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Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms, yearning to breathe free.
Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms, yearning to breathe free.
the
Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms, yearning to breathe free.
That's what Woodstock attendees might have heard at the end of the festival if Roy Rogers had agreed to close the show. Woodstock organizer Michael Lang wanted Roy to come on after Jimi Hendrix, the guitar phenomenon everyone had been dying to to see. Speaking to an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences panel on October 26, 2006, Mr.…
Woody Guthrie, born 103 years ago today, is best known as the dust bowl balladeer who wrote many of America's most beloved songs, including "This Land Is Your Land." He was a free spirit and a sprite, a vagabond minstrel who spent his 55 years on earth using music to empower the common man. He wrote of the roads he traveled and the characters he met, of "dusty old dust" and the places he lived on "the wild, windy plains." He also wrote about a land and a culture far removed from his Tom Joad roots, a place "where the halvah meets the pickle, where the sour meets the sweet." Yes, folks, it turns out that Woody Guthrie had a Jewish mother-in-law! And folk culture is all richer for it.
When the cops finally busted Madam Marie, the young ne'er-do-well knew it was time to leave the seaside carnival life forever. Riding Tilt-a-Whirls and chasing factory girls underneath the boardwalk…cruising the circuit with switchblade lovers and open-shirt casino boys…it was all kid's stuff. Someday he'd look back on those barefoot slacker days and sex-seeking nights, and rage against the dying of the pier lights that once cast a protective cover, like a soft beach blanket, over his body and hers. But now, as the fireworks hailed over his Little Eden on that 4th of July, he determined it was time to move on. And, taking a page from that ancient tome, "Seduction Tactics 101," he made his plea to sweet "Sandy Girl:" Love me tonight, for I may never see you again. Ah, how I miss the beach life lullabies and city-sidewalk serenades that Bruce abandoned long ago! Songs like "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" are among the most visual and desperately romantic works in his catalog. And this one, in particular, is as beautiful and wistful as they come.
Man, I can't tell you how many times my shrink has had to listen to me recount this dream: I'm strutting down the street decked out like Joan Jett -- carrying a guitar/amp/tambourine/harmonica - when a car pulls over and a famous, seasoned musician asks me to stop by a recording studio and rehearse with him. Instant stardom, based on nothing more than IMAGE. Hey, it's no more far fetched than grabbing 15 minutes of fame by being anointed "star du jour" by the glam-bam-thank-you-ma'am "American Idol" judges. Being swept off the street by a rock star may be nothing more than a wet dream for yer blogger, but this really did happen to a young violinist named Donna Shea, better known as Scarlet Rivera.
With a nickname like "Magic Dick" you'd better be damn good at what you do. And Richard Salwitz is one of the best -- harmonica players, that is. Today's the 70th birthday of the man who helped put the whammer in the jammer of the J.Geils Band -- from the group's 1965 origins in Worcester, Massachusetts, through their breakup in 1985. In "The Rolling Stone Record Guide," music journalist Dave Marsh described Magic Dick as possibly "the best white musician to ever play blues harmonica."