Friday 5 April 2024

Have Some Sympathy …

 

A good song will stand up to almost any amount of abuse in the recording studio.  For example: most hits by The Rolling Stones before 1978.

Tuesday 9 January 2024

The Mess That You’re In

 

Most people probably feel that All Things Must Pass is George Harrison’s best solo work, and if it weren’t for Phil Spector’s sludgy production, I would agree with them.

Thursday 13 April 2023

All His Hopes and Dreams

 

I’m old enough and sad enough about the current state of affairs to have written several dozen songs lamenting the way we seem to choose to live.  But when I hear The Pretender by Jackson Browne, I realize I haven’t come close.

Tuesday 7 March 2023

There’s No Need For Argument

 

Van Morrison deserves respect as a songwriter, but I wish his songs had been recorded by Springsteen.  Take, for example, Domino.

Wednesday 15 February 2023

Please Listen

 

Listen to the last refrain of Nowhere Man.

 

I will love Paul McCartney ‘til the day I die.

Monday 9 January 2023

Sock It To Me

 

The thing about lists is they are designed to create controversy.  Witness Rolling Stone’s 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.  Everyone’s going to have a grievance or three.  This one’s too low on the list, that one’s too high.  And – especially, it would seem, if you’re a Celine Dion fan – why isn’t she (or he) on the list?

 

But this list created a different problem for me, because for every okay-I-get-it and are-you-serious? on the list there was also a who?

 

I must be getting old.

Thursday 17 November 2022

How Many?

 

I know Chuck Berry only wrote, like, three songs, but all twenty-eight of them are fabulous.

Tuesday 2 August 2022

I Woke Up This Morning …

 

Over the years, I’ve heard lots of criticism about 12-bar blues, all of it boiling down to: it’s boring because it’s so predictable.

 

Fair enough, but do you know why it’s endured all these years?  Because it works.

Sunday 22 May 2022

Or Else Expecting Rain

 

Check out the lyrics for Dylan’s Desolation Row. 

 

How can one guy be this …  insightful, cutting, good, clever, empathic, cynical, hypnotic, intimate?

 

Thanks, Bob.  Wow!  Ouch!  Right on!  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

 

I think.

Friday 25 March 2022

Deep Inside My Heart I Know I Can’t Escape

 

Here’s some heresy for you:

 

Who is the greatest blues songwriter?  Willie Dixon?  Robert Johnson?  Howlin’ Wolf?  Muddy Waters?  B.B. King?

 

I think a serious case could be made for one Robert Zimmerman.