Member Since: 27/06/2007
Band Members:
Primarily, me and Sam, my big old Guild that rings like cathedral bells and sings like crystal
Influences: MUSIC:
Classical, Bach, Vivaldi, Mussogorsky and more. Itzahk Perleman.Horowitz, Pablo Casals. Blues-sweet lonesome or mean red. and regional: Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, Eric C., John Lee Hooker and Sonny Terry. MoTown, Smokey T and the guys. Marvin Gaye, Sam Cook, Al Green, Maxine Brown, ("Oh no, not my baby" and Lenny Welch for "Since I fell for you". Why did any body else even bother to record it? Classic R&B, Country, traditional folk, Political folk, Folk rock and the whole process started by Dylan, Crosby, Stills , Nash and Young and other folk rockers who did it their way and are today's legends.
Miles and Monk and bird. Stan Getz. Sonny Rollins. Mildred Baily, Peggy Lee,
Billie and Ella and Dianna Reeves. Carly Simon, Bonnie Raitt. Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, Frankie Vallie and the four seasons. Carol King. Joni Mitchell. Vince Gill, Reba, and Merle Haggard. James Taylor always. (Wish I'd gotten to sing with him just once) Glady's Knight again and anything she wants to sing, and Pete Seeger, forever. Woody Guthrie for sure. The entire score of Finian's Rainbow, all Scottish ballads, a psaltery, played by the Beers family, African tribal singing, a Japanese Koto , real honest to God Celtic singers, and all the fine sea Chantie's. Paco De Lucia and Manitas De Plata and Lola Flores. The tenor and baritone duet from the Pearl fishers.Yussi Beurling and Robert Merril. Katerina Von Stade. Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and Alec Wilder to name a few favorite masters of song writing. Carol King is there too-- That Jewish white girl must have been bit in the heel by a Motown dog when she was a child. Also, and of course as songwriter, Joni Mitchell. I think I should stop now.
movies:
Anything with Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, Willem Defoe, Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, Leonard DeCaprio, Dustin Hoffman, Bogart. Judi Dench, Hillary Swank, Diane Wiest, Katherine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop, Kyra Sedgwick, Meryl Streep. And three or four that I can't think of at the moment. Old films, Classic Films" Frank Capra films, Atrhur C Rank films: Stairway to Heaven and Black Narcissus. Roshoman. Brando: The men, The Waterfront. The Treasure Of Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon. Bogart, Greestreet and Lorre. The films that left us memorable lines like "Sorry Dave, I can't open that door" and "I see Dead people. Also: "Sorry my dear, but I don't give a damn" (or close enough) Roshoman, one hell of a magnificent Film. Laurel and Hardy and the Marx brothers, especially Harpo. Good far reaching Sci Fi and paranormal that stretch the imagination. and possibilities. I have a gazillion films in my head, and haven't yet see many newer and new ones, they smash together in line, waiting. Angels in America is astoundingly good. Favorite Christmas film is The Bishops Wife, an old one. I'm not a Loretta Young or Cary Grant fan, But David Niven, yes, and enthusiastically, James Gleason, probably my favorite character actor. He plays the cab driver. Another favorite fantasy film is Here Comes Mr. Jordan, the original, and shows the newer version to be what is it: unnecessary. Gleason is a major factor, there, too, and plays the boxers trainer-a delight. And anything with Antonio Banderas. And he plays Flamenco guitar, too.
BOOKS:
Good contemporary Lit, or close enough. Biographies. Yeats, Robert Burns, Seamus Heany and great new Irish authors and poets. Archeology, cultural anthropology, Bonobo's, roots and origins. Einstein quotes, often very funny and sly, Isaac Bashivas Singer. Mary Renault, Elaine Pagels, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sara Gruen, Anne Rivers Siddons, Jane Austin. Jonathan Keller, James Patterson, The Tony Hillerman series, Patricia Cornwell. Stephen Hawkins, and I retain and understand some, here and there. I haven't a clue about math, a Child hood trauma and carefully avoided since. Franz Werfel, Star of the unborn, Childhoods End, Arthur C Clark and Heavenly discourse by Charles Erskine Scott Wood, best known for this 1927 best seller which is probably still on the Catholic Church's don't read or you'll be sorry, list Try to find it, it's very funny.You might have to find it in England, my daughter did. When I want to just dumb out, I browse through my book of Cartoons that the New Yorker magazine hadn't the nerve to publish, and the National Enquirer and The globe, with some chocolate.
TELEVISION:
Loved Six Feet Under, X Files. Lost, Life On Mars, Supernatural, Actors studio, Ghost Whisperer, PBS Masterpiece theatre, Graig Ferguson(weird and Scottish) Turner Classic Films, re- runs of The Sopranos. Jon Daily, Steve Colbert, South Park, Animal Planet, , Bravo and the History Channel.
Old tapes of SNL. I'll suffer through the re-runs of The Honeymooners, just to see Art Carney as Norton, and Mayberry, to see Don Knotts as Barney Fife. And Cheers, which would have been my favorite hangout, with Shelly Duvall's angst and snap and Sam's frusrations pushed to the limit.
Sounds Like: Me
Record Label: kapp, Reprise, FM
Type of Label: Major