IKO IKO / Dr. John

Quería compartir esta fabulosa versión de un clásico de mi admirado Dr.Vaya músicos!!!!

CREAM

Biography
by Richie Unterberger
Although Cream was only together for a little more than two years, their influence was immense, both during their late-'60s peak and in the years following their breakup. Cream was the first top group to truly exploit the power-trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s. It was with Cream, too, that guitarist Eric Clapton truly became an international superstar. Critical revisionists have tagged the band as overrated, citing the musicians' emphasis upon flash, virtuosity, and showmanship at the expense of taste and focus. This was sometimes true of their live shows in particular, but in reality the best of their studio recordings were excellent fusions of blues, pop, and psychedelia, with concise original material outnumbering the bloated blues jams and overlong solos.

Cream could be viewed as the first rock supergroup to become superstars, although none of the three members were that well-known when the band formed in mid-1966. Eric Clapton had the biggest reputation, having established himself as a guitar hero first with the Yardbirds, and then in a more blues-intensive environment with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. (In the States, however, he was all but unknown, having left the Yardbirds before "For Your Love" made the American Top Ten.) Bassist/singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had both been in the Graham Bond Organisation, an underrated British R&B combo that drew extensively upon the jazz backgrounds of the musicians. Bruce had also been, very briefly, a member of the Bluesbreakers along Clapton, and also briefly a member of Manfred Mann when he became especially eager to pay the rent.

All three of the musicians yearned to break free of the confines of the standard rock/R&B/blues group, in a unit that would allow them greater instrumental and improvisational freedom, somewhat in the mold of a jazz outfit. Eric Clapton's stunning guitar solos would get much of the adulation, yet Bruce was at least as responsible for shaping the group's sound, singing most of the material in his rich voice. He also wrote their best original compositions, sometimes in collaboration with outside lyricist Pete Brown.

At first Cream's focus was electrified and amped-up traditional blues, which dominated their first album, Fresh Cream, which made the British Top Ten in early 1967. Originals like "N.S.U." and "I Feel Free" gave notice that the band were capable of moving beyond the blues, and they truly found their voice on Disraeli Gears in late 1967, which consisted mostly of group-penned songs. Here they fashioned invigorating, sometimes beguiling hard-driving psychedelic pop, which included plenty of memorable melodies and effective harmonies along with the expected crunching riffs. "Strange Brew," "Dance the Night Away," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and "S.W.L.A.B.R." are all among their best tracks, and the album broke the band big time in the States, reaching the Top Five. It also generated their first big U.S. hit single, "Sunshine of Your Love," which was based around one of the most popular hard rock riffs of the '60s.

With the double album Wheels of Fire, Cream topped the American charts in 1968, establishing themselves alongside the Beatles and Hendrix as one of the biggest rock acts in the world. The record itself was a more erratic affair than Disraeli Gears, perhaps dogged by the decision to present separate discs of studio and live material; the concert tracks in particular did much to establish their reputation, for good or ill, for stretching songs way past the ten-minute mark on-stage. The majestically doomy "White Room" gave Cream another huge American single, and the group was firmly established as one of the biggest live draws of any kind. Their decision to disband in late 1968 -- at a time when they were seemingly on top of the world -- came as a shock to most of the rock audience.

Cream's short lifespan, however, was in hindsight unsurprising given the considerable talents, ambitions, and egos of each of its members. Clapton in particular was tired of blowing away listeners with sheer power, and wanted to explore more subtle directions. After a farewell tour of the States, the band broke up in November 1968. In 1969, however, they were in a sense bigger than ever; a posthumous album featuring both studio and live material, Goodbye, made number two, highlighted by the haunting Eric Clapton-George Harrison composition "Badge," which remains one of Cream's most beloved tracks.

Clapton and Baker would quickly resurface in 1969 as half of another short-lived supergroup, Blind Faith, and Clapton of course went on to one of the longest and most successful careers of anyone in the rock business. Bruce and Baker never attained nearly as high a profile after leaving Cream, but both kept busy in the ensuing decades with various interesting projects in the fields of rock, jazz, and experimental music.

John Ralston - Shadows of the Summertime

Novedad 2011


Biography
by Marisa Brown
As lead singer of the Legends of Rodeo, John Ralston found himself with no money and no contract after label problems plagued the release of his band's first album, A Thousand Friday Nights. The Florida native suddenly had no public outlet for his music, but a chance encounter with recording engineer Michael Seaman brought back the luck that Ralston had recently lost in the label split. The two hit it off immediately, and Seaman subsequently invited Ralston to spend some time at his home in Knoxville, TN. Accompanied by former bandmate and drummer Jeff Snow, Ralston traveled to Tennessee, and in the span of a week had recorded what would become his debut album, Needle Bed. Ralston released the album himself; shortly thereafter, he went to Chicago with the intention of overdubbing several tracks with Wilco's Jay Bennett, who had become a fan of Ralston's songwriting during the Legends of Rodeo days. Instead, Ralston ended up recording an entirely new album, There's Always an Ambulance Around the Bend. Although the album was not released, April 2006 saw the re-release of Needle Bed on Vagrant Records, who had signed Ralston to their roster the previous January. Ralston chose a more expansive approach for his next record, employing a backing band and layering upward of 100 individual tracks on each song. The resulting album, Sorry Vampire, was released in October 2007.

Are Major Labels About To Abandon The CD?

¿Cual es el futuro formato de la música?
Yo creo que el directo, ¿que opinais vosotros?

Are Major Labels About To Abandon The CD? Er, No
By Luke LewisPosted on 23/11/11 at 12:28:39 pm


'CD-format to be abandoned by major labels by the end of 2012', thundered the headline. You'd click on that, wouldn't you? Thousands did.

In the article, an anonymous writer for music site Side-Line , claimed that the music industry had hatched a secret plan to phase out the CD, "and replace it with download/stream only releases via iTunes and related music services."



The piece was poorly written, and named no expert sources (beyond its own "chief editor"), but that didn't stop it spreading faster than the "FENTOOOON!" meme .

continued...

It's since had 30,000 Likes, been parroted as fact by tech blogs , and generated fiery discussion on forums such as Drowned In Sound .

I even posted it on Facebook myself. That was before I actually read the article, at which point I thought, 'Hang on, this is total bollocks, isn't it?'

The writer claimed that he'd contacted EMI, Universal and Sony, all of whom "declined to comment". Which is a puzzle, because when I tried to get a comment from a major label it took precisely 30 seconds for them to reply saying the whole thing was "nonsense".

"We have no intention of stopping the production of CDs”, said Selina Webb, director of communications for Universal, pointing out that, although digital sales are growing fast, across the entire industry 74% of all album sales in 2011 have been on CD.

Meanwhile Chris Scott, a product manager for the same label, confirmed the continuing supremacy of the format, telling me:

The physical single might have become a niche product, but the physical album is a very important product indeed.
The labels would have to be frothing nutjobs to willingly discontinue their most profitable activity. Sure, everyone knows revenues from physical music are declining. But not as fast as you might think.

The market is currently worth around £10 billion. According to analysts , that will whittle down to £7.5 billion by 2015. But even then, physical sales will still bring in 30% more cash than digital.

As for Side-Line's claim that CDs will soon be replaced by "stream-only releases", that's laughable. Until the day when buying a monthly music subscription becomes a truly mainstream activity (hey, it could happen), no-one's going to make any serious money from streaming. As the musician Jon Hopkins put it on Twitter the other day:

Got paid £8 for 90,000 plays. Fuck Spotify.
So - the CD age is far from over. Still, Side-Line's article did at least ignite an interesting debate. If CDs ever do disappear, will we miss them? In the future will we fetishise them in the same way some people do vinyl today? So far the format has proved resistant to nostalgia, but for all the reasons I outline here, I'm convinced that will change.

Then again, the runaway popularity of the Side-Line piece also raises another question: why bother with actual journalism online, when you can guff out a load of wafty half-arsed nonsense, and watch the traffic roll in?