Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week
Transcripts from the everyday world of music by Martin Colyer
Read this for more from Richard on the astonishing career of Buddy Featherstonhaugh,
possibly the only man to have had careers as a jazz saxophonist
(he toured with Louis Armstrong) and Grand Prix racer simultaneously.
Peter Guralnick on Little Richard here.
Read Emily Nussbaum’s fascinating profile of Fiona Apple in The New Yorker.
Here’s Carrie Battan’s review of “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”.
More on Armstrong’s collages at The Louis Armstrong House here.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
When this old world starts getting you down, and people are just too much for you to face, Sister Rosetta is there to put words to your feelings…
You can follow Five Things on Instagram, and buy the book at Amazon. Click the buttons below…
Aimee Mann Amanda Petrusich Aretha Franklin Barney Hoskyns Bill Colyer Bill Frisell Bob Dylan Bruce Springsteen David Bowie Desert Island Discs Eddie Hinton Every Record Tells a Story Hot House Inside Llewyn Davis Janis Joplin JazzWax John Cuneo Joni MItchell Jonny Trunk Ken Colyer Leonard Cohen Levon Helm likeahammerinthesink London Jazz Collector Marc Myers Mark Pringle Martin Colyer Mavis Staples Michael Gray Miles Davis music Music Documentaries New Yorker Richard Williams rocksbackpages.com Rolling Stone Magazine Ry Cooder Sam Charters Steely Dan Studio 51 The Band thebluemoment.com The Guardian US Esquire Van Morrison
I recently found this isolated vocal track of “Going, Going, Gone” from Planet Waves. It doesn’t seem to be the released take, but it’s fascinating to hear Bob’s unadorned singing [apart from some interesting chords and riffs on his acoustic guitar]. It’s impassioned and dramatic, and the timing is fantastic — listen to the delays on the title phrase.
Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week
Aside from all nice here, that piece re Little Richard and Fats is quite wonderful. Music does abide even as dementia robs memory.
Yes, Paul, I really hope for our sakes it does!
I’m ambivalent about the use of music as commentary in TV drama. Too often it seems to be something used in the absence of an adequate script – ‘listen, in case you hadn’t realised, this is what you’re supposed to be feeling at this point’. And too often they choose an appalling cover of a song that you thought you loved and thus reduce the drama to the level of a John Lewis advert. But when the end credits roll with a terrific choice of song that precisely matches the emotions you’ve been brought to feel by the script and the acting, and has you reaching for your iPhone to find out who it is – that’s real added value.
(Nice new look, by the way. Reminds me of a book I once read).
I’m with you, Kevin. There are about ten programmes that I could write about where I hated the way music was cheaply used to signpost emotion but I didn’t, cause life’s too short! Thanks for noticing the new look!
Gosh , I love this Martin.
That NY’er profile was extraordinary. It actually made me wonder wether Fiona A was okay. And it lowered my expectations for the album- which I guess I needn’t have worried about. The Little Richard bit reminded me that when I came to bed last night, my wife Jan was long asleep and, as usual, whatever pod cast/ interview thing she was listening to was still on. I have to wake her to turn it off, but before I did, I heard some snippet from a Marc Maron WTF interview. I don’t who the guy was , but he was describing a visit or party at Little Richards place where at some point Richard disappears and comes back with a book full of vagina photos.
Speaking of Maron- did you see Sword of Trust ( co written and directed by his recently deceased girlfriend, Lynn Shelton) ? The soundtrack is all Marin noodling around on electric guitar playing blues licks ..wondered what you thought.
Anyhow, so enjoyed this latest column. Always a highlight when it shows up!
john c
I agree about Richard’s feature, I told him there was entire book in it. Good to see you up & running Martin…