I’m a writer and a former reporter and editor, and I’ve done some teaching along the way. I’m an amateur musician and songwriter. And I still like a good dark beer.
hi
love your blog
but i guess i must be thick or something as i can no longer see how to download the tracks – it takes me to you tube instead?
regards
simon
No, not thick at all. I’ve quit providing downloads and instead provide only an opportunity to listen to the tunes I’m writing about. Why? Because this blog seems to have gotten itself on some list somewhere, and the blog police are still out there. So I use clips on YouTube or players that don’t allow downloads.
I just wanted to give you a heads up, I’ve started a message board for the discussion of music of all forms– classic rock, classical, jazz, blues, Cajun/Zydeco, New Age, folk, metal, etc. etc.:
I’m hoping that in addition to some excellent discussion it may even inspire some good blog postings in the future. Most of the people I’ve invited/am inviting are music bloggers (many of which frequent your blog– so, depending on who joins you’ll likely see some familiar names, should you decide to join).
Yer page is taking forever to load with all the video links…
God help someone using dial-up or DSL w/o a Core Duo or
Quad Core… I still enjoy your writing and you constantly bring up a song, now & then that I wind up seeking & adding to my library.
I’m at work now on a Compaq Desktop/wireless & 5MBPS download so it’s slow goin’ here… Yer pages takes about 60 seconds to load. Home it’s 25MBPS so yer page is loaded within 20 seconds.
FYI
Here’s the ting whiteray – I have the first Sweathog record, always curious about it and the guys that are in the band – wanted to hear the second one because of the title – some of the song titles on the first one make me wonder if maybe the songwriter (the organ player?) came from a church back ground. Still, was very excited at the prospect of hearing Hallelujah. Can we work something out? By the way (not that it makes any difference) I’m the author of a book on Michael Bloomfield, and I attract lots of squirrels (I call ’em squirrs) to my back yard via birdfeeders too. One graybaby (my wife’s name for the gray ones) to every ten red ones. Portland Oregon, is our hangout. I ain’t a blog police either.
Congratulations for your enourmous capacity memory. How did you memorize the charts of the jukebox from your school? The Billboard’s charts back in the fifties when you were only a child? Fantastic!
Hey! My email crashed and I lost your personal email. I hope you still check here. Can you email me the list of my first album songs? I’m having a blank!
Saw your You Tube Post “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” sung by my aunt Judy Roderick. Very nice…Thanks. You can find more history on Judy via our website http://www.judyroderick.com/ or Facebook Page we set up for her. My mother Emily Roderick Oprea actually manages all the Judy sites (Judy was her sister). Emily’s email is Emily@olmstedcamp.com
Love to hear from you! Thanks for keeping th music alive.
Lia Oprea
I have been reading you for years and have communicated once in the past. As you might wish, as a professional writer perhaps at least subconsciously, I am always drawn more to your prose that to the music and period that it describes.
I write you today because I am reading a book called ‘Fire and Rain,’ by David Browne. It chronicles the musical year 1970, perhaps a crucial year of artistic transition that too often has been lost in the miasmatic swirl of the 60s at that decade died in writhing cultural agony.
The book portrays tales of artists and labels that we each have subsumed into our personal musical consciousness: The Beatles (together and apart), Simon & Garfunkel (always barely together), James Taylor (with and without the doomed Flying Machine), and CSN&Y (never really together), Apple, Reprise, the visually-bifurcated Atlantic, plus agents-provocateur from the benevolent nurturer Ahmet Ertegun to the soulless destroyer Allen Klein.
It’s a rich memory that I truly am enjoying, and as I read you this morning remind myself that you might as well.
Cheers,
Opus
P.S. Born in 1958, not to distant from your own vintage, I’m an amateur vice professional writer, and I look to do some teaching along the way (once I pay off my daughters’ college tuitions). I’m a semi-professional musician (guitarist/vocalist) for some 39 years now, still perform regularly both electrically and acoustically, and perhaps ironically still play many numbers by each of the artists chronicled in Browne’s book. And I *LOVE* a good dark beer!
Just arrived at your site for the first time. Thought you might be interested to know how I got here:
Some years ago, I was listening to the James Taylor song “Never Die Young” at YouTube. As I can just barely recall, some one of the commenters had remarked or asked about the meaning of the song. In hope that I would find some statement from James Taylor himself about that, I did a Google search that, remarkably, turned up a quote that was right on target.
Within the last hour or so, I was struck to look up that quote again, so I Googled “‘James Taylor’ ‘Never Die Young’ nytimes.com,” because that was my faint recollection, that the quote had been in a New York Times article. To my surprise, one of the links Google presented me in response to that search was your June 2011 entry, here, in which you mentioned the quote: http://echoesinthewindarchives.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/never-die-young/ You explained that you’d seen it with a “Never Die Young” video, at YouTube.
When I posted that quote, I wondered, of course, whether anyone would be struck by it. It’s nice to know that you and I, who, I’ll assume, don’t know each other, have been connected in this internet-ish way.
Once I had the quote’s exact wording, by the way, from your reposting of it, I was able to Google-up the New York Times page at which I’d encountered it, those years ago. In case you’re interested, it’s this: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/03/arts/the-pop-life-217088.html
Sincerely,
John Bonaccorsi (born December 1953)
Philadelphia, PA, USA
PS If you hadn’t reposted the quote, I might not have been able to find it. I’m pretty sure the New York Times page wasn’t anywhere near the top of the results of the initial Googling I did within the last hour.
Hey – I’ve visited briefly before, but I just noticed your reference to St. Cloud & Alexandria. You must be in (or from) Minnesota! Me too. I’ll check for references to Minnesota bands: Trashmen (of course); Underbeats; Gestures; Accents; DJ and the Runaways; Rave-ons; and TC Atlantic perhaps. I thought I was a chart nerd. I’m gonna have my wife look at your site! Then maybe she won’t complain about “how much ime I waste.”
hi
love your blog
but i guess i must be thick or something as i can no longer see how to download the tracks – it takes me to you tube instead?
regards
simon
No, not thick at all. I’ve quit providing downloads and instead provide only an opportunity to listen to the tunes I’m writing about. Why? Because this blog seems to have gotten itself on some list somewhere, and the blog police are still out there. So I use clips on YouTube or players that don’t allow downloads.
Ah right
understood
shame
thanks for the great and very informative blog
cheers
s
I just wanted to give you a heads up, I’ve started a message board for the discussion of music of all forms– classic rock, classical, jazz, blues, Cajun/Zydeco, New Age, folk, metal, etc. etc.:
Dancing About Architecture
I’m hoping that in addition to some excellent discussion it may even inspire some good blog postings in the future. Most of the people I’ve invited/am inviting are music bloggers (many of which frequent your blog– so, depending on who joins you’ll likely see some familiar names, should you decide to join).
Yer page is taking forever to load with all the video links…
God help someone using dial-up or DSL w/o a Core Duo or
Quad Core… I still enjoy your writing and you constantly bring up a song, now & then that I wind up seeking & adding to my library.
I’m at work now on a Compaq Desktop/wireless & 5MBPS download so it’s slow goin’ here… Yer pages takes about 60 seconds to load. Home it’s 25MBPS so yer page is loaded within 20 seconds.
FYI
Here’s the ting whiteray – I have the first Sweathog record, always curious about it and the guys that are in the band – wanted to hear the second one because of the title – some of the song titles on the first one make me wonder if maybe the songwriter (the organ player?) came from a church back ground. Still, was very excited at the prospect of hearing Hallelujah. Can we work something out? By the way (not that it makes any difference) I’m the author of a book on Michael Bloomfield, and I attract lots of squirrels (I call ’em squirrs) to my back yard via birdfeeders too. One graybaby (my wife’s name for the gray ones) to every ten red ones. Portland Oregon, is our hangout. I ain’t a blog police either.
Whiteray,
Congratulations for your enourmous capacity memory. How did you memorize the charts of the jukebox from your school? The Billboard’s charts back in the fifties when you were only a child? Fantastic!
Carlos Alberto
São Paulo ? Brazil
Thanks for the chuckle, Carlos.
Hey! My email crashed and I lost your personal email. I hope you still check here. Can you email me the list of my first album songs? I’m having a blank!
Hi!
Saw your You Tube Post “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” sung by my aunt Judy Roderick. Very nice…Thanks. You can find more history on Judy via our website http://www.judyroderick.com/ or Facebook Page we set up for her. My mother Emily Roderick Oprea actually manages all the Judy sites (Judy was her sister). Emily’s email is Emily@olmstedcamp.com
Love to hear from you! Thanks for keeping th music alive.
Lia Oprea
Whiteray,
I have been reading you for years and have communicated once in the past. As you might wish, as a professional writer perhaps at least subconsciously, I am always drawn more to your prose that to the music and period that it describes.
I write you today because I am reading a book called ‘Fire and Rain,’ by David Browne. It chronicles the musical year 1970, perhaps a crucial year of artistic transition that too often has been lost in the miasmatic swirl of the 60s at that decade died in writhing cultural agony.
The book portrays tales of artists and labels that we each have subsumed into our personal musical consciousness: The Beatles (together and apart), Simon & Garfunkel (always barely together), James Taylor (with and without the doomed Flying Machine), and CSN&Y (never really together), Apple, Reprise, the visually-bifurcated Atlantic, plus agents-provocateur from the benevolent nurturer Ahmet Ertegun to the soulless destroyer Allen Klein.
It’s a rich memory that I truly am enjoying, and as I read you this morning remind myself that you might as well.
Cheers,
Opus
P.S. Born in 1958, not to distant from your own vintage, I’m an amateur vice professional writer, and I look to do some teaching along the way (once I pay off my daughters’ college tuitions). I’m a semi-professional musician (guitarist/vocalist) for some 39 years now, still perform regularly both electrically and acoustically, and perhaps ironically still play many numbers by each of the artists chronicled in Browne’s book. And I *LOVE* a good dark beer!
Just arrived at your site for the first time. Thought you might be interested to know how I got here:
Some years ago, I was listening to the James Taylor song “Never Die Young” at YouTube. As I can just barely recall, some one of the commenters had remarked or asked about the meaning of the song. In hope that I would find some statement from James Taylor himself about that, I did a Google search that, remarkably, turned up a quote that was right on target.
Within the last hour or so, I was struck to look up that quote again, so I Googled “‘James Taylor’ ‘Never Die Young’ nytimes.com,” because that was my faint recollection, that the quote had been in a New York Times article. To my surprise, one of the links Google presented me in response to that search was your June 2011 entry, here, in which you mentioned the quote: http://echoesinthewindarchives.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/never-die-young/ You explained that you’d seen it with a “Never Die Young” video, at YouTube.
When I posted that quote, I wondered, of course, whether anyone would be struck by it. It’s nice to know that you and I, who, I’ll assume, don’t know each other, have been connected in this internet-ish way.
Once I had the quote’s exact wording, by the way, from your reposting of it, I was able to Google-up the New York Times page at which I’d encountered it, those years ago. In case you’re interested, it’s this: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/03/arts/the-pop-life-217088.html
Sincerely,
John Bonaccorsi (born December 1953)
Philadelphia, PA, USA
PS If you hadn’t reposted the quote, I might not have been able to find it. I’m pretty sure the New York Times page wasn’t anywhere near the top of the results of the initial Googling I did within the last hour.
Hey – I’ve visited briefly before, but I just noticed your reference to St. Cloud & Alexandria. You must be in (or from) Minnesota! Me too. I’ll check for references to Minnesota bands: Trashmen (of course); Underbeats; Gestures; Accents; DJ and the Runaways; Rave-ons; and TC Atlantic perhaps. I thought I was a chart nerd. I’m gonna have my wife look at your site! Then maybe she won’t complain about “how much ime I waste.”
Did you ever find out who else covered jake holmes
So Close it’s been driving me crazy
thanks