Last Thursday night Phil took me to Radio City Music Hall to see Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Ray Price – on their crazy fast tour of only 15 cities in 17 days – celebrating the latest album, “Last of the Breed,” complete with art work of setting sun. As Phil says, “with a combined age of 205,” these musicians can truly own the label, living legends.
I grew up on this music. On lazy Saturday afternoons, maybe it was 1975, my father thumbed through his record collection, pulled out vinyl and pointed out the rythms and melodies to me as I skipped in circles to the beat. To hear songs like “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Pick Me up, on Your Way Down” and “I Don’t Want to Sober up Tonight” last Tuesday, time warped me back 25 years, when my uncle played guitar on the beaches of the Northumberland Strait, and we’d sing “Heartaches by the Number.”
I could go on about the concert, but Phil did it already for the New York Sun.
Here’s a piece:
“If country music is the single most forgiving genre for aging artists, it is because storytelling is as important as steel guitars and mournful fiddle fills. Indeed, lyrics are so central to Ms. Williams’s oeuvre that she had a music stand next to her onstage so she wouldn’t flub her lines.
And storytelling only gets better as one acquires wisdom, experience, and perspective. It’s no wonder that artists such as Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, along with Ms. Williams and the “Last of the Breed” crew, are in their 50s and older and producing some of the best music of their careers.
Pop singers and rap stars should be so lucky.”
This entry was written by , posted on March 27, 2007 at 8:11 pm, filed under Home. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
I actually just left some comments at the NY Sun site.
probably won’t duplicatet them here. But I just wish i had been there. I so rarely go to concerts (particularly since I once worked in the live ent. business). And also, since the ipod age, their such a widening gap between live and recorded music. not just Jazz where the gulf is huge, but something like country as well. i guess the exception is rap/hip-hop and some classical and oper (for me.. many disagree on the latter). for rap, i was sorry dissapointed in the few shows I have seen. not just Snoop Dogg, but even the Dead Prez.. maybe I just too old..
D. – you need to copy edit your notes before posting. Where the hell did you go to school?
Also, can you explain/expand on the precise causal connection between “iPod Age” and the gulf between live and recorded music?