Music That Blew Me Away

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:41 AM

An acapella unmiked solo performance of She's Like a Swallow in St John the Divine. The voice so beautiful, clear and powerful that as one line was still echoing in the stone ceiling arches, the next held it aloft, until the whole inside of the cathedral was a cascade of sound.

Another, an old tape recording of some old down and out fellow on the streets of London, singing Jesus' Love Never Failed Me Yet, over and over.

And a third, again acapella, of John Gothard singing You'll Not Get Me Down Underground in your Mine, many years ago.

I believe what struck me each time, to the fibre of my being, was the absolute lack of artiface. It was plain song and it was naked.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 01:02 AM

As a child I attended a concert by Richard Dyer-Bennett that was the one where I learned how powerful live music is over recorded music. He sounds so good on his albums, but he was marvelous live. But the performance that I heard a few years ago that was so memorable and I'd love to find a copy of it was I think at one of the Kennedy Center Honor's concerts, and it was when Bill Clinton was in office and in the audience. Leontyne Price sang one of Clinton's favorite songs, "Amazing Grace," and I just stood transfixed, crying and with shivers running up and down my spine while she sang. And I remember the camera passing over the Clintons, with tears running down his face. Simply unforgettable.

SRS

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Peace
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 01:03 AM

"Twenty Years Ago" by Kenny Rogers. I cannot listen to it without crying.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Trix
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 01:07 AM

Cancel Today by Ezio from the Black boots on Latin feet album.
That wonderful feeling of being so in love and lust that you just want to stay in bed all day.
The only thing that has spoilt this song for me is Tony Blair choosing it on Desert Island Discs.I can never forgive him,I tried not to like the song but I can't help its great.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
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.

How terrific a singer do you have to be to redo a LOUIS "SATCHMO" ARMSTRONG hit ("Mack the Knife") and make it into your own signature number! What incredible balls, AND talent!

At the very time that Bobby Darin was having his greatest success, moving "up" from American Bandstand to the big time nightclub circuit, I was more than ever turned off by mainstream American adult commercial music, because I was in the first flush of infatuation/discovery of unpolished traditional blues and folk music. Bobby Darin seemed to represent all that I liked *least* in popular music, and I decided not to like him, tried not to like him, but (of course) couldn't help but enjoy is renditions of, well, just about everything he tried.

Well, I still probably prefer Tim Hardin's rendition of his own "Carpenter" to Darin's, and always have, but Bobby's is not bad at all, and *all* his songs were terrific: "Splish Splash" (which he wrote on the spot in the recording studio) -- nothing serious, but good enough to be an unknown's breakout hit; "Dream Lover," the quintessential romantic doo-wop cha-cha-cha; the aforementioned "Mack the Knife," which managed to duplicate most of the power and soulfulness of Louis' definitive reading while lending the purer, sweeter tone of a great singing voice; the defining composition of his late hippie period, "Abraham, Martin and John," inexplicably omitted from the new movie in favor of two renditions of "Simple Song of Freedom" -- the guy was too much.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Vic at work
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 03:25 AM

I find it interesting that almost everyone of the songs and artists mentioned above have also blown me away. Maybe the Jazz, blues, folk, classical (and in that order) route just has something special about it.
However if you want epiphony then it must be Joseph Taylor singing Brigg Fair, what he must have sounded like as a younger man I can't imagine. He should be in the collection of every 'folk' enthusiast in the world. (rant over)

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 03:29 AM

My first exposure to Django Reinhardt in my early teens started a life-long love. Louis Armstrong's introduction to West End Blues stunned me the first time I heard it and still never ceases to amaze me. And Joe Pass' version of Night And Day, the only time I've heard something on the radio one evening and gone out and bought it the next day.

Mick

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Rain Dog
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 03:39 AM

Back in the late 70s on the BBC TV program 'Old Grey Whistle Test' I saw Tom Waits perform Tom Trauberts Blues and Small Change. It was one of those 'what is this ?' moments. I was not listening to music so much in those years but as time went on I started listening to more Waits ( amongst other things ) and continued to find him interesting, exciting, moving etc
Move forward now to 2004. Me much older and more cynical. Turning into one of the proverbial grumpy old men. Berlin 15th November, sitting in the packed Theater des Westens, along with 1200 or so other people waiting for him to appear on stage.
Yes I know he is a 'performer' of songs, he works at his craft as he sees it, his stage act. Yes, I had read enough about him over the years to know what I was going to see and hear ( though I was wondering how he would cope with performing the new material live ). The bass player , the guitarist and the drummer take their places and begin to play the intro, the crowd already start to get excited and begin to cheer and clap and whoop. And then striding quickly from the back of the stage comes Waits, black shabby suit, hunched over , grabs the mike stand, waits for the noise to quieten down, says a quick 'good evening' and goes straight into Make It Rain.
Wonderful, exciting, powerful stuff, a force of nature standing on a small stage, magical. If any of your own favourite singers / musicians do the same for you, then you know what I mean. He just exceeded my expectations. The man still has it.

The magic of song.
The magic of performance.

Made me feel less cynical for a while at least

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Hovering Bob
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:36 AM

The first time I heard "The Vampire" By Kipling/Marsden was a party where a Cockesdale album was playing in the background so that I could only hear Marsden's tune. I was so taken by it I immediately asked the hostess if I could borrow the record.
I took it home and played it just to hear that track and then Kiplings words hit home. It was at a time in my life, my first marriage had just broken up, when the words expressed exactly what I was feeling.
It instantly became a favourite and it still is, I sing it as often as I think folk club audiences can bare. I treasure the memory of hearing Keith sing it at Wherwell folk club for me.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Bernie
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:50 AM

The first time I saw Donovan singing Catch the Wind on Ready Steady Go!. Liege and Leaf from Fairport, Summer Solstice from Tim Hart and Maddy Prior and hearing Richard Thompson live for the first time.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 07:02 AM

J.S. Bach. especally the concertos,
Various Leonard Cohen songs,
Brahms, A German Requiem,
Pete mortons "Another train"

It's good to see what really touches people, though.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Grab
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:04 AM

Formative tracks:-

- The whole of Iron Maiden's "Seventh Son" album (definitely one of the greatest rock/metal albums ever)
- Live version of "Sultans of Swing" off Dire Straits' "Alchemy"
- "Galway Farmer" by Show of Hands

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:08 AM

KT mentioned Fields of Gold. Always a spine-tingler. Me and my wife spent a fortnight on holiday in the Med many years ago and the crooner in the local bar sang it every night. He sang it really well.

Back in September this year, they played it at her funeral. Blown away? More like disintegrated.

Pete

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Mooh
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:31 AM

The earliest I remember are the choral records made to accompany the Cambridge Hymnal. I was very young, and church music was the only serious music I knew, but this stuff was and still is a major love.

In no particular order: Roy Buchanan, Simon Mayor, Tony Mcmanus, Oscar Peterson, Stephane Grappelli, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin, J.S. Bach, Leo Kottke.

If I listened to it then and listen to it now, it's good, especially if I've seen them live.

I might as well add J.P. Cormier, I'm listening to him now, and he scares the shit out of me.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: KT
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:45 AM

Ah, Pete, my heart goes out to you.

KT

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: KT
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:46 AM

I was watching a PBS special the other night, featuring Peter, Paul and Mary. I was fine 'til they sang "We Shall Overcome," followed by Mary singing "For Baby, For Bobby" as she held her granddaughter in her lap, each looking adoringly at the other. The frosting on the cookies was when Ritchie Havens joined Peter Yarrow on "The Great Mandala." I was reduced to a puddle. Blubbering, that is.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:55 AM

In the 80's, I was recently divorced and raising two sons on my own. The soundtrack for our lives back then was varied. Folk music (which my sons liked o.k. and heard a ton of because I was running a concert series and there was a steady flow of musicians through the house; rock, jazz, gospel, blues, reggae,country and classical. There were certain recordings that defined those years for us, and yesterday I did volume one of that "soundtrack." Reading all the postings in this thread, which I am thoroughly enjoying, I realize that our soundtracks vary, not just because of personal taste, but the country we live in. There's a definite split in this thread, with some music spanning all countries, and some being completely unfamiliar to everyone but the people who live in the country where it was popular.
My Volume One Soundtrack includes people like Dire Straits, The Police, R.E.M. and Tom Petty, who most people have probably heard, if they listen to rock at all. Others like Robyn Hitchcock, Bob Mould, and Timbuk3 are more obscure, even in this country. My oldest son was more into heavy metal, which I never could get serious about, and my younger son was more into alternative rock like R.E.M., and groups like Crowded House, INXS. Like me, he also loved rhythm and blues and soul. That'll probably end up on volume Three.

I've offered to send a copy of volume One to a couple of my friends in Canada (no, there aren't any tracks by Celine Dion on there...) I'll be interested in seeing if they can enjoy the music. Of course, if you don't like rock and pop music, it doesn't make much different whether you've heard individual tracks or not.

Maybe at some point, I'll start a thread to see which musicians have made it overseas (or up to Canada.)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dreaded Thumbpick
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 09:14 AM

At various stages of my life, different things blew me away.

Early memories of songs that I couldn't get enough of are Vaugn Monroe's "Ghost Riders in the Sky" and "Cool Water" by The Sons of the Pioneers. It was impossible to hear these songs too often on the radio.

"Skokiann" came a little later. It had a rhythm that I was totally unfamiliar with and that I couldn't get out of my head.

"Unsquare Dance" by the Dave Brubeck Quintet -- 7/4 time was and is still amazing to me.

I met Bob Coltman in the early 70's and found him to be one of the most electrifying singers and musicians I've ever met. Plus a sweetheart of a human being. Many of his songs have had an effect on me that has stayed with me for over 30 years. The first one was "Cool Drink of Water Blues". I later heard Tommy Johnson's version, but Coltman's voice is the one that stays in my head.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Flash Company
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 09:49 AM

Seems like only yesterday I was second posting on this thread, hell, it was only yesterday! This one surely started something.
Thinking on it, I suppose if I go back to schooldays, I had a music teacher who did a lot to open my ears. On our Founders Day at the service at our local church he played something on the organ which I had never heard before, but which haunted me for weeks. I still didn't know what it was so it was referred to as 'Andy's tune'.
Later I heard Pete Seeger play it on the banjo-- Jesu, Joy of man's desiring.

FC

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: JohnB
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 10:27 AM

The one I still remember was year? Ready Steady Go, late at night, sat up alone. You have to remember RSG was a POP music Programme. Manfred Mann (a pop group) came on and Paul Jones sang Dillon's "With God on Our Side" at the end there was total SILENCE throughout the entire audience, me too, for about 10 seconds before the whole place just erupted in applause.
I still have to thank Steeleye Span for breaking the Irish trap and showing me the Trad English Light.
Jennifer Warnes sends the shivers down my spine too.
And Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, Nic Jones, Martin Simpson, to name a few guitarists.
JohnB

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: dwditty
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 11:53 AM

The first time I heard Joseph Spence I was wearing headphones. One listen to his guitar playing and I was completely blown away. How anyone can milk the space between notes like he did is something I just cannot get my brain (or my fingers) around. So instead, I just let it ride, and enjoy some truly remarkable guitar playing.

dw

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: kendall
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:20 PM

I was raised on country music, and went over to Buryl Ives,and the Weavers etc. Back in 1959, I was in the state patrol boat EXPLORER tied up in Camden harbor alongside the ALICE WENTWORTH. In order to get to the Explorer, we had to cross over the Wentworth. One day while crossing the Wentworth, there was a young man sitting on a hatch cover, bare foot, playing an old Harmony guitar. It stopped me in my tracks because I had never heard such beautiful music before. Never knew a guitar could sound like that. The player turned out to be Gordon Bok, whom I had never heard of before, but we became instant best friends, and even after all these years he never fails to impress me with his music.
I don't know that I have ever been "blown away" by music, but that day I had to take a reef in my topssil.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:28 PM

Speaking of headphones, before they were common, I think I was first blown away, when I was young, when I emptied the record contents of my Mom's cabinet stereo, lay on the floor and stuck my head in between the two speakers and slid the little doors shut. I can't remember what was playing but I certainly found it addictive.LOL

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 12:40 PM

Oh yeah, it might have been a stero recording of the New Orleans railway switching yard, but I soon discovered it was a great way to listen to music as well.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 01:03 PM

I eventually discovered that a live band could do the same thing to my whole body.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Metchosin
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 01:08 PM

And....its a good thing that I never quite managed to subject myself to the fundamental resonance of the human sphincter or I could have joined Spaw on another thread.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:00 PM

A musical phenomenon that blows me away every time I experience it is a good shanty sing. At the Mystic Seaport Sea Music Festival, for example, when you have a whole room full of people who know and love the shanties, one person will start a song and the WHOLE ROOM spontaneously joins in! Gives me goosebumps every time!

Nancy

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:38 PM

Frank and I were at Grey Fox festival a few years ago (actually, we go every year, but this thing happened a few years ago) when a musical epiphany happened. The jam at our campsite had just broken up and it was around 2:30 a.m. so we walked down to the stage area to see if anything was still happening there.

As is usual at Grey Fox, the last act was still lingering on stage, and many of the performers from other bands had joined them. This particular night was before they started booking bands with drums and electric, so it was all straight-ahead bluegrass.

As we wandered up to the CROWDED audience area, we saw Sam Bush manically leading the charge, leaping from one end of the stage to the other, one instrument to the other. He's an unbelievably talented dynamo, and he was leading a dynamite jam that included Tim O'Brien, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Mark Schatz, Tony Rice, Stuart Duncan and several others I can't remember.

So there we were with our jaws gaping, until we started screaming and carrying on like all the other crazy bluegrassers watching and hearing this amazing performance that went on for at least an hour more. There were teenagers and geezers like ourselves, equally blown away on a farm at the top of a hill in rural NY state. Never to be forgotten.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Auggie
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:52 PM

One of he best things about music is that it has so many different avenues through which it can blow you away.

I find both Stephane Grapelli (how could he have been that old and still be getting better?) and David Grisman remarkable in that they can bring you to tears, sans lyrics.

As far as vocalists go, when I first heard Eva Cassidy (doing "Fields"), it was enough to spin me away from my usual world and into someplace I hadn't been before.

But for a total epiphany, it had to be Michael Smith's entire CD titled "Michael, Margaret, Pat and Kate". I listened alone,in the car, driving a rainy two lane highway and just couldn't imagine how some stranger had written so much of my life story.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dani
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:59 PM

Wow, great topic, Jerry. I'm sure I could think of a bunch, but one that jumps out is the soundtrack to The Black Stallion, composed by Carmine Coppola and Shirley Walker. It was used as 'mood' music in a production of a Sherlock Holmes play I worked on as a theatre apprentice. Don't know if it was the time in my life, too, but I was mesmerized, every time I heard it. I had to keep 'snapping out of it". Hadn't seen the movie until a year or so ago, and had the same reaction: my whole body was listening, and I got carried away with the sound.

Also, without a doubt, the first time I heard the Shellback Chorus. It was like a wall of sound threatening to push me over! It was all I could do not to stow away in their luggage so I could join them!!

Dani

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 05:06 PM

One night, back in the late 50's, I was driving my 51 Chevy, collecting fossils in central Illinois. I was in college then, and had no money, so I was looking for a quiet place where I could sleep in my car without being hassled. It must have been around midnight, and it was very foggy. As I drove through Kickapoo (yes there is a town named Kickapoo, you can look it up) I saw a sign for a historic site. What better place to sleep than at a historic site? I was driving through a very foggy stretch of road across a bridge and a small creek when I turned on the radio. Out of the speakers came music I had never heard before. It was the theme song for a midnight radio program, and they didn't say what the music was. But, the combination of being tired, it being foggy, and my approaching a graveyard (where I slept that night without being bothered by nobody,) the music really transcended the moment. I was mesmerized by it, and waited to find out what it was, but the announcer made no mention of the music.

When I got back to school, I went into a record store, trying to find that piece of music. Only the young could be so foolish to try to find a particular piece of music, with no clue to the title or the composer. As I flipped through album after album in the classical music section, I came across Pictures At An Exhibition, which I had at that point never heard. I thought... "Maybe this is it." And I bought it and took it home. When I put it on the turntable, the first notes that come out of the speakers were the same ones that came out of my radio that foggy night in Kickapoo. I have no explanation of how I found the piece, with no information to go on. It seems unbelievable now. But then, it seemed unbelievable then.

But it's true.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 05:27 PM

Jerry ~ was it "The Great Gate at Kiev"?

That's the only "picture" among those at that "exhibition" that I know ~ I had a classical-sampler album years ago that featured just the one piece (among other short pieces by other composers, performed by various orchestras/conductors). I figured the record company included it becaused it was either the first or the best-known of the various separate pieces making up Mussorgski's suite.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: darkriver
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 05:33 PM

This is a really memory-inspiring thread, Jerry.

I have to go along with a lot of those choices from over the years--
Gospel, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd's Dark Side, Bach, mysterious unnamed pieces on the radio (in my case, part of Water Music).

Only thing I can actually add is the first time I heard von Biber's Passacaglia in G for solo violin.

doug

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 05:53 PM

Wonderful selections .... makes me want to get out/ check out so many pieces ....
My nominations for instant breath-taking & jaw-dropping (literally) impact:

* Bulgarian women's village songs as recorded by the Radio Sofia Choir singing arrangements by Philipe Koutev, especially featuring soloist Yanka Rupkina (released as "Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares") .... unbelievable harmonies & tone

* Kora (first heard live courtesy of "Les Ballets Africains" 1965 Australian tour) .... currently the classic Jali Musa Jawara (Djeli Moussa Diawara) ensemble with his kora & singing augmented by balafon & guitar & 2 backing singers is hard to beat ..... pulse rather than beat.

* Ellen McIlwaine singing and playing her amazing & innovative slide guitar on "We the People", recorded live & solo at Carnegie Hall.

(Re previous posts:
- lead singer of The Platters back then: Tony Williams.
- "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet", with Tom Waits eventually singing along with anon homeless man, is out on CD under name of arranger Gavin Byers)

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: sue exhull
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:12 PM

I love pink floyds Final cut, the re-mastered cd has "when the tigers broke free "added to it, from the film version of "the wall", I think tigers is one of the best tracks of all.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:22 PM

Jerry, last month I heard "Pictures at an Exhibition" played by a 21 yr. old Japanese boy, 2003 winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. (There is a piano arrangement of this.) I thought he would levitate off the bench! Some of the parts were very, very big - trying to put an entire orchestra on the piano.

There are several "pieces," or "pictures" with walking music between them:
Promenade
Gnomes
The Old Castle
Tuilleries
Bydlo (The Oxcart)
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
Samuel Goldberg and Schmuyle (Tow Polish Jews)
Promenade
Limoges
Catacombs
The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba Yaga)
The Great Gate of Kiev

Most people recognize the "walking music" (promenade) and the last "picture," The Great Gate of Kiev. Both show up as background music in ads, etc. One local interior design business here in town uses the promenade theme in their TV ads - very sophisticated sounding.

The fight song for the University of Texas (Hook 'em Horns!) is very similar to the Great Gate (not identical). If you ever see that band, watch as they march with long strides to that music.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:23 PM

typo....7th one...two Polish Jews

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jimmy Twitcher
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:25 PM

Hey, Nancy King! Come out here to the left coast some time for our monthly shanty sing at the National Maritime Museum on Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco. First Saturday of every month, 8:00 to midnight. I won't say that every time is as special as what you describe, but we have our moments.

Oh, and not the first Saturday of Januray: the park's closed on 1/1/05. Second Saturday in this case.

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Nancy King
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:37 PM

Thanks, Shanty Filker, I'd love to! But it probably won't happen any time soon, more's the pity...

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:46 PM

There's more to my "Hem of His Garment" story - might as well add it here and now.

I hadn't posted this epic tale last year, when I first wrote it as part of a couple of PMs, because I had some intention of expanding what I had into an essay on the nature of memory. I half-assedly planned to sit on what I had written until I got around to expanding it, adding another incident and figuring out how to tie the whole thing together around the theme of how I experienced an ebb and flow of memory over the years. My recurring awareness of this one particularly spine-tingling musical moment has been a mysterious and fairly important experience for me, and finding a way to write about it coherently seemed like an interesting challenge.

As described above (16 Dec 04 - 04:59 PM), I heard an incredibly impressive Gospel performance at an early age, sometime in the mid-to-late 1950s. I had no idea at the time who the performer might have been, and it happened during a period of several years when I heard *a lot* of incredible gospel singing, at least twice a week, most of which has blended into one general overall memory in my current consciousness. The one thing I definitely remember is becoming obsessed with the search for information on the hem-of-His-garment Bible story, somehow prompted by a particularly transcendant musical experience.

A year or two later, when I first heard Sam Cooke as a "new artist" on the radio, I knew his voice was very familiar -- one of my very favorite singers, someone *not* "new" to me -- but I don't believe I was able to make the explicit connection to "Hem of His Garment" at that time.

Finally, many years later in the 1990s, I heard the Soul Stirrers' recording and everything fell into place. Memories from the distant past actually came back with great clarity as I could see the connections among certain peak experiences.

What I had *not* included in my writings so far was an related incident in about 1962-64. I went to a Peter Paul & Mary concert in Newark NJ with one of my buddies (one of my *few* fellow folk-music enthusiasts) when we were high-school sophomores or juniors. We were serious PP&M fans, and PP&M were still a very new phenomenon. At one point in the show, the performers began a lengthy introduction of their next number, discussing the wonderful rich tradition of Negro Spirituals, etc., etc., and now they were going to sing us a great classic song about Jesus meeting a woman, it's the retelling of a Bible story, etc., etc.

I'm going nuts, elbowing my friend in the ribs: "Oooh, I know what they're going to sing! This is gonna be great! Wait'll you hear this!" -- Of course, my deep-seated memory of "Hem" had been reawakened, and I was primed and ready to listen and get goosebumps.

Of course, PP&M did not do the Sam Cooke number, they sang "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well" -- nice song, sure, but NOT what I was anticipating, not even close. I was *so* let down; I was suddenly disilllusioned about PPM and about "commercial folk" in general, and became a fairly hard-core blues/traditional enthusiast pretty much on the spot. Yeah, I eventually got over it to an extent, and would again be able to enjoy and admire Peter Paul & Mary for their great harmony singing and their inspiring social/political commitment, but I no longer expected them to show me that magical musical Holy Grail -- I knew I had to look elsewhere.

(What I eventually found, upon following my nose to New Orleans, was Professor Longhair, creator of the MOST sublime music I've ever experienced. But that's another story for another time.)

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:51 PM

the atlantics, 1963, aussie surf music, brilliant guitar instrumental


the atlantics


try listening to Flight of the surf guitar

or Bombora

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:53 PM

Oh, go ahead and tell it here!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 07:36 PM

The University of Texas song I was thinking about is "March Grandioso." Watch for the Longhorn Band in the Rose Parade - they'll probably play this one as they strut down the boulevard! link to the Longhorn Band

Some people may not hear the similarity that I hear. See/hear for yourself.

March Grandioso here.

Great Gate of Kiev here.

...and yes, this one blows me away!

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 08:05 PM

It was the Promenade, Mary In Kentucky. For an interesting take on Pictures At An Exhibition, listen to Emerson, Lake And Palmer do it. They did a particularly good job on the Gates Of Kiev.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 10:11 PM

wow...every post I read makes ME think of one more experience..

where to start? This might take several posts..

in the early 1960s, out local library used to lend out LPs...and one day I picked one by some young Scottish lady named Jean Redpath...The record was "Scottish Ballad Book", and I think I paid a fine for keeping it too long. (I had no tape recorder to copy it in those days)...I just couldn't believe that voice. I could listen to Jean sing the phone book.

Still in the 60's...late '64, walking a picket line for 'voting rights' in Hattiesbug, Miss., (much to the consternation of the locals)..we were trudging 'round & 'round, bored....when directly in front of me, a small black girl about 15 years old began singing, in an absolutely beautiful, clear voice, in perfect time to our steps:

"Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere--
Go tell it on the mountain
To let my people go!"

...the hair stood up on my neck as various folks joined in, and we got thru maybe 4 verses before the chief of police appeared and told us "You got a permit for marchin', not for SINGIN'!"....but I could hear that song every step we took for the rest of the week. I never found out who that girl was, but she should have had a career singing.

Maybe 30 years ago, I got several volumes of the Peter Kennedy & Alan Lomax "Folksongs of Britain" series, and on Vol 2, I think, was Davy Stewart doing "The Merchant's Son and the Beggar's Daughter"....and it just grabbed me in ways .....anyway, I NOW knew what it meant to put one's whole self into a piece of music. Then again, the first time I heard Jeanne Robertson sing "My Son David" I was transfixed...wow...it felt like it WAS her son being quizzed.

......but perhaps one of the most single moving moments was one night at a little vegetarian 'coffeehouse', long since departed (The Bethesda Co-op) when, with lights low, Helen Schneyer sang "I Know Moonlight". I had heard her sing it before, and was impressed...but sometimes a singer is just 'on'....and the power of that song, with most of her local friends providing humming and harmony........ummmmmmmmmm

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dreaded Thumbpick
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 11:25 PM

I was at a Josh White concert at Town Hall in NYC in the lat 50's - early sixties and Josh brought his daughter Beverly out to sing with him. She was a show stopper - beatiful voice and great singer. I never saw her again. Anybody know if she kept singing?

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Dreaded Thumbpick
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 11:39 PM

This is a hell of a thread, Jerry. Causes all kinds of memories to well up.

Art Thieme's "Death of Robin Hood" and Michael Cooney's 52 verse "Tam Lin" leave me with my jaw hanging. The stories are so good and the story telling transports me back in time so that I feel like I'm a fly on the wall.

W

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 07:44 AM

Hey, Bill:

A near mystical experience I was reminded of by your memory of the young girl singing Go Tell It On The Mountain...

Many years ago, at the lowest point in my life, I was walking down a city street in the middle of the day. I was very depressed, and couldn't see any way forward in my life. I was walking along, shoulders slumped, gazing at the sidewalk, when I heard this voice. It was a young girl, maybe nine or ten years old, and she was coming toward me, skipping down the sidewalk with her hair flying, totally consumed by her singing. As she passed me she smiled and kept on singing.

The song she was singing was A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. It never occurred to me that you could skip to it. I was so taken aback by it, that I turned around and looked behind me to see if I had imagined her, and the street was empty.

A couple of months later, I was walking down that same street, fueled by a little, tentative hope and I remembered that little girl. I was at the same spot where I saw her, and just as I was saying to myself, "This is where she was singing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, the Carrilon in the church a block away started playing... A Mighty Fortress Is Our God..

Still gives me the chills, remembering it.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 08:47 AM

If it comes down to it , the first 'live' Folk Club I ever went to had
a serious effect on me too - Run by Louis Killen and Redd Sullivan as the guest ! Absolute knock out !

Subject: RE: Music That Blew Me Away
From: Leadfingers
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 08:48 AM

Hey Ted -- 100 !!