rilo Kiley fans. Some questioned the band’s motivations in making a more commercial album. At the time, Lewis favored wearing very short skirts or hotpants onstage; one music journalist, Kate Richardson, created a flow chart of Rilo Kiley’s decline as it correlated to the rise in Lewis’ hemlines.

“Part of her appeal is that she at least used to write these really good, sad, bitter songs that were kinda sharp,” said Richardson, who crafted the chart for Idolator.com. “She had a lot of emotion behind her. But she’s also really hot, really cute. So girls were projecting and guys thought she was really attractive. As she started owning the sexual part of her image more, I thought that was fine, good for her. But it coincidentally went along with a change in their sound.”

Lewis took it in stride. “That’s what you get with a record like ‘Under the Blacklight,’ she said. “I was wearing hot pants and singing about sexuality. Not everyone understood that we were poking fun.”

Lewis said she might be ready for a new persona -- another step in her restless evolution. “It doesn’t really have to do with that response,” she said. “It’s just my own back-and-forth with what I do. So I want to wear hot pants, and then I want to wear cargo pants.”

She laughed. “Now, that would be really flattering.” Some things, perhaps, are best left undiscovered.

[theaudioglow]

"Folklore" by Taylor Swift Goes for Indie Rustic With Perfectly Manufactured Cabin Music

Let me start this review of “Folklore” off with some T-Swift blasphemy. I’ve never listened to an entire Swift album. I don’t even know if I can name five songs. Let me see… Kodak Yellow, Old Town Road, Thank u Next, Without Me…This…this isn’t right. Moving on.

What I do know is the album is stacked, and it’s probably named “Folklore” to account for its depth of mythical Indie frontmen storytellers. Aaron Dessner of the National helped write and produce 11 tracks. Bon Iver was in the studio. Jack Antonoff is quoted as being around the “Folklore” production unofficially, so that means he probably just stopped in to blow in the microphones and whisper future Grammys into the mixing boards.

As a snob who was too cool for Harry Potter in 5th grade because everyone else was reading it (I was in the LOTR clique),

I understand why I never gave T-Swift a chance. It’s time.

This is a real-time reaction review to “Folklore” by up and coming lo-fi songwriter Taylor Swift. If shared experiences turn you on, use the Spotify link or listen with big headphones like you’re in Garden State.

Sound good?

Headphones in. Volume UP. Enjoy.

Track One – the 1

Is it making a statement if T-Swift curses 7 words in? I think so. Will this be a bad girl album? I don’t know. I’m more expectant of a “screw the haters – this is about me” vibe.

If I had to throw a wild guess in the production wishing well, I’d say Bon Iver helped produce this track and not, say, DJ Khaled.

Track Two – cardigan

It’s notable to see dialogue around this album and see people say “Oh, she sounded hipster during the RED era versus political in the ‘Lover’ era”. I wasn’t around in the sixties but is Taylor Swift on a Bob Dylan level of fame plateau at age 30?

If I had to call it, I’d say her next couple eras are probably a Great Gatsby-style theatrical Pop Queen hostess era, and then around age 38, she escapes to Sweden to dabble in minimalist piano.

Track Three – the last great American dynasty

As a professional editor, the casual lowercase song titles just make me feel like an old man yelling at the seagull shitting on his French fries. I get it, capitalization is hard. Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande made it cool to be grammatically illiterate and it stuck.

Anyway, the song’s unique in that its lyrics follow the actual story of an oil heiress. Swift now owns the decadent mansion of said oil heiress.

Swift wrote an album with an Indie nature aesthetic from a mansion in Los Angeles. Makes sense.

Track Four – exile featuring Bon Iver

Justin Vernon’s voice in the opening verse honestly sounds closer to Aaron Dessner of The National than his normal dramatically high vocal resonance. It’s heavy, weighted with the words. I was hoping this track would be heavily influenced by the Bon Iver sound, and now that I want to crawl into the shower and lay in the fetal position, I’m not disappointed.

Track Five – my tears ricochet

RiCochet TeaRs. A perfume by T-Swift.

Musically, they did beautiful work, setting layers of building strings, ebbing and flowing choral voices, and space to breathe. Her words end and the keyboard lingers before it fades. It’s not punctual because the thoughts she expresses are not a punctuation – they are a lingering reflection, and the keys follow her down that path.

Track Six – mirrorball

The purest “indie-folk” feel on the album thus far. Swift reflects on her relationship with the industry and the public, her confidence now against her confidence in the past, and…well maybe she just likes to wear shiny things.

Track Seven – seven 

This song belongs in a coming-of-age tale, a la “The Spectacular Now”. It’s beautiful – I mean that sincerely. It’s also the song the 17-year-old awkward-yet-heartthrobby guy plays on a midnight porch on guitar just before she tells him she has cancer.

Track Eight – august

I see what you did there, Taylor, August being the 8th month of the year. It speaks to Jack Antonoff’s skill as a producer when you can make a song sound Pop but it could also fit in on a coffeehouse singer/songwriter album from 1998.   

Track Nine – this is me trying

Aaron Dessner’s fingerprints are on this track. Prominent background strings with a little reverb attached to her voice. Basically a song by The National with T-Swift’s voice.

Track Ten – illicit affairs

She uses the phrase “dwindling, mercurial high” to describe what it’s like to carry on a secret romance. If we’re going by the folky theme of this album, that scandalous high takes place in a wooded glen in late October underneath a frayed rope tire swing.  

Track Eleven – invisible string

There’s a dramatic irony quality to a song about fate, and the fate discussed is one of the biggest stars in history meeting her boyfriend in a dive bar. What line did he open with?

“Hi Taylor, would you like a shot of Fireball?”

Track Twelve – mad woman

“mad woman” is heavy on the “screw the haters” vibe. And by “haters”, I mean her shit ex-labelmate, Scooter Braun. And she said the F-word for the first time! It’s like she’s human or something!

Track Thirteen – epiphany

Ummm, is this Frau Frau? Music supervisors, take note: this song is a slam dunk to feature on an “appreciate front line workers” commercial with a nurse sitting on a hospital bench alone, exhausted.

Track Fourteen – betty

Really nice use of harmonica throughout. Not overwhelming, but a firm presence. I fully expect Neil Young to make a guest appearance by the end of the song.

Track Fifteen – peace

An intimate aspect of being a Pop star, Swift laments how she can never really give a lover a peaceful life because of the public scrutiny. To be fair, most of her boyfriends are already familiar with public scrutiny, except, well, the dive bar guy.

Track Sixteen – hoax

It’s the type of debate Greek philosophers used to initiate, as they bathed nude and oiled in their eunuch saunas: Who talks toxic relationships best, Ellie Goulding or T-Swift?

***

I appreciated Folklore. Elite production. Lyrics worth analyzing. Three F-words! I hope T-Swift sits in this era for an album or two, instead of feeling like she needs to reinvent again in two years.

If we had another 16 tracks produced by The National, Bon Iver and Taylor Swift, would that be so bad?

***

Artist Links:

website for Taylor Swift The T-Swift Instagram

Songs by Taylor Swift to get you bothered:

It’s already been viewed 32 million times, but the “cardigan” video is a magical thing. It’s like if you dropped Enya in the Jumanji rainforest. Watch it here.

Enjoy the buzz? Leave a tip. Share it with a friend.

[duluoz2]

Musicis historia mea, Pt. 1: Better Dead than Deadhead?

There was a time when I wouldn’t listen to the Grateful Dead. It wasn’t that I refused to listen to them; I just couldn’t be bothered. I actually once tried to listen to “American Beauty,” a copy of which I had received as a gift (a relative worked for Sony and had access to “original master recordings” and would give them to my brother and me; remember those?). I skipped to “Truckin’” and never got beyond that. They just didn’t grab me. I was never a hater, like many were and still are, but I did chuckle at the slogan “I’ll be grateful when they’re dead!” I was mainly an alt/punk fan, though I did have an appreciation for what would come to be called “classic rock,” the Doors, Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and others. But I never got the Dead. When I was in college, going to see them became all the rage. But, tempted as I was to see what the hoopla was all about, I never succumbed. The only intriguing thing about the Dead was their fans. I’m not talking about the waste cases, stale hippies, or trendy college kids who liked them because it was the thing to do; I mean people who took a scientific approach to the band. Some guys I knew in college were Deadheads, before it was trendy. They would talk about tape trading, about mushroom trips that throbbed in time to the music, about the different versions of songs and how each concert had its own certain, pardon the word, vibe. These guys weren’t stale hippies or waste cases, and they certainly weren’t trendies; they were fans, serious fans. The way they described the whole Dead experience always came back to the music. It was the music that attracted them, what hooked them, and what made them so “deadicated.” But I still didn’t get it.

Fast forward many years; a colleague from the college where I teach asked me to sit in with his band. They were a talented, experienced outfit, and they needed me to fill in for some gigs in the future. I was intrigued, but unsure. You see, the bulk of their repertoire consisted of Grateful Dead songs. Sure, I told them, I’d sit in, but I wasn’t too into the Dead. I’d acquire some CD’s and give a listen and we’d see if it all worked out. That’s where it all started

My cousin Marc worked for Rhino Records, the label which just happened to be the current purveyors of the Dead’s music. He got me some CD’s, among them Live Dead, From the Mars Hotel, Skull and Roses, and the long rejected by me American Beauty. I listened, purely for the sake of learning the songs, you see. Then I listened some more. One by one, the songs etched themselves into my receptive brain; accessible rockers like “Bertha,” “Playing in the Band,” “U.S. Blues,” and “One More Saturday Night;” country sounding tunes like “Mama Tried,” “Jack Straw,” and “Cumberland Blues.” Long set pieces like “Dark Star,” “The Eleven,” and “St. Stephen;” marathon jams like “Lovelight,” and “Hard to Handle;” and the song that, in my mind, best defines the Dead, “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider.” Like a true budding Deadhead, I didn’t even bother with the cliché “Truckin’.” Even the once spurned “American Beauty” worked its heretofore ineffective magic on me; it quickly became one of my favorite albums. What happened? How did I give into whatever muse it is that makes people like the Dead (who I imagine is a dreadlocked guy who smells like incense named Devin).

Well, it’s the music. Sounds cliché, I know. But that’s the truth. Similar to the Beatles, the Dead have their particular fans for their particular eras. Some favor the early psychedelic Dead; others have a preference for the mid-seventies Dead; still others cut their teeth at Dead gigs in the eighties, so that’s their preference. My era? Well, there was a time in the Dead’s career when they were between versions of the band. They started in the early sixties as a folk and bluegrass outfit, then like Dylan, went electric, calling themselves the Warlocks. The Grateful Dead evolved from there into the psychedelic explorers of the late 60’s. They then morphed into the space cowboys of Working Man’s Dead and American Beauty. In that time, they added and then lost drummer Mickey Hart and keyboardist Tom Constanten. From 1971 to 1973 they were a 5 piece with Keith Godcheaux on piano. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, at whose urging the Dead went electric, played organ and harmonica and belted out R and B and blues rave ups like “Lovelight,” “Hard to Handle,” and “Good Lovin’”. The band was less into long experimentation and more into plain jamming. They could still whip up a mean “Dark Star,” but they could also rock. This is the Europe ’72 version of the band. This is the era that produced my favorite version of “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider,” my favorite song and one that I hope to hear in the afterlife (yeah, I know, hell for many, but fucking Nirvana for me). My appreciation of the Dead can be summed up in about seven minutes of music; the transition from “China Cat” into “Rider” is an aural masterpiece, a perfect rendering of melody and musicianship; it is transcendent.

Whew. Back down to earth.

Effusive, I know, but that’s the thing about the Grateful Dead’s music. At its best, it elevates existence; it is just so good that it makes you want to get down on your knees and thank Calliope. I’m open to the fact that many don’t see it the way I see it, or hear it the way I hear it anyway. But even for the naysayers, I think there has to be an appreciation for the fact that Deadheads are such advocates for their musical worldview. It’s the reason Deadheads are so dedicated to the band and why the remnants of the Dead are still at it as Dead and Company featuring John Mayer. The gigs still happen, the deadheads still attend, many by SUV and Land Rover, sure, but they still get there. And there are still the dreadlocked, unwashed, and perennially stoned crusty hippies of all ages to add to the ambience (and not always fragrantly). Despite the absence of Jerry, Phil, Pigpen, Keith and Donna, and Brent, the experience of a Dead show still manages to reach heights of musical bliss. And no, it isn’t the drugs; I’ve attended every Dead show in my short career as a Deadhead on nothing stronger than beer (and the secondhand vapor cloud of pot smoke that is a fixture of every Dead show, no matter where it occurs).  I’ve seen Ratdog, Furthur, the Dead with all the surviving original members, and the new version. I’ve seen Bob Weir solo. I’ve even seen Cubensis, a Dead cover band. And they were all great. During each show, there was at least one point where I felt the music go to a different level into an expression of pure and unbounded beauty. Yep, it is that good. And are some of the fans a bit, well, odd? Sure, but they’re also interesting, and most are cool people. 

The first time my wife accompanied me to a Dead show, we had to get through “Shakedown Street” which is the parking lot or grassy area of any venue hosting the Dead where the vendors selling t shirts, candles, stickers, and other goods illicit and otherwise congregate. It is where you find the folks who couldn’t get tickets, or didn’t need them, and who are gathered just to be there. They are, needless to say, a pretty down to earth bunch. Some look like they’ve been following the Dead since 65; others look like they don’t even know where they are, and still others just look like plain street people. As my wife and I made our way through the stoner scrum, she held tightly onto my arm while looking around with fear in her eyes. “Relax,” I reassured her, “these people aren’t going to hurt anyone.” We got through unscathed and made our way into the venue. The usual yellow jacketed security guards were making their presence known, but this was going to be an easy gig for them; the crowd was much too mellow to cause any problems. In fact, many of the people were having meaningful conversations with the security, looking earnestly into their eyes and patting them on the back. I even saw a few Deadheads hug the security guards. Yep, easy gig.

 So turn on your lovelight, come hear Uncle John’s Band, go truckin’. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to old British punk, so the musical dichotomy that exits for me can be yours as well (one of my favorite pictures is of a mowhawked Joe Strummer with Bob Weir; the best of both worlds). As the bumper stickers used to read (and probably still do): Listen to the Grateful Dead, even if only temporarily. Then we’ll talk.