The #BestSongIHeardToday series is often centered around hearing great songs while exercising. These posts will tend to drift into health related topics but will always come back to the music that brought you here. This particular series is probably more about a self journal to help me stay on the path of healthy living that includes, listening to old and new tunes. If you're looking for a great mix playlist of 25-30 songs, just click on one of my Volumes above.
It had been on my mind for about a month to buy Keith Richards' autobiography, Life. So I dropped into a book store in San Diego and found a copy that I thought would be a fun read for my upcoming flight and vacation in Seattle. The book in fact had remained in my backpack until the sad news of Charlie Watts death on August 24th. With that event as my kickstart, I began reading it the next day and it's been hard to put down. I don't remember the flight back home as I was completely absorbed into it until touch down.
Here's a passage from Keith Richard's Life (2011).
If it hadn’t been for Charlie, I would never have been able to expand and develop. Number one with Charlie is that he’s got great feel. He had it then, from the start. There’s tremendous personality and subtlety in his playing. If you look at the size of his kit, it’s ludicrous compared to what most drummers use these days. They’ve got a fort with them. An incredible barrage of drums. Charlie, with just that one classico setup, can pull it all off. Nothing pretentious, and then you hear him and it don’t half go bang. He plays with humor too. I love to watch his foot through the Perspex. Even if I can’t hear him, I can play to him just by watching. The other thing is Charlie’s trick that he got, I think, from Jim Keltner or Al Jackson. On the hi-hat, most guys would play on all four beats, but on the two and the four, which is the backbeat, which is a very important thing in rock and roll, Charlie doesn’t play, he lifts up. He goes to play and pulls back. It gives the snare drum all of the sound, instead of having some interference behind it. It’ll give you a heart arrhythmia if you look at it. He does some extra motion that’s totally unnecessary. It pulls the time back because he has to make a little extra effort. And so part of the languid feel of Charlie’s drumming comes from this unnecessary motion every two beats. It’s very hard to do — to stop the beat going just for one beat and then come back in. And it also has something to do with the way Charlie’s limbs are constructed, where he feels the beat. Each drummer’s got a signature as to whether the hi-hat’s a little bit ahead of the snare. Charlie’s very far back with the snare and up with the hi-hat. And the way he stretches out the beat and what we do on top of that is a secret of the Stones sound. Charlie’s quintessentially a jazz drummer, which means the rest of the band is a jazz band in a way. He’s up there with the best, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones. He’s got the feel, the looseness of it, and he’s very economical. Charlie used to work weddings and bar mitzvahs, so he knows the schmaltz too. It comes from starting early, playing the clubs when he was really young. A little bit of showmanship, without himself being the showman. Bah-BAM. And I’ve got used to playing with a guy like this. Forty years on, Charlie and I are tighter than we could express or even probably know. I mean, we even get daring enough to try and screw each other up sometimes on the stage. Richards, Keith. Life (pp. 121-122). Little, Brown and Company.
Charlie & Ringo
This got me thinking about the two greatest bands of all-time, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. As young bands, both had all the players except they lacked a really good professional drummer. I find it very interesting that both picked guys who were very similar in their simple straight ahead style of playing the drums. Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts were not showboats, but they were the anchors.
•••
As kismet would have it, I started program surfing in Netflix last week and stumbled upon, Count Me In. This is a 1 hour and 21 minute documentary on the history of some of rock's greatest drummers. Both Charlie and Ringo are featured and I recommend it.
The best quote from Count Me In is from Joe Strummer of The Clash, "The rule of rock 'n' roll says, 'You're only as good as your drummer.'"
•••
Bill & Charlie (far right)
And kismet². Last Friday, I'm watching the second season of Modern Love on Amazon Prime. After I finish an episode, Amazon's AI suggests I watch the 2019 documentary on The Rolling Stone's original bass player Bill Wyman (from 1962-1993), The Quiet One. It was perfect timing watching this documentary for the second time as it filled in several key holes missing so far from Keith Richards' Life. I'm a little more than half way through Life as I write this, and it seems Bill Wyman has been mentioned like only three times so far! "Keef" does mention in his book, and also in The Quiet One how solid the rhythm section of the Stone's became once Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts started playing together. Up until that point, Richard's wanted Wyman only for his amp! What a complete group of characters, and as it turned out, the enduring band for the ages!
The Stones' will be starting up their 13 date U.S. 2021 No Filter Tour beginning September 26th in St. Louis with drummer (and long-time collaborator with Keith Richards) Steve Jordan sitting in for Charlie.
•••
All Down The Line • Lincoln Park
When in West Seattle, I try to get to Lincoln Park. I usually can get (con) the family to go for a walk or play on the playground equipment (they have two great kid friendly zip lines), while I take off for a run on the trail that leads down to the water, and then loops back up to the trail again.
As luck would have it, a couple of Stones' songs came on during the run and seemed appropriate to complete this mix of songs.
Stay well my friends, and mask-up at public indoor locations, again. The folks in Seattle know how to do that very well!
Before I jump into this week's theme, I want to quickly revisit a blog I did in my- In The Time Of Coronavirus series called, Outdoor Exercise In The Time of Coronavirus: Who was that Masked Man?Here's an update on the subject of mask wearing now that Trump is officially the last man on earth to wear a mask during coronavirus, and as if it's like the second coming of the baby Jesus. Geez, it's only been four+ months as my almost three year grandson even knows the phrase, "mask up". So Trump finally manned up and masked up, so how 'bout trying on the Darth Vader mask next week Donald, great photo op eh?
Meanwhile, California coronavirus numbers are spiking, but I finally do see a change happening in the beautiful exercise land of San Diego as more people are finally wearing masks, but obviously only because of this spike.
Here's my estimated observations since I wrote the blog May 11th with people exercising in my neighborhood of Tierrasanta while wearing a mask:
Walkers in May - 50% • July - 80% (lifetime walkers figure stuff out while walking, that's why they live the longest)
Runners in May - 10% • July - 20% (my peeps have let me so down)
Bicyclists in May - 0% • July - 1% (has the spandex just made them totally indifferent or totally stupid?)
Also, more men are wearing masks since May, including actually wearing the bandana mask instead of it just being a new cowboy fashion statement around the neck. However, the woman walker on the trail is still without a mask, still pulling her shirt up over her face and turning her back to me on the trail, and now I would completely miss it if she ever did anything different upon my arrival.
-----------------------
Now onto Live streaming music shows.
As you've probably noticed live music shows are booming on social media these days as artists and bands perform for charity, album promotion, or just connecting with fans @home during coronavirus. Most live streaming shows are over an hour, so what I tried to do this week was provide a number of different music shows to choose from (but please knock yourself out if you want to hear them all).
I love NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts and kind of landed there this week finding new 'Home' shows from 2020. Tiny Desk Concerts typically range from 14 - 20 minutes or so, and that unscripted time format is just one reason why this show is so popular on the Internet.
I have also picked some select song clips from live shows and have sprinkled them throughout including, Live From Here with Chris Thileanother of my favorite shows, but sadly just cancelled due to coronavirus. During the pandemic Chris created #livefromhome, I feature several songs here.
Stay well and enjoy my friends. And hey, 'parallel worlds collide' with Ringo and my mom sharing the same birth date, July 7th. Happy Birthday mom and Ringo!
Simon and Garfunkel at the 1971 13th Annual Grammy Awards | Bettmann/Getty Images
Something old, something new... part of the good luck tradition for a bride on her wedding day. In the past several months I haven't seen any brides floating about, but thought I'd borrow the expression.
Three weeks ago, I put together a playlist of "something new" music releases from January-March, 2020 thinking that might be popular with so many people home and online. It wasn't a dud but maybe not the #ComfortSongs to go along with maybe some of the #ComfortFoods you've been wanting or having at your #StayatHome. By the way, has cooking made a comeback at your house too?
Last week, I put together the 50th anniversary of CSN&Y's Déjà vualbum, and Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon, and that got a pretty good bump of blog hits coming in. With that in mind, I'll continue the "something old" theme by highlighting albums released from January - March from 1970. It's an amazing collection of albums and the number of great songs within those albums are truly impressive.
Here are a few thoughts I strung together while putting this 100+ Playlist together derived from my Wikipedia source, 1970 in music.
I'll start with the Grammy album of the year for 1970, Bridge over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. What's not to like on this entire album. If I have to pick one to start off the playlist, I'm going with Ceciliaan all-time favorite which also reminds me of a quick story growing up in a Baptist Church. I remember when Love The One You're With was a hit by Stephen Stills in late 1970 and a girl in my youth group commented to me, "I just can't stand these dirty songs like Cecilia and Love The One You're With." About a year later, I came up to her at church and said, "Guess you'll have to add Change Partners to your dirty songs list."
The Magic Christian was a February 1970 movie starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. The soundtrack, Magic Christian Music is by the band Badfinger and features their first big hit written and produced by Paul McCartney, Come and Get It. I thought this was going to be a quick skip-through album, but I kept saying to myself, "wait a minute, this one's good...this one's good" and so on. Like so many albums I discover fifty years after their release, Magic Christian Music's a gem from a truly great band as most people only know their hits.
Last week I watched a 2011 documentary about George Martin (the 5th Beatle) on Amazon Prime called, Produced by George Martin (link here) that I highly recommend. George Martin produced Ringo's first solo album, Sentimental Journey and the two make a great team doing a complete album of "standards" that had not had been attempted by any rock star until Ringo did it. Ringo has always been maligned by the press over the years, but now most critics say he's not only a great drummer but a very good singer to boot. Listen to Ringo sing Night and Day by Cole Porter.
When I was fifteen, I would have never have listened to Frank Sinatra's Watertown, much less Ringo's Sentimental Journey. In Watertown, Sinatra takes a 1970 ride on the singer-songwriter wave with a themed-based album. All the songs were written by the same team of Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes which is something Frank had never done before. This indeed was a risky move as Watertown was Frank's worst selling album, but the critics loved it and I think it's a wonderful album too. It's a heartbreaking tale of a wife who leaves her husband and two children searching for stardom. Make sure you listen to, The Train. If I didn't mention the band Mountain here, I'd probably get a concerning phone call from my old friend and childhood next door neighbor Ron Zieman wondering if I lost my mind. Ron introduced me to the best "heavy" rock bands over the years starting with Cream. Felix Pappalardi who produced some of Cream's albums started Mountain with Leslie West and their first album Climbing climbed the charts with their big hit, Mississippi Queen. When the group proceeded to record "Mississippi Queen", Pappalardi insisted on numerous takes. Growing weary, Corky Laing the drummer started using the cowbell to count off the song. Pappalardi liked it so much he left it in the mix, creating the song's recognizable intro (Wikipedia). And as Christopher Walken would say, "More Cowbell."
Moondanceis simply one of the greatest albums of all time. As a teenager I really didn't appreciate Van Morrison until I got to San Diego State and started rooming with my buddy Mark Hunter. Mark was from Millbrae CA, just south of San Francisco and if you're from the Bay Area you know "Van the man." Every song on this album is fantastic. In the last several years, I've really taken a deeper dive into his music and loved seeing him in Las Vegas in February. Check out Into the Mystic, this song is right up there...
The personnel on Leon Russell's debut album is largely a who's who of rock 'n' roll royalty, not to mention half of England. Again, so many great songs on this album including the all-time, "A Song for You", written by Russell, is a slow, pained plea for forgiveness and understanding from an estranged lover, the tune is one of Russell's best-known compositions. It has been performed and recorded by over 200 artists, spanning many musical genres. Elton John has called the song an American classic (Wikipedia).
I purchased Nilsson Sings Newmanin a used record shop after Harry Nilsson become really famous with his 1971 album, Nilsson Schmilsson. Again, this album is filled with great songs. Both albums followed me to college and I listened to them often in my dorm room and then in a series of forgettable apartments. In fact in my first forgettable apartment, my complete stereo system was stolen (a high school graduation present) with Harry Nilsson's 1974 Pussy Catsalbum on the turntable. I'll never forget coming home, opening the door and seeing a large empty space where the stereo system used to be with now the Pussy Cats empty album jacket laying in its place. My first thought was F***!!!!!, then I thought, well Pussy Cats was not Harry's finest hour on vinyl. But as long as I'm talking today about great "standards" albums like Sentimental Journey and Watertown today, check out Nilsson's 1973 A Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, a classic and one of Harry's finest hours.
Mary Kit says to me, "108 videos this week, man you must have some spare time..."
Here is a playlist of new music from the third quarter of 2017. I made this list last night after a long week. Music soothes the soul. Enjoy my friends.
It's kind of been a Ringo couple of weeks for me. Got tickets to see Ringo and his All-Starr Band October 2nd in Paso Robles with VIP seating, oh boy living the high life! With that, I received in the mail a Ringo t-shirt that I'm wearing as I write this and also a Ringo canvas bag and poster that I have on my office wall. I was never in the The Beatles Fan Club or saw them live, but now, I finally get to see a Beatle!
So what's been playing in my head all week, It Don't Come Easy written and produced by George with Ringo assisting in 1970. George was so kind to his dear friend that he gave the song and all writing credits to Ringo. It got me thinking, these guys had been through so much together as struggling to famous musicians that their friendship could never be shaken . As the Beatles were now broken as a group in 1970, George and Ringo would just continue to be the great friends they were, bonded forever. It Don't Come Easy was released as a Ringo single in 1971 by Apple Records and went to #4 in the UK and US single charts. The song gave Ringo an identity outside The Beatles and kick-started his solo career. And George, just giving and being the great friend he was to Ringo.
Most of us have developed an extended circle of friends over the years. But if you are so lucky, you may also have a much smaller group of friends who you grew up or went to school with, and they still mean the world to you. As you grow older, you start to realize that getting new friends in your inner circle, don't come easy.
Deep friendship is a powerful gift. The trust between two great friends is understood and unshaken even if you don't see or talk that much together on a regular basis. Once you are in the presence of a great friend, it's like you both never skipped a beat, you are talking and interacting just like you did years ago, well maybe with a bit more maturity. Great friends are simply timeless and so is this song!
Concert for Bangla Desh, It Don't Come Easy - YouTube
With a Little Help from My Friends from the first verse and song written by John and Paul for their buddy Ringo, it's often the ongoing impression many have of Richard Starkey. Part self-made fool and Beatles manufactured court jester, Ringo is still to this day often maligned as the weak link in the best band in the world. I just heard someone on TV the other day say something about every group or family having a "Ringo." This is just old crap and time to lay to rest the tired bit about Ringo as the lovable but inferior one. To me, Ringo is such an inspiration for overcoming sickness and adversity in childhood to becoming the definitive rock and roll drummer of all time, and yes, still very lovable.
What I admire most about Ringo is his sustainability. As most rock stars fade, Ringo endures through hard work and taking care of his body and mind. At 74, he shows us to keep doing the thing that makes us happy and brings joy to ourselves and everyone around us. Ringo is that social person who gets his strength from and with, his friends. And Ringo is on a roll. He has a new album out, Postcards from Paradise, he's continually on tour with his All-Starr Band, and on Saturday he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Now this last part goes back to the rub described above. Why did it take the rock and roll establishment until 2015 to bring Ringo into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist? But from the man himself, no worries and complaining about his respect, he only needs it from the people around him! You have to love this guy for his sheer tenacity and willingness to just be a good person to everybody. I love this line by Paul about Ringo in the Rolling Stone article, Being Ringo: A Beatle's All-Starr Life, He remembers the first show the Beatles did with Ringo, in 1962, at the Cavern in Liverpool, was when they became a real band. "The first few minutes that Ringo is playing, I look to the left at George and to the right to John, and we didn't say a word, but I remember thinking, 'Shit, this is amazing.' " As George would say, "Ringo's got the best back beat I've every heard and can play 24 hours a day." Well I can't wait to hear that beat on October 2nd at the Vina Robles Ampitheater in Paso Robles, second row middle seats baby. Ringo simply rocks and yes, can carry a tune!
Enjoy the video below of the 2015 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and will be on HBO, Saturday, May 30th at 8pm.
