Happy Birthday Anona!
14 songs for 14 years old. By Jessica, Paul, Dominic, and Anton
[If you want any of the songs you can download them as a zip file.]
Friends
My nephew was learning to play We're Going to Be Friends by the White Stripes on the ukelele. I don't think he had ever heard it sung by them, so I posted this version from 2002-07-13, somewhere in Minnesota.
Long Short Short Long
My youngest son has great taste in music [in other words he likes what I like]. He's also 4, which means he likes to listen to the same thing about 10,000 times in a row. Recently he developed an infatuation with Friend of the Devil, both the Grateful Dead version from American Beauty and some Garcia/Grisman version, also known as "The Short Version" and "The Long Version", respectively. Or, in his vernacular, simply "Short" and "Long". He likes to listen to them in a particular order, namely, "The Long Version" followed by "The Short Version" twice and then "The Long Version" again. Or, as he puts it "Long Short Short Long" That's a lot of CD switching when you're driving a car, so I burned him a CD of Long Short Short Long. Here it is, for posterity's sake:
Listen To...
After Hurricane Katrina, there were many buildings in New Orleans that survived more or less intact, but for whatever reason were abandoned. One of these was the Colton Middle School, which was eventually turned into studio space for artists. The auditorium is [was?] sometimes used for live music as well. When we saw the Midnight Disturbers there during Jazz Fest 2009, the musicians were all wearing shirts that said "Listen to..." and then each guy had the name of some influential and/or forgotten New Orleans musician that played the same instrument as he did. For example, drummer Stanton Moore's shirt said "Listen to James Black". Trumpeter Shamarr Allen wanted us to "Listen to Henry 'Red' Allen". I'm always looking for little musical projects, so later I went out and tracked down songs by as many of them as I could remember. Here's a sampling. If anyone can remember any of the other names on the shirts, let me know and I'll see if I can track them down.
- James Black, drums on "Hook and Sling" by Eddie Bo
- Henry "Red" Allen, trumpet on "St. James Infirmary"
- Smokey Johnson, drums on "I Can't Help It, Pt. 1"
- Dave Bartholomew, trumpet "Shrimp and Gumbo"
- Brian O'Neill, trombone on "I Just Kissed My Baby"
- Waldren "Frog" Joseph, trombone on "Dixieland Hall Blues"
- Henry "Red" Allen, trumpet on "I Cover the Waterfront"
- Frederick "Shep" Sheppard, saxophone on "Habari Gani"
- Louis Armstrong, trumpet on "West End Blues"
- James Black, drums on "Break in the Road" by Betty Harris