Cool Hand Luke Paroled Today

Academy-Award Winning Actor Paul Newman Dies at 83

Requiescat in Pace.

"It's Only Make Believe"

The old video to this end of the fifties rock scene masterwork was a little too washed out, so I pulled up the tape of the first time I saw Conway Twitty do "It's Only Make Believe." Not only did this rather unremarkable kid (later Conway) go to school with my Mom, made me believe understand that serious rock and rock from the 50s contained a cohort of very cool musicians who dumped rock when they saw what was coming.

This clip is from Michelob (Anheuser-Busch's) "Night Music" series, hosted by David Sanborn with an eclectic studio musician house band that can blow your socks off and leave your shoes tied:

It's A Little Too Ironic, and No, I Never Would Have Figured

Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt: "For A Dancer" (Turn it Up!))

The definitive cover of the most important song Jackson Browne ever. The "Western Wall" studio sessions cut is cleaner, but this live version has something a studio cut can never ever have again: these two angelic voices untouched and doing their sacred magic -- and Buddy Miller runnin' the band just to make sure everything behind these vocalists is letter perfect.

"We Can Be Heroes, Just for One Day"

**

Original Video (partial), Studio Version of Heroes recorded in Berlin (1977)

Here, with Brian Eno co-producing, Tony Visconti producing and engineering, and Bowie doing his thing with an East Berlin Guard Tower in the studio window bringing the Cold War Berlin tension right into the tracks, The Artist formerly know as David Jones recreates the audio universe.

The touring band hit Baton Rouge with this riff live and washed the town into the river -- I'm still swimming towards the top to get some fresh air.

Essential with a bullet.

From Sublime Stratocaster Prowess to Texas Flood Blues in a Hurricane: SRV

"It took me quite a while to realize that THE REAL DEAL is to be enough of a person on your own to know when somebody loves you and cares about you."
(-- Stevie Ray Vaughn)

Starting today, we will be mainlining Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble as our September Featured Artist on my black jukebox in the left column here. Today we start with with two peaceful electric cuts, SVR covering Hendrix' Little Wing in the YouTube live clip above, and Tin Pan Alley (The Roughest Place) as the lead cut on my jukebox. Each day I will add a cut filling in the raw power he holds in check with today's sublime warm up masterpieces.

Fasten your electric blues-rock safety belts. Nobody of his era shredded notions of what was possible on a Strat the way Texas-born SRV did.

SRV, as immortal as your music is, we miss you. Another victim of the road.

[Editor's Note, 18Jun2011: The black jukebox referred to above is lost to the blog-o-sphere.]

James Brown in a "Cold Sweat" Over You, Girl!

*******