Category: Music

Titanic Folk-Rock

Bob Dylan’s next record is going to have a long song about the sinking of the Titanic, 100 years ago. Dylan says,

“People are going to say: Well, it’s not very truthful. But a songwriter doesn’t care about what’s truthful. What he cares about is what should’ve happened, what could’ve happened. That’s its own kind of truth.”

That being the case, Dylan’s own take on the Titanic is fair game, and comic Tim Heidecker has recorded a speculative prediction of Bob’s as-yet-unheard song.

The thing is, Dylan is more than 40 years late, because the first and best extended fictional telling of the tale of the Titanic belongs to Jamie Brockett, who used an old Leadbelly song as a springboard. Brockett called the ship the USS for United States Ship, and not RMS for Royal Mail Ship, but hey man, it was 1969.

Oh, Brother!

It’s been over four years since I first posted something about Lon & Derrek Van Eaton. Their debut album, the brilliantly varied Brother, has been a favorite of mine since I bought it high school, and it’s one of the reasons why I keep a couple of turntables working. Lots of memories linked to this vinyl disc! And now I’m very pleased that Brother is finally out on CD, with plenty of bonus tracks.

A minute ago I started listening, and their original demo track, “Warm Woman”, the recording that caught the ear of George Harrison, sounds strikingly better than it does on the LP. Sun Song sure has a lot more oomph to it. I can’t read the liner notes, however, because I don’t have the eyes I did when I was seventeen! I’ll have to dig out my stronger reading glasses.

Outsourcing

I haven’t been feeling the blogging bug lately. Too much else going on, my mind on other things, etc. Some of the material I was going to post has been donated to better homes — favorite sites that are devoted to single subjects.

Rob Steibel runs the excellent Kirby Dynamics blog for the Jack Kirby Museum. I sent Rob scans from two magazines with articles about Stan Lee that were published ten years apart — Castle of Frankenstein (1968), and Circus (1978).

I am a devoted follower of the tipper-topper mostest bestest Beatles photo blogger, The Gilly on Tumblr. A long time ago I said I would post Ringo’s Photo Album from 1964, but after scanning the magazine I decided that The Gilly would do a superior job of presenting it, and I was right. The scans are at this link.

A Kind of a Hush

Deep Purple’s recording of Joe South’s “Hush” is one of those songs that takes me back to powerful memories from a particular point in my life. “There’s a Kind of a Hush All Over the World” by Herman’s Hermits it wasn’t! I’d just finished an extremely difficult year in the 7th grade, and “Hush” really excited and grabbed me.

EVERYTHING WAS CHANGING SO FAST! Not just for me as a kid on the cusp of turning thirteen, but for the world. LBJ wasn’t running for re-election, MLK and RFK had been assassinated, etc. And to top it off, a month after “Hush” peaked on the charts my family up and moved from Connecticut to Massachusetts.

Jon Lord of Deep Purple has died. “Hush”, with Lord’s incredible keyboard sound, is one of the last songs that is indelibly associated in my mind with 77 WABC Musicradio in New York. It’s my assumption that Herb Oscar Anderson’s departure from WABC was due to songs like this one.