Late 70s Early 80s Playlist
Tag Archives: Bruce Springsteen
Lofgren’s acoustic duet show creative, uplifting
It you’ve forgotten how good a guitar player Nils Lofgren is or for that matter how good a singer and songwriter he is, you should take in his latest Acoustic Duet show. Many probably don’t realize the depth of talent Bruce Springsteen’s guitar player possesses. But Lofgren has been around since his teens in the late 1960s and has continued to create a catalogue of classic rock tunes on a string of creative albeit somewhat overlooked albums.
When I noticed Lofgren would be playing at the Ridgefield Playhouse in late June, I quickly scooped up tickets for a venue I like a lot and an artist I had never seen in a solo atmosphere. Although an ardent fan, I didn’t know what to expect from a solo show. I figured a couple of acoustic guitars and Lofgren weaving through his most memorable compositions with perhaps help from one of his brothers. It was anything but.
He’s on acoustic for much of the night, but it has big, embellished sonics by his use of a number of effects that give it a rich texture, with chorus- and doubling-style layers almost sounding like a keyboard at times. Before he gets to it though, Lofgren comes out and plays a tune on electric harp, and he’s very musical on the unusual instrument, then rips into Too Many Miles with a Stratocaster that rocks the house, accompanied by the remarkable Greg Varlotta on electric keyboards. Continue reading Lofgren’s acoustic duet show creative, uplifting
Johnny Cash’s list for Rosanne
I had a taste of The List when I saw Rosanne Cash in concert this past July at the Infinity Music Hall in Norfolk, Connecticut.
She performed six selections that night from the album released in September of songs chosen from a list put together by her father Johnny Cash as a musical education for his teen-age daughter in 1973.
The songs on The List are pure country, pure American music as Rosanne puts it, and she brings her special vocal interpretations to them along with wonderful arrangements by her husband John Leventhal, who plays just about all the instruments except for drums.
She also has some special guests in Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy and Rufus Wainwright, who put a harmony to Cash’s lead on one song each. The result is an album that started as an education for Rosanne but is now one for the listening audience.
Miss The Mississippi And You, written by William Heagney, is a surprising opener for the album because it’s so unlike anything else on it. It’s the only song arranged with a swing jazz feel, melancholy but light in comparison with much of the subsequent fare. What it shares with the other selections is Leventhal’s basic, pared-down and meticulous arrangement that sees him interweaving guitars and other instruments, as he does on all the tracks.
The traditional Motherless Children is a smouldering, slow-burning house on fire, using beautiful substitution chords with intricate interplay of guitars, mandolin and Larry Campbell’s fiddle, topped with Cash’s expressive vocal. Leventhal takes the first lead in a traditional country style easily riding the rhythm, then closes with a full-bore, hard-edged guitar tone on the tag. The track is a highlight of the album. Continue reading Johnny Cash’s list for Rosanne
Why isn’t it called scalping?
Ticketmaster was taken to task this past week for a supposed inadvertent re-direct to its subsidiary company TicketsNow, a secondary market ticket selling site, during the sale of tickets for upcoming Bruce Springsteen concerts in May at East Rutherford, N.J.
Springsteen fans were outraged, the Boss was outraged, Ticketmaster paid not a fine but a few hundred thousand dollars for what was termed investigative costs and a digital wall is to be enforced for one year between the two sites.
Basically, a slap on the wrist.
Let’s back up. What are we talking about here? First of all, let’s call it what it is. Secondary market ticket selling site? TicketsNow is a scalping site. Forget the ethics problem of such a site for a moment. Maybe I’m dim, but what are the legalities of such a site? Evidently, these services are technically not illegal in most states. But then why is it illegal to try and scalp a ticket – try to get payment above the face value of the ticket – outside a concert venue but it’s OK to sell tickets at inflated prices on the internet, taking orders before the actual tickets go on sale to the public. Doesn’t that boggle the mind?
Attention, Dick Blumenthal and all other state attorneys general: This should be illegal. How do these sites skirt or find loopholes in existing laws? Because those laws are obviously weak or in some cases non-existent.
Add to this Ticketmaster’s purchase of TicketsNow last year for $265 million. Now forget about the legality issue, isn’t this a huge conflict of interest? Ticketmaster not only wants to charge its exorbitant rates one time, it wants a piece of this questionable scalping market as well.
This is one of the many reasons I hate going to concerts at these huge, mega arenas. For the average music lover, it’s nearly impossible, without some inner connection, to land great seats even if you are willing to pay top price. But then to only have the alternative of paying as much as five times face value of the tickets to score good seats is ludicrous.
Of course now Ticketmaster wants to merge with Live Nation, further reducing options for concert goers. When will it end?
eBay, which owns StubHub!, the largest secondary market scalper, defended the existence of its services last year when it was under fire describing the secondary market as “a legitimate one which benefits consumers.”
Really? Now how does that benefit a music fan when he has to pay double or more for tickets that sold out in minutes partly because of demand but also because of these services gobbling up as many tickets as possible?
There is a class action lawsuit that was filed against Ticketmaster in Canada earlier this month. Let’s hope it’s part of a wave of the future.
This NY Times article, which focuses on sporting events, doesn’t defend scalping but also doesn’t see it at as the source of high ticket prices. It makes a case for the old supply-and-demand argument. Really? It basically says tickets are underpriced to begin with. Really? Tickets are underpriced? I’m sorry but those of us living in the real world and not on top of it don’t agree with that.