Well. pigs are flying over the glaciers of Hell with the Saints now set for the Superbowl and the Who Dat Nation gone international, at least according to one comment here of support from. . . France. So, I guess it should be no surprise that I have been doing some unexpected things in my "spare time" (what a joke that term is) that are turning up on other websites. It probably won't be a common occurrence - so check these out for some different slants on the HOTG mission.
My survey of New Orleans Guitarists of note (not all of 'em, surely, but quite a few) is currently available for perusal at the Jemsite Blog. You might recall Ms Ava interviewed me there last month, and I thank her for asking me back.
If that were not enough (and some of you may think it is way more), I have actually been captured on video spouting off about old records and other HOTG lore. Last month, I met a production crew from the NPR radio show State of the Re:Union, who were planning to kick off their new podcast series, Sounds of the Re:Union, with a show on New Orleans music. To prep, they had been listening to the HOTG webcast and getting a few suggestions from me about where to go and who to see; and, for some reason, they wanted to see me, too. So, I suggested that we visit a true musical treasure house, Jim Russell's Rare Records, which has been open to the public since the late 1960s. It's a local institution. With the permission of the management, we did our talking standing amidst the shelves and tables piled with vinyl, record players, eight-tracks and CDs. Other segments of the show will include, I believe, their visits to the Tulane Jazz Archives, the Louisiana Music Factory, and the Hi-Ho Lounge, plus various additional interviews they got around town.
UPDATE [2/3/2010}: The podcast was supposed to be available yesterday; but the SOTRU folks contacted me to say that they will delay that a bit, as they have decided to expand it into a 30 minute special. When the entire show is ready, it will be available at their website and on YouTube; and I'll let you know when that happens.
In the meantime, they are giving y'all a sneak peek at my little segment of the show for a limited time via YouTube. This is a lot easier to access than the earlier link to a high resolution download. Through the miracle of creative editing, they have made me appear coherent as I utter actual journalistic sound bites about topics related to New Orleans music. Wonder if I can get 'em to help edit da blog. . . .
Thanks to Brenton and the crew for the opportunity to help out (hope they considered it help, anyway) and for their enthusiasm for featuring New Orleans music on their first show. I look forward to seeing the whole thing when they get it updated. Future shows will focus on music from other areas of the country (write them at their website and give 'em some ideas on that); but, I hope they'll come back down at some point, as they now know that there is so much more to see and hear.
Based on the premise that the true Home of the Groove, at least on the North American landmass, is the irreplaceable musical and cultural nexus, New Orleans, Louisiana and environs, this audioblog features rare, hard to find, often forgotten, vintage New Orleans-related R&B and funk records with commentary. Some general knowledge of N.O. music is helpful here, but not required to get your groove on.
Based on the premise that the true Home of the Groove, at least on the North American landmass, is the irreplaceable musical and cultural nexus, New Orleans, Louisiana and environs, this audioblog features rare, hard to find, often forgotten, vintage New Orleans-related R&B and funk records with commentary. Some general knowledge of N.O. music is helpful here, but not required to get your groove on.
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Love it and all the Skip Easterling action!
ReplyDeleteVery nicely done Dan! I think one of the hardest things in the world is to not look/sound like an idiot while in front of a camera...which you most certainly did not.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify something....I was under the impression that Earl King WAS signed to Motown for a time. Is that incorrect?
I'm asking cause the clip says no artists from N.O. were signed.
ana..
Well, ana, I talked for about an hour straight; and they cut it down to a couple of minutes - and were kind enough to make me, as you say, not look like an idiot, just kinda goofy, but, hey, dat's hard to hide!
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right, and would win the weekly door prize, if HOTG had one, with your observation that Motown certainly DID sign Earl King. That was a factoid I laid on 'em that they messed up. What probably confused them was that I said that Motown never released anything on Earl. Earl did record some songs for them, but they stayed in the can. Gordy had him under contract for five years, and Earl couldn't release anything under his own name in New Orleans during the time. That's why he did all that production work with Quezergue for Watch with Fess, and all, and sang on "Big Chief" and some others uncredited.
Glad you are paying attention. I was wondering who would pick up on that. These small but important facts can get lost when the generalizations start to flow, as they necessarily do on a video clip that tries to cover years of history in a couple of sound bites. At least it is to their credit that they played up the Smokey Johnson angle, as he really did have more of an influence on the Motown sound than Earl King did.
Wikipedia link
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_King
says there are three Earl King songs from
the Motown days that were released on
Motown compilation Blue Evolution in 1996.
http://www.amazon.com/Motowns-Blue-Evolution-Various-Artists/dp/B000006K51
Haven't heard them, don't know anything else about them ...