Music That Blew Me Away

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 11:17 PM

Anything by Frankie Lane , and

"Oh My Papa "

AD

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Guest from overseas
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 10:54 PM

...and it still keeps blowing

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 07:52 PM

Lots of stuff from the "classics" including Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi, Sibelius, Respighi, Berlioz, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Rodrigo, etc, etc.
Then I suppose the early folk-rock such as Steeleye Span Fairport Convention, and later after coming to Scotland, Runrig.
And a whole raft of all sorts of Scottish, English and Irish traditional music.
Then there was the all the "Celtic Connections" stuff like Carlos Nunez and Susana Seivane.
If you ask me tomorrow, I'll probably give you another list too!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 05:37 PM

Nah, give it a little more time; this ain't dead yet! Most of us were asleep the whole time this sat inactive between your two posts...

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 10:24 AM

Sorry. I think we need another 'Threads I Have Killed'. :)

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 02:08 AM

What a lot of songs and artists to seek out! Many of those mentioned I don't know at all.

I grew up in the Amish church. The songs they sang on Sunday mornings were all in German, of course, the tunes and treatments very similar to Gregorian chant. No particular song but I simply floated when my mother and her best friend sat together and sang. My mother's voice was warm and textured, her friend had a silvery edge to hers. (Ha! I just realized that may account for my love of Pavarotti's voice; much silvery-er than Placido's.) I would hardly be aware of the other singers, so fixated on their sound was I.

My next one was 'My Little Home in West Virginia', an instrumental featuring a fiddle. Intricate yet strong and full.

Thirty years or so later I was mesmerized by 'Moon over Naples', also an instrumental with multiple violins. It soared and swooped and moaned.

Soon after, someone recorded a version of that tune and called it 'Blue Spanish Eyes' with lyrics which became a hit although it was not even close to being as good as Moon over Naples...

A phenomenon that I experience regularly is that I literally 'hear' songs, complete with harmonies, sometimes just two people, sometimes whole choral groups. When I want to hear a certain section again, I can 'make' them go back and start from there again. I said this to my sister one time and she got this alarmed look on her face, so I added truthfully: I've noticed that if I don't know all the words, they don't either.

Anybody else hear voices in their head?

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 08:25 PM

In 1942 or so, when I was 5 or so, my parents were out of the house for a while, and a piece of music came on on the radio that made me cry. I told them about it when they came back, but I never found out what it was.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Bettynh
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 05:12 PM

A concert by Carlos Montoya, followed within a month by a concert by Doc Watson. For various reasons I found myself in the front row at both concerts. I'm still in awe at the memory of those hands.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: eddie1
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 05:10 PM

Hi Jerry
The video compilation of "Stand By Me" is by an organisation called Playing for Change which believes, and proves, that music can bring the whole world together – so does Mudcat of course!
PfC also have an incredible version of "One Love" – have a look for it.

Reading this thread has brought back a lot of memories and forced me to seek out some new ones. Thanks guys!

Someone way back wrote about the hairs on their head standing on end. Many of these songs do that for me too.

Two that really grabbed me are ones where, in one case I don't understand all the words and in the other, none at all – "It's Good See You" from the Alex Campbell Memorial Concert, sung partly in English and partly in Danish by too many people to list and "Pokarekare Ana" sung acapella in Maori by Marie-Adele McArthur, an operatic soprano, in a concert hall. The audience, obviously mostly New Zealanders, react exactly like a folk-club audience, trying the song out quietly to see if the key fits then joining in with a bit more power as they gain confidence and finally singing harmonies. She, although presumably unused to such audience participation, gets right into it, even singing harmony herself while the audience carries the melody!

We're pretty lucky to have such experiences aren't we?

Eddie

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 04:05 PM

Stand By Me - the video collection of people from all over the world recording verses of this song stood me on my ear. Very uncomfortable, but worth it. I bought the video and the CD. If there'd been a t-shirt, I would have bought that, too.

Thanks for refreshing this Poppa G.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 03:48 PM

refresh

It's been almost three years since this truly exemplary discussion has been active. I'm sure that, in the meanwhile, some new folks have come around here who will enjoy it ~ also, that many more recent "blown-away" epiphanies have occurred that some of you might like to add.

This concludes my search through all my old posts in an effort to find something I wrote years ago and don't wanna have to write all over again. So, I'm not likely to continue resurrecting old discussions on a daily basis

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Banjiman
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 08:24 AM

Call me an old romantic but the first time my wife sang "The Loch Tay Boat Song" to me in her little flat in Glasgow many years ago is the most spine tingling musical moment I have experienced....it tingled my spine so much I had to ask her to marry me!

Alison Krauss and Union Station singing "Ghost In This House" at the Sage in Gateshead a couple of years ago almost took me to the same place (wow...those harmonies), I'm not sure Alison Krauss would marry me though.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 05:55 PM

Interesting stuff, Mr. Gator. I just bought a 4 CD boxed set (for $9.95) Of Wynonie Harris. I've heard his name more than his music. curious to listen to the stuff...

Your observations on minor, regional hit recordigns being picked up by English rock and rollers is right on. As they used to say.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 03:19 PM

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think "Bad Boy", and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" two of my favourite Beatles covers, were also by Arthur Alexander. He was certainly more than a one trick pony.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 02:22 PM

So many of those mostly-forgotten "minor" R&B hits Jerry mentions, singles that sold only within a small geographical region and/or only to the "race records" market, actually enjoyed wider exposure to white teenagers in England than here at home in the states.

I'm not sure why ~ I suppose that when recordings of strange new sounds come to the shores of Liverpool in sailors' duffel bags, no one asked which record was a hit and which wasn't, nor even which side of a given record was supposed to be the "A" side and which the "B." Kids listened and judged each song on its own merits, and the upshot was that the Beatles and Stones and many other less-well-known rock groups wound up "covering" American recordings that never got much airplay back home in the states, and no exposure at all the the "mainstream" US Causcasian market.

I recently heard several different made-in-New-Orleans renditions of an old R&B hit, "Anna (Go With Him)" on WWOZ-FM. Since it had been recorded by several New Orelans artists, at the legendary local J&M Studios, I assumed it was written here, too, but I was wrong.

What I learned from the Internet: (1) the song sounded so familiar to me probably because it was also recorded by the Beatles, and (2) it was written and first recorded by one Arthur Alexander of Florence, Alabama.

Alexander has the wonderful trivia-question distinction of being the only songwriter to have his word recorded by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He was also the first artist to record at the soon-to-become-legendary F.A.M.E. studions in Muscle Shoals, AL.

Familiar titles of some of his compositions besides "Anna":
"You Better Move On" (covered by the Stones)
"Sally Sue Brown" (Dylan and Elvis)
"Every Day I Have to Cry Some"
"A Shot of Rhythm and Blues"
"Go Home Girl"

Alexander also is credited as being the first lyricist to use the word "girl" as direct-address (as "I wanna tell you, girl...), a usage that was immediately taken up by many other writers, notably John Lennon.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: alanabit
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 01:33 PM

There is a lot to be said for live music over even the best recordings. I know that I would not usually buy records of trad jazz or country music. If I am there at the gig though, it can get to me in a way a recording never could.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 01:20 PM

Live music in small, intimate clubs, circa late 1950's and early '60's. I love folk, but also happen to like jazz - both traditional New Orleans and Chicago style and "progressive," not the electronically produced, over-arranged "mind candy" that masquerades as jazz now, a la Kenny G, et al, ad nauseum. We were able to sit by the stage and hear and see people like Cal Tjader, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Cannonball Adderly and many others. The same was true for folk music, in the same period. Clubs like the Hungry i and Purple Onion, in San Francisco, Mr. Kelly's, in Chicago, The Icehouse, in Pasadena, the Ash Grove in L.A. and legions of real coffee houses, before Starbucks was a gleam in some investor's eye, where you could hear local and up-and-coming talent.

Live music is what "sets me free." I've yet to hear a recording that had the same effect.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Silver Slug
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 01:06 PM

Does anybody else get that tingling feeling in their scalp whenever they hear a particular piece of music for the first time? That's how I define being 'blown away.' It doesn't often happen now and I guess that's just part of growing old. It isn't just your hair that loses it's colour!

We started using a pub called The Barley Mow just before my 16th birthday. Lil and Lew were the tenants and they knew exactly how old we were. The let us have two pints of mild on a weekday and three pints on Friday and Saturday nights, a great way of learning how to drink sociably.

They had a jukebox which they kept fairly well up-to-date and one night I remember selecting Living In The Past by Jethro Tull, trying to show an ex school bully that I had good taste (i.e. the same as his) when it came to music. That record changed my whole outlook on popular music and I quickly purchased copies of Stand Up, followed by LPs' by The Band, Fairport Convention, Cream, Jefferson Airplane and Led-Zeppelin.

There are plenty of records that have made my scalp 'itch,' but I thank Mr Anderson and co for the record which did so much to broaden my musical tastes.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 07:29 AM

Yes, nice top see this thread back. Thank you, Poppa.

These days, instead of remembering songs that "blew me away" many years ago, I've stumbled across a whole body of music that has been so neglected that hearing it after all these years is like stepping in to another world. One I used to know.

Back in the fifties, when Patti Page was the rage, and Perry Como had a hit tv show, there was a new music brewing that most of America had no idea existed. It was the very first rumblings of R&B, doo wop and rock and roll. You never heard it on national radio, and the music never made the Billboard charts. It was played on black radio stations in major cities, for a black audience, often late at night into the wee small hours of the morning. I lived in a small town, but when the climate was just right, I could pick up WFOX in Milwaukee, and if I lay on my back on my bed with my Motorola portable on my chest, turing it so that the antennae was in just the right position, I could pick it up. The music was primitive, in comparison to the popular music of the time. Lightnin' Hopkins shared air time with Count Basie, Joe Turner, Ivory Joe Hunter, Big Mama Thornton, the Ravens, the Orioles and the Crows. Not to mention all the music by singers I'd never heard of before, and hadn't heard of since. Until I bought a 10 CD set containing 200 early Rhythm and Blues Masters from the 40's and fifties. That's what I've been listening to. For me, it's exciting to hear early Ray Charles, almost comnpletely unrecognizable, or B.B. King sounding more like a country blues singer in a juke joint.

One of the things about "Oldies:" if the song wasn't in the top 40, it's like it never existed. And, it's never re-issued. At least not in this country. Some of the most exciting music that's been made in America is only available on CDs from Holland, Germany, France or England. To me, this old music is as exciting to discover (or rediscover) as a lost Doc Boggs recording. The music speaks to the times and the community it reflected as surely as traditional ballads from the Appalachians. A lot of the music I'm listening to, I don't like, but every once in awhile something completely blows me away. "So that's where Little Richard, or Elvis came from!"

Exciting stuff, not for the ears of most Catters. But is is to me.
Would probably be for Poppa Gator, too..

Thanks again for refreshing this thread.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: SharonA
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 03:11 AM

Music that blew me away: "The Wayward Wind".

Now where'd I put that coat?...

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Young Hunting
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 02:36 AM

Willie Scott The Shepherd's Song lp. Particularly the track The Dowy Dens of Yarrow. That was it for me at age about 18. I (metaphorically at least) threw all the Guthrie/Dylan/Leadbelly albums I had spent years listening to out of the window. I knew ballads were what I wanted to sing and this was how you were supposed to sing them. Still can't, but still trying.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Arkie
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 10:56 PM

It is nice to see this thread back again. Lots of good music to search for. In scanning through the thread again I was reminded of Mike Cooney singing all the verses to Tam Lane. I saw him at the Florida Folk Festival back in the early 70s and his whole set consisted of that one song, and a masterful set it was.   Also at that festival an unknown singer blew me away with "The Mountain Whipporwill".   I still prefer the memory of that performance to hearing Charlie Daniel's The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Hearing Bob and Evelyn Beers perform Fiddler's Green was also a high moment. Last year Peter Yarrow was in Mountain View with his daughter Bethany and her partner Rufus Cappadocia. That was a magnificent concert and the gospel medley including Long Chain On was unforgettable. This past Saturday at a St. Louis Irish Arts concert, a teenaged girl did a number on the flute that was nothing short of amazing with melody, counter melodies, and rhythm for her father's guitar solo.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:24 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Adrianel
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 08:57 PM

Apart from the "Rite of Spring", and if that doesn't blow you away, you're dead, the two I remember are the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun", and Piaf's "Les Amants d'un Jour" - a real weeper that one.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 08 Nov 06 - 03:45 PM

Sidney Bechet - oh yes. My dearest friend in the world, now departed, julie Schartz was a huge Sidney Bechet fan. I thought I was a pretty sophisticated little jazz baby when I was 21 and listening to Eddie Condon in my car driving Julie (a man by the way) to a some SF convention in philidelphia and he pops in a tape that I think greg Thiekstan gave him and it's Sidney Bechet.. rocked my world.

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - another one of those sublime voices. Most people know his medly of Over The Rainow and What a Wonderful World which played over the end credits of Meet Joe Black and was in some other films too. it;s in a few commericals now on US TV.

Herb Alpert! My parents had two of his alums when I was a kid and we played the grooves right off of them. I really need to get those on CD.

Nothing to do with Folk, but I was involved in an apocolyptic and very pulic breakup with a man I'd lived with for years when Nirvana's "All Apologies" first started playing on the radio and it expressed everything I felt at the moment. It reminded me of another very nasty breakup I'd had in 1987 right after grad School. After I had packed all my stuff and was driving away while he was at work (I needed a clean gettaway), "Ticket To Ride" came on the radio and I was in awe of how well such young men were able to express the utter futility of some relationships at the end and how the end is just a given. Granted, it was decades before that the song was written but it still captured the moment

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: DoctorJug
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 04:38 PM

Music that left a permanent mark right away:
Venus by Shocking Pink
Don't Let It Die by Hurricane Smith
Halle Hallelujah by Sidney Bechet and Claude Luter
Brainstorm by Hawkwind
Wolfpack, and Dominoes by Syd Barrett
21st Century Schizoid Man, and Moonchild by King Crimson
Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd
Ravel's Bolero
Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd movement

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Alice
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 11:41 AM

When I was in Hawaii, staying on the big Island with friends, an incredible voice came over their stereo speakers that stopped me in my tracks. It was the late singer IZ, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Anything he sang was stunning, but the medley "Wonderful World/Over the Rainbow" blew me away.

"This Guy's In Love", Herb Alpert. He wasn't a great singer, but I was a teenager in the sixties, and the lyrics were just what I needed at the time.

"Thunder and Lightning", Chi Coltrane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Coltrane

"Norwegian Wood" "Blackbird" "Eleanor Rigby"

And Mary O'Hara, who inspired me to be a singer.

Alice

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 11:22 AM

Recorded music that blew me away -- The Mamas and The Papas first album. I hadn't even heard of them when a friend played the album for me. I was stunned and slack-jawed.

Live music? Wiilie Nelson at the old Sportatorium in Dallas before the Red Headed Stranger hit. Spare, straight-ahead music in an era of overproduced muck.
- Phil

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 11:09 AM

I saw him once in the mid seventies. I recall his "Farting Song" and he did a lot of routines about bodily functions. To be fair, so did Shakespeare (whom I never saw live), but but Bill definitely had the greater range in his repertoire.
I remember Dave Turner as a fine guitarist, with exemplary timing. He mainly did long monologues, to a guitar accompaniment, with virtually no singing. I think he also did a funny routine about either the Creation or Noah's Ark, which was a definite improvement on the one I had read in Genisis.
Most of what I know about Dave Turner is heresay, but the consensus was that he had disagreements with the authorities about what sort of recreational herbs should be available. Apparently, this resulted in his being unavailable for gigs from time to time. He could well be in his seventies now.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 04:55 PM

talking of music that blew us away.

Does anybody (apart from me) remember The Farting Song by Dave Turner?

theres one for the teenagers.....Does anyone remember Dave? He had an album out on Joe Stead's Sweet Folk and Country label, along with the likes of Paul Downes and Phil Beer, Bob Williamson, Doug Porter.

he was a Nottingham bloke and he wrote a number of funny songs - one about Robin Hood called Ban the Bow! terrific guitarist - he played an old Guild with cracks all the ay round the belly. And he did Rob Wilton impressions.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Hillheader
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 02:48 PM

Silent Night/7am News - Simon & Garfunkel still gets to me and is as relevent today as then - just swap Iraw for Vietmen and it's still going on.

Carrickfergus. I knew of the song but had never learned to sing it. A freind asked me to and I did. I sung it one evening and he was delighted. Two weeks later he was gone - heart attack - and I still cannot sing it without thinking of him.

Tom Paxton - The Bravest. "...firemen running up the stairs as we were running down....".

Davebhoy

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 06:45 AM

NEVERMIND

Answered my own question, the wesite that credited it to hardin is clearly wrong.

Here:


"Cease Fire" song in a medley with Bobby Darin's 1968 hit, "Simple Song of Freed

Good article

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 04 Nov 06 - 06:42 AM

>>>>Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator - PM
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 02:29 AM

Earlier this afternoon The Villan mentioned Bobby Darin, truly an underappreciated Great One. I had the opportunity to see the new biographical file "Beyond the Sea" last night, which brought back memories of this really hot singer.

The movie is pretty good, and Kevin Spacey's performance is *really* good. But I digress, I want to discuss Darin, not the movie.<<<

Question - I saw the movie last week and they made it seem as if Darin wrote Simple song of Freedom - is that possibly right? When I google it, I see sites saying it's another Tim Hardin song. I searched the DT and nothing came up

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Kaleea
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 12:29 AM

There are a few times in my life when I have been totally blown away by another Musician--and I've heard many in concert. There are some who stand out the most. The first time I remember feeling like that was as a little girl when I first heard Ray Charles. It happened again when I got to hear him at a Jazz fest.
    As a child, when I heard Mahalia sing on tv, I heard what I'd never heard before. My father bought me a record of hers, & to this day, I have voice students listen to her to understand "how to sing."
   Then there was the time I heard Ella, about 20 yrs back before she passed. Ella! Wow.
    And when I heard Yo Yo Ma, I was completely enraptured--in a state of total bliss. I believe that my Bass Violin major boyfriend was jealous. To think that the tickets were free to we who were starving college Music majors then.
   Then sometimes when I'm down at the Walnut Valley Music Festival in Winfield, Kansas I get that same feeling.   And not just when I'm listening to the paid performers.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Teresa
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 09:42 PM

More than one.

I'd been listening to Peter, Paul and Mary, the Dubliners, and some bluegrass programs on the radio through the 70s. One day I heard an Irish music group with whistles, bouzouki, guitar, and pipes on KPFK around 1981 when I was fifteen. I don't remember the group, even, but the music was so different from what I'd heard previously that I felt as if I was having a religious experience. I couldn't get to sleep that night; my whole life changed from that moment.

Some months later I heard a Canadian singer being introduced on the radio and they played Stan rogers' "Northwest Passage". Wham! That was almost like a physical blow; I had to get that. Unfortunately, I lived in a small town, and I didn't think I'd come by it any time soon.

A few years later, I moved to the San Francisco bay area, and someone told me about a record store that sold folk music and other rare stuff, and I went in and asked if they had any Stan Rogers.   "Which one?" So there's where I got Northwest passage. :D

Teresa

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jeff Green
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 09:19 PM

There were songs that led me in new directions
"If I had a ribbon bow" by Fairport on an Island sampler LP which I suppose led me into folk.

Missa Luba track Sanctus from the film "If".

Leonard Cohen's Suzzanne, Sisters of Mercy etc

Santana - I'd never heard anything like that

I remember seeing Plaxty live - I hadn't heard of them at the time - I was buzzing for days.

Kitaro's Tenku CD lent to me by a German guy in a Singapore crash pad - I'd just treated myself to one of those new (at the time) Sony portable CD players

Ani Difranco with Maceo Parker doing Prince's "When You Were Mine"

Fugees The Score - I consider much of Wyclefs output to be almost folk music.

Kronos Quartet and Lux Aeterna

Some things I missed the first time round - I never used to like Pete Seeger or Harry Chapin ("If you like Harvey Andrews you must like Harry Chapin" I remember someone saying - At the time I didn't) -Now I consider the former to be brilliant and the latter as a natural progression.

I'm getting more confused by the demarcations in music - why do I suspect that talking about Harry Chapin singing about a waitress is OK here but talking about Wyclef singing about a waiter might not be as aceptable?

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Auggie
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 05:25 PM

Janis Ian's "At Seventeen".
I don't believe a performer could write and sing a song that would leave her anymore emotionally vulnerable in front of an audience full of strangers than this one.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Herge
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 05:02 PM

Alison Krauss - Ghost in this house
Boys of the Loght - The midwinters waltz

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 05:01 PM

This:

VERDANT GROVES (SHAKER CD)

There are LONG song clips there, for every track. Go hear it for yourself!

~S~

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Pogo
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 12:57 AM

When I was 11 or 12, we had a bagpiper come to our school to perform. I remember our class standing outside of the cafeteria and the fellow there with his pipes and in his full costume. People joke about how obnoxious bagpipes are, but I swear when he started playing it was like something woke up inside of me. I stood there very quietly, listening so intensely and trying to understand what that music was saying to me while all the other kids were around me giggling and holding their ears and making faces. I don't remember the song but I remember how it made me feel. I've loved Celtic music ever since.

There's been other songs that have had that sort of effect on me at various points in my life. In the classics it was Beethoven's Ode to Joy, Handel's Messiah, the Erlking, Carmen, Mozart's Magic Flute and many, Noelenn Brenhedd (sp?) as performed on the Celtic Spirit CD gave me the shivers the first time I heard it, gorgeous acappella song. Stairway to Heaven and Gallows Pole by Led Zepplin and Music of the Night and Think of Me from Webber's Phantom of the Opera on the less traditional side of things. Just recently I've fallen in love with Idumea on the Cold Mountain soundtrack and Down In The River on the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack. I can remember hearing She's Like the Swallow the first time at a St. Patrick's Day festival in Roanoke and being completely enchanted with it.

There's been many others...so many moments like that, where a song comes on and compells you to listen to it with your entire being. Good music never really ever stops having that effect on you, I believe

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 05:04 PM

Amadan

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Fifteen Iguana
Date: 24 Dec 04 - 12:42 AM

Wow, what a great thread.

When I was five or six (circa 1960) I went to a party at my uncle's house. His son, my cousin, was a college student. He had a guitar and played three songs I remember (and as I recall it was out of earshot of the adults). Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes." Shel Silverstein's "Boa Constrictor" and ""25 minutes to go." My first encounters with subversive songs.

In college I went to the Middletown NJ Folk Festival, my first encounter with that phenomenon. At one point the MC said "We had this guy here a few years ago. We think we have recovered enough to have him back." And out came Utah Phillips. He played "Goodnight Loving Trail," and "Old Buddy, Goodnight," I think. I was hooked.

A few albums by people I never heard of that I picked up in a used pile and fell in love with: Si Kahn. Ad Vielle Que Pourre. The Wrigley Sisters.

At various Vancouver Folk Festivals I discovered Ani DiFranco, Moxy Fruvous, and Bob Snider. Several years went by in which I heard no one who excited me. I wondered if it was them or was it me? Maybe I was too old and jaded to get excited by a new performer. Then I heard David Francey. I concluded it wasn't me.

Oh, but I forgot one. One year at the Vancouver Folk Festival, Friday night concert, a blues musician was playing. That's not my favorite stuff so I was heading off to the food. The man sang a traditional sounding tune with lyrics that went like this: "You don't love me like you used to do... the feeling's so much stronger now." I remember spinning around to gawk at the stage. A blues musician singing about true love and marital happiness? By the time I got to the album tent all his CDs were sold out. That was my introduction to Eric Bibb.

And now the most recent. My wife and I go to Port Townsend (Washington) Fiddle Tunes workshop most years and this year there was a fellow there named Mark Simos.   I only head him playing backup guitar so I wasn't that thrilled by him. On the way home I opened his CD that my wife had purchased, "Crazy Faith." By the end of the first song I had my notebook out, taking notes. This guy knows traditional music backwards and forwards, but he writes modern, inciteful lyrics. The closest comparison I can make is Dave Carter. Wow...

Fifteen Iguana

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From:
Date: 23 Dec 04 - 11:20 PM

Hi Wolfgang
I see a long time ago you were looking for the words to MacColl's "The Big Hewer" This was put out complete on vinyl in addition to the Radio Ballad. If you still need them please reply.
Roger

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:39 AM

(... praecox) For me it was the Watersons. I heard that sound in the radio (just one part of one song) and didn't get the band's name. I did search for the band's name for several years before finding them.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:36 AM

For me it was

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: goodbar
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 11:31 PM

phil ochs. usually it takes a couple listens for me to be "blown away" by a band but when i heard the first 10 seconds of "draft dodger rag" by phil ochs i knew he had become one of my all time favorites.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:27 PM

Australian Bush Ballads definitely blew me away, and still does. It single-handedly turned me on to Australian music. I've never heard anything since (and Bob Bolton and other Catters have shared some fine music with me) that had the same impact.

Nothing like the first time..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Arkie
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:08 PM

Two more things come to mind. One is an album, A.L. Lloyd's "Australian Bush Songs". I found it in the cheapo bin in a little book store in Norfolk, Virginia. I bought most of my records there at one time including Ed McCurdy's Dalliance lps. I've listened to the bush songs a lot over the years and developed a love and respect for Australian music because of that record.

The other is the song "Lord Of The Dance".   I was on the staff of a Methodist Youth Conference in Blackstone, VA one summer during the '60s and as "folk" music was popular in that era, a group had been invited to perform. Two of their songs stayed with me, "Shame And Scandal" and "Lord of the Dance". I learned those songs from one of the girl singers. I can't remember her name, but I still recall the little footprints on her legs headed upwards under her dress. A short time later a friend who had been working in Scotland sent me a Sydney Carter songbook and I learned more about Sydney Carter's songs. I then learned other songs of his but "Lord of the Dance" is still my favorite and a song I never tire of singing or hearing. When both my children took a liking to the song it was elevated a bit more.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 12:59 PM

Janis Joplin, indeed!

I first heard her at the Newport Folk (!?!) Festival, and was absolutely amazed. But the *best* performance of hers that I ever witnessed was as an unannounced guest with the Grateful Dead one night at Pepperland in Marin County, CA (just north of San Francisco). Janis and Rod "Pigpen" McKernan were "an item" at the time, and they gave us some unbelievable vocal-and harmonica duets.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:09 AM

There were three songs I remember where I would practically have to pull over to the side of the road: the Rooftop Singers (mentioned above) doing "Walk Right In," Janis Joplin doing "Take a Little Piece of My Heart" and Aretha Franklin doing "Baby, I Love You." Anyone passing this crazy lady howling at the top of her lungs, rocking her head side to side in wide sweeps while driving a car would undoubtedly fear for their lives and wonder what the young people were coming to nowadays (and now we know...)