5.16.2003

 
The bride wore red shoes

Evidentally, Elvis Costello and Diana Krall are engaged. (Via Outsidethelaw.) I didn't know Krall was 38 years old. I guess the prospect of her recording a power pop album with lots of jangly guitars is unlikely.

posted by Anon. 9:48 AM

 
I think I need a new heart

I was meeting a friend for coffee at Dutton's of Brentwood -- my favorite bookstore in the city -- and was leafing through the newstand. Came across The Believer, the new literary review from Dave Eggers and the McSweeney folks. In the second issue, Rick Moody takes the Magnetic Fields 3 disc set 69 Love Songs and boils 'em all down to 31 favorite songs.

This ain't exactly a new concept -- people have been doing this with double or triple discs for years, from the White Album to Sandinista to Use Your Illusion to Human Touch/Lucky Town. The idea being that when an artist releases a multiple disc record, there's bound to be lots of filler. So, whether with tape deck or with CD burner or even MP3 player -- strip the discs of their filler, making one damn good CD all your own.

I didn't really read the article. Moody kinda annoys me, ever since, after JFK, Jr. died, Moody wrote several articles exploiting his casual acquaintance with JFK, Jr., at Brown.

As for 69 Love Songs, I always admired it more for its audacity than for its quality, but I think I could certainly make a one disc distillation of Stephen Merritt's opus that would be mighty good.

posted by Anon. 8:36 AM

 
June Carter Cash

Grammy Winner June Carter Cash Dies at 73
The Associated Press
May 15 2003 11:50PM
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - June Carter Cash, the Grammy-winning scion of one of country music's pioneering families and the wife of country giant Johnny Cash, died Thursday of complications from heart surgery. She was 73.

She died at a hospital with her husband of 35 years and family members at her bedside, manager Lou Robin said. She had been critically ill after May 7 surgery to replace a heart valve.

A singer, songwriter, musician, actress and author, June Carter Cash performed with her husband on record and on stage, doing songs like ``Jackson'' and ``If I Were a Carpenter,'' which won Grammy awards in 1967 and 1970, respectively. Their duets included ``It Ain't Me Babe'' in 1964 and ``If I Had a Hammer'' in 1972.

``People talk about Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette when it c

omes to pioneering women in country music. But they very seldom mention June, somewhat because she got married to Johnny Cash,'' said Ed Benson, executive director of the Country Music Association. ``I think people should think of her more often when they think of the pioneering women in country music.''

She was co-writer of her husband's 1963 hit ``Ring of Fire,'' which was about falling in love with Cash. In his 1997 autobiography, Johnny Cash described how his wife stuck with him through his years of amphetamine abuse.

``June said she knew me - knew the kernel of me, deep inside, beneath the drugs and deceit and despair and anger and selfishness, and knew my loneliness,'' he wrote. ``She said she could help me. ... If she found my pills, she flushed them down the toilet. And find them she did; she searched for them, relentlessly.''

Longtime friend Kris Kristofferson, who wrote the Cash hit ``Sunday Morning Coming Down,'' said Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash have ``been partners in life for as long as I've known them - always in love, and always there for each other.

``I know how much she means to him. It's the hardest thing he'll ever have to face.''

June Carter was born June 23, 1929, in Maces Spring, Va. Her mother, Maybelle Carter, was in the Carter Family music act with her cousin Sara Carter and Sara's husband, A.P. Carter. In 1927, they made what are among the first country music recordings.

The family act broke up, but mother and daughters June, Helen and Anita continued on as Mother Maybelle & the Carter Sisters, with little June playing autoharp.

Starting in 1939, the sisters starred in a radio show on XERA in Del Rio, Texas, that could be heard as far away as Saskatchewan, Canada. The Carters went on to become staples of the Grand Ole Opry country music show in Nashville.

The Carters' harmony singing still inspires artists today and Maybelle's ``Carter lick'' on the guitar has become one of the most influential techniques in country music.

In the late 1950s, after her marriage to country singer Carl Smith broke up, June Carter moved to New York to study acting at the behest of director Elia Kazan, who had seen her perform while scouting Tennessee for movie locations.

In 1961, she turned down an offer to work on a variety show that had Woody Allen as one of the writers, agreeing instead to tour with Johnny Cash for $500 a week. They married in 1968 after he proposed to her on stage in London, Ontario.

In a 1987 Associated Press interview, June Carter Cash described her husband as ``probably the most unusual, fine, unselfish person I've known.''

``There's a lot of power to him,'' she said then. ``I've seen him on shows with people with a No. 1 record or a lot of No. 1 records, but when John walks on that stage, the rest of 'em might as well leave.''

In 1999, she released an acoustic album, ``Press On,'' that amounted to a musical autobiography and won her another Grammy. The album, her first in a quarter-century, followed her career from its beginning through her then 31-year marriage and collaboration with Cash.

``There's a lot of people who I love - fans that I've known through the years - who will be glad I did it,'' she said about the album at the time. ``And maybe some other people ... wonder what Johnny Cash's wife is really like.''

In 1979, she wrote an autobiography, ``Among My Klediments,'' and released ``From the Heart,'' a memoir, in 1987.

June Carter Cash did occasional acting roles, including the part of Robert Duvall's mother in the 1997 film ``The Apostle.'' With her husband, she periodically performed at Billy Graham crusades.

Johnny and June Carter Cash had a son, John Carter Cash, in 1970. She was also the mother of country singer Carlene Carter, whose father was Smith, and singer Rosanne Cash is her stepdaughter.

Funeral services will be private and details will not be released at the request of the Cash family.

posted by Anon. 8:29 AM

5.14.2003

 
Department of dead horses

I know that I've been posting a bit too much lately about rock and roll in advertising. But last night, while watching television, I caught an ad for Clarinex -- an allergy medication, I think -- that uses as its background noise instrumental versions (or maybe they're taken directly from the "Overture") of the Who's Tommy. A little bit of Pinball Wizard, a little bit of Go to the Mirror, Boy, a couple others.

Kinda would have been cooler had they used Quadrophenia. Just imagine, the images of people being able to breathe more freely and easily, accompanied by the sound of "girls of fifteen, sexually knowing."


posted by Anon. 8:22 AM

5.13.2003

 
Waterfall, nothing can harm me at all

Noel Redding, Jimi Hendrix's bassist, has died.

posted by Anon. 11:22 AM

5.12.2003

 
Sad

Evidentally, despite our longstanding claim to be "America's Favorite Music Blog," we only show up on the third screen/page of results in a Google search for "music blog."

That said, when you type America's Favorite Music Blog, without quotes, we clock in at #2.

Palmermix: the Avis of America's Favorite Music Blogs.

posted by Anon. 7:24 AM

 
Soundtrack to your life

Livejournal doesn't let you link to individual posts, so just sail on over to the 5/8 post on my neighborhood pal Rico Gagliano's Livejournal blog. Rico has gone back through his entire life and charted the bands that have mattered most to him, and tried to make sense of the patterns. Evidentally, you always go back to the Beatles.

posted by Anon. 7:19 AM

5.11.2003

 
Six Feet

A mediocre season of Six Feet Under (this after a spotty season of the Sopranos) but tonight's episode was the best I've seen of the season. And music fans can applaud the use of a classic gem at the end of the episode -- Todd Rundgren's "I Saw the Light," with that tinny AM radio sound, playing as Nate sits in the parking lot by the beach. Nice.

posted by Anon. 9:58 PM

 
Celebrated summer

Some interesting pairings on tour this summer. Lucinda Williams is opening up for Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Wilco is doing some opening dates opening up for R.E.M. And Tricia tells me that Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, and Keb Mo' are doing a group show, with an opening all-together acoustic set.

posted by Anon. 3:44 PM