Category: Music

RIP Earl Scruggs

Earl Scruggs Legendary musician and banjo player Earl Scruggs passed away this morning at the age of 88. Even if you were not listening to bluegrass at the time and were a kid watching television, you still knew Flatt & Scruggs, as I did every week when I watched The Beverly Hillbillies and they played their instruments on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” to open the show (with Jerry Scoggins singing on the version used on the show).

During his great career, Scruggs played with a number of famous artists, including Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Ravi Shankar, King Curtis, Elton John, and many others. The actor, comedian, and banjo-player Steve Martin wrote about Scruggs in The New Yorker earlier this year, “Few players have changed the way we hear an instrument the way Earl has.” Below is a clip from 2006 where Martin joins Scruggs to play “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on The Late Show with David Letterman.

Scruggs started with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1945, but then left with Lester Flatt to form the Foggy Mountain Boys, which later became known just as Flatt & Scruggs through the 1950s and 1960s. Scruggs also was one of the few country or bluegrass artists who spoke out publicly against the war in Viet Nam, appearing at the 1969 US Vietnam Moratorium in Washington, DC. Below is Flatt & Scruggs playing “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms.”

Flatt passed away in 1979. Here’s hoping somewhere the two are making some sweet music again. RIP.

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    Anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s “March 16-20, 1992”

    uncle tupelo march 16-20 1992

    This month is the anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s album March 16-20, 1992, which for some strange reason is the only album in my collection where I remember the exact date it was made. The album, which was produced by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, was recorded on the dates in the title, featuring both original songs and traditional songs.

    This third album from Uncle Tupelo reflected the band’s frustrations with its record label, so the band decided to record music they wanted to record without regard for popular tastes. Below is Uncle Tupelo performing one of the traditional songs on the album, “Moonshiner” in Columbia, Missouri on November 13, 1992.

    The CD also featured the Louvin Brothers classic, “Atomic Power.” Here is Uncle Tupelo performing the song on April 30, 1994 in St. Louis, Missouri at their second-to-last show together.

    The first song on the album, “Grindstone,” is one of my favorites of the CD. I could not find a live Uncle Tupelo performance of the song. But after Uncle Tupelo broke up, Jay Farrar, who wrote “Grindstone,” performed it with his new band, Son Volt in Minneapolis on October 16, 1995. Check it out below.

    Uncle Tupelo was at the forefront of the alt-country/Americana music scene in the 1990s. And the title of their first album, named after a Carter Family song, gave the name to the leading magazine of the genre, No Depression. But after March 16-20, 1992, the band released only one more CD, Anodyne (1993).

    After the band’s final album, Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy dissolved the band in 1994 to go on to create more music with new bands, including fantastic work with Son Volt and Wilco, respectively.

    But those five days in March on this date all those years ago, they created one of the albums that defined their permanent place in music history.

    What is your favorite Uncle Tupelo song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Buck Owens: Don’t Judge a Man’s Music By His Overalls

    Buck Owens Hee Haw On March 25 in 2006, Buck Owens, who was born Alvis Edgar Owens Jr., passed away. When I was a kid, I thought Buck Owens was just a goofy guy who wore his overalls backwards and joked around on Hee Haw with Roy Clark (see comments below for further discussion about the backwards overalls). But as I grew up and learned more about classic country music, I discovered that Owens was a legend who made great music with his band, The Buckaroos.

    Along with Merle Haggard, Owens was one of the first to stand up against the slick Nashville music to help create and popularize a rock-influenced honky tonk music called “the Bakersfield sound.” That music influenced and continues to influence many great country artists like Brad Paisley.

    For example, in the clip below, Owens and his long-time legendary guitarist Don Rich performed “Love’s Gonna Live Here” in 1966 on the Jimmy Dean Show.

    One of the artists touched by Owens is Dwight Yoakam. After Owens lost his friend and guitarist Don Rich in a motorcycle accident in 1974, Owens drifted out of the spotlight and eventually stopped recording music. In 1988, though, Dwight Yoakam helped bring Owens back to popularity when the two recorded a new version of Owens’s 1973 hit written by Homer Joy, “Streets of Bakersfield.”

    The collaboration between Yoakam and Owens on “Streets of Bakersfield” gave Owens his first number one song in sixteen years. I love this song.

    A Buck Owens biography portrayed Owens, who was married several times as sort of a jerk at times. But like he asks in “Streets of Bakersfield” about walking in another person’s shoes (or overalls), “[H]ow many of you that sit and judge me / Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?”

    Country musicians were not the only ones who recognized the talent of Buck Owens and the great Bakersfield sound. In “Far Away Eyes” from Some Girls (1978), the Rolling Stones lyrics described driving through Bakersfield on the country sounding song. Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Owens in “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” (“Dinosaur Victrola, Listenin’ to Buck Owens”) on Cosmos Factory (1970).

    Even more famously, in 1965 the Beatles covered one of Owens’s songs, “Act Naturally,” on Help! with Ringo Starr singing lead. Years later, Buck and Ringo joined their humor and musical skills to record a new version of “Act Naturally.”

    When Owens passed away in 2006, he was sleeping in his bed. Hours earlier he was not feeling well and considered canceling a performance until he heard some fans had traveled from Oregon to California to hear him perform.

    So he stood on stage at his Crystal Palace club and restaurant, singing one last time in Bakersfield.

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    “Make Ourselves Better”: Interview with Levon Helm

    Levon HelmIn this recent interview, legendary singer and drummer for the Band Levon Helm was asked what was next, and he replied that he and his musicians were going to try to “make ourselves better.” In the 13-minute PBS video, Marco Werman talks to Helm about music, his health, a Turkish Army Band, and Helm’s Midnight Rambles, where he hosts concerts at his barn in Woodstock, NY with guest performers.

    Helm, who was born May 26,1940, talks about his health struggles and his voice since he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He continues to produce new music as on his most recent three Grammy-winning CDs: Ramble at the Ryman (2011), Dirt Farmer (2007), and Electric Dirt (2009).

    Below is a clip of a performance of “The Weight”during a recent Midnight Ramble. In the performance, Helm is joined by Woody Platt and his band the Steep Canyon Rangers. Other singers include Ramble regular Larry Campbell and Brian Mitchell. Teresa Williams and Helm’s daughter, Amy Helm, add backing vocals.

    When Helms talked about making “ourselves better,” he was talking about making the Rambles and his music better, but we wish him good health. At age 72 and a career of great music and a battle with cancer, we are lucky to have him around still trying to make better music.

    What is your favorite Levon Helm song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Did Reality Singing Shows Just Jump the Shark?

    This week on NBC’s The Voice, Erin Martin and the Shields Brothers performed in one of the show’s “battle rounds.” In this part of the competition, two competitors sing a song together and their judge, who selected the song and helped both prepare, decides which performer moves on in the competition. For this battle, their judge Cee Lo Green selected Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” This odd performance was the result. [March 2014 Update: The official video of the performance is no longer available, but the Shields Brothers later put together their commentary on the performance in the video below, which adds some additional information about the story behind the performance.]

    After the performance, fellow judge Adam Levine said it was “weird” and made him feel “uncomfortable.” Cee Lo Green selected Martin as the winner, eliminating the Shields Brothers from the competition.

    What do you think of the performance? How does it compare to American Idol? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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