The All New Music Tag Reboot!

Wave - Antonio Carlos Jobim



Even if they can’t name him right away as the composer, just about everybody knows some of the bossa nova music of Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim. His dozens of beautiful melodies have become part of the standard song repertoire throughout the world.

Tom Jobim, as he was known familiarly, was born in l927 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and died in l994. As he liked to tell it, he was just another middle-class Carioca "beach boy" hanging out in the bars and coffeehouses along the white sand of Copacabana and Ipanema until the day a peddler, selling roses, stopped before him one afternoon.

Tom Jobim soon began to immerse himself in a serious way in his first love, music, and he never did get around to becoming an architect as he had planned. So many kinds of music were popular in Brazil when he was a young man in the 1940s, including the delicate harmonies of the French impressionists and American jazz by visiting masters. Jobim absorbed them all, above all the music of his native land — the fast and fiery Afro-Brazilian sambas and the languid, Moorish-tinged ballads of the Portuguese settlers.

Like his fellow Brazilian musicians João Gilberto, Luiz Bonfá, and poet–lyricist Vinícius de Moraes, among others, Jobim ingeniously combined elements of all these styles into a fresh new sound. He had his first big international hit with "Desafinado," recorded by tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd in 1962. Almost immediately there was another album. Although it was called Getz/Gilberto, it was Tom Jobim’s creations that made musical history, above all the classic version of "The Girl From Ipanema" featuring Getz, guitarist–singer João Gilberto, and, as a last-minute addition, Gilberto’s wife, Astrud, on vocals. The entire album is stocked with superb Jobim songs, marvelously arranged.

Jobim was now an international star, and many albums followed. He went on to explore Franco-Brazilian impressionist textures for orchestra — often including a jazz-based rhythm section — working with masterful arrangers, such as his fellow Brazilian Eumir Deodato on the l970 album Tide. Jobim continued making superb music to the end of his life.

Excerpted from:
Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Finest Hour
Linda Dahl
February 2000

http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/antoniocarlosjobim/bio/

 

Beach Boys - Surfin' USA (with Lyrics)



Can't talk about waves without surf music.

 

New York State of Mind - Ben Sidran



Ben Sidran, a master of many trades in music and media, makes your average Renaissance man look like a slacker. Jazz pianist of international renown, lyricist of a rock classic, award-winning national broadcaster, record and video producer, scholar, author, journalist, and father to a second generation musical prodigy, Sidran has been a major player in modern jazz, rock and pop for over forty years.

Born in Chicago in 1943—his father was a friend of Saul Bellow's—Sidran was raised in the industrial lakeshore city of Racine, Wisconsin, going up to Madison to play keyboards at frat houses parties while still a teenager in 1960. The next year he was enrolled at the university, playing dates on campus and around town. He soon joined the Ardells, a Southern comfort party band led by frat boy singer Steve Miller and his friend Boz Scaggs. But when Miller and Scaggs went west to become stars, Sidran stayed to complete his degree in English lit.

After graduating from the UW in 1966 (with honors), Sidran moved to England to pursue a Master's Degree in American Studies at the University of Sussex. But when the Steve Miller Band came to England the following year to record with the legendary British engineer Glyn Johns, Sidran found himself back on the two-track life of academia and music.

It started with his haunting harpsichord break on Scaggs' “Baby's Calling Me Home” for the Miller band's debut album, “Children of the Future.” A little later on, Ben would pen the lyrics for Miller's “Space Cowboy,” earning a place in rock history (and enough royalties to pay for his graduate degrees).

While still pursuing his studies, Sidran also developed a relationship with Johns, often doing session work at Olympic Studios with musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. In 1969, Johns produced Sidran's demo tape, featuring Charlie Watts, Peter Frampton and others.

Upon receiving his doctorate in American Studies at the height of the war-induced grad school glut, Sidran faced bleak prospects in academia. Then he realized his time for studying the information was over; it was time to become the information. So in the fall of 1970, after dropping his dissertation with some publishers, he moved to Los Angeles to go into the record business.

Things started to break in a hurry. First came competing bids to publish his thesis; Ben bypassed the low-key offer from Oxford University Press to take a lucrative (to him, at the time) offer from Holt, Rinehart & Winston to publish the dissertation as Black Talk, or How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to the Values of Western Literary Tradition.

Then, thanks to an introduction from Johns, Sidran soon had his own record deal on Capitol Records. Feel Your Groove, a jazz/rock hybrid, featured Blue Mitchell on trumpet (the first of five such engagements), guitarists Scaggs and Ed Davis and Jim Keltner on drums.

Recognizing Ben's skills on both sides of the studio, Capitol also offered him a job as staff producer. But because his wife Judy was unhappy in the isolated haze of the Hollywood hills, Sidran did the unthinkable and walked away from LA in the summer of '71, returning to Madison just as Feel Your Groove was released and Black Talk was published (a set of circumstances which did not provoke the label into excessive promotional activity). Taking up the Hammond B3 residency at a local club, Sidran soon found another life-long musical partner when James Brown played in town and his drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, stayed behind.

It wasn't long before another national label came calling - Blue Thumb Records, which released Ben's “I Lead a Life” in 1972, quickly followed by “Puttin' In Time on Planet Earth”(1972) and “Don't Let Go,” (1973).

Sidran showcased his many talents in varied fields the year he turned 30 - leading a national tour, producing Tony Williams and Paul Pena, creating and hosting a weekly television series, even returning to academia to teach the social aesthetics of record production at the UW. His pace hasn't slackened since.

After the demise of Blue Thumb, Sidran joined the Arista Records roster, releasing “Free in America” (1976), “The Doctor is In” (1977), “A Little Kiss in the Night” (1978), “Live at Montreaux,” (1979) and “The Cat in the Hat,” (1980).

Although Ben developed a significant career in radio and television work during the eighties (see sidebar), he kept his hands on the keyboard, recording “Get to the Point”(PolyStar, 1981), “Old Songs for the New Depression,” (Antilles, 1982), “Bop City,” (Antilles, 1983), “On the Cool Side,” (Windham Hill, 1984), “Have You Met … Barcelona”(Orange Blue Productions, 1986), “On the Live Side,”(Windham Hill, 1986) and “Too Hot to Touch,” (Windham Hill 1987). His production credits that decade included “Ever Since the World Ended” and “My Backyard” for Mose Allison and “Born 2B Blue” for Steve Miller, with whom he and son Leo also toured.

Sidran continued to click on many levels throughout the 1990s, even expanded his efforts to include starting his own label, Go Jazz records. Early Sidran-produced Go Jazz releases included Georgie Fame's “Cool Car Blues,” and “The Blues and Me,” Ricky Peterson's “Smile Blue,” and Phil Upchurch's “Whatever Happened to the Blues.”
In 1993, Sidran combined his art with his soul on “Life's a Lesson,” a jazz-infused collection of Jewish liturgical and folk songs. In a five-decade career (so far), this Go Jazz release is one of the crowning personal and artistic achievements.

The end of the century brought another emotional highlight - the release of “Concert for Garcia Lorca,” a tribute to the martyred Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. Recorded in the courtyard of Garcia Lorca's home, the album earned Ben another Grammy nomination (he lost to Madonna).

Ben has maintained his steady output of high-quality work, both on his own (“Mr. P's Shuffle,” and “Live From the Celebrity Lounge,”) and with such artists as Van Morrison and David Sanborn. In 2001 he produced two more Grammy-nominated albums, “Mose Chronicles” (Mose Allison) and “It's Like This” (Rickie Lee Jones).

Building on the Spanish influence that infused the Garcia Lorca release, in 2002 Ben wrote and produced (along with son Leo) the bi-lingual children's CD, “El Elefante,” winner of the Parents' Choice Award. That year, Ben somehow found time to return to the UW as artist-in-residence, and release his critically acclaimed memoir, A Life in the Music (Taylor).

In 2003, Ben and Leo created Nardis Music, a full-service label featuring enhanced CD's of all original releases. Among its first releases was Ben's own “Nick's Bump” (2004). This was followed by “Bumpin at the Sunside,” recorded live in Paris (2006) and “Cien Noches,” recorded live in Madrid (2008). In 2009, Sidran completed “Dylan Different,” the music of Bob Dylan and continues to work on the text, “Jews, Music and the American Dream.”

Ben and Judy Sidran continued to reside in Madison, Wisconsin.

A life in the music, indeed.

http://bensidran.com/bios/bio_01.html

 

RAY CHARLES - Georgia On My Mind

 

Georgia Satellites - "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" Live '87

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Ur45vTtw0

 

Satellite of Love..

 

David Bowie's "Space Oddity"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhSYbRiYwTY

 

Another song written by Ben Sidran.

Steve Miller - Space Cowboy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwoiy-Fwm0E

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPR108kwNo4

 

Glen Campbell - Rhinestone Cowboy

 

Pancho & Lefty...

 

LONG BLACK VEIL by LEFTY FRIZZELL

 

Mike Nesmith - Long Black Veil



Robert Michael Nesmith was born on December 30, 1942 in Houston, TX. His mother, Bette invented liquid paper and would later leave the $20 million estate to him. Affectionately nicknamed "Nez," he learned to play saxophone as a young child and would join the United States Air Force years later. After two years in the Air Force, he left to pursue a career in folk music. In the mid-60s, he left home to move to Los Angeles, CA, with the intent of getting into the movie business. During this time he formed the duo, "Mike & John" and recorded several solo singles under the name "Michael Blessing."

With hopes of getting a job as a songwriter, Mike auditioned for The Monkees in late-1965. While still a member of The Monkees, Mike's first solo album, "The Wichita Train Whistle Sings," was released in 1968 and reached No. 144 on Billboard's charts. Also in 1968, "Different Drum" a Nez written song, became a major hit for Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys. By 1970, Mike had left The Monkees to form The First National Band, which would begin his successful solo career as the "Father of Country-Rock." Mike and The First National Band would sign to RCA Victor and release two albums in 1970, "Magnetic South" and "Loose Salute." Along with the albums, "Joanne" reached No. 6 on the Adult Contemporary charts and No. 21 on the Pop charts, and "Silver Moon" peaked at No. 7 on the Adult Contemporary charts and No. 42 on the Pop charts. In 1971, The Second National Band was formed to release "Nevada Fighter" that year and "Tantamount to Treason" in 1972. In 1972 the band separated and Nez was left to record "And the Hits Keep Comin.'" After 1973's "Pretty Much Your Standard Stash," Michael left RCA Victor to form Pacific Arts in 1974, after the failure of his "Countryside" label. In 1977, the hit single, "Rio," and its accompanying album "From a Radio Engine to a Photon Wing" were released as was Nez's TV chart show "Pop Clips." The show further developed Mike's idea of music videos, which was later bought from him by Warner who developed it into MTV. 1978 brought "Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma," which would turn out to be his last album for over a decade. While he held off on his music career, Mike produced short films for "Saturday Night Live" and "Fridays" in 1979.

By the early-80s rolled around, Pacific Arts was one of the most successful companies in the country and Nez had won the first ever Grammy for "Best Music Video" in 1982, with "Elephant Parts." He even starred in his own comedy TV series called, "Michael Nesmith In Television Parts" that aired on NBC for eight episodes. After making two guest appearances with The Monkees in 1986 and 1989, he released his first album in over 10 years in 1992, titled, "...Tropical Campfires..." Nez supplied background vocals for Peter Tork's 1994 solo album as well as releasing his own solo album "The Garden," which was nominated for a Grammy Award in the new age category. For most of 1996 and early 1997, Mike participated in The Monkees' 30th Anniversary. During this time, he also formed a new company, Videoranch, which would be the home of his past and future projects. Nez showed he was a worth novelist in 1998 when his first novel, The Long Sandy Hair Of Neftoon Zamora, was released. He spent 1999 touring the country to promote the book, which would be released on audio CD in 2002. Also, near the turn of the century, Nez won over $47 million in a court case with PBS that had destroyed Pacific Arts.

Now Nez is keeping busy re-issuing his solo material on compact disk and video through Videoranch. In 2006, he's trying to find a publisher for his already-finished second novel, The American Gene, and will release his new solo album "Rays," which could lead to a promotional tour.

http://www.monkeesrule43.com/mikebio.html

 

The Rolling Stones- Paint it Black

 

Gary Lewis & The Playboys-Liberty LST-7487-"You Don't Have To Paint Me A Picture"

 

Pictures Of Lily - The Who

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmkBroiw1s

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ5bS3_BCDs

 

Reba Mcintyre - "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia"