With other musical styles, collectors' recordings offer an unvarnished picture of an artist or band as they were at a point in their musical development. Every group wants to be remembered musically as having put their best performance forward, after all, it's only human. What makes collectors' recordings so aggravating to artists beside stolen royalties is the lack of artistic control they have over such music.
As music lovers, collectors are a different breed. They come to be preservers of a group's recorded efforts, and in some cases, have music that was cast aside by the artists themselves. Live recording has reaches new levels of sophistication, and many audience recordings sound close to mixing board quality these days. First and foremost, most people involved with music began as avid listeners. The late Barry Fey, who recently passed away loved certain bands, and if you lived in Denver, and loved music, you were blessed with an endless menu of great artists playing Fey Concerts through the year, year after year. Barry was, like Bill Graham, first and last, a fan of great live music. Bill Graham's website, Wolfgang's Vault, is the ultimate collector's recording site. There is stuff there that is not replaceable.
I don't know how many tapes are out there floating around. I stumble over them occasionally, sometimes free, sometimes at a price. Right now, I am fortunate to be listening to a Little Feat concert from the Orpheum in Boston from Halloween 1975. This concert was broadcast on FM, and some industrious souls must have recorded the show. All I can say is that this is Little Feat with Lowell at the top of their game. The music is tight, the vocals are impeccable. It no mystery to me why many people consider this Feat lineup to be one of the best bands around from that time. The band are playing from their strongest albums from the Seventies, and it is a delight. This does not take away from Waiting For Columbus, which is my favorite live album of all-time.
Last year, The Beach Boys released a dvd of their tour that left important performances unreleased. Well, low and behold, live performances from all over their tour started turning up. There was no shortage of music available for any collector who wanted complete performances. I have noticed that the Beach Boys organization has decided to respond to the demand by releasing a double dvd set of live performances from that tour. This is as it should be. Collector's will usually buy whatever is released by the artist they follow, and then buy other collectables to supplement. In this case, I will end up owning both sets of Beach Boys' performances from their 50th Anniversary Tour, and will probably buy other sets to supplement. As a for instance, The Beach Boys only did Summer's Gone twice on the last tour. It is not slated for the Double Set. I will endeavor to find a live recording of one of the shows where it was played.
One message board I frequent had a very interesting thread speculating on which live recordings were supplemented by post concert artist tinkering. It turned out that most legitimate live recordings we could name were doctored afterward. This doesn't even get at live use of technology to put singers on key as they sing. The charm of live performance was that the artists used to work "without a net." One of the greatest shows I ever attended was John Prine at Boulder's Tulagi Bar on tour for his epic first album, and he killed. He was lit, we were lit, and the chemistry between audience and John sizzled. The next year I caught Laura Nyro on tour with Patti LaBelle. Again, it wasn't perfect, but 40 years later, the memory of that night for me is very clear.
In 2002, I had the good fortune to hear Robert Mirabal's Music From a Painted Cave performance in support of his album of the same name. He is New Mexico's own Grammy winner, and his sense of theater and visual interpretation of his music was amazing. He conveyed the connection he felt with his peoples' oral history, and yet was able to make modern those ancient traditions in a manner that brought 2000 Indigenous kids to their feet from Montana and Wyoming who came to hear him for free in a double concert the afternoon before the paid performance. It is impossible to convey what we heard and saw that evening, but youtube has a great Mirabal video called "Stiltwalker" from the album he was touring in support of. This is concert music and performance taken to a higher level, a sacred prayer, perhaps matched by people like Reverend James Cleveland or other types of spiritual performers.
Recorded music is a young science, compared with the history of music itself. If King David had been recorded playing his psalms, would we buy it? If Jenny Lind could have been recorded, would we buy her dvd? If new Robert Johnson performances were found, would we buy them....Music is a powerful medium. My grandfather listened to Hitler in German on the radio when he spoke, just to piss off my grandmother, who was staunchly American, as every new immigrant is. He was staunchly American too, but he was fascinated with the power of Hitler's speeches as they were recorded and broadcast. My father quoted him as saying "this man is selling what Germans want...revenge!"
Such is the power of the live or the recorded voice, speaking or singing. It touches us as nothing else can.It reaches inside of us and releases pure unfiltered emotion. No wonder Brian Wilson's music has healed so many people. No wonder 2000 Indigenous kids were held in the palm of Robert Mirabal's music. Such is the power of live music.
Copyright 2013 Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved
I don't know how many tapes are out there floating around. I stumble over them occasionally, sometimes free, sometimes at a price. Right now, I am fortunate to be listening to a Little Feat concert from the Orpheum in Boston from Halloween 1975. This concert was broadcast on FM, and some industrious souls must have recorded the show. All I can say is that this is Little Feat with Lowell at the top of their game. The music is tight, the vocals are impeccable. It no mystery to me why many people consider this Feat lineup to be one of the best bands around from that time. The band are playing from their strongest albums from the Seventies, and it is a delight. This does not take away from Waiting For Columbus, which is my favorite live album of all-time.
Last year, The Beach Boys released a dvd of their tour that left important performances unreleased. Well, low and behold, live performances from all over their tour started turning up. There was no shortage of music available for any collector who wanted complete performances. I have noticed that the Beach Boys organization has decided to respond to the demand by releasing a double dvd set of live performances from that tour. This is as it should be. Collector's will usually buy whatever is released by the artist they follow, and then buy other collectables to supplement. In this case, I will end up owning both sets of Beach Boys' performances from their 50th Anniversary Tour, and will probably buy other sets to supplement. As a for instance, The Beach Boys only did Summer's Gone twice on the last tour. It is not slated for the Double Set. I will endeavor to find a live recording of one of the shows where it was played.
One message board I frequent had a very interesting thread speculating on which live recordings were supplemented by post concert artist tinkering. It turned out that most legitimate live recordings we could name were doctored afterward. This doesn't even get at live use of technology to put singers on key as they sing. The charm of live performance was that the artists used to work "without a net." One of the greatest shows I ever attended was John Prine at Boulder's Tulagi Bar on tour for his epic first album, and he killed. He was lit, we were lit, and the chemistry between audience and John sizzled. The next year I caught Laura Nyro on tour with Patti LaBelle. Again, it wasn't perfect, but 40 years later, the memory of that night for me is very clear.
In 2002, I had the good fortune to hear Robert Mirabal's Music From a Painted Cave performance in support of his album of the same name. He is New Mexico's own Grammy winner, and his sense of theater and visual interpretation of his music was amazing. He conveyed the connection he felt with his peoples' oral history, and yet was able to make modern those ancient traditions in a manner that brought 2000 Indigenous kids to their feet from Montana and Wyoming who came to hear him for free in a double concert the afternoon before the paid performance. It is impossible to convey what we heard and saw that evening, but youtube has a great Mirabal video called "Stiltwalker" from the album he was touring in support of. This is concert music and performance taken to a higher level, a sacred prayer, perhaps matched by people like Reverend James Cleveland or other types of spiritual performers.
Recorded music is a young science, compared with the history of music itself. If King David had been recorded playing his psalms, would we buy it? If Jenny Lind could have been recorded, would we buy her dvd? If new Robert Johnson performances were found, would we buy them....Music is a powerful medium. My grandfather listened to Hitler in German on the radio when he spoke, just to piss off my grandmother, who was staunchly American, as every new immigrant is. He was staunchly American too, but he was fascinated with the power of Hitler's speeches as they were recorded and broadcast. My father quoted him as saying "this man is selling what Germans want...revenge!"
Such is the power of the live or the recorded voice, speaking or singing. It touches us as nothing else can.It reaches inside of us and releases pure unfiltered emotion. No wonder Brian Wilson's music has healed so many people. No wonder 2000 Indigenous kids were held in the palm of Robert Mirabal's music. Such is the power of live music.
Copyright 2013 Peter Reum-All Rights Reserved
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