Jump to content

Cut short

jimmyjazz

By jimmyjazz
in Music

 Share

Recommended Posts

Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, South Austin said:

 

And lesser known, but Nick Drake was outstanding.

spacer.png

Lots of great names to start this list.  All gone too soon.  But I'll echo Nick Drake.  Completely overlooked musical genius in his time.  Took 25-30 years after his death for his work get out and be commercially available.  Guy was depressed and mentally ravaged from such a young age, but yet there's no rage in his music yet it is incredibly ominous and suffocating.  

I contend a deep cut track of his, "Cello Song", is maybe my favorite song to drive to on an open road.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
South Austin

South Austin 53155

Posted
Posted

Yep, Lobo.  There were a lot of good things that came out of my first marriage.  One was that my ex-wife introduced me to Nick Drake when we started dating.  Being such a huge fan of music and rock and roll history, I couldn't believe I had never heard of the guy.  I'm glad his music found a wider audience, but wish it had been when he was still alive.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Goredho

Goredho 17627

Posted
Posted
24 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I’m glad his music found a wider audience, but wish it had been when he was still alive.

I like Nick Drake and find him an underrated folk guitarist as well as an obviously great songwriter.  His posthumous fame owes a lot to Wes Anderson and mumblecore movies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
South Austin

South Austin 53155

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I like Nick Drake and find him an underrated folk guitarist as well as an obviously great songwriter.  His posthumous fame owes a lot to Wes Anderson and mumblecore movies.

The first time a lot of people heard a Nick Drake tune was in this Volkswagen commercial.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Goredho

Goredho 17627

Posted
Posted
Just now, South Austin said:

The first time a lot of people heard a Nick Drake tune was in this Volkswagen commercial.

 

Yep, I think it was before that, but the first I heard of him was “Fly” on the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack.  Then “One of These Things First” made the Garden State soundtrack and a few other of his songs made various soundtracks for similar movies.  Somewhere in there was the Volkswagen commercial.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Goredho said:

I like Nick Drake and find him an underrated folk guitarist as well as an obviously great songwriter.  His posthumous fame owes a lot to Wes Anderson and mumblecore movies.

I think the VW ad came out in 2000.  Royal Tennenbaums (which doesn't share the low-production value of most mumblecore movies) didn't come out until Christmas 2001.  But yeah, both contributed highly to Drake being "discovered."  I wouldn't even say "rediscovered" because nobody knew his music when he was alive.  One day in the 90's I was hosting my radio show and a caller asked for some Nick Drake (and of course me playing mostly loud rock n' roll thought this guy was being an elitist asshole).  We had one record by him (can't remember which or what I played, probably "Which Will" or "Time Has Told Me").  A few years later, I downloaded a few more songs of his on Napster and have been a big fan ever since.  

Sometimes Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino must feel like the main guy in "Yesterday", they sometimes only seem to serve as conduits for long forgotten music to come back into the world and breathe new life into our hungry souls.  I could talk about Drake's music for a whole thread.  Only as I've gotten older and learned more about songwriting, clusterchord tuning on guitar, and prosody structure have I begun to finally appreciate what a genius he was.  And unlike so many recording artists who can't shut up about how dark and complex they are, Nick was truly burdened and tormented and he managed to make such beautiful music.  I had no idea what happened to him for the first 10 years I listened to him, but the lyrics were gorgeous to me.  But then when you learn his whole life story and you go back and hear the words, it's a Kaiser Soze moment of "Oh now I get it...yeah, that's fucked up."  

Edited by Lobo
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted

Above posters, "Nick's music is wonderful.  But full of real despair, literal depression, and you can hear the impending suicide all over his songs."  

Jimmyjazz, "sounds like the perfect father's day gift."  

;)  

This is turning into a great thread already.  

Obviously we can dive deeper into other artists, but Drake is kinda the musical equivalent of John Kennedy Toole.  Almost completely ignored as young artists, then discovered to be brilliant decades later after tragic suicides.  And people still unpacking additional layers of their works so many years later.  

Back on topic, we tend to think of him as this long tenured madman who basically reshaped rock drumming forever.  A tour-de-force savage who sculpted some of the best music ever made.  A heavy presence on the rock scene for a generation.  But in fact, he died just after turning 32.  John Bonham was still a kid when he went.  Because he left behind such a deep well of brilliant work, and still impacts drumming today...we tend to think of him as being around longer, and aged older, than he really was.  He was only a professional musician for barely more than a decade.  However, he was the very definition of life in the years, not years in the life.  Obviously the 1980's would have forced them to change their sound to remain commercially relevant, but my god---when you think about the music they still had left in them as Led Zeppelin.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
South Austin

South Austin 53155

Posted
Posted

One of the best voices in R&B history, Sam Cooke was 33 when he died in 1964.  The circumstances surrounding his death were certainly weird -- shot in the chest at a Los Angeles hotel, and it was ruled a justifiable homicide.  But man, what an incredible voice.

spacer.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, South Austin said:

One of the best voices in R&B history, Sam Cooke was 33 when he died in 1964.  The circumstances surrounding his death were certainly weird -- shot in the chest at a Los Angeles hotel, and it was ruled a justifiable homicide.  But man, what an incredible voice.

spacer.png

Another great call, you're on fire today.  Supposedly his last words to the hotel employee were "Lady...you just shot Sam Cooke."  The three women involved with it have all turned out to be lying about parts of the account, and Boyer (woman who said Cook kidnapped her) turned out to be a prostitute and a murderer later in life.  

Anyway, his music was just taking a very serious turn into the Civil Rights Movement, and his role in that movement was getting more significant.  Some people wonder, just as they did with King and others, if the FBI/government didn't maybe set him up to be shot.  He made great music in his 20's with the Soul Stirrers but they were mostly collaborative efforts.  But the sheer amount of brilliant works he creates just between 27-33 is just astonishing.  His songwriting prowess during that period is almost impossible to rival, as most of the acts similar to him were written/arranged for, Cooke was the opposite (he even spends a huge chunk of this period writing and producing for a half dozen major acts around the country) in that he wrote a huge chunk of his material.  His last few records show a range and scope of writing that would have catapulted him into being bigger than Ray Charles, James Brown, and Sammy Davis Jr. combined.  But we'll never know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
South Austin

South Austin 53155

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Anyway, his music was just taking a very serious turn into the Civil Rights Movement, and his role in that movement was getting more significant. 

Great point about Cooke.  And this was well before Marvin Gaye begin to use his music as a platform for political activism with What's Going On in 1971.

Speaking of which, one of my all time favorites of any genre, shot by his own father at the age of 44.  Not a spring chicken, but he had plenty of good recording years ahead of him. 

spacer.png

 

Edit:  Oh, and Sam Wilson was spot on in Captain America: Winter Soldier -- Trouble Man is the shit.

Edited by South Austin
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Goredho

Goredho 17627

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, Underdog said:

No Prince? 

Prince gave most of what he had to the world, which does not diminish his brilliance.  It just means he probably doesn’t belong in this thread, imo.  We might have gotten some more moments like the super bowl or the R&R HOF performance, but he left behind a mostly complete life’s work of musical genius.

Edited by Goredho
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Townes Van Zandt

Ian Curtis

Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck?  Whuh?  the guy that's been regularly putting out music for 55 years, that Jeff Beck?  He's already in his late 70's.  Is that too soon for you?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
C-Man

C-Man 27685

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Lobo said:

Jeff Beck?  Whuh?  the guy that's been regularly putting out music for 55 years, that Jeff Beck?  He's already in his late 70's.  Is that too soon for you?  

 

6 hours ago, Rip76 said:

jeff-1.jpg

Sorry -- Jeff Buckley

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Al_4_ISU

Al_4_ISU 12612

Posted
Posted
maxresdefault.jpg

Bon Scott era AC/DC is the peak of hard rock.

IMO, the greatest “what if” in rock history is what Back In Black would have been with him singing. It’s a stone cold classic as it is, but it’s probably on the Zeppelin IV/Exile level with him.
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Al_4_ISU

Al_4_ISU 12612

Posted
Posted
Prince gave most of what he had to the world, which does not diminish his brilliance.  It just means he probably doesn’t belong in this thread, imo.  We might have gotten some more moments like the super bowl or the R&R HOF performance, but he left behind a mostly complete life’s work of musical genius.

Exactly.

Same applies to Petty.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...