Bob Dylan: Tempest

Do yourself a favor and get one of Bob Dylan's best albums EVER: Tempest, his first new work in three years.

Some of the best stories Dylan has ever told during any parts of his long career are on Tempest.

The title cut does not involve Shakespearean allusions (not repeatedly, anyway) but is a dramatic telling of the Sinking of the Titanic saga.

The last track, Roll On John, is a spiritual ode to Dylan's friend John Lennon.

That tune is enough to make you cry, even if you are listening to it "sober as a judge."

Dylan has to be feeling the supreme elation felt by the most successful artists late in life -- if one can continue to create good art later in life, it helps put up with negatives of aging, such as having to deal with health matters.

Also, the musicianship of Dylan's supporting band of the last few years (see photo for names) is, as usual, superb throughout Tempest.

PH/NM

Madame George and A Day In The Life: "The Sixties" Two Greatest Songs

"Painter Photographing Sculpture" (c) Paul Heidelberg

Tell 'em PH said that.



Also, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (Madame George is the sixth track on that album) is at least among the top five albums from "The Sixties," right up there with Sgt. Pepper's.



Note: I first went to see Van Morrison perform in the Fall of 1971 in San Francisco at Winterland (this was five years before The Last Waltz was held, and filmed, at that venue). I later saw Van the Man perform a great concert in Granada, Spain in February, 2006.



The Granada concert was a very good one: everything from Brown Eyed Girl to Your Cheating Heart to his familiar tunes about "the wind and the rain." (After I purchased Morrison's great C&W work Pay The Devil, I recognized several of his C&W covers I had heard in Granada.)



A note on that concert: Morrison was backed by about 15 musicians -- they were all hitting it that night, as I yelled to them as I saw them boarding their bus after the concert, gave them the thumbs up and yelled, "Yeah," sounding much like Morrison, I think, like many of his "Yeahs" on many of his works. When he went into "Your Cheating Heart, I yelled "Yeah" and I swear I saw him looking up to me at the balcony, probably wondering, "Who is that person who sounds like me."



And, a strange note: At the time Spain was suffering through a severe drought. I don't know how long it had been since it had rained in Granada, but guess what was occurring, as if tribute to Morrison, as audience members and Van's musicians left the venue: the wind and the rain, that what was occurring.



I was standing in the rain when I gave my thumb's up to Van's band: my succinct music review, you might say. In reply, they all just beamed. They knew they had all just nailed it -- Van included, of course.



Before the concert, I went to a cafe to have a drink while I waited. I listened to an English-speaking woman ordering in English, and assumed she was one of the many British expats who were living in Spain and were also waiting for the show to start.



I thought, "Learn the language of the country you are living in."



Well, one of the highlights of the concert, besides Morrison's great singing, his great Sax work, and others' great Sax work, fine piano work, fine guitar work, was this woman's backing vocals along with another female backing vocalist and a male backing vocalist.



Oh, that is why she doesn't speak Spanish well, I thought. She was probably performing in Sweden the night before, etc.



After the concert, I asked one of the crew if the concert had been recorded.



He asked, suspiciously, "Why?"



I answered, "Because it was a great concert."



He then held up a small black object. It had been recorded. I have thought Morrison ought to release an album culled from that night's tunes. (This was far in advance of the live Astral Weeks album.)



I went to the concert to treat myself for completing my novel-written-in-the-highest-mountains in Spain, when I lived there from 2004 to 2006; I lived "sud de Granada" for two years, two months. In my novel CHASING FREEDOM, REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES, I fictionalized my "Night At Winterland" in 1971, which might be best described as harrowing.



Read the book to find out what I mean by harrowing, and to find out what "The Sixties" was really about. FYI, The Sixties was ca. 1965-1975. Musically speaking, the early 1960s was a continuation of the 1950s, with songs by such persons as Bobby Vinton and Gene Pitney (Gene Pitney was good, let it be noted: Check out The New Riders Of The Purple Sage's version of his Hello Mary Lou).



Note: the cover illustration to my novel that you see a representation of on this blog was created by using modern computer software to alter a 35 mm transparency taken "in the bowels" of The San Francisco Art Institute, the best art college in the USA "hands down" during The Sixties.



The title of the artwork is: "Painter Photographing Sculpture." (The work is suitable for framing, as they say; I have had paintings and photographs exhibited at many galleries and I must say there is no way I would sell this work in a gallery for the price of this book; my idea is you buy two copies. Take off the cover to frame, and keep one edition of the book intact.)



Regarding the SFAI -- I attended, and graduated from the college, and it was no easy task. The first year reminded me of boot camp in the U.S. Air Force (four years service -- Honorable Discharge).



It took a long time for people there to accept you, including one strange dude who used a painting studio corner as his home. He was a mascot of sorts I guess, but was one strange dude with a very strange look in his eyes, all the time.



As I write in CHASING FREEDOM, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead studied at the SFAI and, "before she made it big," Janis Joplin worked in the school cafe for "bread" -- the kind you spend, not the kind you eat.



Get Astral Weeks. I have the original and the live version recorded in Los Angeles and released in 2009, and prefer the original (sans irritating crowd noises, for one thing; for another, great drumming by Modern Jazz Quartet drummer Connie Kay).



Astral Weeks is not Psychedelia. When I first heard the album in a small, and I mean small, cafe in Matala, Crete, in 1969, I thought: "What a great combination of jazz, folk and rock."



Cover Illustration for CHASING FREEDOM (c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg.

Musical Note: Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti and George Frederic Handel Were All Born in 1685/Also... (See Below)

...Each died in the 1750s: Bach in 1750, Scarlatti in 1757 and Handel in 1759.



So, 1685 was a good year for musicians, and music.


This is a photo, taken in Weimar, Germany, of the house where J.S. Bach lived from 1708 to 1717; two of his 21 children were born here.

Photograph Copyright (c) Paul Heidelberg

Ugur Sürücü Is "The Man"

If you want to catch a great performance by a performer who might be considered the Turkish equivalent of Van The Man Morrison, get to the Divan Restaurant in Southeastern Berlin on a Thursday or Saturday night, to the Kreuzberg neighborhood (this writer has caught both acts in recent years).

The most recent was a very soulful Thursday night in September, 2009, at the Divan Restaurant, Kommandantensr. 34, 10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg. (Van The Man’s act was caught in Granada, Spain, in 2006.)

In ancient times -- I am talking ancient as in more than a thousand years ago -- singer/poets in Ugur Sürücü’s native Turkey were the rock stars of their time. They recited poetry and sang songs that had listeners spellbound.

To see that history carried on by a great singer and great instrumentalist (accompanied by another fine instrumentalist) get to the Divan Restaurant.

You may dine, or just enjoy a cold Efes beer – but don’t miss this great performer (you can also sample some of his sounds at http://de.myspace.com.grupendar); this is great "World Music."

(Photo: "Brandenburg Tor (Gate): A Different View" © copyright Paul Heidelberg.

Charlie Parker Lives

BAD BERKA BLUESFESTIVAL 2009 GERMANY

Saturday, June 6, the day's bluesy rain stopped just in time for me to stay dry as I caught nice gigs at this annual blues event in the town of Bad Berka, near Weimar. American bluesman Tom Shaka came to the gig during a cold, steady rain, carrying his guitar and pulling a suitcase behind him -- a bluesy sight indeed. Later, after the "sky stopped crying," I caught Shaka singing, playing guitar and jamming with a mean blues harp, in the first of the two acts I caught that night. Shaka excused himself to get to another gig before the Pass Over Blues band, a German group, took the staqe at the amphitheatre in the little town that was a favorite of the great German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe discovered the springs in Bad Berka that have attracted visitors to this part of central Germany since the early 1800s).

During the Pass Over Blues' slow numbers, the audience got down with some "toe tappin' and head noddin'" and during the more uptempo Chicago style blues songs, the band had festival goers "dancin' and hollerin'."

Two of the events sponsors, Bad Berka's Hotel am Goethebrunnen ("Goethe Springs") and the very good regional beer Radeberger, served cold half liters of Radeberger vom fass, draft beer, in the distinctive half liter Radeberger glass (this writer was surprised glass was used, not plastic, as would be the case Stateside).

Other drinks were also available, including the town's famed mineral water, that flows freely from a fountain near the kurpark where the event took place, and, of course, Jagermeister.

Bad Berka (website www.bad-berka.de) will also host the "heavy metal friends" party.san Festival August 8 to 11 (for more info, visit www.party-san.de).

(Photograph of the Ilm River that flows through Bad Berka (c) Paul Heidelberg.)

THE BAND OF HEATHENS, AMERICAN BAND FROM TEXAS, PLAYS EUROPE THIS WEEK

A ROCKIN' BAND FROM AUSTIN, TEXAS, THE BAND OF HEATHENS, HAS GIGS THAT INCLUDE LONDON, AMSTERDAM, AT THE PARADISO WHERE THE ROLLING STONES HAVE PLAYED, AND GERMANY, THIS SATURDAY, JUNE 6, IN HAMBURG. CHECK www.bandofheathens.com for details.