Category Archives: Arts: Rock & Roll

Quote of the Day: Tom Friedman on the Top Two Crises

[NOTE: Tom Friedman interrupts his New York Times column today, which is about Ukraine & Israel, to quote a jibe he’s hearing often these days]:

Hey, Friedman, all you seem to write about these days is Ukraine and Israel. Don’t you have anything else to say? Continue reading Quote of the Day: Tom Friedman on the Top Two Crises

BREAKING: David Crosby — And Another (Great) One Bites The Dust

AP News: David Crosby, rock star and CSNY co-founder, dies

BY ROBERT JABLON — January 19, 2023

David Crosby, the brash rock musician who evolved from a baby-faced harmony singer with the Byrds to a mustachioed hippie superstar and an ongoing troubadour in Crosby, Stills, Nash & (sometimes) Young, has died at 81, several media outlets reported Thursday. Continue reading BREAKING: David Crosby — And Another (Great) One Bites The Dust

Chuck Berry: An American Original

Washington Post Book World:

Chuck Berry’s complicated path to becoming a rock legend

By David Kirby — November 9, 2022

Chuck Berry was playing a concert in Paris once when the audience started to get out of hand. But instead of engaging the rowdy fans, security did nothing. Things went from bad to worse, and tear gas was fired into the venue. Everybody ran for the exits — everybody except one.

Continue reading Chuck Berry: An American Original

Roll Over, Beethoven: Jerry Lee Lewis Is Here & There’s A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On Upstairs!

Jerry Lee Lewis, Rock Pioneer and ‘Great Balls of Fire’ Singer, Dies at 87

Variety — Oct 28, 2022

By Chris Morris

Singer-pianist Jerry Lee Lewis, the hell-raising, larger-than-life rock ‘n’ roll pioneer and latter-day country star, has died, according to a rep, Zach Farnum. He was 87.

His death had erroneously been reported by some outlets on Wednesday.

“Judith, his seventh wife, was by his side when he passed away at his home in Desoto County, Mississippi, south of Memphis,” Farnum’s statement said. “He told her, in his final days, that he welcomed the hereafter, and that he was not afraid.”

Lewis — an inaugural inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, a 2005 recipient of a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and, at the age of 86, a 2022 inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame — was a powerhouse keyboardist, mercurial vocalist and rampaging, unpredictable showman who could master virtually any song, be it rock ‘n’ roll, country, R&B, gospel or pop.

Lewis ultimately transcended category. With typical arrogance, he would frequently declare that there were only four real stylists in American music: Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and, of course, Jerry Lee Lewis.

The late journalist Nick Tosches, Lewis’ great Boswell, captured some of his titanic dimensions in his book “Country,” published in 1977 during his country resurgence: “Believe it: Jerry Lee Lewis is a creature of mythic essence….He was — and in a way still is — the heart of redneck rock ’n’ roll, and one of the greatest country singers who ever lived.

“He is the last American wild man.”

Continue reading Roll Over, Beethoven: Jerry Lee Lewis Is Here & There’s A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On Upstairs!