Last time he was in town I found a lame reason not to see him; a year later he was gone. Will always regret it.
Saw him here in the aftermath of a major blizzard maybe 20 years ago-- only about 20 of the ticketholders actually were able to make it, but he did. Canada was good training, I guess. (We were in walking distance, and slogged maybe 3/4 of a mile through 16-20" of drifted snow to get there-- got soaked as soon as the theater warmed up and all the snow we picked up on our clothes melted.) (Then we had to walk back at midnight, and it all froze again-- we were so cold when we got back that we broke up a chair and burned it in the normally unused fireplace. The firewood was all frozen down, you see.)
Ironically, I think weather is the reason I didn't go. It was in December and the forecast was for bad (for around here, anyway) weather. EDIT: Love the firewood story. EDIT II: Now that I think about it, same thing happened with Leon Russell. He was here in November of '14 at a place that holds just a few hundred people; again, walking distance, but it was going to be difficult to get there on time so I just let it go. I think this is why, to my wife, I must seem obsessed sometimes about seeing certain artists; but when they're gone.....they're gone.
@Ismitje Thanks so much for this. He has become my new obsession. And I can't stop listening to this: There's an intro; the song begins around 1:10 I really like Dave Loggins' version, but TH just nails it.
Y is for a song from the late-career renaissance of The Moody Blues, who managed to write a good mid-80s song that got good rotation on MTV without alienating old fans too much, perhaps because the song was about old fans and old loves. It's "Your Wildest Dreams." Is it their best song? Hardly. But a pleasant one (which they followed up on with the video for a 1988 song - same girl - with "I Know You're Out There Somewhere). By the time they were playing venues like Red Rocks in what might be called "nostalgia" concerts in the 90s, they played sets spanning the mid-60s to the late-80s. Clever rebirths, those.
Zebra "Who's Behind the Door?" Zebra - 1983 When this song came, a friend and I went back and forth about whether they sounded like Yes or Led Zeppelin. We found out later they were a New Orleans band doing Yes and Zeppelin (and Rush, I think) covers.
Numbers and symbols time? It's "19th Nervous Breakdown" from the Rolling Stones. Plus this bonus clip which is an odd snapshot of the mid-60s:
D is for "Downbound Train" - Chuck Berry. A little different than most of his upbeat stuff - the lyrics would fit in a Johnny Cash song.
E is for a terrific jam featuring Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Chuck Berry on guitar, with some great supporting players I don't know but probably should. Have a listen to this:
Drummer is Steve Jordan, pretty much everybody's drummer of choice these days. Bass is Joey Spampinato of NRBQ, Keef's bassist of choice, and the piano is the late great Johnnie Johnson, whose gig Chuck co-opted these many years ago when he first surfaced... the Johnny Johnson Trio let him sit in and wound up working for him. Johnson was the Johnnie Johnson on the first Ratdog tour BTW-- he was mostly the reason anybody, including Bob Weir, wanted to do that project.
I somehow missed this one back in the day - I would have been in eight grade when it came out so that isn't too suprising - and this was the first time I ever heard it. Good stuff. Thank you. My knowledge of most music outside of the acts themselves is pretty limited, and this is interesting to me.
Check out a Forbert album called "The American in Me" and also its successor "Mission of the Crossroad Palms." Full of "good stuff." Spampinato, BTW (once known as "Jody St. Nicholas") is married to Skeeter Davis, best known for a massive, pervasive country crossover hit called "The End of the World" from long before you were in junior high... "Why does the sun go on shining/why does the sea rush to shore/ why do the birds go on singing/ why are there stars up above/don't they know it's the end of the world/ it ended when I lost your love"
Larry "Blue Goose" Johnson-- Keep it Clean The very last of "the Rev's" students, after even Bookbinder, I think.
Loved it the first time I heard it. Rootsy neo-early 70s (this dropped in 1979, but sounds about 5-6 years older, IMO) pop starting to push disco off the mountaintop in the late 70s. Great call! Best version evah was Blood Red Sky. Hell, that whole album was fantastic. Who'd have predicted U2 would not just jump the shark, but pole vault over the whole shark tank in less than a decade (following UFire and JoshTree)?
Keith Jarrett Trio- Oleo Live, Open Theater East, Tokyo, 7/25/1993 Jarrett, piano, Gary Peacock, bass, Jack DeJohnette, drums