[MusicRatty] tag: father

Jim Morrison's Father Dies

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Late Doors star Jim Morrison's father has died, aged 89. Rear Admiral George Morrison died of natural causes on November 17. A veteran of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941,

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Beyoncé Solange Hurricane Ike Benefit Concert: Beyoncé and Solange: Hope for the Holidays

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:09:07 +0000

Beyoncé and Solange will perform together at a benefit concert to raise money for Hurricane Ike victims in their homestate of Texas.

The Fuse network will sponsor Beyoncé and Solange: Hope for the Holidays, a concert to benefit the Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund.

The event will take place in Houston at the House of Blues on Tuesday, Dec. 9. Fuse will air the concert as a one-hour special on Sunday, Dec. 21, at 10 p.m.

“It is an honor for our family to be able to give back to our hometown with a holiday concert that will air on Fuse,” said the girls’ father and manager Mathew Knowles. “Tina grew up in Galveston and still has family and friends there and we’re fortunate to bring Beyoncé and Solange together to support the efforts of The Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund through the Survivor Foundation.”

Gonzalez Brothers And Friends To Close eNeRGy

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:59:27 +0000

Bassist Aaron and drummer Stefan Gonzalez, who play together as grindcore duo Akkolyte and with their father, Dennis, in jazz trio Yells At Eels, have yet another brotherly collaboration coming up. Th...

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BLACK SABBATH - Dehumanizer (1992)

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:48:55 +0000

Dio is back

Third studio album with Sabbath after more then 10 years from Mob rules from 1981. Dehumanizer was released in 1992 , and I remember I was quite exciting, because I'm a fan of this band and also a big fan of DIo aswell. The album was a return to the doomy riffs and the voice of Dio is unmatched. So the album is a good one but I don't see it as a real threat on the old albums, only a good Sabbath album, and don't reach the level od Heaven and hell or Mob rules. The voice of Dio is again on high level , just listen the opening track Computer God, Letters from Earth,Master of Insanity and Sins of the Father, like on the good old days. The guitar of Iommi did a great job again, but don't shines, only some usual riffs and usual solos, but not bad of course. All in all a god album all the way, but less exciteing than Headless cross for ex or Heaven and hell. 3 stars for Dehumanizer, a good album in Sabbath discography but nothing special either.

by b_olariu

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BlackRadioIsBack.com Flashback: Iceberg Slim

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:17:00 +0000

Iceberg Slim was born as Robert Lee Maupin in Chicago, Illinois on August 4th, 1918 to a single hard working single mother (who was both the owner of a beauty shop and a maid).

Born and raised into abject poverty, most of his childhood was spent in the midwest, particularly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Rockford, Illinois.

Being abandoned by his father, Iceberg Slim never really had a strong paternal influence in his home, just various men (most not with good intentions) who drifted in and out of his mother's life.

Even without that, his mother did her best to provide the little luxuries of life to her son, having him once say that his mother's pampering helped pave his way into his future life as a pimp.

A very intelligent man (holding an IQ of 175), Iceberg Slim attended college at the famed HBCU (Historically Black College and University) Tuskegee Institute until dropping out in 1937.

He started to get involved with pimping at age 18, soon becoming rich and successful in the trade while being able to deal successfully for a period of time with the savagery of Chicago's and the Midwest's criminal underworld.

After serving some years in the U.S. Prison System for various offenses - including federal incarcartion time over the the infamous Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas and solitary confinement in the Cook County House of Corrections due to an escape that lead to 13 years on the run - Iceberg decided it was time to "square up" and go legit, retiring from street life and moving to Los Angeles, California.

Unfortunately, soon after this decision, the main family support system in Iceberg's life, his mother, passed away from complications from diabetes. The blow of this death led to his quitting his drug addiction to heroin cold turkey, which he maintained for the rest of his life.

In the early 1960s, he got a job as an insecticide salesman, making $75 a week. One day, while making a sales pitch to a college professor, Iceberg mentioned during the conversation that he used to be a pimp.

The professor suggested that he write an autobiography about his experience to spread his knowledge of what the profession really was about and it's effect not just to those in the neighborhoods, but those who are a part of that entire system, from the pimps to the whores to the average man to the police.

Through the assistance of Bentley Morris, just about all of Iceberg Slim's novels were published by Holloway House Publishing in Los Angeles, California. The first one was the book suggested to by the professor, Pimp: The Story of My Life. Written in three months and published in 1969 and became (and to a degree still is) a controversial success.

He followed with seven more novels, including works like Trick Baby: The Story of A White Negro (which was also made into a movie in the 1970s), Mama Black Widow: A Story of the South's Black Underworld, Airtight Willie & Me: The Story of Six Incredible Players and Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim: Robert Beck's True Story.

All of these books show a very bleak and harsh side of street life and crime, showing that juxtaposed between all of the monetary and material gains one could gain for a moment, there was always a negative consequence to people's actions in the end, with only the very few being able to get out relatively unscathed.

Iceberg Slim also made an excellent jazz/spoken word album in 1976 called Reflections. Produced by David Drozen, the album covered the same themes and true life stories as his books and following the vocal delivery of what some folks call "The Dozens".

It has been recently reissued by Uproar Entertainment to the public. In my personal opinion, the tracks "Mama Debt Part I" and Mama Debt Part II" are probably some of the most heartbreaking tracks ever, directly influenced by Iceberg's mother's death and his regrets.

Iceberg Slim: Reflections Tracklisting:

1. The Fall (The Game) Part I
2. The Fall (The Game) Part II
3. The Fall (The Game) Part III
4. The Fall (The Game) Part IV
5. Broadway Sam (download here)
6. Durealla (Du Fontaine) Part I
7. Durealla (Du Fontaine) Part II
8. Durealla (Du Fontaine) Part III
9. Mama Debt Part I
10. Mama Debt Part II

Mama Debt Part I & II mp3 Download (combined mp3)

Iceberg Slim died on April 30, 1992 due to of liver failure, exactly one day before the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.

One of the great ironies of Iceberg Slim's artistic works is that while the telling of his stories were an effort to dissuade future young men from getting involved with the dangers and tragedies of "The Life", throughout the years, it seems to have had the the opposite effect on some people, with folks either getting directly involved in it or glorifying it through music, film, etc.

Some of those in the Black Music genre of Hip-Hop who have been directly influenced by Iceberg Slim's books and recordings include MCs like Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, Too Short, Jay-Z and countless others.

Some Quality Resources For More Information on Iceberg Slim and His Impact:

1972 interview of Iceberg Slim (from the Los Angeles Free Press)

1973 interview of Iceberg Slim (from The Washington Post)

LCD 21: I Like Ice - A Tribute To Iceberg Slim by Josh Alan Friedman

Holloway House Publishing - Iceberg Slim's Main Book Publisher

How Long Ago Was 1921?

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:52:00 +0000

I talked to my mother yesterday as she celebrated her eighty-seventh birthday. She’d been able to get to a meeting of her women’s group for the first time in a while, and she was in good spirits. We chatted briefly about that, about the gifts that the Texas Gal and I had brought her on Saturday, and about plans for the week ahead. After we hung up, I sat at my desk and tried to put into perspective how long ago 1921 actually was.

There are a few ways to do that. One is purely historical: World War I had ended just more than three years earlier and was still known simply as the Great War, as its sequel was still eighteen years in the future. Babe Ruth was twenty-six and had just completed his second season with the New York Yankees. The discovery of penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming was still seven years in the future; its widespread use as a literal lifesaver would come some years after that.

Another way of thinking about how removed we are from the year of 1921 is technological. Mom was born in a farmhouse not far from the little town of Wabasso, Minnesota. There was no electricity in the house; more than a decade later, the family was living on another farm near the small town of Lamberton when the area was first wired through the work of the federal Rural Electrification Administration.

I look at the stuff on my desk as I write. The only things on it that would be recognizable to someone visiting from 1921 would be my coffee mug and the small woven mat I use as a coaster, the box of tissues, the case with a pair of eyeglasses, the antique brass urn from India I use as a pen holder, maybe some of the pens (there may be a pencil or two in the holder as well) and a small, flat stone found in the Mississippi River. Everything else, from the computer, the monitor and the CDs to the headphones, the portable telephone and the two plastic pill bottles, would be strange, ranging from the disconcertingly odd to the utterly alien.

I recall a drive in 1975 or so. My folks and I had driven down to Lamberton and were taking my grandfather – my mom’s father – out for dinner for his birthday; the nearest nice restaurant was in the town of Sleepy Eye, about thirty miles away. As we drove along U.S. Highway 14, Grandpa and I looked out the window and saw a jet plane leaving a distant contrail just above the northern horizon. As we watched the airborne white line fade into the blue sky, Grandpa shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I drove away from my wedding in a horse-drawn buggy. And I saw men walk on the moon.”

My mom was born just six years after that horse-and-buggy wedding, and it’s astounding to think of the changes she’s seen – not all of them changes she’s approved of – as she’s lived into the cyber-age. (She doesn’t use a computer, though I occasionally show her something of interest on a computer either at my home or in the library at the assisted living center. She was fascinated by the fact that I could find pictures online of the small town in Germany from which her grandfather emigrated. I occasionally send emails for her to her distant cousins there, and she occasionally buys things on the ’Net with my help.)

And as I wrote this morning, I thought of one other way of putting into perspective how long ago 1921 was, a view that takes into account my own fascination with music history: In 1921, Robert Johnson was ten years old.

A Six-Pack of Futures
“The Future’s Not What It Used To Be” by Mickey Newbury from ’Frisco Mabel Joy, 1971
“Future” by the Panama Limited Jug Band from Indian Summer, 1970
“Future Shock” by Curtis Mayfield from Back To The World, 1973
“Future Games” by Fleetwood Mac from Future Games, 1971
“Future Blues” by Canned Heat from Future Blues, 1970
“The Future” by Leonard Cohen from The Future, 1992

A few notes:

Mickey Newbury’s music has popped up here once before, as an epitaph for Dave Thomson of Blue Rose. Newbury is one of those artists whose work I always intend to share here but always forget about when doing my minimal planning. ’Frisco Mabel Joy is a forgotten gem – some call it country, others folk-rock and still others tag it as singer-songwriter. But it’s a great album, and “The Future’s Not What It Used To Be” is only a taste of it. I’ll try to remember to post the whole album very soon.

Speaking of forgotten, that wasn’t the case with the Panama Limited Jug Band, which supplied the second track here. I hadn’t forgotten the group because, honestly, I’d never heard of them until early this year, when Lisa Sinder at the blog Ezhevika Fields posted Indian Summer, the group’s fourth “and best,” Lisa says, album. The whole album is filled with trippy pieces, entirely in synch with the aesthetic of the late 1960s and early 1970s. If I had to categorize the album, I’d call it a poor man’s Jefferson Airplane: Interesting but not nearly as good as the original. “Future” is pretty representative of the album.

The Canned Heat track is an adaptation of a much older blues track, as was a lot of the group’s catalog. In this case, the original recording of “Future Blues” was done in 1930 by Willie Brown, the same Willie Brown whom Robert Johnson name-checked in “Cross Road Blues.” As was typical of their approach, Canned Heat’s members had the tune do some work in the weight room and then put it on speed before sending it out into the world in 1970.

Speaking of typical approaches, the future Leonard Cohen envisions will be one dark and unhappy place to live, at least according to the title song of his 1992 album, The Future. Musically, it’s a fascinating track – as is the entire CD – but lyrically, it’s a downer. Cohen’s songs have never been particularly cheerful, but what’s most fascinating to me about “The Future” is the matter-of-fact delivery that Cohen gives it, as if he’s saying, “Of course the future will be an obscene train-wreck. What else did you expect?”

As always, bitrates will vary.

U2, Killers, Coldplay Team Up For Red(WIRE)

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:23:33 +0000

In case you didn't know, yesterday (12/1) was World AIDS Day. To help mark the occasion, Bono added a wing to his organization (RED): RED(WIRE)'s a new website that will feature exclusives from Coldplay, the Killers, the Dixie Chicks, John Legend, R.E.M. and Bob Dylan, among others. All the money made (via subscription) goes toward helping people with HIV in Africa. The site launched yesterday. As Billboard explains:

For , users will receive a new issue of RED(WIRE) every Wednesday, featuring an exclusive song from a major artist, a song from an artist (RED) aims to showcase, a multimedia piece that could encompass video or photography and a look at how proceeds are directly benefiting Africans in need. The materials will be downloaded to a custom player and automatically loaded into iTunes ... Users can send two free issues to friends, and will be rewarded if they join RED(WIRE).

The current exclusives include U2's "I Believe In Father Christmas" (it was recorded last Wednesday), Jenny Lewis's live "Acid Tongue," the Killers, Elton John and the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant doing a Christmas song, "Joseph, Better You Than Me." Additionally, John Legend takes on Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." Elvis Costello and the Police recorded "Watching the Detectives" and "Walking From the Moon" during Spectacle: Elvis Costello With.... You'll find info about additional material from Dixie Chicks, etc., at Billboard. You can also go directly to MSN's (RED)WIRE and see for yourself. (Note Bono's sunglasses in the above picture.)

Repost: Howlin' Wolf - S/T (2nd Album US 1962)

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:22:00 +0000

Size: 61.2 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped By: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Japan 24-Bit Remaster

In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like the Howlin' Wolf. Six foot three and close to 300 pounds in his salad days, the Wolf was the primal force of the music spun out to its ultimate conclusion. A Robert Johnson may have possessed more lyrical insight, a Muddy Waters more dignity, and a B.B. King certainly more technical expertise, but no one could match him for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits.

He was born in West Point, MS, and named after the 21st President of the United States (Chester Arthur). His father was a farmer and Wolf took to it as well until his 18th birthday, when a chance meeting with Delta blues legend Charley Patton changed his life forever. Though he never came close to learning the subtleties of Patton's complex guitar technique, two of the major components of Wolf's style (Patton's inimitable growl of a voice and his propensity for entertaining) were learned first hand from the Delta blues master. The main source of Wolf's hard-driving, rhythmic style on harmonica came when Aleck "Rice" Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson) married his half-sister Mary and taught him the rudiments of the instrument. He first started playing in the early '30s as a strict Patton imitator, while others recall him at decade's end rocking the juke joints with a neck-rack harmonica and one of the first electric guitars anyone had ever seen. After a four-year stretch in the Army, he settled down as a farmer and weekend player in West Memphis, AR, and it was here that Wolf's career in music began in earnest.

By 1948, he had established himself within the community as a radio personality. As a means of advertising his own local appearances, Wolf had a 15-minute radio show on KWEM in West Memphis, interspersing his down-home blues with farm reports and like-minded advertising that he sold himself. But a change in Wolf's sound that would alter everything that came after was soon in coming because when listeners tuned in for Wolf's show, the sound was up-to-the-minute electric. Wolf had put his first band together, featuring the explosive guitar work of Willie Johnson, whose aggressive style not only perfectly suited Wolf's sound but aurally extended and amplified the violence and nastiness of it as well. In any discussion of Wolf's early success both live, over the airwaves, and on record, the importance of Willie Johnson cannot be overestimated.

Wolf finally started recording in 1951, when he caught the ear of Sam Phillips, who first heard him on his morning radio show. The music Wolf made in the Memphis Recording Service studio was full of passion and zest and Phillips simultaneously leased the results to the Bihari Brothers in Los Angeles and Leonard Chess in Chicago. Suddenly, Howlin' Wolf had two hits at the same time on the R&B charts with two record companies claiming to have him exclusively under contract. Chess finally won him over and as Wolf would proudly relate years later, "I had a 4,000 dollar car and 3,900 dollars in my pocket. I'm the onliest one drove out of the South like a gentleman." It was the winter of 1953 and Chicago would be his new home.

When Wolf entered the Chess studios the next year, the violent aggression of the Memphis sides was being replaced with a Chicago backbeat and, with very little fanfare, a new member in the band. Hubert Sumlin proved himself to be the Wolf's longest-running musical associate. He first appears as a rhythm guitarist on a 1954 session, and within a few years' time his style had fully matured to take over the role of lead guitarist in the band by early 1958. In what can only be described as an "angular attack," Sumlin played almost no chords behind Wolf, sometimes soloing right through his vocals, featuring wild skitterings up and down the fingerboard and biting single notes. If Willie Johnson was Wolf's second voice in his early recording career, then Hubert Sumlin would pick up the gauntlet and run with it right to the end of the howler's life.

By 1956, Wolf was in the R&B charts again, racking up hits with "Evil" and "Smokestack Lightnin'." He remained a top attraction both on the Chicago circuit and on the road. His records, while seldom showing up on the national charts, were still selling in decent numbers down South. But by 1960, Wolf was teamed up with Chess staff writer Willie Dixon, and for the next five years he would record almost nothing but songs written by Dixon. The magic combination of Wolf's voice, Sumlin's guitar, and Dixon's tunes sold a lot of records and brought the 50-year-old bluesman roaring into the next decade with a considerable flourish. The mid-'60s saw him touring Europe regularly with "Smokestack Lightnin'" becoming a hit in England some eight years after its American release. Certainly any list of Wolf's greatest sides would have to include "I Ain't Superstitious," "The Red Rooster," "Shake for Me," "Back Door Man," "Spoonful," and "Wang Dang Doodle," Dixon compositions all. While almost all of them would eventually become Chicago blues standards, their greatest cache occurred when rock bands the world over started mining the Chess catalog for all it was worth. One of these bands was the Rolling Stones, whose cover of "The Red Rooster" became a number-one record in England. At the height of the British Invasion, the Stones came to America in 1965 for an appearance on ABC-TV's rock music show, Shindig. Their main stipulation for appearing on the program was that Howlin' Wolf would be their special guest. With the Stones sitting worshipfully at his feet, the Wolf performed a storming version of "How Many More Years," being seen on his network-TV debut by an audience of a few million. Wolf never forgot the respect the Stones paid him, and he spoke of them highly right up to his final days.

Dixon and Wolf parted company by 1964 and Wolf was back in the studio doing his own songs. One of the classics to emerge from this period was "Killing Floor," featuring a modern backbeat and a incredibly catchy guitar riff from Sumlin. Catchy enough for Led Zeppelin to appropriate it for one of their early albums, cheerfully crediting it to themselves in much the same manner as they had done with numerous other blues standards. By the end of the decade, Wolf's material was being recorded by artists including the Doors, the Electric Flag, the Blues Project, Cream, and Jeff Beck. The result of all these covers brought Wolf the belated acclaim of a young, white audience. Chess' response to this was to bring him into the studio for a "psychedelic" album, truly the most dreadful of his career. His last big payday came when Chess sent him over to England in 1970 to capitalize on the then-current trend of London Session albums, recording with Eric Clapton on lead guitar and other British superstars. Wolf's health was not the best, but the session was miles above the earlier, ill-advised attempt to update Wolf's sound for a younger audience.

As the '70s moved on, the end of the trail started coming closer. By now Wolf was a very sick man; he had survived numerous heart attacks and was suffering kidney damage from an automobile accident that sent him flying through the car's windshield. His bandleader Eddie Shaw firmly rationed Wolf to a meager half-dozen songs per set. Occasionally some of the old fire would come blazing forth from some untapped wellspring, and his final live and studio recordings show that he could still tear the house apart when the spirit moved him. He entered the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1976 to be operated on, but never survived it, finally passing away on January 10th of that year.

But his passing did not go unrecognized. A life-size statue of him was erected shortly after in a Chicago park. Eddie Shaw kept his memory and music alive by keeping his band, the Wolf Gang, together for several years afterward. A child-education center in Chicago was named in his honor and in 1980 he was elected to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In 1991, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A couple of years later, his face was on a United States postage stamp. Live performance footage of him exists in the CD-ROM computer format. Howlin' Wolf is now a permanent part of American history.

01. Shake for Me
02. Red Rooster Howlin' Wolf
03. You'll Be Mine
04. Who's Been Talkin'
05. Wang-Dang-Doodle
06. Little Baby
07. Spoonful
08. Going Down Slow Oden
09. Down in the Bottom
10. Back Door Man
11. Howlin' for My Baby Howlin' Wolf
12. Tell Me

1. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FKAN16AR
or
2. http://rapidshare.com/files/169430715/Howlin__Wolf.rar