This is a real, on the run, blog.
So I am getting off the flight from Dulles in DC to CDG in Paris on March 26, 2009, and I am talking to a brother from Chicago about the blues and jazz. I started by telling him I am working on a fiction project, "The Bluesmen."
He says, "Yeah, well I'm from Chicago, home of the blues."
"Yeah," I said, "after the blues greats moved up from the Mississippi Delta -- John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, all those great guys. I was in Clarksdale, Mississippi a year ago this month. The heart of the Delta Blues country. And when you see how big those cotton fields are, you get an idea of how the blues was born there."
Then I thought very quickly of the alto sax great Charlie Parker, The Bird. I got very emotional.
"You know," I said, "Charlie Parker flies into Paris and he's getting off the plane. All these people are applauding and cheering. The Bird looks around, and then realizes: They're cheering for me, man. They're cheering for me."
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
WOKE UP THIS MORNING WITH THE RISING SUN...
...and played track four of my digitally-remastered version of Bob Marley and The Wailers' "Legend" album.
If you do not have this work, get it, in whatever format you prefer; then put on the fourth track and listen to Mr. Marley's fine poetry and also listen to the song's fine bass work.
If you do not have this work, get it, in whatever format you prefer; then put on the fourth track and listen to Mr. Marley's fine poetry and also listen to the song's fine bass work.
Monday, March 16, 2009
THE SCREAM THAT CHANGED ROCK 'N' ROLL
BY PAUL HEIDELBERG
STAFF WRITER
www.musicoftheworldXXI.blogspot.com
Listening to a digitally- remastered version of “The Buddy Holly Story” recently, I kept listening to the scream in “Oh Boy.”
I thought, this was very ahead of its time – as in portending the screams of The Doors’ Jim Morrison, and even the primal screams of John Lennon (who was very much influenced by Holly, of course, as Paul McCartney was recently quoted in Rolling Stone magazine).
Also, listening to Holly’s guitar work, I thought, “Presley did not play the guitar like this; this is pretty strong stuff for the 1950s.”
As I have written at this music blog
www.musicoftheworldXXI.blogspot.com
that guitar playing, along with the playing of such great Black guitarists as Elmore James and McKinley Morganfield (aka Muddy Waters) ushered in the “Freaked Out 60s Rock Guitar” of such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, fellow-Texan-to-Holly, Johnny Winter, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and later, also a fellow-Texan-to Holly, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Speaking with a member of The Picks, who backed Holly on such classic rock tunes as “Oh Boy,” “Maybe Baby” and seven other songs, I was set straight on that scream.
The man who set me straight is John Pickering, who now lives in Houston, but grew up in Lubbock with Holly. John was several years older than Holly, but his wife Vicky was Holly’s high school classmate. John was honored for his work with The Picks and Holly in a Senate Resolution at the State Capitol in Austin, February 23, 2009.
When asked what he remembers most about Holly, John said: “He was really an average sort of guy. He was pretty tall for the time, and skinny. He didn’t play any sports, and he wasn’t very popular.
“But when he got up on the stage in the high school auditorium and picked up a guitar and started playing, he was a completely different person. He changed completely.”
Bob Lapham and John’s older brother Bill were the two other members of The Picks. Bill died at the age of 58 in 1985 but Lapham was on hand with John to receive the award in Austin last month.
John, who earned a living as a petroleum engineer, later explained to me how tunes such as “Oh Boy” and “Maybe Baby” had been recorded by producer (and co-author of some of Holly’s tunes) Norman Petty at the officers club at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City.
Petty later brought the Picks to a recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico, to add backing vocals.
Petty knew the Picks from Lubbock and was familiar with the work Bill and John had done with their parents as members of The Pickering Family Singers, who had sung gospel and other types of music since the parents started The Pickerings in the 1930s.
Recalling that hot Saturday afternoon, July 12, 1957, when The Picks went into that Clovis, New Mexico, studio to lay down backing vocals, John has written:
“Norman played the tape about 10 times before Bill and I had the background worked out. Then, for about five times through, Bill sang Bob’s part to him [John explained to me that Bill sang the top of the register, Bob Lapham the bottom, and he sang middle]. We rehearsed the tape about five times more, with Bill wearing earphones. Bob and I preferred to sing with the small speakers in the studio, turned down low enough to prevent any feedback.”
Remembering those early days of rock’n’roll, John told me the speakers and Ampex tape machines Petty used were “state of the art” for the 1950s.
“The speakers were huge,” John said. “And Norman was way ahead of his time, the way he overdubbed and laid down tracks.”
When John visited my home recently, I showed him my “The Buddy Holly Story” CD and told him, “You’d better be getting royalties from this.”
He told me that he, and The Picks, never received royalties. John said Petty assured The Picks the work they were doing backing Holly would help their future music careers.
Of course, The Picks’ association with Holly ended abruptly with that tragic plane crash in Iowa February 3, 1959, that took the lives of 22-year-old Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens.
John said he has not sought legal recourse regarding royalties. “I would have to sue the family,” he told me. “I’m not going to do that.”
It was after John had returned to Houston, and I had read some notes from his memoir of his days with The Picks and Buddy Holly (he told me the manuscript is nearly completed) that I read it had been his brother Bill, not Holly, who came up with that scream that takes “Oh Boy” to another level, in this writer’s opinion.
After I had emailed him with words such as: “That was your brother who did that scream? I always thought that was Buddy screaming,” John replied:
Yes, my brother Bill added the "EE-EE-EE-EE" at the end of the "dum-de-dum-dum" bridge. It was a melodious yell, which was unprecedented at the time, as was overdubbing in general. We set a lot of new precedents with our 1957 work, and have been harmonically emulated over the years. It would have helped if people had known it was us, and that was supposed to happen. It never did, but we'll just take what we have now and go on.
Yes, you go on, John, and you too – Bob Lapham, Bill Pickering, and Buddy Holly.
Rock has never been the same since your music was born (not died).
(NOTE: The Music of “The Sixties” figures importantly in Paul Heidelberg’s novel CHASING FREEDOM, which he wrote while living in Spain from June, 2004 to August, 2006 [the neo-nonfiction novel is available at www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, etc.]; Heidelberg is returning to Europe to live later this month, where writing projects include completing his screenplay, “The Bluesmen,” based on his near life-long love of the blues, and his March, 2008 journey to the “Word Capitol Of The Blues,” Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.)
STAFF WRITER
www.musicoftheworldXXI.blogspot.com
Listening to a digitally- remastered version of “The Buddy Holly Story” recently, I kept listening to the scream in “Oh Boy.”
I thought, this was very ahead of its time – as in portending the screams of The Doors’ Jim Morrison, and even the primal screams of John Lennon (who was very much influenced by Holly, of course, as Paul McCartney was recently quoted in Rolling Stone magazine).
Also, listening to Holly’s guitar work, I thought, “Presley did not play the guitar like this; this is pretty strong stuff for the 1950s.”
As I have written at this music blog
www.musicoftheworldXXI.blogspot.com
that guitar playing, along with the playing of such great Black guitarists as Elmore James and McKinley Morganfield (aka Muddy Waters) ushered in the “Freaked Out 60s Rock Guitar” of such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, fellow-Texan-to-Holly, Johnny Winter, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, and later, also a fellow-Texan-to Holly, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Speaking with a member of The Picks, who backed Holly on such classic rock tunes as “Oh Boy,” “Maybe Baby” and seven other songs, I was set straight on that scream.
The man who set me straight is John Pickering, who now lives in Houston, but grew up in Lubbock with Holly. John was several years older than Holly, but his wife Vicky was Holly’s high school classmate. John was honored for his work with The Picks and Holly in a Senate Resolution at the State Capitol in Austin, February 23, 2009.
When asked what he remembers most about Holly, John said: “He was really an average sort of guy. He was pretty tall for the time, and skinny. He didn’t play any sports, and he wasn’t very popular.
“But when he got up on the stage in the high school auditorium and picked up a guitar and started playing, he was a completely different person. He changed completely.”
Bob Lapham and John’s older brother Bill were the two other members of The Picks. Bill died at the age of 58 in 1985 but Lapham was on hand with John to receive the award in Austin last month.
John, who earned a living as a petroleum engineer, later explained to me how tunes such as “Oh Boy” and “Maybe Baby” had been recorded by producer (and co-author of some of Holly’s tunes) Norman Petty at the officers club at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City.
Petty later brought the Picks to a recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico, to add backing vocals.
Petty knew the Picks from Lubbock and was familiar with the work Bill and John had done with their parents as members of The Pickering Family Singers, who had sung gospel and other types of music since the parents started The Pickerings in the 1930s.
Recalling that hot Saturday afternoon, July 12, 1957, when The Picks went into that Clovis, New Mexico, studio to lay down backing vocals, John has written:
“Norman played the tape about 10 times before Bill and I had the background worked out. Then, for about five times through, Bill sang Bob’s part to him [John explained to me that Bill sang the top of the register, Bob Lapham the bottom, and he sang middle]. We rehearsed the tape about five times more, with Bill wearing earphones. Bob and I preferred to sing with the small speakers in the studio, turned down low enough to prevent any feedback.”
Remembering those early days of rock’n’roll, John told me the speakers and Ampex tape machines Petty used were “state of the art” for the 1950s.
“The speakers were huge,” John said. “And Norman was way ahead of his time, the way he overdubbed and laid down tracks.”
When John visited my home recently, I showed him my “The Buddy Holly Story” CD and told him, “You’d better be getting royalties from this.”
He told me that he, and The Picks, never received royalties. John said Petty assured The Picks the work they were doing backing Holly would help their future music careers.
Of course, The Picks’ association with Holly ended abruptly with that tragic plane crash in Iowa February 3, 1959, that took the lives of 22-year-old Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens.
John said he has not sought legal recourse regarding royalties. “I would have to sue the family,” he told me. “I’m not going to do that.”
It was after John had returned to Houston, and I had read some notes from his memoir of his days with The Picks and Buddy Holly (he told me the manuscript is nearly completed) that I read it had been his brother Bill, not Holly, who came up with that scream that takes “Oh Boy” to another level, in this writer’s opinion.
After I had emailed him with words such as: “That was your brother who did that scream? I always thought that was Buddy screaming,” John replied:
Yes, my brother Bill added the "EE-EE-EE-EE" at the end of the "dum-de-dum-dum" bridge. It was a melodious yell, which was unprecedented at the time, as was overdubbing in general. We set a lot of new precedents with our 1957 work, and have been harmonically emulated over the years. It would have helped if people had known it was us, and that was supposed to happen. It never did, but we'll just take what we have now and go on.
Yes, you go on, John, and you too – Bob Lapham, Bill Pickering, and Buddy Holly.
Rock has never been the same since your music was born (not died).
(NOTE: The Music of “The Sixties” figures importantly in Paul Heidelberg’s novel CHASING FREEDOM, which he wrote while living in Spain from June, 2004 to August, 2006 [the neo-nonfiction novel is available at www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, etc.]; Heidelberg is returning to Europe to live later this month, where writing projects include completing his screenplay, “The Bluesmen,” based on his near life-long love of the blues, and his March, 2008 journey to the “Word Capitol Of The Blues,” Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
BUDDY HOLLY -- RAVE ON -- LIVES ON (WRITTEN WEEK OF FEBRUARY 3, 2009)
This musician of the XX Century lives on in this XXI Century, and beyond.
After listening to my recently-received CD "The Buddy Holly Story" (this re-issue was not available a few years back -- get it), I write:
Listening to tunes such as "Maybe Baby," "That'll Be The Day," "Peggy Sue" and "Rave On," I had this lucid thought: Presley could not play the guitar like this. (Perhaps Crickets band memeber Waylon Jennings is getting some licks in, too).
Holly "ushered in" the whole Sixties Rock Guitar Thing: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, etc.
Holly, and such great Black guitarists as Elmore James and Muddy Waters, that is, did the ushering.
Get "The Buddy Holly Story" in any format you choose, and when you listen to it, get to the volume control on whatever you are using to hear this great work, and TURN IT UP.
After listening to my recently-received CD "The Buddy Holly Story" (this re-issue was not available a few years back -- get it), I write:
Listening to tunes such as "Maybe Baby," "That'll Be The Day," "Peggy Sue" and "Rave On," I had this lucid thought: Presley could not play the guitar like this. (Perhaps Crickets band memeber Waylon Jennings is getting some licks in, too).
Holly "ushered in" the whole Sixties Rock Guitar Thing: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, etc.
Holly, and such great Black guitarists as Elmore James and Muddy Waters, that is, did the ushering.
Get "The Buddy Holly Story" in any format you choose, and when you listen to it, get to the volume control on whatever you are using to hear this great work, and TURN IT UP.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Astral Weeks, CHASING FREEDOM/ADD 1 ASTRAL WEEKS LIVE, POSTED 2/27/09
Today I am adding a reproduction of a not-easily-legible writer's handwriting spontaneous music review of the Astral Weeks Live At The Hollywood Bowl work by Van Morrison: succinctly -- I may like the original work better, except for cuts such as "Slim Slow Slider." To paraphrase Mr. McKinley Morganfield, don't be cheap, spend some cash and get this work, and the as-they-say seminal original, recorded in New York City in 1968, reputedly in two days, and featuring great work by many, including Modern Jazz Quartet drummer Connie Kay, who is no longer with us.
After reading Rolling Stone magazine's second recent mention of Van Morrison's live recording of Astral Weeks in L.A. last month, I wanted to write: I have been a fan of this great work since I first heard it, in a little cafe on a beautiful -- then pristine -- beach in Matala, Crete, Greece. If you do not have the CD version of Astral Weeks, get it (or in MP3 format, or whatever), and then get this live version when it is released. Van Morrison figures importantly into my novel CHASING FREEDOM, available at www.amazon.com and www.bn.com, etc. You can read book excerpts by going to www.books.google.com and searching for CHASING FREEDOM by Paul Heidelberg. Then go to the book preview link and enter Astral Weeks in the search field (and later, you might search for The Blues, etc.) The first hit involves hearing Astral Weeks for the first time. Later hits involve San Francisco during "The Sixties." I consider this book to be a neo-nonfiction novel of the Internet Age (if you read about a musician you are not familiar with, for example, such as Sam Lightnin' Hopkins, then use the Internet to search and learn). Note: the book's cover illustration is artwork created by using modern computer software to alter a 35mm photo slide taken in the studios of the San Francisco Art Institute, where Jerry Garcia studied painting in the 1960s and Ansel Adams founded the photography department in the 1940s. (Don't miss the original bell bottoms the woman on the cover is wearing -- when I see the work I usually think of Eric Clapton's Bell Bottom Blues.) I wrote the book while living in a little village in the highest mountains in Spain; to "reward myself" when I had finished the project, I treated myself to the great performance by Van The Man in Granada I describe in an earlier blog below. Note: the book's cover is suitable for framing, as they say. I have had photography and paintings shown in galleries across the U.S., including San Francisco and South Florida, and I would not sell the book's cover artwork for anything near what you can get the book for. So, two suggestions: get Astral Weeks, studio version, and live version to come, and check out my novel CHASING FREEDOM at www.books.google.com and get it at www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, etc. (Third blog at this site in as many days, hmmmmm.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
