Tag: folk music

Love Ballad for the Social Distancing Age

Top video is not video (just a picture of the late, great, much-missed Mr. Goodman when he was young, hirsute, and a tad chunky). I heard Steve’s version of this before I ever heard Prine’s.

Second video is the song’s writer John Prine, live. According to this article, if I read aright, this performance was in the Autumn of 2019. He got old, voice not what it was.

So, I’ve included a third not-video of John Prine, with the distinctive voice I remember. If you’re not tired of the song by then.

Steve Goodman — Donald And Lydia
Apr 29, 2015 – 4:51

Producer: Kris Kristofferson
Producer: Norbert Putnam
Composer, Lyricist: Prine Continue reading “Love Ballad for the Social Distancing Age” →

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Lou Johnson – Always Something / Ky Bluebird

Hierominous Botch on A♠

I heard Naked Eyes’ “Always Something There To Remind Me” on the radio the other day, and found myself wondering whether the original version was by Dionne Warwick or whether it was a much older song. So I looked it up.

Turns out it was written by Bacarach/David in 1963 as a demo for Warwick, but she decided not to record it. It first came out in 1964 done by Lou Johnson, cracking the top 40. Warwick finally did her version in ’67, and several other artists did successful versions in between.

Here’s Johnson performing it on American Bandstand, Halloween, 1964.

Lou Johnson “Always Something There To Remind Me” & “Kentucky Bluebird”
NRRArchives2 – Apr 26, 2013 – 7:24
American Bandstand. October 31, 1964. Lou Johnson performing two of his best songs with a brief interview inbetween.

Odetta – TV concert 1964, complete

Gazely Gaze6 – Aug 18, 2019 – 28:56
h/t Splunge on A♠
Odetta in concert, with Leslie Grinage and Peter Childs. She plays ‘Margaret Evans’, ‘Froggy’, ‘Grandma Dollar’, ‘Love Proved False’, ‘Carry It Home To Rosy’, ‘Another Man Done Gone’, ‘Sweet Potatoes Move Over’, ‘Mind on Freedom’ and more. Filmed on 5th December 1964 for Belgian TV ‘Face Au Public’ programme, Nicolas Résimont (Producer), Paul Roland (Director).

Wikipedia: Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”. Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time magazine included her recording of “Take This Hammer” on its list of the 100 Greatest Popular Songs, stating that “Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music.”