Tag: Johnny Cash

Put Billy Preston in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

on what would have been Billy Preston’s 65th birthday, I’m making a pitch for him to make it into the rock hall as a session musician.

Billy Preston, George Harrison, President Gerald Ford, all deceased.

While I’m less and less caring about who gets selected for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Performer category, I’ve become more and more interested in categories such as early influences and non-performers. I’m especially intrigued by the sideman category since Leon Russell was inducted in 2011. After all, he was a performer of some commercial success, but not enough to make it as a performer. But he played on a lot of albums for other artists and was inducted based on that.

The late Billy Preston is similarly situated. He had greater singles success than Russell, with songs such as Outa-Space, Will It Go Round in Circles, Space Race, and Nothing from Nothing, though less so with his albums. But he was well known as a session musician. “Preston collaborated with some of the greatest names in the music industry, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Band, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Eric Burdon, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, King Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, Mick Jagger, Peter Frampton, Phyllis Hyman, Richie Sambora, Sly Stone, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Norah Jones, and Ringo Starr.” Not to mention gospel great Mahalia Jackson. Both Russell and Preston played on the legendary Concert for Bangladesh.

The label on the “Get Back” single credits “The Beatles with Billy Preston”. Here’s the famed Beatles doing Get Back, live on the rooftop.

More Preston appearances:

Ray Charles & Norah Jones-Here We Go Again. Billy on organ.

John Lennon-God. Billy on piano.

Johnny Cash-Personal Jesus. Billy on piano.

Ringo Starr-I’m the Greatest. Billy on organ.

But probably my favorite piece is Billy at the organ on The Rolling Stones-I Got The Blues from the album Sticky Fingers.

So, on what would have been Billy Preston’s 65th birthday, I’m making a pitch for him to make it into the rock hall as a session musician.

Oh, and here’s the first song from Billy’s first Apple album, That’s The Way God Planned It, a song called Do What You Want To.

 

The Meme with the Red Tattoo

Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, Beach Boys, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder


This is a music meme – I LOVE music memes, stolen from SamuraiFrog:

First album you bought – Beatles VI.
Last album you bought – Laura Nyro and Labelle – Gonna Take a Miracle.
Favourite debut album – Boston. Or America.
First album you listened to all the way through – the movie soundtrack to West Side Story, probably.
Last album you listened to – Lyle Lovett – It’s Not Big, It’s Large.
Favourite album of 60s – Beatles – Revolver. Or Beach Boys – Pet Sounds.
Favourite album artwork – Beatles – Sgt. Pepper. Or Beatles – With the Beatles, which has that same iconic picture as Meet the Beatles in the US
Most underrated album – Beach Boys – Sunflower.
Worst album you own – The Beatles at the Star Club in Hamburg. A really lousy recording.
Best album to dance to – a compilation called Sun Splashin’.
Favourite album of 70s – Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All These Years.
Album you like, but you never thought you would – there are two that stick out because friends hated them: Emmylou Harris – Wrecking Ball, and Joni Mitchell – The Hissing of Summer Lawns.
Most overrated album – I can go with Radiohead – OK Computer.
Best album to cheer you up – – any of the early 1970s Stevie Wonder.
Most disappointing follow-up album – Chicago at Carnegie Hall, bloated four-album set.
Favourite album of 80s – Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues, largely because I saw the group on that tour at SPAC.
Best album to relax you – Beach Boys – Pet Sounds.
Favourite second album – Meet the Beatles, assuming that Introducing the Beatles was first.
Most listened to album – This is difficult because of the different US and British iterations of Beatles albums. Possibly Sgt. Pepper. Or Pet Sounds. Or Still Crazy.
Favourite album of 90s – Johnny Cash – Unchained.
Last album you recommended to somebody – Johnny Cash’s third American album.
Last album you downloaded – I don’t remember, but it was an artist I had never heard of.
Most pleasing follow-up album – Paul Simon – There Goes Rhymin’ Simon.
Favourite album of 00s – Johnny Cash’s fourth American album.
Favourite third album – The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland.
Favourite fourth album – Joni Mitchell – Blue.
Favourite album of 10s* (so far) – Bettye Lavette – Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
Favourite album of all time – probably Revolver, UK version.

* I take the possibly unpopular position that while 2000 was (obviously) the last year of the 20th century, it was also the first year of the 00s; no rule that the decade markers and the century markers need to coincide, which I explained here. So the 10s begin in 2010 (or 1910), the 20s in 2020 (or 1920), etc.

 

30-Day Challenge: Day 23- Favorite Music Video

Let’s face it: JRC’s Hurt is a bit of a downer.

Another difficult question. Probably from Year 2 through year Six, I watched MTV a LOT. Watched the video countdown almost every week, then not so much. I should note that, for the body of video work, I’d probably pick Billy Joel.

There are probably only three post-1995 videos I both saw and liked enough to even consider. Hey Ya by Outkast (and here’s a longer, though not better version) and I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow by the Foggy Mountain Boys are two of them.

Plenty of good picks in this list of best videos and in this one, although many of the actual videos have been disabled. Two on those lists that I was quite fond of were Once In a Lifetime by the Talking Heads and Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel. I was an irrationally big fan of Weird Al Yankovic’s Smells Like Nirvana.

If I had to pick one video, it would probably be Hurt by John R. Cash, which I watched over and over. But let’s face it, it’s a bit of a downer. So I don’t know that it’s my favorite, but one I watched a great deal in the day: Would I Lie to You by Eurythmics; I’m especially fond of the ferocity of Annie Lennox and the brass.

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