Hat-tip rdalin of DelphiForums.

Neat stuff, eh? The duo has a website here if you'd like more information.

It's Martin Luther King Day -- how are you spending your holiday?

From the Wikipedia entry:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a United States holiday marking the birthdate of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., observed on the third Monday of January each year, around the time of King's birthday, January 15. It is one of four United States federal holidays to commemorate an individual person.[1]

King was the chief spokesman for nonviolent activism in the civil rights movement, which successfully protested racial discrimination in federal and state law. He was assassinated in 1968.

This is an Open Thread.

Get someone else to mispronounce the words and overproduce your song!

Bruce Springsteen's first realease was a flop. But re-recorded by Manfred Mann's Earth Band in 1976, "Blinded By The Light" fast became the only song the Boss ever wrote to hit the Number 1 spot, and was the only single Manfred Mann had to hit the #1 spot as a musician, as well:

"Blinded by the Light" was the first song on, and first single from, Bruce Springsteen's 1973 debut album Greetings from Asbury Park N.J. Springsteen's version was initially unsuccessful, and failed to appear on the music charts.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band released a version of the song on their album The Roaring Silence. The song reached #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 on 19 February 1977 and #1 on the Canadian RPM
chart the same day. The Manfred Mann's Earth Band recording of "Blinded
by the Light" is Springsteen's only Number 1 single as a songwriter on
the Hot 100.

The song is notable for lead vocalist Chris Thompson's garbled enunciation, especially of the phrase "revved up like a deuce" which has led many fans to interpret it as "wrapped up like a douche". The original Springsteen lyric is neither of the above, instead being "cut loose like a deuce". Springsteen once attributed the popularity of the Manfred Mann version partially to Thompson's enunciation.

Anywyays, South African Keyboardist Manfred Mann, whose various reincarnations of semi-faux-eponymous bands were responsible for such hits as "The Mighty Quinn" and  "Do Wah Diddy", was born on this day in 1940 and his version of this tune is a classic:

Charles Ives, one of the great American composers, was born in Danbury, Connecticut 135 years ago, today. He died in New York City, May 19, 1954. A local concert series runs every year in his honor at the Ives Concert Park in Danbury. It was not until he was forced into retirement by illness in 1930 that a lot of the music from the then future Pulitzer Prize winner's music would begin to gain the attention of the greater public due to the efforts of several composers, conductors, music critics and pianists of his time:

Born in Danbury, Connecticut on 20 October 1874, Charles Ives pursued what is perhaps one of the most extraordinary and paradoxical careers in American music history. Businessman by day and composer by night, Ives's vast output has gradually brought him recognition as the most original and significant American composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, Ives sought a highly personalized musical expression through the most innovative and radical technical means possible. A fascination with bi-tonal forms, polyrhythms, and quotation was nurtured by his father who Ives would later acknowledge as the primary creative influence on his musical style. Studies at Yale with Horatio Parker guided an expert control overlarge-scale forms.

Now... I am no music critic, nor am I the greatest musician even though I grew up with friends and family playing music all around me and I have played with a couple of bar bands in my lifetime, but I do know what I like. Here is "Charles Ives: 3 Quarter-Tone Pieces - I. Largo" (Parts II and III should pop up in the video player to click on at the end), a piece played with one piano tuned one-quarter tone sharp to accent the music of the other pianist:

Many of you may not realize that just building and running the new software of this Blog is darned near a full time job. Even as they rebuild this place they are monkeying around with new and different things to try and make this place the best that it can be. Here is a late night musical tip of the hat to a couple of our ePluribus Media Code Monkeys, Roxy and Grey Hawk, who could chew up and spit out the rest of us Blogging bananas when it comes to reading between the lines of programming code:

"The final date of the 1986 Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour. This was the set closer, an emotional version of Biko."

Just to see if the ePM community likes the idea of a little late night political chill action...

And Peace Through Music
How Producer Mark Johnson put it all together.

Morning Edition, May 4, 2009 - Until a video of "Stand by Me" had gone viral on YouTube, Roger Ridley had sung and played guitar anonymously on the streets of Santa Monica, Calif., for years. The video begins with Ridley and then mixes in 40 other musicians from around the world. It's part of a 10-song collection called Playing for Change: Songs Around the World.
Producer Mark Johnson got the idea a few years ago when he heard Ridley's voice on a street in Santa Monica.
"I approached him after the performance and said, 'Hey, if I come back in an hour with some recording equipment and cameras, I'd love to record you, film you, add musicians around the world to it,' " Johnson says. "And he looked at me really funny, sort of thought I was crazy. But he said, 'OK, if you come back, we'll do it.' "..................Rest Here with Video Links to a Couple of the Songs
Brings up the NPR Player to Listen to Discussion

hat tip Wilbur Coleman

http://playingforchange.com - Playing For Change: Peace Through Music is a film that explores our connections in a world overwhelmed with division. Through the process of making this film we travel.

Songs Around The World CD/DVD In Stores Now!!

Introduction:

From Talking Points Memo via YouTube, a reminder of what taking the role and responsibility of the Presidency seriously looks like:¹

For contrast, his predecessor:

This, of course, is a good time to bring up an old Rolling Stones song from 1969: "You can't always get what you want."

The key lyrics here are:

You can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you just might find
You get what you need.

This is an Open Thread.

Promoted. Originally posted 2009-01-24 16:09:45 -0500. -- GH

When I was a young, broke but care-free philosopher in the University of Arkansas, hanging out with poets, working at a red-neck bar for beer money, and fancying myself a writer, I worried a lot. The bar had a big red button behind the counter, right above a double-barrel, twelve gage shot gun. I was told it was loaded with rock salt. Pressing the red button killed the juke box and called the cops. I only had to use those bar-back tools once, then promptly quit.