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KELVEDON FREE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2012 IS CANCELLED
| KELVEDON FREE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2012 IS CANCELLED | ||
Posted by · Steve Pickles on 10 May 2012 at 17:50  |
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 It is with great regret that we have to announce the cancellation of the Kelvedon Free Music Festival this year. Essex Police informed us only in late April that they had concerns around the safety of the event based on the plans submitted to them as part of our licensing application; these plans were entirely consistent with those successfully submitted in prior years. Representatives from the organising committee met with the Police, the Transport Police, the Fire Brigade and the District Council on Wednesday 9th May to discuss how the concerns raised might be addressed. However, with only 2 months to go, we have neither the time nor, more importantly, resources to address all the points they now expect us to under their revised approach to events such as this.
We fully endorse the desire to ensure the Festival is as safe as it can possibly be and we have always worked towards that; unfortunately, this year, we are unable to meet the external requirements for that and we have come to the decision we have with a heavy heart. Please accept our apologies if you are an artist, stallholder or other participant in the Festival and you are hearing this for the first time, your usual contact will be in touch with you imminently to discuss next steps. It is too early to say what will be possible for next year, we will consider that in the coming months although it is quite clear that we will not be able to proceed on the same basis we have previously. Thank you to all who have supported us over the past 13 years and made the Kelvedon Free Music Festival one of the most successful of its kind. |
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| http://www.kelvedonfreemusicfestival.co.uk/news.php | |
WALKERN MUSIC AT THE TIMES CLUB
The Walkern Music at the Times Club, once one of Hertfordshire’s most successful venues is re-launched. Under the auspices of Trevor Keeling and friends who run the highly popular ‘Blues at the Red’ at the Red Lion Stevenage the club is re-opening with a monthly diet of the best in established and u-coming acts in roots / blues.
Saturday 12th May sees Larry Garner, from Louisiana USA plus the Norman Beaker Band, future acts include blues legend Lazy Lester, South London rockers Roadhouse, rising roots act Babajack and the lovely Chantel McGregor.
SATURDAY 12TH MAY
LARRY GARNER AND THE NORMAN BEAKER BAND
adm £10
www.walkernmusic.co.uk
One of the legends of Rockabilly Larry Donn has died aged 70
One of the legends of Rockabilly Larry Donn has died aged 70 – singer / guitarist vocalist Larry was loved throughout the world of rock ‘n roll and rockabilly. ‘Honey Bunn’ is one of his best known tunes. His albums available from www.amazon.uk include ‘That’s What I call a Ball!’. ‘Angel’, ‘The Joker Tracks’, ‘Larry Donn’. He was Larry Donn Gillihan, two miles north of Bono, Arkansas on June 7th 1941 on his parent’s farm and grew up in Arkansas cotton picking country, Larry Donn saw Elvis Presley play at his high school and decided to get into music he formed his first band in 1957 aged just 16. and In 1959 he recorded ‘Honey Bunn’ on the Vaden label with the flip side with a flip-side ‘That’s What I call a Ball’ – both those songs have since become Rockabilly staples performed worldwide.
We found Larry’s own autobiographical notes on http://www.rockabillyhall.com/LarryDonn1.html those interested in rockabilly are recommended to have a look at the site which has a wealth of information.
LARRY DONN IN HIS OWN WORDS
I was born Larry Donn Gillihan, two miles north of Bono, Arkansas on June 7th 1941 on my parent’s farm. The house I was born in was later converted to a barn for horses and cows. I was an only child, but our neighbors had a son my age who also had no brothers or sisters, and we became like brothers to each other. He is my wife’s cousin, Larry Joe Patton. He has played on a few of my records, and played bass and rhythm in my band for a while. My interest in music was natural, I guess, as several people in my family are musicians. One of my uncles played with Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys in the 1940′s. I listened mostly to country or hillbilly music in my childhood, because it was the music my parents liked. I learned the words to the songs on the radio and sang them in cotton fields as we picked cotton by hand. In the early 50′s I discovered Dean Martin, and began to pattern my singing after him. In 1955, Sonny Burgess and The Pacers played a show at our school gymnasium. It was the first time I had heard a live rock n roll band, and I was immediately hooked on this new style of music. One day in the fall of 1955, while walking through the auditorium at Bono High School where I was a student, I noticed a crowd of girls gathered around the announcement board in the hall, obviously very excited. I asked one of them what the excitement was about. She replied, breathlessly, “Oh, Elvis is coming!” I said “Elvis who?” Of course, in a few weeks I knew very well who Elvis was as did the whole country. Elvis, who only did the one show at Bono, drew such a large crowd that the extra weight caused some of the floor supports to crack. Fortunately, the floor did not collapse. Elvis said many years later in an interview that he would never forget the show at Bono, because it was there that he first realized he was going to be a big star.
In 1956, each of the six classes in junior high and high school were given an assignment to produce an hour long show to be presented to the rest of the school in the auditorium. When our turn came I did an imitation, or pantomime, of Elvis Presley, while playing some of his records over the sound system.
I had practiced, Elvis’ moves in front of a mirror and I painted sideburns on with shoe polish to heighten the effect! The audience got into the act by screaming just like they did for Elvis, and when I finished they mobbed me at the stage and tore at my clothes and asked for autographs. Some wanted me to sign my name and some wanted me to sign Elvis’ name. I was having so much fun, I would’ve signed President Eisenhower’s name if they had wanted it. After the show, as I walked to the next class, a girl came up to me, sighed and said, “Oh, if you could only sing…” The next month, another class produced a show and I was invited to repeat my performance. I did so, and again received the same reaction.
In July of 1957, I had an accident while mowing our lawn, and cut two toes off my right foot. While I was recuperating, I learned to play the guitar. Once back on my feet, my cousin persuaded me to enter a talent contest at the school, singing and playing my guitar. I sang two Johnny Cash songs that were popular then, “Home of the Blues” and “Give my Love to Rose”, and won second place. First place went to a three year old boy who is now one of my best friends. At the contest I met Benny Kuykendall, a 14-year-old guitar player with a band which took third place. We became friends and began to play together at parties and anywhere they’d let us play. Soon, Benny’s brother, Scotty, joined us on upright bass and Eddie Reeves played drums. We played church socials, nightclubs, between the the acts of school plays in fact anywhere we could find an audience, all over Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. We soon developed a reputation as a good band.
In 1956, ’57, ’58, I was Junior Fire Marshall and Commander of the school Safety Patrol. My troops were given the responsibility of guarding the dressing room doors in the gymnasium, where most of the Sun stars performed during those years. As commander, I had access to all dressing rooms, and I had several conversations with the stars. Roy Orbison had blond hair then and didn’t wear glasses at all. Johnny Cash, a skinny young man with oily hair, played his guitar and sang “Don’t Slobber on My Red Suede Tie” to the melody of “Blue Suede Shoes” in a fair imitation of country singer Lefty Frizzell. We were in his dressing room waiting for him to go on. I helped Carl Perkins, his brother J.B and Clayton, and W.S. Holland load their equipment into the trunk and on the top of a black Chrysler after the last show they did at Bono. They were leaving for a show in Virginia, then the “Perry Como Show” in New York, History has recorded what happened on that trip.
In September 1957, I met Billy Lee Riley when his band, The Little Green Men, performed at the Criaghead County Fair in Jonesboro, Arkansas, about 9 miles from Bono. Because my cousin was Riley’s neighbor, he and I became good friends. My band and I did an album with him for Mojo Records in 1979. I played piano and assisted in the production. After I met Riley, I began singing his songs. The first rock n roll song I say was “Pearly Lee”. I sang it at a party and the girls went wild! I decided then and there that I would do rock n roll from then on. I began to do all rock n roll and rockabilly in our shows around Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. For the next few years I was heavily influenced by Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Billy Lee Riley, Roy Orbison, Jerry lee Lewis, Sonny Burgess, Warren Smith and Ricky Nelson. In early 1958, I say in with Bobby Brown and The Curios at a local club. They were from St. Louis and had been playing in our local area for a few weeks. Bobby was originally from Arkansas, but had moved to St. Louis several years before. He and I became good friends, and when my band broke up later that year, I joined his band as bass player. Soon afterwards, Bobby booked a tour of Canada, and since all musicians had to be over 21, I could not go because I was only 17. After Bobby left for Canada, Benny, Scotty, and I got back together, and we were joined by Sam Creason, who is now drummer for Kris Kristofferson. Late that year, we were invited by Billy Lee Riley to go to Sun Records in Memphis and record. WE recorded “That’s What I call A Ball” in the old Sun studio at 706 Union. A second song was also recorded, but we decided it was not good enough to release, so we went home with plans to write more songs and finish the record later.
In 1958, on the second day of my last year in high school, the principal and superintendent of the school singled me out for a dress code. I wore my collar turned up, and the two top buttons of my shirt unbuttoned like all the other boys in school. For some reason, I was ordered to turn my collar down and button my shirt all the way up, but those orders were not extended to all male students. They admitted they were picking on me … singling me out. They said, ” We’re going to make an example of you”, and when I refused to obey until the ‘dress code’ was equally applied to all students, they expelled me from school. when my mother called to question the expulsion, the principal cursed her. She promptly hung up on him and informed me that I would not be going back to that school. I took a correspondence course and got my diploma in 1961.
In the summer of 1958, I hitch-hiked back to Memphis, 65 miles southeast of Bono, and went to the Sun Studio again to see Billy Lee Riley. Unfortunately, he was out of town that day, but hadn’t told anyone at the studio that he wouldn’t be in. Bill Justis was there, and he suggested that I wait a while, that Riley would probably be coming inbefore noon, or shortly after. We called his home, but got no answer. During my wait, I helped Bill fix a loose tile in the floor of the outer office. Shortly before noon, Johnny Cash, Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant came in. A few minutes later, Justis turned on the speaker in the office, and I heard “Down The Street To 301″, and “Forty Shades of Green”. I did not know if it was an actual session, or merely a playback from a previous session, but they played both songs several times. Later that afternoon, I decided Riley wasn’t going to show up, so I left about 3:00pm and hitch-hiked back to Bono.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4keN0C5To
Here’s Bono Arkansas’ own Larry Donn Gillihan backed the the Hemsby House band (Wayne Hopkins – bass, Ricky McCann – drums, Rob Glazebrook – guitar, unknown sax – known as the Playboys at one time) playing his classic Vaden Records tune “Honey Bun”. AND folks – he’s got a great new CD – look for it online!
BOB DYLAN TO RECEIVE THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM
Bob Dylan is to receive the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States – the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as first reported in the New York Times. The award will also go to author Toni Morrison, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, astronaut John Glenn and former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
In a statement about the honor released by the White House Dylan was praised as one of the “most influential American musicians of the 20th century”. The White House also acknowledged that Dylan had “considerable influence on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has had significant impact on American culture over the past five decades.” The award will be made by President Obama who said of all the awardees ‘They’ve challenged us, inspired us and they’ve made the world a better place’.
Dylan was previously honored with a National Medal of Arts in 2008 and at the age of 71 shows no signs of slowing down – in 2011 he played 89 live shows on his ‘Never Ending’ tour and he rolls right on.
It s interesting to reflect on what Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone wrote about the first interview that Dylan ever did with the iconic US media magazine – Nov 29 1969
‘They say Bob Dylan is the most secretive and elusive person in the entire rock & roll substructure, but after doing this interview, I think it would be closer to the point to say that Dylan, like John Wesley Harding, was “never known to make a foolish move.”’
Here’s a link to listen to extracts of that first ever Rolling Stone interview and to read the whole interview
LEVON HELM OF THE BAND DIES AGED 71
LEVON HELM OF THE BAND DIES AGED 71 – Levon Helm singer and drummer with the Band –the first true Americana band -of ‘Music from Big Pink’ fame and Bob Dylan’s backing band
Published April 20, 2012
Yet another music great passes on – Levon Helm, the singer and drummer for the Band, died of throat cancer on April 19th in New York. He was 71.
His longtime guitarist Larry Campbell told Rolling Stone that “He passed away peacefully at 1:30 this afternoon surrounded by his friends and band-mates, all his friends were there, and it seemed like Levon was waiting for them. Ten minutes after they left we sat there and he just faded away. He did it with dignity. It was even two days ago they thought it would happen within hours, but he held on. It seems like he was Levon up to the end, doing it the way he wanted to do it. He loved us, we loved him.”
Levon Helm was vocalist on some of the Band’s most iconic songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “Rag Mama Rag,” and “The Weight.”
He was born on May 26, 1940 in Arkansas and was truly a witness to the birth of rock & roll. In his teens, he saw Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis live in concert. He took up drums after seeing Lewis’ drummer, Jimmy Van Eaton and went on to play mandolin and other stringed instruments as well. In 1960, Helm joined the backing band of rock and roll notable Ronnie Hawkins – the group that would eventually include Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson, who would go on to become the Band. They eventually split from Hawkins to form their own group – their names included the Crackers and Levon and the Hawks – but their association with Bob Dylan grew and cemented their reputation. After Dylan saw the group in a club (either in Canada or New Jersey, depending on the source), he invited Helm and guitarist Robertson to join his electric band. “Bob Dylan was unknown to us,” Helm wrote in his 1993 memoir This Wheel‘s on Fire. “I knew he was a folksinger and songwriter whose hero was Woody Guthrie. And that’s it.” Robertson and Helm were in Dylan’s electric band for his controversial shows at New York’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Afterward, various members of the Band played on Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and toured with him in 1966.
It was in1966 when Bob Dylan was recuperating after his motorcycle accident in Woodstock, that he again hooked up with the band that would soon be the Band. Before Helm them, rejoined (he had left for a short spell, tired by the opposition to Dylan’s electric sound) they recorded the landmark Basement Tapes, and the Band’s crackling, homespun take on American roots music began to take shape. They renamed themselves the Band, they were signed to Capitol Records and released the classic albums, Music From Big Pink (1968) and The Band (1969). Although Robertson was the Band’s principal songwriter, it was Helm’s beautifully gruff and ornery voice that brought true authenticity to Robertson’s mythic Americana songs to life.
In 1976, at Robertson’s urging, the Band broke up after its farewell concert, known as “The Last Waltz.” In meetings before the concert and as recounted in This Wheel‘s on Fire, Helm was adamantly opposed to the group disbanding. “I didn’t want any part of it,” he wrote. “I didn’t want to break up the band.” He begrudgingly went along, but his relationship with Robertson was never the same. After the show, Helm formed his own band, Levon Helm and the RCO All Stars, featuring fellow legends Dr. John, Steve Cropper, and Booker T. Jones, and recorded several solo albums. Helm also ventured into acting with an noted role in 1980′s Coal Miner‘s Daughter, playing Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek’s) father. He couldn’t leave the Band behind, and in the early Eighties he formed a new version, with Danko, Manuel, and Hudson. They recorded three new studio albums.
In the late Nineties, Helm – whose singing had anchored Band classics– was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent 28 radiation treatments, eventually recovering his voice. In recent weeks, however, Helm had canceled a number of shows, including one at the New Orleans Jazz Fest on April 27th and another in Montclair, New Jersey. A note posted to his website on Tuesday from his daughter Amy and wife Sandy said that Helm was in the “final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey. Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration…he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage.”
The Band continued for a while after Manuel’s suicide by hanging in 1986, but Danko’s death in 1999 of heart failure ended the Band once and for all. By then, Helm was dealing with throat cancer. After his recovery, he began holding intimate concerts in his combination barn and studio in Woodstock, called the “Midnight Ramble,” in part to pay his medical bills. The low-key, woodsy performances became must-see shows and attracted a rock who’s who; Elvis Costello, Natalie Merchant, the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh and Donald Fagen were among the many who joined Helm and his band. The Ramble shows led to two acclaimed Helm solo albums – one of which, 2007′s Dirt Farmer, won a Grammy in the Best Traditional Folk category. “This go-round has been a lot more fun,” Helm told Rolling Stone in 2009. “Now I know I’ve got enough voice to do it.”
When the Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Helm didn’t attend, revealing that his feud with Robertson was still on. “I thought Levon was going to show,” Robertson told Rolling Stone a few years later. “Then that evening they said he changed his mind and wasn’t going to come. And I thought, ‘Oh, God, it would have been better if he was here.’”
Helm’s throat cancer had taken a toll on his singing voice. On stage and in recent interviews, his voice was sometimes strong but other times he was reduced to a low rasp. But at one his last shows, in Ann Arbor on March 19th with a 13-piece band, the audience roared when he sang the Band classic “Ophelia.” “I’m not the poster boy of good health,” he said in an interview last year. “But I’m not doing too badly. I still got the energy to make music. As long as I can do that, I’m great.”
Quotes from Levon Helm
On music -
“As long as you can keep music a part of your life, you’ve got a hell of a chance!”
On the vocation to music (it is a vocation that makes most that pursue it self-employed) and Levon said “Most of us are self-employed. We get sick too and we have to pay those bills and it’s quite a struggle at times.”
“…Especially with aging musicians – a lot of them don’t have any health care. A lot of musicians really tip their hats to MusiCares.”
…and on his beloved American roots music -“The power of music just kinda kills all those ills; it cures everything and you’ve got more energy just from the music. And, I’ve never seen it fail. It’s good for ya; real good for ya.”
Levon Helm sings ‘Poor Dirt Farmer’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuJB218UvU
Levon Helm interviewed – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVey5eGRZqk
Early footage of the Band with Levon singing ‘Up on Cripple Creek’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOlq2dHCZOA&feature=g-vrec&context=G27be5faRVAAAAAAAAAw
Posted in newsROSCO LEVEE – young man going right to the roots
Rosco Levee is a 28 year old country blues and roots based vocalist / guitarist from Kent – his debut album was released in February 2012 and received good reviews. He was fortunate have some excellent musicians with him including fiddler Ian Cutler who played in the cult film ‘The Wicker Man’ . Rosco’ s music is catching on and is pleasant change from the endless guitar trios that are saturating the scene. His songs are melodic and one ‘Goldrush’ was highly praised by no less than Glenn Campbell, A good future seems assured
Tell us about your latest album
My debut album is ‘Final Approach To Home’ it was released on iTunes, Amazon etc and in a beautiful full artwork edition CD from roscolevee.com…on 20th Feb 2012,
How would you describe the musical style? As Country, Blues, Rock N Roll
So what’s happening for you right now?
We’re getting lots of airplay, both sides of the pond, and we can’t wait to crack on and tour the album, so we’re currently sorting out a load of festivals and shows around the UK. The states is on the cards for next year, SXSW in Austin, Texas would be a hell of a festival to do and all the southern rockers in the south are loving the album and we’re getting airplay down there so who knows.!!
Who have you got playing on the album?
On the album I used the same fantastic band musicians I used on my EP released last August. They are Lee Wilson on Keys, Simon Gardiner on Bass and Backing Vocals/Percussion, Andy Hayes on Rhythm Guitars and mandolins and David Tettmar on the Kit. These are the gigging musicians I work with all the time…I managed to get a good mate of mine Duncan Mackay (Primal Scream, Death In Vegas) to sit in on a session and put down some Horn parts. Also another good friend Pete Jackson layed down some banjo on one track and helped out with backing vox and percussion…..we all got in the live room with who ever and what ever was around at the time to do the percussion…had a great time…Ian Cutler who’s a world-wide legend on fiddle came in and just blew us away with 1 take on each track he played on!…and another mate Lee Charles was around messing about with harmonica and ended up doing a great little bit of playing on ‘Whatever you need’
Do you write all of the material?
I myself write all the material, with this first album I’d had a lot of the stuff laying around in various tempo’s and different lyrics etc for a while and we had been gigging some of the tracks live for about a year before we put them to tape. I’m writing all the time, almost everyday I’ll demo something at home and bring it to the guys at rehearsal, sometimes I’ll have everything worked out and others’ songs we may jam some parts out and see where they end up! I’ve already started collecting demos for the next album in fact, I’ve got so much material Im hoping we’ll be able to fit in another EP around May time for release at the end of the summer….I’ve got too much material for an single album…and I don’t fancy a double album as the dreaded 2nd Album…haha….so another EP seems a good thing to do…It will be bit different in that I’d like to do it acoustically…really rootsy kinda vibe…acoustics, mandolins, shakers, dobro’s, banjo’s, fiddle, a load of singers and just bang it out Live in the studio…..real old school.etc
Your musical & lyrical influences?
I started guitar when I was 5, in fact I started on bass for year, but quickly went to guitar, my parents really supported my music growing up and so it was easy for me to keep at it….I’d say my main influences as a guitarist are Freddie King, Peter Green, Eric Clapton, Duanne Allman, Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, …..But I’m also massively into learning as much as I can from everywhere…..Motown and Phil Spector I love…The Band, Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys I listen to all the time…Elvis, Scotty more…etc Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters !!…I love my old Chicago Blues and Rock N Roll…!…my favourite songwriter and biggest influence as being a songwriter myself has to Delaney Bramlett. His stuff was so diverse and he just blended so much together….amazing!
Regarding melodies we’re interested in where you draw inspiration from Anything and everything that interests me Ill use….I’ll often sit down and the first thing I play will become a song…they are funny things and I don’t really believe I write them, they kinda just come out…I have no idea where they come from or what makes them, but all the while they flow out of me….im not complaining.!!
So what do you write about?
Could be anything BUT …I believe there’s enough political people out there writing stuff, there’s enough young guys writing songs about being dumped on facebook, or myspace or whatever, there’s enough writing about chip shops and chavs….I prefer to write stuff that people can dance to, shake a tail feather to, have sex to, drink to, cry to, whatever……like I said, I don’t really write the stuff, more just let it write itself…
Are you dealing with any current issues like political or philosophical, any of those that concern you and influence your music?
Not really at this point in time, The next album we’re planning though, we are looking into recycled packaging like a digipak from card…and some lovely artwork…trying to be a little Greener!
Which songs are you most proud of?
Goldrush is a favourite live and all the radio stations seem to be loving that one,
Hey Lady is a personal favourite of mine…it came together in one afternoon really and went down to tape really well…its got some great horn parts on it, and when we do it live with the horns it brings the roof down at the end.!
What do you think is the future of the CD?
I’m afraid I still live in a world where a decent turntable and Valve amp decent speakers and a huge LP collection rule! I’d love to release everything on Vinyl with beautiful artwork and decent sound quality!!….but alas the CD has its uses and is a damn sight better than MP3 download where everything is compressed and the only artwork you get is 3cm high on a screen…having said that, ITunes etc is great way to get music straight away on the move without having to find a record shop…….and they hardly exist either.!
Do you think that its right for magazines to demand manufactured CD’s rather than CDR’s for review (bearing in mind the costs, especially to independent artists)
Ermm probably No, maybe considering the CD will probably be listened to a few times, separated from the case, which will be lost in a mountain of other disc cases and never reunited. It is rather expensive.
Ambitions
To make a living from writing some good tunes, travel and play the songs everywhere we/I can and to prove all the people wrong who said I was wasting my time with music.!!
Career highlight
Everytime I play a stage and I see people singing the lyrics and having a good time is a highlight….that and jamming backstage with Alvin Lee in Austria….oh and also Glen Campbell saying ‘Goldrush’ is a ‘TUNE’!
Career lowlight
Not really had one yet, although I did about 5 shows in Austria to a few thousand people each time, and cant remember a thing about them….must of been the water out there.!
EARL SCRUGGS THE FATHER OF BLUEGRASS BANJO DEAD AT 86
Earl Scruggs, who is widely regarded as the “father of bluegrass banjo”, has died aged 88. He pioneered a colorful “picking” style that helped to transform American country music. It is Bill Monroe who is generally regarded as the one who brought various diverse styles of mountain music together and made it bluegrass, a style he once described as “Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin’. It’s Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It’s blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound.” Earl Scruggs’s banjo transformed the genre even further and raised it to new levels of popularity. Rather than frailing he picked the strings with three fingers, coaxing the instrument to produce recognisable syncopated melodies.
Earl Scruggs was best known for his partnership with Lester Flatt which produced the hit ‘The Ballad of Jed Clampett’ the theme song for the 1960s television series The Beverly Hillbillies, and for Foggy Mountain Breakdown (1950), a fast-paced instrumental piece which was heard during the car chases in the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Both were recorded with Lester Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys.
One critic observed “It’s hard to say what might have happened to bluegrass had Earl Scruggs not come along, but without question, it wouldn’t be the music form it is today without the Scruggs banjo.”
Earl Eugene Scruggs was born on January 6 1924 at Flint Hill, a small farming community in North Carolina. His father, a small farmer and bookkeeper, died when he was four, leaving his mother to run the farm and bring up her five children on her own.
Everyone in the family played music and, although Scruggs acknowledged the influence of the banjo player Snuffy Jenkins on his own style, he claimed to be self-taught and to have developed his three-finger technique on his own. The bluegrass historian Neil Rosenberg described Scruggs’s style as “a ‘roll’ executed with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand” that essentially made the banjo “a lead instrument like a fiddle or a guitar, particularly on faster pieces and instrumentals”.
In 1939 Scruggs joined a local string band which performed on the radio, but left to work in a textile mill during the Second World War. In 1945 he took up his banjo again and performed with “Lost” John Miller and His Allied Kentuckians in Nashville. He soon came to the attention of Bill Monroe, whose Blue Grass Boys performed at the Grand Ole Opry. Monroe booked Scruggs to replace his banjo player, Dave “Stringbean” Akeman, who played in the more traditional “clawhammer” manner.
Scruggs made his recording debut with the Blue Grass Boys in 1946 on Heavy Traffic Ahead and embarked on a gruelling touring programme with the band. But in 1948, frustrated by the low pay and hard work, he left, planning to return to the textile mill. Before he could, however, he was persuaded by his former Blue Grass Boys colleague, the guitarist and vocalist Lester Flatt, to join him in a new group. Flatt & Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys secured a radio show and signed with Mercury Records. By the mid-1950s it had a nationally syndicated television show and a regular slot at the Grand Ole Opry.
Scruggs’s banjo gave the band its distinctive sound. They performed several times at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded a live album at the Carnegie Hall in 1962. The Ballad of Jed Clampett made it to the top of the country music charts, and in 1968 a re-recording of Foggy Mountain Breakdown won a Grammy for best country performance.
But Scruggs was never content to rest on his laurels and was always looking to develop to new techniques and styles of playing. As bluegrass lost ground to rock and folk rock, Earl Scruggs began playing with his three sons, recording material by Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones and appearing alongside The Byrds, Joan Baez, Elton John and other stars.
Flatt, however, resisted innovation, feeling that it would alienate the band’s grass-roots fans. In 1969, amid growing discontent, the two broke up. Flatt continued to work with the other Foggy Mountain Boys, and Scruggs, with his sons, formed the Earl Scruggs Revue. This was a mostly acoustic group which took what Scruggs described as a “no-cubbyhole, category-free, barrier-less approach to music”. They released several albums and toured until 1980. Scruggs’s wife, Louise, died in 2006 and a son died in 1992. His other two sons survive him.
MARCH 19th 2012 50th ANNIVERSARY OF BOB DYLAN’S DEBUT ALBUM – IT DIDN’T MAKE THE US CHARTS BUT IT MADE THE UK’S TOP TWENTY! Published March 19, 2012
The years 2012 and 2013 will see some notable anniversaries – The Rolling Stones 50th, The Pretty Things 50th , but probably none more significant than today 19th March 2012 the 50th anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan’s self-titled debut album. That LP hit the shelves on March 19th, 1962, it didn’t sound like the pop music of the time. In the USA that was the height of “The Twist” dance craze, and 11 songs on the US chart had the word “twist” in the title, in the UK Elvis was number 1, Chubby Checker nr 2, Cliff Richard was 3 with ‘The Young Ones’, Leroy Van Dyke was 5 with ‘Walk on By’, also on the Charts – Burl Ives, Everly Brothers, Dion, Bernard Cribbins, Matt Monroe, Bobby Vee, Sam Cooke, Billy Fury and Russ Conway – things were certainly going to change.
In the USA the Kingston Trio was the embodiment of folk; clean-cut, sweet-voiced they hit Number 25 that week with their version of Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Dylan was a fan of Seeger’s, but obviously sounded nothing like the Kingston Trio. Dylan aged 20 from Hibbing, Minnesota had been playing the New York coffee houses for just over a year, mostly traditional folk songs in a nasal voice that was hard to imagine hearing on the radio. The UK was much hipper than the US with a growing underground interest in Roots and Blues music that would soon see the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pretty Things and others on the way to revolutionizing music
John Hammond The 51-one year old, Columbia record executive saw the huge potential in Dylan. He had famously discovered Billie Holiday and numerous other jazz legends, He became acquainted with Dylan when he played harmonica at a session with Carolyn Hester. They met at a rehearsal in a Greenwich Village apartment. “We were all seated around a kitchen table, and John was seated next to Bob,” Hester recalled to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes in his book Down the Highway: the Life of Bob Dylan. “Bob starts in on harmonica and John turns and looks at him and couldn’t take his eyes off the great character.” His interest grew when he learned that Dylan wrote his own songs.
About that time, Dylan opened up for the Greenbriar Boys at Gerde’s Folk City. He earned a rave review in the New York Times by pop writer Robert Shelton. Hammond didn’t need further convincing and on October 25th, 1961 Dylan was signed on a five-year contract. Around a month later, they recorded Dylan’s first album. It was cut in just six hours (spread across two days) for an estimated $402.
“There was a violent, angry emotion running through me then,” Dylan said. “I just played guitar and harmonica and sang those songs, and that was it. Mr. Hammond asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no. I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.”
, The album consisted mainly of older folk songs much like his live set at the time, and includes “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” by Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Highway 51″ by Curtis Jones and “Fixin’ to Die” by Bukka White. His rendition of “The House of The Rising Sun” caused him trouble in the Greenwich Village folk music community. Dave Van Ronk – one of Dylan’s earliest supporters and a huge presence in the Village – was noted for his arrangement of the traditional tune. “Before going in the studio, he asked, ‘Hey Dave, mind if I record your version of “Rising Sun?’” Van Ronk recalled to Dylan biographer Anthony Scaduto. “I said, ‘Well, Bobby, I’m going into the studio soon and I’d like to record it.’ And later he asked me again and I told him I wanted to record it myself, and he said, ‘Oops, I already recorded it and I can’t do anything about it because Columbia wants it.’ For a period of about two months we didn’t speak to each other. He never apologizes, and I give him credit for it.”
The album contained two original songs: “Talkin’ New York” and “Song to Woody.” The first song recounts Dylan’s earliest days in New York when he “got a harmonica job, begun to play/Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day.” Dylan claims he wrote “Song to Woody,” a tribute to his musical hero Woody Guthrie, just weeks after arriving in New York, a trip partially inspired by the fact that Guthrie was living at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey and Dylan wanted to meet him. “(‘Song to Woody’) was written in New York City in the drugstore on 8th Street,” he said to Sing Out! Magazine in the summer of 1962. “It was one of them freezing days that I came back from Sid and Bob Gleason’s in East Orange, New Jersey…Woody was there that day and it was a February Sunday night…and I just thought about Woody, I wondered about him, thought harder and wondered harder…I wrote this song in five minutes…it’s all I got to say.”
The album failed to make the US charts and sold about 5,000 copies that year, but it did make the top twenty in the UK, nr 13 in fact. Executives around Columbia referred to Dylan as “Hammond’s Folly.” Undeterred, Hammond brought Dylan back into the studio just one month after the album came out to begin work on his second LP. In the five months after the first album was recorded, Dylan had turned his attention towards political causes. He recorded “The Death of Emmett Till” and “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” at the first session, and in July of 1962, he returned to Columbia Studio A with a new song called “Blowin’ In The Wind.” It had been a part of his live show for months, and by the next summer, it would completely transform his life
ROLLING STONES 50th ANNIVERSARY GIGS TO BE IN 2013 – NEW STUDIO ALBUM UNDERWAY SOON – BILL WYMAN MAY BE BACK FOR TOUR
Published March 15, 2012
It looks as if the ROLLING STONES live shows to mark their 50th anniversary will take place in 2013. As Keith Richards told Rolling Stone magazine recently ‘Next year works just as well for an anniversary trek. The Stones always really considered ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie [Watts] didn’t actually join until January.’ Richards continued. “We look upon 2012 as sort of the year of conception, but the birth is next year”.
So it seems the Rolling Stones will not tour to mark their 50th anniversary this year, Rolling Stone quotes separate interviews with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. “Basically, we’re just not ready,” says Richards. Instead, 2013 is the new goal. “I have a feeling that’s more realistic,” he adds.
But those close to the Stones say that one reason for the delay is Richards’ health, this has raised doubts about his ability to get through a world tour. Some have said the quality of his performances declined after he suffered a head injury on vacation in Fiji in April 2006, midway through the Bigger Bang tour. Rolling Stone also suggests that some fans considered his playing in Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light documentary later that year was weak – and often inaudible. Live Blues info would thoroughly disagree with that. After the tour, Richards rested from the guitar completely. “You are looking at a very rusty Keith Richards right now,” he said in 2010. “If you’ve been on the road for two years and suddenly you stop, you put it down for a little bit. And then a little bit longer and you say, ‘I really got to catch up, man.’”
A leading concert-business source confirms reservations about Richards’ condition. “They don’t want to do a full tour,” he says. “They don’t want to travel, and there are concerns about Keith’s health.” A credible scenario would see the band doing multi-night runs in arenas, similar to Prince’s recent stand at the O2. “For example, they’d do 10 nights at MSG, 10 nights at Staples, 10 nights at London’s O2 arena,” the source is reported as saying.
The Rolling Stones are already considering offers: They requested proposals from promoters AEG, Live Nation and longtime Stones promoter Michael Cohl, it is said that they are ‘drilling down on this proposal.’
This news comes after the band got together in London in December and played together for the first time since the final night of the marathon two-year Bigger Bang tour which finished in August 2007. Bill Wyman sat in for the first time since he left in 1992 to make the occasion even more special. ”It went very well, we played a lot of blues and outtakes of Some Girls and things like that,” said Mick Jagger. Keith Richards said “It was a very back-to-basics sort of session. There was a lot of jamming. On the third day, Mick turned up which was a real joy. Because I set it up really as a magnet, you know.”
So after one of the longest periods of band inactivity ever, the band is revving up again for a lot of projects, including the 2013 dates, new studio sessions and a major documentary. Richards said. “I saw Mick on Saturday; he’s going to be living in New York too for a while, so we’re planning to get things going with the Stones again.” Richards added that the Stones will begin rehearsing for a studio session as early as next month. “We’ll just get the boys back together again then and maybe cut a side,” he says. “I’ve got plenty in the locker here, but it’s not on tape.”
Richards appeared healthy and up recently at his first major performance in years, playing alongside Eric Clapton at the memorial concert for blues legend Hubert Sumlin at New York’s Apollo. He’s also been hard at work on a solo album with producer Steve Jordan. ” I’m quite surprised how much stuff is coming out of it; but we’re not rushing it, ’cause there’s no need to,” Rolling Stone reports Richards as saying.
Three days earlier, Jagger had proved he was in tour-ready form. He performed for President Obama at a White House blues celebration alongside B.B. King and Buddy Guy – his performance ranging from high-voltage R&B to the sleek soul of “Miss You.” “It was so much fun,” he says. “I’ve been playing guitar and singing and getting myself back together. You can’t just walk up there and do it. If you’re playing a football tournament, you’ve got to practice. I feel very confident. I don’t want to sound cocky, but it’s just part of what you do. If you prepare, then you can be cocky.”
Meanwhile Stones fans will get their fix from the forthcoming documentary; it will trace the band’s entire 50-year journey and is packed with unseen footage and unreleased music. “Nobody has put the story together as a narrative,” says the movie’s director, Brett Morgen, he records that they’ve been ‘looking under every rock going through their archives. It will be music never heard before, and I’ve conducted 50-plus hours of interviews so far. By the time we’re done, they will be the most extensive group interviews they’ve ever done.’ Keith Richards said, “He told me 80 percent of the footage has never been seen before, which amazes me. I didn’t know there was that much around.”
Despite not touring this year, the band is excited from reuniting with Bill Wyman. “We’re back in touch, which is great, because I hadn’t really spoken to him for years,” said Richards. Asked if Wyman will rejoin the group on the road in 2013 Keith Richards said “I think he’s up for it -we talked about it. I’ll let you know when I can.”
So the Stones keep rolling and it looks as if there is plenty more yet for fans to look forward to.
R&B LEGENDS THE PRETTY THINGS ANNOUNCE ACOUSTIC SHOW IN LONDON
Published March 10, 2012In a major coup for London’s Eel Pie Club the Pretty Things are to an acoustic show on 6th June, the show will feature two founder members Phil May on vocals, guitar and harmonica, and Dick Taylor on lead guitar acoustic and slide and. Long term member Frank Holland will also feature on acoustic and slide guitar, vocals and harmonica. The Pretty Things are soon to be the subject of a series of major features on this site and on our sister site www.rootsandbluesuk.com which will be an on-running news magazine. The opening feature will feature in depth article and video interview with Phil May on the Pretty Things great lost classic album ‘BALBOA ISLAND’ – LBI & RBI Hopes to stimulate renewed interest in this album.
THE PRETTY THINGS – are the very heart and soul of Richmond rhythm n blues. The legendary ‘bad boys of rock’ were rated as exciting a live act as the Rolling Stones and went on to create some of the most exciting and innovative records of the late sixties and early seventies. Many regard them as the originators of Rock Opera and the move to progressive rock – their album ‘S.F.Sorrow’ was the seminal rock opera and the first. In 2010 the band was awarded the Hero award at the Mojo Honours. The band have been name checked over the years by an array of artists ranging from The Clash, David Bowie and Aerosmith through to The Libertines and Kasabian. The Pretty Things’ first 3 singles ‘Rosalyn’, ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ and ‘Honey I Need’ were all top twenty chart hits. The band then moved from rhythm ‘n blues, through psychedelia, rock opera, and a series of albums including numerous nods to contemporary styles such as punk and metal, all the while they remained fiercely individualistic – but o this day they continue to perform the music that gave birth to the band and made them famous – rhythm n blues. The Pretty Things also continue their evolution as an enduring musical force and the band has just released a special limited deluxe 40th edition of their 1970 album, Parachute in a 2 CD set. £12
COMING SOON ON WWW.LIVEBLUES.INFO & WWW.ROOTSANDBLUESUK.COM – THE PRETTY THINGS NEARLY FIFTY YEARS OF ROCK ‘N ROLL INNOVATION & MAYHEM. PHIL MAY ON ‘BALBOA ISLAND’ – REVIEWS OF ALL PRETTY THINGS ALBUMS –INTERVIEWS WITH BAND MEMBERS PAST & PRESENT…