Guaranteed High Fidelity! - Daily postings on vintage classic rock, pop & techno music news, art, and videos . We also sell original music & audio gear themed t-shirts and accessories. Our design catalog & shop can be viewed at www.StereoLP.com
Described by his mother Molly as being tall, very tall, about six foot three. His shoulders were broad and his hips were extremely thin, what gave him an extremely elegant look, a very masculine body. But he always walked with his shoulders hunched up and always wore too small shoes. His clothes were also old and shabby, like he had slept with them. And he hated being tall and being so broad-shouldered. A friend once described him as being very charming and handsome, for devastating effects. This is Nicholas Rodney Drake, that was born in June 19th, 1948 in Ragoon, Burma. The reason for the exotic place is that his father, Rodney, was working for a british lumber firm and had been sent there after Gabrielle - Nick's sister, four years older - was born. In India he met Mary - or Molly - that was also there for working reasons, and they got married in the begining of the 40's. In 1952 the Drakes moved to Tanworth-In-Arden, a hamlet near Birmigham, in England. There they lived in a big brick house called Far Leys, which was a bit out of the downtown. That was the Drakes home for more than forty years.
Son of a rich family, Nick studied on the best schools of England. At the age of eight he was sent to Eagle House School, staying there until 1961, when he went to Malrborough, one of the most respected schools of that country. At this time he started studying music, learning the clarinet, the alto sax, the piano and the acoustic guitar. The latter a friend taught him playing it. He said that in six months Nick was better than him and could even teach him some things. At this time Nick was standing out as an athlete and his strong personality and his fine voice made him being the eminence of the school's choir. Although he has now the image of an unhappy and depressed young man, at this time he didn't show the depression signs that later would appear. His friends said that he was shy, but very happy and very pleasant. Nick stayed in Marlborough until 1966, when he started a trip with some friends to France and Morocco. This was a special time in Nick's life. He started writing songs and experimenting drugs such as marijuana and LSD. The legend says that they met The Rolling Stone in Morocco, being confounded with them. Returning to England, Nick lived for a while with his sister in London before going to Cambridge.
In October, 1967 Nick went to Cambridge to study English for three years. He had already composed a good material and sometimes played it to his friends, that got astonished with the songs' quality. In an anti-war festival in London, in the spring of 1968, Nick was discovered by Ashley Hutchings, bassist of Fairport Convention, that recomended him to Joe Boyd, producer who worked with the best english folk artists. Nick signed contract with Island Records and a year and a half later was released his first album, Five Leaves Left. In the summer of 1969 Nick decided to end his studies on Cambridge - against his father's will - to concentrate his attentions on his musical career. He went living in London, without a certain home. He was always living in different places and his friends described these places as not being a home. It was something temporary, without furniture and with old cartons of milk on the ground.
Besides the good things the press said, Five Leaves Left didn't sell well and the fact that Nick wasn't doing concerts helped in not increasing the numbers. Nick really did some gigs, but he didn't like doing that, he never felt confortable on stage. He was very shy and couldn't be atractive to the audience. And there was his songs, which were too complex to be played with a simple arragement. So he stopped doing gigs in the end of 1970. Besides Five Leaves Left didn't have sold well, Nick's potencial was enormous and so him and Joe Boyd bet everything on the next record, Bryter Layter, which took nine months to be prepared, because of his sofistication. Master-piece, it also was well-recieved by the press and also didn't sell well. This failure affected Nick, that started showing signs of depression.
In 1971 Nick went seeing a psychiatrist and he pescribed Tryptizol, an anti-depresssant. But he didn't show signs of a betterment. So Chris Blackwell, Island Records' boss, lent him his house in Spain. Nick stayed there for some weeks and returned feeling better, thinking in recording a new album. In the end of 1971 Nick contacted John Wood, sound engineer who worked on his two other albuns - and maybe the one who better knew Nick - and they entered the studio. In February 1972, Pink Moon was released. It was recorded only in two days. At the same time Nick decided to return living with his parents in Tanworth-In-Arden and gave up his musical career, saying that he wanted to write songs for other artists. There's not much accounts about his last days. It's known that he went to London when he was feeling better. But he was really bad, he stayed six weeks on a hospital because of depression, that made him stay without walking and even speaking. He also tried to enter in the army and work as a computer programmer, but both intentions failured. The end of his days seemed being a bit better, as long as in the begining of 1974 he worked on what could have been his fourth album. In this year he lived in Paris for a few months on a house-boat with some friends.
In November 25th, 1974, a monday, Molly was worried because was midday and Nick haven't wake up yet. She went to his room to know what was happening and discovered that her son was dead. If it was an accident or suicide, it's not known. The ones who believe in the accident say that, as an insomniac, Nick used to take an extra-dose of Tryptisol to get some sleep, and died because of a heart failure. The ones who believe in the suicide, say that he was depressed, so he killed himself. Besides his family and friends say that he would never do this and that he was cheerful the time right before his death, the coroner said that it was suicide. Other questions about him also stay without an answer: if he was or not schizophrenic, if he was or not gay, if he had or not an affair with the french chanteuse Françoise Hardy. What's known is that his music is getting more and more fans all over the world through the years because, even had died almost unknown, Nick was a genius and couldn't be unkown forever.
A Skin Too Few - A Nick Drake Documentary on Video
Nick Drake Documentary - A Skin Too Few - Part 1
Nick Drake Documentary - A Skin Too Few - Part 2
Nick Drake Documentary - A Skin Too Few - Part 3
Nick Drake Documentary - A Skin Too Few - Part 4
Nick Drake Documentary - A Skin Too Few - Part 5
Nick Drake Discography
A Treasury 2004 Made To Love Magic 2004 Way To Blue: An Introduction To Nick Drake 1994 Time Of No Reply 1979 Pink Moon 1972 Bryter Layter 1970 Five Leaves Left 1969
Wiki info can be found here --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Drake
Rock On Music Lovers!!
-Stereo
If you liked this article then make sure you subscribe to the feed via RSS It's Free. You can also follow me on Twitter too!
1968 Love Affair: Everlasting Love UK 45 1970 Edison Lighthouse: Love Grows UK 45 1970 Jackson Five: I Want You Back US 45 1976 Abba: Mamma Mia UK 45 1976 Roy Orbison: The Very Best of Roy Orbison UK LP 1981 Blondie: The Tide Is High US 45 1998 Janet : Together Again : US single 1999 Armand Van Helden : You Don't Know Me : UK single
Births
1914 Cyril Stapleton (UK band leader) 1921 Mario Lanza (tenor) 1928 Chuck Willis (C.C. Rider) 1946 Terry Kath (Chicago) 1951 Harry Wayne Casey (KC and the Sunshine Band) 1951 Phil Manzannera (Roxy Music) 1956 John Lydon (Johnny Rotten - Sex Pistols) 1961 Lloyd Cole (Commotions) 1966 Alan Jaworski (Jesus Jones) 1967 Jason Cooper (The Cure) 1981 Justin Timberlake (N'Sync)
Deaths
1970 Slim Harpo (US blues performer)
Various
1965 P.J. Proby's trousers split onstage at Ritz Cinema, Luton.
1970 The Band LP hits UK chart.
1970 Jackson Five debut on UK chart with I Want You Back.
1971 Aretha Franklin sings memorial song at the funeral of Mahalia Jackson.
1972 Joan Baez awarded gold record for three-year-old LP Any Day Now, an LP of Bob Dylan songs.
1976 10CC's How Dare You hits UK LP chart.
1979 Clash begin major American tour, with Bo Diddley supporting.
1981 Neil Diamond hits US Hot 100 at No. 32 with Hello Again (on way to No. 6)
1998 The "Come Together" benefit concert becomes an E Street Band reunion, with Max Weinberg, Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons joining in. The show, held at a small New Jersey theatre, was a benefit for the family of Sgt. Patrick King, a Long Branch, NJ, police officer killed in the line of duty. It turns into a 3 1/2 hour jam with Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny, Little Steven and other New Jersey musicians.
Rock On Music Lovers!!
-Stereo
If you liked this article then make sure you subscribe to the feed via RSS It's Free. You can also follow me on Twitter too!
Born: July 15, 1947 in Dallas, Texas, United States
Like Syd Barrett, a common point of reference, Roky Erickson rose to cult-hero status as much for his music as for his tragic personal life; in light of his legendary bouts with madness and mythic drug abuse, the influence exerted by his garage-bred psychedelia was often lost in the shuffle. Born Roger Kynard Erickson on July 15, 1947, in Dallas, TX, he began playing the piano at age five; by age 12, he had also taken up the guitar. The child of an architect and would-be opera singer, Erickson dropped out of high school to become a professional musician. In 1965, he penned his most famous composition, "You're Gonna Miss Me," which he first recorded with a group called the Spades. The song and his high, swooping tenor brought him to the attention of another area band, the psychedelia-influenced 13th Floor Elevators, whose lyricist and jug player Tommy Hall invited Erickson to join; the Elevators soon cut their own version of "You're Gonna Miss Me," and took the single to number 56 on the pop charts in 1966.
The record's success earned the 13th Floor Elevators a deal with International Artists, but as their fame grew, so did their notoriety with local law enforcement officials, who took exception to the group's heavy experimentation with (and public support of) marijuana and LSD. The Elevators became the subject of considerable police harassment, and after Erickson was arrested for the possession of one lone joint in 1969, he pleaded insanity to avoid a prison term. A three-and-a-half year stint in the state's Hospital for the Criminally Insane followed; Erickson was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and subjected to extensive electroshock therapy, Thorazine, and other psychoactive treatments.
Though released from the hospital in 1973, Erickson was never the same person; he returned to performing with a new band, the Aliens, but his songs -- a series of horror film-influenced records including "Red Temple Prayer (Two-Headed Dog)," "Don't Shake Me Lucifer," and "I Walked With a Zombie" -- found little success. He did retain a devoted cult following, however, but his popularity was fully exploited by managers who took advantage of his instability to draw the singer into a series of unfair publishing contracts that resulted in a steady stream of unauthorized releases from which Erickson earned not a cent. In 1982 he signed a legal affidavit declaring that a Martian had taken residence in his body, and gradually disappeared from music as the decade wore on.
By the 1990s, Erickson was struggling to survive on a $200 monthly Social Security stipend; after an arrest on mail theft charges (later dropped), he was re-institutionalized. In 1990, however, artists like R.E.M., ZZ Top, John Wesley Harding, and the Jesus and Mary Chain recorded his songs for the album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, which brought his work to a wider audience than ever before. In 1993, Erickson performed publicly for the first time in many years at the Austin Music Awards; a few months later, he returned to the studio with guitarists Charlie Sexton and the Butthole Surfers' Paul Leary to record a number of new songs. In 1995, Leary's bandmate King Coffey released Erickson's All That May Do My Rhyme on his Trance Syndicate label; four years later, Trance issued Never Say Goodbye, a collection of rare private recordings or unreleased Erickson compositions. (Coffey claims Erickson told him he was the first person to ever give him a royalty check for his music.)
In 2001, Sumner Erickson, Roky's brother and a successful classical musician, obtained custody of Roky, who had fallen into poor health. Under Sumner's watch, Roky began receiving proper medical and dental care for the first time in years, as well as more effective treatment for his psychological problems. Sumner also set up a charitable trust to help finance his brother's care, and with the help of sympathetic lawyers attempted to sort out the legal red tape that prevented Roky from being paid for his music. A fit and relatively lucid Roky Erickson began making occasional public appearances in Austin, Texas, and in March 2005 Roky spoke as part of a panel discussion on the 13th Floor Elevators at the South by Southwest Music Conference. Roky also made a brief musical appearance with a reunited lineup of the Explosives, and a documentary on Erickson, You're Gonna Miss Me, premiered at the affiliated South by Southwest Film Festival. This burst of activity coincided with the release of I Have Always Been Here Before: The Roky Erickson Anthology, a two-disc career overview compilation. Halloween, a set of live recordings from 79-81 with the Explosives was released in early 2008. by Jason Ankeny
Various Videos Of Roky Erickson
13th Floor Elevators - Your Gonna Miss Me Live Video
Roky Erickson - Creature with the Atom Brain Live Video 1980
Roky Erickson - Two Headed Dog Live Video - 1980
Roky Erickson - Philosophy, Religion and Music Live Video
Rock On Music Lovers!!
-Stereo
If you liked this article then make sure you subscribe to the feed via RSS It's Free. You can also follow me on Twitter too!
1961 Shirelles: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow US 45 1964 The Searchers: Needles and Pins UK 45 1971 George Harrison: My Sweet Lord UK 45 1982 Barbra Streisand: Love Songs UK LP 1982 Hall and Oates: I Can't Go For That US 45 1988 Tiffany: I Think We're Alone Now UK 45 1988 INXS; Need You Tonight US 45 1999 Britney Spears : ..Baby One More Time : US single
Births
Happy Birthday Phil!!
1928 Ruth Brown 1941 Joe Terranova (Danny and the Juniors) 1942 Marty Balin (Jefferson Starship) 1947 Steve Marriott (Small Faces) 1951 Phil Collins (Genesis) 1961 Jody Watley (Shalamar)
Deaths
1980 Professor Longhair (blues musician) 1982 Sam 'Lightnin' Hopkins (blues musician)
Various
1954 Big Joe Turner hits US R&B chart with TV Mama.
1956 Elvis Presley records Blue Suede Shoes at RCA Studios in New York.
1956 Jerry Lee Lewis backs country and western/rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley at Sun session for Red Hot, his biggest hit.
1969 Beatles film and record Get Back on the roof of the Apple Building in Baker Street, London
1973 Kiss make their live stage debut at Coventry Club, Queens, New York.
1974 Greg Lake arrested for swimming nude in a Salt Lake City hotel pool, clearly visible from the street!
1988 Moving to No. 18, Everywhere gives Fleetwood Mac their fourth Top 10 single from Tango in the Night LP in US.
1990 Bob Dylan is honoured in France and becomes a commander in the Order of Arts and Letters.
Rock On Music Lovers!!
-Stereo
If you liked this article then make sure you subscribe to the feed via RSS It's Free. You can also follow me on Twitter too!
Neil Young is sometimes visionary, sometimes flaky, sometimes both at once, but he is seldom boring. Indeed, Young has weathered runs of critical and popular ambivalence only to be vindicated by being periodically "rediscovered" by younger musicians and fans. He has maintained a large following since the early 1970s with music in three basic styles — solo acoustic ballads, sweet country rock, and lumbering garage rock (with some experimental side trips), all topped by his high voice — and he veers from one to another in unpredictable phases. His subject matter also shifts from personal confessions to allusive stories to bouncy throwaways. A dedicated primitivist, Young is constantly proving that simplicity is not always simple.
Young, as a child, moved with his mother Rassy Ragland to Winnipeg, Canada, after she divorced his father Scott Young, a well-known sports journalist and author. Neil played in several high school rock hands, including the Esquires, the Stardusters, and the Squires. He also began hanging out in local folk clubs, where he met musicians Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell. Mitchell wrote "The Circle Game" for Young after hearing his "Sugar Mountain." In the mid-1960s Young moved to Toronto, where he began performing solo. In 1966 he and bassist Bruce Palmer joined the Mynah Birds (which included Rick James and had a deal with Motown Records); after that fizzled, he and Palmer drove to L.A. in Young's Pontiac hearse. Young and Palmer ran into Stills and another mutual friend, Richie Furay, out west and formed Buffalo Springfield, one of the most important new folk-country-rock bands, who recorded Young's "Broken Arrow," "I Am a Child," "Mr. Soul," and "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing." But friction developed: Young quit the band, only to rejoin and quit again, and in May 1968, after recording three albums, the band split-up.
Young acquired Joni Mitchell's manager, Elliot Roberts, and released his debut solo self-titled LP in January 1969, co-produced by Jack Nitzsche. Around the same time Young began jamming with a band called the Rockets, renamed Crazy Horse: drummer Ralph Molina, bassist Billy Talbot, and guitarist Danny Whitten. They backed Young on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Number 34, 1969), recorded in two weeks. The album contains three of Young's most famous songs: "Cinnamon Girl," "Down by the River," and "Cowgirl in the Sand," which Young later said were written in one day while he was stricken with the flu. The album went gold (and much later, platinum), but Young decided to split his time between Crazy Horse and Crosby, Stills & Young, whom he joined in June. In March 1970 his presence was first felt on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Déjá Vu.
Young's third solo album, the utterly evocative After the Gold Rush (Number 8, 1970), included Crazy Horse and 17-year-old guitarist Nils Lofgren. The album went gold and yielded the single "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" (Number 33, 1970), and that plus the CSN&Y album put the spotlight on Young. Harvest (Number One, 1972) was written largely while Young was recuperating from a slipped disc and recorded with a studio assemblage dubbed the Stray Gators; it featured the Number One single "Heart of Gold" and made the singer-songwriter a superstar.
By the release of their live album, Four Way Street, in spring 1971, CSN&Y had broken up. In 192 Young made a cinema vérité film, Journey Through the Past, directing under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey; the film and its soundtrack we're panned by critics. Young confused fans further with Time Fades Away (Number 22, 1973), a rough-hewn live album recorded with the Stray Gators, including Nitzsche (keyboards), Ben Keith (pedal steel guitar), Tim Drummond (bass), and John Barbata (drums). In June 1975 Young released a bleak, ragged album recorded two years earlier, Tonight's the Night (Number 25). The album's dark tone reflected Young's emotional upheaval following the drug deaths of Crazy Horse's Danny Whitten in 1972 and CSN&Y roadie Bruce Berry in 1973. In November 1975 Young released the harder-rocking Zuma (Number 25), with Crazy Horse, an emotionally intense work that included the sweeping "Cortez the Killer." Crazy Horse now included Talbot, Molina, and Frank "Poncho" Sampedro (rhythm guitar). In 1976 Young recorded Long May You Run (Number 26) with Stills, which went gold, but he left Stills halfway through a tour, informing him via telegram.
In June 1977 Young was back on his own with the gold American Stars 'n Bars (Number 21), again a more accessible effort, with Linda Rondstadt doing backing vocals along with newcomer Nicolette Larson. Compiled by Young, the three-LP Decade was a carefully chosen, not entirely hit-centered compilation. Comes a Time (Number 7, 1978) was folkish and went gold.
In fall 1978 Young did an arena tour called Rust Never Sleeps performing half the show on solo piano or guitar and the other half (which was memorably loud) with Crazy Horse, amid giant mock-ups of microphones and speakers. In June 1979 he released Rust Never Sleeps (Number Eight) with songs previewed on the tour, including "My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," which paid lyrical tribute to the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten. (The same song was reprised at the end, as "Hey Hey My My [Into the Black].") The album also featured "Sedan Delivery" and "Powderfinger," which Young had once offered to Lynyrd Skynyrd, though the band didn't record them. (Back in 1974 Skynyrd had written "Sweet Home Alabama" as an answer to Young's "Southern Man," from After the Gold Rush.) In November 1979 Young released the gold Live Rust (Number 15), a double-LP culled from the fall 1978 shows and the soundtrack to a film of the tour (directed again by "Bernard Shakey"), entitled Rust Never Sleeps.
The 1980s were a particularly strange and erratic decade for Young, even by his own unpredictable standards. Right before presidential election week in 1980, he issued Hawks and Doves (Number 30), an enigmatic state-of-the-union address, with one side of odd acoustic pieces and the other of rickety country songs. A year later he released Re*ac*tor (Number 27), an all-hard-rock LP. In 1982 he moved to Geffen and released Trans (Number 19), which introduced what Young called "Neil 2"; he fed his voice through a computerized Vocoder and sang songs like "Sample and Hold." He toured arenas as a solo performer when the album was released, singing his most-requested sogns, covering "backstage" action on a large video screen, and singing along with his Vocoderized video image on songs from Trans.
Young's wandering got more extreme with Everybody's Rockin', a rockabilly album recorded and performed with a group he dubbed the Shocking Pinks. Despite an amusing video for the song "Wonderin'," Young's work started sliding down the charts. Old Ways was a country record with guest spots by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Landing on Water used synthesizers on standard rock songs. Life reunited Young with Crazy Horse in lackluster performances. After his disastrous relationship with Geffen — in which he was ultimately slapped with a $3 million suit for making "unrepresentative," noncommercial music — Young returned to his former label Reprise for This Note's For You, a horn-based blues/R&B album. The video for the title song attacked rockers who allowed their songs to be used in TV ads and was not shown on MTV, although it earned the network's Music Video Award for Best Video of the Year. In 1987, after appearing with his old cohorts in CSN at a Greenpeace benefit, Young rejoined the group briefly for the 1988 CSN&Y album American Dream (Number 16). None of Young's 1980s albums was particularly well received beyond the artist's loyal core audience, though some — such as Trans— had captured critics' interest. Many wrote off his 1980s period as typical Neil Young flakiness.
But there were events n Young's personal life that shed light on his increased eccentricity. In 1978 his second son, Ben, was born to his wife Pegi, with cerebral palsy (in 1972, Young's first song, Zeke, was born to his then-companion, actress Carrie Snodgress, with a milder version of the disorder). Later, in a 1992 interview with The New York Times, Young said his 1980s output had reflected his frustration with not being able to communicate with Ben: "Trans signified the end of one sound and era and the beginning of another era, where I was indecipherable and no one could understand what I was saying."
Young's extramusical activities during the 1980s were as unpredictable as his albums. In 1984, to the bewilderment of his fans, he spoke out in favor of conservative Ronald Reagan. He also participated in the 1985 Live Aid benefit and helped organized the subsequent Farm Aid concerts. In 1986 Young and his wife started the Bridge School in San Francisco, a learning center for disabled children. In 1989 a group of alternative rockers, including Sonic Youth, the Pixies, and Dinosaur Jr., contributed to The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young, whose proceeds went to the school. Young also organized an annual benefit concerts for the school.
Hailed by a new generation of post-punk musicians as the Godfather of Grunge, Young had a major comeback beginning in 1989 with Freedom (Number 35), his biggest charter since Trans, as well as his biggest critical hit in a decade. He introduced its single, "Rockin' in the Free World," in an unbridled, transcendent 1989 performance on Saturday Night Live — one of the greatest moments in all of rock television. Young then regrouped Crazy Horse for Ragged Glory (Number 31, 1990), a raucous, lauded album. With raw, feedback- and distortion-drenched garage rock, the album proved the extent of Young's influence on younger alternative-rock bands such as Dinosaur Jr. and Pearl Jam. In 1991 he embraced the new generation of bands by taking noise-rockers Sonic Youth and Social Distortion on the road; the tour was documented on Weld (whose 35-minute instrumental companion Arc featured extended, noisy feedback jams). Young also began praising rap, particularly the music of Ice-T.
Reuniting him with members of the Stray Gators, Harvest Moon (Number 16, 1992) found Young doing his sentimental acoustic/folk songs again. A sequel to Harvest, it was his biggest seller in 13 years. In 1992 Young appeared at the 50th birthday celebration for Bob Dylan, covering Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "All Along the Watchtower." Released in 1993, Lucky Thirteen compiles Young's Geffen material, and Unplugged documents his live, acoustic performances following the release of Harvest Moon.
In 1994 Young contributed the haunting title song to Jonathan Demme's film Philadelphia, which was nominated for an Oscar. (Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia," also from the film, won.) Young also released Sleeps with Angels (Number 9, 1994), one of his strongest, most consistent, and critically lauded albums.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 by Eddie Vedder of Peral Jam, who thanked Young for teaching his band a lot about "dignity, commitment, and playing in the moment." The mutual admiration between the artists resulted in the collaboration Mirror Ball (Number 5, 1995), with Pearl Jam backing Young on his highest-charting album since 1972. The next year he was back with Crazy Horse for Broken Arrow (Number 31, 1996). Young recorded a haunting electric-guitar score for New York independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's 1996 film Dead Man. Jarmusch then made a documentary of Young, Year of the Horse, released in 1997. Footage from Young and Crazy Horse's 1996 tour was spliced together with older stock from 1976 and 1986; interviews with Young, band members, crew, and associates run throughout. A soundtrack album was also released. Young headlined the H.O.R.D.E. summer festival tour in 1997. In the late-1990s, Young, a lifelong model train enthusiast, bought the Lionel Toy Train company, reportedly to delight his son Ben.
In 2000 Young released Silver & Gold, a pensive, largely acoustic album featuring drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, Ben Keith on pedal steel and Dobro, and keyboardist Spooner Oldham. Also that year, writer Jimmy McDonough filed a $1.8 million suit against Young alleging that the singer refused to allow publication of a biography written by McDonough that Young originally authorized; the book came out in 2002 as Shakey to widespread praise. In November 2000, Young released Road Rock (Number 169), a live set featuring a duet with Chrissie Hynde on "All Along the Watchtower." In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, Young recorded a single, "Let's Roll," in tribute to the passengers and crew of Flight 93, and he performed a version of John Lennon's "Imagine" during a telecast benefitting victims of the attacks. "Let's Roll" appeared on 2002's Are You Passionate?, a low-key album with Booker T. & the MG's backing Young.
In 2003 he released Greendale, a concept album recorded with two-thirds of Crazy Horse (Sampedro sat out); he also made a film based on the album ("Bernard Shakey" directed again), and mounted a stage version that toured North America, Japan, and Australia. In March 2005, Young suffered a brain aneurysm and underwent a successful surgery. Around the same time, he wrote and began to record what became Prairie Wind, released late in September. The following year, Jonathan Demme's film of Young at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Heart of Gold, premiered and was released to theaters. In late April 2006, Young made Living with War, a blunt protest album, available on the Web before issuing the CD in early May; its songs included the unblinking "Let's Impeach the President." He also reunited with Crosby, Stills & Nash for a U.S. tour, during which Living with War was showcased in concert.
Young's "Archives" series — spanning his entire recording career, and highlighting the many discarded albums and live recordings Young made but never released — has been mooted for so long it's become a joke in rock circles. But in late 2006 he finally began to make good on the promise, releasing Live at the Fillmore East, a much-bootlegged show recorded in 1970; in March 2007, he released Live from Massey Hall 1971, an acoustic set at a theater in Toronto. Speaking of unreleased Neil Young albums, October 2007's – Chrome Dreams II not only featured a handful of songs Young had scrapped years earlier (notably "Ordinary People," an 18-minute monster from the late 1980s), it was also titled as a sequel to a 1977 album Young had never finished.
Various Videos Of Neil Young
Neil Young - Heart Of Gold Live Video
Neil Young - Down by the river Live Video(1969)
Neil Young - Like A Hurricane Live Video
The Neil Young - Needle & The Damage Done (live)
Rock On Music Lovers!!
-Stereo
If you liked this article then make sure you subscribe to the feed via RSS It's Free. You can also follow me on Twitter too!
1960 Michael Holliday Starry Eyed UK 45 1969 Fleetwood Mac: Albatross UK 45 1972 Various: Concert for Bangladesh UK LP 1977 Rose Royce: Car Wash US 45 1983 Men at Work: Down Under UK 45 1983 Men at Work: Business as Usual UK LP 1994 Chaka Demus and Pliers : Tease Me : UK LP
Births
1943 Tony Blackburn (DJ) 1947 David Byron (Uriah Heap) 1949 Tommy Ramone (Ramones) 1962 Marcus Verne (Living in a Box) 1961 Eddie Jackson (Queensryche) 1964 Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera)
Deaths
1992 Willie Dixon
Various
1942 First Desert Island Discs programme broadcast.
1958 Champs release Tequila in US; it reaches No. 1
1960 Bobby Darin's Beyond The Sea hits UK chart.
1962 Peter, Paul and Mary sign with Warner Brothers
1966 Bobby Fuller hits US chart with I Fought the Law, their only top 10 hit.
1967 Who and Jimi Hendrix play tribute concert to Brian Epstein at Marquee Club.
1972 Henry McCulloch joins Wings.
1978 Whitesnake formed by David Coverdale.
1979 Emerson, Lake and Palmer disband following financially disastrous tour of America.
1979 San Diego schoolgirl Brenda Spencer shoots and kills several of her school mates. Asked why, she says I Don't Like Mondays
1982 Gary Numan crash lands his Cessna light aircraft but escapes unhurt.
1983 Prince hits UK chart with Little Red Corvette.
1983 Stevie Nicks marries Kim Anderson.
1992 The14-year old son of Supremes singer Mary Wilson is killed when her jeep flipped over while driving outside of Los Angeles.
1996 Garth Brooks said that Hootie and the Blowfish had done more for music that year than he did, so he refused to accept his American Music Award for Favorite Overall Artist.
Rock On Music Lovers!!
-Stereo
If you liked this article then make sure you subscribe to the feed via RSS It's Free. You can also follow me on Twitter too!
Jimi Hendrix was one of rock's few true originals. He was one of the most innovative and influential rock guitarists of the late '60s and perhaps the most important electric guitarist after Charlie Christian. His influence figures prominently in the playing styles of rockers ranging from Robin Trower to Vernon Reid to Stevie Ray Vaughan. A left-hander who took a right-handed Fender Stratocaster and played it upside down, Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before Hendrix had experimented with feedback and distortion, but he turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began. His expressively unconventional, six-string vocabulary has lived on in the work of such guitarists as Adrian Belew, Eddie Van Halen, and Prince. But while he unleashed noise--and such classic hard-rock riffs as "Purple Haze," "Foxy Lady," and "Crosstown Traffic"--with uncanny mastery, Hendrix also created such tender ballads as "The Wind Cries Mary," the oft-covered "Little Wing," and "Angel," and haunting blues recordings such as "Red House" and "Voodoo Chile." Although Hendrix did not consider himself a good singer, his vocals were nearly as wide-ranging, intimate, and evocative as his guitar playing.
Hendrix's studio craft and his virtuosity with both conventional and unconventional guitar sounds have been widely imitated, and his image as the psychedelic voodoo child conjuring uncontrollable forces is a rock archetype. His songs have inspired several tribute albums, and have been recorded by a jazz group (1989's Hendrix Project), the Kronos String Quartet, and avant-garde flutist Robert Dick. Hendrix's musical vision had a profound effect on everybody from Sly Stone to George Clinton to Miles Davis to Prince to OutKast. Hendrix's theatrical performing style--full of unmistakably sexual undulations, and such tricks as playing the guitar behind his back (a tradition that went back at least to bluesman T-Bone Walker) and picking it with his teeth--has never quite been equaled. In the decades since Hendrix's death, pop stars from Rick James and Prince to Lenny Kravitz and Erykah Badu have evoked his look and style.
As a teenager growing up in Seattle, Hendrix taught himself to play guitar by listening to records by blues guitarists Muddy Waters and B.B. King and rockers such as Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran. He played in high school bands before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1959. Discharged in 1961, Hendrix began working under the pseudonym Jimmy James as a pickup guitarist. By 1964, when he moved to New York, he had played behind Sam Cooke, B.B. King, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, Ike and Tina Turner, and Wilson Pickett. In New York he played the club circuit with King Curtis, the Isley Brothers, John Paul Hammond, and Curtis Knight.
In 1965 Hendrix formed his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, to play Greenwich Village coffeehouses. Chas Chandler of the Animals took him to London in the autumn of 1966 and arranged for the creation of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with Englishmen Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums.
The Experience's first single, "Hey Joe," reached Number Six on the U.K. chart in early 1967, followed shortly by "Purple Haze" and its double-platinum debut album, Are You Experienced? (Number Five, 1967). Hendrix fast became the rage of London's pop society. Though word of the Hendrix phenomenon spread through the U.S., he was not seen in America (and no records were released) until June 1967, when, at Paul McCartney's insistence, the Experience appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival. The performance, which Hendrix climaxed by burning his guitar, was filmed by D.A. Pennebaker for the documentary Monterey Pop.
Hendrix's next albums were major hits (Axis: Bold as Love [Number Three, 1968], Electric Ladyland [Number One, 1968]) and he quickly became a superstar. Stories such as one reporting that the Experience was dropped from the bill of a Monkees tour at the insistence of the Daughters of the American Revolution became part of the Hendrix myth, but he considered himself a musician more than a star. Soon after the start of his second American tour, early in 1968, he renounced the extravagances of his stage act and simply performed his music. A hostile reception led him to conclude that his best music came out in the informal settings of studios and clubs, and he began construction of Electric Lady, his own studio in New York.
Hendrix was eager to experiment with musical ideas, and he jammed with John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, and members of Traffic, among others. Miles Davis admired his instinctiveness (and, in fact, planned to record with him), and Bob Dylan--whose "Like a Rolling Stone," "All Along the Watchtower," and "Drifter's Escape" Hendrix performed and recorded--later returned the tribute by performing "Watchtower" in the Hendrix mode.
As 1968 came to a close, disagreements arose between manager Chas Chandler and co-manager Michael Jeffrey; Jeffrey, who opposed Hendrix's avant-garde leanings, got the upper hand. Hendrix was also under pressure from Black Power advocates to form an all-black group and play to black audiences. These problems exacerbated already existing tensions within the Experience, and early in 1969 Redding left the group to form Fat Mattress. Hendrix replaced him with an army buddy, Billy Cox. Mitchell stayed on briefly, but by August the Experience was defunct. In summer 1969 the double-platinum Smash Hits (Number Six) was released.
In August 1969, Hendrix appeared at the Woodstock Festival with a large, informal ensemble called the Electric Sky Church, and later that year he put together the all-black Band of Gypsys--with Cox and drummer Buddy Miles (Electric Flag), with whom he had played behind Wilson Pickett. The Band of Gypsys' debut concert at New York's Fillmore East on New Year's Eve 1969 provided the recordings for the group's only album during its existence, Band of Gypsys (Number Five, 1970). (A second album of vintage tracks was released in 1986.) Hendrix walked offstage in the middle of their Madison Square Garden gig; when he performed again some months later it was with Mitchell and Cox, the group that recorded The Cry of Love (Number Three, 1971), Hendrix's last self-authorized album. With them he played at the Isle of Wight Festival, his last concert, in August 1970, a recording of which would see release in 2002. A month later he was dead. The cause of death was given in a coroner's report as inhalation of vomit following barbiturate intoxication. Suicide was not ruled out, but evidence pointed to an accident.
In the years since his death, the Hendrix legend has lived on through various media. Randi Hansen (who appeared in the video for Devo's 1984 cover of "Are You Experienced?") became the best known of a bunch of full-time Hendrix impersonators, even re-forming the Band of Gypsys with bassist Tony Saunders and Buddy Miles--who, briefly in the late '80s, was replaced by Mitch Mitchell.
Well over a dozen books have been written about Hendrix, including tones by both Redding and Mitchell; the most authoritative bio was generally considered to be David Henderson's 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, while Charles R. Cross's Room Full of Mirrors delves deepest into Hendrix's early years in Seattle. And virtually every note Hendrix ever allowed to be recorded has been marketed on over 100 albums, some of which mine his years as a pickup guitarist, various bootlegs and legitimate live concerts and jam sessions, and even taped interviews and conversations. A controversial series produced by Alan Douglas, who recorded over 1,000 hours of Hendrix alone at the Electric Lady studio in the last year of his life, garnered attention through the mid-'90s. With the consent of the Hendrix estate, Douglas edited the tapes, erased some tracks, and dubbed in others, with mixed results. Radio One collected energetic live-in-the-studio performances by Hendrix and the Experience recorded for British radio in 1967; the later BBC Sessions mined the same material more thoroughly.
In 1990 the first of several Hendrix tribute albums, If Six Was Nine, was released. Former Free/Bad Company/Firm vocalist Paul Rodgers released another tribute (The Hendrix Set, 1993) and appeared on the all-star Stone Free, which featured Hendrix covers from musicians ranging from Eric Clapton to Buddy Guy to the Cure to Ice-T to classical violinist Nigel Kennedy.
In 1991 Hendrix's ex-girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, along with Mitch Mitchell and his wife Dee, began prodding Scotland Yard to reopen an investigation into their friend's death. England's attorney general finally agreed to the request in 1993; in early 1994 Scotland Yard announced it had found no evidence to bother pursuing the case any further. In 1993 an audio-visual exhibit of Hendrix's work called "JimI Hendrix: On the Road Again" toured college campuses and art galleries in the U.S., to enthusiastic--and predominately young--audiences.
In 1994 a 24-year-old Swede named James Henrik Daniel Sundquist claimed to have been conceived by the guitarist and Eva Sundquist during a 1969 Stockholm sojourn. Sundquist legally challenged Hendrix's father, James "Al" Hendrix, as the sole heir to the Jimi Hendrix estate, which was estimated to be worth at least $30 million. A year earlier, Al Hendrix, who in the mid-'70s had signed away the rights to portions of his son's work to various international conglomerates, had claimed that he'd been misled. With the financial aid of Paul Allen, the billionaire Hendrix fan who'd cofounded Microsoft with Bill Gates, he filed a federal lawsuit against those conglomerates and against the holding companies and lawyers connected to the estate. In 1995 he regained complete control of his son's estate, which included Jimi Hendrix's finished and unreleased recordings, as well as his musical compositions. This evolved into a series of CD reissues that were remastered from the original tapes. Having re-released CDs of the guitarist's entire catalogue, the Hendrix estate, under the Experience Hendrix imprint of MCA, also issued the album on which Hendrix was working at the time of his death, First Rays of the New Rising Sun (Number 49, 1997). South Saturn Delta (Number 51, 1997) delved further into the archives. Experience Hendrix: The Best of Jimi Hendrix (Number 133, 1998) followed, as did the double-CD BBC Sessions (Number 50, 1998), the Band of Gypsys-era Live at the Fillmore East (Number 65, 1999), Live at Woodstock (Number 90, 1999), and, in 2000, the four-CD/eight-LP Jimi Hendrix Experience box set. (Several other live discs were made available through an online imprint, Dagger Records.) Meanwhile Paul Allen amassed his cash to fund a modest Jimi Hendrix museum, which eventually blossomed into the $100 million Experience Music Project. Eight years in the making, the high-tech, interactive rock & roll museum - complete with a Jimi Hendrix Gallery - opened at the Seattle Center in 2000.
Various Videos Of Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix- Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Live Video
Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Chile Live @ The Atlanta Pop Festival July 4, 1970
Jimi Hendrix - Foxy Lady - Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970
Jimi Hendrix with The Rolling Stones Backstage Jam
Jimi Hendrix Discography (Excerpt)
1990 Lifelines: The Jimi Hendrix Story 1990 Night Life 1989 Radio One 1987 Live at Winterland 1986 Jimi Plays Monterey 1984 Kiss the Sky 1975 Crash Landing 1970 Band Of Gypsys 1969 Smash Hits 1968 Electric Ladyland 1967 Axis: Bold As Love 1967 Are You Experienced?
