Grammys 2020: Tributes to Sister Rosetta Tharpe & John Prine

The tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe begins at 28:00

Cool, New Lana Del Rey Song: "Let Me Love You Like A Woman"

Lana Del Rey's new album Chemtrails over the Country Club is expected to be released January 7, 2021. "Let Me Love You Like A Woman" is the first single from that album and continues her collaboration with Jack Antonoff, with whom she had such great success with last year's Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Cool, New Song: Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Bill Callahan: "OD'd in Denver" (feat. Matt Sweeney)(Video)

 

Demi Lovato's New Anti-Trump Song "Commander In Chief"

 

Fiona Apple Live 2020 The New Yorker Festival: "Shameika", "Fetch the Bolt Cutters", & "I Want You To Love Me"

Jack White Rocks "Saturday Night Live" with "Ball And Biscuit"

 

Michael Donnelly/ThisSmallPlanet.com Video of Jack White doing "Lazaretto", Beck's "Devil's Haircut", "Steady As She Goes", and "Sixteen Saltines" from 2014, live in San Francisco:

Kevin Morby & Nathaniel Rateliff Do "Passing Through", a Dick Blakeslee song popularized by Leonard Cohen

 

Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses) & Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains) Sing "A Satisfied Mind" For Jimmy Carter's 96th Birthday!

 

Cool, New Music: Trump's Got Covid! Indie Music Playlist

Trump's Got Covid! Indie Music Playlist

                      Saturday Night Live: Joe Biden (Jim Carrey) & Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph)

ALBUMS

Angel Olsen Whole New Mess

The Avett Brothers The Third Gleam

Beck Hyperspace

Bob Dylan Rough And Rowdy Ways

Bob Mould Blue Hearts feat the blistering single "American Crisis"

Bonnie "Prince" Billy I Made A Place

Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Three Queens In Mourning Hello Sorrow/Hello Joy

Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst) Down In The Weeds

Cut Worms Every Once In A While

Dawes Good Luck With Whatever

Fleet Foxes Shore

                                           John Prine (October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) 

Kurt Vile Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (EP) feat. two John Prine songs: "Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness" and Kurt & John's duet of "How Lucky".... We lost John to COVID earlier this sad, weird year.

Oh Sees Protean Threat

Phoebe Bridgers Punisher (2020) her new album and her first album Stranger In The Alps (2017) are essential.

Stephen Malkmus Traditional Techniques

Sufjan Stevens The Ascension

Susanna Baudelaire & Piano

Tim Heidecker (with Weyes Blood) Fear Of Death feat the singles "Property" and "Fear Of Death"

Various Artists Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T. Rex. Fantastic album, one of the last projects producer Hal Willner, of Saturday Night Live fame, worked on before his COVID-related death in April. Amazing line-up including: Kesha, Joan Jett, Devendra Banhart, Lucinda Williams, Peaches, Todd Rundgren, Sean Lennon, David Johansen, and Maria McKee.

Marc Bolan of T. Rex

                                                               Hal Willner

                                                    @JimCarrey:

SINGLES

Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Bill Callahan "Blackness Of The Night" (feat AZITA)(Cat Stevens cover)

Courtney Barnett "Just For You" from Cannot Buy My Soul: The Songs Of Kev Carmody 

Father John Misty "To S. /To R."

M.I.A. "CTRL"

Nina Hagen "Unity"

Phoebe Bridgers "Fake Plastic Trees" (feat Arlo Parks)(Radiohead cover)(BBC Radio 1 Piano Session)

Phoebe Bridgers "Summer's End" (John Prine Cover) [Live for SiriusXMU Sessions]

Stephen Malkmus "Juliefuckingette" (outtake from Traditional Techniques)

ARCHIVAL

PJ Harvey To Bring You My Love (Demos). PJ Harvey has recently been releasing the demos for her first three albums - Dry (1992), Rid Of Me (1993), and To Bring You My Love (1995). The demos are raw and are a revelation - and they remind us just how much PJ rocked in the early 90s, easy to forget when considering today's more "proper" and restrained version of PJ.

The Rolling Stones Goats Head Soup (Deluxe) esp. "Scarlet" (feat Jimmy Page) & "Star Star" 

Steve Miller Band Bright Lights, Big City (Live NYC 1976)

The Who Odds & Sods (Deluxe)

Ken Kesey mural in Springfield, Oregon. 

Statue of Kesey reading to his grandchildren, Eugene, Oregon.

RANDOM

Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Tortoise Brave And The Bold (2006) Interesting covers album.

Melanie Beautiful People: Greatest Hits of Melanie esp. "Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)", "Ruby Tuesday", "Brand New Key", and "What Have They Done To My Song, Ma"

Tom Robinson Band "2-4-6-8 Motorway". Best road song ever.

Tommy James & The Shondells The Very Best Of. Listen while reading Tommy's book Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells. Harold Bronson in his book The Rhino Records Story also tells the tale, which he insists would make a great movie. He's right!

Original Photos for ThisSmallPlanet.com by Michael Donnelly & Jay BellBlack Lives Matter! Sinead O'Connor Sings Mahalia Jackson's "Trouble Of The World"

Newly Revealed: Kurt Vile & John Prine Singing "How Lucky" Together

 

New, Cool B-Side From Guitar Whiz Stephen Malkmus: "Juliefuckingette"; Announces 2021 Tour

Guitar whiz Stephen Malkmus released a new B-side from his latest album Traditional Techniques; as well as his 2021 tour plans. 

As was the case with practically every artist, his 2020 tour to support the new album was cancelled.

His first band, Pavement, is scheduled to play festivals in 2021 as well.

Stephen Malkmus 2021 Tour:

03-02 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Cafe 
03-03 Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall
03-04 Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall
03-05 Louisville, KY - Headliners
03-06 Nashville, TN - Cannery Ballroom 
03-07 Atlanta, GA - Terminal West
03-09 Asheville, NC - Orange Peel
03-10 Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle 
03-11 Richmond, VA - The National
03-12 Washington, DC - Black Cat
03-13 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer 
03-14 New York, NY - Webster Hall 
03-16 Boston, MA - Royale
03-17 Burlington, VT - Higher Ground 
03-18 Montreal, Quebec - L’Astral
03-19 Toronto, Ontario - Danforth Music Hall 
03-20 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom 
03-21 Detroit, MI - Majestic Theatre 
04-09 Denver, CO - Gothic Theatre
04-10 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room 
04-11 Lawrence, KS - Granada Theater 
04-12 Tulsa, OK - Cain’s Ballroom
04-13 Dallas, TX - Granada Theater 
04-14 Austin, TX - The Mohawk
04-16 El Paso, TX - Lowbrow Palace
04-17 Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom 
04-18 San Diego, CA - Belly Up
04-19 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey
04-20 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore 
04-22 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom 
04-23 Vancouver, British Columbia - Imperial
04-24 Seattle, WA - The Showbox

Cool, New Song About America: "Sinking Ship" by David Johansen

 

Cool, New Song from M.I.A.:"CTRL"

 

Corona Playlist Early August 2020

ALBUMS

Fontaines DC A Hero's Death

Three Queens In Mourning feat Bonnie "Prince" Billy Hello Sorrow/Hello Joy

Devendra Banhart Vast Ovoid

Jarv Is... (Jarvis Cocker) Beyond The Pale

Various Artists Everything You Ever Need To Know About The Blues (3 Volumes)

Lana Del Rey Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass (Spoken Word)

Daniel Blumberg On&On&On

Buck Owens All The Best Tracks

PJ Harvey Dry Demos

Wye Oak No Horizon

Mike Pollize Long Lost Solace Find

Badfinger Shine On: Badfinger 1974

Led Zeppelin No Restrictions '69 (Live)

Witch (Zambia) Introduction

!!! Certified Heavy Kats

Emma Swift Blonde On The Tracks (an album of Dylan covers)

My new favorite song: Gillian Welch's "Everything Is Free", covered by Phoebe Bridgers (in L.A.) and Courtney Barnett (in Australia):

Corona Mania Lists: The 25 Country Blues Artists You HAVE To Know...

Reverend Gary Davis/ Blind Boy Fuller

Elizabeth Cotten

Blind Blake

Lonnie Johnson

Robert Johnson/ Willie Brown

Lightnin' Hopkins

Skip James

Mississippi John Hurt

Charley Patton

Pink Anderson

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Blind Willie McTell

Mance Lipscomb

Memphis Minnie/ Kansas City Joe

Lead Belly

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Blind Willie Johnson

Bessie Smith

Furry Lewis/ Frank Stokes

Son House

Mississippi Sheiks/ Bo Carter

Sonny Terry/ Brownie McGhee

Sonny Boy Williamson II

Henry Thomas

Charley Jordan/ Petey Wheatstraw

HONORABLE MENTION

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

John Lee Hooker

Bukka White

Ma Rainey

Muddy Waters

Howlin' Wolf /Little Walter/ Hubert Sumlin/ Otis Spann

Odetta

Joseph Spence

Blind Blake Alphonso Higgs

A FEW ARTISTS WE LIKE WHO WERE INFLUENCED BY COUNTRY BLUES

Billie Holiday

Nina Simone

Sam Cooke

Wilson Pickett

Otis Redding

Jimmie Rodgers

Dick Justice

Woody Guthrie

Hank Williams

Johnny Cash

Elvis

Carl Perkins

Fred Neil

Michael Bloomfield

Paul Butterfield

Cool, New Video: Courtney Barnett & Phoebe Bridgers Cover "Everything Is Free" (Gillian Welch)(Virtual Newport 2020)

Cool, New Video: Phoebe Bridgers "I Know The End"

The History of "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down"

Here's two videos of Jay doing "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" in the style of Rev. Gary Davis:

Interestingly, The Animals recorded not one but two  versions of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" - "Baby Let Me Follow You Home" and "Hey Gyp". On the first one, they were advised that by changing the words a bit, they could avoid paying royalties to artists such as Reverend Gary Davis. Compare and contrast with the approach of Peter, Paul, and Mary, who set up a publishing company specifically so Rev. Gary Davis would receive royalties for "Samson and Delilah" (AKA "If I Had My Way", later covered by The Grateful Dead and others), which enabled him to buy a house after a life-time of renting. Presumably The Animals paid royalties to Donovan for "Hey, Gyp", a song Donovan had copyrighted despite it obviously being based on earlier versions of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down". The song was later covered by Jack White and The Raconteurs. 

The Reverend Gary Davis biography Say No To The Devil, goes into great detail on the copyright issues on "Baby Let Me Follow You Down", "Samson and Delilah", and "You Got To Move" (covered by The Rolling Stones, "original" versions by Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi Fred McDowell). (There are also interesting legacies behind songs such as "House of The Rising Son" and "Matchbox", with early versions by Lead Belly later adapted by artists such as Dave van Ronk, Bob Dylan, The Animals, and Carl Perkins.)

Many of these songs are from an oral tradition, originating perhaps with artists whose names are lost to the sands of time... We know these songs from such artists as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and Son House, or versions from the likes of Lead Belly and Reverend Gary Davis.

Davis taught a version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" to Blind Boy Fuller who recorded it in the 1930s. Eric von Schmidt blended that with the Gary Davis version (although Bling Boy Fuller died young, Rev. Davis recorded and performed until the early 1970s, allowing many of the younger white blues fans to study his style in person) and that's close to the song that we know from Bob Dylan's first album, as well as his 1966 rock version with The Band (later seen at The Last Waltz... twice).

The song has been recorded as:

"Baby Let Me Lay It On You"
"Please Baby"
"Baby Don't Tear My Clothes"
"Let Your Linen Hang Low"
"I Want To Do Something For You"
"Baby Don't You Lay It On Me"
"Can I Do Something For You"
"Mama Let Me Lay It On You"

Notable artists who have done the song include Memphis Minnie, Walter Coleman, and Lightnin' Hopkins.

from Wikipedia:

"Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" is a traditional folk song popularised in the late 1950s by blues guitarist Eric Von Schmidt. The song is best known from its appearance on Bob Dylan's debut album Bob Dylan.

The song was first recorded as "Don't Tear My Clothes" in January 1935 by the State Street Boys, a group that included Big Bill Broonzy and Jazz Gillum. The next few years saw several more versions, including "Don't Tear My Clothes" by Washboard Sam in June 1936, "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes" by the Harlem Hamfats in May 1937, "Let Your Linen Hang Low" by Rosetta Howard with the Harlem Hamfats in October 1937 and "Mama Let Me Lay It On You" by Blind Boy Fuller in April 1938.

The song was adapted by Eric Von Schmidt, a blues-guitarist and singer-songwriter of the folk revival in the late 1950s. Von Schmidt was a well-known face in the East Coast folk scene and was reasonably well-known across the United States. According to his chronicle of the Cambridge Folk era, also called "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", Eric had first heard the song via the Blind Boy Fuller recording. Von Schmidt credits Reverend Gary Davis for writing "three quarters" of his version of the song (the melody is very similar to Davis's "Please Baby"). Van Ronk's version became a feature in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village in the early 1960s.

The song was later picked up by the young, up and coming folk singer Bob Dylan, who made it famous on his Columbia Records debut. As an introduction to the song on the album, Dylan pays homage to Schmidt, saying: "I first heard this from Ric von Schmidt. He lives in Cambridge/ Ric is a blues guitarplayer. I met him one day on/ The green pastures of the Harvard University."

The song became very popular amongst Dylan's following and was a regular feature of Dylan's song list. During his 1966 World Tour, Dylan electrified the sound of the song, playing it on electric guitar with a five-piece electric band as backing. A decade later, he performed the song with a medley of "Forever Young" at The Band's Last Waltz concert.

The song appears on these Dylan albums:

• Bob Dylan, recorded in studio November 1961, issued 1962
• Biograph, from Bob Dylan, issued 1985
• The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964, recorded in studio January 1964, issued 2010
• Live 1962-1966: Rare Performances From The Copyright Collections, recorded live May 11, 1966, issued 2018
• The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert, recorded live May 17, 1966, issued 1998
• The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert, recorded live May 26, 1966, issued 2016
• The 1966 Live Recordings, all 1966 live recordings, issued 2016
• The Last Waltz, live with The Band, recorded live November 1976, issued 1978

The song also appears here:

• Dave Van Ronk recorded "Baby, Let Me Lay It On You" on his 1964 album Just Dave Van Ronk (Mercury SR/MR 20908).
• Jackie DeShannon recorded the song on her 1965 album Jackie: In the Wind.
• Eric von Schmidt, recorded "Baby, Let Me Lay It on You" as the title track of his 1995 album.
• Bryan Ferry recorded the song on his album Dylanesque, released 2007. He also performed the song throughout his 2007 tour.
• Experimental jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood arranged and recorded an instrumental blues version for their 2009 album Radiolarians 2, part of their The Radiolarian Series.
• French mash-up bootlegging artist ToToM used Dylan's original version with The Rapture's Get Myself Into It in the mash-up song Rapture (Let Me Follow You Down)for his 2009 album, Dylan Mashed.
• Widespread Panic has performed the song nine times to date, most recently at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater on September 30, 2011.
• English singer-songwriter Marianne Faithfull recorded the song on the 2012 charity compilation album Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International.
• The Animals' "Baby Let Me Take You Home" (1964), is an adaptation of "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down".
• Lightnin' Hopkins recorded "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes" using the same tune as "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down". It was recorded in Houston and was on "The Very Best Of Lightnin' Hopkins.

Cool, New Video from Bright Eyes: Conor Oberst Sings "Mariana Trench"

On Lead Belly, Kurt Cobain, and Mark Lanegan

Mark Lanegan Sing Backwards and Weep : A Memoir. 

The book has a companion album of songs, Straight Songs Of Sorrow.

Mark Lanegan, lead singer of Seattle's Screaming Trees, is someone I originally knew best from two movie soundtracks: "I Nearly Lost You" by The Screaming Trees from the Singles soundtrack, and "Man In The Long Black Coat" from the Bob Dylan film I'm Not There.

For the past few years, I've been listening to his solo releases and enjoying them very much. I wanted to read his memoir and I would highly recommend it, especially if you're interested in the Seattle music scene in the 90s and 2000's.

We learn that Mark has a lot of cool friends - Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, Josh Homme from Queens of The Stone Age, and Layne Staley of Alice In Chains... but we also learn that Mark and a lot of his friends are severe addicts - and many of them die before the end of the book.

The book, as I was reading it, took over my psyche for a bit. I couldn't help but think of addicts in my life, some of whom have passed, like my friend Clayton and my cousin Zach, and whose passing deeply affected those left behind.

                                                          Clayton Gross (1991 - 2018)

I've often thought that if only someone had been able to sit with Kurt on THAT NIGHT, and talk to him calmly, and help him see things in a different light, that he likely would have survived, at least for another day. As it turns out, Kurt called Mark three times on the day he died, looking to hang out but Lanegan didn't pick up, as he had drugs and money and didn't need to go score for Kurt. Lanegan also thought Courtney Love would be there (she wasn't - Kurt had escaped from rehab in California and was in Seattle alone). Lanegan was annoyed by Courtney's flirtations as well as the constant dysfunctional bickering between Kurt and Courtney. (Yet she paid for Lanegan to go to rehab years later.)

One of the most interesting aspects of the friendship between Kurt and Lanegan is their shared interest in old time music, especially the blues; specifically Lead Belly (1888 - 1949), the Black blues master who did hard prison time before moving to New York to record and perform.

Lead Belly songs such as "Goodnight Irene" (covered by Pete Seeger's Weavers), "Midnight Special" (Creedence), "Matchbox" (Lead Belly's version of his mentor Blind Lemon Jefferson's song inspired the Carl Perkins rock classic), and "House Of The Rising Sun" (Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, The Animals) were well-known to folk and rock fans in the 1950s and 60s, but more modern audiences might be forgiven for knowing Lead Belly almost exclusively through Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.

During the taping of Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York (1994), Kurt famously joked about wanting to ask David Geffen to buy him Lead Belly's guitar before singing Lead Belly's (who he called his "favorite performer") "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", a song that Kurt hauntingly howled. It became the finale of the concert as well as the finale of both Nirvana and Kurt himself. Less than 5 months after recording "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" for MTV Unplugged, Kurt was dead from suicide.

Early in their friendship, Kurt and Lanegan talked about working on some Lead Belly tunes for a new band The Jury. Nirvana's label Sub Pop enthusiastically encouraged the project, quickly booking studio time in August of 1989.

The project never really gelled (sadly), but Lanegan's version of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" landed up on his first solo album The Winding Sheet (1990) with Lanegan on vocals and Kurt on guitar. 

The other Lead Belly songs they recorded, "They Hung Him On A Cross", "Grey Goose", and "Ain't It A Shame",  didn't show up until the Nirvana boxset With The Lights Out in 2004.

In his memoir, Lanegan says Kurt asked him to sing "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" with him at the MTV Unplugged gig, but that Lanegan declined. Kurt asked Lanegan if he could use the same arrangement Lanegan had used in 1989. We can only wonder what kind of performance a duet would have yielded, and what that would have meant for Lanegan's career.

Kurt's interest in Lead Belly and "unplugged" acoustic music also painted a roadmap for a post-punk, post-Nirvana solo career for Kurt. Toward the end of his life, Kurt often said he felt trapped by the demands of the band, the record company, the "stir-maker machinery". He spoke with R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and others about leaving the band and persuing a solo career playing acoustic music. Again, we can only wonder...