This year is going pretty quickly. It is Easter already. It must be true what they say, "the older you get, the faster time goes by." I'm going to my step daughter's for Easter dinner and will enjoy an afternoon with her and her husband and the grand kids. The kids are so grown up now. I must have blinked or something lol. So I've been getting "all my ducks in a row" as they say and I am going to take an early retirement. I feel it's the perfect time with all that's happened the last year or so. A good time while I'm still pretty healthy and can enjoy my life. Everything's changed for me as everyone knows who have read my posts here, I feel it's time. Plus I can get all the things done I've putting off for years. I wish you a Happy Easter and leave with a short video of one of my favorite drummers doing his thing. He makes it look so easy....
Last night I thought I would listen to the second Bad Company album. I hadn't listened to the entire album for a long time. There's three songs on it you can constantly here on the radio on the classic rock stations. So I thought I'd look up some info on the album. Here it got mixed reviews when it was released. Most didn't care for the song written by the drummer. Plus the reviews seemed to think it was a let down from their debut album. One said they shouldn't be called a hard rock band. Whatever writer said that seemed to me must be clueless about music. I just considered Bad Company a Rock n Roll band. I wonder what writer labeled them a hard rock band? For me I liked their first album better as a whole but there are those songs on the second album that will blow you away. After all it has one of the greatest rock ballads of all time with the song Shooting Star. It's still played a lot on those classic rock stations. So I thought I'd feature the song that the critics didn't like in this blog...
Last Sunday I went to a concert with a friend from work. What a great show. It was at one the smaller venues which is perfect. We went to see Jon Anderson who was the lead singer for years with the band Yes. Besides the Beatles he's my all time favorite singer. It was the second show of his new 1000 Hands tour. And the release of his 1000 Hands cd. Thirty years in the making. He had some tapes sitting around in his garage that he had started working on thirty years ago then he got busy. Plus he added some new songs. It sounds like all the songs were recorded just yesterday. And of course he did Yes stuff too. It was an awesome concert. He still has a lot of energy for a man in his seventies. Anyhoo I tried to take some pics but they didn't turn out too good. Phone cameras are limited but here's one anyway.
Yesterday another milestone. Time goes by quickly. Tick Tock. Except the few minutes you're waiting to leave work and that seems like an eternity. So I thought of an old song considered a classic now to celebrate the milestone. Back when I was just a kid and heard this song, I thought that age was a long long ways away. It seems from then till now life passed in a flash. Precious are our moments here on Earth.....
Sometime this week a song popped into my head. Then another and thoughts about the musicians. So it got me to thinking about Hal Blaine. He was a studio musician who played drums on many of the songs I grew up with. So I looked him up on Wednesday. He's credited with 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles. I was quite amazed. The two albums I remember his work on are Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel and Homecoming by America. On reading more about him (Gotta love Google and Wikipedia) I saw he had just passed away at age 90. Two days before I looked him up. It was one of those weird moments. Thinking about him and learning he just passed away. Another weird thing is I didn't see anything about it on the news sites or on the tv news. With this much work to his name one would think there would be some mention of his passing. Or maybe I missed it on the tv news but I know I saw it nowhere on Yahoo that I view every morning. Anyhoo one of my favorite songs that he plays on is California Revisited. Here's a video of the song to honor the memory of one of the greatest American drummers of all time. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
First I have to make a correction about my last post. I'm not your steppin' stone was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. This songwriting duo wrote a lot of the Monkees songs and hits. The Neil Diamond song I was thinking of was I'm a believer. A big hit for the Monkees. They did a few Neil Diamond songs. Last night I was listening to a greatest hits cd by the Monkees and wow I forgot how good some of the songs are even today. I also learned something I didn't know about the song the Last train to Clarksville. It's about a young man leaving to go to Vietnam. A lot of young lives were cut short in that war and nothing was good about it at all. Anyhoo to further tribute to the Monkees, here's another song by Neil Diamond that they did besides I'm a Believer....
I find myself looking I find myself thinking I find myself bleeding I find myself needing Closure..
This week we lost Peter Tork of the Monkees. Back in the mid 60's this made for tv musical group The Monkees provided us growing up with lots of laughter. Much has been written about them not playing any musical instruments on their early recordings. However when they were allowed to do their own thing they surprised the giant recording industry at their excellence. I found this video from the Tonight Show that shows just how talented they became. This version of their classic hit written by Neil Diamond will get you rockin'......
