Spoon Guitar

Preservation

http://www.preservationabenefitalbum.com/

Roy Smeck: Wizard of the Strings

Real Guitar Heroes: Hank Garland

Real Guitar Heroes: The Tielman Brothers

Enrico Caruso (1873 - 1921)

I started out in college as a vocal performance major.  I was developing into what is known as a "lyric tenor" and I took my study very seriously for several years.  Sometime during these years, my grandmother, seeing my obvious enthusiasm for the arts, particularly opera, gave me a 78 rpm Victrola record that she said had been one of her father's favorites.  It was a recording of the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso singing "La Campana di San Giusto" (The Chimes of San Giusto) in Italian on one side and "A Granada" (To Granada) in Spanish on the other side.  Caruso is considered to have influenced nearly every male opera singer who came after him and one listen to one of his recordings will tell you why.  (And, according to the photos below, he also seems to have been quite the dresser.)  Egyptian cigarettes and lack of exercise (while maintaining a grueling performance schedule) took his life relatively early.  Luckily, a then young recording industry was able to preserve the genius of this one-of-a-kind performer.

Real Guitar Heroes: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Looking Forward, Looking Back

I'm guessing that "the blogosphere" is a lot like the gym at the top of a new year: everybody pledges to be more consistent and disciplined about posting and, for a few weeks at least, they will be.  I'm not sure if 2010 will be the Year of the Blog for me or not (I've decided to try to limit my time on the internet to hours in which my sweet children are asleep) but I'm going to try and start out on the right foot by posting on day one.

January 1st is a tricky day for me.  I spend a little bit of time thinking about the previous year.  My nature is to make lists and take stock so I do some of that.  Then I think about the new year.  I make a note of the things I'm looking forward to.  Then I forget it all and I just take the year as it comes.

Here's how it goes in my head:

2009 Highlights By Category

Recorded Music Releases

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

U2 - No Line On The Horizon

Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk

Norah Jones - The Fall

Tom Waits - Glitter and Doom Live

Dave Rawlings Machine - A Friend of a Friend

Avett Brothers - I and Love and You

The Beatles - Mono Box Set

David Mead - Almost and Always

M. Ward - Hold Time

Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid

Live Shows

M. Ward - Cannery Ballroom, Nashville

Andrew Bird - Ryman Auditorium, Nashville

U2 - Memorial Stadium, Norman OK

Movies

Coraline

Star Trek

Up

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Fantastic Mr. Fox

TV

The Office

Glee

30 Rock

Food

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Books (not necessarily released in 2009)

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

This Wheels on Fire by Levon Helm

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child

and then I might do:

Great Expectations for 2010 By Category

Recorded Music Releases

Vampire Weekend - Contra

Fleet Foxes - Unannounced

Midlake - The Courage of Others

Fionn Regan - Shadow of an Empire

Live Shows

Bill Frisell, Buddy Miller, Marc Ribot - Belcourt Theatre

Vampire Weekend - Ryman Auditorium

Movies

Alice in Wonderland

Clash of the Titans

Oceans

MacGruber

Iron Man 2

Robin Hood

The A-Team

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

TV

LOST Final season

Food

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Books (not necessarily released in 2010)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

Brave Companions by David McCullough

You get the picture, I'm sure.  This is pretty much how it goes for me each New Year's Day.  And just so nobody thinks my only interests are music, movies, TV, and burgers, I should also specify that I plan to earn, save, and give as much money as possible, remodel our tiny kitchen so that it is not just tiny but also very cool, and wear bow ties as often as I can this year.

Ten Great Christmas Records

If you don't already have music picked out for the big day, get on the ball.  The below selections are just a taste of what will be spinning at my house this Christmas.  There's a nice mix of sacred and danceable and I've provided links to download them all.

Everybody has one.  This is mine.

What Burl is to me, Bing is to my wife.

This one makes everybody's list every year for a reason.  It gives us all hope.

You've heard him sing but have you heard him SING?

 

This is what it claims to be.  Every other girl singer needs to hang it up.

The Season of Light meets The Wall of Sound.

Sinatra does the sacred hymns like no other.

Once Nat Cole recorded The Christmas Song , why did anyone else bother?  Definitive.

Sometimes I need a choir of voices to remind me of the holiness of Christmas.  Shaw.

This one is just fun.

Silent All These Years

Occasionally, two kinds of genius collide in a way that makes so much sense you wonder how the world survived before without the combined force....

In the early 1990s, Seattle-based avant-jazz guitarist Bill Frisell took on the enviable task of composing scores for six silent films from the 1920s starring Buster Keaton.  Frisell and his trio began performing the soundtracks for a live audience with VHS copies of the films projected on stage.  Reissues of the films including the Frisell scores have been a point of discussion (and Frisell's ultimate desire for the work) off and on in the nearly fifteen years since the scores were created but plans never seemed to fully materialized.  Finally, last September three of the six pieces (Go West, The High Sign, One Week) were made available on DVD as "Films of Buster Keaton, Music by Bill Frisell" complete with the "new" scores performed by Frisell, bassist Kermit Driscoll, and drummer Joey Baron.  Nonesuch has also released the scores as a separate CD.  Any fan of film or music should own this set.

Bill Frisell

Buster Keaton (with a puppy in his pocket)

Inspired Goods: Fender Telecaster

Fitz and Dizzyspells

Andrew Bird and his band played an amazing show at the Ryman Auditorium tonight in Nashville, despite suffering what he himself described from the stage as a "real fever." Bird is a musician's musician, a singer's singer, and a songwriter's songwriter, a triple-threat of artistic force to be reckoned with. Everyone expected him to be great, and he was. But the real surprise of the evening was St. Vincent of Dallas, TX. If you have an opportunity to see them play live this year, go out of your way to make it happen. For now, enjoy the video below: