The Rugby World Cup is currently in progress in France and is being televised. And in the TV's introductory montage I caught the familiar strains of Edith Piaf singing 'Je Ne Regrette Rien' which reminded me.......
One of my friends at school had a copy of Piaf singing 'Milord.' Don't know where he found it or why. I think it was on the 'B' side of her most famous song, the one being used for the TV coverage. A great barrel house honky tonk style with added gallic flair! We would sing along with it rather raucously. Well, here is the great lady herself and she is/was much better than we were!
Norman L. Blake (born March 10, 1938) is a traditional American stringed instrument artist and songwriter. He is half of the eponymous Norman & Nancy Blake band with his wife, Nancy Blake.
Most of the music that Norman Blake plays could be described as neo-traditionalist Americana folk and roots music (folk, bluegrass, country, blues), and many of the songs he plays are traditional, but he plays this acoustic type of music with a style, speed, and quality that has evolved and progressed in the modern age. Though probably best known for his fluid renditions of classic fiddle tunes transcribed for the guitar ("Fiddler's Dram/Whiskey Before Breakfast"), Blake has also written songs that have become bluegrass and folk standards, such as "Ginseng Sullivan", "Slow Train through Georgia", "Billy Gray", and "Church Street Blues".
Blake is revered within American folk music circles because of his many accomplishments. He’s put out more than 40 studio albums, backed up Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan on the seminal Nashville Skyline, and worked with the legendary John Hartford during Hartford’s most creative period. Blake also recorded with singer Joan Baez and appeared on her hit song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, played dobro on the 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Later, he performed on the album Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, which won five Grammy Awards, and worked with T Bone Burnett on the soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which won a Grammy for Album of the Year.
Legendary guitarist, singer, and songwriter Norman Blake
discusses and performs clips from his album "Wood, Wire and Words."
This video was shot at Cook Sound Studio atop Lookout Mountain
in Fort Payne, Alabama, in July 2014.
"I'm Going to Georgia" - Norman and Nancy Blake with James and Rachel Bryan
Norman Blake flatpicks Randall Collins and Done Gone
Tony Rice & Norman Blake - New River Train
Norman and Nancy Blake "My Dear Old Southern Home" and "New Money":
Norman and Nancy Blake discuss some of their beliefs about music and sing the tune "My Dear Old Southern Home." Norman also discusses their guitars as well and plays "new Money" with Nancy.
Blake is another welatively unknown 'superstar' - if the likes of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Robert Plant, Alison Krause and many more want you to play in their recording sessions then you are very very good!
A new bacteria-infesting virus has been discovered in the western Pacific’s Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the world’s oceans.
Viruses kill 20% of the ocean’s biomass every day, breaking it down into constituents that are then taken up by other bacteria and also helping to form the ‘marine snow’ of particles falling to the ocean floor.
A link in the above article leads to another that says‘It is estimated that there are around 10^31 viruses in the world’s oceans accounting for ~94% of all biological entities (nucleic acid containing particles). Despite their small size, the amount of carbon they contain is estimated to be the equivalent of 75 million blue whales.’
This opens a window onto a great area of science and nature of which I was previously unaware.
Albertina Walker (1929 - 2010) was an American gospel singer who was greatly influenced by Mahalia Jackson, her friend and confidante, whom Jackson took on the road when Albertina was just a teenager. Perhaps not so well known here in the UK but highly regarded in the USA where she was known as the Queen of Gospel music. And the Queen of Soul music Aretha Franklin, who started her own career singing gospel in her father's Baptist church, sang at Walker's funeral.
It is now autumn with the equinox being saturday 23rd (this year) and now we shiver our way into winter. Did we have a summer this year? It feels as though we slipped silently from vernal to autumnal without turning off the central heating.
"Autumnal equinox, two moments in the year when the Sun is exactly above the Equator and day and night are of equal length; also, either of the two points in the sky where the ecliptic (the Sun’s annual pathway) and the celestial equator intersect. In the Northern Hemisphere the autumnal equinox falls about September 22 or 23, as the Sun crosses the celestial equator going south. In the Southern Hemisphere the equinox occurs on March 20 or 21, when the Sun moves north across the celestial equator.
"According to the astronomical definition of the seasons, the autumnal equinox also marks the beginning of autumn, which lasts until the winter solstice (December 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere, June 20 or 21 in the Southern Hemisphere)."
"Ola Gjeilo is one of the most frequently performed composers in the choral world. An accomplished pianist, improvisations over his own published choral pieces have become a trademark of his collaborations. Although Norwegian by birth, it is perhaps Ola’s adopted country of America that has influenced the composer’s distinctive soundworld the most, evolving a style that is often described as cinematic and evocative, with a lush, harmonious sound.
"Ola grew up in a musically eclectic home listening to classical, jazz, pop and folk, a broad background he later incorporated into his classical composition studies at The Juilliard School, the Royal College of Music in London, and currently as a New York City-based freelance composer. He is especially inspired by the improvisational art of film composer Thomas Newman, jazz legends Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny, glass artist Dale Chihuly and architect Frank Gehry."
Samara Joy McLendon is a Grammy Award-winning American jazz singer. She released her self-titled debut album in 2021 and was subsequently named Best New Artist by JazzTimes. Her second album, Linger Awhile, was released in September 2022, winning the award for Best Jazz Vocal Album and herself for Best New Artist at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Joy was born in 1999 into a musical family. Her paternal grandparents, Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon, were founders of Philadelphia gospel group The Savettes. (A few of their videos can also be found on YouTube.)
In 2019, as Samara McLendon, she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. Working with producer and eventual manager Matt Pierson, she recorded her self-titled debut album while still in college, Samara Joy was released on July 9, 2021, on Whirlwind Recordings. Jazz Times named her Best New Artist for 2021. In an interview, film director Regina King called her "a young woman who seems like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald are both living in her body."
