All posts filed under: Random DJB Thoughts

This is where I put anything that is not easily categorized…

Five Albums for a Desert Island – Sgt. Peppers

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There’s not a lot you can add to all the words that have been written about Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  The Wikipedia entry for the album is one of those that drives people who hate crowd sourcing to rants, because it probably runs longer than the Wikipedia entry for World War II . (I haven’t actually checked that out, but it makes a good line so I’m sticking to it.)  If you want to read about the echo effects, the engineering, the late night recording sessions, even how that great, thunderous E chord at the end of A Day in the Life was produced – you’ll find it all there on Wikipedia.  And that’s just one of countless articles and books written about the Beatles and this music. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has been a source of endless fascination since it was released, and I was certainly smitten as a young teenager.  This is probably on my list as much for what it represents about my youth as for the album …

Time Out – For More Albums for a Desert Island

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This is album #3 that I’d want on my iPod on a desert island (see the earlier two posts below), and it is the only pure jazz album on my list. Growing up, my brother Steve was the jazz fan and my father had always enjoyed Teddy Wilson (one of the two pieces he could play on the piano was “Body and Soul” in the Wilson style.)  I grew up  listening to rock and then gravitated to acoustic folk which led me to bluegrass, Celtic, Americana, blues, and the like.  I wanted to listen to music I could play, and I never stayed with the piano or guitar long enough to be a jazz player.  But I’ve always enjoyed the music and have a healthy sampling on my iPod – everything from a lot of Miles Davis to a lot of Oscar Peterson. Time Out was the first jazz album that really caught my ear, and that’s the reason it is on my top five list.   I was captivated by the changes in time signature and rhythm.  It all …

Good Food, Good Friends

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I’m in Louisiana for work and took the opportunity to meet one of our volunteer leaders and his wife for an early dinner in New Orleans.  Jack and Mimi are incredible preservationists who enjoy life…and especially the part of life that involves good New Orleans food.  What could be better? They took me to a neighborhood restaurant named Clancy’s.  It has been a favorite of Mimi’s family for decades and Jack sent along the following review to let me know where we were headed: Classic New Orleans restaurants fall into three basic categories: Originators, Innovators and Upholders. Originators have been around as long as the trees and specialize in dishes of the same vintage. Stimulated by the originators’ example, innovators create food that in some instances barely resembles its inspiration. Upholders are the bridge between the two. They are created by restaurateurs and chefs who express their passion for traditional New Orleans cuisine by giving diners another outlet for enjoying it. In the process, these restaurants develop specialties. Some are personalized versions of established regional classics — …

Searching the Internet and Finding…The Music’s Over

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This is another of those “look what I found on the Internet” postings. The other day I was searching for information on Clarence White and found this cool blog called The Music’s Over…but the Songs Live On.  What a labor of love.  The blogger writes about musical artists who passed away on that day in history, and he’s putting together a great archive of American music in the process.  He’s also covering just about every musical genre imaginable.  So you’ll find your bluegrass guys right up there with the punk rockers. On this date – March 16th – in 1975 the great blues guitarist T-Bone Walker passed away.  As noted in The Music’s Over: Electric Blues starts with T-Bone Walker. No T-Bone Walker? Then possibly no B.B. King, Pee Wee Crayton, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown or Stevie Ray Vaughan. From his recording debut in 1929, to his passing from an earlier stroke in 1979, T-Bone Walker dazzled his audiences with a guitar style that was, well electrifying. And when he decided to actually “plug in” in the …

Sweet Love

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Candice and I were out at a party on Capitol Hill last evening and had a nice time with friends old and new.  However, when I climbed into bed last evening I knew I’d best set our alarm or we’d miss our obligations at church this morning. My iPod has a playlist I entitled “Quiet Time” which we listen to as we fall asleep and then which is what we hear as our morning alarm.  We may wake to a Gregorian Chant or Anonymous 4, some Miles Davis or Bill Evans jazz, or perhaps a quiet New Age guitar piece from Will Akerman or Al Petteway. This Sunday morning we slept a little later, due to the party.  But the wake-up music set the tone for an introspective day that worked well with the gray and rainy weather. The first thing out of my iPod this morning was John Gorka singing this wonderful Kate Wolf tune entitled Sweet Love. John Gorka has one of the most distinctive voices in folk music.  I can listen to him sing anything.  But several …

46 Days Until…

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Just ordered my tickets to Merlefest 2009 – Happy Birthday indeed! I love this music festival because it is four days in the North Carolina mountains surrounded by the best Americana and roots music in the land.  The shot at the top of the blog is Dobro god Jerry Douglas playing at the 2006 festival.  The 2009 festival has another strong lineup.  Doc Watson is, of course, the host at this festival named after his late son Merle, who died more than 20 years ago in a tragic late-night tractor accident.  And Doc – the 86-year old blind singer and guitarist extraordinaire – is also the magnet that draws all these wonderful musicians. As I type this I’m listening to Darrell Scott’s River Take Me, also from the 2006 festival.  Scott is one of those relatively unknown musicians that I regularly discover at Merlefest.  He’s a terrific songwriter (perhaps you’ve heard of Long Time Gone by some band called the Dixie Chicks) but is also an incredible musician. Regulars such as Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and …

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up

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Every morning on The Daily Kos (warning:  this is a progressive blog post about politics), Barbara Morrill (aka BarbinMD) posts Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up.   I look at it almost every morning, because it is funny, short, and almost always includes at least one comment about a previously unknown writer that I want to read. In today’s post, Morrill includes a link to New York Times’ pundit Gail Collins’ column of March 5th entitled The Rant List, with the comment that “Gail Collins is fast becoming one of my favorite columnists.”  Amen to that.  Collins makes me laugh out loud almost once a column, and she’s not as snarky or personality focused as Maureen Dowd.  In today’s column (and I recommend the entire read), she’s writing how we have to prioritize the things list of  “life is unfair” items hitting the news reports on an hourly basis. The paragraph that hits home for me is: Given the competition, I can’t get all that worked up about defaulting homeowners who are looking to the government for a rescue. True, a …

Chicago: Great Main Streets, Great Architecture, and Great Food

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I’ve been in Chicago since Sunday for the National Main Streets Conference, and it has been a great couple of days.  I love Chicago and I love Main Street.  The conference is sponsored by the National Trust Main Street Center and brings together 1,600 people from around the country who are rehabilitating their downtown commercial districts.  Having lived in three great Main Street communities – Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Americus, Georgia; and Staunton, Virginia – I have a real affinity for these towns. Getting to Chicago was interesting.  The first of two snowstorms blew into Washington on Sunday morning.  I got a call from the airlines at 4:40 a.m. telling me my morning flight was delayed by an hour.  When I arrived at the airport it turns out that every other passenger on the flight had been moved to a different flight in order to make connections and I had a regional jet all to myself!  I joked that I flew up on the corporate jet…but it was a surreal experience. The opening session at Main Street is …

March Promises Some Wonderful Music

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As we head into March, the Institute of Musical Tradition has some terrific music lined up.   Those in the Washington area should check out one or more of the great musicians in town. I been listening to bassist Missy Raines for years – first with Cloud Valley, then Eddie and Martha Adcock, and more recently with Claire Lynch and in a duo with flatpicker Jim Hurst.  She’s a seven-time winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association bassist of the year, and she’s just formed a new band named Missy Raines and the New Hip in honor of a new body part!  She’s at IMT on March 9th. On March 23rd, flatpicker extraordinaire Steve Kaufman plays at IMT.  I haven’t seen Kaufman live, but I’ve heard and admired his music for a long time.  Kaufman runs a series of well-respected guitar camps during the summer and is a great teacher.  He’s also known for his long list of banjo jokes on his flatpik website. A little boy told his mother that when he grew up he wanted …