Songcrafters.org

Don't know if this will catch on, but since we all seem to be music nuts, it might be nice to have a central place where music news could be disseminated. I might suggest putting a headline bold and centered, so if this does catch one, people can quickly scan the thread. I guess I'll get the ball rolling with something dear to me.  

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Seems like the inevitable has happened, and The Allman Brothers will most likely be folding the tent at the conclusion of 2014. Guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks have both announced that will be leaving at the end of 2014 to spend time on family are their repective bands. Bassist Oteil Burbridge will also likely leave as he was the bassist on the last Zac Brown album and has an offer to join the band.  In light of Gregg Allman's liver transplant of a few years back and the ages of Gregg, Jaimoe, and Butch Trucks, it seems unlikely they will host auditions and continue. There has been no official statement from the renaming members as of yet.

Haynes comments, "I joined the Allman Brothers Band in 1989 at age 28 for a reunion tour, with no promise or expectations of it going any further. Based on the uncanny chemistry we decided to continue and see where it all led. Now, here we are, 25 years later, and it has been an amazing experience.

"Being part of the ABB has opened a lot of doors for me and that's something I don't take for granted. The 45th anniversary is a milestone amidst too many highlights to count – I'm looking forward to an amazing year creating music that only the Allman Brothers Band can create."

Trucks says, "I got the call to join at the age of 19. I leapt at the chance. I didn't know how long it would last, only that I would let the music lead me and teach me.

"While I've shared many magical moments I feel that my solo project and the Tedeschi Trucks Band is where my future and creative energy lies. It's a difficult decision to make, and I don't make it lightly. Now seems like a good time to go out on a high note and in the mutual respect and friendship of the other six members."


In odd yet related news, John Hurt will be playing Gregg Allman in the upcoming biopic Not My Cross to Bear.


And finally, a concert in celebration of the music of Gregg Allman was last night in Atlanta.  It concluded with members of The Allman Brothers, Widespread Panic, Taj Mahal, Trace Adkins, Audley Freed, Vince Gill, John Hiatt, Keb' Mo', Sam Moore, Dr. John, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Randolph,  Jackson Browne (Gregg's former roommate waaayy back in the day), and a host of others all singing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."  It was filmed for possible release down the road.

http://www.music-news.com/ (http://www.music-news.com/)

http://www.mtv.com/news/latest/music.jhtml (http://www.mtv.com/news/latest/music.jhtml)

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news (http://www.billboard.com/articles/news)

Oh and I forgot the obvious one (although I don't read it... ever.)

http://www.rollingstone.com/news (http://www.rollingstone.com/news)

TC, Thanks for the links.  I go to some of those sites as well.  I was thinking of something a bit more in-house rather than links.

Blooby

Don't know f this will interest folks here, but it seemed unlikely until recent events.



More than 15 years after announcing her retirement from Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie is back in the fold. According to Fleetwood Mac News, Mick Fleetwod confirmed McVie's return during a concert in Maui on Saturday night, telling the audience,"This is the worst kept secret there is, but Christine McVie will be rejoining Fleetwood Mac."

Last September, McVie reunited with her former bandmates in Fleetwood Mac during a concert in London. In a subsequent interview with the Guardian, she expressed a desire to rejoin the band permanently. "I like being with the band, the whole idea of playing music with them," McVie explained. "I miss them all. If they were to ask me I would probably be very delighted... but it hasn't happened so we'll have to wait and see."

In response to McVie's comments, Stevie Nicks told Billboard, "If Chris wants to come back to the band, I said to her, 'It's your band. I don't really think you have to ask. Because it's your band. McVie. Fleetwood Mac-vie? So, it all depends, Chris, on you. How you feel. Do you want to take this on again?'"

Fleetwood Mac is currently on a temporary hiatus as McVie's ex-husband, John, is being treated for cancer. In an interview with Rolling Stone last week, Nicks said John is "gonna be fine, adding, "He's got his treatment, and now he did a show on the 30th and 31st, another tomorrow night, then he has surgery next week. . . I'm not the least bit worried about John. He's very, very strong and a man of very few words. He's not a person to mess with."

that could be fun !?!!?  


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ray-davies-fuels-talk-kinks-2986340

Quote from: Blooby on January 13, 2014, 05:11:36 AMDon't know f this will interest folks here, but it seemed unlikely until recent events.

Christine McVie Rejoins Fleetwood Mac

More than 15 years after announcing her retirement from Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie is back in the fold. According to Fleetwood Mac News, Mick Fleetwod confirmed McVie's return during a concert in Maui on Saturday night, telling the audience,"This is the worst kept secret there is, but Christine McVie will be rejoining Fleetwood Mac."

Last September, McVie reunited with her former bandmates in Fleetwood Mac during a concert in London. In a subsequent interview with the Guardian, she expressed a desire to rejoin the band permanently. "I like being with the band, the whole idea of playing music with them," McVie explained. "I miss them all. If they were to ask me I would probably be very delighted... but it hasn't happened so we'll have to wait and see."

In response to McVie's comments, Stevie Nicks told Billboard, "If Chris wants to come back to the band, I said to her, 'It's your band. I don't really think you have to ask. Because it's your band. McVie. Fleetwood Mac-vie? So, it all depends, Chris, on you. How you feel. Do you want to take this on again?'"

Fleetwood Mac is currently on a temporary hiatus as McVie's ex-husband, John, is being treated for cancer. In an interview with Rolling Stone last week, Nicks said John is "gonna be fine, adding, "He's got his treatment, and now he did a show on the 30th and 31st, another tomorrow night, then he has surgery next week. . . I'm not the least bit worried about John. He's very, very strong and a man of very few words. He's not a person to mess with."

This is good thing, I know the band is knocking on a bit but it wasn't the same without her, she's a bigger part of Fleetwood Mac than people give her credit for.

Still would love a MacFest

Not sure if this has been posted, but another muso death ...

Jazz guitarist Ronny Jordan dies aged 51

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25742223 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25742223)

Thought this was unique...

Blooby



Last week Young suggested he'd traveled back through time in technical terms when it came to recording the album, offering hints about the peculiar attraction of working with just one microphone.

Now Rolling Stone reports it's likely A Letter Home was made on White's refurbished 1940s Voice-o-Graph machine – the last remaining public vinyl recording booth in the world.

Third Man describe A Letter Home as: "an unheard collection of rediscovered songs from the past recorded on ancient electro-mechanical technology captures and unleashes the essence of something that could have been gone forever."

Young used the Voice-o-Graph last year to track his cover of the late Bert Jansch's The Needle Of Death as a tribute. View a video of the booth in action below.

Last week the singer-songwriter recalled: "There's something that happens with one mic: when everyone sings into one mic, when everybody plays into the same mic. I've just never been able to do that, with some rare instances like when I record in a recording booth from a 1940s state fair.

"It sounds just like an old records – and I like the sound of old records."

becks new album morning phase leaked on internet. some of it was recorded at jack white's studio.

http://www.timeout.com/london/music/beck-morning-phase-album-review

This was just odd enough to interest one or two of you.



Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's old roommate Alex has listed several items belonging to Cobain on Craigslist. Some of the items include a pair of skis, telephone and a video game. As Alex explains, "I used to live with Kurt Cobain back in the 90s and I have been holding on to a bunch of his stuff that he left in a box when he moved out."The story, as told by Alex, is that Cobain owed his roommates rent and said he would stop by "when he came back" to pay them. Cobain never came back, thus leaving behind several of his belongings. The prices vary for each item, with the phone turning in at $55, because (as Alex explains) Kurt used it to talk on the phone to people in Los Angeles and "that is why it is expensive." Anyone in the Belltown, WA area can pick up any purchased items from Alex and Kurt's former apartment, as well as browse additional items such as magazines and clothes that he will be selling soon.

the bbc are getting genisis to reform.   http://rockinsights.com/rock-insights-news/103461

Quote from: oldrottenhead on June 19, 2014, 04:55:37 AMthe bbc are getting genisis to reform.   http://rockinsights.com/rock-insights-news/103461

Yeah yeah... but what about One Direction's Louis buying Doncaster Rovers?   

Quote from: Greeny on June 19, 2014, 07:26:40 AM

Quote from: oldrottenhead on June 19, 2014, 04:55:37 AMthe bbc are getting genisis to reform.   http://rockinsights.com/rock-insights-news/103461

Yeah yeah... but what about One Direction's Louis buying Doncaster Rovers?   

I don't even know what that means, but then again, I'm not wearing any underwear ::)

Genesis reunion .... That's exiting !!!

oOhhOhOhohOHHhoh, WITH Peter. now THAT is exciting.

Quote from: oldrottenhead on June 19, 2014, 04:55:37 AMthe bbc are getting genisis to reform.   http://rockinsights.com/rock-insights-news/103461

As much as I really want this to happen, I'll believe it when I see it!
Hope On!

Quote from: Hook on June 19, 2014, 09:06:55 PM

Quote from: oldrottenhead on June 19, 2014, 04:55:37 AMthe bbc are getting genisis to reform.   http://rockinsights.com/rock-insights-news/103461

As much as I really want this to happen, I'll believe it when I see it!
Hope On!

At this point, I haven't seen anything say they will definitely perform together. I suspect some group interviews but can only hope for more.

Sadly, Horace Silver just passed away as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/arts/music/horace-silver-85-master-of-earthy-jazz-is-dead.html?_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/arts/music/horace-silver-85-master-of-earthy-jazz-is-dead.html?_r=0)

Pretty interesting set of interview snippets about CSNY's "Doom Tour" of 1974: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-oral-history-of-csnys-infamous-doom-tour-20140619#ixzz35BQz8n1F

The picture below kind of freaked me out.

ACDC 'very likely' to tour this year says Brian Johnson...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/23/acdc-very-likely-to-tour-brian-johnson (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/23/acdc-very-likely-to-tour-brian-johnson)

Charlie Haden just passed away.

Charlie Haden, one of the most influential bass players of his generation, has died after a prolonged illness, according to his family and his record label, ECM. Charles Edward Haden was born in Shenandoah, Iowa in 1937 and was raised in Springfield, MO. The youngest of four kids, Haden made his professional yodeling debut at the age of two as part of his family’s country music act, The Haden Family Band. As a teenager he lost his ability to sing due to polio, developed an interest in jazz and classical music, and began playing the double bass.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1957 and working with pianist Paul Bley, Haden joined Ornette Coleman’s iconic free jazz quartet, which caused quite a musical stir during their 1959 residency at the Five Spot Café in New York City. Haden made essential recordings with Ornette Coleman, trumpeter Don Cherry and original drummer Billy Higgins, including albums The Shape of Jazz To Come and Change Of The Century—his solos on tunes like "Lonely Woman" and "Ramblin'" are still remembered—and he also played on the influential Coleman LP, "This Is Our Music."



Addiction to drugs compelled Haden to leave Coleman’s group in 1960. After his rehabilitation he returned to a prolific career as a sideman, eventually joining Keith Jarrett in 1967 as a member of Jarrett’s "American quartet" along with drummer Paul Motian and saxophonist Dewey Redman and recording nearly twenty albums with the band over a twelve-year period. Haden reunited with Jarrett in 2007, which resulted in "Jasmine," a duet CD of standards, as well as the newly released companion piece "Last Dance."

In 1969 Charlie Haden organized the large, experimental and politically outspoken group, The Liberation Music Orchestra with several fellow jazz rebels including Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, Roswell Rudd and Gato Barbieri. Their first album featured the famous Haden composition "Song For Che" as well as Ornette Coleman’s "War Orphans." Haden led the Liberation Music Orchestra in various combinations over the years, with the most recent recording being 2005's "Not In Our Name." He also played and sang (along with Linda Ronstadt) on Carla Bley’s 1971 opus, "Escalator Over The Hill."

A loving, communal musician, Haden reconnected with his cohorts from Ornette Coleman’s bands and formed "Old & New Dreams" in 1976 with Don Cherry, Dewey Redman and drummer Eddie Blackwell. Uniquely qualified, these four men played a number of Coleman’s obtuse compositions, recording and performing together into the late 1980s.

In 1987 the bassist formed another important group, the Charlie Haden Quartet West featuring saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and drummer Lawrence Marable. This elegant quartet fused modernist playing with affection for film noir and music of the 1930s and 1940s. Haden’s Quartet West released eight recordings, most recently 2010’s "Sophisticated Ladies."

In 1997, Haden released a GRAMMY-winning duet album with Pat Metheny, "Beyond The Missouri Sky," which included a moving version of "Spiritual," written by Haden's son Josh. He also put out a series of six recordings from a long stint at the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival with the likes of Paul Bley and Don Cherry, entitled The Montreal Tapes. Over the years the accomplished bassist played with everyone from Art Pepper to Yoko Ono, John McLaughlin, Joe Henderson, Geri Allen, Beck, Archie Shepp and Rickie Lee Jones.

Haden released over twenty albums as a leader and appeared on approximately 150 other recordings. In 2008, he released "Rambling Boy," a return to countrified family music that featured the singing of his triplet daughters, Tayna, Rachel and Petra, as well as appearances by Ricky Scaggs, Jerry Douglas, Vince Gill, Bruce Hornsby, (son-in-law) Jack Black and Elvis Costello.

There’s a 2009 Swiss documentary about Charlie Haden entitled "Rambling Boy," and in 2012 he received the NEA Jazz Masters Award at Lincoln Center in New York City. In recent years Haden had played reunion concerts with Ornette Coleman and recorded beautiful duets with veteran pianists Hank Jones and Kenny Baron. Charlie Haden is survived by his wife Ruth Cameron and his children Josh, Tanya, Petra and Rachel Haden.

Quote from: Blooby on June 21, 2014, 06:13:29 AMPretty interesting set of interview snippets about CSNY's "Doom Tour" of 1974: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-oral-history-of-csnys-infamous-doom-tour-20140619#ixzz35BQz8n1F

The picture below kind of freaked me out.

(http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/embedded/1000x600/20140619-csny1-x600-1403187039.jpg)

Blooby, I was in Rome last month and looking at this CSN&Y concert stadium picture gave me the same feeling when I gazed out on the Colosseum from a similar viewing point.......I was in awe of the sheer grandiose nature of it. The feeling was awesome and eerie at the same time, except it was empty besides the tourist.

(https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=20228.0;attach=23627)


Farrell

Crap.  



Johnny Dawson Winter III has passed away, according to several sources close to the blues man. He was 70. Details surrounding his death have not come forth, but will be added as they emerge.

Winter and his brother, Edgar were raised in a musical family, with his roots firmly planted in the Mississippi delta — his father was the mayor of Leland, Mississippi, and Winter was recently honored with a Blues Trail Marker. From before his teens, Winter was playing and recording, even sitting in with the biggest blues legends of the day, including Muddy Waters and a comically reluctant BB King. In 1968, he released his first album, The Progressive Blues Experiment (featuring Willie Dixon on Bass), and after a now-famous performance at The Fillmore East, he was signed to Columbia Records with the largest advance ever made to an artist.

After his mammoth deal, Johnny immediately laid out the blueprint for his fresh take on classic blues, according to his official biography, which was a prime combination for the legions of fans just discovering the blues through the likes of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. Winter continued to gain widespread critical acclaim with his innovative blues stylings and in 1970, Winter released his commercially acclaimed "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo", before struggling with heroin addiction for several years, before seeking treatment.

He made a successful comeback, culminating in what Winter described to American Blues Scene Magazine as the "highlight of my life", after the closing of Chess Records, he brought Muddy Waters to the studio to record what would widely become known as the bluesman's comeback record, Hard Again. In the album, Winter performed most of the guitar work, while Muddy sang. Winter would go on to produce several Grammy-winning albums for Muddy before the bluesman's death in 1984.

Winter earned several Grammy nominations for his searing, scorching slide guitar work, and was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame in 2003, and was one of Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Players of All Time. "I'm not a rock n roller," Winter told American Blues Scene. "I'm a bluesman." From his earliest childhood in the Mississippi Delta and Beaumont, Texas to his last breath, touring on the road, Winter truly lived up to that statement in every sense of the word.

Very sad news. I'm glad I got to see him back in the seventies (twice). I've also seen Edgar Winter a couple of times. They both put on a great show.

R.I.P. Johnny.

Johnny was, and still is, in my top-twenty list of favorite guitarists.

Include Gnasty, Blooby, Farrell, Chapperz, just to name a few more. I know I'm missing a great number of them.

RIP Johnny, another sad day for guitarists all over the world... but hell i celebrate your life tonight by learning some of your way-cool blues licks!

I pulled the text from the Allman Brothers forum...

Wilko Johnson is the former guitarist for one of the best Pub Rock bands of all time, Dr. Feelgood and a renowned solo performer in his own right.

Tragically, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year.

And like Warren Zevon before him, he decided that the best possible therapy would be to try to do another album while he was still able.

Roger Daltrey of The Who stepped up and suggested that they do an album together with Roger doing vocals.

The album Going Back Home will be released 3/24.

This one sounds like it is going to be a real good one.....Daltry sounds real good here....Wilko on guitars........this sounds real good...I wonder If that is Daltry on harp?

Quote from: Blooby on July 19, 2014, 12:38:46 PMI pulled the text from the Allman Brothers forum...

Wilko Johnson is the former guitarist for one of the best Pub Rock bands of all time, Dr. Feelgood and a renowned solo performer in his own right.

Tragically, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year.

And like Warren Zevon before him, he decided that the best possible therapy would be to try to do another album while he was still able.

Roger Daltrey of The Who stepped up and suggested that they do an album together with Roger doing vocals.

The album Going Back Home will be released 3/24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Me-LubTgk

I think this is going to be a great album...too bad it's under these circumstances. It's a bit eerie but to me, Daltry sounds like our very own Regs on this song!

It appears that we all are losing a lot of good people, lately.  Family, friends and musicians. I attended my mother-in-law's funeral last Sunday.

Joe Sample, keyboard player, bandleader and composer, was born on February 1, 1939. He died of cancer on September 12, 2014, aged 75.

Although Joe Sample was best known in jazz circles as the leader of the Crusaders, a seminal jazz-rock crossover band, his prolific output as a session pianist, producer and composer took him into almost every branch of 20th-century popular music.

His playing was heard on albums by artists as diverse as Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell and Rod Stewart, but his range was so broad that he was equally at home with the blues of BB King, the country music of Hoyt Axton and the rock of Steely Dan.

As a composer, he not only wrote successful songs for Randy Crawford, but he was to see his work sampled by hip-hoppers such as Tupac Shakur, and also featured on film soundtracks, notably Nicole Kidman’s version of One Day I’ll Fly Away in Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge.

Off stage, Sample was softly spoken to the point of being inaudible. A kind, gentle and sincere man, he was quick to laugh and full of stories about music. He was never happier than when Claude Nobs (obituary, January 12, 2013), founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival, asked him to host late night jam sessions, where he would play material by everyone from Jelly Roll Morton to Herbie Hancock.

Joseph Leslie Sample was born in 1939 and grew up in Houston, Texas. His parents had a Creole background, and hailed from Georgia and Louisiana. Their home was full of the succulent smells of Creole cuisine, and the sound of what was then known as “La la”, but is now called Zydeco — the accordion-heavy, French-accented swamp music of east Texas and Louisiana. As a child, Sample was taken to hear the greatest accordionist in the style, Clifton Chenier. “I never forgot that music,” he recalled in an interview when he formed his Creole Joe band last year. For their tour he taught himself the accordion and played alongside his son Nicklas, the band’s bassist.

At Wheatley High School in Houston in the mid-1950s, Sample formed his first band, the Modern Jazz Sextet. With the flautist Hubert Laws, plus Wilton Felder (saxophone), Stix Hooper (drums), and Wayne Henderson (trombone), this group eventually became the Jazz Crusaders. After studying music at Texas Southern University, Sample took them to Los Angeles in 1958, beginning a 30-year professional career with the band. From early acoustic albums playing hard bop in the style of Art Blakey, the band added organ and electric piano [and Larry Carlton], dropped the word “Jazz” from its title, and became a highly influential force in fusion music. “We were mostly rebels, and when everyone was going in one direction, we deliberately went the other way,” said Sample.

The band achieved hit records with such songs as Street Life. This piece was inspired, according to Sample, by a skiing holiday on which he witnessed chaos on the nursery slopes at Mammoth Mountain. “I saw people falling, running into each other, and it looked like a boulevard of madness. I said to myself, that’s what Street Life is.”

By contrast, the band achieved a level of notoriety when its song Way Back Home was heard in the background of the Symbionese Liberation Army’s taped ransom demands for the return of the press heiress Patty Hearst. “The FBI contacted us and asked what our connection was to these people,” he recalled. “I had no idea what they were talking about.” The band also played in Zaire in 1974 at a festival celebrating Muhammad Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” with heavyweight boxer George Foreman. They later became the first instrumental band to open for the Rolling Stones on a national US tour.

Sample left the Crusaders in 1987, though they were to be reunited on record in 2003. By the time they performed together again in concert — in 2011 — Sample had recovered from the second of two heart attacks. “We were all at that age where any one of us could possibly go,” he said at the time, “I felt like we’d gone back to the mid-60s, and it was a wonderful feeling.” Eric Clapton was a guest on the band’s reunion album.

His solo career had begun while he was still with the Crusaders, working with Diana Ross, and then touring with Tom Scott’s LA Express as Joni Mitchell’s backing band. He worked in the studios in Nashville with many of the great names in soul music. “People loved working with him,” recalled the guitarist Ray Parker Jr, “because he was so good at getting the rhythm together”. Sample always credited his Creole heritage for this, saying “I used to wonder why musicians from Nashville couldn’t swing, but musicians from Texas could. It’s in my genes”.

Having lived in California for years, Sample and his wife Yolanda — who survives him together with his son — moved back to Houston in 1999. Their home in Clear Lake became celebrated for Creole music and food. “The neighbours used to think I was hosting poker parties,” he said, “but I’d tell them, ‘No! That’s cooking’. ”

Even in ill health, Sample’s playing was undimmed. He performed on Willie Nelson’s album American Classic, by which time he was also an accomplished producer, making albums with Bobby Womack and Bill Withers. He collaborated once again with Crawford for his last album, Live, released in 2012.

(The - London - Times)

State of U.S. music sales article that might be of interest to some of you.

Blooby


The latest U.S. music industry check-up shows vinyl album sales continue to be modest but vibrant, while revenues for the business overall remain in flagging health. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl sales were up 43 percent by value for the first six months of 2014, to what The New York Times reports as $146 million. That's just a tiny drop in the ocean, though, for an industry where overall revenues of $3.2 billion were down almost 5 percent from the same period last year.

Growth in streaming services countered a decline in download sales, so the total value of digital formats was about flat at $2.2 billion, according to the RIAA. Digital downloads fell 12 percent by revenue to $1.3 billion, with 54.3 million digital albums sold, compared with 61.3 million in the first half of last year. Streaming music services were up 28 percent, though, to $859 million. Within this category, paid subscriptions jumped 23 percent to $371 million. It's all just another sign that streaming may soon overtake digital sales of music, at least among U.S. listeners — and another factor in the fight over digital radio royalties.

All physical formats combined made up just 21 percent of the revenue pie, compared with 41 percent for downloads and 27 percent for streaming. That's mainly CDs: The shiny discs represents 80 percent of physical shipments. According to the Times, though, the value of CD sales tumbled 19 percent to $716 million. Out of all U.S. music revenues (digital and physical), vinyl accounted for almost 5 percent.

The numbers from the RIAA, the U.S. music industry trade group, flesh out what we previously learned from Nielsen SoundScan's mid-year report. According to SoundScan, the number of albums sold overall in the United States this year through June 29 fell 15 percent compared with the same period last year. Vinyl albums sold 40 percent more copies, though, while on-demand streaming rose 42 percent. Leading the mid-year albums charts, meanwhile, were the Frozen soundtrack, Beyoncé's self-titled album and Eric Church's The Outsiders. Among vinyl albums, Jack White's Lazaretto is the runaway leader of the pack.

For those about to celebrate Cassette Store Day this weekend, we salute you, but the RIAA's latest report didn't include tape revenues, which are no doubt still pretty miniscule at this point. And while Urban Outfitters has yet to respond to requests for further details about an executive's statement to analysts that it's the world's biggest vinyl music seller, the RIAA's numbers don't shed any more light there, either — they're not broken out by retailer.

Bill Nelson honoured in home town (http://m.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/news/musician-bill-nelson-takes-his-place-on-wakefield-s-walk-of-stars-1-6882687)

Local news, I guess. But a legend in these parts has passed. R.I.P. Lou

http://entertainment.suntimes.com/entertainment-news/lou-whitney-elder-statesman-midwest-rock-many-dies/ (http://entertainment.suntimes.com/entertainment-news/lou-whitney-elder-statesman-midwest-rock-many-dies/)

just watched the nick cave movie 20, 000 days on earth. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2920540/

wow! a must see for anyone interested in songwriting, music and the human experience. moving stuff.

Percy Sledge apparently died at 73. Will have to spin "When a Man Loves a Woman" at some point today.

I did my part for the music industry. I bought a used music CD at a yard sale for 25 cents.

Quote from: Nick_ODH on October 08, 2014, 03:09:04 PMBill Nelson honoured in home town (http://m.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/news/musician-bill-nelson-takes-his-place-on-wakefield-s-walk-of-stars-1-6882687)

Missed this - I was a big Bill Nelson fan back in the day - I still visit Furniture Music from time to time. What a shite event Wakefield put on for him though. That was shocking - I had a better reception at the Hop there last Friday Night with the Sinners.

I met bill nelson years ago during his red noise period. Just back from a long weekend in Blairgowrie and I had Red Noise cd added to piepod for the journey.

Ornette Coleman just passed away. I know most people lump all his stuff in the crazy free jazz category (and that is certainly what he was known for), but there was a beauty in his playing I think a lot of people overlook.

He was 85 I believe.

Blooby

that's sad, he was actually quite a big influence on british prog rock, i know van der graaf generator where inspired by him early on.  i believe cream where also influenced by him too. where i know this from i have no idea, read it or saw it or heard it somewhere. but all the mad jamming and free form weird shit bands where doing in the late 60's early 70's i believe he was the source. the iggy pop of prog if you like. anyway i'm rambling but a great man has passed. R.I.P.

I know what you're thinking ... But this is a man who gave us many, many kitsch classics.
This being one of the greatest:

I am very sad to report this:

Yes bassist Chris Squire has passed away, according to Yes bandmate Geoffrey Downes. Squire was 67. The bassist had been undergoing treatment for acute erythroid leukemia in his adopted hometown of Phoenix.Born in London in 1948, Squire formed Yes twenty years later and remains the only musician to have played on every one of the band’s records. The band was set to head out on tour with Toto beginning in August with a replacement bassist while Squire received treatment for his illness.

Ah shit, that's just depressing.....I thought he would live forever......RIP beautiful bass man

Damn, I feel like I've lost an uncle.

Damn, I feel like I've lost an uncle.

Chris Squire was one of the rare ones.  "Unique" is an overused word, but in his case it is truly appropriate.  His style was a major component of what set Yes apart.  I'm not expressing this well, but I am hearing his bass runs in my head right now.  Nobody else played like that unless they were copying him.

In a new interview with Billboard, Carlos Santana says he plans to launch a new project entitled Supernova, a jazz fusion act that will include his wife Cindy Blackman Santana as well as saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and John McLaughlin. "Definitely spring recording and summer touring in Europe and maybe America," Santana told the publication. "Can you hear it? It's kind of like playing with, sharing music with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, 'cause Wayne and Herbie, they're at that level of genius, genius, genius, genius. I'm just grateful that they accept it and want to do it."

The guitarist also discussed Santana IV, which will feature original Santana members Greg Rolie, Marcus Malone and Michael Carabello along with drummer Michael Shrieve, who joined the band in 1969. Neal Schon will also be on hand, first joining on guitar in 1971. An album has been recorded and Santana confirmed the group will be touring next year.

The guitarist also hinted at plans to record a whole album with Ronald Isley and Larry Graham.

Searching for that last little decorative touch that will set your house apart from everything else in the neighborhood? You may want to bid on the giant inflatable pig created for the cover photo of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals.

The BBC reports that the pig is part of a 30-year collection of work being sold off by Air Artists, the firm responsible for creating it and a host of other rock memorabilia — including pieces used by the Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden and AC/DC.

"I'm sad to see them go but they very rarely see the light of day and so I would be quite happy for someone else to take them for a walk," explained artist Rob Harries. "The clear-out has been quite cathartic and brought back a lot of memories, but I do feel I've been there and done that now, and it's time to move on."

Floyd fans will no doubt recall the fuss created by the pig during its initial flight, which went awry when it broke free from its moorings and ended up grounding flights out of Heathrow before finally landing in a farmer's field and, in his words, "scaring my cows to death."

Things went more smoothly in 2011, when the pig flew again as part of a publicity stunt planned around a series of Floyd remasters, but now that the power station depicted on the Animals cover is being converted into a luxury housing complex, that particular part of the British skyline is off limits, and the next person to send the pig aloft might as well be you.

Sad news...

Paul Kantner, one of the giants of the San Francisco music scene, died Thursday, Jan. 28, of multiple organ failure. Mr. Kantner, founding member of the Jefferson Airplane, was 74 and had suffered a heart attack earlier this week.
His death was confirmed by longtime publicist and friend, Cynthia Bowman, who said he died of multiple organ failure and septic shock..

Mr. Kantner suffered from a string of health problems in recent years, including a heart attack in March 2015.
With Jefferson Airplane, Mr. Kantner pioneered what became known as the San Francisco sound in the mid-1960s, with such hits as "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit."

The Airplane was renowned for thrilling vocal gymnastics by singers Marty Balin, Grace Slick and Mr. Kantner, the psychedelic blues-rock sound developed by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bass player Jack Casady and the LSD-spiked, '60s-era revolutionary fervor of its lyrics.

The band was formed in a Union Street bar called the Drinking Gourd, when lead Balin met Mr. Kantner and expressed his interest in forming a "folk-rock" band. It didn't take long for the Airplane to attract a sizable local following, enough so that when fledgling promoter Bill Graham opened his legendary Fillmore Auditorium, the Jefferson Airplane served as the first headliner.
The Airplane was the first of the so-called "San Francisco sound" bands to sign a recording contract with a major label, and in August of 1966, its debut album, “The Jefferson Airplane Takes Off," was released. Slick joined the band a year later and songs like "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" became national hits as the love children came streaming into San Francisco.

The group quickly became an integral part of the ‘6os rock scene, from the Matrix club to Golden Gate Park's "Human Be-In" to Monterey Pop. The Airplane's high point may have been its sterling early-morning performance at Woodstock, while its nadir may have come only months later, at the violence-plagued Altamont concert, when Balin was knocked unconscious by the rampaging Hells Angels.

After the band was grounded by feuds and a lawsuit, Mr. Kantner and vocalist Grace Slick transformed the band into Jefferson Starship in 1974, taking the name from a Kantner solo album.
When Mr. Kantner left the Starship in 1985, he accepted an $80,000 settlement in exchange for a promise not to use the names "Jefferson" or "Airplane" without Slick's consent.

Slick stayed with the Starship and had a hit with "We Built This City" before the band folded in the late 1980s.
A sometimes **** ly, often sarcastic musician who kept his own counsel and routinely enraged his old bandmates — they sued him for trademark infringement (and settled) after he started his own version of Jefferson Starship in 1991 -- Mr. Kantner lived to become something of a landmark on the San Francisco music scene, the only member of the pioneer '60s San Francisco band still living in town.

"Somebody once said, if you want to go crazy go to San Francisco," he said. "Nobody will notice."
Mr. Kanner was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 for his work with the Jefferson Airplane during the band's glory years -- from the breakthrough 1967 "Surrealistic Pillow" album through historic rock festivals such as Woodstock and Altamont.

"We never made plans," said Mr. Kantner, "Well, we made plans, but they went awry. It was good to have a plan in case they didn't go awry."

He maintained a strenuous touring schedule, performing regularly with some version of the Jefferson Starship name. His group sometimes included Jefferson Airplane vocalist and co-founder Marty Balin, as well as David Freiberg of the Quicksilver Messenger Service, another leading Bay Area band from the '60s.
"When I look back on it, that's probably longer than any of the other bands I've been in," Mr. Kantner said.
Paul Lorin Kantner was born in San Francisco on March 17, 1941.

His father, a traveling salesman, sent Mr. Kantner to military school after his mother’s death. He sought escape in science fiction books and music, before being inspired by Pete Seeger to follow a path as a folk singer. He attended Santa Clara University and San Jose State College before dropping out to pursue music.

When not on the road with his band, Mr. Kantner was a fixture at Caffe Trieste in North Beach.
"I've always loved San Francisco better than anywhere,” he said. “It's always had its problems, but just the weather alone, the views. This corner alone has proved so nourishing."

Mr. Kantner is survived by three children; sons Gareth and Alexander, and daughter China.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Lonnie Mack just passed away. I really enjoyed his take on the blues.

The devastating year continues.

Such a bad year for Musicians




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbfgBlkSoqc

Rest Easy...

Alex

‘Zappa Plays Zappa’ Pits Zappa vs. Zappa

By BEN SISARIO APRIL 29, 2016

For a decade, Dweezil Zappa, a son of the rock star Frank Zappa and a noted guitarist in his own right, has been paying tribute to his father’s music under the name Zappa Plays Zappa. The project, which features exacting performances of Frank Zappa’s famously complex music, has toured the world and won a Grammy.

But when Dweezil Zappa takes the project on the road this summer, it will be with a far less catchy name: Dweezil Zappa Plays Frank Zappa.

“It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue,” he said in an interview, “but this is being done under duress.”

The name change is the most visible sign of a rift that has grown within one of the rock world’s most famous families since the death last year of Gail Zappa, the widow of Frank Zappa, who had managed her husband’s musical legacy with a firm hand since his death in 1993.

This month, the Zappa Family Trust, which owns the rights to Mr. Zappa’s music, informed Dweezil that he did not have permission to tour as Zappa Plays Zappa — the name is a trademark owned by the trust — and that he risked copyright infringement damages of $150,000 each time he played a song without proper permission.

“My last name is Zappa; my father was Frank Zappa,” Dweezil said. “But I am not allowed to use the name on its own. I’m not allowed to use a picture of him. I’m not allowed to use my own connection with him without some sort of deal to be struck.”

Business disputes are familiar territory among celebrity siblings, and members of groups like the Doors and Creedence Clearwater Revival have also fought over the use of a valuable band name. As the 1960s rock generation ages, these types of disputes may become more common, music lawyers say.

After Gail Zappa’s death, control of the trust passed to two of the four Zappa children: Ahmet, a son, who controls the day-to-day operations of the business, and Diva, a daughter. Dweezil and his sister Moon are not trustees, but all four children are beneficiaries, and tensions have flared between the two sides over the Zappa Plays Zappa tours and a recent Kickstarter campaign for a documentary film.

Dweezil and Ahmet, who were once so close that they recorded two albums together and made regular appearances on late-night TV, now seem to communicate primarily through lawyers, with disputes over trademarks and music licensing.

In addition to changing the name of his tribute project, Dweezil Zappa said that he would not carry any of the trust’s official merchandise or use any images of his father — whose likeness is also controlled by the trust — in promoting the tour. He will, however, play the same songs from his father’s catalog that he always has.

In an interview, Ahmet Zappa said he was not feuding with his brother but rather maintaining the integrity of the estate and preserving Zappa Plays Zappa as a family enterprise, available to any of the four children.

“I am not standing in the way of Dweezil playing the music,” Ahmet said. “He would just have to be in accordance with the family trust.”

Dweezil Zappa said that changing the name of his tour would “emancipate” him from dealing with the family trust. His complaints in some ways resemble those of a disgruntled artist warring with a record company: lack of communication, inexplicable delays, disagreements over payments from merchandise sales. The dispute also spills over into the division of estate property, like a set of guitars that Dweezil said were given to him by his father but, he says, were “repossessed” by his mother.

But the most contentious part of the dispute is over the minutiae of music licensing, an area in which the Zappa estate has long taken controversial stances. The family trust argues that for a show consisting largely of Frank Zappa’s music, performers cannot rely on the standard performing-rights licenses that music venues typically get from agencies like Ascap or BMI, but instead need special permission from the estate for “grand rights,” a term that usually applies to theatrical presentations.

Gail Zappa and Ascap pursued a number of bands under this theory, with mixed success. Project/Object, a well-known Zappa tribute group, had some of its shows canceled by clubs that had received legal letters, but André Cholmondeley, a member of the band, said that the group was advised by a lawyer that it did not need a special license, and so has never gotten one. “We simply adhered to U.S.A. law,” Mr. Cholmondeley said in an email.

What makes a piece of music dramatic is not clearly stated in copyright law, but Conrad M. Rippy, a lawyer who has worked in both theater and music, said that it generally needed to meet several criteria.

“Is it performed in a place where you generally would perform a theatrical work? Are people wearing costumes? Does it advance a narrative story line?” Mr. Rippy said. “The closer you get to answer those questions ‘Yes,’ the more it looks like that’s a grand right. A tribute band playing a Frank Zappa song in a club meets none of those tests.”

Dweezil Zappa said that while his mother charged him an “exorbitant fee” to use the name Zappa Plays Zappa, he has never paid for a grand rights license.

For the Zappas, the dispute seems to have divided a once-tight-knit family, whose children were very much a part of their father’s musical career. Moon, the eldest child, sang as a teenager on Frank Zappa’s only Top 40 single, “Valley Girl,” in 1982.

Ahmet said he was perplexed by the claims by his brother, whom he praised as a supremely talented guitarist and “the funniest dude.” He added: “Maybe he’s grieving. For all of us it’s been superemotional.” (Dweezil’s answer: “There is obvious deceit in my brother’s response. His actions speak louder than words.”)

The Dweezil Zappa Plays Frank Zappa tour will begin in July, with what Dweezil said would be a crew of “highly skilled musicians” performing his father’s music faithfully.

Dweezil said he was eager to be free of the demands of the estate, but he was concerned that the name change might confuse fans or erode the good will he has built up with his audience over a decade of Zappa Plays Zappa shows.

“I just hope people will understand,” he said, “that the only thing I’m changing is the name.”

that is so sad.

I wont say anything =except -what a load of Rolex-
The sniff of a Dollar/Euro/Sheckle controls the world.
Sad world we live in.

We will be friends forever...or until your body temperature starts to drop...

Yeah. That's just sad.

.

Looks like an amazing piece of kit... not sure how I'd use it though. I can imagine it being a really useful instrument for anyone busking.

If you read the Zappa saga above on the same page, it gets weirder...



An Open Letter to My Brother
AHMET ZAPPA·WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2016
Dweezil,
Strange to be writing this in public, but I don't know how else to respond.

After reading the article in The New York Times, I'm not sure how else to reach you. If we talk through our lawyers, it's not because I want that. It's because you've refused to talk any other way. I've been reaching out to you for months. I even tried to set up a family meeting so we could discuss all of our family issues, but you repeatedly said you couldn't fit it into your schedule, and that you weren't available to attend without your lawyers present.

Instead, you've given this incomplete, misleading story to the NYT and the media, and invited the whole world to take sides about our family business. Now, we're becoming "that family" – the spoiled brats arguing in public about who deserves what.

I understand you're hurting and angry. We all are. But the more we fight about this in the press, the worse it gets for all of us. We're not gaining anything by doing this in public.

If you're not willing to talk to me, though, I don't know what else to do. The New York Times has a story about a version of me that isn't based on facts or reality, and I don't know how else to set the record straight – or get you to talk to me – except to write this here, where people can form opinions by reading what I said for themselves.

If you want to share private facts and legal documents, we can do that too, because honestly, we both know what'll happen: it will give everyone a complete picture of what's happening. Not the distorted one that's out there now, which makes it look like this is about business crushing art, or me being a greedy **** who wants to take away your rights.

I don't know how else to start, so I'll just respond to a few things I've read:
1. The article claims that you're no longer allowed to perform under the name Zappa Plays Zappa.

Not true, and we both know it. I have never asked you to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to use the ZPZ name. You've only been told that you can't keep using the name without agreeing to a fee of $1 per year, which you're fully aware of, but never mentioned in your interviews. I'll come back to that in a second. But just so everyone is clear:
Fact: You can absolutely keep touring under the name Zappa Plays Zappa.

You could do it tomorrow, and honestly, I hope you will. You’re a **** ing guitar god and in my opinion one of the best guitar players in the world. You do an amazing job playing our father's music with total integrity. Your tours help keep Frank's name alive, just like the work Gail and I have done through the ZFT.

This isn't about your tours, or art, or even about you. This is about the way the Trust was set up ages ago: if any of us use the "Zappa Plays Zappa" name for commercial purposes, a share of the profit goes back to the ZFT, to cover the high costs involved in maintaining the business and releasing more of Frank's content for the fans. Period.

The point is: No one is stopping you from using the name, as long as you follow the exact same rules as the rest of us.

And before anyone starts thinking that we're trying to screw you, let's talk about fees again.
2. The article claims that if you perform without paying the ZFT an "exorbitant fee," you'll be charged up to $150,000 for each song you play.

Again, not even close to true.

Honestly, this was the part that really hurt, because now a lot of Frank's fans think I'm some greedy dude who's just in this for the money. Can't blame them. It sounds like blackmail. Like I don't want you to be able to play Frank's music. If I read that article without knowing the rest of the facts, I'd think I was a greedy **** too.

It's just not true.

Personally, I don't think the fee Gail asked for was exorbitant. If you want, we can share the exact terms with the public, instead of just asking them to take our word for it. But even if the price was too high, it doesn't matter anymore, because I didn't want it to be an issue for you. That's why I suggested a workaround.

So, if you're going to share family business with the whole world, I wish you'd tell them the whole story:
Fact: The "exorbitant fee" you're now being asked to pay the ZFT, to keep using Frank's name and performing his songs, is $1 per year.

That's not because the ZFT needs that money. I think we can live without an extra buck every year. It's because that token payment handles the legal requirement. Even though I thought the original fee was reasonable, I wanted to find a way to get us past this.

And again, it's not just you: it's all four of us. If I want to perform Frank's music, I'll pay $1. So will Diva and Moon. That's just the deal, and I think it's a pretty reasonable solution.

One dollar, man. It doesn't seem like The New York Times knew that part.

And that's what hurts. If I was the greedy, deceitful **** I'm reading about, I wouldn't be working this hard to find a way to make everyone happy.
3. The article suggests that this is all happening suddenly, that I'm changing the terms of your deal with the ZFT, and that you're being singled out.

Again, none of this is true.

First, this isn't sudden or new. That was always the deal Gail put in place – not just for you, but all of us. Gail's decision was always that any of us who want to use the name – you, me, Moon, Diva – can perform under that name.

But be honest: Frank Zappa's legacy isn't something we built, and "Zappa Plays Zappa" isn't a name that any one of us "owns" or has special claim to. We all got the same name at birth, and as the four beneficiaries of the ZFT, we all have an equal right to benefit from that name.

That's why Gail decided that any Zappa using the name "Zappa Plays Zappa" would pay a percentage of profits to the ZFT, where it could keep the family business going.

That rule doesn't just apply to you. It's for all four of us.

A lot of people don't seem to realize this, but when you pay that fee – not even up front, but with a share of the profits you made performing our dad's music, and selling merchandise with his picture and name – it's not like it goes into my pocket. Most of it goes to the ZFT, so we can afford to keep remastering and releasing more of Frank's music to the fans, and building the business.

I know the business side of Frank's legacy is less romantic than going out and touring with the music, but it's pretty damn important to me, and to the fans. It's also pretty damn expensive – and takes a ton of work. That's why Gail told us we have to sell the house: because she knew how much it would cost to maintain the catalog, work out deals with distributors, and get more content out to fans. Gail spent most of what we had just fighting to make sure we'd keep the rights to Frank's catalog.

And when the ZFT does have profits, we split them between the four of us. I'm getting enough heat on social media that I'm betting a lot of people don't realize that you also receive funds from the ZFT. Even when you do pay fees to use the Zappa name, and sell Zappa merchandise, you receive a portion of the profits from it.

___________

I could say more, but it still feels weird to be saying all of this in public, especially when it feels like everyone is hoping for more drama. But, if I keep seeing inaccurate and misleading articles about what's happening, I don't know what you want me to do. Pretend it's true? Can't do that.
Again, if you won't talk to me about this, and want to work things out in public, we can. Privacy has always been important in our family, but that doesn't mean I have anything to hide. I just don't see how it helps anything to get the media and the public to take sides, especially when they don't have all the facts.
If you're willing to talk – and not just through a lawyer – I hope you'll call me.

Your Brother,
Ahmet
 

Thanks for posting that Blooby.

Oh dear it all sounds rather painful. Have to say reading that it sounds as if Dweezil is being a bit of a prat, but really to refuse to deal with this stuff man to man, it always has the potential to turn nasty.

Sad... but still a good read though!

Regarding the "Stairway to Heaven" vs. "Taurus" trial


According to The Pulse Of Radio, LED ZEPPELIN have reportedly turned down $14 million for two reunion performances at October's "Desert Trip" concerts in Indio, California. Showbiz411.com — the site that broke the news on the concerts — spoke to an insider that revealed that not only are all the headliners each receiving $14 million flat for their pair of weekend sets, but that ZEPPELIN was approached to reunite and once again, Jimmy Page said yes and Robert Plant chose to pass. The source claimed, "Jimmy went crazy. He really wanted to do it."
Also, although all the acts — including THE WHO, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, and Neil Young — signed on as favored nations regarding their fee, sources suggest that both Paul McCartney and THE ROLLING STONES are earning more. It also seems that "Desert Trip" will be a yearly event, with STEELY DAN's Donald Fagen revealing to the Los Angeles Times that the band has already been approached for next year.
Robert Plant explained a while ago that people can't expect ZEPPELIN to reunite for no other reason than the fans want them to. "I want to do great, creative things and these guys are my buddies,” he said. "They're my friends, we're soul partners in a big chunk of our creative lives together. But, it's ever onward and it's not the be-all and end-all of everything, it's just what we love."
Robert Plant & THE SENSATIONAL SPACE SHIFTERS will next perform on July 1 in Werchter, Belgium.

Read more at http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/report-led-zeppelin-passed-on-14-million-p ayday-for-desert-trip-gigs/#PYvAHbIlzu6dKYr4.99




http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/led-zeppelin-stairway-trial-gets-ugl y-as-plaintiffs-rest-their-case-20160618


The surviving members of Led Zeppelin squashed one of the group's most established and enduring mythologies when the band's bassist/keyboardist/songwriter John Paul Jones took the stand in day four of the copyright infringement suit "Michael Skidmore vs. Led Zeppelin et al."


It was a rare public reunion for Jones and his former bandmates, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, with Jones appearing as a witness to support Led Zeppelin's defense in the case involving similarities between Zep classic "Stairway to Heaven" and "Taurus," an instrumental composition from the Sixties-era rock band Spirit.
Apparently, the defense team had concluded no one on the jury is a loyal reader of Mojo: Jones' appearance served mainly to quash the narrative, faithfully recounted for nearly five decades, of how Page and Plant came back from the Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in the Welsh mountains with the beginnings of "Stairway to Heaven" to play to the rest of Led Zeppelin - a surprising assertion Page had also made under oath on Thursday.
In his cross-examination with the plaintiff's counsel Francis Malofiy, Jones was confronted with the playback of an audio recording of a 1972 BBC interview where he stated, "We were all in the country at Headley Grange when [Page and Plant] came back from the Welsh mountains with a guitar intro, verse and maybe more [of "Stairway to Heaven]." Under oath, Jones disputed the veracity of his earlier claims: "It sounded like I was guessing. I was guessing."


Jones was also grilled as to how Led Zeppelin came to play the Spirit song "Fresh-Garbage" - built largely around a prominent bass part - as part of the group's earliest live sets. "I forgot who introduced it - I can't remember," Jones testified. "It was a two-bar bass riff that popped out from somewhere. It was a catchy little riff, had an interesting time thing and it caught my ear. I didn't know where it was from."
Jones also claimed that he thought all of the cover songs played by Led Zeppelin in its famed early tour of Scandinavia billed as the "New Yardbirds" were "all Yardbirds songs." When asked if he'd ever seen Spirit live, he claimed that, in the late Sixties and Seventies before the composition and recording of "Stairway," he'd never "gone to any rock concerts, other than playing with Led Zeppelin."
Malofiy's cross examination of Jones also represented the end of the plaintiff's time to plead its case to the court, having used up all 10 hours allotted by the judge presiding over the federal civil trial, Gary Klausner. With several defense witnesses remaining on the docket - including, potentially, Page's co-defendant, Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant - Judge Klausner made an unusual exception: Malofiy would be allowed to cross-examine all of Led Zeppelin's witnesses for just 10 minutes each.
The numbers that came out of the testimony of Dr. Michael Einhorn, a Yale-educated economist who appeared as an expert witness for the plaintiff side, were also tantalizing. In his analysis, Einhorn revealed Page, Plant, Jones and the heirs of drummer John Bonham split £58.5 million across all 87 songs in the Zeppelin catalog in the three-year statutory period being hotly debated throughout the trial. However, Einhorn claimed the defense had not provided him with the "pro-rate technology" used to determine exactly how much of those monies came specifically from "Stairway" royalties.


"You don't have to play to the jury" was an admonishment Judge Klausner bestowed on both sides' counsel throughout the day's proceedings. But the most astonishing example of that strategy came not from the notoriously hotheaded Malofiy, but Led Zeppelin main counsel Peter Anderson, whose patrician white-shoe countenance has been a defining feature of his defense. During Anderson's cross-examination of the trial's plaintiff, Michael Skidmore - the trustee of "Taurus" songwriter Randy "California" Wolfe's estate - Anderson asked Skidmore if "it made a difference to [Wolfe's mother] Berenice Pearl if [Wolfe's only surviving heir] Quinn Wolfe [was cut out of receiving royalties] because he was the illegitimate son of Randy Wolfe?"
It was a "gotcha!" moment that backfired - more expected coming from, say, a trial in Game of Thrones or an old episode of Days of Our Lives. It provided perhaps the ugliest moment of a contentious trial, and was quickly ruled as legally inadmissible by Judge Klausner.
Another cynical moment from the defense occurred when, during the testimony of another expert witness - accomplished musician, musical director and producer Robert Mathes - Anderson requested the court play a 2012 video from the Kennedy Center Honors tribute segment to Led Zeppelin. Mathes - who's worked with everyone from Sting to Yo-Yo Ma - had been the musical director for this performance, a cover of "Stairway" by the rock group Heart featuring Jason Bonham on drums. The primary relevance of the video, however, seemed to be an attempt to impart the prestige of President Obama and the First Lady, who appeared in many audience reaction shots solemnly rocking out to "Stairway." Judge Klausner quickly put the kibosh on this gambit, ruling that only the audio portion of the song could be played to the jury.As its primary expert witness testifying to the musical similarities between the Spirit and Led Zeppelin compositions, the defense called Dr. Lawrence Ferrara, a full professor of music and "director emeritus" at NYU and an esteemed musicologist with an impressive list of music-legend clients - Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias, Lady Gaga, Gloria Estefan, Bruce Springsteen, Brad Paisley, Jay Z, Usher, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Eminem, Prince and James Brown among them.
On the stand, Ferrara made a sophisticated analysis as to why "Stairway to Heaven" did not plagiarize "Taurus." However, his academic approach proved confusing, and at times patronizing; when asked about his credentials, Ferrara bragged about owning all 29 editions of the Grove Dictionary of Music and stated, "I have authored or co-authored three books, one of which is in its fifth edition."
Ferrara's contribution to the case came off as more collegiate lecture than testimony, as he faced the jury directly while playing piano to demonstrate his analyses. Judge Klausner had to remind the defense more than once to move on to another question whenever Ferrara veered into topics unprovoked by inquiry. Ferrara proved testy and defensive in cross-examination by Malofiy - who raised an objection to his time on the stand as "pre-planned [and] not testimony." (Curiously, indeed, exhibits of evidence supplied by counsel would appear on video screens just as Ferrara was making points supported by them.)
Amusingly, Ferrara was almost interrupted at one point by a lookie-loo who had wandered into the courtroom with a Fender Stratocaster, likely hoping for an autograph from Page; said lookie-loo was quickly dispensed from the courtroom by a bailiff.


Ferrara's arguments proved most compelling - and potentially damning for the plaintiffs - when he played the sheet music for "Taurus" followed by a performance of the beginning of "Stairway to Heaven"; to the ear, his renditions did sound "dramatically different," as he noted repeatedly. Ferrara went on to play more "prior art" compositions with similar chromatic lines to "Taurus" and "Stairway" - demonstrating his point that the musical "building blocks" shared by them are not protectable intellectual property, but commonplace throughout music.
However, the similarities he demonstrated between "Stairway" and the Antônio Carlos Jobim composition "How Insensitive" and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's standard "My Funny Valentine" made it seem as if Jobim and the estates of Rodgers and Hart might want to call their attorneys.
As such, another example of "prior art" Ferrara invoked was the Modern Folk Quartet's 1963 version of the public-domain Appalachian folk traditional "To Catch a Shad." When Ferrara played the first part of "Stairway to Heaven" followed by "To Catch a Shad" on the piano, it proved one of the trial's most startling revelations yet: it was almost impossible to tell them apart - they sounded like the exact same song.
The tactic was intended to demonstrate the unoriginality and ordinariness of the musical techniques shared by "Taurus" and "Stairway" - that they can be found utilized in music compositions in many forms and genres going back hundreds of years. Instead, Ferrara's example may not have been received as intended. To some ears, it suggested another possibility - that Led Zeppelin had no qualms bogarting whole chunks of preexisting compositions in the songwriting process that led to "Stairway."

Quote from: Blooby on June 23, 2016, 05:20:34 AMAs such, another example of "prior art" Ferrara invoked was the Modern Folk Quartet's 1963 version of the public-domain Appalachian folk traditional "To Catch a Shad." When Ferrara played the first part of "Stairway to Heaven" followed by "To Catch a Shad" on the piano, it proved one of the trial's most startling revelations yet: it was almost impossible to tell them apart - they sounded like the exact same song.
The tactic was intended to demonstrate the unoriginality and ordinariness of the musical techniques shared by "Taurus" and "Stairway" - that they can be found utilized in music compositions in many forms and genres going back hundreds of years. Instead, Ferrara's example may not have been received as intended. To some ears, it suggested another possibility - that Led Zeppelin had no qualms bogarting whole chunks of preexisting compositions in the songwriting process that led to "Stairway."

Interesting. The intro does sound similar, and it predates "Taurus" by 5 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxB_pOdIG_Q (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxB_pOdIG_Q)


By the way, the trial has ended in Led Zeppelin's favour:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36611961 (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36611961)

Bernie Worrell passed away. I thought he was one of the more inventive keyboardists out there. I missed him with Parliament Funkadelic by the time I saw them, but I was lucky enough to see him with Steve Kimock and Gov't Mule a few times. I never saw Stop Making Sense all the way through. I will have to sit down and check it out.

Blooby


http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nhregister/obituary.aspx?n=bernie-worrell&pid=180448900 (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nhregister/obituary.aspx?n=bernie-worrell&pid=180448900)

Oh bugger, another hero gone.

I loved his work  with Talking Heads, and with Belew et al. Distinct but not cliché'd.

That lung cancer is a bastard.

While still dealing with the emotions from the loss of Bernie Worrell and Scotty Moore, I just found out Rob Wasserman died. He may not be super well known outside the Dead community, but he was a formidable upright electric bassist and had a distinct sound. He was a founding member of Bob Weir's (from The Grateful Dead) solo band Ratdog but also had played with Branford Marsalis, Bruce Cockburn, Laurie Anderson, Elvis Costello, Ani DiFranco, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Rickie Lee Jones, Van Morrison, Aaron Neville, Lou Reed, Pete Seeger, Brian Wilson, Chris Whitley, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne. He won a grammy in 1980 for his Duets album.

This video lets him cover a lot of ground and shows off his unique sound and accompaniment style.

Blooby

Sadly, Toots Thielemans passed away. He did make it to 94. He may have played a relatively unpopular instrument (harmonica), especially outside of the blues, but he was one heck of an improviser. He also was a gifted whistler.

Blooby

Sad loss... I first heard him on the Billy Joel song "Leave A Tender Moment Alone". R.I.P. Toots.

Sadly, I just heard that Ed Harsch, original keys player for the Black Crowes, just passed away. Took me totally by surprise because a new band with Marc Ford and Rich Robinson was just announced a couple weeks ago.

I just read in another thread that Larry Coryell passed way last night after playing the Iridium in New York.

I used to listen to Twin House, Barefoot Boy, Spaces, and Tributaries all the time. Was fortunate to see him play solo to a crowd of 40 or so. He is a big hero of mine.

Blooby

was quite saddened to hear that Peter Skellern had passed away, and even sadder that it hardly made the main news in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-39006899

Very sad and I must agree Jim, even sadder that a musician of his stature passed unnoticed.   Willie