Just three and a half months before the fateful plane crash that killed Skynyrd members Steve Gaines, his sister, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (of the Honkettes), and lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zandt, Lynyrd Skynyrd played this 4th of July weekend program in Oakland.
While this is only a partial recording of the show, two of the three songs are probably the ones you would skip to anyway: "Sweet Home Alabama" and the legendary closing track that has inspired legions of concert-going yokels to make millions of ironic requests over the years, "Free Bird." The first track is an excerpt of a standard Skynyrd live show cover, Jimmie Rodgers' "T for Texas" The guys take six minutes to stretch their legs on this version of "Sweet Home Alabama." The song had been released three years prior as a response song to the Neil Young numbers "Southern Man" and "Alabama," which were both critical of southern politics. Ironically, by some reports, Van Zant was wearing a Neil Young t-shirt at the time of this performance.
The show is closed with "Free Bird," which by many fans' estimations is only rivaled by Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" as the most epic closing song in rock history. Allen Collins handles most of the five-minute solo, while Gary Rossington plays the "bird-chirp" guitar parts, which are not on the original recording, as well as the slide work on the opening riffs. Billy Powell also plays a masterful piano solo that is unique to the live show.
While Lynyrd Skynyrd would release the multi-platinum Street Survivors in October of 1977, the band's structure would be fundamentally devastated by the crash of their private Convair 240 that took the lives of three members, as well as the pilots and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and terribly injured every other member, except for Honkette, JoJo Billingsley, who was at home with her children and had reportedly begged the band to quit using the plane after dreaming of such a crash.
From the ashes of this Skynyrd incarnation, Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, stepped in and made Lynyrd Skynyrd a popular band once more when they reformed in 1987. Lynyrd Skynyrd is planning to release an unearthed recording of pre-plane crash Skynyrd in 2009.
Another memory of days long past. I was tending bar in a small beer only bar in Mare Island California. I worked the 6:00pm to midnight shift. From 9:00 - 5:00 I was going to Naval Tactical Data System "C" school. Most of the locals liked me, I'd toss out a round for the bar a few times. It was small, had one pool table and an old "juke" box from the 50's. It was mostly country music with a few blues tunes. We also had a spot for local talent, guitar players that would come in and pick and sing for drinks. They were mostly 2nd & 3rd raters played mostly county music but every once in a while we would get a "rock-band" want-to-be to play some of their stuff.
I just listened to the Sultans Of Swing, it kinda brought that memory back.
Just after 6pm on July 13, 1985, Dire Straits took to the stage at Wembley Stadium as part of Live Aid, playing to a global TV audience that reached a mind-frying 1.9 billion. In their slot between U2 and Queen, they started with Money For Nothing (joined by Sting), and then came an epic version of the song that made them superstars: Sultans Of Swing.
“It was a very special feeling to be part of something so unique,” recalls bassist John Illsley. “Live Aid was a unique privilege for all of us. It’s become a fabulous memory.”
Dire Straits’ standing as MTV megalords belied the absurdly humble origins of Sultans Of Swing. Singer/guitarist Mark Knopfler had written it in 1977, after ducking into a deserted pub one rainy night and witnessing a lousy jazz band. Undeterred by the lack of both talent and punters, their lead singer finished the set with a mildly enthusiastic, “Goodnight and thank you. We are the Sultans Of Swing.”
Knopfler at least left the pub with the seed of an idea. Returning home to the Deptford council flat he shared with his younger brother David and Illsley, he set about writing a song for the new band they’d just formed.
“We were living on next to nothing and weren’t even able to pay the gas bill,” Illsley says, adding that they weren’t called Dire Straits for nothing. “The first time I heard Mark playing a version of Sultans Of Swing was in that flat, but the song was completely different.”
Even Knopfler thought it lacked spark. But the song took on a smouldering blues groove after he scrabbled enough money together to buy a 1961 Stratocaster.
Illsley recalls: “One day he said to me: ‘Remember that song I was fiddling about with the other day? I’ve completely redone the chord structure.’ He played it, and it sounded pretty good. The whole thing is incredibly simple, it’s the playing that makes it intriguing. It’s that rolling rhythm on the guitar and a very simple bass and drums approach. Then, of course, it’s a story. And let’s face it, all good songs have a story.”
Sultans Of Swing sees Knopfler folding the night’s events into the narrative. As the rain beats down outside, the band are blowin’ Dixieland. Harry’s got a day job, but he’s up there giving it his all. So is Guitar George, who knows all the chords: ‘But it’s strictly rhythm/He doesn’t want to make it cry or sing/If any old guitar is all he can afford/When he gets up under the lights to play his thing.’ Meanwhile, a small group of youths are fooling around in the corner, ‘drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles/They don’t give a damn about any trumpet-playing band/It ain’t what they call rock and roll.’ It’s as damp an evocation of thankless 70s publand as you’re likely to hear.
Still desperately seeking a record deal, in July ’77 Dire Straits booked time at a tiny eight-track studio. They then took the resulting five- song demo, which included Sultans Of Swing, to Radio London DJ Charlie Gillett. “Charlie went absolutely crazy about it,” Illsley remembers. “On air he said: ‘I’m going to play this until somebody picks this band up,’ which I thought was quite a bold thing to do. And thankfully they did. In those days one person at a radio station could really make a difference.”
Now that Sultans Of Swing was on constant rotation, record companies started to take note of this rumbling blues- rock tune about a rotten jazz band. Within two months Dire Straits had been signed by Phonogram. They were then put into Basing Street Studios to record their debut album, under the auspices of producer Muff Winwood and engineer Rhett Davies. But, as Illsley explains, “the problem we had was that we couldn’t get Sultans Of Swing to sound as good as the demo. There was even a time when the demo was being considered as the one that was going to go out as a single.” Eventually, though, they re-recorded it to everyone’s approval.
Released in May ’78, Sultans Of Swing didn’t create much of a stir in Britain. Then things started to move with an almost haphazard momentum. The self-titled album came out in October. Sales ticked very slowly, though it quickly went gold in Holland. “I got this phone call from the record company saying that we’d sold 25,000 albums,” Illsley remembers. “Then it went to the States and took off there. The radio stations started playing Sultans Of Swing like crazy. And because America picked up on it, it came back to the UK and got re-released again, which was really peculiar. It started spreading like wildfire.”
By early ’79, the single had gone Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, as had the album, whose unfussy aesthetic and timeless songcraft, allied to a frontman who sounded like the stop-off point between JJ Cale and Bob Dylan, led to sales of more than seven million. Suddenly Knopfler was being toasted as the greatest home-grown guitarist since Eric Clapton. And even Dylan came calling, enlisting Knopfler and Dire Straits drummer Pick Withers to play on Slow Train Coming.
Dire Straits, of course, went on to become one of the most successful British bands of the 80s. By the time they hung up their guitar straps in 1992, they’d racked up sales of more than 120 million and littered their mantelpiece with Grammys and Brits.
“I suppose you could say that Sultans Of Swing was the one song that started it all off,” muses Illsley. “It had a huge impact. These are the catalysts that move you onward through life.
People have said we were lucky, but I say: ‘Well, what does luck mean?’ The fact of the matter is that it was a bloody good song, the band was pretty damn good and we worked bloody hard. And the only way you’re going to get anywhere is by being committed. So if something like that happens to you, it’s fantastic. Boy, was it exciting!”
Sometimes I wonder if any of those wana-bees ever made it big.
If you were there, I think you might call them all the Sultans Of Swing.
Dire Straits Greatest Hits Full Playlist 2021 | The Best Songs Of Dire Straits
Seger captures the American Spirit. Open road, free spirited, free loving, and that rasp in his voice is pure muscle. Much like Mellancamp his music is the anthem of growing up in America in a time long past
I've grown old listening to music like this, but this music has not gotten old as the years passed. It has, like me, matured it has gained meaning in my life and in some cases, changed my perspective concerning certain events in my life. It is like a fine wine that each time I taste it has gained new nuances and flavor. These songs will never be obsolete because they touch a part of me that doesn't change. Seger & his compatriots bring me peace & remind me of my Navy years, a time when I had enough courage that nobody would ever break me. As I grow old I find that I need these songs as reminders of a life well-lived, like a rock.
I'm retired now, I admit, sometimes I start feeling down on myself, like I'm all "washed-up" after a long working life full of things that had to be done "NOW!" Lots of travel, last minute stuff, planes mostly, here on Monday, there on Tuesday, somewhere else on Wednesday. I listen to Bob and understand that tho my life is a bit slower and my memory is fading, I have nothing to regret and a whole lot to pass on to the next generation.
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - Roll Me Away
About halfway through his nearly two-hour Friday night set at Los Angeles' Forum, Bob Seger wheeled out his 1986 hit "Like a Rock" with a preamble: It's been "about 20 years since we've played this," he said. "I hope you remember it."
To use one of his own song titles, "Rock and Roll Never Forgets," especially when said song was hammered into our brain repeatedly in a Chevy Truck commercial through the '90s. While some purists may be upset by the convergence of rock 'n' roll and Madison Avenue, even they have to admit that the ad exec who put that association together scored a knockout. Outside of Bruce Springsteen and perhaps John Mellencamp, there isn't another veteran rocker who speaks to the blue collar American everyman better than Seger.
When you're young and in your 20's, this song means nothing to you. Then one day you wake up and your in your 70's and all of a sudden this song makes sense...
Against the Wind!
What a fantastic song. Unfortunately for many of us, we are too old once we understand the meaning. Some of us run against the wind all our lives. ... I'm in my 70's now. Bob played at my Prom (a big Thank You to my "big sister" for talking my parents into letting me go). Amazing to think of that now! Where did the time go?
Night Moves!
"She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes." - My prom date.
We weren't in love, oh no, far from it
We weren't searchin' for some pie in the sky summit
We were just young and restless and bored
Livin' by the sword
And we'd steal away every chance we could
To the backroom, to the alley or the trusty woods
I used her, she used me
But neither one cared
We were gettin' our share
Workin' on our night moves
Tryin' to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin' on our night moves
And it was summertime
Sweet summertime summertime...
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves With autumn closing in
Bob Seger 2019 Roll Me Away: The Final Tour live at Tacoma Dome, Tacoma Washington 2019-09-21
This
is one I will never ever forget. I just heard it, after 50 years I
still remember where I was and who I was with when I first heard it.
<sigh> I was wishing I knew how to dance at my High School prom.
My date Barbra wanted to dance to this tune soooooo bad.
Hearing it again brought back that same feeling...Wish I could dance.
Harlem Nocturne long version by The Viscounts
"Harlem Nocturne" has been recorded by many diverse artists, but this version by the The Viscounts is by far the best.
“Harlem Nocturne”- “Harlem Nocturne” is a saxophone-saturated song born in 1939 that has
had a long shelf life –a song that found pop fame 20 years, and again
nearly 50 years, after its first release.
Gershwin's Rhapsody is up there at the top of my list with Baker Street. To my ears its a mix of classical and jazz. I remember watching a late evening tv move about it, American in Paris, I think it was called.
Rhapsody in Blue has been interpreted as a musical portrait of New York City. It was used in a segment from the film Fantasia 2000, and also used in the opening sequence of Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan.
Brian Wilson, leader of The Beach Boys, has said on multiple occasions that Rhapsody in Blue is one of his favorite pieces. He first heard it when he was two years old, and recalls that he "loved" it. It was also a heavy influence on his Smile album. He also came to think of "Good Vibrations" as "a smaller, psychedelic version of Rhapsody in Blue".
Rhapsody in Blue was played simultaneously by 84 pianists at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue - Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic (1976)
