RIP Arthur Penn

Maverick film director Arthur Penn passed away today. While Bonnie and Clyde usually gets most of the attention when talking about Penn, he made a number of other fine films, including the all too rarely screened The Chase, the 70s film noir classic Night Moves, and Alice's Restaurant, starring Arlo Guthrie. Alice's Restaurant suffers from its drifting, episode-driven narrative, and for my particular cinematic tastes its satire strays too far from realism to adequately ground the film in contemporary political questions (it was 1969 after all). But the snowy funeral scene, with Tigger Outlaw singing Joni Mitchell's "Song to Aging Children," has always struck me as a deeply moving portrait of fading 60s countercultural hopes - in its own way just as powerful as the murder of Wyatt and Billy the Kid at the end of Easy Rider.

at least one more round

Hello again. While I was snoozing on the job, someone swooped in and grabbed the bluebirdsing domain name from me. And the external hard-drive flew the coop and left me without the digitized songbook to draw from. But with a little help from some friends (notably the now 40 Cardonia) I've got most of the tunes back, and now there's a tavern in the sky (a hat-tip to Michael Hurley, who would never sleep on the job). So let's serve up a few!

Back in 1974 on Phases and Stages Willie tried to tell everybody to pick up the tempo - just a little. But while he may have been wanting to take it on home, the song just wanted to slowly find its own way to the door.
Give him a few years and he puts the ramshackle shuffle on it when doing a starring role in Honeysuckle Rose, but even with Dyan Cannon and Amy Irving to get home to he's still he's not barnstorming it like he does on, say, "Whiskey River" or "Good Hearted Woman."

Willie Nelson - Pick up the Tempo

And then we have the Jerry Jeff Walker, Lloyd Maines, and Co. kicking down some doors to get home version.

"We were doing country, but it was pretty aggressive country." - Lloyd Maines

Maines is talking about the music he was making with his brothers, Steve, Kenny, and Donnie in the late 70s/early 80s as The Maines Brothers, but his words do a pretty good job of describing the Rock & Roll thrown down he and Walker put on "Tempo."

one of the baddest

And I had heard this great little seventeen-year-old drummer who was working with Jackie McLean named Tony Williams, who just blew my fucking mind he was so bad.... Man, just hearing that little motherfucker made me excited all over again. Like I said earlier, trumpet players love to play with great drummers and I could definitely hear right away that this was going to be one of the baddest motherfuckers who had ever played a set of drums.
- Miles Davis, from Miles The Autobiography

mekas/lennon

miles and lennon try to shoot hoop.
warhol photogs.
“attica state” is born.
spector and his sunglasses collide the thumb cymbals.
rubin and lennon have a marijuana.
sha na na, roberta flack, stevie wonder, and johnyoko rock the msg.
and mekas’ flickershot jump cutting camera mind shoots everything full of exuberance and community.
and then 12/8/80.
strawberry fields forever.







Screen the complete film here.
Screen 40 of Mekas’ gems here.

Baez sings The Stones

I can’t decide what to think about Joan Baez’s singing on her cover of The Stones’ country blues “No Expectations” from her 1970 album (I Live) One Day at a Time. Just when I think she’s too uptight (and in need of a few shots of whiskey with Keith), I start feeling that she’s pretty committed to the song and that I’m a judgmental sob. But whatever about all that. What I do know is that though she doesn’t cover Dylan (yet again) on this album, she does right by herself and follows his footsteps to Nashville and gets help from some of the same Nashville pros -- like Pete Drake, Charlie McCoy, and Kenny Buttrey (handing out lessons on the drums) -- Dylan was lucky enough to have join him on Blonde on Blonde, Nashville Skyline, and John Wesley Harding. These guys are seriously taking care of business. (And, to state the random obvious, after hearing this on LP and then downloading the song for posting purposes, it’s just a damn dirty shame how much texture and sonic depth is lost when you go digital.)

Joan Baez - No Expectations [buy]

Viva La Roja!

Granada Bull

Today’s World Cup final has been many years in the making, and I think we are in for a very memorable match. While I’ve got nothing against the gentlemen in Oranje (scratch that: they're jerks), after staying in Spain for a month or so and falling in love with the country, I want to see La Roja raise that kind of goofy looking trophy in triumph. Wish I could be there with you Oli, Arturo, and Sasu! Viva Espana!

Paco De Lucia - Granada [buy]

rednecks, hippies, and misfits

The USofA is busy screwing up all over the globe. Thank God we've got Willie calling us back to what matters. Happy 4th of July everybody!

“It’s people drinking beer, smoking pot, and finding out that they have things in common and don’t really hate each other,” Willie says.

"Rednecks, hippies, misfits—we’re all the same. Gay or straight? So what? It doesn’t matter to me. We have to be concerned about other people, regardless.”

Willie Nelson and Family - Good Hearted Woman [emusic]
Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers [emusic]
MC5 - Kick Out The Jams [emusic]

james brown, james brown

My pal Alethea and I started talking about James Brown today. She reminded me that the Godfather had died on Christmas Day back in 2006. I rambled on about a chance encounter in an ex-pat bar in Moscow, where some impertinent so and so had the gall to mock Brown’s music and transcendent talent. A bit later that night I walked out into cold, cold Moscow and got stopped by the militsia: better than listening to someone run down a genius. Anywho. In 2010 Dan Reeder did quite right by JB when he recorded the deeply soulful, gospel-inflected “James Brown is Dead and Gone.”

Dan Reeder - James Brown is Dead and Gone [emusic]

fiddlin' byrd

While running around the www today trying to find some words about the sublime Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark, I discovered over at the essential Byrd Watcher that the recently deceased Senator Robert Byrd was a fiddlin’ fool. Seems this cranky, long-winded Byrd loved to fiddle and fiddled well enough to make an Opry appearance as well as release an album, Mountain Fiddler, of old-time music. Here’s a video montage clip of Byrd flashing his skills:



Check out the wonderful University of North Carolina Southern Folklife Collection blog for a few words about the Senator and a clip of one of the songs from Mountain Fiddler.

I See Hawks in L.A. honored the late Byrd with a song on their 2006 California Country album.
I See Hawks in L.A. - Byrd from West Virginia [emusic]

And here's a few more clips:

somehow

Vermont milk cows looking at me like the fool I am.

Somehow this bluebird contraption has made it past the one year mark. So I figured I’d celebrate with a six-pack: Waylon’s on the road again, Gene Clark is a genius again, the early Byrds hit the road for Boston, George cries in his booze again, as does Commander Cody, and James Talley casts those daily grind troubles aside and takes the wife out to raise a little hell. And while I'm celebrating, I want to thank Odie, Brendan, and Mike for helping me get and keep this thing rolling. And, folks, do yourself a solid and check out the links over on the right. If you aren’t regularly going to The Rising Storm, The Adios Lounge, Groover’s, or the other sites listed, then you are depriving the brain cells of vital musical oxygen. And speaking of oxygen, it's time to crack a cold one and listen to Waylon and the boys.

Waylon Jennings - Laid Back Country Picker
Gene Clark and the Gosdin Brothers - Is Yours Is Mine
The Byrds - Boston
George Jones - Why Baby Why
Commander Cody - Wine Do Yer Stuff
James Talley - You Can’t Ever Tell