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This issue is dedicated to
Handsome Ned, who passed away 20 years ago today, Jan. 10, 1987.
In this issue:
1. Handsome Ned
2. Video links
3. Events
4. Tune Your World: buy music, help Africa
5. Website updates
6. Billy Joe Shaver
7. K'Naan
1. HANDSOME NED
I saw "In Memoriam" notices recently in the
Star and Globe for Ned, who passed away 20 years ago today.
Ned, whose real name was Robin Masyk was the one who first brought country
and rockabilly music to Queen Street (and to the airwaves on his CKLN radio
show).
I was happy to have known Ned, occasionally
seeing him perform, and even working for a brief time with him. His heart
was in his music, but he spent his days sorting and packing library cards,
while wearing his huge straw cowboy hat, and always his huge warm smile.
Every time I see a picture of him now, with his hat and his smile, I still
miss him.
2. VIDEO "LIBRARY":
http://to-music.ca/music_lib.htm
New on my website: a page with links to
some of the best music videos (and a few audio links) I've found over the
past few months. Most of these come from YouTube. Some of the highlights
include:
- Seasick Steve: a real blues original.
- James Brown: I'd already posted some
video links in my appreciation of him, but I've now added a link where
you can download his entire Sep. 1974 Kinshasha, Zaire concert (prior to
Muhammed Ali's "Rumble in the Jungle")
- Knock-out performances by Sly & The
Family Stone and Etta James
- 1983 performance by King Sunny Ade
- Bessie Smith in her 1929 film, St.
Louis Blues
- The Collins Kids: teenage rockabilly
stars in the 50's. You have to see them to believe them!
- Great blues performances by Howlin'
Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell
- Some moving songs by Billy Joe Shaver,
and a wide variety of performances from the Austin City Limits TV show
- The worst music video ever?
- An Ivory Coast ad for mosquito spray
Lots more are posted, and more to come...
3. EVENTS:
http://to-music.ca/events.htm
An extensive event update is now posted,
covering events through May. Click the link above for details of the shows
below and more. A few highlights:
This Saturday has a great selection of
music:
2-4 pm, Adam Solomon at the
opening reception of the art exhibit, "African Images" at Oakwood
Village Library, 341 Oakwood Ave., north of St. Clair.
2-5pm: Donné Roberts and his
band play and help Ilse Lichtenberg celebrate her birthday at her store,
Earthsong World Gifts Music Art and Crafts, 2448 Kingston Rd. Free...
plus birthday cake!
8pm: "Canzoni del Sud" (Songs of
the South). The latest project by African Guitar Summit producer, Todd
Fraracci, it includes The Sicilian Jazz Project with Michael Occhipinti
and others interpreting the 1954 Sicilian field recordings by
musicologist Alan Lomax through jazz. Also features music by Alessandra
Belloni, "acclaimed s one of the greatest percussionists in the world",
with her unique and passionate performance. Glenn Gould Studio. $30-$35
Finally, Small World Music presents
Trio Kavkasia at the Church of the Holy Trinity. An impressive
Georgian acapella group. See also NOW's
4-star review of their latest CD.
Other events include:
Jan. 26: Memorial night for Boubacar
Diabate at NOW Lounge, with a lengthy list of local African
musicians
Feb. 3: Tamsir Seck at Earthsong,
2-5 pm. Free, but there will be an opportunity to make a donation to
Tamsir's ancestral village, which has suffered from a recent fire.
(NOTE: This event was originally scheduled for Jan. 27)
Feb. 7-8: Kevin Mahogany at the
Lula. Great jazz vocalist performing with The Art of Jazz Orchestra and
guests Jane Bunnett and Don Thompson.
Feb. 10: Vieux Farka Touré at
Harbourfront. This may be one of the highlights of the year's African
music performances. See John Goddard's Dec. 28 article: Dec. 28:
"New
flame lights old world torch"
Feb. 16-17: Odetta at Hugh's
Room
Feb. 25: Adam Solomon & Tikisa:
"Oscar Goes to Africa": a benefit Oscar-watching night for the Stephen
Lewis Foundation
Looking further ahead:
Apr. 14: Bettye LaVette and Blind
Boys of Alabama
May 1: Konono #1
May 11: Ba Cissoko
4.
TUNE YOUR WORLD:
http://news.calabashmusic.com/world/tuneyourworld?
An interesting new initiative from Calabash Music (the best source
for online world music).
"At least 50% (in some
cases 100%) of your purchase will go to African Artists, or an
African relief NGO and stay in Africa. With this money, musicians
will be able to buy new instruments, recording or performing
equipment, complete their education, or put a new roof on their
house. Together we can create a thriving music economy in places
where the music industry has never worked very well. We are starting
in Africa and we will be moving to other parts of the world as our
work progresses."
5. OTHER WEBSITE UPDATES
On this page, I've
added some items to my appreciations of :
- Ahmet Ertegun (The audio archive from
CBC's As It Happens features Ertegun talking about Ray Charles,
as well as interviews with Jerry Wexler and Solomon Burke about Ertegun).
- James Brown: the link to download his
Kinshasha concert (see video note above), a remembrance by a former
manager of his, and a description of his Grand Ole Opry performance
Best of the Year (2006)
Some updates from other sources, including Songlines magazine's
picks, "Metacritics" (a wide variety of critics picks), and updates from
No Depression magazine.
Quotes
A few musical quotes that may entertain.
6. BILLY JOE SHAVER
Visitors to my website and readers of this
newsletter will know that I consider Shaver to be one of the greatest living
American songwriter / singers. (See www.to-music.ca/bjs.htm). A few Shaver
updates:
a) Another wedding:
Billy Joe got re-married on Oct. 13. This
was his fifth marriage, but as always, he does these things his own way:
-- Five marriages, but to only two women.
(He married his first wife three times; she died in 1999).
-- The wedding ceremony was officiated by
Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.
-- He cracked a vertebrae while leg wrestling with a wedding guest, and
has had to cancel all performances since then.
b) Book
A new book (True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed, by Monte
Dutton), has a nice mini portrait of Shaver. "That voice! ... like everything
else about him, is too good for radio. Radio can't understand him. Radio
doesn't get it."
You can read the Shaver section
here. Enter "Billy Joe Shaver" under the "search inside this book box". Click
on the Page 208 link.
c) Billy Joe on YouTube:
From 1984, a younger Billy Joe, and a painfully young Eddy Shaver
(his son who died of a drug overdose in 2000), performing his classic
"Black Rose" ("The devil made me do it the first time / The second time I
done it on my own").
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OT3xxoyYlr4
Next, from July 2006 in North Carolina,
Billy Joe performs two songs in memory of Eddy. After talking about his
son's death, he advises young people, "If you tempt God long enough, he'll
take you... Be very careful". He then performs, virtually solo "Star of
my Heart".
http://youtube.com/watch?v=AI1NgMvlUk0
He follows that with a song he co-wrote
with Eddy, "Live Forever". Those two songs are particularly moving today, as
it was heroin that also claimed Handsome Ned's life.
I really believe Billy Joe Shaver is one of
the most moving, honest musicians we have.
7. K'NAAN
In my
December 1 newsletter, I
expressed surprise at the violent statements K'Naan made in his latest
video. John Goddard
takes up
the same issue in the Jan. 4 Toronto Star.
John Leeson
www.to-music.ca
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