Bloggerhythms

Charlie Feathers (1932 - 1998) began his career at Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service as a session musician, but the Mississippi born rocker wanted to make his own records. Eventually, Phillips granted the wannabe rock 'n roll star his wish. Unfortunately, the pioneering studio owner was never enamored with the records the quite determined singer-guitarist made at Sun. The highlight of his Sun years came when he demoed a song at the request of the label's engineer, Stan Kesler, who wrote "I Forgot To Remember To Forget" for Elvis Presley. For this, Feathers was rewarded with a composing credit on the record. Despite Phillips' reticence, Feather's Sun work was good enough to get him noticed elsewhere, and he eventually moved on to other record companies including King Records in Cincinnati, Ohio where he recorded eight songs released on four 45 rpm singles in 1956 and 1957. They were eventually compiled on a brief, nineteen-min...

This review first appeared here back in September 2011. Because that was a long time ago, and today is Easter Sunday, I'm resurrecting it with both of its original comments. It has been updated slightly. Andrew Lloyd Webber's detractors will throw his later Broadway musicals in your face every chance they get, but in 1970 Webber was a hot commodity in the rock music world. That was the year he and lyricist Tim Rice put together one of the greatest rock albums of all time, Jesus Christ Superstar . For those of you unfamiliar with Superstar the double LP was one of the very early rock operas and it taught many music lovers unschooled in the ancient genre what it was all about. Superstar was a true opera, not a musical. It possessed the characteristics of most classic operas: no spoken dialogue, clearly defined characters whose parts were sung by specific voices, reoccurring musical themes, a cohesive story, and a libretto. However, there were two major differences betwee...

Larry Kirwan in concert The exact date of Bloggerhythms' birth is unknown because some of its very early posts have been revised and republished using more recent dates. Regardless, to commemorate its twentieth anniversary this month here's the story of how this little outpost on the web began. With the cooperation of alternative music radio station  WXPN-FM in Philadelphia this article was first posted here on August 1, 2007 for an on-air event they were sponsoring that summer. It too has been updated. Most people do not get to meet the musicians they love the most. However, on the night of March 1, 2001 I got lucky. I met, shook hands, and interviewed Larry Kirwan, the former leader and co-founder of the since disbanded, Irish-American rock band,  Black 47 , before a concert at Finnegan's Wake in Philadelphia. This all came about in a rather odd way. After discoverin...

Sometimes it's best not to make an album. That's sad, because The Byrds - the justifiably much-loved and highly influential folk-rockers who rose to fame in 1965 - disappointed nearly everyone with their eponymous final album. I remember buying it on faith before I ever heard a note, and immediately upon listening to it I sided with the majority opinion. It was 1973, and the reunited original quintet hadn't worked together since 1966. Roger McGuinn , Chris Hillman,   David Crosby ,   Gene Clark, and Michael Clarke got the old band back together while McGuinn was still touring with his latest version of The Byrds that evolved from the original band. That outfit had long ago turned away from the sounds that initially made them stars into a group of full-blown country pickers that achieved only a modicum of commercial success. To me - just like The Beatles' White Album  - this eleven-song set sounded as if it was the work of individual si...

Because CDs possess a greater amount of space for music than other physical formats the people marketing them - be it the artist, the record company, or both - too often load their releases with unnecessary filler. I guess their thinking is, "Hey, we've got a lot of extra space available so there's no longer a need to keep the lesser tracks in a vault somewhere for possible use later. Let's just put it all out there." Because of this, CDs often play too long. Mostly, I don't need to hear an artist's unfinished demos or alternate takes they don't like but hope that we do. Most of the time there's a reason they landed on the cutting room floor. On the other hand, Portrait of a Legend 1951 - 1964 is an astounding thirty song compilation spanning Sam Cooke's entire career. The CD is over seventy-nine minutes long - meaning almost every available byte is used - and because all of the songs are worthy and wonderfull...