Music Archive |
Otis Redding - Otis Redding died on December 10, 1967 --- can it really be half a century ago? The New Yorker looks back and sees what I do: a great creator, the
Otis Redding: Live in Europe - One of the greatest live recordings ever made begins with the corniest of introductions --- a self-consciously “groovy” MC has the French audience spell out the star’s name. I cringed;
Otis Redding: Love Man - In music, I look for pure protein. Major thrills. Titanic emotion. I bounce around my downloads, looking for ultra-real, and more often than not, I end up in the same
Otis Redding: The Immortal Otis Redding - Otis Redding was one of those Olympians who are fantastically good at everything. He could shout. He could dance. He had a straightforward, honest, high-testosterone presence --- he was, as one
Otis Spann - At 8, Otis Spann was playing piano. At 14, he was performing with groups in Jackson, Mississippi. At 17, when his mother died, he was sent to
Paolo Conte - The pianist is smoking a cigarette --- unfiltered, at that. He wears a tuxedo, but he's got the face of a stevedore. His wrinkles are badges: love affairs without end,
Party Time: The Head Butler Playlist - Holidays mean parties --- not that we really need an excuse. Parties need music --- and more often than we’d like, we have to make excuses for that. Someone plays entire
Paul Desmond: Take Five - Paul Desmond was visiting with his friend Doug Ramsey. Desmond was a chain smoker and a legendary drinker, so this visit was to be in a bar. A hotel bar.
Paul Kelly - When Guest Butler Julia May asked about celebrating Paul Kelly, he wasn't even a name to me. Then I listened to 'They Thought I Was Asleep' and understood why Australians say
Paul Simon: Graceland - "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," Elvis Costello has said. “It's a really stupid thing to want to do.” Perhaps. And after a certain age, it’s certainly a bit
Paul Simon: Live in New York City - If you sense there’s been a lot of Paul Simon on these screens of late, you’re right. There was the video at the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the World
Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What - Some years ago, I was invited to be on the membership committee of PEN, the distinguished international literary organization. That was not someone’s best idea --- because there’s almost no
Paul Simon: Songwriter - This is a poem by a recent Poet Laureate --- out of respect for the position, I won’t identify the poet: All night each reedy whinny from a bird no bigger than
Pay the Devil - Pay the Devil Van Morrison
Pete Hamill on Bob Dylan: It begins, “In the end, the plague touched us all.” He wrote this in 1974. - It is widely argued that “Blood on the Tracks” is Bob Dylan’s best record. In some other universe, that might be an interesting conversation. In this one, making the case
Pete Townshend: Who Came First - Pete Townshend has a guru, Meher Baba. Not a Jew. And here we are, on the holiest day of the Jewish year. Why feature Pete Townshend? For the same reason
Peter Gabriel: “Solsbury Hill” - I had a birthday. I try and keep it secret, because I’m in denial about my age and, more days than not, I feel like I’m 19 and it’s all
Peter Tosh - When Peter Tosh sang “Get Up, Stand Up” --- you think of it as a Bob Marley song, but Tosh and Marley wrote it together --- that was something to
Peter Wolf - I have reached such a state of crotchety that I can no longer bear to hear someone talk about his or her "journey." That meant I had to skip the Academy Awards, where
Peter Wolf: Midnight Souvenirs - Only grownups buy CDs of popular music now. Research tells us that kids know better --- they sample a CD, find the two or three songs that sound like keepers,
