David Lindley, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, peerless sideman and astonishing live act, died March 3. He may not have been well known to the general public, but among musicians he was regarded as a brilliant sideman. Between the late 1960s and the early 1990s, he recorded with an amazing number and variety of artists, performing pretty much…
WC has struggled with a memorial to David Crosby, former member of the Mugwumps, the Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young), and half a dozen or more ephemeral one-offs. And a solo artist, after he had pissed off everyone he had worked with earlier. He was an exceptionally talented musician and songwriter, who was…
You’ll never catch a rainbowBut love may come to youHold it close, don’t let it fadeYou’re a loser if you do “Loving Sound,” Ian and Sylvia Tyson WC saw Ian and Sylvia twice. At a bar on 13th Street near the University of Oregon campus, name long since forgotten, in 1970 or so, and at…
WC went to a jazz concert Saturday. Some context: The angel, Aziraphale, is riding with a demon named Crowley’s, in Crowley’s Bentley, looking for the misplaced young Antichrist. Somewhere around Chiswick, Aziraphale scrabbled vaguely in the scree of tapes in the glove compartment. “What’s a Modern Jazz Quartet?” he said. “You wouldn’t like it,” said…
Little Feat has never been wildly successful, but they have been popular and durable, and despite the relentless turnover in personnel, they have preserved a quintessential, distinctive sound since they were formed in 1969. As the band, over the course of its 53-year history, has explored rock, blues, funk and jazz, their music has always…
(This is a part of an eclectic, sometime series on artists WC has known and doesn’t want forgotten. The first post in this series was on Steve Goodman. The second was on Sir Terry Pratchett. WC has also written about Laura Nyro, Bill Berry, Jo Ann Wold and Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. Here’s another wonderful…
Two of Nashville’s best singers shared the stage last week in a two hour long concert at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. Two long-time friends and collaborators, Kathy Mattea and Suzy Bogguss, are touring together, sharing the stage. They opened the show with a lovely interpretation of the Carter Family’s 1937 song “Hello Stranger,”…
It seems to have been mostly the late George Harrison’s idea. He bounced that idea off of Jeff Lynne, co-founder of Electric Light Orchestra, who had recently completed production Harrison’s 11th solo album, Cloud Nine. With Orbison sitting in, they had recorded a new single for the B-side of a single from Harrison’s album. That…
Jackson Browne wrote “These Days,” a song of aching loss and regret, in 1964, when he was just sixteen years old. There are highly successful songwriters who, in their 80s, still haven’t written anything as good as Browne’s first work as a teenager. “These Days” has been recorded by everyone from Nico to Gregg Allman…
For a lot of old Boomers, Buddy Holly and the Crickets were one of the seminal roots of rock and roll music. They pioneered not just the music that’s the soundtrack for WC’s generation; they also invented that distinctive band composition: a guitar-vocalist (Buddy Holly), a drummer (Jerry Allison), a bassist (Joe Mauldin) and a…
At the Bonnie Raitt concert WC attended recently, Raitt lamented the loss of John Prine, her friend, co-performer and colleague. “Hold John close to your heart,” she urged us, before performing “Angel from Montgomery,” the Prine song she has sung most often. It’s on Prine’s astonishing first album, along with other unforgettable songs like “Sam…
WC was lucky enough to spend a delightful evening with Mavis Staples and Bonnie Raitt last week. While the August night started with the temperatures at Outlaw Field in the high 90s, by mid-concert conditions were tolerable. Mavis Staples was the subject to a long biographical sketch (sometimes paywalled) by David Remnick, published in the…
(This is a part of a sometime series on artists WC has known and doesn’t want forgotten. The first post in this series was on Steve Goodman. The second was on Sir Terry Pratchett. WC has also written about Bill Berry, Jo Ann Wold and Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. Here’s another wonderful artist WC doesn’t…
“Dirt,” in this case, is the fabulous Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who gave us a lovely two hour show at Boise’s Egyptian Theater last Thursday night. It’s pretty wonderful to go to a live concert again, even if WC and Mrs. WC were members of the maybe half a percent wearing face masks. The Nitty…
There has been an endless stream of musicians who were supposed to be “the next B.B. King” or “the next Stevie Ray Vaughn.” Well, this time, they are right. Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is an immensely gifted, immensely talented kid who, at age 23 – that’s not a typo – is already one of the very…
Ninety percent of what I made went to women, whiskey, drugs and cars. I guess I just wasted the other 10 percent. Ronnie Hawkins, “Last of the Good Ol’ Boys,” 1989 The Hawk is dead. Ronnie Hawkins, Arkansas native and Canadian transplant died May 29 after a long illness. The epitome of rockabilly music, he…
It started as a meta joke. In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the character Eddie, who later serves as the main course for supper, was played by Marvin Lee Aday. Aday, better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, inspired the character Columbia’s complaint about the entrée, “Meat Loaf again?” That line usually gets used…
Here’s a rock and roll trivia question for you: who opened for The Beatles at their first American concert in 1964? The answer: Jay and the Americans, fronted (in their second and best known iteration) by Jay Black, neé David Blatt. As his former bandmate, Sandy Yaguda, tells the story, when Jay and the Americans…
WC and Mrs. WC did something Saturday night they hadn’t done since early March of 2020: they went to a live concert. It reminded WC of just how badly he has missed live shows. This was a show that almost didn’t happen. Originally scheduled for June 2020, it was rescheduled to June 2021. And then…
WC can’t add much to the excellent tributes and obituaries from Rolling Stone and the New York Times. The guy had a voice like an angel, and despite heavy drinking, drugs and decades of smoking, he never lost that pitch-perfect sound. Or the skills that created those amazing parallel thirds harmonies with his brother, Phil.…
Their names are almost forgotten now. But Felice and Boudleaux Bryant gave us a long string of terrific songs, including much of the Everly Brothers’ songbook. “Bye Bye Love,” “Wakeup Little Susie,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” and “Devoted to You,” to name just a few. They wrote Buddy Holly’s hit, “Rainin’ in…
At least since 1981, when she released her gold album “Seven Year Ache,” Roseanne Cash has handled her famous name, famous father and the extended Carter family with dignity and grace. She’s a multi-Grammy winner, a superb songwriter and a wonderful live act. Of course WC – apparently COVID-19 free himself – braved the risk…
Long-time readers of Wickersham’s Conscience know that Hot Club of Cowtown is one of WC’s very favorite live bands. Some readers have likely never hear of the band. But WC attended his fourth Hot Club concert earlier this week and can honestly report the band is only getting better.1 Hot Club is a trio: Whit…
The Kingston Trio was the first live, national act WC ever saw. It was in 1965, in Seattle, at an auditorium on the University of Washington campus. The Trio was probably past its prime by then. Founding member Dave Guard had left, replaced by the very talented John Stewart. The gold and platinum albums had…
Unless you are from the Boise, Idaho area, you’ve probably never heard of the Blues Addicts. They’re a Boise group, mostly made up of gray-haired guys – those who still have hair – who happen to like a slightly jazzy interpretation of the blues. They play because they love to, and their fun flows through…
T.S.O. is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. WC attended his first T.S.O. concert the other night. And it’s going to be tough to describe. A show that’s so far over the top that you can’t even see the top any more. The first third of the show was Christmas music. Christmas music as it might have been…
Little Feat has been one of WC’s favorite bands for almost 50 years now. For a band that has no members, none at all, from the south they have been a solid southern rock outfit. For a band with no members from New Orleans, they do some pretty mean cajun cooking. Alan Toussaint even toured…
(These are cell phone photos; be kind.) This was something like WC’s fourth Tony Furtado show. WC has seen him solo, with the great Peter Mulvey and with a smaller backing band than he had last Thursday night in Boise. Each show has been terrific. The venue was The Olympic in downtown Boise, a second…
As WC has written, he was lucky enough to attend four concerts in seven days. The fourth and last was a house concert, where WC had a front row seat for a recital by Tomas Rodriguez. You may not have heard of Tomas, but he is a New York-based classical guitarist, whose skill is far…
Because random stuff happens, WC wound up attending four concerts in a memorable seven day stretch earlier this month. You can read WC’s review of Jake Shimabukuro’s show, and WC’s time with Jimmy Bufffett, both posted earlier. But in a further demonstration of the Magpie Principle, we turn now to the third concert, Scott Bradlee’s…
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