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Category: music

Revelatory covers (#20 in series): “I’ll Be Seeing You”, sans words, but really singing…

Published July 5, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory covers (#20 in series): “I’ll Be Seeing You”, sans words, but really singing…

Arguably the quintessential nostalgic song, I’ll Be Seeing You was composed in 1938. (music by Sammy Fain, words by Irving Kahal)

That year it was inserted into a Broadway musical…which flopped.

The song, however, became a “standard”, covered by countless singers…and not a few instrumentalists.

It was a #1 hit for Bing Crosby in 1944.

Frank Sinatra recorded it more than once.

Even Eric Clapton did so, in 2016.

The most celebrated recording – Billie Holiday’s 1944 version – is the one which reached Mars in 2018, as the conclusion to NASA’s final transmission to its Explorer rover.

However, the most “out of this world” version to reach this Earthling’s ears is a “live” and exploratory instrumental trio treatment, delivered in “the city of fallen angels”, in June 2016.

read moreRevelatory covers (#20 in series): “I’ll Be Seeing You”, sans words, but really singing…
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Autumn leaves…but not as you usually know them

Published May 22, 2021 by Pelidoug

Autumn leaves…but not as you usually know them

Not all deciduous trees have home addresses in cool temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

This one’s home is in a very particular part of tropical Australia.

This individual is circa 750 years old, weighs 36 tonnes, and is thriving in a place with quite the “wrong” climate, 3200 kilometres from home.

Even more amazingly, to get “here” it survived uprooting, followed by almost certainly the longest road trip ever undertaken by a large, living tree.

read moreAutumn leaves…but not as you usually know them
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Revelatory Covers (#17 in series): “When You Come Back Down”

Published May 20, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory Covers (#17 in series): “When You Come Back Down”

(the “metaphorical” featured image shows climbers on what many believe to be the world’s tallest sheer rock-face…it isn’t)

This very poignant song was written a quarter of a century ago.

Its co-authors, separately, have recorded it, but the most celebrated version is a “cover”, issued 20 years ago.

None of those recordings quite “nailed” it, I think.

As of February 21, 2021, there is a “definitive” version, performed “live”…

read moreRevelatory Covers (#17 in series): “When You Come Back Down”
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Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

Published May 12, 2021 by Pelidoug

Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

 

In the USA, it is currently “yesterday”,  Tuesday, 11 May, 2021.

I hope that Carla Bley is enjoying a very happy birthday with her beloved, Steve Swallow.

For rather more than my entire adult life, Carla Bley has composed, arranged and played singular music, variously – sometimes, simultaneously – provocative, surprising, very amusing, satirical, sublimely lyrical, complex, seemingly-simple…

Her three most recent releases – all, new trio recordings of new music, made between 2013 and 2019 – are some of her finest, ever.

read moreLife Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley
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Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

Published May 5, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

If the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.

Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.

In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)

read moreRevelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”
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Ugly beauty: “Forest Motors” (# 89 in “a shining moment” series)

Published March 31, 2021 by Pelidoug

Ugly beauty: “Forest Motors” (# 89 in “a shining moment” series)

A big, rusting surprise was just one minute’s walk away from the house in which we recently spent sixteen nights – on a forested hill near Youngs Siding, in Western Australia’s Deep South.

This post’s musical complement: a singular treatment of an apropos Thelonious  Monk number, plus the most tender song ever written about a car salesman….

read moreUgly beauty: “Forest Motors” (# 89 in “a shining moment” series)
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