Music That Blew Me Away

Subject: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:17 AM

I'm not talking music we like, in this thread. Not even just music we love. I'm talking music that blew us away the first time that we heard it. There's a lot of music I love, but there are a few recordings that completely floored me when I first heard them. I love to see that excitement in other people. Never mind whether it was opera, folk, rock and roll, jazz or even disco (although I'd have a lot of trouble, myself, with disco.)

Here's one from me to start it off.

Back in the early 50's when I was a teenager, pop music was Patti Page, Doris Day, Perry Como and the lot, I used to listen to WFOX out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'd lie on my bed late at night with my Motorola using my arms as antennae as the reception would fade in and out. Without any advanced preparation, this song came out of the speakers and it created an appetite that I've never completely satisifed. It was by a group named The Crows. What kind of a name was that? A group named for a kind of bird? Next thing you know, they'll come up with groups named after Orioles and Cardinals and BlueJays. The song was Gee, recorded with just an electric guitar, piano and drums. It didn't sound like anything I ever heard before.
When I went down to the local music store, they had never heard of the song, and couldn't even find it to order it. No wonder. WFOX was a radio station that played "race" music. Early rhythm and blues.
I had a friend who was going to Marquette University in Milwaukee, so I went to visit him one weekend. The program of WFOX was sponsored by a record store, and that was my real reason for going. I ended up walking a couple of miles to get to the store. I had pictured it as a gigantic store, filled with exotic rhythm and blues records. It was about 8 feet wide. But, when I walked in, I said, full of confidence.. "Do you have Gee, by the Crows?" And the guy behing the counter turned around, reached behind him and pulled as copy off a stack of 45ps a shelf.

I still have that 45. It's gray from being played, and almost smooth, but when I hear that song, it still gets me.

I can give folk samples, and jazz and gospel... and rock and roll, too. Not just songs I liked.

Songs that totally blew me away the first time I heard them. Songs I would gladly travel to another city and walk several miles, just to get a copy.

Tell me one of yours.. and if you can take the time, tell me a little more than just the title of the song. I'd like you to recall the excitement you felt the first time you heard it.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Flash Company
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:30 AM

I walked into a local record store in Northwich in the 1950's and a record was playing which was so rhythmic and different to any of the current pop music that was about at the time. The girl on the counter swiped it off and said 'You must hear this!' and put on her latest record to plug, Bill Haley's Rock around the Clock.
When it had finished I said 'Yes, but what was that one you were playing when I came in?' 'Oh, something called Fish Seller by a guy called Sidney Bechet, rubbish isn't it!'
I said 'Put it on again', and that friends is why I never really took to Rock & Roll.

FC

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:37 AM

I don't think, apart from "The Beatles" that I was ever blown away by any particular person or groups music but there have been songs that have blown me away at the time.
"Nights in White Satin"...The Moody Blues is probably the most memorable.
Clifford T Wards "Where did we go wrong"
Glen Campbell..."Wichita Lineman"
Steeleye Span.."All around my hat"
Many more...too many to mention
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: muppett
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:41 AM

First time I heard Dire Straits Album, LOVE OVER GOLD, Particularly Telegraph road, WOW, still gives me goose bumps.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:41 AM

Anything by Cara.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:48 AM

One musical memory I will never forget was the in the early 1970's, when a friend of mine walked up to me holding a portable cassette recorder, which I had never seen before. He simply said 'listen to this' pressed the play button, and out came Voodoo Chile by Jimi Hendrix! It was also the first time I had heard Jimi, fabulous!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:51 AM

In the early 70's?
you must be really old!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:52 AM

I remember learning to play the guitar when I was a kid and I'd learn Donovan and Dylan songs - just strumming along as best I could. I was really proud when I could change chords without stopping or looking. Then one day my sister's boyfriend, Chas Kirinich, turned up with an album called Another Monday by some bloke called John Renbourn. I just couldn't believe my ears and songs like I Know My Babe and Lost Lover Blues I play to this day. And then of course there was Bert Jansch.

That was back then. Two years ago I got into Steve Earle after seeing him at the Cambridge Folk Fetsival. This year he released The Revolution Starts Now with songs like Rich Man's War, Home to Houston, The Gringo's Tale and the title song itself. Inspirational.

Went to see him and The Dukes in Birmingham (UK) Monday night - supported by Alison Moorer - a truly great show. Next week I'm going to debut my version of Rich Man's War - should make from Christmas Carols all right.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:56 AM

Early 50's, John. I am really old... 69. But then, I was even older, ten years ago..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: beetle cat
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 11:02 AM

I'll never forget the first time I heard a recording of the Watersons. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before, and yet it represented everything I'd ever valued.   

.. There are a few songs in particular that I associate with that first impression of them, and of folk music in general. The Greenland Whale Fishery. T for Thomas.

Somehow it was traditional for me, even though it wasn't really. Like invisible roots.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 11:09 AM

Ray Harvey sang the blues last night in The Bedroom and nearly blew everyone away

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: muppitz
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 11:16 AM

Crowded House - Fingers of Love

A most amazing and haunting song.
The first time I heard it live, Neil Finn's son was touring with him and he played the lead guitar, it was amazing, I just closed my eyes and wished myself to another plain of existence.

muppitz x

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Stu
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 11:19 AM

Folk: Forst and Fire by the Watersons. A true epiphany for me. Until then, I only really loved the Irish stuff, playing in sessions, and largely ignored my own indigenous musical heritage, but this record changed all that, especially with regard to songs.

For tunes, the third track on a NaConnery's CD I was given. The last in the set of reels is Man of the House, one of the others may be Ship in Full Sail but I'm not sure. Anyway, that set blew me away and still does every time I hear it. For my money, the best set of Irish tunes (or perhaps, any tunes) anywhere on record. It is perfect and utterly flawless.

Other stuff: Tom Waits singing "Innocent When You Dream" at the end of the film "Smoke".

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 11:19 AM

I remember lying in bed, listening to the radio under the covers..which leads me to believe it was very late and I was about 11 yrs old. There was a track playing as I tuned in, the station was either Radio Caroline or the pirate Radio London ( I think there was one called that?).

Having been brought up on a diet of The Men Behind the Wire and Paddy McGinty's Goat, this was an under the covers epihany, to hear 'real' guitars and percussion to die for......waited for track to end and found out it was 'Cosmik Debris' by Zappa. My ears had never been so happy.

Pink Floyd's Wish you Were Here left me similarly gob smacked. I heard it in it's entirety in a dark, smokey room for the first time,with about 6 other people, and it was one of those moments that everyone chooses not to speak for ages, and when you realise you are all consciously not speaking, you can really feel the music. Thats explained real badly, but it was a perfect warm moment in time.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Little Robyn
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:02 PM

Back in 1958, a song that was being played on the NZ hit parade, by a group called Elias and his Zig-Zag Jive Flutes, called 'Tom Hark'. I found out much later they were a South African street band. We'd never heard a sound like it.
And I still have the 45!
Robyn

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:09 PM

I have told this story before. I attended a Joan Baez concert in the early sixties. She brought out an unknown named Bob Dylan who first sang "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Caroll" to an audience dumbfounded at his voice. He followed with "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" and the audience went crazy. Bought his first LP the next day. Definitely blew me away.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:10 PM

J.S. Bach.

Also, when Paul Oorts showed up at O'Hurley's jam session with his continental chromatic accordion and played something that sounded very "continental". That was what inspired me to learn to play the accordion.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: robomatic
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:11 PM

I was raised on Mozart and Perry Como. So imagine what went through my tiny mind when I heard "Rite of Spring" for the first time.

I understand that its first public performance sparked a near riot within the concert hall.

As for songs, most recently it was "Marilyn" by Dan Bern. His frankness with the language, ability to sustain a somewhat novel idea through a lot of words with a catchy refrain. I went to see him in downtown Anchorage about four years ago and he had this room absolutely packed. I went with a woman my age and a woman ten years younger who missed all the references and went home in disgust halfway through the performance. I enjoyed it all the more.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: dwditty
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:32 PM

I first heard Oscar Brown, Jr. in 1960-61...his SIn & Soul Album. I learned that entire album by heart, but it was the first time I heard him sing his lyrics to the Mongo Santamaria song, Afro Blue, that completely floored me. I am still listening to it regularly to this day.

Another instant musical connection was AMos Garrett's guitar solo in Maria Muldaur's Midnight at the Oasis.

It happened with It's a Beautiful Day, too, but it might have been that particular batch of illegal chemical substance.

Then there was Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Philharmonic conducting Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Violins and Ochestra in Gm with Isaac Stern and David Oistrakh.

I am sure I will think of others. Good thread topic, Jerry.

dw

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: dwditty
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:34 PM

Oh, and John Fahey's original release of Requiem for John Hurt.

dw

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Rasener
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:48 PM

If I were a carpenter - Bobby Darin

This has remained one of my firm favourites all through my life. The way he treated the number had such feel. This man was a master and I personally think very underated in certain ways.
His versatilty is just amazing.

I recently played a CD of Bobby Darin to my wife and children who hadn't heard of him, and to my utter amazement they all said they really liked him. I don't normally play my real oldie favourites to my family because I don't want to bore them.

Another was Gaye by Clifford T Ward. I can't explain why I like CTW. Just a very good songwriter who suffered ill health.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: beetle cat
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:51 PM

ooof i just thought of another.
Bob Conroy's Erin's Green Shore on Irish Folk Songs From Old New England.

What a performance!
the rest of the cd is almost as amazing, but there is just something about that song. The first time I played that cd, I must have repeated that track about 20 times, and I still do, every time I listen to the CD. The way it opens with the banjo.. like magic.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:58 PM

"Music" by John Miles

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:58 PM

They've all been said already...Tom waits' Innocent when you dream, Jimi Hendrix (anything by Jimi Hendrix)

Hurricane by Bob Dylan, too...although i was blown away by the whole album. Sends shivers up my spine...

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,chinmusic
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 02:59 PM

I'll give you three of examples. I recall hearing Eva Cassidy singing 'Over The Rainbow', and I was stunned by the power and beauty of her extraordinary voice. She was singing 'Over The Rainbow, and she put me over the moon. I went straight out and bought her cd.

My second example goes back to the 50s, and it's the first time I heard the original lead singer of the Platters singing, 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes'. I don't know this gentleman's name, but his amazing vocals blew me away.

Finally, back in the 60s, I heard John Fogerty sing 'Heard It Through The Grapevine'. When I think of great rock 'n roll voices, I think of Mr. Fogerty.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 03:12 PM

Before I was even a teenager, I heard Elvis Presley on the radio singing "Too Much." I was completely mesmerized. My parents finally bought me the 45 (worrying about the bad influence). I got it home and literally played it for hours, over and over and over, dancing alone in my bedroom to the song. Something about it grabbed my adolescent pulse.

Several years later, I had the same visceral reaction to Herbie Mann on an album recording of "All of Me." In fact, for that one, I choreographed a dance at a school variety show. The little old ladies in my small town audience were probably shocked.

And then there was the Bach Bourree that made something click into place in my head as all the turns and landings and leaps and flourishes hit every corner of my musical consciousness. I've tried playing this piece on the violin (renaming my fiddle for the occasion) and catch some of the spirit, in my imagination anyway.

But the one that really blew me away was Beethoven's "Adieu to the Piano" which I found while skimming through one of my old piano books and trying out new pieces with my halting sight-reading. I literally started weeping all over the keys as I listened to this beautiful piece unfold note by note. Knowing that he had probably composed it while deaf made it even more precious.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 03:17 PM

Back in the '60s, the 1960s not the 1860s, I'm not that old, I was in the Folk Ghetto coffeehouse in Norfolk, Virginia. One of the singers, one I have never seen before or since, sang "Suzanne". I don't think he ever changed chords. I was entranced. I finally found out Judy Collins had recorded it. I bought the record and played that one song over and over. I finally listened to the whole record. That turned me on to Judy Collins.   Then I found out that it was written and recorded by Leonard Cohen. So I bought that record and played the song over and over. Then I listened to the rest of the record and was turned on to Leonard Cohen.   Then I found out that Jennifer Warnes had recorded songs by Leonard Cohen and there was another amazing discovery.   "Suzanne" took my hand and led me to some wonderful places I often visit and always with pleasure.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 03:27 PM

Man, what a lot of great stuff!

Little Robyn: that sounds like the first time I heard Skokiann by the Bullawayo Sweet Rhythm Band... another African band. It took me close to twenty years to find a re-issue of that recording, and my 45 rpm on London is pretty scratchy after a million plays. But, I found a two CD set of African jazz, and it's on there. It still gets me excited!

And Barbara: I was a big Herbie Mann fan. I very briefly took flute lessons when I was about 8 or 9 but my already shakey macho image was rapidly being destroyed, so I stopped the lessons. I always liked the flute in jazz. whther it's Bud Shank or Herbie Mann or a small handful of other musicians.

I'll add one:

Dark Was The Night - Cold Was The Ground by Blind Willie Johnson. Back in the early 60's when I was taking lessons from Dave Van Ronk, after he'd run through the lesson (which took about ten minutes) he'd play records for me. That's where I first heard Blind Willie. When he played that recording I was chilled to the bone. There are no words... just moaning to his slide guitar. No words could have conveyed the cold, dark desolation of that moan. It still gives me the shivers thinking about it. Many years later, when I was watching a foreign film, The Gospel According To Matthew, there is a scene where a leper comes up to Jesus, all crippled and barely able to walk.
Dark Was The Night- Cold Was The Ground was the only sound, and my heart just about stopped. Such power!

Keep 'em coming..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 03:50 PM

...also Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 03:56 PM

About 1963 or so.......I picked up an album called "Blues in Time".....a re-issue of an earlier album cut 6 or 7 years before. Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan together and using Mulligan's piano-less quartet platform.........alto, bari, bass player and drummer. The cut "Wintersong" (along with the rest of the album) was so......so something! It really did blow me away! Just fuckin' unbelievable...........Mulligan and Desmond also had an album called "Two of a Mind" and they were. "Wintersong" remains to this day one of the most unbelievable pieces of work I have ever heard

Spaw

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 04:09 PM

I have that Two Of A Mind album, Spaw, and it is great... Take Five was another mind blower when I first heard it... and it hit the top 40.. never hear it on top 40 again unless it's sampled as the background for a song about gang rape.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 04:45 PM

That's about the truth Jerry.   I have Take 5 on CD and now that I get to thinking about it, I may try to round up a few of the others this coming year. Did you have the Getz/Mulligan collaboration where they swapped horns on some cuts? Loved that one....Gave me a lot better perspective on Getz.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 04:59 PM

From ages 4-10 I lived next door to a "colored" church (Christian Methodist Episcopal, or CME) and thus spent several formative years listening close-up to some of the world's most incredible vocal music. This was in a working-class neighborhood in Plainfield, New Jersey, where most of the other white immigrant families (Irish, Italian and Polish) were leaving and black folks from the south were moving in. The neighboring congregation, as I understand it, was mostly from rural south Alabama, and the sound they produced was unlike anytrhing I've heard before or since.

You could easily pick out the voices of some of the older folks chiming in, demonstrating a very free, very "primitive" or tribal and kinda dissonant approach. The only music I've ever heard that is at all similar is the Georgia Sea Island Singers. An important difference: my neighbors included plenty of younger and more citified members, so the overall effect was a mixture of styles whereas in the field recordings from the Georgia islands, everyone in the ensemble employed the same ancient style.

Also, the pastor booked plenty of the top touring Gospel acts of the day, generally on weeknights, probably in-between gigs in New York and Philly. I remember the huge tour busses parked right outside my 2d-floor bedroom window, while I lay in bed pretending to sleep while listening to the church members singing along with professional artists, quartets, etc. Wow!

One late weekday evening, probably within the last year or two that we lived next to that church (making me about 9-10 years old, in '56 or '57), I lay in my top bunk listening to the most electrifying, most ecstatic, most totally abandoned music I had ever experienced. There was a big old tour bus parked in the reverend's driveway; one of the many great professional gospel acts was up in front of the crowd singing their hearts out, and the crowd's participation was as awesome and goosebump-inducing as anything that was coming out of the altar/stage area, as they sang along, in multi-part harmony and polyrhythm, with the wordless chorus ("wo-o-o wo/wo wo wo . . .).

This time, I *could* understand all the words of the verses being delivered by the lead singer, and the next day I was paging through the Bible trying to find the story of a woman who chased after Jesus, wanting only to touch the hem of his garment. I didn't find much -- I think it's just a few lines in just one of the Gospels. The song had really provided much more of a story, and certainly much more impact, that the brief little passage of Scripture.

Flash forward another year or so. A new popular (i.e., secular) tune is coming out over the radio, sung by a very familar voice, a favorite of mine. Then the announcer comes on and tells us that we've just heard a brand new artist with his very first record. I'm thinking, no way, I'd know that voice anywhere, he's been one of my favorite singers for . . . well, I don't know since when, or just exactly who he was or where I heard him, but he's sure not brand-new to me!

The record was, if you haven't guessed, "You Send Me," by Sam Cooke.

Another 30 years or so went by before I got a "Best of Sam Cooke" cassette that included two of his old recordings with the Soul Stirrers, dating back from before he quit the gospel world to go "pop" (commercial). Cut #2 was something already long-familiar; I'd heard it from Aaron Neville and probably several others as well, "[My Lord Is] Wonderful," which Sam had later recorded with secularized lyrics ("My Love is Wonderful, Wonderful," etc.) to the exact same tune.

But it was Cut #1 that really blew me away. For the first time since my childhood, I got to hear "The Hem of His Garment." Tears came to my eyes, every hair on my body stood straight up. It's a good recording of a great composition, with one of the all-time best harmony-singing groups backing up their talented young lead singer, but in *my* ears, I also heard the elusive memory of a whole churchful of additional voices joining in, adding so much emotion and spirit:

There was a woman, back in the Bible days,
She had been sick for so, so very long.
Then she heard my Jesus was passing though
So she joi-oined
the gathering throng.
And as she was pushing her way through
The people asked her, "What are you trying to do?"
She said if I
could but touch the hem of his garment
I know I...... would be made whole.

And she cried, Whoa-oh [etc. There's no point in trying to transcribe a whole 16 bars of scat. If you know Sam Cooke, you have some idea of the approach and the sound. I can tell you that the membership of the First Christian Methodist Episcopal Church had NO trouble immediately learning how to sing along with *this* part!]

She spent her money / here and there
Until she had / no more to spare
And the doctors / they did what they could
But their medicines / could do no-o good.
And when she touched Him, the Savior didn't see
So he turned around and cried, "Somebody touched me."
She said it is was I who wanted to touch the hem of Your garment
So I / could be made whole / right now.

And she cried ... (you'll have to imagine the rest.........)

That's the music that blew me away, once and for all, and I ain't been the same since.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: beetle cat
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:08 PM

..you win.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:19 PM

Wow... PoppaG... Yes, that is my favorite Soul Stirrers song. We're going to try it with the Messengers, with our tenor Derrick singing Sam Cooke's lead. He's one of the very few singers I've ever heard who I think can take the song on and do it justice. Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver do a bluegrass a capella version of it that is almost a note for note copy of the Soul Stirrers arrangement, and it works beautifully..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Chris Green
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:19 PM

Canadee-io - Nic Jones. It completely revolutionised my approach to the guitar and still is one of those songs that I can't listen to without going all gooey.

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd. It STILL sounds fresh and it's over thirty years old!

Anything played by Vin Garbutt on his whistle. He makes that instrument sing!

More will doubtless occur to me! I agree wholeheartly with Carol about Bach - without a shadow of a doubt the greatest musician who ever drew breath.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:29 PM

Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain", still my favorite jazz LP.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Chris Green
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:48 PM

I agree. But for me "Kind Of Blue" is the better record. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking "how can you make something so complex out of something so simple?"

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:57 PM

About that little essay on Sam Cook[e]'s "Hem of His Garment" -- I took my time writing that, over the course of *two* PMs sent more than a year ago. When I saw this thread, I felt compelled to to dig it out of my PM archives and copy-and-paste it here.

Helluva story, huh? I know I couldn't have written it on-the-spot today (at work, yet).

Sam's last name, incidentally, was originally "Cook," and he was "Sam Cook" for his entire tenure with the Soul Stirrers. He added the "E" when he "crossed over" to secular/pop.

I'm not sure, but I think "Hem" was one of Sam's last efforts before leaving the Soul Stirrers and the Gospel world. I'm almost certain the song is his composition.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Lizzie in SASSY SIDMOUTH!
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 06:09 PM

'Cousin Jack' by Show of Hands....and now a few years later, again by SoH 'Crooked Man' and 'Country Life'!

'Street of Dreams' by The Oysterband....I see fireworks when 'that bit in the middle' comes on!! Also by The Oysterband, 'On the Edge' and 'John Barleycorn' from The Big Session CD with Show of Hands, The Oysterband, Eliza Carthy, Jim Moray, June Tabor and The Handsome Family!


Good to be Alive Music!

Lizzie :00

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: JennieG
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 07:23 PM

The first time I heard early music played by David Munro and the Early Music Consort. I knew some classical music and liked most of it, but this was so amazing. It started off a musical journey that is still going on. Then when I heard Hildegard von Bingen I thought I had died and woken up in heaven with the angels singing in the background.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 07:42 PM

The record that stopped me being a 'Purist' Trad jazz man was a reissue of the King Oliver Band with Louis Armstrong fresh up from New Orleans in 1923 ! First introduction to REAL Jazz !!! Johnny Dodds was MY Clarinet hero !!!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:12 PM

Add Rock Island Line by Lonnie Donegan. There are probably a half a dozen songs in my life that have been turning points in my musical life. Those were records that suddenly opened a door I didn't even realize existed. Rock Island Line was one of them. At that point, my exposure to folk music was mostly the white bucks and matching striped shirts variety, with the exception of Burl Ives and Harry Belefonte. Not quite roots music, although I appreciate the desire they created in my heart to hear more.

Lonnie sounded like he must have stepped out of the recording studio directly into a strait jacket. Talk about taking no musical prisoners! Lonnie brought rock and roll intensity to folk music, which may be offensive to some of the traddies in here, but I loved his "What the Hell!!" intensity. I never cease to marvel at that recording, even after all these years.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jimmy Twitcher
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:29 PM

"Cruel Sister" by Old Blind Dogs. I'd heard the song many times before, but OBD's version (based on the old Pentangle arrangement) really pops out. Gave me shivers down my spine the first time I heard it.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:33 PM

PoppaGator, love your Sam Cooke story. He's always been one of my favorites.

One that blew me away is "Walk Right In," by the Rooftop Singers. What a sound!

Nancy

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:44 PM

I was only about 12 years old when I played an arrangement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony on the piano. The soaring second theme of the second movement brought tears to my eyes.

Then as a teenager I was introduced to Beethoven's 6th Symphony. My music teacher described how her sister sang the last theme in that one at the top of her lungs in the hospital when she was coming out of a coma. It's still one of my favorites.

...and today is Beethoven's birthday!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: KT
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:03 PM

Eva Cassidy's rendition of "Fields of Gold" blew me away the first time I heard it, and still moves me deeply. Especially the line, " I swear, in the days still left, we will walk in fields of gold." That line speaks to me of relationship, and the uncertainty of the the amount of time we have left with one another.

Another is one I've heard sung at this time of year - "Of the Father's Love Begotten." I don't know quite how to articulate why it stirs me so, but it has something to do with the ancient words, and the age old message, with a very simple piano accompaniment...... In the deep dark days of winter....

Good thread, Jerry.

KT

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 10:27 PM

Was listening to Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. this evening, and it still brings tears to my eyes. Michael Stipes conveyed so much emotion with his voice, and it brings to mind all the people I see who are hurting, and the repeated line "hold on" really grabs me.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: number 6
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:04 AM

As mentioned before in a previous thread, hearing Bert Jansch's Angie when I was 15.

A few years later Jack Bruce's album 'Songs for a Tailor' became a memorable collection of tunes that have always endeared me, especially Rope Ladder.

One current musician I must mention that has caught my ear is Gillian Welch.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jimmy Twitcher
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:22 AM

Another one that really gets me is "My Favorite Spring," by Tom Paxton. Being a father, that song makes me sob every time I hear it. I'd like to learn it and sing it myself, but I don't think I could get through it without breaking up.