Tag: Music

RIP, Dick Clark

“America’s oldest teenager” has left us:

Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with “American Bandstand,” and whose trademark “Rockin’ Eve” became a fixture of New Year’s celebrations, died today at the age of 82.

Clark’s agent Paul Shefrin said in statement that the veteran host died this morning following a “massive heart attack.”

We’ve written about Dick Clark a bunch of times, going all the way back to BR #2. The guy played a larger part in the ushering in of the Rock and Roll era than most people imagine. From USA Today, this morning:

RIP, Whitney Houston

Dang. Shocking news:

Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.

Neil Young and the First-Time Busker

We found this story on FaceBook today. It describes one of those moments in life that seem to come straight out of a dream – and, indeed, many a singer and songwriter has probably had this exact dream.

RIP Bill Morrissey

Dang, we had not even heard that the great American folksinger Bill Morrissey had died. His website says it very simply:

Bill Morrissey passed away on July 23, 2011, in his room at a hotel in Georgia. He was staying there on his way home after several gigs. Bill’s fans and the folk music community are deeply saddened by his loss.

Just 59 years old. Ai yai yai.

Here’a a video that someone apparently just put together as a tribute. It’s actually quite nice – and what a song:

RIP Clarence Clemons [updates]

Ow. Much beloved sax player for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band Clarence Clemons has died:

Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, whose jovial onstage manner, soul-rooted style and brotherly relationship with Mr. Springsteen made him one of rock’s most beloved sidemen, died Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69.

The cause was complications from a stroke, which he suffered last Sunday, said a spokeswoman for Mr. Springsteen.

From the beginnings of the E Street Band in 1972, Mr. Clemons played a central part in Mr. Springsteen’s music, complementing the group’s electric guitar and driving rhythms in songs like “Born to Run” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” with muscular, melodic saxophone hooks that echoed doo-wop, soul and early rock ’n’ roll.

Play it, Big Man. (Legendary Clemons “Jungleland” solo starts at 4:20):

RIP: Hazel Dickens

We just heard today that the great bluegrass singer and true American treasure Hazel Dickens passed away on Friday.

“Hazel Dickens, a West Virginia-born bluegrass singer who was an authentic voice of America’s working class, has died in Washington at 75.

Ms. Dickens grew up in dire poverty in West Virginia’s coal country and developed a raw, keening style of singing that was filled with the pain of her hardscrabble youth. She supported herself in day jobs for many years before she was heard on the soundtrack of the 1976 Oscar-winning documentary about coal mining, ‘Harlan County, U.S.A.’

Her uncompromising songs about coal mining, such as ‘Black Lung’ and ‘They Can’t Keep Us Down,’ became anthems, and she was among the first to sing of the plight of women trying to get by in the working-class world.”

Get your chills ready, and listen to this:

Shoo Fly By the Light of the Moon: Songmanteaus

Is there a word for how a song can, once rattling along in your head, suddenly become another song? It keeps happening to me—maybe it’s an age thing? This morning I woke up with this in my head:

Shoo fly, don’t bother me / Shoo fly, don’t bother me / Shoo fly, don’t bother me — and dance by the light of the moon.

For those of you not familiar with ancient Americana songs, that’s a nonsensical combination of lyrics from “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me,” and “Buffalo Gals.” It’s happened in a hundred different ways. Once it was this:

A Land Down Under, and a Coincidence

We thought you all might enjoy a morning wake up song. Or to put it another way: Get to work!

Holy cow! I had just put that bit of the post up, then went to look for an interesting bit of extra info about Men at Work—and found this:

Men at Work star Greg Ham fears he’ll be forced to “sell his house” to pay out royalties for their 1980s hit Down Under after the band lost a copyright battle over the song.

A judge in Australia has ruled that the flute solo in the track samples parts of Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree, a song written by an music teacher for the Girl Guides in 1934.

The song’s composers, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, will have to pay bosses at Larrikin music publishers five per cent of the song’s proceeds dating back to 2002, as well as royalties from future earnings. […]

No one detected it – I didn’t detect it and I played the f***ing thing. I was looking for something that sounded Australiana – that’s what came out – it was never Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.

I must be a bit psychic today.

Here’s the Kookaburra song, done with the Aussie dance that Aussie kids do to the song. Let us know what you think: Can you hear how the flute part in “Land Down Under” might have borrowed from it?

Happy Birthday, Ringo

Mr. Ringo Starr turns 70 today – yikes! – and he’s got a message for everyone about what he’d like for the occasion:

“Ringo Starr turns 70 on Wednesday, and he doesn’t want any presents.

Instead, the famous Beatles drummer is making it clear, via his website, that the ideal gift to him would be for everyone to throw up a ‘peace’ sign with their fingers and say aloud, ‘Peace and Love’ right at 12 p.m. on his birthday.”

We, uh, missed it. So let us here at the BRI say just a few hours late: Peace and Love! Woo hoo!

And a tidbit about one of Ringo’s most famous songs, from page 13 of Uncle John’s UNSINKABLE Bathroom Reader:

RIP Jimmy Dean

Mr. Jimmy Dean has gone to that great sausage maker in the sky:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Jimmy Dean, a country music star known for his hit about a workingman hero, ”Big Bad John,” and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died on Sunday. He was 81.

His wife, Donna Meade Dean, said her husband died at their Henrico County, Va., home.

We always admired Mr. Dean hear at the BRI—and not just because of “Big Bad John.” We wrote a little something about him some years ago in an article about people who had made the Big Time—despite not having done a lot of schooling:

The singer-songwriter left school at 16 and joined the Merchant Marines. He knew that fame could be fleeting, so after his prime-time TV variety show ran its course, he founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company and kept his TV appearances to folksy sausage commercials. He sold the company to Sara Lee in 1991, but is still chairman of the board.

And oh man, check this out, Jimmy doing that great song must have been just a year ago or so:

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