Bideodromage
Umm…what can one say, at this point, about Mr. Dylan? This post represents but a minute handful of personal favorites composed and performed by one of the great artists of our time. The video quality isn’t great on Restless Farewell, but don’t miss it. Extremely powerful.
AC/DC has had a long reign, with many great moments. But, at their very best, they had perhaps the most charismatic front man/lead singer ever: Mr. Bon Scott.
Mr. Donovan Leitch, the Scottish singer/songwriter, was right in the thick of it during the heyday of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the like. And he penned and performed some of the most sublime, memorable compositions of that, or any era.
An introduction to some of the musical goings-on way back in the 1980s. We have: The Vapors, Falco, Eddy Grant, Dead or Alive, XTC, Lene Lovich, Echo and the Bunnymen, Paul Young, Bryan Adams, Lloyd Cole, Fiction Factory, Dream Academy, Crowded House, Split Enz, Squeeze, Tears for Fears, and The Housemartins. Some of these performances are not, strictly speaking, from the 80s, but that decade claims all of the hits above during the time it held sway.
The great Jackie Wilson gives two electric performances of Higher and Higher, circa 1974. His mindboggling gifts are on full display throughout; it’s as if time/space were suspended.
We have here a modest collection of four of the most brilliant, gifted vocalists ever: Peggy Lee, Chris Connor, Lulu, and Dusty Springfield. All videos are live performances.
The extraordinary, powerful, and, upon its 1965 release, highly controversial compositionΒ Eve of DestructionΒ is performed live by vocalistΒ Barry McGuireΒ on the Hullabaloo show. McGuire, after being introduced byΒ Jerry Lewis, delivers an emotionally charged rendition that made ripplesβmore like tsunamiβacross the US.
ComposerΒ P.F. SloanΒ recalls a few fascinating and unlikely (as in, almost credulity-strainingβ¦yet not) details:Β during the studio recording session, βBarry was reading it for the first time off a piece of paper I had written the lyric on! Okay. McGuireβs record is released but βEveβ is the B-side. Somewhere in the Great Midwest of America a DJ played the wrong side by mistake!β.
Banned and denounced as unpatriotic,Β EveΒ only became more and more popular, most likely benefiting from all the wild, incorrect accusations and censure. Its creator and performer were not so fortunate, however;Β Sloan:Β βIt ruinedΒ Barryβs career as an artist and in a year I would be driven out of the music business too.β.
A number of further One {approx.} Hitters from the 1970s. I cannot emphasize enough that some artists represented herein are responsible for more than 1 “hit”, somewhere in the world. Right. So, we’ve got The Blues Image, Ocean, Norman Greenbaum, The Sanford-Townsend Band, Wild Cherry, Climax, and Sniff ‘n’ The Tears, this time around. Enjoy.
A soupçon of personal favorites, from a decade rich in great material. In order, we have: Edison Lighthouse, Pilot, Lee Michaels, Zager and Evans, Daddy Dewdrop, The Fortunes, The Ides of March, King Harvest, Hurricane Smith, Clint Holmes, Jigsaw, Walter Egan, John Stewart, Looking Glass, Tee Set, and JD Souther.
A sampling of some of the titanic moments created by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
