If anyone thought that Robert Fripp would have nothing to do after disbanding King Crimson in 1974, they’d have been incredibly wrong. Instead, it seemed as though the guitarist was energized coming off Red and a Crimson tour.
Continue reading Robert Fripp: Crimson Hiatus 1974-1980
Ted Gioia, one of the writers who has given significant attention to cool jazz, writes “The cool aesthetic has always found a few lonely champions in the jazz arena–fascinating individuals who have provided an alternative to the dominant hot stylists. As such, they stand as double outsiders in the already counterculture world of jazz.”
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by Marshall Bowden
1968, the summer of the New York Urban Coalition’s ‘Give a Damn’ campaign was much different than that of 1967. The summer of love rose in a giant puffy cloud over the San Franciso Bay area and wafted out across the country. But now that cloud was turning darker.
For Spanky and Our Gang, a Chicago-based pop music group whose music helped spawn the sun-drenched subgenre ‘sunshine pop,’ as for many Americans, it turned into the year.
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by Marshall Bowden
The last Beatles album, Let It Be, was released 49 years ago, on May 8, 1970. As we approach a half-century without the Fab Four, I decided to take a shot at the Lost Beatles Album Game. This game is a favorite among Beatles fans the world over. The idea is to create one more Beatles studio album from their collective output in the period following the breakup of the group.
Continue reading Beatles ’73: The ‘Lost’ Beatles Album Game
Bebop arrived on the scene, to hear the tale, a fully formed grotesque of music, a deranged Athena fully sprung from the head of the Zeus-like swing era. It caused some musicians, such as Cab Calloway and Tommy Dorsey, to have violent reactions. Many audiences weren’t ready for the new sound either. This is what we commonly hear about one of the most important musical developments of the 20th century.
Continue reading The Bebop RevolutionSheryl Crow’s latest single is a duet between her and singer Johnny Cash on her song “Redemption Day,” although the pair’s vocals are sixteen years apart and separated by the grave. But because the two performers knew each other and Cash talked to Sheryl about the song before he recorded it, this project seems heartfelt and unforced, as well as timely.
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Johnny Cash could sit down with a guitar and sing with just about anyone. As a singer and songwriter and something of an outlaw, Cash could spot young talent and he was eager to give young performers a shot on his television show where he would frequently sit and perform with the most talented singers and songwriters of the day.
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In 1972 and 1973 Yoko Ono released two of her most successful albums, Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling the Space. Both of these albums are focused on issues of women’s rights and the pain of living in a male-dominated world, and they contain some of Ono’s sharpest and most interesting songwriting as well as an attempt to create music that sounded like rock music of the time in order to carry her message forth.
Continue reading Yoko Ono: Approximately Infinite Universe & Feeling The Space