Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald who assassinated President Kennedy on 11/22/63. There are songs about Ruby. I was thinking about the great one by Camper Van Beethoven today. Here’s a list on Turn Me On Dead Man of songs about the assassination. Two songs with Ruby references are discussed here. Start with the video of the killing if you haven’t seen it.
About the song in the video above
Shadow Kingdom is Bob Dylan’s pre-recorded concert that was available online for $25 starting on 7/18 and ending on 7/25. Overall, I thought it was great. Here are my observations followed by links to online reviews. First, the 13 song set list of the concert which was about 50 minutes long.
As many have observed, Dylan’s singing was excellent and he pronounced every word clearly. He sang with real commitment. This was the best version I have heard of “Forever Young”. I think the song is sentimental crap but Dylan clearly really meant what he was singing.
It was a mostly acoustic show with no drummer. It reminded me of “If You Ever Go to Houston” on Together Through Life which also features an accordion prominently.
As usual with Dylan, the songs didn’t sound like the original recordings which is fine with me. I think that to him, they are all Dylan songs and the recordings are just how he felt like performing them at the time. For example, “To Be Alone with You” isn’t a country song just because it was on Nashville Skyline. The band was excellent and was not his usual touring group.
On the other hand, I have never been a fan of his changes to original lyrics. He continues to modify “When I Paint My Masterpiece” (which I have posted about before). This time he also revised “Watching the River Flow” and replaced these lines:
People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
I always though that the second line was just something thrown in because it rhymed but I appreciated it. The lyrics on his site do not include the changes he made during this concert.
Not having a real audience freed him from the fans desire for him to do his most popular songs – “All Along the Watchtower” and “Like a Rolling Stone”. He has generally performed them live but I think he does it because the audience expects to hear them.
The video was in black and white. There were audience members but I assume they were actors – they were listed in the credits. The backing musicians wore face masks while the audience didn’t and many smoked cigarettes. Dylan changed clothes with no explanation of what happened. There was visible applause after “Watching the River Flowed” but it wasn’t audible. Sometimes, audience members danced during the songs.
I hope it is released on CD and/or Blu-ray and that he does more of these.
It’s now available for streaming. A CD was also released.
Good to see Eddie Hazel get well-deserved recognition.
I first heard about Byron Berline when he played the fiddle on “Country Honk” by the Rolling Stones.
I never knew about Swamp Dogg in the 1970s. I first heard about him in one of the annual music issues of the Oxford American. His “Total Destruction to You Mind” was on the CD with the magazine and it was incredible.
His latest album is country music. John Prine was on the album. Swamp Dogg had recorded Prine’s “Sam Stone” many years ago.
See my separate posts on “Sam Stone” and “Total Destruction to You Mind”. I’ll post other songs here.
Here’s his web site: Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams (theswampdogg.com)
Eric Clapton is not thought of for his sense of humor but he made guest appearances on albums by the Mothers of Invention and the Bonzo Dog Band. I think he’s the only person who recorded with both.
Clapton had “Legs” Larry Smith from the Bonzo Dog Band as part of his group on his 1974 tour which I saw.
Here are the albums credits which include Clapton:
In general, if I liked something in the 1960s or 1970s, I like it now. Same for things I didn’t like. I have really elevated my opinion of the Byrds. Their contribution to country rock, psychedelic rock and country rock is large. This is a good documentary. I assume it has been shown on Axstv which airs programs with the same participants. I think part of the reason I was not a big fan is that I didn’t (then and now) like their first big hits “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn”.
I saw Loggins and Messina and Jim Croce on March 13, 1973 at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh. The Mosque was a great concert hall and I have posted about it.
Jim Croce was the opening act. He was much more of a folk musician than you would know from his hit records. I assume all of the rock background was added on the record to make them more popular with a wider audience. On stage, it was just him and Maury Muehleisen who accompanied him. They both died in a plane crash on September 20, 1973 They both played acoustic guitars. Croce told a lot of stories and was very amusing as I recall.
Loggins and Messina had released two albums by that point. They toured with a full band. I don’t recall much except that Jim Messina stood off to the side when he did guitar solos.
Here are videos of them from 1973.
The Beach Boys played the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh on April 17, 1974, with Steely Dan as the opening act. Now that was a strange combination.
Steely Dan was introduced by one of their roadies as Mr. Steely Dan. See the description here of a similar introduction.. They had two drummers but no horn section. On “My Old School”, they used a guitar to cover the horn parts.
The Beach Boys had 10 people on stage but Brian Wilson wasn’t one of them. At one point, they had five people playing keyboards. The audience was not interested in their modern work, they only wanted to hear the oldies like “Fun Fun Fun”. This was sad as the Beach Boys were making some good music in the 1970s which built on their old stuff but was more sophisticated.
The photo at the bottom is of a backstage pass for the show that I bought on eBay:
This is a Beach Boys show from that era.
Here’s a Steely Dan show from 1974.
Here are five albums that were very disappointing based on their predecessors. I have included my favorite songs from the albums which make them sound better than they are.
Wake of the Flood – The Grateful Dead (1973)
Wake of the Flood was the Grateful Dead’s first studio album since the outstanding American Beauty (1970). It was the first record on their own label. It followed the live Europe ’72 which had many excellent new songs. Wake only has one good song – the first one “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” (with Vassar Clements on fiddle). Some of the others are so laid-back that you could fall asleep – I’m talking about “Stella Blue” and “Row Jimmy”.
Try Bob Weir’s 1972 solo album Ace. It’s much livelier and much better.
Cahoots – The Band (1971)
Even the Band knew Cahoots was a bad album. I saw them perform three times after it was released and they only performed “Life Is a Carnival” from it. That’s the only song from it on the live Rock of Ages which was recorded just months after Cahoots was released. There are two good songs on Cahoots – “Life Is a Carnival” with the great Allen Toussaint horn arrangement and Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece”. My opinion hasn’t budged in the 50 years since it was released. It was a huge disappointment after the first three albums and I doubt it will get a deluxe reissue like they did.
Common One – Van Morrison (1980)
What a disappointment. 1979’s Into the Music was one of Morrison’s best album and Common One is best suited to be a frisbee. Sluggish and quiet. Boring.
Goats Head Soup – The Rolling Stones (1973)
Maybe your opinion of Goats Head Soup depends on what you think of the single “Angie”. I don’t like ballads and I think it sucks. This was a huge letdown after the superb 1968-1972 run from Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main Street.
Diamonds in the Rough – John Prine (1972)
“Diamonds in the Rough is kind of miscast on this list. The performances and arrangements by Prine backed by Steve Goodman, David Bromberg and Steve Burgh are superb. They take Prine’s acoustic performances and sweeten them up for mass consumption. I wish this group had recorded his first album which has too much rock for me. The problem is that the songs aren’t nearly as good as the ones on his debut. “Everybody” is the only one that can stand with them.
Sad! 