Corn Flakes with John Lennon

Music is part of me…it breathes through me…it walks with me even when I don’t consciously notice it. I don’t make music (you would not want to hear me sing :-) but it is a part of me just the same. It is, of course, the music itself…Bach or the Beatles, Coltrane or Miles or Emmylou, the Duke, the Queen, the Godfather, the King, Citizen Bob or P.E. or whomever…that informs, delights, and satisfies my soul.

That said, there are three people whose love of music helped inspire my own love of same. Two I never met, one I love more than anyone else on this planet.

The first was my mother…humming along with Johnny Mathis or the Beach Boys or Motown or whoever caught her ear and her fancy…surrounded herself with music as far back as I can remember…and, in turn, that music surrounded and comforted and thrilled me.

The second was Casey Kasem, whose warmth, sentimental dedications, fascinating trivia, and mellifluous voice kept me fine company on many a weekend hour as he counted down the American Top 40 (and I, dutifully and happily, copied the list down and kept careful track of the movement of the biggest hits of 70’s and 80’s.

And the third was Robert Hilburn, the chief rock critic of the Los Angeles Times. I read his reviews and essays and interviews with rapture and I came to find our tastes to be so similar that I sometimes bought records just because he raved about them…he never let me down. I even sent him a couple of embarrassing (now not then) fanboy letters, all of which he graciously replied to with handwritten postcards that are still among the childhood treasures I have stored in box in my mother’s house.

Hilburn’s engaging memoir, Corn Flakes with John Lennon, is a fascinating...sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, always interesting... journey through his journey through rock and roll and all of the amazing people…Elvis, Bono (who wrote the affectionate introduction), Janis, Stevie, Bruce, Michael, John and Yoko, so many others…he knew, interviewed, admired, and loved.

It’s beautifully written (the man has always had an uncanny way with words, deftly riding the line between hardnosed critic and unabashed fan and drawing us into the experience in a way that made us feel like we were his pals and he was letting us into the worlds of his heroes) and wonderfully charming and thoroughly involving.

It’s a grand ride.

Thanks again, Bob.

The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time

Our pals at Rolling Stone are at it again with a list that is sure to provoke much discussion among music fans. This time they've polled a bunch of artists, producers, critics, and other music industry insiders and come up with their list of "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time".

This list is, of course, skewed towards singers who came to prominence during the rock and roll era (which I guess qualifies as "all-time" now) and it leaves off a lot of really GREAT singers (at first blush I can think of Billie Holiday, Emmylou Harris, Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, k.d. lang, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Cassandra Wilson, Chrissie Hynde, Seal, and Margo Timmins.)

The Top 10 Singers of All-Time (according to Rolling Stone) are:

1) Aretha Franklin
2) Ray Charles
3) Elvis Presley
4) Sam Cooke
5) John Lennon
6) Marvin Gaye
7) Bob Dylan
8) Otis Redding
9) Stevie Wonder
10) James Brown

Apparently all of the 10 greatest singers of "all time" got their start in the late fifties or the early sixties and only 1 of the 10 best is a woman...imagine that :-)

The rest of the list is here.

Discuss.

Below is the classic "A Change is Gonna Come" written by the wondrous Sam Cooke (#4) and sung by the incomparable Aretha Franklin (#1)

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

You gotta love it. There are dead people who still raking in more money in a year than most of us will earn in our entire lifetimes. Such is life :-) Forbes Magazine came out with their annual list of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.

At the top of this year’s list…which also includes two Beatles and the Godfather of Soul… is Elvis Presley. 30 years after his death, Elvis earned a cool $49 million (which must make Lisa Marie, his sole heir, very happy.)

John Lennon came in second with earnings of $44 million, followed by Charles M. Schulz ($35 million), George Harrison ($22 million), Albert Einstein ($18 million), Andy Warhol ($15 million), Theodor (Dr. Seuss) Geisel ($13 million), Tupac Shakur ($9 million), Marilyn Monroe ($7 million), Steve McQueen ($6 million), James Brown ($5 million), Bob Marley ($4 million) and James Dean ($3.5 million).

Goin' Home: a Tribute to Fats Domino

Antoine “Fats” Domino is one of the towering figures in the birth and history of rock and roll and so it’s no surprise that a tribute to him would bring out an eclectic group of musical luminaries (including legendary vets like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, B.B. King, Robert Plant, Elton John, Neil Young, and two former Beatles.)

Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino is a 2-disc collection of performances (some newly recorded, others not) of Domino’s delightful songs (he wrote or co-wrote 24 of the 30 songs here) with the proceeds from the set going towards restoration of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood where the New Orleans born Domino lived until Katrina flooded him out and to the Tiptinia’s Foundation, which is keeping the unique musical heritage of Louisiana alive.

The set gets off to a rockin’ start John Lennon’s raucous take on “Ain’t That a Shame” (produced by Phil Spector) and follows that with a sprightly “I’m Walkin’” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and bluesy stroll through the title track by B.B. King (backed up by Ivan Neville’s Dumpstafunk.)

Both Elton John (on “Blueberry Hill”) and Paul McCartney (On “I Want to Walk You Home”) stay in their lower registers as they invoke the living spirit of “the Fat Man”. McCartney benefits from the production and piano work of the ever-amazing Allen Toussaint while John, of course, effectively tickles the keys on his track. Randy Newman slips into the sinewy groove of “Blue Monday” with accomplished ease (his grand piano playing ably aided and abetted with a sweet sax solo by Bill Liston.)

Taj Mahal and the New Orleans Social Club are gritty and funky on “My Girl Josephine” and Joss Stone is sassy and sexy on “Every Night About This Time” with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and ace guitarist Buddy Guy. Corinne Bailey Rae is confidently soulful on a live version (recorded at Tipitina’s earlier this year) of “One Night (of Sin)”.

Lenny Kravitz teams up with the Rebirth Brass Band and legendary James Brown sidemen Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker for a rock solid, horn driven jam on “Whole Lotta Loving”. And the good doctor…Dr. John…comes to the proceedings with a sly, growly, mid-tempo stroll through “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Bonnie Raitt is fine voice (no surprise there, of course) on a rollicking medley of “I’m in Love Again” and “All by Myself” with pianist/singer/producer Jon Cleary.

Art Neville, accompanied only by his own nimble piano work, offers up some fine blues on “Please Don’t Leave Me”. Similarly, Bruce Hornsby lets his piano do a lot of the talking…and an effective “speaker” it is…on his version of “Don’t Blame it on Me”.

Robbie Robertson joins forces with Galactic for the slinky soul of “Going to the River”. Galactic later backs up Big Chief Monk Boudreaux on the dense funky rock of “So Long”.

Robert Plant is in suitably nuanced voice on the swampy blues of “It Keeps Rainin’” supported by the rock solid Lil’ Band o’ Gold. Plant later joins forces with the glorious Soweto Gospel Choir for a heavenly version of “Valley of Tears”.

Neil Young’s graceful version of “Walking to New Orleans” with the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University (from the ReactNow Katrina aid show) fits onto this disc quite naturally.

Norah Jones’ sweet, smoky voice and sweet, nimble piano playing combine for a lovely version of “My Blue Heaven” while Lucinda Williams’ full-bodied blues rasp invigorates her rockin’ take on “Honey Chile”.

Marc Broussard…with the lovely mandolin playing of Sam Bush anchoring the band to nice effect…slides surely and soulfully through a gently loping “Rising Sun” while Olu Dara and the Natchezippi Band slip down a jazzy road with “When I See You”.

Ben Harper and the Skatalites make a joyful noise with their jaunty romp through “Be My Guest” while Toots and the Maytals bring a soulful reggae groove to “Let the Four Winds Blow” and the ever-wily Willie Nelson slows “I Hear You Knockin’” to a stately stroll punctuated by softly-soaring saxophones.

Irma Thomas brings the indomitable music spirit of the Big Easy to the fore with “I Just Can’t Get New Orleans Off My Mind” featuring great piano playing and harmony vocals from Marcia Ball while Herbie Hancock leads a crack quartet through an irresistibly funky take on “I’m Gonna Be a Wheel Someday”.

Los Lobos chug and churn through their way through a potent take on Domino’s theme song, “The Fat Man”, with guitars and saxophones combining to make pure rock and roll joy.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, and Theresa Andersson bring things to a righteous close with a rousing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In”.

Goin’ Home is a grand tribute to the great Fats Domino, to the rich musical history of the city of New Orleans, and to the eternal spirit of rhythm and blues and rock and roll.

John Lennon - Instant Karma (Live)

Instant Karma

Okay, let’s start by saying that if you’re a really hardcore John Lennon fanatic you probably won’t find much on Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a 2-disc collection of covers of Lennon songs by an eclectic lineup of pop artists, that will be to your liking. Let it go. Just grit your teeth, keep telling yourself that it’s for a good cause, and move on.

In the liner notes Yoko says that “John would have proud of this album” and I’d imagine that’s true…for the fact that his music is still being used to try make the world a better place if for nothing else. That said, over the course of the 23 tracks (there are 10 additional tracks on the iTunes version) while nobody transcends the originals (too much to ask, of course) nobody thoroughly embarrasses themselves either (okay, the Black Eyed Peas come close with their tepid reworking of Lennon’s propulsive “Power to the People”…Lenny Kravitz drawls his way through an unconvincing “Cold Turkey”… Matisyahu’s dancehall reggae take on “Watching the Wheels” is heartfelt but still kind of an awkward mess…and I could have done without the space cadet version of “(Just Like) Starting Over" by the Flaming Lips.)

Amnesty International has had these songs…and others…available for download for while (click on the “Make Some Noise” banner in the right column of this page) with the proceeds going towards the ongoing crisis in Darfur.

Two songs are presented twice on the set: “Imagine” is, almost as a matter of course, one of them (Avril Lavigne’s version is ever so slightly more animated than Jack Johnson’s typically laconic take) and the other is “Gimme Some Truth” (with Jaguares’ sinewy rocker running circles around the version by rock royalty offspring Jakob Dylan and Dhani Harrison.)

Some big guns step to the plate and do okay. U2 puts a reggae groove on “Instant Karma”, Green Day’s muscular “Working Class Hero” is fine (and it features a snippet of Lennon at the end), and “#9 Dream” fits nicely into R.E.M.’s wheelhouse. Christina Aguilera is surprisingly potent and controlled on “Mother” (at least until the end when her inner diva bursts out and turns Lennon’s primal scream into Broadway showstopper grandstanding.) And there is a certain ragged charm to the version of “Give Peace a Chance” by Aerosmith (featuring Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars).

Some of the highlights of the collection come from unexpected quarters: Los Lonely Boys offer up a funky romp of “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”, Youssou N’Dour is enormously charming and eevocative on a bilingual version of “Jealous Guy”, Snow Patrol’s atmospheric reading of “Isolation” is quietly compelling, Postal Service’s spare electronica “Grow Old with Me” works when I imagined it shouldn’t, Big & Rich find a grand groove on “Nobody Told Me”, and Corinne Bailey Rae’s live recording of “I’m Losing You” is even more soulful than anything on her own CD.

Other tracks merit neither scorn nor many repeated listenings…Jackson Browne’s “Oh my Love” and Ben Harper’s “Beautiful Boy” both fall into this category as does the version of “God” by Jack’s Mannequin featuring Mick Fleetwood.

The collection finishes on a shimmering grace note with Regina Spektor’s lovely, compelling version of “Real Love”.

Most likely music fans will find things to like AND things to loathe on Instant Karma…and that’s cool. Just keep remembering it’s for a good cause and let it go :-)