American Bands and Artists

Who is Gram Parsons…And Why Does Yer Blogger Keep Writing About Him?

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I’ve read six books about a singer/songwriter that some of you may barely recognize or recall: Gram Parsons. Six books. And three more that feature him prominently. I begin each book hoping to understand how and why such an enormously gifted musical visionary chose, or was predestined, to recklessly self-destruct at such a young age. The biographies present a wealth of information: about how this well-mannered Southern boy pioneered and popularized the merging of country sounds with rock, rhythm and folk…about his influence on artists as diverse as The Rolling Stones and Elvis Costello…about how he put Emmylou Harris on the map. But all the books end the same way: with Gram dead at age 26 from a heroin overdose in a bleak desert motel room on September 19, 1973. His tragic-romantic personal history rattles my brain. His music rattles my soul.

Happy Trails, Hippies!

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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 … Read more

Woody Guthrie’s Yiddishe Mama

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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.

Bob Dylan and Scarlet Rivera: Strings of Rolling Thunder

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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.

‘Magic Dick’ Salwitz: Still Whammin’ and Jammin’ at 72

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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.”