Jerry Wexler, RIP

Jerry Wexler died today at his home in Florida, aged 91.

The record producer and former music journalist, who coined the term "rhythm and blues" (to replace "race records") while working for Billboard magazine, had a huge hand in shaping the music we listen to, especially with his productions of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Santana, Dire Straits, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Willie Nelson, the Coasters, the Drifters, Linda Rondstadt, Dusty Springfield and even George Michael.

He also signed Led Zeppelin to Atlantic Records.

When asked what he wanted on his tombstone, he reportedly said, "More bass."

Here are a few of the artists associated with him. Not sure if he was the producer on ALL of these, but certainly, he was on some ("Respect," for instance, and on an early version of "Careless Whispers") and his style infused all of them:

New U2 album due Nov. 18

And it's supposedly called No Line on the Horizon. Produced by prominent members of the band's career producers: Steve Lilywhite, Daniel Lanois, and of course, Brian Eno. Recorded largely in Morocco.

Sounds like another one of the band's curveballs, judging from the title of the first single, "Sexy Boots," and from much at www.atu2.com, one of the great fan websites for one of the greatest bands.

Other songs include "The Cedars of Lebanon," supposedly inspired by Jimi Hendrix, "Moment of Surrender," which Eno told fans in June was "the best thing" he's recorded with U2, "For Your Love," "One Bird," and four songs supposedly left off How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Not sure what that last bit portends, but this is of course a track list cobbled together from sometimes thin evidence (but sometimes from interviews with the band members and producers).

In June, when recording finished, Daniel Lanois told a Montreal paper, "It's going to push the known limits in the sound arena, the way Achtung Baby did." He also told a radio interviewer, "It's one of the great, innovative records from U2." About 10 tracks for the album were recorded in Fez, Morocco, and the band reportedly used local fiddlers and percussionists.

Here's a six-minute collection of clips from the making of the new album; there are some nice moments of the band working - which includes talking as much as playing - but it gives little idea of what the album MIGHT sound like. If you're short on time, be sure at least to fast forward to 2:30.

New David Byrne and Brian Eno album

David Byrne, yeah, famous. Brian Eno, famous among the knowledgeable. And VERY productive this year. First, the Coldplay album (meh!) and upcoming, on Nov. 28, the new U2 album (with Daniel Lanois, more on that later). And now, an album collaboration with David Byrne, with whom he made three albums with Talking Heads (most crucially the epochal Remain in Light) and the ground-breaking sampling album, 1980's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Since then? Not much.

Next Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2008, they will release the album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. You can get a free download of the first track, "Strange Overtones," at the album's website.

Or, if you want to watch....I didn't like it until I heard the line, "These beats are out of fashion/These beats are 30 years old..." and I got what the song was about, and then it worked. It's about writing a song. First time I've heard that since Paul Simon did it in "Song About the Moon" in about 1983...not to Simon's level, lyrically, but still..."Your song still needs a chorus/But I know you'll figure it out..."

Some more from the archives....

Found myself rambling round YouTube from Isaac Hayes (RIP, see below) and finding some cool old vids from the day...and, of course, now. Here are some of the best. I realize that watching the whole video may feel like a long time depending on the quality of the clip AND of your screen and sound, but they are sure fun to sample. Feel free to skip through, there are some cool moments, promise.

First, the Black Moses himself, Issac Hayes. Here he is performing "Walk on By" - which we THOUGHT Dionne Warwick owned. This is when it was new, 1969, on TV show Music Scene, which I don't remember. If you're a fan of British trip hop, not that the fuzz-toned guitar and high female vocal chant which were sampled extensively for "2 Wicky"by Hoover.



And one more great one from Hayes, "Never Can Say Goodbye," which was a much bigger hit by the Jackson 5, with Michael's squeaky voice, which sounds all the sqeakier after hearing Hayes' rich, experienced version of Clifton Davis' song. Plus the band is terrific.



Then there's this, not so many years later (1980). Marvin...



And the all-time master of his time, doing "Superstitious" on TV in, what, 1973?



But this here stopped me in my tracks. And he was as good as Marvin and Hayes and Stevie THEN, and he's absolutely brilliant NOW...Al Green.



And then here he is back in the day...





OK, work tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed...

Isaac Hayes, RIP

Isaac Hayes is dead. For those who knew him only as "Chef" on South Park, watch and learn...from German TV:



And from back in the day, 1973, with Jesse J as MC:



From the Associated Press:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless ''Theme From Shaft'' won Academy and Grammy awards, has been found dead at home. He was 65.

The Shelby County Sheriff's Office says a family member found Hayes unresponsive near a treadmill on Sunday. He was pronounced dead about an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis. The cause of death was not immediately known.

In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap.

Macca does A Day in the Life

When I heard about this moment - McCartney doing "A Day in the Life" in Liverpool, the first time it had ever been played live - I thought it would be great.

Now I think it was probably better as ONLY a studio recording. Like "Strawberry Fields Forever." And Macca, god bless his soul, is such a cheeseball. Nevertheless...worth seeing.

A really accurate Top 20 albums...

Here's a link to a blogger's top 20 albums of all time, based on a very rational formula that ignores critical moods and goes straight for a combo of sales, Grammys, chart position, etc.

Here's the list (and here's the link). (Thanks to Colvin for steering it my way...)

20. Faith - George Michael
19. Appetite for Destruction - Guns 'n' Roses
18. Purple Rain - Prince and the Revolution
17. Houses of the Holy - Led Zeppelin
16. Born in the U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
15. Nevermind - Nirvana
14. Van Halen
13. Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
12. The Wall - Pink Floyd
11. The Joshua Tree - U2
10. Metallica
09. Led Zeppelin
08. Hotel California - The Eagles
07. The Beatles (The White Album)
06. Led Zeppelin IV
05. Abbey Road - The Beatles
04. Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin
03. Thriller - Michael Jackson
02. Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
01. Songs in the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder

What's interesting to me are the albums that are so often left off critic's lists, especially the No. 1 album, Songs in the Key of Life. A great album, anyone would say - but it rarely gets into critical Top 20s, let alone top them. The other surprise is No. 20, Faith. Another great album, another one that critics would likely leave off a list.

And then there's the indisputable proof here that the top rock bands ever really are The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, with Pink Floyd right behind. FOUR Led Zeppelin albums - two each for The Beatles and Floyd) just about says it all. And that's without any hit singles to speak of. It also puts U2 in perspective, and Springsteen, and Metallica, and Nirvana, and The Eagles, all of wh om get only one album - and are happy to have it, I would imagine.

What's also interesting is who's NOT here: Bob Dylan for one, who very nearly always dominates Top 20 lists of the Rolling Stone era. Bob Marley. Bowie. The Rolling Stones. The Who. None of them made the list. This is really the TOP of the pops, and it is still amazing to me that Zeppelin dominates the way it does.

Any thoughts?

Down memory lane: CSNY in 1969

OK, I've been totally lax about posting here - but not for lack of interesting things to post. Just...inertia, or more likely, intimidation, because there's no real focus here. I just meander, and that doesn't feel right. But that's what blogs ARE, right? Just what pops up.

So, here are a couple of things I happened into of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who were, after all, the successors to The Beatles as that group folded. I remember so well that amazing time. Here are a few clips.



Here the are from the Big Sur film, where they do the rarely seen "Sea of Madness," a great duet between Young and Nash. And then there's Stills, ever-belligerent, confronting some freaked-out freak in the crowd. And finishing with "4+20," a great song.



And here they are on David Steinberg's show in 1969, which I remember seeing when I was 13 years old. And being blown away.

Jackie Greene "Shaken"

Sacramento's Jackie Greene does a stripped down version of the lead-off song on his new album, "Giving Up the Ghost"...beautiful. From KFOG March 31, 2008.

Counting Crows "Cowboys" live

I haven't heard all of the Counting Crows' first new album in six years, hailed as a comeback of sorts, but they've always been pretty great. The first two albums were the best, of course, the next two tread water, but often beautifully and energetically and sincerely. And that's doubly true of "Cowboys" from the new "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings."

Here's a good clip, though the sound is low. Turn it up. But you can really hear all the instruments so clearly, they work so well together, and drive so hard, it's impressive. And they give the too-often-mocked Adam Duritz room to act out lines like "This is a list of what I should have been/But I'm not..." and "Look at me/Or I am not anything" - that's pretty raw stuff, whether you like his faux-dreads or not.

Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson Live 1975

I found this clip of the short-lived Ian Hunter/Mick Ronson band from 1975, during their one tour after their one album. Coming after Hunter's Mott the Hoople and Ronson's work with Bowie, Lou Reed and Mott themselves, this sorta paled by comparison, but in retrospect, "Once Bitten Twice Shy" is one of the most true-to-their-roots exercises either of them ever did. Rock and roll.



And Ronson's guitar work - an elegant blend of Jeff Beck's flair and virtuosity and George Harrison's structural melodicism - is kinda workaday on this performance.

Still: Hunter gets a hell of a good head of steam on rhythm guitar, and the whole thing rides a very spare and intense opening and goes to a crashing rock creshendo. Fantastic. Nuff said.

Seequing music?

As I was complimenting him on yet another drumming gig well-done (with Sherman Baker at Old Ironsides in Sactown last night), my buddy Matt McCord told me about a logo he'd just designed for a new website called seeqpod.com.

You know how irritating it is to listen to music on amazon.com or iTunes, where you get 30 seconds of decent fidelity or a whole song of lousy? Seeqpod.com is the answer.

There are surely other sites like this out there, but I'm not web-saavy enough to know of them. Or perhaps this is new. In any case, I've got seeqpod now! Yahoo!

You go to the site, enter a song title OR band name and up comes a bunch of song titles with a little logo next to them. You click the logo and the song moves to a playlist and starts playing. The whole song. In decent (not great, of course) sound. Yeah!

Then you click on another song, and add that to your playlist. Then search some more songs. Some songs sound better than others. I listened to some songs by The Magnetic Fields and then flipped to Of Montreal, which had better sound (and better songs).

When you click on options, you get them: links to the band's blog, MySpace page, Wikipedia entry, ringtones, tour dates, lyrics, news and of course, buy. It's all good!

Go play with it, it's cool, and let me know what you find out about it.

Me, I'm heading out to plaster midtown Sacramento with fliers for my first live talk show: "A Musical Dialogue with Gregg Coffin" at the Geery Theatre, 22nd and L in midtown Sacramento. 8 p.m Thursday, Jan. 24. Tickets are $10 and are available at The Beat or on tickets.com. Or comment here, I'll get 'em to you. It's a tiny theatre, 49 seats. It's going to be fantastic!

Coffin is a very talented, very smart guy who knows how to talk about his art. I have listened to him talk about music, the inspirations and mechanics and difficulties, a number of times. It's been so great, I wanted to share him with you. Coffin has written three nationally-produced musicals, Convenience, Five Course Love and rightnextto me, which is currently playing at the B Street Theatre in Sacramento through Feb. 24.

rightnextto me is an ambitious exploration of love and life and death with a complex structure and powerful emotions portrayed. They're much bigger subjects than his last show, Five Course Love, a one act that was loaded with laughs and played the Minetta Lane Theatre, Off-Broadway in NYC. rightnextto me takes more chances, and we'll be talking about them, where they worked, where they didn't.

What's great about this event is that Gregg is still honing the show - you get to watch an artist IN the process. And we won't just be talking. To illustrate points, Gregg will play the grand piano, performing songs and sections and what-might-have-been songs...

It's going to be simple, informal and fascinating. Be there!

The Kinks are Koming!

It wouldn't be a new year without rumors of a reunion - and with Coachella still in the planning stages, perhaps THIS is the year for The Smiths? - but one big one has just been announced: One of the original British Invasion monsters is rising from the long dead: The Kinks.

Yeah, with Pete Quaife on bass, even - the original Kinks - Ray, Dave, Mick Avory and Pete. Their first time together since 1969, when they recorded the brilliant concept album Arthur, home of "Victoria." Of course, they went on without Pete, and made a couple more great records - "Lola Vs. Powerman and the Money-Go-Round" and "Muswell Hillbillies" - but by that point, their glory days were almost over.

But back in the day. Whew!



The notorious battling Davies brothers, Ray and Dave, may have mellowed a bit - a stroke (Dave's) may do that to you - but that remains to be seen. After all, the Eagles and Pink Floyd reunited, and they seemed at some points more likely to be drinking each others' blood than ever playing together again.

Anyway, this is from the only magazine Encore, and there aren't many details to be had regarding dates or anything else, except that there may be a retrospective CD box - cleverly entitled Retrospective - in the offing. No word on new recordings.

For those under 35 or so, listen here: The Kinks were nearly as important as the Beatles, and arguably right there with the Stones and the Who. Their singles had a combination of visceral power - Van Halen didn't cover "You Really Got Me" for laughs - and a deep lyrical sophistication, courtesy of Ray Davies. Their albums with the original line-up, from 1964-69, included some of the best rock albums ever made, including "Face to Face," "Something Else," "We Are the Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur." And the singles were even better.

So, in honor of their history, and in anticipation of their reunion, here are some fine little Klassic Kinks Klips from YouTube...

"All Day and All of the Night" live in 1965 on the U.S. TV show "Shindig!":



And "Tired of Waiting" again from TV...



And "See My Friends."



OK, those are the early, British Invasion days. Then there were a string of less-successful singles that were even better, but YouTube has very few clips from back in the day that weren't promo, lip-synched travesties. This blog aims to include only actual, live performances. But I couldn't resist including one of the band's greatest songs, veracity be damned. Here's "Waterloo Sunset."

Sweeney Todd lives!

My friends who love the musical theatre of Stephen Sondheim as much as I do - and they are few, since I live in a rock 'n' roll world - have long wondered why I didn't like "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" the way they did. The show has long been considered one of Sondheim's best, and that's saying something for a man who has won a ridiculous number of Tony awards, as well as a Pulitzer Prize for his unimaginably brilliant "Sunday in the Park with George." Sondheim has created Broadway musicals for those of us who find most Broadway musicals a bit less...well, let's just say, less compelling than rock and its many offspring.

Sondheim, to me, is like the Beatles, just a step above everyone else around him. When I discovered him, belatedly, about 15 years ago, I felt exactly as I had when I first saw the Beatles 44 year ago - my world was shaken. I couldn't believe that someone had THAT much musical power and subtlety, that fine and complex a lyrical mind, and that much clear-eyed understanding of human beings, all rolled into one man. I was brought to tears repeatedly by his shows, especially "Company," "A Little Night Music," "Into the Woods," "Merrily We Roll Along," and "Sunday in the Park with George." And he cracked me up. And I couldn't stop singing the songs.

But others didn't touch me - "Passion," for one, "Pacific Overtures" for another - and even though I saw the 1989 revival on Broadway, "Sweeney Todd" just left me cold. I bought the video of the original 1979, listened to the album. And nothing.

That changed Sunday afternoon, when I caught a matinee of Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd" at the Arden Fair 6 (a lousy little theatre, the less said about, the better). Even in the less-than-perfect setting - two old ladies behind me talked repeatedly through the film - THIS was Sweeney Todd as we were meant to see him. And I was floored.

It's over-the-top Grand Guignol, of course - if you have an aversion to stylization in film, you will find it "unbelievable" - but if you have a passion for great art, and especially if you've a Goth streak - you will find it, well, UNBELIEVABLE.

Here's the trailer, which really downplays the singing - the movie's almost all sung - but gives you the story and the look:



And here's something I found for the real Sondheim geeks in the crowd: I don't know what it's from, but it's the cast of "Sweeney Todd" doing a song from "Company," with new lyrics from the cast, not Sondheim. Both shows have been recently reimagined by director John Doyle, who did both shows with the cast not only singing the parts, but playing the instruments as well. I saw Doyle's "Company" last fall in New York - twice - and it was just amazing. So this is a bit of fun with that.

As I said, for Sondheim geeks only.

Reactable - the next generation of musical instruments

A friend sent me this months ago, after Bjork's tour, which featured a "DJ" using the new Reactable, which combines DJ technology and synthesizers in a visually-based medium. I can't even explain it, but it's incredible. Watch this video and see the future of synthetic sound production.



Here's a pretty bad video of Bjork performing "Declare Independence" backed by the Reactable, just to get an idea of how it comes across live:


And here's the second Reactable Demo video: