The 2016 Jam queue already is filling up, but we’re going to start with this one:
David Bowie was featured in the third-ever Friday Jam post on this site, and here he is now. Nobody turned around the end of a line with such elegance as Bowie, so as we all attempt to plow through life’s commas, I suspect we’ll all recognize that, even if time changes us, we’ll always trace time, at least in part, by reference to Bowie.
Thanks for letting us rock and roll with you, Starman.
The overhead view is of me in a maze,
and you see what I’m hunting a few steps away.
And I take a wrong turn and I’m on the wrong path,
and the people all watching enjoy a good laugh.
Embarrassed with failure, I try to reverse
the course that my tread had already traversed.
So doing the trauma engulfing my dream
invaded through what was an unguarded seam.
The torrent of helplessness swept me away
to the cavern of shame and the hall of dismay.
Inside me a voice was repeating this phrase:
“You’ve lost it, you’ll never get out of this maze.”
You’ll never get out of this maze
It was a tough week on the health front for a couple folks we keep track of here at ALDLAND. First, Phil Lesh, best known as the bass player for the Grateful Dead, announced that he has bladder cancer. Lesh previously was forced to undergo a liver transplant due to a hepatitis C infection, so word of a new, serious condition was worrisome. The good news is that Phil’s cancer is “non aggressive,” and it sounds like he plans to make a full recovery soon.
Three days later, new Detroit Tigers pitcher Daniel Norris revealed that he’d been battling thyroid cancer this season. Norris’ cancer is malignant, and he will be undergoing treatment in the offseason.
For this week’s Jam, here’s Phil doing his warbly best with the Grateful Dead, twenty years ago in Memphis:
Last Sunday, Chris Squire, best known as the bass player for the band Yes, lost his battle with leukemia. Although the band underwent periods of lineup changes, you have never heard Yes without Squire, in part because of the value of his prominent playing style, and in part because of his controlling legal interest in the band’s name. As we prepare to honor the birth of a nation stateside, in memory of Squire, we take a moment to turn our ears back to England, to which we are forever tied:
Summer wedding season is right around the corner, if it isn’t here already, and to kick it off, our own bdoyk has an article in Elle this week entitled “A Single Girl’s Guide to Surviving Wedding Season in 9 Easy Steps.” Note step five: “Commit to having a great time on the dance floor.” By way of saluting bdoyk on her article and assisting everyone in carrying out step five this summer, wherever and however attached you may be, this week’s Jam is offered, and it’s sure to have you making the right moves:
Today’s Jam is dedicated to the memory of the Beale Street Blues Boy and recognized King of the Blues, B.B. King, who passed last night at the age of eighty-nine.
I was fortunate enough to hear B.B. in person on three occasions, first at Wolf Trap in Northern Virginia, then at the Stanley Theater in Utica, and finally at DeVos Hall in Grand Rapids. Presenting a rousing, engaging performance through his late seventies and early eighties, King was the consummate showman if anyone ever was.
Here he is with the great Buddy Guy, who remembered B.B. in a post early this morning:
The King is dead they say. Long live the King.
While he and his bands– he was a member of both Small Faces and Faces, and he played in numerous other groups, such as the Rolling Stones and his own solo band– deserve their own posts, Ian McLagan is honored and remembered in this week’s Friday Jam space. McLagan, an English keyboard player from the Booker T. Jones school, died this week. Here he is, in a YouTube greatest hit, with Faces, which, in case you didn’t recognize them, also included Rod Stewart and Ron Wood up front:
In honor and memory of Tom Magliozzi, here’s a comfortably familiar Jam:
If you’re so inclined to follow along with the show, the fun (occasionally) continues, albeit now with a more somber bent, at CarTalkTalk.
I still don’t like Halloween, but I still can’t let the day pass without sharing this jam, all the more salient in this space today as the holiday falls on a Friday. Enjoy this new (to me) version of Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s canonical feature, now with the new (to me, as of today) knowledge that Pickett’s band for the special occasion, the Crypt-Kickers, featured the great Leon Russell on the B side. Enjoy the A side now before heading out for an evening of tricks and/or treats, and say hello to Bobby, Leon, and Dick if you happen to spot them in the great crypt tonight:
A week ago, Baseball Prospectus’ daily podcast celebrated its 500th episode by holding a “baseball draft” in which a few writers drafted their favorite things about baseball. Grant Brisbee’s first-round draft pick was “the other Ryan Braun,” a focal point of his interest in baseball players with the same name as each other. As it turns out, just before that Ryan Braun synthetically rose to prominence, a young-ish reliever named Ryan Braun pitched for the Kansas City Royals for two seasons.
On Monday, I started a free trial of satellite radio. I’m still deciding if I’ll stick with it, partly because I tend to think the stations can be too narrow in scope, but for now I really am enjoying their bluegrass station and the fact that I can listen to the Detroit Tigers Radio Network game broadcasts outside of the conventional listening area. One of the first songs I heard was by someone named Lou Reid, and I heard it again last night. (So much for the liberating medium of satellite radio!) We’re big Lou Reed fans here, so the conceit of this post birthed itself pretty quickly. Today’s Jam is the only video version of that Lou Reid song I could find, and if you’re wondering about the audio quality, yes, this is an amateur taping of a CD release party, which was held in the parking lot of a North Carolina Wal-Mart.
If I can, I’ll just add a quick happy birthday note to ALDLAND. It’s been a fun three years. Thanks for stopping by.
ALDLAND 