i really appreciate Baez and have come to like her, she has a nice blending of American and some darker strains of UK folk, at least that's what i hear in her.
― nomar, Thursday, 24 August 2017 17:48 (six years ago) link
Thanks for the Everly Brothers picks, scott! I'm listening to Sing.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 24 August 2017 17:49 (six years ago) link
I love that Dylan impression so much. I think Judy Collins is a better singer than Baez but Baez is a greater musician, she really knew her shit. I suspect she taught Bob Dylan much of what he knows about traditional folk.
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 24 August 2017 17:49 (six years ago) link
she is an amazing singer imo
― marcos, Thursday, 24 August 2017 17:49 (six years ago) link
"diamonds and rust" makes me tear up a lil tbh
― marcos, Thursday, 24 August 2017 17:50 (six years ago) link
yeah those early 60s vanguard records are very good overall. maybe a little less impressive once you've heard her sources, but still good (tho i get the complaints about her vocals).
― tylerw, Thursday, 24 August 2017 17:50 (six years ago) link
the Judas Priest cover of Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" is one of the great weird yet brilliant covers in rock history, they both seem to have a good attitude about it:
In a recent interview with QMI Agency, folk icon Joan Baez was asked what she thought of JUDAS PRIEST's classic cover of her song "Diamonds And Rust", which can be found on the band's 1977 album "Sin After Sin". "I love that!" she replied. "I was so stunned when I first heard it. I thought it was wonderful. It's very rare for people to cover my songs. I think there are a couple of reasons. One is they're personal — they don't have a universal quality to them. And I think maybe it's because I've already sung them, and who wants to compete with that? But it's always flattering when somebody does."
Speaking to KNAC.COM in June 2010, JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford explained how the band came to record its version of the Joan Baez track. "Well, the simple story is that our label could see that there was a buzz happening here in America and we were looking for an opportunity to get some kind of radio play," he said. "Radio in 1978, when we released that, was a different hybrid, it was before all of the beat things started to happen and I think the label sensed that we've got something in us and that there was a chance, and I think they thought, well if we go this route and the radio stations hear that PRIEST is covering a Joan Baez song, then at least it gets you through the door. The big challenge even now is to get you through the door to get you played on the radio. I think the label believed that we could write radio songs, but they probably thought that this would be a little bit of a way to make a possibly, slightly faster connection. I don't know. We were actually making the backend of the 'Sin After Sin' sessions when it was suggested to us that we cover this track. And I remember we were all together and whoever it was came in, whether it was from the label or the management and said, 'Listen to this song. The label would like you to consider covering it.' And when we put it on, all we heard was Joan Baez singing this song with the guitar, and your knee-jerk reaction is, 'Are you fucking crazy? We are a heavy metal band.' But again, typical of PRIEST, we're like, 'What's the logic behind this?' And then after a couple of listens, 'This is a great song.' And a good song will take any kind of interpretation. So, it was just a case of, 'Well, we're PRIEST, and if the label wants us to rock it up then this is what we're going to try and do.' So that's how it came together and it turned out really well. It opened the door for us in radio in a lot of ways, and I think that for the first time, a metal band was able to get the kind of accessibility."
― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:05 (six years ago) link
'Well, we're PRIEST, and if the label wants us to rock it up then this is what we're going to try and do.'
i love this sentence so much
― nomar, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:07 (six years ago) link
Wordplay with perfect timing and I get snubbed? To have polite substantive discussions about music?
― Evan, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:10 (six years ago) link
I almost excelsior'd you fwiw but I feel like we don't exel around these siors so much any more
― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:20 (six years ago) link
lol Lou is not a good singer by any stretch, esp post-77 or so
xp
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:22 (six years ago) link
prior to that I think he makes great use of his limited range
can't stand Judy Collins either tbh lol. with all three (Baez, Collins, Slick) it's really the tenor of their voices I find off-putting, that thick tone, I don't like it.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:25 (six years ago) link
Halford's great, the Everys are great. my favorite female singer is probably Mavis Staples.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:27 (six years ago) link
do people rate the first Willie Nelson album (And Then I Wrote...) in terms of sixties country? i frickin love that album
― flopson, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:42 (six years ago) link
I've never heard it actually! My favorite 60s country list would include the Louvin Brothers (pick any of 'em), Buck Owens' Sings Harlan Howard/I've Got a Tiger by the Tail/Sings Tommy Collins/Under Your Spell Again, Waylon Jennings' Leaving Town/Folk-Country/Only the Greatest, Dolly Parton's Hello I'm Dolly, Porter Wagoner's Cold Hard Facts of Life, Merle Haggard's Mama Tried/I'm A Lonesome Fugitive, maybe some Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Loretta Lynn, the obvious Johnny Cash etc
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:50 (six years ago) link
i certainly do! it's underrated as hell, which is insane because it has "funny how time slips away" AND "crazy" on it, plus several other stone cold classics
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:51 (six years ago) link
xpost
it's an amazing record.
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:53 (six years ago) link
My favorite 60s country list would include the Louvin Brothers (pick any of 'em), Buck Owens' Sings Harlan Howard/I've Got a Tiger by the Tail/Sings Tommy Collins/Under Your Spell Again, Waylon Jennings' Leaving Town/Folk-Country/Only the Greatest, Dolly Parton's Hello I'm Dolly, Porter Wagoner's Cold Hard Facts of Life, Merle Haggard's Mama Tried/I'm A Lonesome Fugitive, maybe some Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Loretta Lynn, the obvious Johnny Cash etc
― Οὖτις, Thursday, August 24, 2017 2:50 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
good picks here
there are some good george jones records from the 60s too
― marcos, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:55 (six years ago) link
cant imagine ppl thinking joan baez has a bad voice
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:56 (six years ago) link
oh and George Jones duh
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:56 (six years ago) link
lol thx marcos :)
heard it for the first time this summer at sunrise played off of a friends bluetooth speaker in a big grassy field while coming down after a wild night. it sounded so spacious and poised and confident, soothed me and made me reconsider the things i had been searching for in music
― flopson, Thursday, 24 August 2017 18:57 (six years ago) link
oh and Hazlewood's Trouble is a Lonesome Town! love that record so much.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 19:01 (six years ago) link
Love that Willie Nelson album "Hello Walls" its so great!
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 24 August 2017 19:48 (six years ago) link
can
― brimstead, Thursday, 24 August 2017 19:49 (six years ago) link
"SF Sorrow" was one I noticed missing right away. Other favorite omissions: A Charlie Brown Christmas, Merry-Go-Round s/t, The Left Banke "Walk Away Renee." I wouldn't expect a record like Blind Faith s/t to appear in a Pitchfork list, but I think it's a solid record. And I feel weirdly happy that The Who "Tommy" is no longer essential canon.
― billstevejim, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:23 (six years ago) link
Also it rules pretty hard that there's at least five free jazz records between 101-200.
― billstevejim, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:25 (six years ago) link
it's kind of interesting that poptimism doesn't extend backwards - ie how much of what was mainstream listening in the past is just completely excised, like it never existed. So many soundtracks/cast recordings were huge in the 60s. Sinatra. Barbra. Peter Paul and Mary. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band. The Monkees. Tons of mainstream country. No one would make the argument today that current best-selling artists/albums are not worthy of critical analysis but the fact that this stuff is no longer cool and is so thoroughly alien (and, duh, OLD) has rendered it critically invisible. fwiw I'm not saying Pfork should have stumped for the Sound of Music soundtrack (altho tbh it is p awesome) but it's always interesting to me, the things that disappear. Sometimes I stumble on some old vinyl of like Mel Torme or something and I just marvel that this is something that was once huge, mainstream, popular and now it's like it almost never existed. Everyone who cared about it is gone.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:38 (six years ago) link
Imagine Pitchfork asking Seth Colter Walls to write about Ferrante & Teicher.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:43 (six years ago) link
Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band
during my brief time working at a record store, older people who came in to unload their shitty record collections (or their relatives who came in to do it for them) almost ALWAYS had at least one album by herb albert. even if the rest of their collection was just classical and musicals, they would always have some herb albert. and yeah, he has pretty much zero cache now, although his albums seem to consistently deliver a certain vibe which isn't awful.
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:44 (six years ago) link
it's like the one-time ubiquity of this stuff ultimately became a curse
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:47 (six years ago) link
In the UK replace that with Mantovani.
― starving street dogs of punk rock (Odysseus), Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:51 (six years ago) link
and oddly, it feels like a phenomenon that's restricted to mass-produced mid-20th century pop, no? I could be totally wrong here. But things like pre-war jazz and string-band music I know still have vital subcultures devoted to them, and anything "cool" post the advent of rock-n-roll is canonized by various quarters and populations and kept in circulation in new and various formats. But a lot of shit that was absolutely huge from the post-war era through idk 1970 or so is just... gone. vaporized.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:52 (six years ago) link
at the time my theory was that there were loads of middle aged people in the 60s who weren't down with the whole crazy R&B and rock young people music thing, but they wanted to branch out beyond their mozarts and south pacifics to have a record or two that they could play at a dinner party to show that they were still "with it". since herb albert can sound pretty fucking good when you're 3 martinis deep, and it doesn't really matter which one you get, he sold over 160 million records to this audience
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:52 (six years ago) link
like, no one thinks it's cool, nobody wants to listen to it, nobody wants to preserve it, nobody wants to think about it. that generation of squares and what they liked will never be redeemed.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:53 (six years ago) link
so in short, a result of squares just getting ripped on a daily basis
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:54 (six years ago) link
I think it was definitely dinner party or 'drinks with nibbles' music
― starving street dogs of punk rock (Odysseus), Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:54 (six years ago) link
James Last has been sampled to death so I imagine Mantovani and Herb Alpert have been too yet still not got any critical cache
― starving street dogs of punk rock (Odysseus), Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:55 (six years ago) link
believe Whipped Cream & Other Delights is universally acclaimed
― niels, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:55 (six years ago) link
"But things like pre-war jazz and string-band music I know still have vital subcultures devoted to them"
nobody listens to the pre-war music that was most popular anymore.
― scott seward, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:56 (six years ago) link
Alpert was able to embody/convey both sophistication and silliness in equal measure. smooth and expensive-sounding novelty songs about spanish fleas. laffs.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:57 (six years ago) link
Herb Alpert has some real jams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7O3eYJptTc
i think he'll have his comeback moment at some point
― nomar, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:57 (six years ago) link
idk I recently busted out a Fred Astaire collection of his hits and my kids loved it
"Everyone who cared about it is gone."
feel free to listen to it. its everywhere.
― scott seward, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:57 (six years ago) link
in the uk in the early 80s -- before rockism or poptimism were named or had become dreary cliches themselves -- there was genuinely a push by musicians and writers to readdress a lot of this kind of music, pre-60s and "lost" 60s: to treat the "rock era" as a very narrow limited myth that needed to be overthrown or pushed past and to reassess and rediscover exactly this kind of stuff, and to but a big fucking question mark under the sanctioned die-off that the 60s had then become (late 70s/early 80s being quite a low point for the salience of the 60s
it didn't take hold for many reasons -- one very big one i suspect was the young musicians touristing their way thru these sounds really weren't good enough as musicians to get across in their own recording what they were hearing and loving… ppl could replicate psych and garage and nuggets punk but not tijuana brass (at least not in the UK)
there was a mini-retrojazz boom then of course
― mark s, Thursday, 24 August 2017 20:58 (six years ago) link
fred astaire was not one of the most popular musical artists of the pre-war era. irish tenors you've never heard were. tons of stuff that nobody really wants to revisit other than scholars.
― scott seward, Thursday, 24 August 2017 21:01 (six years ago) link
so... light opera? my impression was that astaire was huge but idk what metrics there are to measure by,
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 24 August 2017 21:03 (six years ago) link
Elijah Wald's book How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll is in large part a history of this kind of music. The Beatles don't even figure into the book until the last few chapters; most of it is a history of popular music starting in the 1920s. It made me want to read (and maybe even write!) a whole biography of Mitch Miller.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, 24 August 2017 21:04 (six years ago) link