I just ran across this. I put it on the blog about 4 years ago, but the link got scrambled, so here it is again. (My mom lived to be 103.)
“I was at my Mom’s rest home a few weeks ago and walked in on a little lady sitting at the piano playing for the old folks. (This is in the wing for elderly and challenged residents.) It was ragtime music and great. I learned who she was and called her up. Did she want me with my bass and my brother with his banjo to sit in with her? “Oh, yes, that would be great!”
This is the 2nd time we’ve played together. Lew taped this last Tuesday, and the joint was rockin’. (We haven’t even practiced together yet.) These are songs that I used to play with my quartet in high school, a lot of them from the ’20s, so I was right at home.
I’m working at my bass playing and Bob is pretty good on the banjo.
Phoebe is actually thrilled. I told her we’re just enhancing her. I’m calling us the Phoebe Babo trio. She says when she was a girl, she played the drums. She started on the piano later on in life, and she’s just got it. She is a grand lady. The 80-90-year-olds love us. On Tuesday, as soon as we started playing, people came in from all over. The caregiver women were dancing, my mom’s caregiver Clara was shakin’ it. A lady named Jane knows the words to every song. Peggy was 88 that day and celebrating with wolf whistles at the end of each song.”
Just out. Boy is there some good stuff here (also, some half-finished, raw songs). These guys were having fun!
Like an Amazon reviewer wrote, “This is history, babe….”
Photo I took of Dylan with Robbie Robertson in one of his first concerts with rock and roll, in Providence, RI, in Fall, 1967. Full account of this concert here.
https://grooveshark.com/s/I+Don+t+Hurt+Anymore/78dLLs?src=5 https://grooveshark.com/s/This+Wheel+s+On+Fire/78dKfg?src=5
Brown Sugar by Little Richard on Grooveshark
Never heard this before. The whoooos are still tremulating here. Not sure of date — ’71?
Some years ago, Little Richard was called upon to introduce Paul McCartney at I believe, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At that point, I don’t believe L.R. had been inducted. I was watching it on TV and was surprised and pleased to see him come up to the mike and say “I am — the architect of rock n roll!”
Well, all right…moment of truth. Who should have been introducing whom here?
Heard this on maybe my favorite radio show, Michael Des Barres’ program on Sirius’ Underground Garage channel, preceded by the Stones original. Michael plays such good stuff, incl. many bands from the 60s to 70s I’ve never heard of.
Two of my favorite Little Richard songs (not so well known) are “Bama Lama, Bama Loo,” and “I Got It,” where he says
It ain’t what you eat,
It’s the way how you chew it…
“In Japan, it’s an end-of-year tradition to sing “Ode to Joy,” the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The song is so well-known in Japan that it’s known simply as daiku, literally “number nine.” In Osaka, a 10,000-person-strong “Number Nine Chorus” of amateur singers performs daiku every December, to thundering effect. While there are some professionals involved (the soloists and orchestra), the Number Nine Chorus is largely a community effort. And the sound of 10,000 singers, trained or untrained, is unbelievable.…The Beethoven craze began, strangely enough, during World War I, when German soldiers being held as prisoners in Japan staged the very first performance of number nine here.
The Japanese liked what they heard, and by the mid-20th century, number nine had become a holiday hit.…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY
I pulled into Courtenay,
Was raining and getting dark…
Friday night on my book trip to Vancouver Island.
Went to Serious Coffee for caffeine, wi-fi, town orientation. It’s good to get away from SF/LA/NYC etc. sophisticated areas. Courtenay’s a pretty real town. Real people. Refreshing. Got nice motel room, started looking for music venues…Whistlestop Pub…well, yeah-uh. I lucked out. Big place, multi-levels. sat at bar, great beer, great food…what type music they gonna play, I asked bartender. “Sorta rockish…”
Lead guitar player probably 60 y.o., other guys young. They did covers — Dylan, Credence, some better than others. Then they did the Beatles’ If I Fell In Love, the drummer singing John’s lines, and it was stunning. I don’t know if the band even knew what was happening, but they were channeling this great song from 50 (!) years ago; it was perfect…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GGLmZCZ1sXY
From David Pescovitz on BoingBoing
