As we previously reported, Steve Earle’s new CD The Low Highway will be released April 16. In the meantime, today Earle premiered on CMT a video for one of the songs on the new album, “Invisible.”
Earle continues to use his music to address social issues and this new video is no exception. The video follows a homeless man around the streets of New York. Meanwhile, Earle plays his guitar on a rooftop, daring us to look around us, as he sings about people passing the “invisible” homeless without knowing. Check it out.
What is your favorite Steve Earle album? Leave your two cents in the comments.
After putting together the biggest actors for the biggest fake movie in the fake trailer for Movie The Movie last year, Jimmy Kimmel has done it again. Following the Academy Awards, his late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live featured the trailer for the sequel for the greatest movie never made. The star-studded trailer includes Jessica Chastain, Jude Law, Channing Tatum, Rachel Weisz, Bradley Cooper, Oprah Winfrey, and more. Check it out.
If that is not enough, Kimmel later presented the behind-the-scenes story of the trailer in “Making of ‘Movie: The Movie 2V.'”
What is your favorite part of “Movie: The Movie 2”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
The song “I’ll Take You There” by the Staples Singers originated out of a songwriter grieving his murdered brother.
Cleotha “Cleedy” Staples, the eldest daughter of Roebuck “Pops” Staples who sang in the Staple Singers, passed away February 21, 2013. Cleotha, who had Alzheimer’s, was 78.
The Staple Singers — which also included Cleotha’s sisters Mavis, Pervis and Yvonne — started in the 1940s and recorded many memorable songs like “Respect Yourself” and “Uncloudy Day.” But when most people hear the name of the group, the first song that comes to mind is the classic “I’ll Take You There.”
The song first appeared on the album Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (1972). In 1972, “I’ll Take You There” went to number one on both the Billboard R&B Singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In this TV performance excerpt, you can see Mavis Staples to your right singing lead while Cleotha is on your far left of the singers. Pops is playing guitar.
The uplifting song comes from a tragic story. Stax vice-president Al Bell began writing “I’ll Take You There” after attending the funeral of his second brother who was murdered.
According to Bell, after returning from the funeral, he sat on the hood of a bus in his father’s back yard and began hearing the bass line and then the words. He then gave the song to the Staple Singers, who were a gospel act at the time.
Regarding the music, Wikipedia points out that the opening to “I’ll Take You There” comes from a Jamaican instrumental reggae tune from Harry J All Stars called “The Liquidator.” The tune is now often used before football matches (that’s “soccer” for us in the states). Check it out.
It is a cool opening riff that helped make “I’ll Take You There” so memorable. But it is also the blending of the voices of the Staple Singers including Cleotha Staples that explains why we still listen to the song more than forty years later. RIP Cleotha Staples. What is your favorite song by the Staples Singers? Leave your two cents in the comments.
As part of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to end childhood obesity and encourage parents to get up and move around with their children, she appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week. To show that she does not just talk-the-talk, she got up and danced with Jimmy Fallon in this funny video that illustrates the “Evolution of Mom Dancing.” Get up and join in!
The funny Obama-Fallon collaboration on “Evolution of Mom Dancing” may remind one of Fallon’s famous collaborations with Justin Timberlake on “The History of Rap.”
What is your favorite part of “Evolution of Mom Dancing”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
With the Academy Awards show this Sunday, February 24, everyone is wondering which movie will win Best Picture this year. Most prognosticators believe Argo will walk away with the big prize because it has been cleaning up with other awards. A few wonder whether Argo will win because Director Ben Affleck was not nominated in the directing category. Yet, while some pull for a dark horse like Silver Linings Playbook, it seems clear that Argo is the front-runner going into Sunday.
I will not make a guess, but I do think this year was one of the best years for movies in recent years. In addition to Argo, I enjoyed many of the other nominated films like Life of Pi and Django Unchained. But if I had a vote for the Best Picture Oscar, I would vote for Lincoln.
Of course, nobody knows who will win this year, but we can look back on past Best Picture winners. Nelson Carvajal has created this cool video of all of the Academy Award Best Picture winners. How many can you identify?
The music for this Oscar montage is “November” by Max Richter.
Which film do you think should win Best Picture? Leave your two cents in the comments.
