Bideodromage
Featuring the great Kenny Rogers, and guitarist Terry Williams. Three distinctively different and inspired live performances of Just Dropped In, the Smothers Brothers appearance (w/studio version), a Reuben James video, and a lovely live Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town, coupled with a performance on Super Hit. Enjoy.
As a special addendum, we also include a gripping, masterful performance of Just Dropped In by the iconic song’s creator, Mr. Mickey Newbury.
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. His idiosyncratic, poetic, often cryptic and/or surreal lyrics changed the course of Music history, of that there is simply no doubt. The subsequent and current musical landscapes simply would not exist without him. And one may or may not care for his voice {I do}, but it represents the ideal means for delivering his mesmerizing compositions.
A select gathering of film composers, and their compositions. Bernard Herrmann, Eric Serra, Daniel Licht, The Handsome Family, David Shire, Carter Burwell, and Ennio Morricone.
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.
The diminutive Williams constitutes one of the leading lights in the composer-ing of the last century.
The great Gordon Lightfoot, who is not only a legend in the music world, but {arguably} rates as the highest-ranked Canadian of all time, has written some of the most iconic and memorable songs ever. A mere sampling is here presented, including some criminally neglected gems.
Composer/Vocalist Townes Van Zandt is responsible for many poignant masterpieces; this represents merely a small-ish sampling. Loretta would be a prime example; though the lyrics are warm, a sense of melancholy nonetheless pervades the song. His “hit” Pancho and Lefty was covered by Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard, and wistfulness clearly prevails. The powerful Waitin’ Around to Die speaks for itself.
Tremendously influential, Van Zandt led a life that was quite troubled, being tormented not only by his bipolar condition, but by numerous addictions which eventually cost the great man his life. He contributed in ways difficult to fathom, however, to the musical landscape, and will not soon be forgotten.
A modest collection of brilliant live performances by Mr. Bowie, with 2 studio tracks, plus a wondrous, pared-down demo thrown in for good measure. The constantly reinventing, quasi-androgynous David Robert Jones {his birthname} pioneered his way through the music world, leaving the landscape forever altered—with new worlds and vistas previously undream’t of—in his wake.
Two mighty renditions of this Bounding classic.
The maestro of haunting, enigmatic songster-ing, Al Stewart not only achieved immortality via his Bounding {Glaswegian Method}exploits; some of the most indescribably poignant, mysterious works ever composed/performed are entirely his doing.
Stewart here performs the timeless, iconic Year of the Cat; the mighty Lord Grenville {perhaps his finest, most evocative composition…}; and Palace of Versailles, so difficult to ignore or forget.
“Ol’ Drain”, as Mr. Nick Lowe is called in some circles {i.e.: The None}—it’s his middle name, and a fine one—wears more than a few musical hats, and pulls it all off in such fashion as would create, probably, a dither of aesthetic paroxysms in any milliner or hatter. Earlier on, (than…??) Lowe, often with mate Dave Edmunds, in Rockpile, showed an uncanny talent for creating clever, charming, quite diabolically catchy songs that perhaps represented the very embodiment , the K2-like apotheosis, of Pure Pop Wonderment. Really…well, it was not fair. One had little to no choice but to come ’round to the man’s idiosyncratic ways. No one, however, minded, it seemed; either that, or such monumental courtesy was shown to Nick {OK, I’ll love it…} that it exceeded the amount shown to any other mammalian, extant or extinct.
Addendum: The Lowe classic Cruel to be Kind, in its promo video, features footage from Nick’s wedding in 1979, with Carlene Carter. There’s a reason that video is so genuinely touching.
Bideodromage 