#Bluegrass Films

[bkenber]

Melissa McCarthy on Playing a Con Artist in 'Identity Thief'

WRITER’S NOTE: This article was originally written in 2013. Ever since she first found recognition for her character of Sookie St. James on “Gilmore Girls,” Melissa McCarthy has left an indelible impression on us all. After watching her breakthrough role as the abrasive and shamelessly raunchy Megan in “Bridesmaids,” a role which earned her a deserved Oscar nomination for Best Supporting…

[haveyouheardthisband]

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[randallfranks]

Wishing All A Blessed Easter! He is Risen!

The Lord blessed me with this news today - The American’s Creed album debuts its first day on the AirPlay Direct Top Albums Charts at #1 .

At present, 11 recordings from The American’s Creed hold the top 11 slots on today’s Top 50 Singles Charts with The American’s Creed (Recitation) debuting at #1 .

Thanks to all our radio friends and AirPlay Direct. Radio Friends may continue adding the album to their playlists here:

www.AirPlayDirect.com/RandallFranksTheAmericansCreed

Find out about how you can get and support “The American’s Creed“ by getting a DVD or T-Shirt film at www.RandallFranks.com/The-Americans-Creed

Our album will be available for download soon, watch for it.

Fans may learn more about my music career at www.RandallFranks.com

Congratulations for an amazing start to Wesley Crider, and all the Hollywood Hillbilly Jamboree - Todd Watkins, Ryan Stinson, Dawson Wright, Caleb Lewis, and Colton Brown. And also to the Blue Grass Boys - Blake Williams and Wayne Lewis and the late Tater Tate and Bill Monroe (Courtesy James Monroe) whose music is benefiting the Share America Foundation, Inc. Pearl and Floyd Franks Appalachian Musical Scholarships for youths like Caleb, Colton and Dawson included above.

[hopeless-eccentric]

going wild thinking about the use of Rocky Road to Dublin in Sinners. It’s a really tight microcosm of a lot of the film’s themes just by itself. Credentials: I’m a retired Irish dancer, I went to worlds and the whole bit. My family is appalachian and I grew up on bluegrass

It’s played on a banjo, an instrument with origins in West Africa formally invented in the US by enslaved people (and then popularized in Irish music through Irish American immigrants, largely in the South and Appalachia). Even the instrument telegraphs an attempt at cultural exchange morphing into theft and exploitation, especially because the history of the banjo has been purposefully obscured by white people

It’s got a strong down beat, making it the musical opposite of the swung blues sound (emphasis on 1/3 as opposed to 2/4). The scene is clearly meant to evoke klan imagery, and giving it this marching feel ABSOLUTELY contributes

It’s in 9/8 meter (with some mixed—it’s a uniquely weird song), making it, traditionally, a slip jig. Historically, this is a light shoe dance for women only (he’s dancing hard shoe in the movie) meaning that Remmick’s attempt to reclaim his own culture has been botched, obscured, and lost as he’s been alienated from it and co-opted into the symbolic hive of American whiteness/cultural orphanage/cultural patricide.

The song itself is about a guy cutting a shillelagh (a walking stick/club with a folkloric purpose of warding off evil spirits) to protect himself on his journey to Dublin, but winding up using it against a few Englishmen mocking him for his Irish accent. It’s a parallel to exactly what Remmick was not able to do—protect himself from monsters, and protect himself from colonization. It also highlights that this number is being used to threaten violence against the leads

It’s such a clever combination of inverting swing/jazz sounds and showing ways Remmick is missing the point. Since he sold his soul for power, comfort, and conformity, he’s only able to access a shadow of his culture, while misunderstanding and misrepresenting major pieces of his own traditions. Even his attempts to culturally “share” through the banjo is plowed over by his use of it and Black bodies and voices for his own individual pleasure and as a threat of further violence. It’s such a smart pick

[joniness]

When the music business was first commodified in this country, y'know genre itself was a tool of racism. Like, if a black person sang a song and then if a white person sang the same song they would put those two songs into two different genres. The black song would be called a race record and then if a white person sang the song that might be called bluegrass. The music industry came before the film industry. It's an older industry so a lot of the film business follows the whims of music cause it's an older industry. That tradition causes certain genres to be ghettoized. Like this genre is beneath this genre. The horror movie is beneath the costume drama.

-Ryan Coogler on genre in Sinners: An Interview with Ryan Coogler

[neilkesterson]

Pacman Tree by Neil Kesterson Via Flickr: Minolta X-370, Fomapan 400, Caffenol stand

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow 2000

"I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" is a traditional American folk song first recorded by Dick Burnett, a partially blind fiddler from Kentucky. The song was originally titles "Farewell Song" when printed in a Richard Burnett songbook in 1913. Burnett recorded the song in 1927 but this version was unreleased and the master recording destroyed. The first commercially released record was by Emry Arthur in 1928, and which gave the song its current title.

It's been covered plenty of times during the years with lyrical tweaks, but the biggest impact worldwide happened with the release of the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, where it plays a central role in the plot, earning the three runaway protagonists public recognition as the Soggy Bottom Boys. The song had lead vocals by Dan Tyminski, who also was the vocalist on Avicii's 2013 hit "Hey Brother".

"I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" received a CMA Award for "Single of the Year" in 2001 and a Grammy for "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" in 2002, and also named Song of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2001.

It earned a total of 70,4% total yes votes here.

If you love great movies with amazing music, please do check this one out! :D <3

[onefail-at-atime]

Am I the only one who feels increasingly annoyed that Appalachia, the region that Suzanne Collins devoted so much time incorporating into the lore of District 12, has been overlooked as a filming location once again?

The decision to film Ballad in Germany was wild, considering how the second half of the film was almost entirely set in 12. I know filming in the States can be expensive, but we're talking about Appalachia here. States like North Carolina and Kentucky would have tripped over their feet to offer film location incentives.

Now, it's happening once again. Announced film locations for Sunrise are for the same locations as Ballad. Even though the scenes in 12 are small compared to that of Ballad (essentially the build up to the Reaping and Haymitch's return home), I still can't comprehend why the producers who outright scrap the option to film those scenes in the region that actually represents District 12.

I think what really gets me about Sunrise not being filmed anywhere in Appalachia is because of how hard Collins went to give the tributes their district identity and how she emphasized just how comforting some of those things, like the smell of ham and beans soup, became so comforting to them.

Especially the ham hock and bean soup. Growing up, soup beans and ham were a staple. My family's from all over SE Ohio, EKY, and western North Carolina. We froze the ham bone from the Christmas or Easter ham, and once the cuts of ham were gone, that's what went into the soup beans. There's nothing like coming home from school as a kid and smelling that ham and soup beans simmering on the stove or in a crock pot. I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

And the Covey's roots in bluegrass music? Those scenes in Ballad should have been filmed in an abandoned warehouse in Appalachia, somewhere along the Ohio River (because there are plenty), and the extras should have been locals who had connections to that kind of music in their very blood, bones, and soul.

I don't know if anyone else feels the same, but the recent floods and tornados across the region have brought up a lot of feelings about how overlooked the region even more all while the entertainment industry work to profit off our culture.

Anyway, I think I'm going to make cornbread and canned green beans for dinner. While listening to Dolly, Loretta, Skaggs, and Earl Scruggs.

[wildwren]

okay im not gonna add much to the conversation re: sinners besidesAHHHHHHHH MOVIE OF ALL TIMEEEEEEEEEE FUCK FUCK YES YEAS FUCK YEAHHHHHH but i just can't stop thinking about the way the banjo was used symbolically in the film and i havent seen this discussed so please excuse some rambling thoughts from a random white person with more than passing knowledge of the history of the banjo.

the banjo is a Black American instrument. it's related to similar West African instruments but it developed in the context of the American south and Black culture. However, throughout the 19th century, the banjo was actively and violently appropriated from Black musicians through the use of blackface minstrel shows, as well the industrial production of the instrument for a white middle class audience. the use of the banjo in blackface minstrelsy was so ugly and violent that many Black musicians distanced themselves from the instrument.

the three-finger playing style of bluegrass banjo that most Americans associate with the instrument, is *not* traditional. Clawhammer style playing, which shares many similarities with blues guitar playing, is the traditional style of banjo playing in Black plantation music. It involves striking the strings with your fingers to create complex melodic rhythms. It's also called "frailing." Picking the banjo in a three-finger bluegrass style was an invention of white musicians adopting the instrument for predominantly evangelical bluegrass music. The theft and erasure of banjo history from Black musicians has been so intense and violent that most Americans *only* associate the banjo with white evangelical bluegrass music, and see this music as "traditional" American music.

there's currently a thriving Black banjo revival movement, with musicians such as Rhinannon Giddens (a consultant and musician for the film), Jake Blount, Amythyst Kiah, and Our Native Daughters creating works of living Blank banjo culture, weaving threads of historical ethnomusicology, experimental Afro-futurism, and traditional Blues. Advocacy groups like The Black Banjo Reclamation Project promote education, reparations, and awareness.

okay, back to the film: in Sinners, the banjo is not front and center, but I think it still plays a powerful symbolic role. We first see a relative of the gourd banjo in the "I Lied To You" sequence, played by one of the West African ancestors. It's the very first musical sound that carries us out of the present moment with the characters and into the eternal now. the very music which, in the words of Delta Slim, came across the ocean when so much else was lost.

we don't see the banjo again until Remmick arrives with the creep band. he plays a modern, industrially-produced version of the banjo, performing a bluegrass ditty so sinister i was literally yelling at the screen. "I Picked Poor Robin Clean." Yea. Yep. Yes! That's literally it. The relationship between the white evangelicism of that style of playing and Remmick's mission of "unity".....yep! anyway!

We hear and see the banjo again when Remmick performs two traditional Irish songs: "Will You Go, Lassie Go?" and "Rocky Road to Dublin." The banjo has been thoroughly adopted into Irish music, mostly throughout the course of the 20th century and the traditional Irish folk revival. Irish banjo uses yet another style of playing the instrument, neither clawhammer nor three-finger picking, but a plucked version called "tenor banjo." It's strung and tuned differently and has some overlaps with the Irish style of fiddle-playing. From what I understand (but obviously opinions vary), this is more often viewed in the lens of cultural transmission than explicit appropriation. however, the fact remains: without the white supremacist control of the American music industry, this cultural transmission would have likely taken a very different path.

Remmick's relationship to the Irish music and Irish songs is really the truest, most human thing about him, and Irish folk music of course holds a place in the American music canon. But Irish-American identity is not the same thing as Irishness, and like the banjo, it carries its own history of specifically American violence. Sinners refuses to paste over the complexity of this history. it refuses to give us a neat narrative about cultural appropriation and assimilation, about the relative violences of exchange and theft. Coogler is calling out the entire white American cultural project which is and always has been built on vampirism, a project which all white Americans are implicated in, whether we'd like to believe it or not. Remmick certainly doesn't!

the banjo is one of the most on-the-nose representations and examples of this exact history and pattern. keeping this symbolism both central and subtle is just one of the ways Sinners demonstrates its mastery.

[fuckoffbard]

TLDR: Remmick is even more a douche because he had opportunity for community and STILL tried to weasel in and steal from a culture he had no business sniffing around

I've been thinking more and more about how Remmick said he came from North Carolina and how his accent reflects that of people from the southern Appalachians. I clocked it immediately - he doesn't have a deep southern drawl, what he has came from the mountains. If you know anything about those mountains, you know they're OLD. Older than TREES (Appalachia being 480 million years old and the first trees appearing 350 million years ago). Those mountains, and the hollers and hills within them have a mysticism and magic all their own.

My family has deep roots in the Appalachians (it's literally in my DNA) which were mostly compromised of Irish, Scottish and German settlers. Peep my proof, so y'all know I'm not just blowing smoke. Just hear me out, alright?

In canon, we know that Remmick came over on a ship in 1911, but I'm interested that in between then what he got up to in the mountains. I find it intriguing that he probably came across people from his own culture/background there, but for whatever reason got run off. It's kind of sad in a way, that even there he couldn't find connection even through their music (bluegrass anyone?) His community was there all along; he either just didn't look hard enough or got greedy.

Which, as a villain, that's his flaw. He's seeking more, more, more, and its never enough. He's never going to chase down the exact feeling he lost when he became a vampire. It's sad, but it what makes him complex and dynamic as an antagonist.

I also like the idea of the mountain folk just absolutely rejecting him bc people in the Appalachians are notorious for being distrusting of outsiders. (Ask me about the story of my mom getting turned around trying to find our family cemetery)

I dunno, maybe I'm reaching, but I think it's something people haven't talked about with his character and the implications there of the deep lore of folks who settled in those mountains and the hardships/stereotypes they endure (and still do, but that's another conversation).

I firmly believe that Ryan Coogler doesn't do ANYTHING on accident as a storyteller. He wrote Remmick to come from NC for a reason. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't have been explicitly said in the film. I'm in no way trying insert myself into a story that isn't about me or FOR me. I have the upmost respect and admiration for Sinner's themes and the brilliant commentary Ryan Coogler made on cultural vampirism, performative allyship, and Christianity as a means of suppression/oppression.

The film is absolutely not about Remmick and his tortured past, but like I said, Ryan Coogler purposely had Remmick say he was from NC and gave him an southern Appalachian accent. I think that's a layer to his character and origins that could stand to be talked about more and makes him even more of a scumbag. He HAD his own community/culture/people in the mountains and yet he still sought to take from others.

I'd love to hear others' thoughts!

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[gothicfairytopia]

not really a hot take but lucy is the songbird AND the snake.

district 12 is appalachia. appalachia has a long history of snake handling, particularly within the pentecostal faith. snake handling is a sign of power, of communion with god. if you watch the way that she handles the snakes in the arena, it bears some resemblance to old photos and films of snake handlers back when it was a more popular practice.

(plus, snake handling was an often illegal act done in defiance of governments afraid of atypical religious practices, which is just a fun note.)

sure, lucy gray might not be originally from district 12, but i think that it’s hard to look at her with her bluegrass music and her with her snakes and not think of snake handlers and the bluegrass/folk hymnals of a pentecostal service.

to think of snakes as “evil” is just too lacking in nuance. snakes were docile and gentle to those who deserved it. when they struck out, it was an act of god. she handles snakes, coriolanus does not. she handles them as a sign of power, as a sign of transgression, as a sign of righteousness.

anyway, i just think the snake handling angle is a lil overlooked by a lot of the fandom, which makes sense since it’s a regional thing, but honestly watching lucy gray handle snakes like that in the arena made me cry because i’m a desperate whore for appalachian stories in popular media

[fuck-i-was-wrong-im-a-lesbian]

Ok ok ok I know there’s a lot of discourse about where district 12 is.

I am going to give my own experience and take it how you will.

I moved to the NC mountains when I was 10 and I’ve been here for 12 years, I joined a program that taught bluegrass music to children and I learned a lot of the Carter family music. They were a big bluegrass/old time country band from 1930’s. And recently I felt sentimental and I went and looked up some of the Carter Family music, you’ll find some covey music and I had wondered why the covey music sounded so familiar.

Carter family songs you heard from Covey Music: Keep on the Sunny Side and Bury Me Beneath the Willow.

I’m in college and one of things I learned in a geology class is how Tennessee has coal, not a ton which would make sense because it’s an almost well known fact that the Capitol does not use coal powered electricity. It wouldn’t be sustainable for that long.

Also in the Sunrise on the Reaping he’s making moonshine, moonshine is known in NC and Tennessee. Haymitch also said that he missed the Smokeiness of his mountains. The great Smokey mountains are in Tennessee, not up north.

I also live not far from where they filmed the first hunger games, I’ve visited the state parks in North Carolina where they filmed different scenes! Peeta hiding in camouflage? Triple falls, DuPont state park, terrible hike to get to the top, but so beautiful.

[persephoneprice]

maybe this is silly but — do you have any thoughts on lucy grays specifically appalachian identity? I often think abt how the films erased the cultural / geographical specificities of district 12 even though it’s literally so so important to the books (it’s mentioned on page 2 of the hunger games) and idk I think it’s very interesting/ kinda funny and iconic that in response to that erasure suzanne collins literally made a character whose cultural identity cannot be erased without significantly altering her narrative function. On a meta textual level it’s also an interesting echo to the Capitol erasing lucy gray and then her being restored by the author - kinda? Idk I’m a huge appalachian folk nerd (it’s why I read tbosas lol) so I. Think abt it a lot

omg no this is not silly at all and i am so excited that someone wants to talk about Appalachian culture in the hunger games!! usually i feel like i’m just yelling my appalachian nonsense into the void. ps i love that you’re an appalachian folk nerd- are you also appalachian??

also let me apologize in advance- i started a new anxiety medicine and have felt awful and have had a lot of brain fog so it’s very possible that none of this makes sense or is even what you’re asking.

i ended up rambling a lot so i will put my actual answer under the cut:

the erasure of all the really appalachian things- especially the accents- in the trilogy will always devastate me. which i why i will go to my death defending rachel zegler against anyone who criticizes her accent in tbosas.

i love lucy gray and the covey because you absolutely can see so much appalachian and bluegrass influence in them and their lives- but the book makes it clear that they aren’t really district 12, therefore, not really appalachian.

i think in a lot of ways lucy gray really embodies an appalachian girl. she’s fun and strong and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. she’s not afraid of the woods or the creatures in it- she makes friends with the snakes. she loves music (my girl needs a banjo i will die on that hill) and brings that to her people. their performances are one of the few times that people in 12 really get to be carefree and have fun and it brings everyone together. music is such an important thing in appalachian culture and is something that always brings people together.

she as a double name and it’s important to address her using both- which is also a fairly common thing in appalachian culture, it’s rude to only refer to them by one of the names. (which is why if someone only calls her lucy i do not take their opinion on her character seriously at all.)

you can also see it in the way the covey are a family without all being really related and the way the older members take care of the younger ones. in the way they spend time at the lake fishing and swimming and collecting food from around the area to eat. in the clothes they wear. in their music (nothing you can take from me boot stomping version my beloved).

but i think the distraction that they aren’t really from district 12 and not really appalachian is important. you can see that in the way lucy gray describes the covey as outsiders in district 12. i think this is another way that you really see the influence of appalachian culture in district 12. it doesn’t matter how many similar traits that they have or how long they have lived there- they’re still outsiders to the people who have lived there their whole lives. they still aren’t fully trusted by the wider community because they’re different and not from around here.

i’ll stop rambling now because i think my brain fog is causing this to not make any sense but anyway thank you so much for sending this!!! i love talking about this!!! i would love to hear your thoughts as well

[ourshadowstallerthanoursoul]

An audience with... John Paul Jones

(from Uncut, April 2010 - link)

You’re stuck on a deserted island, you have one instrument you can bring. It is: a) piano, b) bass or c) mandolin? (Gary Attersley, Ontario, Canada)

Oh… that’s horrible! I’ll probably get Hugh Manson – the guy who builds all my bass guitars – to build me some monstrous instrument that encapsulated all three! Hugh and his brother Andy Manson once actually designed me a triple-necked guitar with 12-string guitar, six-string guitar and mandolin on it! Andy also designed a triple-necked mandolin. But I guess if it really came down to it on a desert island, it would have to be the piano, because you can do so much on it. You’re a whole band. The bass is not much fun on your own.

John, it’s so good to see you so engaged with today. Any advice for old farts who can’t move on? (Andrew Loog Oldham)

Who are you calling an old fart? I dunno, Andy, you tell me! Ha ha. He’s done a good job of staying up to date. Andrew, of course, gave me the name John Paul Jones. I was John Baldwin, until Andrew saw a poster for the French film version of John Paul Jones. I thought it ’d look great in CinemaScope, as I wanted to do music for films. I imagined it saying “Music By John Paul Jones”, over the whole screen. I never realised then that he was the Horatio Nelson of America!

I know that you’ve been getting heavily into bluegrass lately – who are some of your favourite bluegrass artists of all time? (Ryan Godek, Wilmington, Delaware)

Apart from Bill Monroe, you mean? Oh, there’s loads. I’m friends with the Del McCoury band, I love that style of classic bluegrass. I love Sam Bush’s Newgrass stuff. And of course there’s Nickel Creek, Chris Feely, Mike Marshall. I love it all, really. One thing I like about bluegrass is that you don’t require amplifiers, drums and trucks. You can pull an instrument out of a box and get on with some instant music making. I carry a mandolin around wherever I go. I also like the fact bluegrass musicians play more than one instrument. There’s a tradition of them swapping instruments. In bluegrass bands I swap between double bass, fiddle and banjo.

One Butthole Surfers anecdote, please? (Dave Grohl)

Ha! I was brought in to produce the Butthole Surfers’ 1993 album, Independent Worm Saloon. I guess it was to give it a heavy rock vibe, but it didn’t work like that. They were actually incredibly hard-working in the studio, but I do recall running up a phenomenal bar-bill at the San Rafael studio. And then there was Gibby [Haynes, Butthole Surfers’ frontman] and his… eccentric studio behaviour. Gibby did one vocal take shouting into his guitar. He held it out in front of his face and screamed at it. Ha! He was trying to find out if it picked up through the pick-ups, which it kind of did. And that was pretty good.

How’s the violin coming along? (Sean, Berkshire)

I started about three years ago. With the guitar, or the piano, you can sound OK quite quickly. With the violin, it takes much longer. Once you get past the first six months of scraping, of muttering to yourself, “What is this fucking horrible noise on my shoulder?” you get the odd musical bit, and you think, ‘Oh, this is starting to get good.’ And you continue with it for a while. I’m getting into country fiddle playing, Celtic folk songs, a bit of swing. Basic stuff, but very satisfying.

Why not record a second ‘Automatic For The People’ with REM? (Franz Greul, Austria)

They haven’t asked me! But doing the string arrangements for that album was a great experience, actually. They sent me the demos of their songs, and we went into a studio in Atlanta, with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. They were great songs, something you can really get your teeth into as an arranger. And I’ve been good friends with them ever since.

How did you first meet Josh Homme? And is he still a notorious party monster? (Rob Hirst, Kippax, Leeds)

Well, I think we’ve all calmed down rather a lot. Dave introduced me to Josh at his 40th birthday party. It was a ridiculous themed place where they have jousting with knights. As Dave said, it was like somewhere you’d have your 14th birthday party. Or maybe even your 4th. Anyway, Dave sat Josh and I together for a blind date. Which was reasonably embarrassing for both of us, surrounded by people going “prithee this” and challenging each other to duels. But we survived the trauma and went into the studio the next day, and just started jamming. And I knew immediately it was going to be something special.

If Them Crooked Vultures had Spice Girls-like nicknames what would they be? (Paul Jones, Liverpool)

Dave would be Smiley Vulture. He can’t stop grinning. Josh would be Slinky Vulture. He’s a slinky kinda guy. And I’d be Speedy, I guess. Or Jumpy. So there you go. Smiley, Slinky and Speedy. Or does that sound more like the dwarfs?

I remember you being a pretty funky bass genius back in the day! What memories do you have of those sessions? (Donovan)

The sessions with Don and Mickie Most were great, because we were given a free hand. I usually got leeway, because I was the sort of Motown/Stax specialist, so producers in the mid ’60s would get me in for cover versions of American records, and none of them could write bass parts convincingly enough, so I was London’s answer to James Jamerson, I guess! And I was certainly encouraged to get kinda… funky when I worked with Donovan.

How did it feel to see Jimmy Page and Robert Plant venture off in their own project in the ‘90s without mentioning a word of it to you? (Danny Luscombe, Hull)

Oh yeah, I was pissed off about it. The surprise was in not being told. It’s ancient history now, but it was a bit annoying to find out about it while reading the papers. It came just after Robert and I had been discussing the idea of doing an Unplugged project. Then I’m on tour in Germany with Diamanda Galás, I turn on the TV and see Robert and Jimmy doing it, with someone else playing all my parts! I was pissed off at the time. You would be, woudn’t you? But… it’s all in the past, isn’t it?

Did you listen to much work by Josh Homme or Dave Grohl before you were contacted in relation to joining Them Crooked Vultures, and if so, how did you honestly rate it? (Ralph Ryan, Lisronagh, County Tipperary)

I did like the Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age, before I’d met either of them. There’s a tendency for people – especially musicians from my generation – to say that there has been this terrible decline in musicianship, that today’s bands haven’t got the chops, blah blah blah. But that’s not true at all. There’s always some people for whom technique on an instrument isn’t necessary. They can get their ideas across without being able to have the chops. But Josh really does have the chops, he just doesn’t feel the need to flash them about all the time. In fact, there were a few riffs he gave me that I had to simplify, because they were bloody difficult to play. I really had to work at it, where he could just flick it off. He is an astonishing musician.

Were you serious when you told Peter Grant that you wanted to jack it in to become choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral? (Brian Fisher, Manchester)

Ha! That was a tongue-in-cheek joke, although I was serious about leaving Led Zeppelin in 1973 unless things changed. But Peter did sort things out pretty quickly. What kind of choirmaster would I have made? A bloody good one! Listen, any way that they’ll pay you for making music is just the best situation in the world. I’d do it for nothing. I don’t care what music it is. I just love it all. The rubbing of notes together. I love it all. I would be very passionate about whatever I decided to do.

What was the worst session you ever did as a jobbing session player? (Adam Burns, Castleford, West Yorkshire)

I generally have fun memories of that time. I’d criss-cross London playing two or three sessions a day, going between Trident and Olympic and Abbey Road and Philips in Marble Arch, you know. You’d be backing Shirley Bassey, Cat Stevens, Lulu, whoever was paying you. The worst experience was a Muzak session. With Muzak sessions, the music was deliberately boring. I distinctly remember one session where I embellished the bass part a little bit, just so that it wasn’t so boring for me to play. They said, “No, you can’t do that. Any interest in the music will distract people’s attention from when they’re meant to be eating.” Or standing in a fucking lift. For fuck’s sake! So I was like, “OK, thanks, bye!”

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[neilkesterson]

Three Dimensions of Light by Neil Kesterson Via Flickr: Minolta X-370, Fomapan 400, Caffenol stand

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Avicii - Hey Brother 2013

"Hey Brother" is a dance song by Swedish DJ and record producer Avicii from his debut studio album, True (2013). American bluegrass singer Dan Tyminski provides vocals for the track. Tyminski did the vocals for "A Man of Constant Sorrow" (poll #26) from the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

"Hey Brother" was written by Avicii, Ash Pournouri, Salem Al Fakir, Vincent Pontare and Veronica Maggio. The song, which serves as the album's third single, was solicited to Australian radio on 9 October 2013 and later released on 28 October 2013 in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In March 2014, a version of the track remixed by Avicii himself was released on his remix album True (Avicii by Avicii), this time featuring new vocals from singer Salem Al Fakir.

In the UK, after climbing for several weeks, "Hey Brother" peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart on 15 December 2013. In addition, "Hey Brother" peaked at the top of the UK Dance Chart. Including previous releases "I Could Be the One", "Wake Me Up" and "You Make Me", Avicii therefore reached the summit of the UK Dance Chart four times in 2013 alone.

In the US, the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 77 in December 2013, and rose to number 16 in March 2014. After Clear Channel personnel noticed the song's success at pop and adult pop radio, they asked Island Def Jam to craft a remix that showcases the song's instruments more prominently. Support for this remix enabled "Hey Brother" to debut, and peak, at number 59 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart in March 2014. The song would become Avicii's final song to hit the top 40 before his death in 2018.

"Hey Brother" received a total of 67% yes votes!