These are stills captured from video shot March 2006 in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans specifically the area between N. Claiborne, Florida Ave, Tupelo and Tennessee.
These are photos and stills captured from video taken August 2006 of the Lower 9th Ward specifically the area between N. Claiborne, Florida Ave, Tupelo and Tennessee.
I am on record as loathing CNN's bombastic and pompous anchor critter, Wolf Blitzer. I recall when Bernie Shaw and Judy Woodruff were the faces of that network and Wolf's, uh, stature is evidence of the decline and fall of the CNN brand. His, uh, eminence there could also serve as a refutation of the theory of evolution but I'm not going there.
Back to the post title. Wolfie is a champion conclusion jumper and he assumed that a woman in Moore, Oklahoma would be a biblethumper who would speak in tongues and bathe in the blood of the lamb. Instead, he met Rebecca Vitsmun who is a bona fide atheist:
What a wonderful moment. I suspect Rebecca's baby would score higher on Jeopardy that Wolf did. I only hope that Senator Flaming Bag of Shit (tm Athenae) and his colleague Dim Jim Inhofe do not declare her to be an honorary New Jerseyite hence unworthy of federal funding. Yeah, I exaggerate but only a bit...
Btw, Coburn and Inhofe are *worse* when it comes to disaster relief than Diaper Dave. The latter at least feigns gratitude for the federal dollars that have flowed Gret Stet-ward after our manifold recent disasters. In contrast, Coburn and Inhofe continue to, uh, cry wolf:
I used to have a promotional poster for this LP hanging on my wall eons ago. I have no idea whatever happened to it, but the image of GW and Marilyn cruising together still makes me smile. It's another cover by Neon Park who did a lot of work for LA rockers such as Little Feat:
Here's the entire classic elpee featuring some of Lowell George's best work:
Style and substance go hand in hand in the best episodes of Mad Men. It is *always*stylish in a variety of ways and sometimes style overwhelms substance, The Crash is one of those episodes. It's made up of some great moments: Kenny Cosgrove tap dancing and pretty much everything involving my boy Stan. BUT it didn't hold up that well on a second viewing as the best episodes do.
In the spirit of the episode, I'm writing in short bursts and may not even proof read. You're probably asking, and that's different, how? On with the show this is it:
This is your mind on drugs: The Mad Men labored all weekend and produced gibberish. Ted was disgusted that they even misspelled Chevy. But Ginsburg was sober and his work sucked too. So it goes.
Slow train to Snoozevile: I've never been a fan of the Draper flashbacks and these were pretty boring. Also, neither Dr. A nor I think that that kid is handsome enough to be Don Fucking Draper. Enough with the heavy handed hooker analogies. Oy.
Stalkers and Peepers: Don is stalking Sylvia and littering outside her door. Of course, some smokers don't consider their butts to be litter. They're wrong. The Pegster catches Cutler watching Stan and Gleason's hippie daughter having at it. It's his partner's kid. Gross.
Are we negroes? Bobby had the best line during the bogus Grandma Ida's crime spree in the Draper's luxury digs. This was entertaining but Sally was wasted. More and better Sally and now, Mr Weiner. I expect to see her smoking weed with Weird Glen some time soon...
Mother's little helper: Betty is blond and has shed January Jones' pregnancy weight. I wonder if she got some help from Cutler's quack?
Culture watch: The Draper younguns watched The Prisoner while Megan donned her go-go boots. Hmm, I wonder if she knows how to ride a unicycle?
The manic style of the episode was entertaining, but it was really much ado about nothing other than Gleason's passing and Don's foisting the Vega campaign on Teddy Turtleneck.
NOLA blogger Deb (Big Red) Cotton is going to make it, but she's still in the hospital and faces a long and costly recovery. If you'd like to help defray her medical costs CLICK HERE.
Deb moderated the closing panel at Rising Tide 6, the one that Athenae attended. The panel included members of the TBC Brass Band who were at the second line on Mother's Day. Their gear got stomped on but otherwise they're okay. Here's the video of Deb's panel:
It's not exactly a mystery that I'm a hardcore Tull fan. So hardcore, in fact, that I decline to use the jarring word Jethro. Broadsword is a very underrated LP musically, but there's widespread agreement among the Tullerazzi about the brilliance of Ian McCaig's cover art. It's Ian Anderson as the beastie toting a broadsword like a dude out of The Lord of the Rings or something:
Here's the album in its entirety. I really think they should use the opening track Beastie next season on The Americans:
Oklahoma is not okay with me. When I was still dealing with tourists in the Quarter, I could usually muster something positive to say about almost any place that they were from. There was one exception: Oklahoma. Other than being the birthplace of Will Rogers and Mickey Mantle, it's the asshole of the universe as far as I can tell. I cannot be certain since I've never even wanted to go there. This may be irrational but considering the sort of politicians Oklahoma pukes up, it inspires a a great deal of irrationality. (Yeah, I know, Louisiana gave the world Jindal and Vitter, but also Hale and Lindy Boggs, the Longs, and the eternally entertaining Edwin Edwards.) That brings me to Senator James Inhofe.
I cannot imagine why he's never been malaka of the week before. He's a climate change denying, tin foil hat wearing, dumbshit motherfucker. He's qualified, in fact, to be granted automatic entry to the malakatude hall of fame, which is not to be confused with the Cowboy Hall of Fame, which is in Inhofeville.
A few weeks ago, Inhofe was peddling a conspiracy theory about the eebil Marxist/Nazi/Mau-Mau administration buying up all the bullets in order to, uh, blow up the Second Amendment or some such shit. Inhofe's tinfoil hattery is too convoluted for me to bother summarizing, so you should read this piece at Salon. Just thinking about it makes me want to bite the proverbial bullet. Chomp, boom.
“I think that she has gotten by with that type of a forceful
attitude, something that’s not normally accustomed– that you don’t hear
from women as much as you do men. And she came out so forcefully, and
you could tell that it was orchestrated at the time that she said it,”
Inhofe said in an interview Thursday on “The Rusty Humphries Show.”
I guess having a vagina is supposed to make one timid. I'm under the impression that Yale Law School grads are usually pretty darn forceful even if they occasionally wear high heels, lipstick, and rouge. If you locked Hillary in a room with this Okie nimrod and told them to fight to the death, she'd be the one to walk out alive.
Malaka Inhofe, however, isn't done talking. He's also showing off his knowledge of the alphabet and maybe even the oeuvre of Sue Grafton:
Inhofe also had this exchange with host Humphries about possibly impeaching President Obama over the attacks:
“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe said.
“The I-word meaning impeachment?” Humphries asked.
“Yeah,” Inhofe responded.
I is also for irrational, idiot, imbecile and insane as well as Inhofe. The Gopers are quite simply obsessed with impeachment. They seem to be having 1990's flashbacks ever since they couldn't defeat Obama at the ballot box. They're patently nostalgic for Whitewater, filegate, and being conflicted over whether Hillary Clinton was a lesbian or had Vince Foster whacked because he was her lover. Welcome back to the wacky world of wingnut politics, Hillary. They've finally remembered how much they hated you back in the day.
Back to James Inhofe and Oklahoma. The only wind that's whistling down the plain nowadays is all the hot air coming from the Senatorial pie hole. I would suggest that he shut the fuck up, but I'd miss his, ahem, wit and wisdom, so I'll just name him malaka of the week and be done with it. Time to go back to biting the bullet before Obama confiscates them all:
The junior Senator from Louisiana is back in the news this week. (No, not just because he gets name checked in stories about Mark Sanford's comeback.) Bitter Vitter is doing what he does best, which is being a royal pain in the ass. This time it involves Gina McCarthy who has been nominated to run the EPA:
David Vitter seems to have set a new record.
Sen. Vitter, a Louisiana Republican with close ties to the gas and
oil industries, has already sent a whopping 653 questions to President
Obama's nominee to take over the Environmental Protection Agency on a
wide range of regulatory topics (and her use of government email
accounts) ahead of her Thursday confirmation hearings, according to a
Democratic staffer directly involved in the confirmation process.
The nominee, Gina McCarthy, is being subjected to what amounts to a
record-shattering barrage of per-confirmation questions from Senate
Republicans who have, in all, already submitted more than 1,079 queries.
UPDATE: A Vitter spokesman got back to make two points:
1. Vitter's staff calculates the total number of "real" -- not counting one- or two-word follow-ups -- in the 430 range.
2. The volume of questions, according to his staff, isn't about
harassing the nominee. McCarthy deserves more questions because she's
been an assistant administrator at the agency for several years and was
present for many of EPA's most controversial decisions on emissions and
other matters. Previous nominees for the post simply didn't have
comparable track records or paper trails, Vitter's spokesman said.
As much as I hate quoting Tigerbeat on the Potomac (TM Charlie Pierce) they have the best snippet on Vitty Cent's (TM Oyster) latest malakatude (TM Adrastos.) It's not harassment? Really? How stupid do they think we are? Very stupid indeed.
Here's my suggestion to Diaper Dave and his fellow oil company lackeys, they should fold their 1079 questions five ways and stick them where the moon don't shine. Vitter is clearly familiar with his own rectal cavity since he's a professional asshole whose head is eternally up his own ass.
I wonder if Ms. McCarthy has been tempted to quote Graham Parker?
Here's swell reinterpretation of the Christine McVie classic. It features some mean banjo pickin' by Lindsey Buckingham and some nifty background vocals as well:
Here’s the official petition: “Jacksonville Jaguars fans want the
team to sign recently released QB Tim Tebow. However, rookie general
manager for the Jacksonville Jaguars David Caldwell is blocking this
from happening. If the Jaguars sign & START Tebow, home games will
be sold out, sales will spike, the team will win and the fans will be
happy. Mr. Caldwell is ignoring lots of facts about the misunderstood
Tim Tebow while in Denver: Passer rating of 125.6 is highest ever in Broncos postseason history. Most yards per completion (31.6) in NFL
playoff history.100.5 QB rating is best ever for a Broncos QB in his
first start. Third most passing yards in a game by a Bronco rookie QB.
(308, in his 2nd start), First 15+ point comeback in the final 3 minutes
of an NFL game since the merger,7 game winning drives in just 16
games!”
Dontcha love asking them this of a President that Timmeh clearly voted against? Thus far there are only 144 signatures on this deeply idiotic petition. Diaz's piece, on the other hand is hilarious. It was worth at least 1 cup of coffee on the wake me up meter. Muchas gracias.
Since I heard Fleetwood Mac's Jazz Fest set from the Acura stage annex and it's, well, Monday Morning, here's a wee jolt of rock and roll:
The GOP, I mean NRA, is having a convention in Houston, which is named for the great Texan Sam Houston who refused to secede with the Lone Star state in 1861. The NRA's new President (a figurehead since Crazy Wayne LaPierre rules the roost) is a Confederate irredentist from Alabama named Jim Porter. I'd never hear of this bozo until today but he's a lulu, y'all:
In a June speech, Porter noted the NRA was “started by some Yankee
generals who didn’t like the way my Southern boys had the ability to
shoot in what we call the ‘War of Northern Aggression.’ ”
“Now y’all might call it the Civil War, but we call it the ‘War of
Northern Aggression’ down South,” Porter said to the New York State
Rifle & Pistol Association.
Not everyone down South calls it that. I don't. I've never met a black person who calls it that. In fact, I've lived in the South for 30 years and have been lucky enough not to meet *anyone* who calls it that. I know that they're out there and I've had people say equally Porteresque things to me because I'm a white guy. I think of it as the war to preserve the union that led to the slaves being freed. People of Malaka Porter's ilk always skip that miniscule detail about the Civil War.
I thought the NRA was a national organization as opposed to a branch of the CSA. Guess I was wrong about that. Of course, the GOP is essentially a branch of the CSA and the NRA-an ostensibly non-partisan organization-is essentially a branch of the GOP, so I guess it all works out for those folks. By CSA, I mean Confederate States Of America, but you knew that already.
I was under the impression that people stopped re-fighting the Civil War years ago. Guess I was wrong about that too. I wonder if Jim Porter knows that Sam Houston refused to secede from the Union with the state he did so much to help found. I doubt it. Hell, I doubt that Rick Perry knows that. Ted Cruz might but he probably thinks that Houston was a "squish."
Jim Porter is malaka of the week for obvious reasons. I really wish I'd never heard of him but now I have, alas. I'm sure he'll continue to say stupid and inflammatory things that will play poorly in the Midwest and Mountain West, which is fine with me. When he's done alienating people, they should send the stupid redneck peckerwood back to Alabama where he can sing this song to his heart's content:
Didja see that crazy teabagger slide show? I had no idea that ole George Washington was a Skynyrd fan. I'm trying to picture stiff GW at an arena show flicking his Bic and shouting: "FREEEEEE BIIIIIIIIRD."
Is anyone else watching The Americans on FX? I'm totally hooked and totally surprised that I'm kinda sorta rooting for the Russian spooks. Anyway, the season finale used Peter Gabriel's Games Without Frontiers very effectively as its coda. It quite naturally lodged in my head so here it is:
This week's entry is another one from the good people at Hipgnosis. I recall seeing this one when it first came out and buying the LP based on the cover. It worked out. I've had a long love affair with the songs of Difford and Tilbrook and the music of Squeeze. They are indeed cool for cats.
I'm posting both the front and back covers since they're equally,uh, cool:
Here's the official video of the title track, which is Oscar and Della's theme song:
I used to hang out with a guy who knew George. Joe told me a story that I've never forgotten and I hope is true. George was a legendary drinker and carouser. He had his license suspended for a DWI. Surprise, surprise. George came up with a novel solution to his transportation issues: he drove his riding lawnmower to town. He was pulled over and asked for his license and George said: "You don't need a license to drive this thing." He was right. George offered to take a breathalyzer but the cops were so tickled by his audacity that they didn't make him do it. My friend swore that George swore that he'd have passed the test.
Again, I have no idea if this ripping yarn was true or not but it's a good one. Here are a few George Jones classics:
Yeah, I know it's a paper flower that young Della Street got ahold of but it's floral nonetheless. It's the last day of kitty week but not unlike the Honey Badger, Della doesn't give a shit unless something's in it for her. Where did I go wrong? So, donate something to spite Della:
I'll give REM the last word with this flowery tune from right before they became big pop stars:
This cover and many others were the work of Storm Thorgerson who died last week at the age of 69. Thorgerson's classic work with Pink Floyd was done with his partner in crime Aubrey Po Powell under the nomme du guerre Hipgnosis. They also created this swell logo:
Usually a story containing the word ricin that involves someone being falsely accused of a felony is not funny. That is, until Paul Kevin Curtis. He's the Mississippi Elvis impersonator who was arrested last week for sending ricin laced letters to President Obama, Senator Roger Wicker (Obscure R-Miss) and a local judge. It turns out that he didn't do it, so he's no longer dancing to the jailhouse rock.
After Curtis was sprung from the slammer, he held a bizarre presser wherein he discussed his missing dog Moo-cow, offered to pay his attorney with foot massages and called Jesus his best friend. Hand to God, I am making none of this up. Hell, even Carl Hiassen couldn't concoct this story...
There's apparently another equally zany suspect under the gun now but I'm not going there. Mocking one ricin suspect at a time is weird enough for me, y'all.
KC, of course, has a YouTube page. In addition to Elvis, he also does Prince, Buddy Holly, Conway Twitty, Hank Williams Jr, Jon Bon Jovi and Tracy Lawrence. Not particularly well, mind you, but he does them. Here he is as the King:
I'm glad KC is free and I promise never to step on his blue, blue, blue suede shoes. I will, however skip the foot massage...
Dang, KC's gone and given me an earworm. It's only fitting to give the *real* King the last word:
Even by Mad Men standards there was a whole lotta sneaking around going on in To Have and to Hold. If he could pass a background check-and we know he couldn't-Don should have volunteered his services to Richard Helms or James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. The ketchup skulkathon, of course, turned into a fiasco with SCDP losing Heinz beans without gaining "the prestige that comes with ketchup."
The episode as a whole was a bit of a breather after some of the heavier goings on in the first 3 episodes. It mixed hilarity with hypocrisy and was mercifully light on some of the heavy handed symbolism that I complained about last week. I think Dante's Inferno has been consigned to the outer edges of purgatory for now; at least I hope so. Time for a few comments:
Et tu, Pegster: Stan Rizzo had several star turns in this episode. First, by getting his Draperness to smoke weed and laugh. Don has been a dour boy all season so it was a relief to see him smile however briefly.
I also grooved on Stan's Roger Daltrey/buckskin fringe jacket. I halfway expected him to swing a microphone and belt out See Me, Feel Me although A Quick One might fit the mood at SCDP better.
A highlight was the bar scene after the meeting with Mr. Ketchup. Stan flipped Peggy the bird and Kenny Cosgrove glared at her after bitching out Don and Pete. I suspect Stan will not be talking shop with the Pegster for awhile, which is a pity because those two have real chemistry.
Peeping Don: Don continues to be Mr. Voyeur. He spies on Megan/Corrinne on the soap set and eavesdrops on Peggy's presentation to Monsieur Ketchup, which was pure-d Double D except for the fact that it didn't work. Don himself is on a losing streak with clients and with everyone except for Sylvia Rosen who is the only character who's a bigger hypocrite than he is. She's praying for him? Really? I thought she was shtupping him while claiming friendship with his wife.
Joan's Not Wild About Harry: We got to see more of our Joan this week: on the town with her friend Kate, yelling at secretaries, and scrapping with the preternaturally pompous Harry Crane. I've been waiting for Harry to start lobbying for a partnership, which he may deserve on the merits but will never get by dissing Joan to the other partners. She took a particularly nasty bullet for them and they'd rather not be reminded of that fact even if they have a habit of treating her like a glorified secretary.
I did, however, get a kick out of the whole Dow Chemical Presents Broadway Joe On Broadway scene. Escapist entertainment was what 60's teevee was all about, after all. That and napalm...
Don's Dawn: I remain disappointed in how the show's only regular African American character is being used. The scenes between Dawn and her friend were kinda meh and only of interest for her perception of SCDP as a joyless, hard drinking work place.
Fleeting Pop Culture References: James Garner. Joey Heatherton. The Smothers Brothers. Speaking of the latter, here's the Who on their show essentially demolishing everything in sight. It was the smashing '60's as far as Pete and Keith were concerned:
The original Beatles "butcher cover" has become highly collectible and keeps turning up on teevee shows like the Antiques Roadshow, Auction Kings and Pawn Stars. It is rare and hideous, and born out of John Lennon's boredom with conventional photo shoots and unhappiness with the way Capitol Records messed with their catalogue. Capitol, however, spared the Beatles career suicide by quickly withdrawing the cover and replacing it with a really stupid and dorky one.
The first time I heard about the original cover, I tried peeling back the edge of my copy of Yesterday and Today. No ugly bloody babies underneath. Oh well. I prefer the UK versions of the Beatles' mid-period albums anyway. Here's a before and after shot:
Whether latter-day audiences truly understand its lyrics is an
interesting question, because Town Called Malice is not one of those
supposedly "classic" songs whose lyrics can mean anything to anyone at
any time. Its words are a razor-sharp commentary on a specific social
moment: the austere, strife-torn years of 1981 and 1982, when deflation
was let loose, riots tore through English cities, unemployment headed
towards three million, and Britain lost a fifth of its manufacturing
capacity. Weller's words evoked it all: "Rows and rows of disused
milkfloats stand dying in the dairy yard/And a hundred lonely housewives
clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts … To either cut down on beer
or the kids new gear/It's a big decision in a town called Malice."
Okay, it's time for Paul Weller and company to kick out the jams, motherfuckers:
Rumor has it that Morrissey is opinionated. Sometimes he's even right. Here's Mozza's contribution to the Thatcher series from the aptly named album, Viva Hate:
There's a semi-lively debate as to who was the first prog band. Some say the Beatles, Pink Floyd, or the Mothers. I lean in the direction of Procol Harum. One thing I'm certain of is thatA Salty Dog was the first LP I bought because of the cover art. I saw it and had to have it even after learning that it was derived from a cigarette pack. That's probably why the sailor looks so scuzzy and disreputable.
I'm going to feature some of the best anti-Thatcher, anti-Tory tunes this week as a sort of reverse hommage to Mrs. Thatcher. The good news is that she's no longer here to handbag me...
The first in the Thatcher series is one of the best. Elvis Costello's Tramp The Dirt Down from his classic Spike album. I stumbled upon this version, which opens with a brief rant by Elvis/Declan, on my friend Luke's facebook feed. Luke is a labor laywer and fellow lefty Anglophile who I met in London some 6 years ago. End of this brief stroll down memory lane. Here's Mr. Costello/MacManus:
This is not a Morrison/Hooker extravaganza but a set by Van the Man with an appearance by John Lee during the encore. It's Van in a good mood and sans chapeau:
One thing I have in common with Justified show runner Graham Yost is that we're both Dave Alvin fans. The thrilling season finale featured this tune by the King of California:
It's hard to believe that cover art could live up to the title, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, but it does. This is the first Zappa/Mothers elpee cover that I'm posting but I suspect that it will not be the last:
The LP itself is a bit of a mish-mash, somewhere in the middle of the Zappa canon. It's most notable for the presence of future Little Feat frontman Lowell George in the band and for this tune:
It's March Madness time. In between being blinded by Oregon's green uniforms and the day glo yellow worn by Michigan, I found myself humming Sweet Georgia Brown. But not your common garden variety version, instead it's Oscar Peterson's manic semi-crazed arrangement of the venerable tune:
I introduced this feature with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It's time to get real. Very few artists are as intimately associated with a band as Roger Dean is with Yes. He has done 23 covers for the prog rockers, and Fragile was the first:
Here's the LP via the magic, such as it is, of YouTube:
School fund raising festivals in New Orleans are different. This is what I had for lunch today, moules et frites cooked fresh with garlic and butter. Yum:
Lunch, in turn, gave me a delicious earworm from one of my all-time favorite bands:
It's time for a new pop culture feature here at First Draft: Album Cover Art Wednesday. I'm not one of those people who is a vinyl nostalgist or revivalist. I'm a CD man. In fact, I have boxes full of LPs in my closet that I haven't listened to in many years but I still cannot bear to part with. I may not be a nostalgist but I am a pack rat. Don't get Dr A started on that subject...
The one thing I do miss is album art in the LP format. I love the hiss and pop free sound of CDs but the wee inserts muddle the album art pretty badly. Hence this feature. I'll be focusing on pre-1990 covers mostly, including some that are so campy and cheesy that I love them, such as this inaugural cover:
I got into a discussion about Freddie Mercury on the parade route the other day with my friends Leigh and Cait. It happened during the Irish Channel St Patrick's Day parade in between dodging cabbages and drunken Irishmen. Cait is18 weeks preggers so we were drinking for her as well as trying to get the walking groups to give her peck on the cheek to the chant of "kiss the pregnant Irish lady." It was hilarious at the time. Guess you had to be there...
Anyway, I don't remember much of the Freddie-chat because I had an epic encounter that day with Michael Collins, the whiskey, not the dead political leader. The next morning this picture had been retweeted to me via theretronaut:
I am your father, Freddie and Flash Gordon was your mother:
Rumor has it that some people drink to excess on St. Patrick's Day. I'm not sure if I believe it or not but the Pogues and other Irish artists *do* like singing songs about booze:
OK, so he's the first pope from Latin America, and the
first Francis, which ties him with Hilarius and a few dozen others for
last place in the papal names rankings. He's also a member of The
Society — A Jesuit pope, the first one, which means Dan Brown gets five
more novels. (Strangely enough, the Jesuits, in their Fourth Vow, take a
special vow of obedience to...wait for it...the pope. This is going to
make for an interesting internal monologue for the new fella, I'm
thinking.) Most important, he's 76-years old which means, quite
honestly, that the man's a caretaker, or that there is a real faction
within the cardinal-electors arrayed against the idea of very long
papacies on the order of that of John Paul II. The last pope, in a
conclave that was a bigger fix than the 1919 World Series, was the
obvious choice, but he also was 78 upon his election, and he reigned
only five years. It's hard to imagine Francis I going much longer than
that. It's also hard to imagine that this wasn't some kind of plan all
along.
I shoulda known that whole pro-gay marriage thing would kill my candidacy. I do, however, like the name Francis. It brings to mind my favorite mule as well as one of my favorite singers but since I couldn't find a version online of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Francis Albert, we'll make do with the divine Sarah Vaughan:
If the Cult of the Red Beanie is looking for a preposterously unconventional candidate for the papacy, I'm available. I may be a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage atheist who was never a Catholic but I did costume as a Cardinal on Mardi Gras day in 2007:
No, those are not nuns, they were the Krewe of Anna Nicole Smith, and if you insist on asking, I was not the daddy.
Blind Willie McTell weekend continues with Statesboro Blues. It's best known as done by the Allman Brothers Band. Why? It's awesome,and the arrangement is brilliant and essentially fool proof regardless of who's in the band.
We'll kick it off with Mistah McTell:
Then it's the Allman Brothers with Gregg Almman singing and brother Duane Allman and Dicky Betts on guitar:
:
Finally, a video version featuring Gregg on vox and Wayne Haynes and Derek Trucks on guitar:
There's a must read article in the Guardian about Jack White's involvement in re-releasing some vintage Delta blooze records from the Document Records catalog. One of the artists is the late Blind Willie McTell who is best known for writing Statesboro Blues. Tonight's tune is a song that White discusses in the aforementioned article:
In the White Stripes, White covered Your Southern Can Is Mine
by Blind Willie McTell, the third artist in the initial series. "I love
that phrase," he says. "At first I thought: 'Your can? What are you
talking about? A cup of coffee? Then I realised he's talking about her
ass: 'Your ass is mine!' That side of it is clear, but people think he
was also singing about white ruling classes in America. He was very
knowledgeable and knew what he could get away with. Even in interviews,
you could tell he had a great sense of racial relations and how defiant
he really was. To be blind, black and southern, he had a lot of strikes
against him and his lyrics showed just how intelligent he was."
One of the first blog-based books, the anthology Special Plans examines Feith's role in misleading America into war. Buy from Amazon and William, James & Co.
One of the first blog-based books, the anthology Special Plans examines Feith's role in misleading America into war. Buy from 