2011

Early Elton @ Rockwood Music Hall – January 14, 2011

What is Early Elton and why should anyone care? Early Elton is what I like to refer to as organic Rock & Roll. If you love The Band, Stax & Atlantic Soul, The Counting Crows, Exile on Main Street-era Stones, Rod circa Gasoline Alley & Every Picture Tells A Story and even Ronnie Wood’s beautiful Mystify Me from I’ve Got My Own Album To Do, then you get what I mean.

[All photos by Marc Millman]

But more importantly if you loved singing along to Tiny Dancer in Almost Famous but were just as overcome with emotion when Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters was played during the scene where Jann Wenner makes a cameo in a NYC taxi, then this band is for you. Sure you like Bennie and the Jets. Who can deny its infectiousness? But wouldn’t you rather hear Grey Seal? And let’s be real, wouldn’t you rather listen to just about any track from 1970’s self-titled debut through 1972’s Honky Chateau?

Playlist of 10 Early Elton Clips From 1/14

Early Elton is the ultimate homage to Sir Elton. This is not a tribute band anymore than the Fab Faux are. (In fact, both bands share a key member in drummer/singer Rich Pagano.) They are “a Piano Driven Power Trio-Performing the music from the Elton John, Dee Murray & Nigel Olsson Trio tours of ’70–’72” according to their Facebook page. And this is spot on. If you can imagine those lucky enough to have been at A&R Studios on 11/17/70, then you can understand what it was like to share this night with passionate music lovers.

READ ON for more from Marc on Early Elton in NYC…

When visionary ex-pats Trevor Herman and Jumbo Van Renan compiled the music of the Indestructible Beat of Soweto: Volume 1 from the Soweto region of Johannesburg, South Africa – an

Dan Bejar may be best known as the wild haired, quirky voiced member of the The New Pornographers, but in addition to his work with the Canadian indie-pop supergroup, Bejar

The promoters of the Summer Camp Music Festival have brought out a “big gun” to perform at this year’s festival – jam titans Widespread Panic. This will mark Panic’s first

[Originally Published: November 5th, 2010]

We welcome back an amazing writer, Sam Davis of Dog Gone Blog and Relix, who compiled a B List detailing his favorite songs about trains…

Railways and trains are so deeply rooted in the fabric of American music culture to the point where “train” songs actually predate recorded music. Whether it was the songs sung by the railway workers in the late 1800’s or the railcar songs sung by the freighthoppers during the Great Depression, trains came to symbolize the journey and the American working class.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the blues was literally born from the railroad tracks. It was at a train station in Mississippi where the “Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy discovered the sounds that led him to compose some of the the very first blues songs such as the famous Memphis Blues. Blues music and its musicians developed a strong connection to the trains, heard in timeless blues classics such as Rock Island Line, Freight Train and Midnight Special.

Countless blues and rock musicians have been inspired by the train, and there is an endless list of songs with themes surrounding this topic. For today’s B List, I’ve attempted to crack into that list to pull out ten of the best “train” songs. I hope you enjoy.

10. The Yardbirds – Train Kept A Rollin’

This was perhaps The Yardbirds biggest hit, and was one of the first songs to carry the blues train theme over to the rock world. It was originally written by Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, and Lois Mann and was first performed by Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band in 1951. This version features Jeff Beck, who uses his guitar to recreate the sound of a train’s whistle.

READ ON for the top nine songs about trains…

Last year we shared a few compilations of classic Grateful Dead shows put together by longtime HT reader Joe Kolbenschlag. We were overjoyed to find Joe’s latest Steel Cut Oats compilation in our inbox this week and wanted to share this 37-track set from a pair of 1973 shows in Denver…

Steel Cut Oats : Volume VII : A Mile High in ’73
Grateful Dead, November 20th and 21st, 1973, Denver Coliseum, Denver, Colorado

One of my all-time favorite live performance periods from the Grateful Dead is Fall 1973 – specifically, the shows beginning October 19th and running through December 19th. Those two months offer an overabundance of the X-Factor that quite possibly was never matched again for that long of a time frame. The noted bookends above have been officially released as part of the Dick’s Picks series (10.19.73, Oklahoma City, OK – Volume #19, 12.19.73, Tampa, FL – Volume #1), and several other shows have also been liberated to the masses in their two-track form by GDM/Rhino – all are worth seeking out.

Steel Cut Oats #7 focuses on the most glaring omission from a release perspective – the two stunning shows of November 20th and 21st from the Denver Coliseum. I would argue that these two gigs carry more collective fireworks than any of the other multi-night runs of the Fall – St. Louis, Winterland, Boston, and Tampa all cart excellent passages along the way, but these Denver shows really smoke from front to back. Oats #7 illustrates a band riding an incredibly high peak of performance – after five excellent home state shows in early-to-mid November (Winterland x3, San Diego, Los Angeles), the band begins to move eastbound for the duration of the year. The first stop is the Denver Coliseum…

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD STEEL OATS #7

The opening portion of this compilation concentrates on first set material that had become classic live staples of the Dead’s Americana vision – Ramble On Rose, Jack Straw, and Tennessee Jed to name a few. The set is also sprinkled with a particularly feisty Big River and a wonderful, but ‘not quite Tampa’ version of Here Comes Sunshine – still very powerful, yet slinky at the same time.

READ ON for more of Joe’s thoughts on SCT #7 and a tracklist…