tagged w/ Country
-
CNN...
.
Levon Helm, co-founder of The Band, dead at 71
By Todd Leopold, CNN
updated 4:07 PM EDT, Thu April 19, 2012
PHOTO:
Drummer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Levon Helm, of The Band, pictured in Woodstock, New York, circa 1968.
.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Helm, the drummer, multi-instrumentalist and singer for The Band, is dead at 71
He had been suffering from throat cancer
Helm is best known for providing the vocals to The Band's rock 'n' roll standards
.
(CNN) -- Levon Helm, the drummer, multi-instrumentalist and singer for The Band who kept the band's heart for more than three decades, died "peacefully" Thursday afternoon, according to his record label, Vanguard Records. He was 71.
"He was surrounded by family, friends and band mates and will be remembered by all he touched as a brilliant musician and a beautiful soul," the record label's statement said.
Helm had a voice unlike any other in rock music: definitively Southern, soulful and gritty, an oak-barreled whiskey that sometimes went down with a fiery kick.
He could be mournful, calling up ghosts, as he did in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and the half-chanted chorus of "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)."
He could be playful, as he was in "Ophelia" and "The Weight," where in the latter he lunges into the "Take a load off, Annie" chorus with joyful abandon.
And he could belt in sheer pleasure, galloping through "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" or simply lending his unique harmonies to "The Shape I'm In" and "This Wheel's on Fire."
It was an American voice.
Helm had been suffering from throat cancer. Despite reducing his voice to a rasp in recent years, it had not robbed him of his spirit.
At his home in Woodstock, New York, he regularly hosted the Midnight Ramble, weekly concerts that attracted sell-out crowds and all-star support from the likes of Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen. In the past decade, he recorded two albums, 2007's "Dirt Farmer" and 2009's "Electric Dirt," that won Grammys. And he occasionally took the show on the road, making appearances at Tennessee's Bonnaroo, the Newport Folk Festival and Los Angeles' Greek Theater.
But Helm is best known for providing the vocals to such rock 'n' roll standards as "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," the latter a tale of a Confederate veteran sizing up his wasted land. That song was credited to The Band's primary songwriter, Robbie Robertson, who has said he was inspired by tales of the South from Helm and others.
Certainly, there was never a doubt who would sing it: the Arkansas-born, Southern-mythologizing Helm. "I aimed it right at him, I wrote it for him, he gets to say it all," Robertson told Rolling Stone in 1969.
Levon Helm was born Mark Lavon Helm in Elaine, Arkansas, on May 26, 1940, the son of a cotton farmer. He told CNN that he was inspired by "the old traveling medicine tent shows" that would travel the South.
"They had comedians and wine and music. Always a lot of music," he said in 2010.
After high school, he joined Ronnie Hawkins' band, the Hawks. When the Hawks moved to Canada in the early '60s, Hawkins and Helm recruited several local musicians, including Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and finally Garth Hudson. Hawkins left the band in 1963, and the group renamed itself Levon and the Hawks.
The next year the group met Bob Dylan, beginning one of rock's great partnerships. The group, already known for its blazing live performances, ended up accompanying him on his famous 1965-66 tours -- though Helm left by the end of 1965, upset at the vicious reaction the newly electric Dylan was getting from audiences.
Helm rejoined the Hawks in 1967, playing on what became known as Dylan's "Basement Tapes." The group also wrote and recorded its own songs in the same place, a house called "Big Pink" in West Saugerties, New York.
Renamed The Band, the group put out its debut album, "Music from Big Pink," in 1968, to rapturous reviews. "Six months are left in this proselytizing year of music ... but I have chosen my album for 1968. 'Music from Big Pink' is an event and should be treated as one," wrote Al Kooper in his Rolling Stone review of the LP.
The music was something new in American rock: both ancient and modern, rooted in the past and eschewing the psychedelic sounds then in vogue. The group, too, looked like something just emerged from a 19th-century daguerreotype.
And Dylan did the cover and wrote or co-wrote three of the songs.
The next album, 1969's "The Band," earned them the January 12, 1970, cover of Time magazine, headlined "The New Sound of Country Rock." The magazine's artwork features a menacing-looking Helm, bearded and hatted, looking every bit the American prophet he sometimes sounded.
The group was, and remains, hugely influential; the whole alt-country movement can trace at least some of its roots to The Band. (Patterson Hood, the leader of the Drive-By Truckers, named one of his earlier groups "Virgil Kane" after the protagonist of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.") Elton John and Bernie Taupin were huge fans, and their song "Levon" drew its character's name from Helm.
The Band put out several more albums, including "Stage Fright," "Cahoots" and "Moondog Matinee," but touring and internal dissension took their toll. In 1976, the group decided to bow out with an all-star concert, "The Last Waltz," filmed by Martin Scorsese and considered one of the great music concert documentaries.
The tensions of the band were obvious on screen, and Helm in particular didn't hide his anger. In his 1993 autobiography, he talked about his disgust, as Greg Kot observed in a 2002 article on the film's anniversary.
.CNN...
.
Levon Helm, co-founder of The Band, dead at 71
By Todd Leopold, CNN... more
-
-
BAMAKO – DESERT rebels have launched a revolutionary war in the Sahara. The fight for a free Azawad has turned into an armed conflict after brutal attacks on the population by the US-backed state of Mali. WITH the liberation of Timbuktu, rebels have proclaimed an astonishing victory in the Sahara Desert. The political bureau of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (Mouvement National De Liberation de l'Azawad - MNLA) issued a statement on Sunday April 1 speaking of an unprecedented day in the history of its peopl - 'Following the complete liberation of the Azawad territory and given the strong wish of the international community … the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) has unilaterally declared the end of its military operations as of midnight Thursday, April 5' -------- http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43058-tuaregs-azawad-declaresd-victoryBAMAKO – DESERT rebels have launched a revolutionary war in the Sahara. The... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
1 month ago
- |
-
CNN...
.
Bluegrass great Earl Scruggs dead at 88
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 12:25 AM EDT, Thu March 29, 2012
.
(CNN) -- Earl Scruggs, whose distinctive picking style and association with Lester Flatt cemented bluegrass music's place in popular culture, died Wednesday of natural causes at a Nashville hospital, his son Gary Scruggs said. He was 88.
"I realize his popularity throughout the world went way beyond just bluegrass and country music," Gary Scruggs told CNN. "It was more than that."
For many of a certain age, Scruggs' banjo was part of the soundtrack of an era on "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" -- the theme song from the CBS sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies," which aired on CBS from 1962 to 1971 and for decades afterward in syndication.
But much more than that, he popularized a three-finger picking style that brought the banjo to the fore in a supercharged genre, and he was an indispensable member of the small cadre of musical greats who created modern bluegrass music.
Scruggs was born in 1924 to a musically gifted family in rural Cleveland County, North Carolina, according to his official biography. His father, a farmer and a bookkeeper, played the fiddle and banjo, his mother was an organist and his older siblings played guitar and banjo, as well.
Young Earl's exceptional gifts were apparent early on. He started playing the banjo at age 4 and he started developing his three-finger style at the age of 10.
"The banjo was, for all practical purposes, 'reborn' as a musical instrument," the biography on his official website declares, "due to the talent and prominence Earl Scruggs gave to the instrument."
While Scruggs' status as the Prometheus of the banjo may be overstated, many musicians feel he changed the game. Fiddler John Hartman, quoted in Barry R. Willis' "America's Music: Bluegrass," summed it up this way: "Everybody's all worried about who invented the style and it's obvious that three-finger banjo pickers have been around a long time -- maybe since 1840. But my feeling about it is that if it wasn't for Earl Scruggs, you wouldn't be worried about who invented it."
In an article on the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's website, bluegrass historian Neil V. Rosenberg described Scruggs' style as "a 'roll' executed with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand" that essentially made the banjo "a lead instrument like a fiddle or a guitar, particularly on faster pieces and instrumentals. This novel sound attracted considerable attention to their Grand Ole Opry performances, road shows, and Columbia recordings."
In 1945, Scruggs met Flatt when he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, for whom Flatt was the guitarist and lead vocalist. Along with the group's mandolin-playing namesake were fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Howard Watts (alias: Cedric Rainwater).
Scruggs and Flatt left Monroe in 1948 to form the Foggy Mountain Boys, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame website. Along with guitarist/vocalists Jim Eanes and Mac Wiseman, fiddler Jim Shumate and Blue Grass Boys alum Rainwater, the group played on WCYB in Bristol, Tennessee, and recorded for the Mercury label.
He married Anne Louise Certain that year. In the '50s she became Flatt & Scruggs' business manager. They were married for more than 57 years until her death in 2006.
The Foggy Mountain Boys' roster changed over the years, but Flatt and Scruggs became the constants, the signature sound of the group on radio programs, notably those sponsored by Martha White Flour, and as regulars at the Grand Ole Opry. They became syndicated TV stars in in the Southeast in the late 1950s and early '60s, and they hit the country charts with the gospel tune "Cabin on the Hill."
But it was during an appearance at a Hollywood folk club that brought them into contact with the producer of "The Beverly Hillbillies" and led to "The Ballad of Jed Clampett." It was their only single to climb to No.1 on the country charts.
The 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde" featured their 1949 instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," with its distinctive Scruggs-style banjo solo perhaps the most ubiquitous of bluegrass sounds.
The duo split in 1969, and Scruggs' fame as a solo and featured act continued to grow, even as his most iconic licks echoed through the years among his acolytes -- basically, anyone who played banjo, and many who picked other instruments.
Playing "Foggy Mountain" on banjo became a staple of Steve Martin's comedy routine, and blossomed into a reverential tribute. In November 2001, Martin and Scruggs were joined by Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas and others on "Late Show With David Letterman" to play a fiery version of the song -- soloing alternately on banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, steel guitar and harmonica. Even Paul Schafer took the chorus for a spin on piano.
In an article in the New Yorker in January, Martin wrote, "A grand part of American music owes a debt to Earl Scruggs. Few players have changed the way we hear an instrument the way Earl has, putting him in a category with Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Chet Atkins, and Jimi Hendrix."
Flatt & Scruggs were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985, six years after Lester Flatt's death. In 1991, Scruggs, Flatt and Monroe were the first inductees in the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.
His sons Gary and Randy both are accomplished musicians and songwriters, and played with their dad in a 1973 album, "The Earl Scruggs Revue."
.
CNN's Cameron Tankersley, Denise Quan and Andy Rose contributed to this report.
.
PHOTO:
Earl Scruggs' unique three-finger-roll style revolutionized the banjo and its role in bluegrass and country music.
.CNN...
.
Bluegrass great Earl Scruggs dead at 88
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated... more
-
-
Tunisian bloggers succeeded in getting permission to form the first anti-censorship party in Africa and the Arab world. ----- The Tunisian interior ministry just legalised Africa's first anti-censorship political party. The Tunisian Pirate Party, approved on March 13th, is a branch of the worldwide cyber-activist movement. The party consists mainly of bloggers, many of whom were active during the Tunisian revolution and were imprisoned under the former regime. Their goal is to protect the right of more than two million Tunisian internet users to access information without restrictions, according to the party statute. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/free-stuff/43057-tunisian-pirate-party-gets-legal-approvalTunisian bloggers succeeded in getting permission to form the first anti-censorship... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
2 months ago
- |
-
Arab civilization, which is part of human heritage, has faced through its long history great challenges aimed at breaking its will and subjecting it to colonial domination, but it has always rose through its own creative abilities to exercise its role in building human civilization. The Syrian Arab Republic is proud of its Arab identity and the fact that its people are an integral part of the Arab nation. The Syrian Arab Republic embodies this belonging in its national and pan-Arab project and the work to support Arab cooperation in order to promote integration and achieve the unity of the Arab nation. The Syrian Arab Republic considers international peace and security a key objective and a strategic choice, and it works on achieving both of them under the International Law and the values of right and justice. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43064-draft-constitution-for-the-syrian-arab-republic-damascus-referendum-day-photo-essayArab civilization, which is part of human heritage, has faced through its long history... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
3 months ago
- |
-
The Dixie Chicks lead singer, Natalie Maines, negatively commented on country star Jason Aldean’s Grammy performance this weekend, upsetting fans. This is not the first time Maines stirred up negative responses with her fans. This is beginning to look like a reoccurring offense with Maines.
Keep Reading: http://bit.ly/A7WSvOThe Dixie Chicks lead singer, Natalie Maines, negatively commented on country star... more
-
-
“Western politicians and media are not yet fighting World War III, but they are talking themselves into it.” What if pollsters put this question to citizens of the United States and the European Union : “Which is more important, ensuring disgruntled Islamists freedom to overthrow the secular regime in Syria, or avoiding World War Three?” ----------- I’ll bet that there might be a majority for avoiding World War III. ----------- But of course, the question is never framed like that. ------------ Who are Obama&Clinton's advisers? US&allies trying to destroy Syria&create a failed state.Whose interests do they repr?--- Media tends to depersonalize Syrians, unless they're opponents of "brutal Assad regime". Hope my images correct this. Know faces of Syrian people being targeted by militia,Al-Qaeda,Brit & Qatari forces http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43055-road-to-damascus-and-on-to-armageddon-know-faces-of-syrian-people-being-targeted-by-imperialists-“Western politicians and media are not yet fighting World War III, but they are... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
3 months ago
- |
-
In this award year the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences has launched "Celebrate the Movies," a digital exhibition spotlighting iconic moments from 84 films. The exhibition appeared on digital billboards in Los Angeles, and on ABC's digital "SuperSign," an electronic landmark in New York's Times Square... http://actorschecklist.com/wordpress/?p=174In this award year the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences has launched "Celebrate... more
-
-
Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) have constantly been the subject of colonial wars and aggression. Korea fought a stubborn anti-colonial struggle against the Japanese since the latter occupied their country brutally from 1910 until 1945. The Koreans in fact emerged from the Second World War as a victorious member of the allied forces. But US imperialism, hungry to expand its colonial domination, took up seamlessly from the Japanese in occupying the south of the Korean peninsula, setting up its puppet Syngman Rhee as the head of a fascistic comprador capitalist clique, rather than allowing nation-wide elections as was its obligation; realising that the victorious national liberation forces led by Marxist revolutionaries (Kim Il Sung, et al) would sweep to power. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43043-north-korea-reality-checkDemocratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) have constantly been the subject of... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
5 months ago
- |
-
The United States Federal Emergency Management Agency has numerous detainment camps throughout the United States. Some camps have been recently constructed and / or renovated and are fully staffed. The existence of the camps coupled with Presidential Executive Orders giving the President and Department of Homeland Security (of which FEMA is now part) control over ‘national essential functions’ in the event of ‘catastrophic emergency’ have resulted in concerns that the camps will be used to forcefully detain American citizens for unconstitutional purposes. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/bizzareweird/43037-us-fema-campsThe United States Federal Emergency Management Agency has numerous detainment camps... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
6 months ago
- |
-
The original initiative to oust Mossadegh had come from the British, for the elderly Iranian leader had spearheaded the parliamentary movement to nationalize the British owned Anglo-lranian Oil Company (AIOC), the sole oil company operating in Iran. In March 1951, the bill for nationalization was passed, and at the end of April Mossadegh was elected prime minister by a large majority of Parliament. On 1 May, nationalization went into effect. The Iranian people, Mossadegh declared, "were opening a hidden treasure upon which lies a dragon". http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43032-iran-1953-us-military-and-cia-intervention-killing-hope-free-bookThe original initiative to oust Mossadegh had come from the British, for the elderly... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
6 months ago
- |
-
The iconic SugarHill Recording Studios, also known as the ‘Abbey Road of the South’, celebrates is 70th year in business with a release of a tribute CD unlike other compilation available. ZenHill has teamed with the studio to bring release the project, lovingly recorded and produced by SugarHill Senior Engineer and resident historian Andy Bradley.
The two-volume set is packed with classic hit songs from the 50′s to the 2000′s that were originally recorded in the historic studio. SugarHill drew upon it’s long list of current artists and studio alumni to honor, reinterpret, and in some cases faithfully cover songs that defined the sounds coming through radios all over the world for the last seven decades. From Destiny’s Child to Freddie Fender, from The Moving Sidewalks, to The Sir Douglas Quintet you will hear familiar smash hits alongside songs that will reignite old memories, making you take to Wikipedia to find out more about the original release.
Roy Head returned to Studio A at SugarHill to record the new version of “Treat Her Right” nearly 40 years after the original session. On this CD he turns in, if possible, an even more energetic and possibly less inhibited version of the original. Johnny Bush, Glenna Bell, Moses Guest, Anita Kruse, John Evans, Southern Backtones, Jesse Dayton, El Orbits, Clouseaux, Drop Trio, Champion Sisters, Deniz Tek, Kenny Cordray, Bert Wills, Love Street, Row Zero, Kelly Schoppa, Vatos Locos, Classical Grass, Sleepy Labeef, Don Sanders, Johnny Falstaff, Jeff Chance and Randy Cornor and many more turn in brilliant performances, some faithful to the original, some radically reinterpreted. It is a great listen.
http://www.zenhillrecords.com/70-years-of-sugarhill-hits-on-cdThe iconic SugarHill Recording Studios, also known as the ‘Abbey Road of the... more
-
-
An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion. As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here’s why: http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43029-why-iceland-should-be-in-the-news-but-is-notAn Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a... more
-
-
worrg
-
added this
-
6 months ago
- |
-
You are what you eat. Trigger is a cowboy. You can tell by the way he makes cattle skittish. From the debut album "Cowboy Logic" comes a heart-warming tale of the cows Trigger has befriended. We hope you enjoy it.
"I'm A Cowboy" Music Video
Filmed on location at Bootjack Ranch, Goldthwaite,TX
Production by Zenfilm
Produced by Merideth Melville
Director & Cinematographer: W. Ross Wells
Music Producer: Dan Workman
Recorded at SugarHill Studios
Cattle Wrangler: Joe Don Reese
Starring Trigger and about 250 head of cattle. We did not get their names.
Get the album on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify. Share it with someone who loves meat.
No cows were harmed in the filming of this production.
http://www.zenhillrecords.com/trigger-im-a-cowboy-music-videoYou are what you eat. Trigger is a cowboy. You can tell by the way he makes cattle... more
-
-
Canada may be America's hat, but... America is Canada's shorts.
Florida: America's C*ck. Florida: At least we got balls.Canada may be America's hat, but... America is Canada's shorts.
Florida:... more
-
-
-
-
The hit TV show "Happy Days," who are suing the company for unpaid merchandising revenue, don't have a case.
The company owns the iconic show, said in a 15-page response to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that the case is "a garden-variety breach of contract action, nothing more."
http://helptipsletestnews.blogspot.com/2011/06/happy-days-lawsuit.htmlThe hit TV show "Happy Days," who are suing the company for unpaid... more
-
-
This one goes out to all the haters...hillbillies straight crushin' it out on the dance floor.This one goes out to all the haters...hillbillies straight crushin' it out on the... more
-
-
This is a teaser from an article I wrote on Examiner.com:
From Public School, to church, to the movies and the major media and elections themselves, the American public is induced to believe that the Judges of America are men of integrity beyond reproach.
So with all of those credentials and long years of propaganda and censorship one faces a mighty steep mountain of indoctrination, propaganda and goodwill in exposing the true nature of Minnesota and the Country's Judiciary.
With the Judiciary's reputation reputation for integrity and honesty firmly embedded in the minds of WE THE PEOPLE, what standing do I have to challenge their reputations. In my estimate, what ever I might say would be easily dismissed, for what is my word to the word of these prestigious Judges.
To overcome this handicap, I will use the American Legal Systems own words to expose the true nature of their character.
Let us begin with the words of former FBI director J Edgar Hoover:
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.''
Whatever could the former director of the FBI, with all of the domestic intelligence information at his disposal, have meant by such a statement? I leave it to the reader to reach their own conclusion.
Next, I am going to use the words of Judges themselves. Judges have a strange little way of reaching conclusions allegedly using case law and jurisprudence. This effectively means they theoretically use the findings of previous judges to base their decision on the current case. Most of these rulings are reduced to short citations of a single sentence or a paragraph along with the case caption and where it is publicized (When judges do bad things and don't follow the law, they just don't publish their rulings - You see the secret is, Judges just censor from the general public most of the bad, unjust things they do.)
I recently had cause to research various rulings on immunity for Judges and State Governments. And I was astonished and devastated to learn the liberties they had taken and leaps of logic they had used to write the rules in their favor.
Using their own words, the first case I will cite is Wiggins v Hess (1976, CA8 Mo) 531 F2d 920 and Harley v Oliver (1976, CA9 Ark) 539 F2d 1143
"Judicial immunity applies even when judge acts maliciously and corruptly; judge loses his immunity from liability for damages in violation of 42 USCS &1983 ONLY if he acts in clear absence of jurisdiction."...
To read the rest of this article for free, please click here->;
Examiner. com Legal Evil? In their own words - Part 1 of 3 http://exm.nr/jhsah8
Those were my thoughts.
Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot
http://twitter.com/dmashakThis is a teaser from an article I wrote on Examiner.com:
From Public School, to... more
-
