music Archives - Page 239 of 261 - Ramblin' with Roger

Stormy Weather

There was an earthquake 28 km (17 miles) W of Albany yesterday morning.

Here’s the current expected trajectory for Hurricane Irene. If all goes as this map suggests, the Category 3 hurricane will be hitting around Fayetteville, NC Sunday at 2 a.m., about 135 miles (217 km) from Charlotte, NC, where one sister and niece live, and where my wife and daughter will be visiting, starting on Thursday.

Meanwhile, there was that 5.8 earthquake yesterday at about 2 pm. EDT near Louisa, Virginia, less than 100 miles from Washington, DC. And I sure felt it in my office in Albany, NY. I was sitting at my desk and I thought I was having leg tremors, or something terribly physiologically wrong with me until I saw a cubicle neighbor’s picture swaying.

Last week, a 3.6 earthquake in Maryland hit, which was the largest recorded within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of Washington since a database was created in 1974.

Oddly, there was also an earthquake 28 km (17 miles) W of Albany yesterday morning. It was a 2.2, and I’m not sure that I felt that one.
***
I Feel The Earth Move-Carole King
Like A Hurricane-Neil Young
Good Night, Irene-Leadbelly

F is for Fire

The other fire songs here, which I also own, are about passion, romantic passion.

Here’s another look at a word that has, either alone or in combination with other words, has several meanings.

The most common meaning of fire, of course, is that chemical change that creates heat and light, and usually smoke, which can evolve into a “destructive conflagration”. It was one of four substances thought in ancient and medieval cosmology to constitute the universe, along with earth, air, and water; five, if you count spirit.

But fire also means:

*enthusiasm, passion e.g., “all fired up”
and in one is at work and NOT “fired up” one could be subject to dismissal from employment, “getting fired”

Also:
a severe test; a trial or torment, “under fire”
the discharge of firearms or the like, “ready, aim, fire!”
to bake in a kiln, such as with pottery
to throw with force and speed; “fire a ball at a batter”
to ask questions, “fire away”
exposed to attack, “under fire”
*a burning sensation sometimes produced by drinking strong alcoholic liquor, “firewater”
and a whole lot more

Word History: Primitive Indo-European had pairs of words for some very common things, such as water or fire. Typically, one word in the pair was active, animate, and personified; the other, impersonal and neuter in grammatical gender. In the case of the pair of words for “fire,” English has descendants of both, one inherited directly from Germanic, the other borrowed from Latin.

As is often the case, I have found some songs that address the issue.

First, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, a reference to hellfire. This song actually went to #2 in 1968 in the US, and somewhere I have it on some LP.

But the other fire songs here, which I also own, are about passion, romantic passion.

The Ohio Players, a #1 song from the winter of 1974-75.

Bruce Springsteen. His live 1978 version went to #46 in 1987. (I don’t know the vintage of this video.) And here’s a studio version. This Boss song was a big hit for the Pointer Sisters, #2 in the winter of 1978-79.

ABC Wednesday, Round 9

Summer Song: Summer in the City

Summer in the City entered the Billboard charts on the 16th of July 1966, and spent 11 weeks there, including three consectutive weeks at #1, starting on 13th of August.

When I joined the Capitol Record Club in 1965, book and record clubs had this thing called the negative option. That is, you would get the selected book or record UNLESS you sent in the response card in time. I was really bad at the negative option; I almost NEVER got the card in on time.

Which is how I ended up receiving the album Daydream by the Lovin’ Spoonful on Kama Sutra Records; loved that yellow label. Turns out, I was very fond of the early Spoonful. And when the subsequent single Summer in the City came out in 1966 (b/w Butchie’s Tune from the Daydream album), I had to buy it, probably from the Philadelphia Sales discount department store in Binghamton, NY, which was only two blocks from my elementary/junior high school, one of the very few singles I ever purchased; I was, even early on, an LP guy.

Summer in the City entered the Billboard charts on the 16th of July 1966, and spent 11 weeks there, including three consecutive weeks at #1, starting on the 13th of August.

It is one of the few songs I ever learned to play on the piano, albeit very badly.

Summer in the City
a grainy ‘live’ version

The Rolling Stone Top 10 Albums of the 1980s

There are plenty of Richard Thompson solo, usually live, versions of most, if not all of these songs.

There was a period, before such lists became ubiquitous, that I actually looked forward to Top 10 or Top 100 musical lists. Such was the case with “Rolling Stone – The 100 Greatest Albums Of The 80s”, which someone kindly listed here.

1. London Calling – The Clash
2. Purple Rain – Prince & The Revolution
3. The Joshua Tree – U2
4. Remain In Light – Talking Heads
5. Graceland – Paul Simon
6. Born In The U.S.A. – Bruce Springsteen
7. Thriller – Michael Jackson
8. Murmur – REM
9. Shoot Out The Lights – Richard And Linda Thompson
10. Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman

By the early 1990s, I had nine of these albums, all except #9. So one year, probably for my birthday, but possibly for Christmas, I received Shoot Out The Lights from my workmates. It has to be the least well-known album of the bunch.

Here’s the Wikipedia telling about the tortured history of the album, involving the late Gerry Rafferty. “Richard and Linda Thompson’s 1982 masterpiece, Shoot Out the Lights, is a celebration of love gone sour. Like all great works, its themes are at once specific and universal.”

Side one
Don’t Renege on Our Love – 4:19
Walking on a Wire – 5:29
Man in Need – 3:36
Just the Motion – 6:19
Side two
Shoot Out the Lights – 5:24
Back Street Slide – 4:33
Did She Jump or Was She Pushed? – 4:52
Wall of Death – 3:43

There are plenty of Richard Thompson solo, usually live, versions of most, if not all of these songs on YouTube.

Summer Song: Summer Breeze

I had a LOT of Seals and Crofts albums for a while. My college girlfriend even got me to see the duo live in New York City, on the birthday of Bahá’u’lláh, in 1971.

Summer Breeze entered the charts on 9/9/1972, spent 16 weeks on the charts, getting to #6. (S&C had three songs get to #6, including 1973’s Diamond Girl and 1976’s Get Closer), which is as high as they ever charted on Billboard.

Anyway, here’s the record and here’s a live version, with narrative on the scroll which could have been put in the notes.

Part of the info was that the Isley Brothers had a UK hit with the same song in 1976, which you can hear HERE.