Here's an unusual recording by jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer, the late, great, Miles Davis (a jazz musician of extraordinary talent), taken from "Sketches of Spain", an album from an arrangement by Gil Evans. It's the adagio movement from "Concerto de Aranjuez". Miles Davis - Concierto de Aranjuez: Adagio (Official Audio) (youtube.com)
Saturday's death of Kris Kristofferson sees the passing of a very special man. To talk about his music career or even his acting career misses so much. He came from an established military family but having graduated from his US university went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. While there he started writing and saw his future as an author. At the same time he started singing folk music. At one point he was part of the Larry Parnes stable (Billy Fury, Marty Wilde etc.) but nothing took off. He returned to the US and followed his (family) chosen path and joined the military. He entered as a Lieutenant and ended up a Captain, spending most of his time in West Germany. On returning to the USA he was disowned by his family when he chose to seek a career as a folk/country singer. Though based in Nashville he spent half his time earning money flying helicopters to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, returning to Nashville where he mostly did any job given to him in the recording studios (listen to Beat the Devil as it more or less describes both his life then and his outlook on life). Writing songs and recording them on cassettes he tried to get people to listen to them. Eventually Johnny Cash listened and recorded Sunday Morning Comin' Down (again a description of an artist alone and on the breadline). Other recordings of his songs followed and in 1970 he was offered a recording contract by a sub-label of Columbia called Monument and recorded an album of his songs called Kristofferson. It wasn't a success but in 1971 the posthumous hit of 'Me and Bobbie McGee' by Janis Joplin (often considered the Bobbie McGee of the song) was a hit and the LP was reissued as 'Me and Bobbie McGee'. It became a hit and if you haven't got it I'd recommend it to you. He actually appeared at the 1971 Isle of Wight Festival where he opened his set with 'Blame it on the Stones' (he also had this as track no.1 on the LP, which I think a big mistake) which the crowd booed. Americans seldom understand irony but this time it was the Festival crowd who were dumb. In the early '70s at the age of 35+ he was suddenly the biggest thing in Country and the next Bob Dylan. He went on to write loads more songs, put out plenty of LPs and then surprisingly became a film star (without losing his credibility). He never eclipsed his first LP but he was always interesting, always liberal in his views and always a fine songwriter. Other artists loved his songs and my favourite cover is Gladys Knight and the Pips version of Help Me Make It Through the Night. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX66ZtKnmYU#:~:text=From%20the%201972%20Soul%20album,%20"Standing%20Ovation" (Kristofferson didn't write the spoken intro). What I liked about his songs was that they were by a mature man who had lived a life and sung with a grown up voice (unlike most of the music by overgrown teenagers I was listening to). My favourite song of his is Casey's Last Ride: a song about a man facing loneliness (maybe in an unhappy marriage) though in the song he meets with a former lover. The song betrays his having experienced life in England...Underground, Golden Crown, Pint of Bitter . He also seems close to Joycian influence with 'here's a kiss to make a body smile'. Kris Kristofferson - Casey's Last Ride (youtube.com) John Denver did a good version and as many would prefer a female singing the sensitive parts Emmylou Harris's version is a fine one. A bigger man than many people will realise. And he stumbled as he's leaving and he wonders if the reason was the beer that's in his belly or the tear that's in his eye.
The Appointment A really beautiful Italian song from around the 1970's, sung by the lovely Ornella Vanoni, Ornella Vanoni - L'Appuntamento (youtube.com) .................... Also, the same song, this time sung by Andrea Bocelli from a concert in Las Vegas, 2006. Andrea Bocelli - L'appuntamento (Live From Lake Las Vegas Resort, USA / 2006) (youtube.com) ....................
Monkeys will never type Shakespeare, study finds So it would take over 10 million, billion, billion years for a monkey to type out the complete works of Shakespeare...!! Firstly, why would you want to, its complete jibberish... And secondly, have they not seen Planet of the Apes recently...
I do like documentaries and have just watched a 2-parter on YouTube from the "Real Stories" collection featuring Sir Trevor McDonald. He visits the Indiana State Prison (including the 12 inmates on Death Row) and I found it incredibly well made and thought provoking. Here is the link to part 1 (there is a link to part 2 under the video).
Thought this was worth a repeat. Great tribute to Shane MacGowan. "Fairytale of New York" - Tribute to Shane MacGowan at Funeral, 2023 Dec 2023 - MacGowan's family and friends dance to tribute, sung by Glen Hansard and Lisa O'Neill. Notice Irish President Michael D Higgins in the front. Beautiful and moving live performance
The composers of the theme music for Yellowstone, Brian Tyler and Breton Vivian, also wrote the music earlier for the Western drama "1883". Here's a sample of the composers' superb background music for "1883" :
I’ve just started watching a series called “Slow Horses”. Nothing to do with horses, it’s about MI5. Gary Oldman steals the show so far but some great acting and terrifically well written.
RIP Brian Murphy aka George from George and Mildred. A fine innings to get to 92 and always made me laugh as a kid
Been waiting for someone to post something on this thread about the film 'Complete Unknown' :the life of Bob Dylan from 1961 to 1965. Nobody has, so I'll do it. I have to admit I was a late starter with Bob and didn't get interested until about 1974. One of the things that put me off him in the years covered was that all the geeky, spotty kids at school seemed to like him and that did put me off: terrible reason I know, but true. I was of course very aware of him though, especially when the Byrds covered Mr. Tambourine Man. So I understand that some people are not interested in him and that may put them off. My advice is go to see it. It's a very interesting and entertaining film with an extraordinary performance by Timothee Chalumet, who manages to sing and play everything by Dylan in the film and who so invades the part that you forget it's not Dylan himself. How he didn't win the Oscar I'll never know. I'm sure some dramatic licence was used here and there, but historically it's 90% there. One glaring wrong was when he played his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival (in the film) and someone cries out Judas. This didn't happen until about 10 months later and was in the Manchester Free Trade Hall during his 1966 European tour. So go and see it, preferably at a Cinema with surround sound as that's a further success of the film as often you feel you are in the crowd. I enjoyed the film a great deal.
Thanks for the heads up Bustino, and yes it was something that was on my radar to watch but not because I like or have anything in kind towards Dylan, I just think Timothee Clement is a fine actor and from the previews I have seen of the film he looks uncannily like the man... If truth be told I couldn't get into Dylans musical style, my preference has always been of the harder rock type of form, and I found him closer to a poet who could play a bit of guitar and was for lefty students to sing along too. No, my main reason for not taking him up is that there is a bloke who still comes in to our local who when the conversation around the bar gets to music bangs on about him being the greatest ever musician, poet, political speaker and down right top man that has every lived and I told him to f-off and shove it up his back side...!! He still brings that night up, even though it's about 20 years since, and says that 'as I've never heard any of his music then how can I comment.' Fair point, but he's still rubbish...
A lot of people do, but Dylan's version has a rather wasted feel to it while the Byrds version is very positive and sparky. I love the Byrds' version but I also like Dylan's. And he wrote it like he wrote Make You Feel My Love which Adele made a superb version. He wrote hundreds of great songs. I believe Dylan blew Music apart in the US, not in the UK as our groups had already done that. This film tracks that explosion...
