Bob Dylan thoughts on writing ‘original’ songs.

Bob Dylan thoughts on writing music, from ‘Holding the Note’ by David Remnick. (publ. Alfred A. Knopf, 2023)

Genius doesn’t owe explanations of itself. But perhaps the nearest Dylan came to explaining both his gift and its durability was in 2015, accepting an award from the charity MusiCares. Reading from a sheaf of papers in his hands, Dylan exploded the myth of sui generis brilliance.

“These songs didn’t come out of thin air,” he said. “I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth…It all came out of traditional music: traditional rock and roll, and traditional big-band swing orchestra music…If you sang ‘John Henry’ as many times as me – ‘John Henry was steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand / John Henry said a man ain’t nothin’ but a man / Before I let that steam drill drive me down / I’ll die with that hammer in my hand.’ If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you’d have written ‘How many roads must a man walk down?’ too.

“All these songs are connected.” he went on. “I just opened up a different door in a different kind of way…I thought I was just extending the line.”

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What are the blues?

David Remnick from his book ‘Holding the Note’. (publ. Alfred A. Knopf, 2023)

The unschooled think of blues as sad music, but it is the opposite. “The blues impulse is to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy, but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism.” That’s how Ralph Ellison defined it. Guy (Buddy) puts it more simply: “Funny thing about the blues – you play ’em ’cause you got ’em. But, when you play ’em, you lose ’em.”

Another take. Kevin Young, poet and essayist. “The blues contain multitudes. Just when you say the blues are about one thing – lost love, say – here comes a song about death, or about work, about canned heat or loose women, hard men or harder times, to challenge your definitions. Urban and rural, tragic and comic, modern as African America and primal as America, the blues are as innovative in structure as they are in mood – they resurrect old feelings even as they describe them in new ways.”

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Estonian Song Festival

From the very first song festival in 1956, every four years Southern Ontario’s Estonian Childrens Summer Camp and Cultural Centre ‘Seedrioru’ (Cedarvalley) has been hosting celebrations of Estonian music and culture. This summer, on the weekend of June 28^th, Seedrioru’s beautiful Grand River property near Elora, will for the 9^th time resonate with melodious song. The festival is proud to host two professional choirs from Estonia. Tartu RahvaÜlikooli Segakoor (Tartu Folk Post Secondary Mixed Choir – Dir Lauri Breede) and Eesti Rahvusringhäälingu Segakoor (Estonian National Public Mixed Choir – Dir Hirvo Surra) in photo. The choirs will perform Saturday evening and join a 200+ strong choir of singers from throughout North America on Sunday afternoon in the grand finale. Come join us for this very unique choral experience! Advance ticket sales and more details at http://www.seedrioru.com

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Boys sing better when girls in audience

This article is so charming I had to re-post it for you. Have a song-filled day y’all!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/08/singing-by-boys-choir-sounds-more-brilliant-when-girls-in-audience

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Sixto Rodriguez and Robbie Robertson

It is a sad day in the annals of music. Two musical geniuses have passed away. One, you have most certainly heard. Robbie Robertson. Enough will be written about him so I shall let others review that giant. The other artist who added colour to my musical library, is still an obscure and mostly cultish figure. Sixto Rodriguez. Had it not been for the 2012 Oscar winning documentary ‘Searching for Sugarman’, Rodriguez would likely have passed away without garnering more than a page 10 footnote in the music journals of the world. This contemporary of Bob Dylan had just 2 albums produced on his own, and a third ‘Rodriguez at his Best’ which was I believe an Australian bootleg. Rodriguez never had a taste for performing, often playing with his back to the audience. That, and whatever personal and music business reasons one can never fully comprehend, resulted in his fading into obscurity in the inner city of Detroit. Rodriguez lived in the same house in downtown Detroit for many decades, while he toiled in Joe-jobs before being ‘discovered’ by the producers of Sugarman. An almost unknown musician in America, Rodriguez was a star in S. Africa and Australia where his albums sold in the hundreds of thousands. In fact, legend had it he was dead! The producers of the documentary Sugarman organized a smashing tour of the country, where Rodriguez finally played to sold out venues in front of his adoring followers. Check out this shining example of his wordsmithing from ‘Cold Fact’ recorded in 1969.

Was it a huntsman or a player

That made you pay the cost

That now assumes relaxed positions

And prostitutes your loss?

Were you tortured by your own thirst

In those pleasures that you seek

That made you Tom the curious

That makes you James the weak?

No doubt Sixto Rodriguez will be ‘rediscovered’ once again now that he has joined fellow musical genius Robbie Robertson in the great beyond. Ironic and sad, how in the world of art, death enhances ones reputation. RIP Rodriguez and Robertson. Your music lives forever.

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‘Don’t waste time’: War Horse composer Adrian Sutton on living with an incurable cancer diagnosis

A devastating flash-flood recently swept away the pleasant landscape of my imagined future: an incurable cancer diagnosis. Bastard. How to process that news? My mind has lurched for two months. Obviously, this is all some terrible mistake. I have a healthy lifestyle. You’ve got the wrong guy. Come on, there’s more living to do, more music to write. But such pleadings – to whom or what I don’t know – rebound from a stone wall. The reality is immutable.

In his book Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman highlights the obsession we have with the future: always trying to lasso it from the present, writing to-do lists around it, deluding ourselves that we have it all under control. That’s been me, right there … years spent dreaming of the pieces I’d yet to write and record; tweaking my studio setup to optimise future workflow; stacking a tower of useless to-do-list cruft.

In truth though, we all have limited time – and resources. How to make best use of them? In my situation, there’s only one answer: avoid egregious waste of both time and energy ruminating on things I can’t change. Instead, I can choose how I react to the facts – and I’m choosing not to be a victim.

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95 year old granny wins best new artist grammy!

You have to read this story, it’s just way too feel good! A 95 year old Cuban-American gramma who had to basically hide her love for music her entire life, records her first album in America and wins a Grammy!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/19/angela-alvarez-latin-grammys-best-new-artist-95

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Just another….

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New music from Pink Floyd and Andriy Khlyvnyuk.

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Composer John Williams turns 90!

Here’s a good essay about John Williams, the most under rated and under appreciated composer of all time. Seriously. Williams’s film work encompasses blockbusters (nine Star Wars movies, four Indiana Joneses, three Harry Potters, two Jurassic Parks and the first Superman film) and serious historical fare (JFK, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln). He has huge respect in the film community, and there is a story that John Williams was working on Schindler’s List when he suggested to Steven Spielberg that he needed a better composer for his overwhelming Holocaust drama. “I know, but they’re all dead,” replied the director. Next time you revisit these movie classics, really listen to the score. John Williams is every bit as good as Strauss or Liszt. He deserves to be recognized, not just for his 52 Academy award nominations (5 wins), but simply for his astounding talent as a composer. Happy Birthday John Williams!

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/feb/03/john-williams-at-90-he-is-so-much-smarter-than-his-critics

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