The News Review:
- tis Taylor: Singing the blues with new textures
- Local musicians get overdue honors but awards show deserves no prizes
- Dylan on Dylan
- Blues to net new goal celebration song
tis Taylor: Singing the blues with new textures
International Herald Tribune – Apr 17, 2007
Another is about a man who has remorse for the way he treated his wife now that she has died. Another is about his mother's “best friend” moving in after his parents separated. His music is down home and funky like you expect the blues to be. In addition there are provocative new textures and a sensitive often startlingly personal subject matter on top. n an earlier album “White African” (2001) he sings about the lynching of his grandfather. There is no argot no bleepable word in his lyrics which are about suffering loss love and redemption. The urgent hoarse intelligence of his voice creeps up on you… Taylor grew up listening to the Dave Brubeck and Charlie Parker records of his father who wanted him to go to art school. “He was very upset when I began to play the blues” Taylor said during an interview in his Paris hotel. Taylor said his father considered the blues “country people's music” meaning black country people. Taylor Senior also called African Americans who stayed in the South “country” or “stupid. ” He used to ask: “Why would anyone choose to live under that kind of tyranny?” Even worse his son played banjo and ukulele white country music instruments. After the family moved to Colorado in the 1950s one of young tis's favorite neighborhood hangouts was the Denver Folklore Center where he picked up his first banjo. He started his first band the “Butterscotch Fire Department Blues Band” at the age of 16.
Local musicians get overdue honors but awards show deserves no prizes
San Francisco Chronicle – Apr 17, 2007
The mood at the ceremony which began an hour behind schedule was decidedly upbeat at the onset. “I’m overwhelmed because of the fact that I get to see this awards show happening” D’Wayne Wiggins told the audience of some 1200 while accepting a Living Legend trophy for his band Tony Toni Ton?”I think it’s so long overdue. The Bay Area has been the creator of so many different sounds from so many different centuries. ” He and Amar Khalil the akland band’s current lead singer then launched into an impromptu a cappella rendition of the 1993 Tony Toni Ton?it “Anniversary. ” Members of the audience — many dressed as if going to or perhaps having just left church — supplied harmony parts without prompting. The Bay Area’s African American music scene may not span “many different centuries” as Wiggins suggested but it can be traced at least to the second decade of the 20th century when Jelly Roll Morton operated a nightclub in North Beach and Kid ry held forth at the Creole Cafe in West akland. And Bay Area black musicians have been churning out national hits since 1948 the year locally produced records by blues musicians Ivory Joe Hunter and Lowell Fulson began showing up on Billboard magazine’s “race” music charts… And Bay Area black musicians have been churning out national hits since 1948 the year locally produced records by blues musicians Ivory Joe Hunter and Lowell Fulson began showing up on Billboard magazine’s “race” music charts. This rich history was reflected in the selection of Living Legend and Hall of Fame awards. Blues singer-pianist Jimmy McCracklin who has been cutting records locally since settling in Richmond in 1947 was one of four to win Hall of Fame trophies. “Thank God I’m still living” McCracklin 85 said in his acceptance speech. “A lot of my friends are gone but I’m still here. ” ther Hall of Fame awards were given to jazz pianist George Duke gospel singer Walter Hawkins and producer Narada Michael Walden. Walden the only one of the three to show up offered a typically bubbly speech.
Dylan on Dylan
Ha'aretz – Ha'aretz – Apr 17, 2007
It would be interesting to hear what Dylan has to say about the scandal he raised in 1965 when he traded his acoustic guitar for an electric one but it’s no less interesting – and much more unexpected – to hear him speak about a much earlier founding moment the day in the late 1950s when he traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic guitar with which he could express his passion for folk music. And while it would be interesting to hear what Dylan has to say about his conversion to Christianity in the late 1970s and his later return to Judaism it’s no less absorbing and much less predictable to hear about his first spiritual awakening: when he joined the church of believers in American folk music. For Dylan then 20 “folk music was a reality of a more brilliant dimension. It exceeded all human understanding and if it called out to you you could disappear and get sucked into it. I felt right at home in this mythical realm made up not of individuals so much as archetypes vividly drawn archetypes of humanity metaphysical in shape each rugged soul filled with natural knowing and inner wisdom. Each demanding a degree of respect. I could believe in the full spectrum of it and sing about it… ” Boxer with a guitar “Chronicles” is filled with Dylan’s stories and it’s hard to know whether to believe them. Did his father stricken with polio really jump into a blazing car and save the burning driver with his own body? Maybe. Was the legendary blues singer Robert Johnson really taught to play guitar by a farmer whose last name was astonishingly Zimmerman? Please Bob. And even if we assume that the young Dylan really did meet Jack Dempsey what are the chances that the famous boxer told him “you look too light for a heavyweight kid you’ll have to put on a few pounds”? Dylan chose to open “Chronicles” with the meeting with Dempsey. This strategic place and the “mistake” Dempsey made by thinking Dylan was a boxer perhaps says a lot about how the singer perceives himself. Dylan frequently sang about boxers and “Chronicles” is full of metaphors from the boxing world. Woody Guthrie would “throw in the sound of the last letter of a word whenever he felt like it and it would come like a punch.
Blues to net new goal celebration song
East Anglian Daily Times – Apr 17, 2007
I think it’s good to get something different. ?Town fans have until May 3 to cast their vote. Blues chief executive Derek Bowden said: ?We have been delighted with the response we have received from the supporters since we launched our vote for the goal celebration music at the end of last week. ?We’ve had over 1500 votes already and many fans have also emailed in with their alternative suggestions to the eight songs that are listed. ?It’s right that the fans should choose which goal celebration is used and we intend to follow the same pattern with some of the other decisions regarding matchday. ? To cast your vote visit www… I think it’s good to get something different. ?Town fans have until May 3 to cast their vote. Blues chief executive Derek Bowden said: ?We have been delighted with the response we have received from the supporters since we launched our vote for the goal celebration music at the end of last week. ?We’ve had over 1500 votes already and many fans have also emailed in with their alternative suggestions to the eight songs that are listed. ?It’s right that the fans should choose which goal celebration is used and we intend to follow the same pattern with some of the other decisions regarding matchday. ? To cast your vote visit www.