Joni Mitchell, James Taylor Help Launch Greenpeace
Joni Mitchell, then 26, was the consummate folk star and James Taylor, 22, the cool new kid on the block when the two toured together in the fall of 1970. There’s a great bootleg and some amazing YouTube videos of their late-October Royal Albert Hall show floating around. A couple of weeks earlier, however, the…
Kenny Gamble And Patti LaBelle’s New National Anthem
“We need a new a national anthem,” says Patti LaBelle in the trailer for I Am An American: The Making of an Anthem, a CD/DVD to be released today, Veterans Day. “I Am an American” was part of the repertoire of spirituals sung during services by Reverend Major Jealous Divine, AKA Father Divine, who died…
Next Danny Boyle Project Likely To Include Phish Music
Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle is slated to direct a movie based on Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston’s harrowing 2004 account of being trapped under a boulder in a Utah canyon, where he was forced to amputate his own arm. In this Aspen Times interview, Ralston discusses consulting with Boyle about…
Jon Bon Jovi’s Soul Foundation
New Jersey’s second favorite arena rocker puts his money where his home is by investing millions of dollars in environmentally friendly LEED-certified affordable housing. The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation‘s projects include the Genesis apartments in Newark, New Jersey, a quarter of which are reserved for persons who’ve tested HIV positive. Bon Jovi visits the…
Government Sachs
Today’s required reading would be this very long London Times profile of Goldman Sachs and its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. Ominously titled, “I’m doing ‘God’s work’. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs,” the feature takes readers into the inner sanctum of the company Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi described as, “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face…
How The Beatles Brought Down The Soviet Empire
Everyone loves a poll, which is like an election only much less consequential. New York City public television station Channel Thirteen wants to know which musical artist had the greatest impact on history. Over the past few weeks, entries have been narrowed down to the Beatles, Bono, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Michael Jackson. Something…
Yoko Ono Imagines There’s No Hunger
“When John and I were sort of talking about world peace and love and all that kind of thing, bed-ins, etc, you know people were just laughing at us,” Yoko Ono told Reuters recently. No one’s laughing anymore, fortunately. Ono is teaming up with Hard Rock International for an Imagine There’s No Hunger campaign, which…
Interview: Monsters of Folk’s Jim James On The Health Care Jam
Folk music, politically inclined or not, tends to bring people together even if the words are describing something that’s tearing people apart. And even though the Monsters of Folk — Jim James (taking a break from longtime cohorts My Morning Jacket), M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis — employ the F-word with just a…
Great 8
With all their cool little touches, high fan energy, and powerful music, there’s really nothing quite like a Phish festival. But I’d say my favorite Phish event is Halloween. I’m very grateful to have been at every single musical costume dating back to Glens Fall in 1994. I always walked away with a new appreciation…
When Johnny Cash Walked The Line For Native Americans
After releasing his chart-topping I Walk the Line in 1964, Johnny Cash recorded Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. Cash used to say he was part Cherokee but eventually admitted he wasn’t. Neverthless, Bitter Tears was an early and heartfelt attempt to translate the history and problems of Native Americans into musical form, drums…