'Hello It's Me

It's Todd Rundgren:

Joni Mitchell Reclaims Her Voice at Newport (VIDEO)

Amazing.

At the New York Times, "The singer-songwriter’s surprise return to the stage at the folk festival she first played in 1967 was an act of bravery, joy and reinterpretation":

This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. https://t.co/Y99xQDC4Ep

— Jodi Kantor (@jodikantor) July 25, 2022

This summer, quite unexpectedly, two of music’s brightest stars haven’t been fresh young upstarts, but a pair of semi-reclusive female elders whose brilliance is being reaffirmed by a new generation of fans.

The 63-year-old pop legend Kate Bush’s 1985 anthem “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” is a legitimate contender for Song of the Summer — it currently sits at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, nestled between recent smashes from Harry Styles and Jack Harlow — thanks to its prominent use in the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things.” And on Sunday night, Joni Mitchell, 78, stunned attendees of the Newport Folk Festival (and the countless people who have since watched viral cellphone videos of the event) when she performed in public for the first time since her 2015 brain aneurysm, playing her first full-length live set since 2000.

Acting as an ecstatic master of ceremonies, the 41-year-old musician Brandi Carlile asked the crowd to welcome her friend Mitchell “back to the Newport stage for the first time since 1969” — which was 12 years before Carlile was born.

“Joni hasn’t always felt the appreciation that exists amongst humanity for her,” Carlile said in a CBS News interview, explaining her idea for a performance that would mimic the laid-back “Joni Jams” that Mitchell has for the past few years been hosting with peers and younger musicians in her Los Angeles living room. “But I wanted her to feel that.”

Carlile has done plenty to help her friend and idol feel that love, and to assert Mitchell’s rightful place in the canon. “We didn’t live in the time of Shakespeare, Rembrandt or Beethoven,” Carlile said during one of the several recent concerts she’s given in which she’s performed Mitchell’s 1971 album “Blue” in its entirety. “But we live in the time of Joni Mitchell.”

Especially since surviving that near-fatal aneurysm in 2015, Mitchell’s work has been enjoying a widespread critical reappraisal. (“Having a brush with death kind of softens people towards me,” she told CBS News with a chuckle.) In the past year, she has received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors and was named the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year, as well as begun an ongoing project called the Joni Mitchell Archives, which will see her releasing rich collections of previously unheard music.

Even though these recent accolades have brought Mitchell back into the public eye, the performance videos from Newport have had a rare and profound power. In some sense, they are simply reminders of the euphoric potential of live music, an experience that was all but silenced for many months during the pandemic.

Beyond that, though, the past two-plus years of seemingly unending illness, sacrifice and loss have left so many people hungry for stories of resilience, hard-won strength and new beginnings. After the aneurysm, just as she did when she contracted polio at age 9, Mitchell had to teach herself to walk again. This time, though, she also had to rediscover her singing voice and relearn how to play the guitar — which she did, triumphantly, onstage at Newport during an instrumental performance of “Just Like This Train,” from her 1974 album “Court and Spark.”

Before Mitchell picked up her guitar, Carlile prepped the audience, announcing, “She’s doing something very, very brave right now for you guys,” adding, “This is a trust fall, and she picked the right people to do this with.” Carlile was talking to the Newport crowd, but she might as well have been saying it to the other musicians onstage — including herself. Even when she was singing lead, tackling these complex songs with a soulful ease, Carlile’s gaze was attentively fixed on Mitchell, ready to catch her in case she stumbled but more often just letting Mitchell guide the way.

There was an intergenerational tenderness to the performance, the way that some of the younger musicians (Marcus Mumford, Blake Mills, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius) appeared to be in palpable awe of what was happening even as they kept time and in tune. The whole thing had a loose, communal spirit about it, too, reminiscent of the coffeehouses in which Mitchell got her start performing folk songs in the mid-1960s. The spotlight was shared (the singer and guitarist Celisse Henderson had a particular star turn when she sang lead on “Help Me”) but, as Mitchell sat regally in her high-backed, gilded chair positioned in the center of the stage, it was always apparent who was the one holding court.

When Mitchell first came out onstage, she seemed a tad overwhelmed, clinging to her cane and backing up Carlile, who took the lead on a breezy, celebratory “Carey.” But over the course of that song, a visible change came over Mitchell. Her shoulders loosened. She began to shimmy. And all at once she seemed to regain her voice — her voice, sonorous and light, seeming to dance over those balletic melodies at a jazzy tempo all her own. She eventually relaxed enough to sing lead on several numbers, including a sumptuous version of George Gershwin’s “Summertime” that allowed her to luxuriate in her velvety lower register.

The highlight of the set, though, was “Both Sides Now,” a song that a 23-year-old Mitchell wrote in 1967, the same year she played Newport for the first time. Back then, some critics scoffed at the lyrics’ presumptive wisdom: What could a 23-year-old girl possibly know about both sides of life? But over the years, the song has revealed itself to contain fathomless depths that have only been audible in later interpretations...

Keep reading.

 

'Sunshine'

Live, with Jonathan Edwards:

'Take the Long Way Home'

It's Roger Hodgen (of Supertramp):

Turn! Turn! Turn!

The Byrds, from 1965.

It's Biblical: "The lyrics – except for the title, which is repeated throughout the song, and the final two lines – consist of the first eight verses of the third chapter of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes."

'So Far Away'

Carole King. (And James Taylor.)

I've been singing this song, and I couldn't remember who sings it. 

She's so lovely, and this is 1971, so long ago.

'Danny's Song'

 Loggins and Messina, came on satellite radio as I was out this morning running around.

'Both Sides Now'

I woke up singing this song. I don't know why. I also don't remember Mama Cass having her own show, but I was only 8-years-old in 1969, so I'ma cut myself some slack there, heh.

Joni Mitchell. What a beauty:

'Take It Easy'

Okay, back to my regular drive-time music routine, from yesterday morning, at the Sound L.A.

The Eagles, "Take It Easy."

Patience
Guns N' Roses
10:29 AM

Goodbye Stranger
Supertramp
10:23 AM

Two of Us
The Beatles
10:20 AM

Daydream
The Lovin' Spoonful
10:18 AM

Golden Years
David Bowie
10:14 AM

Games Without Frontiers
Peter Gabriel
10:10 AM

Love Is a Battlefield
Pat Benatar
10:05 AM

Centerfold
The J. Geils Band
10:01 AM

Sympathy for the Devil
The Rolling Stones
9:54 AM

Sweet Emotion
Aerosmith
9:49 AM

Thunderstruck
AC/DC
9:36 AM

Take It Easy
Eagles
9:33 AM

'Ring of Fire'

Some holiday music for y'all.

Here's Johnny Cash:

Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring.
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire.

I fell into a burning ring of fire,
I went down, down, down as the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet.
I fell for you like a child,
Oh, but the fire went wild.

I fell into a burning ring of fire,
I went down, down, down as the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

I fell into a burning ring of fire,
I went down, down, down as the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

And it burns, burns, burns,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire,
The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

'He spoke with tears of 15 years how his dog n' him, traveled about...'

I haven't been posting my drive time music roundups quite so much, mainly since Mark Thompson took off with his "Mark in the Morning" show sometime back. I still keep it on the Sound L.A., although it's not until later in the mornings when the music start to play and the talk settles down.

In any case, the station's weekend playlist is always more eclectic. You can sit out on the porch with the radio on and enjoy the morning.

Here's the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, from while I was out earlier this morning getting bacon and eggs and coffee. "Bojangles" used to make me sad when it came on back in the day, when I was just a little boy.

In the Shape of a Heart
Jackson Browne
9:54 AM

Mr. Bojangles
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
9:50 AM

King of California
Dave Alvin
9:45 AM

Baller Blockin'
E-40
9:42 AM

Revival
The Allman Brothers Band
9:34 AM

Coda (I Like To Get To Know You)
Spanky & Our Gang
9:31 AM

Help Me
Joni Mitchell
9:27 AM

It Don't Matter to Me
Bread
9:24 AM

Hold Your Head Up
The Zombies
9:18 AM

Tell Her No
The Zombies
9:16 AM

Anticipation
Carly Simon
9:09 AM

Only You Know and I Know
Dave Mason
9:05 AM

Somebody to Love
Jefferson Airplane
9:02 AM

Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
Bob Dylan
8:54am

'Up on Cripple Creek'

Listened to The Band yesterday on satellite radio, while out to visit my mom in the high desert north of Palm Springs.

'Come on people now, smile on your brother...'

Hey, folks, try to love one another while I'm slaving away today.

Sending out the love to Mastic, New York.

Peace brother. Eat all you want. This one's for you babe!

Via the Sound L.A.

At the video, Jesse Colin Young, Stephen Stills, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash et al. --- at the "No Nukes" concert, Battery Park, New York, 1979. According to this archive report (via the Tribeca Trib):

On Sept. 23, 1979, two years before construction of Gateway Plaza began, a crowd of 200,000 converged on the landfill for an "anti-nuke" rally. Prompted by the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, the gathering was the biggest demonstration since the Vietnam War.

And at People, "From Bruce to Bonnie, the Hottest Acts in Rock Warm Up the No-Nuke Crusade."

Take Me to the River
Talking Heads
8:50 AM

Happy
The Rolling Stones
8:48 AM

Twist and Shout
The Beatles
8:43 AM

FAME
DAVID BOWIE
8:39 AM

Don't Stop
Fleetwood Mac
8:36 AM

No One Like You
Scorpions
8:32 AM

Get Together
The Youngbloods
8:18 AM

Surrender
Cheap Trick
8:14 AM

Caught Up in You
38 Special
8:09 AM

Love Is a Battlefield
Pat Benatar
8:04 AM

Free Ride
The Edgar Winter Group
8:01 AM

Where Is the Anti-War Movement?

One of the themes in my classes is how young people today are at a deep, relative disadvantage in terms of political power, especially compared to the elderly. It's a really complicated topic, actually, worth some serious scholarly introspection. For example, to what extent has technology-increased prosperity, especially for young people, who are so connected to mobile technology, in fact demobilized the youth demographic from consequential political action? Further, Barack Obama's presidency may have in fact set back the prospects for the improvement of life chances for young Americans, because they were used as cogs in the Democrat Party electoral machine. In fact, once the maw of the Obama-Democrats' electoral machine achieved critical mass, it spit out young people as so much spent fuel, as nothing more than human refuse. Look at the student loan debt crisis and you get an idea of how totally screwed are today's youth by Democrat Party indifference to generations of indebted student lumpen-proletarians.

But then again, leftist propaganda of race, gender and social welfare entitlement is a powerful narcotic for young people, who've been made so stupid by their gadgets that they simple don't realize when the leftist powers-that-be are f-king them up the ass.

In any case, that's why I'm fascinated with '60s-era folk and antiwar music, which I love to listen to. I love the idealism, for example, of Peter, Paul and Mary, "'Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly ... Before they're forever banned?'" But where is the comparable social protest movement today? If you look at that playlist the Sound L.A. had going this morning, much of that music is iconic and representative of the revolutionary social change of the times. Peter, Paul and Mary sang at the March on Washington in 1963, but oddly it was their music that activists played in 2003 at the Iraq war protests. I'm not as plugged into pop musical trends nowadays to know --- and sure, folks like Rage Against the Machine, for example, certainly capture the angst of contemporary generations --- but it seems to me that political change is not in fact a driving factor in today's youth culture. At least with punk rock in the '70s and '80s you had intense, even anarchic, anti-government tendencies geared toward mobilization, even if that was basically anti-statism. Today purportedly revolutionary folk rock bands are simply shills for Democrat Party power and corruption. The '60s aren't calling, brother.

In any case, this paradox of increasing youth evisceration and impoverization (amid what's often flippantly referred to as a new age of Democrat progressivism) vis-à-vis the dire absence of a genuine revolutionary, anti-establishment movement will continue to bedevil American politics in the years ahead. Who will once again lead the next generation, screaming "Fight the system. Fight back!"???

And with that, for your reading enjoyment, check out Richard Seymour, at the Guardian UK, "The anti-war movement's dilemma – and how to resolve it," and his really excellent and complicated interview at the New Left Review, "Where Is The Anti-War Movement?"

This desire results from people's anger
Towards the system
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
People die in police custody
Why dont you go see if God can see them
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
We been shit on far too long
London wants is no freedom
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
Stand up fight for freedom
Stand up fight for your rights
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back
Fight the system fight back

'Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly ... Before they're forever banned?'

So, I go over to get a cup of coffee this morning, and the Sound L.A. has some folksy antiwar music playing on the radio, Peter, Paul and Mary, "Blowin' in the Wind." (The band released its version, a cover song, just three weeks after Bob Dylan, who wrote it, released his cut on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963).

All Along the Watchtower
Bob Dylan
10:09 AM

If You Really Love Me
Stevie Wonder
10:06 AM

Good Lovin'
Grateful Dead
10:01 AM

Wooly Bully
Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs
9:59 AM

Going Up the Country
Canned Heat
9:56 AM

Hoedown
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
9:51 AM

Gemini Dream
The Moody Blues
9:47 AM

Baby Blue
Badfinger
9:44 AM

Nobody
The Doobie Brothers
9:40 AM

Ring of Fire [Live]
Johnny Cash
9:37 AM

White Bird
It's a Beautiful Day
9:31 AM

Vehicle
The Ides of March
9:28 AM

Heart of Gold [Live]
Neil Young
9:25 AM

Blowin' In the Wind
Peter, Paul & Mary
9:22 AM

Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon & Garfunkel
9:17 AM

San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers In Your Hair)
Scott McKenzie

'I'm going up the country, babe don't you wanna go...'

School starts Monday, so I'll be spending a lot more time commuting.

From yesterday afternoon's drivetime, on the way home from picking up my syllabi at the campus copy shop, at the Sound L.A.

Canned Heat, "Going Up the Country."





Going Up the Country
Canned Heat
1:27 PM

New Sensation
INXS
1:24 PM

She's So Cold
The Rolling Stones
1:19 PM

Lovin', Touchin' Squeezin'
Journey
1:09 PM

Ticket to Ride
The Beatles
1:06 PM

Smokin' In the Boys Room
Brownsville Station
1:03 PM

Evil Woman
Electric Light Orchestra
12:58 PM

Whole Lotta Love
Led Zeppelin
12:53 PM

Bad Moon Rising
Creedence Clearwater Revival
12:51 PM

'America's Most Successful Communist' Trending at Memeorandum

Pretty funny when an almost 10-year-old article on a depraved folk-rock Communist gets linked up by enough bloggers to get a thread on Memeorandum. Heh.

.@RSMcCain Heh. This 2005 piece on Pete Seeger is trending at Memeorandum: "America’s Most Successful Communist." http://t.co/6r0Qn2kg6x

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 28, 2014

PREVIOUSLY: "Communist Folk Singer Pete Seeger Dies at 94," and "On Cue, Far-Left Partisans for Pete Seeger Bring the Hate."

On Cue, Far-Left Partisans for Pete Seeger Bring the Hate

It's still early, but I expect it's going to be an interesting day of leftist hatred.

At Alicublog, Roy Edroso calls me an "asshole":

http://t.co/997UgzFeS7 RT @elongreen Look forward to reading @edroso on Seeger.
— edroso (@edroso) January 28, 2014

Then this idiot tells me to "fuck off" on Twitter:

@AmPowerBlog @MsEBL I say this without malice, but "Fuck you!" #PeteSeeger did more for social justice in one day than Repubs did in 50 yrs

— Peggy Brava (@PeggyBrava) January 28, 2014

Here's disgusting hate-troll Repsac3 spewing the pro-Communist propaganda:

Pete Seeger: This Man Surrounded Hate and Forced it to Surrender | The Nation http://t.co/oaBHiPjAle

— J. Casper (@repsac3) January 28, 2014

And Bird Dog takes the heat in the comments at Maggie's Farm:

I saw him perform several times. Grew up middle class, went to prep school and Harvard, affected a working class style but I doubt any working class people were ever interested in him. A likeable old commie, naive and innocent to the end.

*****

No, he was a totalitarian monster and a fraud, and his so-called folk music was also a fraud. He should have died 90 years ago, instead he polluted America for decades. As did all the other so-called folk artists, all of whom were Communist frauds.

*****

Good grief! The guy was an old Commie geezer who never found an enemy of this country he couldn't find a way to support.

He championed the Soviets (you might remember them) during the"nuclear freeze" in the 80's and was an outspoken liar and propagandist about the motives of Ronald Reagan, one of the finest American's who ever swore the office of President.

Obummer probably had to bite his lip and choke back a tear.

My earlier entry is here, "Communist Folk Singer Pete Seeger Dies at 94" (with, so far, one hate-addled apologist for Communism in the comments).

BONUS: Da Tech Guy links, "If only Leni Riefenstahl was a Communist like Pete Seeger…" Thanks!

Communist Folk Singer Pete Seeger Dies at 94

A long obituary at the New York Times, "Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94." This passage is telling:

In 1955 he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he testified, “I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature.” He also stated: “I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this.”

Mr. Seeger offered to sing the songs mentioned by the congressmen who questioned him. The committee declined.

Althouse likes that as well, "'I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs'." (Via Memeorandum.)

Here's Seeger's entry at Discover the Networks:

In 1945 Seeger became the national director of People's Songs, Inc, an organization designed to “create, promote and distribute songs of labor and the American People.” Within a few years, the California Senate Fact-finding Committee reported that:

"People's Songs is a vital Communist front … one which has spawned a horde of lesser fronts in the fields of music, stage entertainment, choral singing, folk dancing, recording, radio transcriptions and similar fields. It especially is important to Communist proselytizing and propaganda work because of its emphasis on appeal to youth, and because of its organization and technique to provide entertainment for organizations and groups as a smooth opening wedge for Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist propaganda."

Seeger parted ways with the Communist Party in 1950 and eventually renounced strict Stalinism, in favor of socialism and pro-labor activism. "I realized," says Seeger, "I could sing the same songs I sang whether I belonged to the Communist Party or not, and I never liked the idea anyway of belonging to a secret organization."

In 1955 Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, whose questions about his past Communist ties he answered evasively or not at all. The following year Seeger was indicted for contempt of Congress. In 1961 he was found guilty of that charge and was sentenced to ten years in prison, though in 1962 his conviction was overturned on a technicality.

In the 1960s Seeger was deeply involved in the civil rights movement and its hallmark demonstrations. His musical interpretation of an old spiritual, which he called We Shall Overcome, became a signature song of the movement. The song was played at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In subsequent years, Seeger would perform benefit concerts on SNCC's behalf.

Historian Ronald Radosh writes: "Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, Seeger called for peace, peaceful co-existence between the United States and the Soviet Union, singing songs like Put My Name Down, Brother, Where Do I Sign? -- a ballad in favor of the Soviet Union’s phony international peace petition that favored unilateral disarmament by the West while leaving the Soviet atomic stockpile intact. He would sing and give his support to peace rallies and marches covertly sponsored by the Soviet Union and its Western front groups and dupes -- while leaving his political criticism only for the United States and its defensive actions during the Cold War."

Seeger was an opponent of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. He similarly opposed the U.S. military campaigns and weapons buildup during the Reagan years of the Cold War. He supported the Nuclear Freeze Movement of the 1980s -- a Soviet-sponsored initiative that would have frozen Soviet nuclear and military superiority in place and would have rendered Reagan unable to close that gap to any appreciable degree. Seeger has used his status as a folk icon to lend support to a number of leftwing causes and initiatives.

I don't see it yet, but I expect far-left historian Erik Loomis to post a glowing obituary at some point, at Lawyers, Gays and Marxists. (See Robert Stacy McCain for Loomis' background, "He’s a Lumberjack, and He’s OK: The Wobbly Scholarship of Erik Loomis, Ph.D.")

Expect updates. It's going to be interesting to see the leftist bloggers salivate over Seeger's anti-American legacy.

'But I always thought that I'd see you again...'

Again, out driving the Jeep the other day, some James Taylor came on the 70s satellite channel.

Enjoy "Fire and Rain." It's beautiful music.

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Suzanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

Won't you look down on me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I won't make it any other way

oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you again

I’ve been walking my mind to an easy time
My back turned towards the sun
Lord knows the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line
To talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground.

oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again, now

Thought I'd see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around,
Thought I'd see you, thought I'd see you fire and rain, now
Thought i'd see you just one more time again.