"Astral Weeks came out of this desire to break out of this rigidity, you know, to extend the lines, and chop it up and move beyond this 1,2,3,4, beats to the bar. "
Since men first emerged from the water, they have written psalms in praise of the river. Old Man River. The River of Jordan. The Rivers of Babylon. Moon River. Shenandoah...
Dublin soul singer James Vincent McMorrow has been invited to support the legendary Al Green on his upcoming Dublin dates, this coming Sunday October 26 and Monday October 27.
Which is a rather cryptic way of introducing an interview by Joe Jackson with Brian Kennedy on his distaste for the macho ethos of rock and his admiration for fellow Belfast troubadour Mr. Morrison.
Ted Hawkins, in Dublin recently to play a never-to-be-forgotten gig in Whelan’s, talks about his journey down the long and winding road which led him from an early, joyless life of petty crime and racial discrimination to his belated fame as one of the most respected of contemporary blues men. Interview: Gerry McGovern.
As the countdown to the 4th Hot Press Bacardi Unplugged final continues,
JACKIE HAYDEN speaks out against those who would protray band competitions as irrelevant anachronisms.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Seal re-visits some soul classics, but dresses them up in a way that turns pure gold into something of a different color.
He scored his first hit single as lead singer with Them in 1965, with Baby Please Don t Go . In 1968, he released his debut solo album Astral Weeks, which is widely regarded among critics as one of the most important and complete records of the past 50 years. But these are just two early landmarks in a remarkable career which finds Van Morrison still on top of his game 40 years since he made his debut with his own skiffle group, The Sputkniks, at a school concert in Orangefield in Belfast. In an exclusive interview, carried out for the RTE television series From A Whisper To A Scream, and published in the run-up to Van s latest Irish dates, he talks to Niall Stokes.
Imagine the scene. It is August 15th, 1977. Joe Jackson of Hot Press arrives at Graceland, to do the ultimate interview with Elvis Presley. Elvis is in the music room,seated at the piano and singing 'Blue
Eyes Cryin In The Rain'. They sit down across the table, Jackson pushes the record button - and so begins the final interview with the greatest rock'n'roll star of them all
Having learned his trade with Muddy Waters and just about any other blues legend you care to mention, BUDDY GUY has long since become one himself. On the eve of his showcase gig in Dublin's Olympia, he tells PETER MURPHY of his struggle to pass the blues torch on to another generation.
An acoustic hip-hop album? Yup, that’s what we got, or very nearly, as this young singer/songwriter uses R ‘n’ B rhythms coupled with jazz infused guitars to produce a hip swaying but delightfully intimate collection.
Tom Baxter's second album, Skybound, has just topped the Irish album chart. But it was a record that only got made after Baxter personally financed the sessions with his other talent of figurative art painting.
WITH THE RELEASE OF HER FIRST LIVE ALBUM *LOVE FOR SALE* MARY COUGHLAN HAS PUT THE PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAUMAS OF THE PAST THREE YEARS BEHIND HER. IN A FRANK INTERVIEW SHE OUTLINES HER DARK DAYS TO SIOBHAN LONG AND INDICATES THAT PERHAPS A FUTURE COVER VERSION OF *WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN* MIGHT JUST BE IN ORDER.
With The Waterboys being between albums, tonight’s acoustic show was a case of evolution-in-progress, allowing Mike Scott, Steve Wickham and Richard Naiff the opportunity to excavate gems from the back catalogue too rare or oddly cut to fit the full band format.
When Ray Charles passed away last week at the age of 73, music lost a giant whose talent broke the boundaries between blues, soul, country and gospel. Van Morrison pays his respects.
Buckley was the original crazy mixed-up kid, a brilliant dilettante who could flit from jazz fusion to classic hard rock to vocal stylists like Nusrat and Nina to lo-fi garage rock to French chansons/chanteuse
IT is all highly entertaining. In men s athletics, the traditional dominance of white athletes was overturned a long time ago. At first it was the Kenyans and the Ethiopians displaying a prowess in long-distance running that required the wholesale rewriting of the record books. Then black American, British, Canadian and Jamaican athletes began to come through in the sprints. Then gradually a bunch of middle-distance runners followed on, to fill in the gaps.
Those of you who watch Sky News on a regular basis may have seen the story of an American man who was given a new hand in a pioneering transplant operation last week.
The man, who lost his original hand in a childhood accident, was quoted afterwards as saying that he wanted to let my two kids see their daddy with a proper right hand .
The operation was performed at a Jewish hospital the Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center plc and a special website was set up shortly afterwards to chronicle this slice of medical history in the making.
Images from the operation itself, in all their gory glory, can be viewed on the site, as well as patient-condition updates, and transcripts from the press conferences held before and after.
http://www.handtransplant.org/ #
Five albums, fifty-eight songs, sixty-eight pages of liner notes, one large container, and a title that's as bone-dry academic as anything you'll find sitting atop a legal document - against that backdrop, perhaps the first and most useful thing to say about Bob in the box is: don't be intimidated!
