St. Paul and Sir Paul were trying to tell me pretty much the same thing as I said goodbye to someone I loved very much and will miss for the rest of […]
The End…is all about the love….
Jim Booth
Novelist, college professor, rock musician - are we getting the band back together? Maybe....
Random thoughts about the record album – part 4: singers and songwriters, concepts and collections
The album was king, thanks to male singer-songwriters (Crosby, Stills, Nash, James Taylor), female singer-songwriters (King, Simon, Mitchell) and bands like Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon) andThe Eagles (Hotel California). “You take […]
Random thoughts about the record album – part 3: the Beach Boys and the album as art and artifact
Sgt. Pepper’s gets a lot of credit for launching the “concept album,” but it never would have happened without Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds. “We were fed up with being the Beatles. We […]
“We Can Work It Out”: that wonderful harmonium
Not enough songs make use of the harmonium. “In ‘We Can Work It Out,’ Paul did the first half, I did the middle eight. But you’ve got Paul writing, ‘We can work […]
Chronicles Part 1: Bob Dylan being Bob Dylan
Dylan gonna be Dylan. But in his memoir he reminds us why he’s Dylan. “I’d come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about […]
Don’t Pass Me By… because everybody loves Ringo….
“Don’t Pass Me By” is a rollicking faux country blues honk and the fiddle part is as crazy as Ringo says. It’s charming, funny, and totally Ringo. For a first effort, it’s […]
Random thoughts about the record album – part 2: the Beatles up the ante…
“Full grown men, full of emotion and on top of the world. Meet the Beatles.” – Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone (Part 1 here) When Bob Dylan met the Beatles in late August […]
Cry Baby Cry…darkness in the nursery
“Cry Baby Cry” is exactly what we would expect a nursery rhyme to be: a charming sing-a-long with a dark message at its core. “…I think I got them from an advert […]
Random thoughts about record albums – part 1: Dylan’s LP idea…
…and how the invention of vinyl changed music forever. “I agonized about making a record, but I wouldn’t have wanted to make singles, 45’s – the kind of songs they played on […]
In My Life: Lennon remembers…
There’s something Shakespearean about Lennon’s meditation on life and meaning. “I think ‘In My Life’ was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously about my life, and it was […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 