Acoustic music, blues, country.
Folk songs, roots songs, plain ol’ old songs, these are the songs I like. So I’ll play them again. Here are a couple of songs I recorded yesterday. The first is John Henry, which is definitely in the top five of American folksongs. It tells of man’s bravery and resistance to the “machine”. In this case, the machine is a steam drill, and the man … Continue reading Folk Songs
More on the four and don’t ask “What four?” Let’s talk about the symmetry of the four. We see it, we use it all the time. Check out these 4-based tesselations from the Alhambra palace in Grenada. An aside about tesselations: A tesselation is a repeating geometric pattern. Somehow they appeal to our sense of beauty. Indeed they are beautiful. A hundred years ago the … Continue reading More on the Four
Back by unpopular request, here are some blues songs I recently recorded. Luckily I’ve been able to play again with Maybank of late and we’re having a swell time of it. But we can’t record currently, garshdonnit. So here are a few solo blues songs to cheer you up. What? Cheered by the blues? How can that be? I don’t know either. First, here’s Bill … Continue reading Blues
As we wade through these pandemic times, it’s important that we continue with music. I think music is important. Music feels so important to me that I think, perhaps mistakenly, that it must be important to everyone. I”ve been playing guitar on and off all my life. For the past couple of years I had been playing with Maybank every week. Pre pandemic I even … Continue reading Some Music
Hey, Woody Guthrie. We still sing your songs We will not forget your hard travellin’ We will not forget that this land is made for you and me Those are things that you told us …………….. Sing Woody’s songs Sing out I Ain’t Got No Home in this World Anymore Sing out Vigilante Man Sing out The Ballad of Tom Joad Sing out about the … Continue reading An Ode to Woody
I ain’t much of a songwriter, I don’t suppose. I never sold anything or made any money from it. Once or twice, years ago, I recorded a cassette tape and sent it to a music publisher. A couple of times I tried to audition as a folksinger. To no success. Still, over the years I think I wrote a couple of good ones. Nowadays, I … Continue reading Another Blues “Original”
What Four? Let’s talk about the symmetry of the four. We see it, we use it all the time. Check out these 4-based tesselations from the Alhambra palace in Gbrenada. An aside about tesselations: A tesselation is a repeating geometric pattern. Somehow they appeal to our sense of beauty. Indeed they are beautiful. A hundred years ago … Continue reading Fourgive me: More on the Four
Since the Inauguration I feel almost happy, almost normal. It’s caught me unawares. I thought I’d never breathe easy again. But old Joe Biden is pulling it off. He’s actually competent. Trump and his allies are not gone by any means, but they have taken one on the nose. Maybe America can bounce back from Trump. The alt-right “revolutionaries” who crawled out from under their … Continue reading Feeling Normal Again and a Sing Along
2021 is here. Happy New Year. I guess it’s because of the proud tradition of getting stupid drunk on New Year’s Eve that on the morning after or thereabouts people begin to make those pitiful New Years resolutions. I don’t understand it. You’d think that by now they would have learned not to torture themselves so much. I mean, we all make the same New … Continue reading New Year’s Irresolutions
Somebody Stole My Gal, written by Leon Wood in 1918, is, in my not-very-humble opinion, a terrific song. According to Bumbastories’ staff of certified “math experts”, 1918 was over 100 years ago. Yikes! They had a pandemic back then too. Yikes again! Nevertheless and all the same, Somebody Stole My Gal is a swell song, which is why I’m posting about it again. Like a … Continue reading Somebody Stole My Gal
Every Day Another Story 