Bloggerhythms

Medleys are a group of unrelated, short songs that are joined together when played. The majority of side two of The Beatles' Abbey Road  is a significant example. Suites are different. They're also a group of individual songs or movements played together, but they are related to each other in some way. Audio Apartment  defines a suite as:  "an ordered set of individual pieces or movements tied together by themes or tonalities." According to the website CLRN :  "The concept of a suite dates back to the Baroque period, and it has evolved over time to incorporate various styles, forms, and instruments." By the late 1960s suites became part of the burgeoning, eclectic pop and rock music scene. It was a device frequently employed by The Moody Blues and Chicago in their early years, but one of the most prominent examples was the second single by the wonderfully talented composers and harmonizers, Crosby, Stills & Nash. ...

I wasn't at Woodstock but here are my thoughts on the historic festival. I was only sixteen that summer of 1969. I didn't have a car or my driver's license yet, and I had no other means of getting to Max Yasgur's farm in rural Bethel, NY. Nor did I know anyone from my hometown or high school who ventured there for the infamous three day event. Even if I had been able to catch a ride with someone neither one of my usually easy-going parents would have allowed me to go. I don't blame them. It's fine that I wasn't there. I would have been miserable. I've never been a fan of standing in the rain or wallowing in mud, not bathing, going without adequate bathroom facilities, a lack of food, smoking mind altering plants or ingesting harmful chemicals. I was too straight for Woodstock but I was deeply fascinated by the whole 60s counterculture movement as a sideline spectator. A lot of it had to do with the music. I've ...

One of the things I miss about music today is the protest song. Today's rap crap is frequently too full of violent, misogynistic lyrics (OK, you've made a good point, The Rolling Stones' songs were often full of that stuff too). The current crop of self-absorbed, singer-songwriters - as excellent as many of them are - can not be mistaken for real folk or protest singers even though folk is the genre where a lot of their musical influences were schooled. It's not that there isn't anything left to say and nobody around to say it. Jackson Browne's 2014 album,  Standing In The Breach , is a very politically and socially aware album. The dearly departed Celtic-rock band, Black 47, also frequently walked in Browne's territory over their twenty-five year existence. Their final CD, Last Call (also 2014), took on illegal immigration. In 2008 they recorded an entire disc about the war in Iraq and they were impo...

I've always been a sucker for almost any music that came out of the Laurel Canyon. The harmonies that emanated from many Southern California folk-rockers who lived, worked and thrived there will always have a place in the musical part of my heart. To this day the vocal sounds of artists like The Beach Boys, The Mamas and The Papas, Eagles and Crosby, Stills and Nash always have me listening in awe at how people can sing so beautifully together. CSN had three distinct personalities. Stephen Stills rocked out more than his two bandmates, Graham Nash was the pop tunesmith, and David Crosby was the one who wrote songs that were the most out-of-the-mainstream. It was true even when the trio was joined by Neil Young. Nevertheless, when their voices blended together it was a thing of beauty.  "Guinevere," "Wooden Ships," "Déjà Vu," "Almost Cut My Hair," "Shadow Captain" and "Long Time Gone," were just som...

Every time I tell myself that the music I love the most earned my affection only because it was the soundtrack of my generation - and not because it's superior to what followed - I have an experience like the one I had on Saturday night and I get defensive of the classic rock era all over again. That experience was Graham Nash. The two-time hall of famer played a two hour set of music that spanned his entire career. He played acoustic guitar, harmonica, electric piano, and regaled us with a lot of stories. Nash's only sideman, Shane Fontayne, supplied electric guitar while harmonizing eloquently with the star all evening. Fontayne has also played lead for Sting and Bruce Springsteen as well as serving as the second lead guitarist for Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He also worked with Joe Cocker, Chris Botti, and Marc Cohn and recently released his first solo album. The Blackpool, UK native opened the show with two Hollies' songs, "Bus Stop" and "King Midas I...

By 1977, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash had not released a studio album as a threesome since their eponymous debut in 1969 or together with Neil Young since Deja Vu in 1970. When they finally issued CSN during the Jimmy Carter Administration it became a major hit even though it's never been held in as high esteem as their two earlier LPs. However, it was good enough to prove there was still a demand for the kind of music they made almost a decade earlier. CSN , with the smiling trio on the cover masking their ever present behind the scenes turmoil, was the last album for seventeen years that would show them to be a functioning, self-contained unit. So, it's amazing that with just three LPs from their golden era (nothing they ever did together after this album would come close to matching the artistic achievements or popularity of these three) that this band became legendary as one of the greatest in rock history. Why? Because the trio is so supremely tal...

In short, Graham Nash's Wild Tales is one of the best musical autobiographies I ever read. To his credit the singer-songwriter used a lot less ink than Keith Richards needed to tell his tale while offering us many riveting details about his personal life and solo career, as well as the careers and lives of The Hollies, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Mama Cass Elliott, Joni Mitchell, and a whole lot more. Nash grew up very poor in Manchester, England but unlike a lot of kids in his situation his home life was relatively stable with two parents who loved him even though his father was eventually imprisoned for theft (unfortunately it appears he was innocent). An interesting pre-Hollies anecdote is about a 1959 battle of the bands that featured a lot of up and coming British rockers including Nash and his best friend from childhood, Allan Clarke, with whom he would eventually form The Hollies. This is where the two teenagers first encountered three Liverpool kids who...