HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 9a – SIDNEY BECHET

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It’s hard for me to believe (or accept) this, but if it hadn’t been for Europe – and specifically France – it is quite possible that the music of Sidney Bechet would have been virtually forgotten. America neglected its own culture for decades, and jazz musicians, particularly Negro jazz musicians, discovered that the French respected their music much more than their own country did. Just as importantly, French culture respected them as people, too, so it is not too hard to understand why so many Black jazz musicians became French expatriates, including Sidney Bechet.
Sidney Bechet is one of jazz music’s most important innovators. He is among the few that are responsible for popularizing jazz music (or New Orleans-style ragtime music, as Bechet himself might have referred to it), first in New Orleans, then in greater America, and eventually, the world. He was one of the first innovators who combined raw power, exceptional talent, and personal expression into a unique playing style that emphasized the solo. He was largely responsible for popularizing the saxophone as a solo instrument, and he is now universally recognized as a leading progenitor in the history of jazz music. For decades, though, Bechet toiled in obscurity. At one point in time, he even quit music to run a tailor shop with his friend, Tommy Ladnier. The recognition bestowed on him from France eventually brought him back to Europe, where his fortunes changed once and for all, and his reputation as one of the greatest players in jazz history was burnished. By then, his best work was already relegated to history, and Bechet became a leader in the Jazz revivalist movement, simply by doing what he always did. Here in America, we have been playing ‘catch up’ with our own culture for some time. It’s high time we did so, and the music of Sidney Bechet is a fine place to start. Here's where we begin;
1) Wild Cat Blues
2) Characteristic Blues
3) Texas Moaner Blues
4) I'm a Little Blackbird
5) Cake Walking Babies From Home (Red Onion Jazz Babies version)
6) Cake Walking Babies From Home (Clarence Williams' Blue Five version)
7) The Basement Blues
8) Lay Your Racket
9) Dear Old Southland

THIS IS NEXT...

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Last week, we took a look at the contemporary pop charts as compiled on a CD series entitled “Now That’s What I Call Music.” Although this disk (#25 in the series) did an adequate job of representing a cross-section of America’s pop charts, it also left us feeling that something was definitely missing. Why did it feel as though virtually every one of the pop songs we covered felt shallow, or even worse, juvenile? Today, we take another look at contemporary pop music, but from a different perspective. “This Is Next” is a new CD series that focuses on some of the most promising and/or popular independent artists. The difference is immediately apparent, but can these songs compete in an open marketplace with Avril Lavigne, Keith Urban, Fergie and Kelly Clarkson? All of these songs are aiming at the same potential audience, so why are some rewarded with financial success and airplay while others flounder and disappear?
Listen to see what you think. Here’s a list of songs featured in today’s program.
1) Bloc Party - The Prayer
2) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cheated Hearts
3) Sonic Youth – Do You Believe in Rapture?
4) The Shins – Phantom Limb
5) Spoon - Underdog
6) Bright Eyes – Four Winds
7) Neko Case – Hold On, Hold On
8) Cold War Kids – Hang Me Up to Dry
9) M. Ward – Chinese Translation

Bob Dylan – Cover Versions, or “68 Songs in 58 Minutes”!

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I know we said that last week represented our final show regarding Bob Dylan in the “How Music Changed” series, and that is still true;but with one caveat. A nagging desire to summarize our coverage of Dylan kept eating at me, and ultimately, a series of events conspired to make today’s show an absolute necessity. First, a hard drive of ours crashed, a hard drive containing over 34,000 song files. Without our inventory of music, it became nearly impossible to formulate a playlist for the next subject of our series (Sidney Bechet, who we most certainly WILL cover next week). If that wasn’t bad enough, a wiring difficulty in our neighborhood knocked out our access to the Internet for a full three days. That, to coin a phrase, was the last straw. A few weeks ago, I built a playlist based on various artists’ versions of Bob Dylan songs, and it was just sitting there, waiting for me to use it. It is also quite impressive, so for all of the above reasons, we dedicate today’s show to cover versions of Bob Dylan songs.
To give my statement last week about being done with Bob some semblance of truth, you will not hear a note of his singing or playing. Instead, you will hear bits of Bob’s songs as interpreted by others. This show should prove once and for all the near universality of Dylan’s appeal, the scope of his influence, and the wonderful malleability of his songwriting. We feature snippets taken from a full 68 recorded versions of Bob Dylan songs. There are literally thousands to choose from, so finding great versions of Dylan songs is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. This represents just a small sample.
The good news is that our hard drive has since been salvaged (at considerable expense, not to mention a case of hives that apparently developed as a result of the stress) and our Internet access has been restored, so we have no excuses for next week. Next Friday, you can expect a well-prepared show focusing on the music of New Orleans jazz great Sidney Bechet. Until then, we hope you enjoy hearing 68 songs in 58 minutes!

Family Lumber - "No Stopping Anytime"

01 Intro
02 Buildup
03 No Stopping Anytime
04 Interlude #1
05 Alright Sir
06 Opening Doors
07 Time of War
08 Got to Go
09 Hunky Dory
10 Interlude #2
11 Oh How

All songs written and performed by Mike Tietjen
Engineered by Danjo

Bass performed by Danjo except track 1, which is played by Matt Lasurdo
Drums performed by Mike Tietjen except for ‘Honky Dory’, which is played by Luke

Joe Vaas plays lead guitar on ‘Alright Sir’
Mike Longo plays electric guitar on ‘Buildup’ and ‘Opening Doors’
Amy Bethune sings on ‘Buldup’ and ‘Time of War’
Matt Lasurdo sings on ‘Buildup’ and ‘Honky Dory’
Jay Primosch sings on ‘Honky Dory’
Noelle Nimchan plays Violin on track 10 and ‘Gotta Go’


Thanks to Danjo, Amy Bethune, Nico, Julie Saltman, Liz Klein, REA Studios, Hugh Mann and The Beings, Project Nairb, Jim Skelly, Lost Boy, Barkuna, Gilgongo, Lee Kessler, We Sing The Body Electric, Rob Prisco, Tom and Mr. Beery’s, Brendan Cooney, Brianne McCabe, Jay Belin and The Bowery Presents and to anyone I may have forgotten.

Now That’s What I Call Music?!

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A few years ago – I can’t even remember how long it has been now – the American Hit Radio program started as a forum to discuss popular music. That meant that we were going to look at music from various eras, but it also meant that we would be reflecting on contemporary pop music as well. As the show developed, we spent less and less time looking at what was new, focusing instead on music from past eras. I didn’t do this intentionally, it just sort of ‘happened’. As far as I can determine, the main reason this occurred was that contemporary pop music had appeared to grow trite and annoying, and perhaps even irrelevant. There was so little happening that seemed to matter, either in the present or, more importantly, at some time in the future. Would anybody give a damn about any of these songs in another five, ten or twenty years?
Today we confront that issue head on by discussing the songs that appear on the most recent edition of the “Now That’s What I Call Music” series (#25). Each of these songs are a valid representation of the current state of popular music; in the most obvious sense, they actually define it. We sample a few tracks and discuss their relevance today, and also their projected relevance. Next week, we intend to continue our focus on new music, but from a different angle.
Here’s a list of songs featured in today’s program;
1) Thnks fr th Mmrs – Fall Out Boy
2) Girlfriend – Avril Lavigne
3) U & Ur Hand – Pink
4) Never Again - Kelly Clarkson
5) Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood
6) Pop, Lock & Drop It – Huey
7) Glamorous - Fergie w/ Ludicrous
8) Summer Love - Justin Timberlake

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 133t - BOB DYLAN, LOOKING FORWARD TO 'MODERN TIMES'

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Our final show on Bob Dylan – our 20th! – ends this series not with a whimper, but a bang. Although Dylan’s relevance was rarely ever in serious question, his latest album has thrust him squarely in the midst of contemporary culture. In another sense, “Modern Times” is Bob Dylan’s most old-fashioned album, with a multitude of references to musical signposts extracted from Americana, blues and folk. The album debuted at #1 on Billboard’s weekly album chart, making Bob Dylan the oldest person to have achieved such a feat. Over twenty programs, we covered his incredibly diverse career throughout forty-five years of history. For most of those years, he has been at the forefront of our musical culture. “Modern Times” implies that there will be much more to listen for in the years to come.
Here’s a list of songs featured in today’s program;
1) Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
2) Lonesome Day Blues
3) High Water
4) Thunder on the Mountain
5) Rollin’ and Tumblin’
6) Someday Baby
7) The Levee’s Gonna Break
8) Ain’t Talkin’

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 133s – BOB DYLAN IN THE MODERN ERA

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Today’s show marks our 19th episode covering the music of Bob Dylan. As we approach the conclusion of our coverage, it is impossible to ignore the rather felicitous merging of Dylan’s style with Americana, a term/style that defines the very backbone of American music history. For the past ten years, Dylan’s songwriting utilized classic song forms and lyric phrases, bending them to suit his own purpose. The very nature of ‘Americana’ is to provide a jumping off point (or a starting point) for the interpretive artist to create something that is decidedly his own. Even dating back to his debut album in 1962, Dylan has incorporated similar techniques (“Baby Let Me Follow You Down” and “House of the Rising Sun” are just two examples). The difference between then and now is the forty some-odd years that lies between these records. Now in his sixties, with a songwriting catalog that surpasses virtually any living person, Dylan is the closest thing we have to a “song catcher”, a phrase once utilized by the Carter Family when rounding up songs from the countryside for their own recordings. This tradition is as American as apple pie, and we will complete our coverage of Bob Dylan by focusing our final episodes on his most recent trilogy of albums.

Here is a list of songs featured in today’s program;
1) Love Sick
2) Dirt Road Blues
3) Standing in the Doorway
4) Not Dark Yet
5) Cold Irons Bound (live)
6) Make You Feel My Love
7) Mississippi
8) Summer Days

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 133r – BOB DYLAN IN THE ‘90S

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Our 18th program focusing on the music of Bob Dylan finds us discussing his output in the early and mid-nineties. Most of the material released by Dylan during this time period consists of his interpretations of ‘roots’ music, often reaching back to early material from English, Irish and American traditions. Some fans considered this work to be an aberration, expecting Dylan to write his own material. However, it is quite plain to even a casual fan that Dylan has always been a champion of traditional blues and folk songs, and has often used these songs as a basis for his own writing. For that reason alone, it is fascinating to hear Dylan’s interpretation of songs that have affected him during the course of his own lifetime. The experience is further heightened by Dylan’s maturing voice, which somehow adds to the dark, surreal feel that these songs have maintained for decades. Like many of the artists who originally recorded these songs, Dylan imbeds his essence into the material without replacing the spirit that makes these songs so timeless.
Here’s a list of material featured in today’s program;
1) Wiggle Wiggle
2) Unbelievable
3) Cat’s in the Well
4) Frankie and Albert (excerpt) – Mississippi John Hurt
5) Frankie and Albert
6) Black Jack Davey (excerpt) - The Carter Family
7) Black Jack Davey
8) Broke Down Engine (excerpt) – Blind Willie McTell
9) Broke Down Engine
10) Blood in My Eyes (excerpt) – Mississippi Sheiks
11) Blood in My Eyes
12) Pretty Boy Floyd
13) John Brown (live MTV)

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 133q - BOB DYLAN'S "OH, MERCY"

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Our 17th show featuring the music of Bob Dylan represents yet another significant turning point in his career, one that still holds true today. As Dylan relates the tale in his autobiography, the sessions for “Oh Mercy” were grueling, but you could never tell by the resultant music. Song for song, “Oh Mercy” is one of the most consistent albums Dylan ever recorded. Lyrically, Dylan is focused and persuasive. Musically, the production work of Daniel Lanois maintains a spooky, otherworldly feel that compliments the atmosphere established by Dylan’s lyrics. It also provides a unique, identifiable sound that separates Dylan’s work from the pack of artists who were becoming mired in the glossy, synthetic, digital production that defines that era. Ever since “Oh Mercy,” Dylan’s work has been characterized by excellent musicianship and songwriting that proudly displays a deep familiarity with the ‘Great American Folk Songbook.’
Here is a list of songs featured in today’s program;
1) Political World
2) Everything Is Broken
3) Man with the Long Black Coat
4) Most of the Time
5) What Was It You Wanted
6) Where Teardrops Fall
7) Ring Them Bells
8) What Good Am I?
9) Disease of Conceit
10) Shooting Star
11) Dignity
12) Series of Dreams

HOW MUSIC CHANGED, PART 133p - BOB DYLAN, PART 16

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The late eighties may not have contained Bob Dylan’s most influential work, but it still has significant points of interest. It is also marked by drastic extremes in his relative popularity. Dylan’s solo records from this era are among the worst-selling collections of his career and yet, simultaneously, his collaboration albums (as The Traveling Wilburys) marked the best-selling record of his entire career up to this point in time. In the late eighties, collaboration was the name of the game for Dylan, so this program also acknowledges his tour partners, including as live album featuring the Grateful Dead.
Here’s a list of songs from today’s show;
1) You Wanna Ramble
2) Got My Mind Made Up
3) Brownsville Girl
4) Silvio
5) Had a Dream Bout You, Baby
6) Rank Strangers to Me
7) Dirty World
8) Tweeter and the Monkey Man
9) If You Belonged to Me
10) Queen Jane Approximately