Johnny “Johnny Blues” Cárdenasis is a blind self-taught street musician from Santiago, Chile, who plays nothing but roots blues. There are interviews with him on the Utoobage, but they lack captions and my Spanish is rusty.
“Like Aon Focal Eile, I had no idea how big that would be. I was afraid I’d get a slagging from the Irish speaking people but the boss man in Glór na Gael wrote me a very nice letter thanking me for having a song with a full Irish title in the charts.”Richie Kavanaugh
G.E. Smith gets all swampy and stuff with a tribute to late bassman Tom “T Bone” Wolk. Both backed Hall & Oates and were the core of the SNL Band (1985-1995).
Have a great weekend, folks, see you back here tomorrow.
Herd mentality experiment [via]. That explains a lot.
This is THE rope trick [via]. Now let’s rock and roll.
Kim Wilson has always amazed me. One of the best blues harp players around, Wilson doesn’t get the recognition he deserves, IMO. I’m no slouch on a Hohner chromatic with a Ham Radio bullet mic, but I sure as hell can’t pull off what he does.
I was looking for a live performance of “Brazil” (perhaps by Xavier Cugat) to commemorate the Competitions of the Grecian Gods, but instead we must settle for The Theme Song to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil as performed by Geoffrey Muldaur. He was famous for marrying Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D’Amato who recorded some popular songs in 1973 about putting camels to bed, and another one about feeling her leg.
There’s no live performance for that one, so I looked for some more Olympics-themed stuff.
This magnificent feat was engineered with slide rules, and it amounted to blasting a giant bullet containing a human into the sky, then recovering both it and Alan Shepard intact [via]. Those early astronauts had big brass ones, and the creepy music made it even better. (John Glenn appears at 04:15.)
Spodiodi was street slang for chipping in for a cheap bottle of fortified wine in a brown paper bag and sharing it with your buddies. Urban Dictionary says “Spodiodi” is a glass of wine spiked with bourbon. Nah.
BTW, Sticks McGhee was the brother of Brownie McGhee, who partnered with harmonica player Sonny Terry known for his harmonica whooping. “Key to the Highway” was covered by many, including what’s his name. That famous British guy. You know. That guy.
Here’s some Easy-On-The-Ear-Holes stuff from The Yonder Mountain String Band. They need some authentic whooping in my opinion. Maybe even some eefin.
Have a great weekend, folks, and be glad that you’re not in Turkey.
Turn up the sound and be amused – two Mormon missionaries sharked a streetball game. Here’s an exerpt from the Utoobage description:
“My cousin Cole, a missionary in Dallas Texas, has been dying to play some street ball and got the chance. After playing it cool asking to play because they are “Just some white boys”, they were allowed to play and tried to make it look like they weren’t that good. That is until they started to play.
[…]
“He actually was on a State Champ basketball team where he can dunk a regulation size hoop. He has over a 40″ Vert. but doing this in his dress shoes is even better.”
RamCam is self explanatory.
Kim Wilson is the best original blues harmonica jammer since James Cotton, IMO. Yeah, Magic Dick was awesome, but KW wins it in my book.
Bunkessa showed up without warning a while ago, and suggested Hurray For The Riff Raff for a wrap. 27:30 is pure retro awesome.
Have a great weekend, folks, and be back here tomorrow for more fun.
Santigold’s “Lights Out” vid has some cool retro patterns.
Great WTF video: Ленинград — Рыба. Russian/Punk/Dixieland by a band named Leningrad, titled “Fish Of My Dreams.” English lyrics translation here. [h/t Bunkessa].