A splendid, well-recorded set from the great Jimmy Cliff on PBS’s Austin City Limits TV series. Cliff, now 62, can put on a rousing good show. He’s been at it since he was 14-years-old and it’s mighty apparent that he’s put in his time learning his craft. How else can it seem so effortless and joyful? Starts out with my favorite Jimmy Cliff song, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” and stays strong with a re-write of “Vietnam” (now titled “Afghanistan”). Featuring a duet on “The Harder They Come” with guest Michael Franti. Only an asshole wouldn’t like Jimmy Cliff!
 

Watch the full episode. See more Austin City Limits.

 
Via Pathway to Unknown Worlds

 
Redbone was the first Native-American rock band. Formed by brothers Pat and Lolly Vasquez, legend has it, at the suggestion of Jimi Hendrix, the band took their name from a Cajun slang for someone of mixed race. They considered their music New Orleans-influenced music “swamp rock” (despite the fact that the brothers hailed from Fresno, California) and were quite successful in the early 1970s. Their highest charting records were “Come and Get Your Love,” which went gold in 1974 and the politically-minded “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” which made it to #1 in the Netherlands in 1973, but was initially suppressed in America, with several radio stations refusing to play it.

In recent years, an “impostor” Redbone has been playing around the country, convincing bookers that some of the players were original members of the group. On March 4, 2010, Lolly Vasquez died of lung cancer, passing away in his sleep in Reseda, California.

“Come and Get Your Love” is now used as a jingle in the Alltel commercials. Here is a great live version from The Midnight Special.
 

The UK and Australian pressings of Band of Gypsys featured this cover, with puppet versions of Hendrix, John Peel, Bob Dylan and Brian Jones. (What would be the meaning of this grouping?)

Band of Gypsys was a short-lived “jam band” blues-rock project that came to fruition—and was dissolved—shortly before the death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970. The Band of Gypsys live album was his last release during his lifetime.

Band of Gypsys consisted of Hendrix, his old army pal, bassist Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. They recorded very little studio material and performed live very few times, including four legendary shows that took place over two nights at the Fillmore East. commencing on New Years Eve of 1969. Before the month was out, the Band of Gypsys was no more, disbanding after a disaster at Madison Square Garden.

The Fillmore performances heard on the album were videotaped using a B&W half-inch open reel recorder, the then new Sony Portapak, from two different angles and forms the basis of this 1999 film, Hendrix: Band of Gypsys.
 

 
Thank you Joe Nolan!

 
Larry “Ratso” Sloman, A-list celebrity lit collaborator (Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis), counterculture gadfly and well-dressed man about Manhattan, returns to his roots as a rock journalist, writing in the first-person for a rollicking road diary of a chunk of Grinderman’s American tour. It’s probably the best article SPIN has published this decade:

Then she turns to me.

“I’m Sarah. What do you do?”

“I’m the spiritual advisor to the band,” I answer.

“He keeps us on the straight and narrow,” Warren elaborates. “Gets us all up in the morning to do meditation and exercises.”

“I don’t always succeed,” I add.

Suddenly Sarah is obsessed with everyone’s age. When Warren tells her he’s 45, she protests.

“No, you’re not. You look younger than 45. I’m about to be 32.”

“I would have guessed 20,” Warren says gallantly.

Finally, Sarah introduces herself to Nick. With that over, she gets down to business.

“I have one question for all of you right now. Where have you not been where’d you like to go to?” she wonders.

Silence.

“Home,” Nick says.

“Where’s home?” she asks.

“Between Britney Spears legs,” he answers, drolly.

Larry “Ratso” Sloman: On the Road With Grinderman (SPIN)

Thank you, Michael Simmons!

 
Looking like a fabulous re-issue series from some faraway and highly tasteful land, I find these fantasy classic rock LP minimalist graphic re-workings totally irresistible.
 

 

 
Many more after the jump…

 
The Stones on The Arthur Haynes Show in 1964. Great quality.

While Keith is strumming and bobbing his head like one of The Beatles, Brian adds some serpentine slide to “I Wanna Be Your Man” that makes this terrific performance particularly groovy and sexy.

Arthur Haynes was a popular British comedian who had a successful TV show on the BBC that ran from 1957 to 1966. His show was broadcast live and there’s little surviving footage.

Segments of this seldom seen Stones’ set appeared in the video documentary ‘The Continuing Adventures Of The Rolling Stones’ which is no longer commercially available.

 
From the same show, a short but very sweet interview with Brian Jones after the jump…

 
Back in the sixties, TV Guide referred to Bobbie Gentry as “the Mississippi hippie.”  At the time, I don’t think hippies thought of Bobbie as one of their own, maybe it was the country thing. In retrospect, it’s pretty obvious that Bobbie had a very bohemian vibe going on, as manifest in these ultra-cool videos.

In the first clip, Bobbie and Donovan perform a version of Donovan’s “There Is A Mountain” that, in my opinion, improves upon the original, adding a Crescent City feel to the mambo beat. In the second, she sings “Louisiana Man” with Graham Nash, Allan Clarke and Tony Hicks of The Hollies. Both clips are from Bobbie’s BBC TV show which aired in 1968.

In video 3, Bobbie does a sultry go-go while singing P.J. Proby’s hit “Niki Hoeky” on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
 

 
The Hollies and ‘Niki Hoeky’ after the jump…

 
Like Lenny Kaye, I grew up a devotee of Elektra Records. Jac Holzman’s amazing label was always a reliable source for exciting new rock and folk. From The Doors and Love to The Stooges and Tim Buckley, Elektra was a mother lode of fresh sounds for any kid growing up in the sixties who was looking to expand their musical horizons.

Elektra’s influence on me, as well as thousands of other nascent punk rockers, continued with the release in 1972 of Lenny Kaye’s seminal compilation ‘Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968’. For many of us, Kaye’s anthology of garage rock was an introduction or re-introduction to the first wave of American punk and arrived at a time when rock and roll needed to be reminded of the days when the music was loud, fast, and shot thru with a spirit of fun and rebellion.  

This discussion between Jac and Lenny was held on October 14 at the 92nd street Y in NYC and it’s really quite wonderful. I think you’ll enjoy it.
 

 
Moody, 2006 short by filmmaker Sam Green meditates on the death of Meredith Hunter, the young man stabbed by a Hells Angel at the Rolling Stones’ Altamont Free Concert, and buried in an unmarked plot, “lot, 63, grave C,” which gives the film its title. While co-directing his documentary, The Weather Underground, Harris heard and read over and over again how Meredith’s death signaled the end of the 60s, the end of hippie, the end of the Woodstock nation, etc, but realized that he never knew anything about, nor had he even seen a photograph of Hunter, whose death was supposedly this pivotal generational loss of innocence event.

It’s interesting to note how time often sands off the finer details of an event like Altamont (even as there is a visual document of the exact moment Meredith was killed in Gimme Shelter, the classic documentary by David and Albert Maysles). Normally, as the story is told, the Hells Angels were hired on the advice of the Grateful Dead for “security,” something denied by Angels leader Sonny Barger (who said they were told that if they kept people from crawling on the low stage area, they could drink free beer all day) as well as the Stones themselves. Still, some 40 years later, it’s generally “remembered” that the Hells Angeles were the ones causing all the problems—not that they were innocent, just ask the Jefferson Airplane’s Marty Balin, who was knocked unconscious by one—but the not-so insignificant detail that Meredith was brandishing a double-barreled gun tends to be conveniently forgotten by contemporary writers, as if Hunter (who was also on speed at the time) was somehow an “innocent.” caught up in drunken, drugged up biker violence This clearly wasn’t the case.

I’ve even read accounts that said Hunter was targeted by the Angels for having a blonde, white girlfriend, which even if it’s true—and I have no trouble imaging that—still doesn’t excuse the fact that the guy pulled out a big fucking gun and rushed towards the stage! (The jury must have agreed, Alan Passaro, the Angel who was arrested and charged with murder for Meredith’s death, was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense when the jury viewed the Maysles’ footage. Passaro was found dead in 1985 with $10,000 in his pockets).

One final, not exactly “fun” factoid considering the matter at hand, but here goes anyway: George Lucas was one of the cameramen at Altamont. His camera jammed early on, so none of his footage could be used in Gimme Shelter, but how fascinating he was present, eh?

Postscript: As a result of Sam Green’s short, a headstone was purchased for the grave of Meredith Hunter.
 

 
Thank you Dalton Jones!

 
Joe Strummer painted Christmas cards each year for his close family and friends. Who knew? His last hand painted Christmas card comes in a pack of 8 and sells for £10.00. You can purchase them here. The proceeds go to the Strummerville Charity.

Below is another Christmas card I found by Joe Strummer. I don’t believe this one is for sale.  

 
(via Everlasting Blort via Cherry Bombed)