Tag Archives: music

Women Who Shred

My pal Barry contacted me a couple of weeks ago to let me know he had tickets to see Ana Popović perform in Boston, and today he followed up with a glowing report on the show. Ana is a Serbian blues singer and guitarist with a career reaching back 25 years, and a resume that includes nearly a dozen studio and live albums, and a guest spot on the Jimi Hendrix tribute album Blue Haze: Songs of Jimi Hendrix released back in 2000. At a time when blues and rock guitar chops are at a nadir relative to days of yore, Ana is channeling the greats of the art form – men and women. Here she is live a couple of months ago, paying respects to Stevie Ray Vaughn, and in a rock video bringing a bit of the Lita Ford.

Coincidentally, in the past couple of weeks I learned about Samantha Fish. This fall she’ll release Faster, bringing her career total to a dozen albums. Like Popović, Fish can flat out play, and can bring the glamour too. Fun to see her smash things, but respect her guitars in “Twisted Ambition”

Watching and listening to these two women rock and shred, caused me to hunt around for others, and I turned up Orianthi, another amazing talent. The Australian was chosen by Michael Jackson to be the lead guitarist for his “This Is It” concerts – cancelled due to his untimely death. She’s played Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival, recorded with Dave Stewart, Richie Sambora and the Hollywood Vampires, opened for Steve Vai, and recently released her solo album, O. Like Popović and Fish, Orianthi can flat out play and can melt the camera.

In My Next Life …

In my next life, I want to be Al Schmitt. I didn’t know this until I read his obituary today. Schmitt, who passed away on April 26th at age 91, won more Grammys than any other recording engineer and producer – 20 – across six consecutive decades. He worked with Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Jefferson Airplane, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, and the list goes on.

Five of Schmitt’s Grammys came in 2004 for his work on Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company, which won nine award that year, including Album of the Year. The album featured collaborations with many artists, hence the title. The duet with Norah Jones, reprising an early Charles hit, “Here We Go Again”, won Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (that’s Billy Preston playing the Hammond B3). The duet with Gladys Knight, “Heaven Help Us All”, won Best Gospel Performance. That song was first recorded by Stevie Wonder.

Schmitt collaborated with another studio engineering legend, Roger Nichols, on Steely Dan’s album Aja, a masterpiece of recording. Schmitt mixed one of the album’s hits, “Deacon Blues”. At the same sessions Schmitt and Nichols worked on the song “FM (No Static at All)”, the title theme and only original song on the soundtrack of the movie FM. The work on Aja and “FM” won Schmitt two of his Grammys.mi

“I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long”

Perhaps Schmitt’s most moving piece of engineering was the “duet” of “Unforgettable” between Natalie Cole and her late father. Schmitt mixed the vocal track from Nat King Cole’s 1951 version of the song with Natalie’s 1991 performance. Apparently, some of the musician’s in the studio for the 1991 session had played on the original, too.

Jon Batiste and Celeste

Jon Batiste, who many of us know as musical director and band leader of Stay Human on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, just won and Oscar. Collaborating with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Batiste won Best Original Score for his work on Pixar’s Soul. In addition to writing original jazz pieces for the movie, Batiste arranged a number of covers. One of those covers, that plays during the end credits, was chosen for an additional rendition released as a single. “It’s Alright” features Batiste and singer/songwriter Celeste.

The song was originally written by Curtis Mayfield in 1963, when he was with The Impressions prior to launching his solo career. Here is Mayfield performing the song in 1989 with an all-star backing band that includes David Sanborn on saxophone, Omar Hakim on drums, George Duke on piano and more. If you want to skip past the interview by Sanborn jump to 2:25.

Celeste was in the running for her own Oscar, having co-written and performed Best Original Song nominee “Hear My Voice” from The Trial of the Chicago 7. Here she is performing it on Academy Awards broadcast.

Rolling Stones’ Pandemic Production

In April 2020, weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rolling Stones released “Living in a Ghost Town”, with lyrics and video apropos of the time. The song actually came out of a 2019 recording session, and the band finished it off remotely when it became more relevant than they could have anticipated. The song also represented the first new, original song the Stones recorded since 2012.

While in lockdown, the Stones finished off work on the re-release of 1973’s Goats Head Soup. The update featured three previously unreleased songs including “Criss Cross”. A very sexy new video was made for the song’s release, based on shoots that director Diana Kunst had done over a period of a few years with Spanish model/actress Marina Ontanaya.

And on April 13th, Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl released “Easy Sleazy”, a hard rocking look back at lockdown – definitely from the perspective of guys who haven’t had it too bad. Let’s pray the whole world will feel ready to join Mick’s and Dave’s upbeat spirit soon.

To Love Somebody

On Friday, Barry Gibb released Greenfields: The Gibbs Brothers’ Songbook (Vol. 1). Barry is the last surviving Gibb brother of the Bee Gees. On Greenfields he reworks a number of Bee Gees hits in collaboration with a who’s who of country music. A lot to get your head around there, but relax – this post isn’t about any of that.

The Bee Gees first major album, Bee Gees’ 1st, was released in 1967 and included “To Love Somebody”. The song was written by Barry and Robin Gibb, intended to be given to Otis Redding to record. But the Bee Gees released it in mid-1967, and Redding never got a chance to cover it before he died at the end of that year. Over the years, though, an incredibly wide range of artists did cover the song, and what a malleable piece of music it has proven to be. Let’s start by watching the Gibb brothers perform the original, decked out in full 1960s splendor.

In 1969 the song got soulful treatments that Redding never got the chance to provide. Nina Simone and Janis Joplin delivered these interpretations that show just how far the song could be stretched.

Nearly 40 years later, Smashing Pumpkins founder Billy Corgan selected the song for his first solo album, TheFutureEmbrace. The album version features Robert Smith of The Cure on backing vocals, but here’s Corgan singing it by himself and delivering a beautiful, hypnotic performance.