Jackson Browne turns 70 (October 9)

“In a way, I don’t choose what I write about—my subjects kind of choose me,” Jackson Browne explained in 1993.

Jackson BrowneI’ve been following the career of Clyde Jackson Browne – Clyde? – for so long that it seems he’s always been around. Yet I’ve written about him relatively infrequently. And usually in relation to others, though I did a meme about him way back on 10 October 2005.

10/10? That’s one of the problems for me, that he has the same birthday, eight years later, as John Lennon, about whom I’ve written a LOT. His first claim to fame was that he wrote the bulk of Take It Easy, along with Glenn Frey, which became the Eagles’ first big hit.

The page noting his 2004 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: “He emerged in the early Seventies as a soul-baring young folksinger whose songs dealt with riddles of romance and existence. In his middle period, he became a more extroverted rock and roller.

“Later work grew more topical in nature as Browne sang of political and social realities within and beyond our borders. ‘In a way, I don’t choose what I write about—my subjects kind of choose me,’ this vanguard singer/songwriter explained in 1993. “It’s a healing thing, a way of confronting what’s important in my life at the time.'”

Here are interviews: The Nation (2014) and Forbes (2017).

In 2015, Rolling Stone listed him as the 37th greatest songwriter of all time in its list of “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time”. I’ve never seen him live, save for a massive concert in June 1982. I do have a half dozen of his albums on vinyl, including the first one, whatever it’s called, and four on CD.

Listen to:

Very Best of Jackson Browne

Opening Farewell – Bonnie Raitt & Jackson Browne live

Kisses Sweeter Than Wine – Bonnie Raitt & Jackson Browne, from a Pete Seeger tribute album

Take It Easy – live with James Taylor

First Girl I Loved, from an Elektra Records tribute album, this track covering Judy Collins

I Love L.A. – Randy Newman’s 2013 induction into the Rock Hall, with Newman, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, John Fogerty

Coverville 1236: Cover Stories for Steve Miller, Randy Bachman and Jackson Browne

NSFW section

A Piece of the Pie -JB’s live attempt of a Randy Newman song that namechecks him, which Newman explains here

You @$$#013 You

September rambling #2: Land of Confusion

Ex-Beatle Lands No. 1 Album for First Time in 36 Years

Your shadowThe republic for which it stands

The NRA’s Catch-22 for Black Men Shot by Police

US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Demands Taxpayer Money For Religious Schools

The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck

10 Years After: The Post-Recovery Economy

Stephen Colbert Made DJT’s Hurricane Response Into A Children’s Book

Sexual assault survivors tell ‘why I didn’t report’

Stop Making Victims of Sexual Assault into Martyrs for Virginity

We Need to Rethink Our Ideas About Aging

The Plot to Subvert an Election – Unraveling the Russia Story So Far

China is building a digital dictatorship to exert control over its 1.4 billion citizens. For some, ‘social credit’ will bring privileges — for others, punishment

John Oliver: Facebook’s global expansion has been linked to political turmoil overseas, so maybe their ads should focus less on how they “connect the world” and more on why connecting people isn’t always the best idea.

Doug Ford Cancelled Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot Experiment Because It Was Working

How Golf Digest helped free a golf-course artist imprisoned 27 years for a murder he didn’t commit

Arizona’s Gosar family asks voters NOT to re-elect their brother to Congress

Noor Inayat Khan, one of the bravest women of World War II

RIP Thad Mumford, MASH writer and former Yankees batboy

R.I.P. Norm Breyfogle, 1960-2018, Batman artist

Chevy Chase can’t change

The 2018 Winners of the Ig(R) Nobel Prize

You Can’t See ‘Round Corners: The Vietnam War as a rare TV miniseries

Two People with Paralysis Walk Again Using an Implanted Device

In Saratoga Springs, NY! This Enormous Warehouse Of Used Books In New York Will Be Your New Favorite Destination

Interview with Dick Van Dyke at 2017 Salt Lake City Comic-Con (30 min)

What’s coming to Broadway in the coming months

Premiere night of The Minor League Mecca, the Albany Patroons documentary

The million-dollar brownstone that no one owned​

Bruef slide show on the history of the Horn & Hardart Automats

Now I Know: Why the Big Bad Wolf Wouldn’t be a Good Baseball Player and Why You Shouldn’t Pass Gas Near a West Virginia Police Office and When Flying First Class Isn’t Good Enough and How Long It Takes to Find a Needle in a Haystack

The history of cookies as explained by the world’s foremost authority on the subject

Would-be robber loses trousers

MUSIC

Fugue on “Donald Trump is a wanker” based on Seven-Man Army – White Stripes. Plus So You Want to Write a Fugue? – Glenn Gould

René and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War – Paul Simon (Live from Copenhagen); Feeling Lost with Paul Simon One Last Time

Land of Confusion – Hidden Citizens

Africa -Weezer (starring Weird Al Yankovic)

Estancia, by a composer named Alberto Ginastera

Good Times – Pheobe Snow

Ravel Left Hand Piano Concerto played by Yuja Wang

Overture to The Jolly Robbers -von Suppé

Bonehemian Rhapsody – 28-Trombone Collaboration! (from ITF 2018!)

Gangsta’s Paradise – Jain

Marry An Ugly Woman – Rafael de Leon (Roaring Lion)

Weekend Diversion: Coldplay

How big was Helen Shapiro? The Beatles opened for her in 1963

Paul McCartney: Lands No. 1 Album for First Time in 36 Years and Answers the Web’s Most Searched Questions and Talks to Howard Stern and at the Kennedy Center Honors (2012)

Jefferson Airplane Co-Founder Marty Balin Dead at 76

Music: Rock the Casbah/Mustapha Dance

Super Black Market Clash was a compilation album released in 1993 that contains B-sides and rare tracks not available on their studio albums.

super black market clashAlthough I was a big fan of the eclectic and significant English group The Clash, I must admit the band was not a massive commercial entity. The group, consisting of vocalist/guitarist John Meilor, a/k/a Joe Strummer (d. 2002); Mick Jones on lead guitar; Paul Simonon on bass; and Nicky “Topper” Headon on drums, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

Their first two albums don’t even reach the top 100 in the United States. The two-LP London Calling (1980) was their breakthrough collection, with quite a few songs getting airplay on my favorite Albany radio station at the time, WQBK-FM, Q104. That was followed by a triple album, Sandinista! (1981) that also did reasonably well.

Additionally, they put out various other packages including several non-LP singles, and Black Market Clash (1980), a 10″ album, with dub versions of some songs.

The last album of new Clash music I bought, and the last vinyl, was Combat Rock (1982). It was the group’s most successful album, getting to #7, and probably my least favorite. It did, however, contain two of their charting singles, Should I Stay or Should I Go, and Rock the Casbah.

I must have also purchased around that time an single or EP that contained a dub version of Rock the Casbah called Mustapha Dance, with fewer vocals and a more prominent bass line.

Super Black Market Clash was a compilation album released in 1993 “that contains B-sides and rare tracks not available on their studio albums. It is a repackaging of the original 1980 Black Market Clash,” with 20 songs rather than nine.

Listen to the Clash:

Train in Vain (Stand by Me), #23 in 1980, from London Calling, though it was recorded so late that it didn’t make the album liner notes

Time is Tight from Black Market Clash (1980)

Should I Stay or Should I Go, #45 in 1982 and #50 in 1983

Rock the Casbah, #8 in 1983

Mustapha Dance, from Super Black Market Clash (1993)

Olivia Newton-John turns 70 (September 26)

Olivia Newton-John shares a birthday with my late father

There was an August 2018 article with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta dancing together, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the movie Grease. The stars have been great friends in the intervening four decades.

It’s weird that, for some reason, I never saw Grease in the movie theater, and it was a massive success. In fact, I’m not sure to this day that I’ve ever seen it in its entirety, though my daughter has watched the film on video

And it wasn’t just the movie that might have drawn me in, it was the music, with three Top 5 singles by Travolta and Newton-John in 1978. I have seen a high school production of the musical i the past couple years.

I’d forgotten that she was born in Cambridge, England. I did recall she was raised in Melbourne, Australia. She was a country artist early on, had some massive “middle of the road” hits before Grease.

But in 1980/1981, she transformed her career. Just as Sandy in Grease changed from goody-goody to being clad in spandex, Newton-John was inspired to do the same metaphorically. As a result, she had her largest hits in the US, Magic, and Physical.

I believe that, for the time, it was constitutionally illegal not to play Physical on the hour, unless you were on one of the two Utah radio stations that banned the single from their playlists. It was ranked by Billboard as the biggest song of the decade.

Her breast cancer had been in remission from 1992 until its metastasis was discovered in 2017. She’s become an advocate for better eating, animal rights, and the environment.

Yes, I have my one Olivia Newton-John greatest hits album, which I play every September. She shares a birthday with my late father.

Listen to:

If Not for You, #25 pop in 1971

Honestly Love You, #1 pop for two weeks, #6 country in 1974

Have You Never Been Mellow, #1 pop, #3 country in 1975

You’re The One That I Want, with John Travolta, #1 pop in 1978
Summer Nights, with Travolta and cast of Grease, #5 pop in 1978

Magic, #1 pop for four weeks in 1980

Physical, #1 pop for ten weeks, #28 R&B in 1981

September rambling: nothing to fear but Fear itself

Congrats to Dustbury on 3 million visits to his blog

Paraphrased from here: Bob Woodward’s book gets released this week. Donald Trump has nothing to fear but Fear itself

Someone inaccurately describes libel law

In a small Alabama town, an evangelical congregation reckons with God, Trump and the meaning of morality

The Weekly Sift: What should we make of “Anonymous”?

Rudy Giuliani’s theatrical, combative style of politics anticipated—and perfectly aligns with—his boss

The problem with the Left

‘Designing Women’ Creator Goes Public With Les Moonves War: Not All Harassment Is Sexual

Vlogbrothers: The Book Was Better? and the episode in which it turns out that John did not forget about Hank’s birthday

Stephen Colbert – The Rolling Stone Interview

Scientist robbed of Nobel Prize gets $3 million science award

Our local minor-league baseball team! The Tri-Cities ValleyCats lay claim to New York-Penn League’s top dogs

Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man: Mel Brooks in His 90s

You Should Always Put a Quarter on a Frozen Cup of Water Before a Power Outage

The perfect guide to the perfect gift

Comparative religion, squirrel division

Tony Isabella, “black Lightning”, and creator credit

Congrats to Dustbury on 3 million visits to his blog

Now I Know: A Really Bad Way to Become a Senator and The First Digital Camera (That Wasn’t) and Los Angeles’ One Waze Street and Who Kept the Dogs Out

Cut THIS cheese from your diet

The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut – Mark Twain, June 1876

MUSIC

Leonard Bernstein conducting Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring ballet

Elegy by Mark Camphouse, played by the United States Marine Band

Coverville 1231: Led Zeppelin Cover Story V and When the Levee Breaks – Zepparella

Coverville 1233: Cover Stories for Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse

Suppe overture. Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna

Train to Nowhere – The Champs (plus its B-side)

Weekend Diversion: Imagine Dragons

Ascending Bird – Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

K-Chuck Radio: More Forgotten 1960’s Classics

The Sound of Silence – Harp Twins

Maria Bartiromo – Joey Ramone

Vibes – Vivian Green (no relation)

Mood Indigo – Ella Fitzgerald

Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk

Baroque Poultry in D major

Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs

The Top 20 Tom Petty songs

The many voices of late Thurl Ravenscroft

The graphic is courtesy of Amanda Peterson at Enlightened Digital

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