The United States Government is within 8 days of being shutdown by the extremist, Tea Party faction of the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Please visit my politics blog if you are interested in following this story. You will find a link to my countdown timer itself so you can watch it countdown in realtime.
Hey….I’ve got a novel idea. Repeal The Tea Party and leave everything else the fuck alone.
TBD
The United States Government is within 8 days of being shutdown by the extremist, Tea Party faction of the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Please visit my politics blog if you are interested in following this story. You will find a link to my countdown timer itself so you can watch it countdown in realtime.
Elvis recorded his second gospel album, How Great Thou Art, at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 25, 26, 27, and 28, 1966. The album won a Grammy in 1967 for Best Sacred Performance. During this time period Elvis was having difficulty getting radio airplay and Elvis’ manager, Col Tom Parker (see picture above), was convinced that Elvis could get some radio airplay with more religious music. This album proved that Col Parker was right. Some insight from the recording sessions for this album are provided below (thanks to Wikipedia for this info)…..
As the sessions progressed, Elvis rejected many of the planned songs for which Freddy Bienstock had obtained publishing deals, and began picking favorites of his own and those of the musicians. The five songs in the public domain were credited as “arranged by Elvis Presley” and published by Elvis Presley Music allowing Bienstock to secure the royalties for those selections. In fact, it is likely that an engaged and enthusiastic Presley indeed did the arrangements, as he certainly did with the title song, his months of practice at home on his beloved gospel songs paying off.
One of those public domain songs was called By and By and I have chosen it as the featured song for my first Time Machine Tunes (TMT) post. By and By was recorded on May 26, 1966 and I have a portion of that recording session for you. It is great to hear the song progress through early rough takes to what sounds like a final polished cut. Even better, it is amazing to hear Elvis relaxed and having a good time in the studio. You might not be able to travel back in time to be in the studio for this recording but I am giving you the next best thing. Enjoy………
To give you the complete picture, here is the final version of By and By as released on How Great Thou Art……
I hope you enjoyed this first TMT post. Please let me know your thoughts…..
The United States Government is within 9 days of being shutdown by the extremist, Tea Party faction of the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Please visit my politics blog if you are interested in following this story.
As I mentioned in earlier posts in this series, neither of my parents was a big music fan…I don’t remember them ever playing music in any of the different houses that we lived in. We did have a old record player, however, and when I was about ten years old I discovered a few records that belonged to my mother. For the next four years or so I wore those few records out playing them over and over again. The records were a diverse selection of popular music from the late 50s and early 60s and they represent my earliest musical memories.
Most of my mother’s records were 33 and 1/3 RPM albums but she did have one 45 RPM Extended Plan (EP) record, Peace in the Valley, by Elvis Presley. I didn’t know the history of the EP at the time but I now know it was released in April 1957 as his first gospel release. Out of all of my mother’s records it is the one I would most like to have today. I really didn’t have any idea about the religious aspect of the songs but I absolutely fell in love with his voice. I listened to this record so many times that I probably wore out the vinyl! Let’s listen to the title song from the EP and you can see what I’m talking about with respect to the voice of Elvis Presley…….
Amazing, right? As a bonus, here is a great live performance of the song from the Ed Sullivan show in 1957 (that’s the amazing Jordanaires on backup vocals)……
Stay tuned tomorrow….I plan to feature Elvis in my first Time Machine Tunes (TMT) post.
Today I have a great interview with Mark Knopfler from around the time of the release of Sailing to Philadelphia. I think you’ll like it (sorry about the Finnish subtitles)! Let’s listen………..
Part 1
Part 2
James dueted with Mark on Sailing to Philadelphia singing the part of Charlie Mason while Mark sang the part of Jerimiah Dixon. As described on Wikipedia, Charlie and Jerimiah are…..
…the two English surveyors who established the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia in the 1760s. The border later became known as the Mason-Dixon Line and has been used since the 1820s to denote the border between the Southern United States and the Northern United States.
I truly love the song and the voices of James and Mark sound great together. As always……let me know what you think.
As it turns out there was another great duet on the Sailing to Philadelphia album. This one between Mark and Van Morrison on a great song called The Last Laugh. Let’s listen…..I think you will really like it!
I knew Mark was a man of many talents but until recently I didn’t realize that one of those talents was composing film scores. In celebration of this discovery, today’s Two’fer Tuesday post highlights a couple of beautiful songs from Mark’s film scores. Enjoy…..
The Long Road (from Cal) – thanks to griz225 for this great video featuring Scotland
Going Home (from Local Hero) – thanks to DiscoBar80 for this great video featuring the Basque region of Spain
This is the eight in a long running series of posts that highlight rock songs featuring someone interesting sitting in on the recording session. For this series I post the song on one day and identify who is sitting in the next couple of days. I hope you enjoy the concept and maybe learn some interesting music history in the process.
My selection for today’s post is Sailing To Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler. The song is about the drawing of the Mason-Dixon line in the United States. I love history so this songs is one of my all time favorites. Let’s listen………
The answer will be posted tomorrow along with some additional background information.
Send in your guesses and I will identify the the first person who gives the correct answer in tomorrow’s post.
It has been a few weeks since I have offered up a Sunday Session post. I think you will like this one from Mark Knopfler. It’s a 2005 concert from Florence, Italy and it’s excellent. Here’s the setlist:
1. Why Aye Man
2. Walk Of Life
3. What It Is
4. Sailing To Philadelphia
5. Romeo And Juliet
6. Sultan Of Swing
7. Done With Bonaparte
8. Song For Sonny Liston
9. Donegan’s Gone
10. Boom, Like That
11. Speedway At Nazareth
12. Telegraph Road
13. Brothers In Arms
14. Money For Nothing
15. So Far Away
Enjoy…………..
If you’re a Mark fan stay tuned…….I’m working on a series of posts about his music for this week. If you aren’t a fan of Mark I have to ask “Why the hell not!”.
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 