Here are 5 great duets (more duets on the way…):

1. “God Only Knows” — Beach Boys Cover by Mandy Moore & Michael Stipe

2. “Love Hurts” — Everly Brothers/Roy Orbison/Nazareth Cover by Jenny Lewis & Johnathan Rice

3. “Anyone Else But You” — Moldy Peaches Cover by Ellen Page & Michael Cera in Juno

4. “Sometimes Always” — The Jesus and Mary Chain

5. “Delaware” (Acoustic) — Wesley Jensen and Christie Dupree

Magnet and Gemma Hayes Cover Dylan's Lay Lady Lay

PREVIEW: STREAM “Lay Lady Lay” by Magnet and Gemma Hayes
PREVIEW: STREAM “Lay Lady Lay” by Bob Dylan

We all know “Lay Lady Lay” is a classic, and you can never beat the original, however Magnet and Gemma Hayes did a pretty descent job covering one of Bob Dylan’s biggest US hits from way back in ‘69.

Lay Lady Lay has been covered in official album releases from 26 different artists. Basically everyone from The Byrds, Duran Duran, Everly Brothers and Buddy Guy to Cher. Yes, Cher has reinterpreted the release. Magnet and Hayes give an already melodic piece a lighter more appealing  tonality. While in its first release by Dylan on Nashville Skyline, the song got the crowd’s attention because it was viewed to be so much smoother and softer in comparison to the rest of his work, Magnet and Hayes’s take on it sounds like pop lullaby.

A valiant attempt on the duo’s part, we dare call it the best cover of the Dylan classic to date. (And yes we listened to all 26 of them)

– Irina Dvalidze, Multimedia Editor

Below are the top country hits for the years 1955-1957. If you click on years, you will be taken to a YouTube playlist of the hits for that year. Some of the videos are fan tributes (song plays while photos of artist are shown) and some are from television performance from that era.

1955

1. Loose Talk – Carl Smith
2. Let Me Go, Lover – Hank Snow
3. In the Jailhouse Now – Webb Pierce
4. Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young – Faron Young
5. A Satisfied Mind – Porter Wagoner
6. I Don’t Care – Webb Pierce
7. The Cattle Call – Eddy Arnold
8. Love, Love, Love – Webb Pierce
9. That Do Make It Nice – Eddy Arnold
10. Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford

1956

1. Why Baby Why – Red Sovine and Webb Pierce
2. I Forgot to Remember to Forget – Elvis Presley
3. Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis Presley
4. I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby – Louvin Brothers
5. Blue Suede Shoes – Carl Perkins
6. Crazy Arms – Ray Price
7. I  Want You, I Need, I Love You – Elvis Presley
8. I Walk the Line – Johnny Cash
9. Don’t Be Cruel – Elvis Presley
10. Hound Dog – Elvis Presley
11. Singing the Blues – Marty Robbins

1957

1. Young Love – Sonny James
2. There You Go – Johnny Cash
3. Gone – Ferlin Husky
4. All Shook Up – Elvis Presley
5. White Sport Coast (And a Pink Carnation) – Marty Robbins
6. Honky Tonk Song – Webb Pierce
7. Four Walls – Jim Reeves
8. Bye Bye Love – Everly Brothers
9. Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear – Elvis Presley
10. Whole Lotta Shakin’ – Jerry Lee Lewis
11. Fraulein – Bobby Helms
12. My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You – Ray Price
13. Wake Up Little Susie – Everly Brothers
14. Jailhouse Rock – Elvis Presley
15. My Special Angel – Bobby Helms

MojoTwanger.com: Why Worry? (Dire Straits cover)

In case you hadn’t noticed, I am a huge Mark Knopfler fan… so my goal is to cover each and every song he ever recorded

I used my Lentz T-style on this track.

Girls, while essentially trading in the same circles and lyrical themes that many of their peers are, somehow rise above a lot of the commotion and obligatory static that the lo-fi scene thrives around. They’re potted in some rich artistic soil; not to say that bandleader Christopher Owens’ experiences as a childhood member of the abusive Children of God cult were positive, but these shift-in-your-seat discomforts always seem to make for some fascinating musical perspectives. As is often the case, the artist dies to be normal, and at the same time, they cherish that very dying. For artists like Owens, some even make their living by exhuming their closeted horrors and wallowing amongst them for our listening pleasure.

Though it would seem a ripe target for skewering, Owens doesn’t go for the throat of all the unspeakable difficulties he no doubt encountered in his young life. He seems a pretty genuine fellow, choosing instead to embrace the unique opportunities and places with which he has been presented. He speaks candidly about his life, romance, music, and heroes, some of it still stunted around middle school and trying furiously to catch up on all the teenage misadventures he missed while admiring and imitating the leather jackets from afar. Thus, in some sense, his compulsorily skewed worldview and love of unlikely favorites (like Michael Jackson’s Dangerous and Beyonce’s first disc from I Am…Sasha Fierce) make him all the more believable as an artist.

The few scraps of secular music he was able to steal away as a child had a profound effect on his musical sentiments, as did the chord progressions he aped while busking covers of the Everly Brothers and the Fleetwoods. His style as a guitarist, in fact, is basically a fusion of those late 50s pop favorites and the energy and attitude of the punk aesthetic he pursued so ruthlessly in his early 20s. Take his favoring of the major-to-minor fourth chord shift at the end of a phrase (“Lust For Life,” “Laura,” “Hellhole Ratrace”): it’s a page torn right from the 60s pop playbook all the way up to Radiohead’s “Creep.” That there are decades’ worth of missed music behind him is clearly of some significance; it should, for this reason, perhaps be less surprising that his songwriting seems so uniquely and sparingly seasoned.

Girls’ “Laura.” from Album.

Most of Owens’ lyrics have all the depth of a Neil Sedaka Collection, and perhaps it’s only due to his affected delivery, but his vocals still retain the warmth of jagged emotion: “reach out and touch me / I’m right here / and I don’t want to fight anymore / I really want to be your friend forever / friends forever (“Laura”).” Aside from the relentlessly catchy single “Lust For Life,” the seven minute heartbreak crooner “Hellhole Ratrace”  is probably the most feted track on Album. Owens sways his way plaintively enough through a few washed-out choruses before Girls turn the fuzz firehose loose and and the rest of the track becomes an extended “Hey Jude”-type coda, but the track’s repetition doesn’t seem worth the length, ultimately. “Morning Light” thrashes out an intro that sounds a whole lot like a cheap parody of Sonic Youth’s “Mote,” but it thankfully ends up being a late-breaking success with a fantastic guitar line as its pulsing impetus.

Elsewhere, Girls wholeheartedly succeed on the aforementioned “Lust For Life” and “Laura,” but also on the weepy “Ghostmouth,” the glittering acoustic intro of “Goddamn,” and the roaring quarter-mile anthem “Big Bad Mean Motherfucker.” “Curls” quietly revisits one of Owens’ earlier band attempts, actually; his former band went by the same name. Girls as a moniker, in fact, was a snap decision, chosen mostly because it rhymed with Curls. As the better part of its substance was a continuation of the same vein of songwriting (only without Owens’ now-ex-girlfriend), perhaps it only seemed civil.

So, does all this against-the-odds ascendancy add up to the crown jewel of the lo-fi scene this year? You be the judge, but the verdict is in on one thing: the ultimate crossover album? Get real. Certain critics would have you subscribe to the stunted belief that Girls have an instant sleeper classic; they’re calling Shawshank Redemption on the many Forrest Gumps released alongside Album in 2009. The obvious truth, however, is that it’s still a lo-fi album in a world where bands like Nickelback move millions of records and sell out the biggest venue any given city can muster up. Girls may have cracked the Billboard 200, but they certainly can’t have any delusions about sales, for one thing.

Under its own umbrella, then? Fair enough – if only within the year they’re being reviewed, Girls are simply overmatched, especially in the indie scene. And yet, this was all on the wavier; there have been some tremendous records released this year, and the only reason they’re not all stacking higher on Decade Best lists is because the critics don’t have the benefit of hindsight. Girls made a pretty good record, but they’re simply bringing too little innovation to the table to be a truly competitive musical force. Judge it on its own merits, some might say, but at the end of the day, it’s all a matter of what you’d rather listen to, and for a few tracks here, Album ain’t it.

- JB

"Bye Bye Love" by the Everly Brothers, photo from the Rockin' Country Style online discography

I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat myself. Collectors and enthusiasts are some of the best resources available to the popular music scholar. Again I have found another online discography that has proven a valuable resource to me. This one is the Rockin’ Country Style Discography. From it I have been able to discover some of the covers of early Everly Brothers tunes, look at photos of the records, and listen to snippets.

Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the one-sided love affair? If we were rational we’d acknowledge that its simply addictive emotional masochism; the more unsuitable or unattainable the object of desire, the stronger the fascination.  But when you’re madly in love with someone who doesn’t know you exist, being rational is the furthest thing from your mind. We’ve all been there. You feel like the walking wounded, the unloved one, the handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space! Charlie Brown says it best: “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like UNREQUITED LOVE.”

We opened the show with THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA from one of the best bossa nova singers ever,  Astrud Gilberto, performing with Joao Gilberto and Stan Getz. There really was a girl from Ipanema – a 15 year old called Heloisa Pinto who used to walk past the Rio bar frequented by the songwriters,Vinicius Morais and Antonio Jobim.  The song is a sweet tribute to the totally unattainable as well as an ode to youth. This music video is from the 1964 film “Get Yourself a College Girl”:

KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH HIS SONG has been covered by many artists, most notably by Roberta Flack, whose 1973 version topped the U.S. pop singles charts and won a Grammy Award. We opted to play the equally successful 1996 version, simply called KILLING ME SOFTLY,  by Hip-Hop group The Fugees with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals.

Whitney Houston’s version of I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, released in 1992,  became one of the best-selling singles of all time. It was written and originally recorded by Dolly Parton and her poignant and bittersweet version, with Parton’s trademark twang,  was my choice this week.

I had to include Billy Bragg’s gentle, yet disturbing, song about a classroom crush, THE SATURDAY BOY, even if it was just for the line: ”I had to look in the dictionary/ To find out the meaning of unrequited.” The Violent Femmes’ upped the ante with a song about repressed lust.  ADD IT UP has Gordon Gano promising himself, ‘the day after today I will stop’, but the music’s pent-up passion suggests otherwise.

When I announced this week’s theme there was lots of correspondence regarding which genre of music does ‘unrequited love’ best. Yes, I agree with BayFM’s Cowboy Sweetheart that country singers have it pretty much all sewn up, but you can’t go past a little soul music when it comes to love songs, requited or not.  A couple of examples: JUST MY IMAGINATION from the Temptations and CUPID from Sam Cooke. And I didn’t forget the soulful sound of Ray Charles with YOU DON’T KNOW ME, delivering a duet with Diana Krall, from his Genius Loves Company album.

Joe Jackson is wonderfully incredulous when he asks: IS SHE REALLY GOING OUT WITH HIM? The Cars, on the other hand,  are obsessed with their BEST FRIEND’S GIRL while  Bowling For Soup are going nuts over the  GIRL ALL THE BAD BOYS WANT. I love a band with a sense of humour. Check out the video from Bowling For Soup. By the way, the band’s name was derived from a comedy act by Steve Martin.

Now if you need convincing that country singers are the kings and queens of the lovelorn, here’s Patsy Cline with I FALL TO PIECES, from the Glenn Reeves Show, February 23, 1963.

LAYLA by the Eric Clapton’s group, Derek & The Dominos, is a tale of unrequited love inspired by Clapton’s relationship with his friend George Harrison’s then wife, Pattie Boyd Harrison. Here’s a video clip from 1984 of Eric Clapton peforming the song live with Bill Wyman on bass, Charlie Watts on drums, Jeff Beck on guitar, Stevie Winwood on piano …. have I died and gone to heaven? 

A song that elevates lovelorn moping to operatic heights is Ben E King’s I WHO HAVE NOTHING and another, possibly,  is Dionne Warwick’s WALK ON BY, written by Burt Bacharach and David Hal. It was recorded by Warwick in 1964 and became a landmark single for her.

A year later Donovan released his first single, CATCH THE WIND, and in 1967 The Small Faces recorded TIN SOLDIER, a song Steve Marriott wrote to his first wife Jenny. The song signalled a return to the band’s R&B roots after their previous forays into psychedelic rock and other musical experiments. P.P. Arnold can be heard singing back up vocals. Here’s some rare footage of The Small Faces with P.P. Arnold performing on Belgium television. The year was 1968. Go the Mods!

Written by the Bee Gees, IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU was given to Yvonne Elliman when the group became involved in the soundtrack for the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever. She scored  a #1 hit in the US with the track. 

Going a bit further back in time is the Everly Brothers version of ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM. Recorded in 1958, it was recorded in just two takes and features Chet Atkins on guitar. The B side “Claudette” was the first major songwriting success for Roy Orbison. Two years later, Orbison recorded ONLY THE LONELY, his first major hit. An operatic rock ballad, it was a sound unheard of at the time, described by the New York Times as expressing “a clenchied, driven urgency.” Here’s Roy performing the song during the Black & White Night concert. No-one does it like the Big O.

From the sublime to the ridiculous:  a teenager falls in love with a pin-up girl, in a picture dated 1929, in The Who’s PICTURES OF LILY and Fountains of Wayne sing about a schoolboy’s lust for his friends mother in STACEY’S MUM. 

And then it was a couple of classics: FOR NO ONE from The Beatles Revolver album, written by Paul McCartney and a track from one of my all-time favourite albums,  I’M WAITING FOR THE DAY from the Beach Boys Pet Sounds album.

In an effort to shake the lovelorn out of the doldrums, we closed the show with Radiohead’s masterpiece of poetic self-loathing, CREEP.

Here’s the complete playlist:

The Girl from Ipanema - Astrud Gilberto / João Gilberto / Stan Getz

Killing Me Softly  - The Fugees

I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton

Diary - Bread

The Saturday Boy - Billy Bragg

Add It Up  - Violent Femmes

Cupid - Sam Cooke

Just My Imagination  - The Temptations 

You Don’t Know Me – Ray Charles & Diana Krall

Strange And Beautiful (I’ll Put A Spell On You) -  Aqualung

Is She Really Going Out With Him - Joe Jackson

My Best Friend’s Girl - The Cars

Girl All the Bad Boys Want – Bowling For Soup

White Flag - Dido

My Eyes Adored You – Frankie Valli  & the Four Seasons

I Fall To Pieces - Patsy Cline

Layla - Derek & The Dominos 

I’ll Kill Her - SoKo

I Who Have Nothing - Ben E. King 

Walk On By - Dionne Warwick

Catch The Wind - Donovan

Tin Soldier - The Small Faces 

If I Can’t Have You - Yvonne Elliman

All I Have To Do Is Dream - The Everly Brothers

Only The Lonely - Roy Orbison

Pictures Of Lily - The Who

Stacey’s Mom - Fountains of Wayne

For No One - The Beatles

I’m Waiting For The Day - The Beach Boys

Creep - Radiohead

Next week, we’re celebrating Halloween with SCARY SONGS FOR SILLY PEOPLE (or is that SILLY SONGS FOR SCARY PEOPLE?).  Suggestions welcome.

Listen to Lyn McCarthy at the Theme Park on BayFM, Tuesdays 2-4pm, Sydney time.  

Also streaming on http://www.bayfm.org

Tragically also on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/maccalyn

Phil, Bill Harlan, Tommy Payne, and Don c. 1949 in a band. From the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

This is not a photo you see often. It’s on Bill Harlan’s page on the Rockabilly Hall of Fame site. There is a photo, apparently from the same day, in Roger White’s biography of the Everly Brothers.

Phil almost looks too small too be able to play that bass, and based on the finger position, I’m hazarding a guess that he doesn’t. The photo in the White book shows him holding a guitar.

Like lots of pre-teens and teenagers for decades gone by, they can dream of the day that they will have their own band.

The Everly Brothers recorded four sides for Columbia in 1955. Two of those were released: “The Sun Keeps Shining” (written by Don) and “Keep A-Lovin’ Me” (written by Don and Phil). In music historian parlance, we might say these represent some of their juvenalia. I know from their own comments and the remarks of others, the songs lean more heavily on their country music roots than later songs do. So I want to listen to them and try to describe how they adhere to “country” as it was understood in the late 1950s.

Therein lies the problem, though. These two songs are not on any of the reissue CDs or download services in the US. I found them in a $90 box set that includes a lot of what I already have. I also found them as downloadable files on amazon.co.uk, but not surprisingly I can’t buy them and download from here. All of this leaves me wondering why they are so hard to obtain in the US. Are the Everly Brothers themselves controlling this access and if so, why? And why are acceptable for UK audiences? And how am I going to get them???

I did find a set of unreleased recordings from the 50s and 60s that is reportedly demos and maybe some outtakes (user hyperbolium includes a good description of them under the reviews). Most of the cuts feature just Don and Phil and acoustic guitars. While I still want the other two songs, these recordings will certainly provide insight into how they perceived and conceived their own songs and how the songs transitioned from there to the finished product. The vocal harmonies will be much more exposed and less polished, allowing me another glance into this part of the creative process. It might be a stretch to suggest this, but recordings like this are somewhat akin to examining the sketchbooks of composers who work mainly in the written form.

I’m also sightly tempted by the $27 CD of outtakes but not enough to twitch for the moment. I’m sure they have value, but they will be so carefully selected that they may not demonstrate much more than close approximations of the releases. I would be interested in knowing what other popular music scholars have made of outtakes and alternate takes.

I have created a survey for Everly Brothers fans, hoping to capture some interesting viewpoints and data to use in my dissertation. I was restricted to 10 questions, but I think that will be enough. If any of my fellow musicologists are listening, let me know if the questions seem reasonable or what tweaks need to be made.

Richard and the Everly Brothers on one tour [in 1963]. I learned more in those six weeks than I would have learned from listening to a million records.

What was the primary lesson? Knowledgebase

RICHARDS: Stagecraft – what works and how to feel comfortable onstage. The Everly Brothers were superb every night – those beautiful harmonies. We’d open, then climb the rafters and hang there, watching them. Watching Bo Diddley was university for me. Every set was twenty minutes long in those days. When he came off, if he had two strings left on the guitar, it was a fucking mira¬cle. The Duchess was there [on guitar], and Jerome Green, with the maracas in each hand. It was my job to be Jerome’s minder. I used to fetch him from the pub – “You’re on, mate.”

Jac\, how did you and Micf^ choose “Loving Cup” as your duet? View RSS Feed

WHITE: Mick called me. I offered up six or seven songs, which were all shot down [laughs]. “FactoryGirl” [onBeggars Banquet] was talked about. Another one was “Shake Your Hips” [the Slim Harpo cover on Exile on Main Street]. Then he said “Loving Cup.” That was great – for years at White Stripes shows, we played “Loving Cup” [over the PA] as the crowd was leaving. I just wanted to harmonize with Mick. I didn’t necessarily want my own verse. But he said, “Take one.”

Was “Exile on Main Street” an in\’ portant album for you?

WHITE: I didn’t know much about Exile until Meg and I did the first White

Son House didn’t get to make that many records. But you pull certain things from those guys. From Kokomo Arnold, I get the vocal phrasing. From Blind Willie Johnson, it’s the slide [guitar].

One amazing sequence in “Shine a Light” is when Buddy Guy comes out for the Muddy Waters song “Cham¬pagne and Reefer.” He loo\s ready to \ill, li\e this is not going to be just a friendly jam.

RICHARDS: That was the high point of the film for me. He came in steaming. I looked at him and knew – the night is on. When he took the stage, everybody else wanted to move back.

Then, at the end of the song, you give him your guitar.

RICHARDS: It’s one of my favorites, too. That was straight off the top of my head: “It’s yours, baby.” With everything going on that night, with this movie, I thought, “This is my respect to Buddy -and to Muddy and all the other guys who turned me on.”

Do you feel cheated, Jac\, that you won’t meet and play with your favorite bluesmen because so many are gone?

WHITE: The problem now is if you want to work with somebody – if that somebody is still alive – you do it on one of those compilations or tribute records. Last year I got asked, “Do you want to play with Jerry Lee Lewis?” It was for one of those records. Yeah, I do want to play with Jerry Lee Lewis. But I don’t want to do it like that. I want it to be where we can both get something out of it.

all i have to do is dream. everly brothers

El rock no sólo ha sido intensidad, también tiene un lado suave, explotado por grandes baladas y aunque hay muchos clásicos baladísticos, Inquisidor71 escogió algunos temas que están más basados en su calidad musical, que en la posición a la que hayan llegado en las listas de popularidad.

Ve y escucha estos temazos:

Nazareth a inicios de los años 70’s  reversionó la balada de los Everly Brothers, “Love hurts” , dejandole un sello más dramático, como ya lo había intentado Roy Orbison,  aunque ellos hicieron un requinto verdaderamente hermoso.

En México en los años 70’s había una  banda llamada Grupo Yndio, que realizó el cover en español, titulándola  ”Herida de amor”, quitándole un poco el estilo rockero, y poniéndolo más romántico que nunca.

Nunca  he visto que le cuestionen a Poison sobre el estilo del requinto de la balada “I’ won’t forget you”, pero casi estoy seguro que está sumamente influenciada por el estilo que le puso Nazareth, y C.C. Deville sin muchas notas hace un gran trabajo en este tema.

En el  último disco grabado de Led Zeppelin, “In through the out door”, aunque oficialmente es el penúltimo -recuerden que “Coda” fue una recopilación de temas inéditos, cuando ya estaban separados- Robert Plant y Jimmy Page crearon el tema “All my love”, que considero es la  primera power-ballad, por la fuerza que tiene en medio de la canción.

Una orquesta de mujeres hizo una versión realmente bella de “All my love”, donde muestra que las canciones zepelianas pueden moldearse a cualquier tipo de música.

En “The Wall”, la  gran obra maestra de Pink Floyd,  se encuentra una balada dramática llamada “Goodbye Blue Sky”, que tiene unos arpegios realmente fantásticos y unos coros sumamente misteriosos pero encantadores.

El grupo de rock mexicano Fobia retomó un poco de influencia de esos arpegios en ”Hipnotizame” quedando un tema de gran calidad.

Black Sabbath no sólo hizo riffs pesados, también hizo temas calmados con orquestación, algo que quizás debieron hacer más seguido y “Changes”  de 1972 es un gran ejemplo de una pieza con piano, violines y la voz aguda de Ozzy Osbourne, cuando podía dar notas altas.

Tres décadas después, Ozzy volvió a grabar este tema con su hija Kelly Osbourne, cambiando un poco la letra, para hablar de la relación padre-hija, logrando grandes ventas en el Reino Unido y llegando al número uno de las listas británicas.

Kiss en 1981 lanzó “Music from the elder”, considerado su peor disco por muchos fans, pero la realidad es que estaban intentando experimentar otro tipo de estilo, de donde salió la gran balada “World without heroes”, que se perdió  más allá del lugar 50 en las listas de popularidad y  donde Paul Stanley  hace a un lado a Ace Frehley para hacer él mismo un gran requinto.

Cher, quien fuera novia de Gene Simmons, le hizo su propia versión, en un estilo más pop y dándole  más poder a la voz.

Volvemos a incluir un tema de Poison, llamado “Life goes on”, donde esta banda realiza un gran trabajo en la guitarra y personalmente la considero la mejor canción de su tercer álbum, “Flesh and blood”.

Para terminar, veamos y escuchemos “Is this love”, donde Whitesnake y su líder David Coverdale convierten una balada en toda una lección de habilidad en la guitarra y cómo manejar los efectos de los pedales con elegancia.

In the digitized computerized compressed treble-drenched fluorescent 99-cent disposable downloadable candy-coated cookie cutter MSGed MP3ed airtight televised stifling stalled casino elevator that is generously referred to these days as modern music, it can get a little hard to breathe. Somebody needs to open the window—preferably with a well-thrown brick—and let a little sun and wind in. Luckily, every once in a while, somebody does. More often than not lately, that somebody is T-Bone Burnett.

A truly brilliant producer, and a gifted musician and songwriter, he was born Joseph Henry Burnett in St. Louis in 1948 and raised in Forth Worth, Texas. At just 14, he started wandering out on to the Jacksboro Highway, headed for the dilapidated Skyliner Ballroom to catch performances by the likes of Junior Parker and Bobby “Blue” Bland.

“The way that room sounded is the sound I’ve been going for on every record I’ve ever done,” Burnett told Mix Magazine in 2006. “I’ve just learned more and more about how to do it. It’s been a long time of figuring out how to make it sound as exciting on a record.”

Burnett put together his own recording studio while still in high school and spent his free time recording his friends, and occasionally himself. He stops far short of calling himself a prodigy, though. “I was really bad. That’s what would distinguish me from a prodigy.”

In the early ‘70s, Burnett left Texas for Los Angeles. By 1975, he had landed a spot playing piano and guitar in Bob Dylan’s legendary Rolling Thunder Revue. At the tour’s end, Burnett formed the Alpha Band with fellow Rolling Thunder veterans David Mansfield and Steven Soles and released three critically acclaimed albums before calling it quits.

After a solo career that found Burnett creating albums that generated universal critical praise but modest sales, he dedicated himself to producing. From the crisp roots rock of Los Lobos’ How Will the Wolf Survive? to the gorgeous, fragile acoustic ballads of Elvis Costello’s King of America, Burnett brought a deep breadth and a refreshing sense of space, tone and timing to his production.

Eschewing the heavily synthesized, compressed production process so popular and prevalent in the 1980s and ‘90s, Burnett helped create music that now seems timeless. He did it with young artists inspired by heroes Burnett shared—the Wallflowers, Counting Crows, the BoDeans, Sam Phillips, Gillian Welch—and he also did it with the true heroes themselves. Burnett is responsible for the Roy Orbison concert film masterpiece A Black & White Night and Orbison’s Grammy-winning last album Mystery Girl, and also later albums by legends like Ralph Stanley and Tony Bennett.

It is Burnett’s ability to make music resonate with tradition, without using that tradition as a gimmick or some kind of shtick, that led to two of the most artistic and commercial pleasant surprises of the past 20 years.

In 2000, Burnett composed the score and produced the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou? Featuring such artists as Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanly and Gillian Welch delivering stunning interpretations of traditional American folk, blues and bluegrass songs, the album was a massive, grassroots-driven smash hit. It sold more than 7 million copies, earning a Grammy and awards from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, introducing a new generation of music lovers to the rich hidden history of American music.

Just as surprising is the oddball pairing of Alison Krauss with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant on last year’s terrific Raising Sand. Burnett produced and plays guitar on the album as Krauss and Plant weave incredible harmonies through songs by Townes Van Zandt, Mel Tillis, Tom Waits, Gene Clark, the Everly Brothers and Doc Watson. Even after going platinum, being heralded as one of the best albums of the year and winning the 2009 Grammy for Album of the Year, it still seems like a weird idea. Who would ever think to pair one of rock’s grittiest and most legendary lead singers with one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass, much less propel them with slapback echo, reverb and swaying vibrato through a set of obscure songs written by some of music’s greatest unsung heroes? You’d have to be a genius to pull that off. Luckily, there was one on hand.

“What I am shooting for is to make music that is as good as music gets,” Burnett told Charlie Rose last year. “Why not?”

–Ari Surdoval

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant doing the Everly Brothers’ “Gone Gone Gone” from the Burnett-produced Grammy winner Raising Sand.

bradford and co. take on the everly brothers’ 1960 country hit “so sad (to watch good love go bad)”. keep the covers coming atlas sound, i’m really liking ‘em (and logos, but shhhhhhh… it’s a secret).

atlas sound on myspace

download:

atlas sound – so sad (to watch good love go bad)

- sunbear

1. Bobby Vee : Take a Good Care of My Baby
2. Paul Anka : Diana
3. Ricky Nelson : Hello Mary Lou
4. The Everly Brothers : All I Have to Do is Dream
5. Neil Sedaka : Oh Carol
6. Elvis Presley : Don’t Be Cruel
7. Bobby Darin : Dream Lover
8. Del Shannon : Runaway
9. Paul & Paula : Hey Paula
10. Johnny Tillotson : Poety in Motion

Lezers,

de heer Fogerty komt op 1 september 2009 met een nieuw album gevuld met covers: The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again. Wij hebben het album voor u beluisterd en vonden het niet zo. Wij waren slechts te spreken over een 3tal nummertjes op het album. Zo hoorden wij Garden Party, met een stel Eagles die meedoen. Ook de cover van Fogerty’s eigen Change In The Weather staat aardig. Voorts waren wij aangenaam verrast de stem van The Boss the horen op When Will I Be Loved. Al met al echter is het nieuwe album geen aanleiding tussen de buien door naar de platenboer te snellen.

John Fogerty – When Will I Be Loved

John Fogerty – Change In The Weather

Everly Brothers – When Will I Be Loved

Billboard — Creative plural notwithstanding, John Fogerty was the Blue Ridge Rangers on his 1973 solo debut, adopting the fictitious band moniker as a means of swinging back at writer’s block and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s flameout-but not so much on the sequel, “The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again.” For this warm set of 11 country-time covers (including a track from his 1986 album, “Eye of the Zombie”), Fogerty turns to his speed-dial list of superstars. He recruits Bruce Springsteen for a gallop through the Everly Brothers’ “When Will I Be Loved?” and the Eagles’ Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit for Ricky Nelson’s age-appropriate “Garden Party.” Elsewhere, Fogerty is accompanied by folks like Buddy Miller and Kenny Aronoff. Not surprisingly, Fogerty settles into his country surroundings with a self-assured grace, especially on John Prine’s melancholy “Paradise,” Jerry Gillespie’s “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away” and even on John Denver’s “Back Home Again.”

• Stream the record at johnfogerty.com. It’s also downloadable on Amazon all week for $3.99.
  

In the interest of keeping the splendid readers of Campaign Outsider engaged, the hardworking staff has rebranded our Ad of the Day feature.

It’s now Ad o’ the Day.

Without further ad-o, here’s our quotidian offering (via Craigslist).

Headline:

“Help! Wife Found Out About Mistress”

Body copy:

My Wife Found Out About My Mistress–Now You Can Have Her

As the Everly Brothers sang, So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad).

Depuis quelques jours, on peut écouter sur le site de John Fogerty (et télécharger sur Itunes) le duo de l’ex-leader du (legendary) Creedence Clearwater Revival et de Bruce Springsteen sur When will I be loved.

Cette reprise figure sur le nouvel album de John Fogerty, the Blue Ridge Rangers rides again, à paraître en CD le 1er septembre, et en vinyle une semaine plus tôt.

Une façon pour John Fogerty et Bruce Springsteen de rendre hommage à un grand groupe aujourd’hui un peu sous-évalué, les Everly Brothers, qui avaient créé cette chanson.

Ceux qui, comme moi, écoutaient Georges Lang sur (W)RTL à la fin des années 70, connaissent surtout, quant à eux, l’excellente reprise de cette chanson par Linda Rondstadt.