There are those albums that can change some­one’s per­cep­tion of an entire genre of music. Willie Nelson’s Red Head­ed Stranger was such an album for me. But Nelson’s approach on his 1975 con­cept record not only chal­lenged my pre­con­cep­tions, it chal­lenged the sureties of the coun­try scene of the time. By per­fect­ing the music’s capac­i­ty for aching beau­ty and sad­ness in spare, aus­tere folk songs, Nel­son para­dox­i­cal­ly expand­ed its pos­si­bil­i­ties. His fel­low artists thought it was “prac­ti­cal­ly blas­phe­mous and insub­or­di­nate,” notes Kelsey But­ter­worth, “to record coun­try in so spar­ing a man­ner.”

Record buy­ers dis­agreed. Nel­son fans loved Red-Head­ed Stranger’s dusty, wide open spaces, its bal­lads full of lone­li­ness and regret. With­out the over­wrought pro­duc­tion so many coun­try singers received at the time, the songs became show­cas­es for the plain­tive crag­gi­ness of Nelson’s voice, and for the unmis­tak­able sound of Trig­ger, his famous Mar­tin N‑20 clas­si­cal, “a gor­geous instru­ment,” writes Texas Month­ly, “with a warm, sweet tone,” bought in 1969 by “a strug­gling coun­try singer, a guy who had a pig farm, a fail­ing mar­riage, and a crap­py record deal.”

Trig­ger has been with Willie Nel­son ever since, a com­pan­ion as faith­ful as the horse it’s named after. The instru­ment is famous, most­ly, for its beat-up con­di­tion, includ­ing a large hole near the bridge. But in the video above from Rolling Stone (nar­rat­ed by Woody Har­rel­son) we learn much more about the rela­tion­ship between man and gui­tar. The love was first kin­dled by Nel­son find­ing in Trig­ger the tone he had been search­ing for—the tone of his gui­tar hero Djan­go Rein­hardt, “the best gui­tar play­er ever.”

But in Nelson’s hands, and play­ing his songs, Trig­ger became the dis­tinc­tive sound of so much Out­law Coun­try, the “blas­phe­mous and insub­or­di­nate” sub­genre pio­neered by Nel­son, Way­lon Jen­nings, John­ny Cash and oth­ers. “You hear that gui­tar,” says luthi­er Mark Erlewine, “even with­out him singing, and you go, ‘That’s Trig­ger.’” I think even casu­al fans of Nel­son who only know his great­est hits can instant­ly pick up on the dis­tinc­tive­ness of his guitar’s mel­low voice. “There’s a Hoodoo about Trig­ger,” says Erlewine, “that you just can’t mess with it.”

The biog­ra­phy of Trig­ger is insep­a­ra­ble from the sto­ry of Willie Nelson’s rise to fame, and we get a brief tour of his career above. Nel­son began as a tra­di­tion­al but­toned-up Nashville croon­er, but he decid­ed to retire his act and move back to Texas to farm. Then he found Trig­ger. That meet­ing of play­er and gui­tar pos­si­bly rein­vig­o­rat­ed Nelson’s entire career, inspir­ing his move to Austin and his com­plete rein­ven­tion of coun­try music.

“Willie Nel­son and His Famous Gui­tar: The Tale of Trig­ger” will be added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Willie Nelson–Young, Clean-Shaven & Wear­ing a Suit–Sings Ear­ly Hits at the Grand Ole Opry (1962)

Willie Nel­son Audi­tions for The Hob­bit Film Sequel, Turns 80 Today

John­ny Cash: Singer, Out­law, and, Briefly, Tele­vi­sion Host

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

In July of 2015, 1,000 musi­cians gath­ered togeth­er in Cese­na, Italy and per­formed in uni­son a rol­lick­ing ver­sion of the Foo Fight­ers’ song “Learn to Fly.”

Now, they’re back and play­ing the best-known song from Dave Grohl’s ear­li­er band. We’re talk­ing, of course, about Nir­vana’s hit, “Smells Like Teen Spir­it.”

Here we are now. Enter­tain us. Ladies and gen­tle­men, the world’s largest rock band.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Nir­vana Per­form “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Just Two Days After the Release of Nev­er­mind (Sep­tem­ber 26, 1991)

Pat­ti Smith’s Cov­er of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Strips the Song Down to its Heart

Kurt Cobain’s Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track From ‘Smells Like Teen Spir­it,’ 1991

Two years before Prince released his first album For You and before he began his ascent into the funk-rock-pop pan­theon, he was a very tal­ent­ed, very ambi­tious, and occa­sion­al­ly frus­trat­ed high school senior at Cen­tral High in Min­neapo­lis. That’s where the school news­pa­per got him to sit for an inter­view, more of a char­ac­ter sketch, to talk about his hopes for a musi­cal career. You can read it below.

If Prince was charis­mat­ic enough to be picked up on the high school paper’s radar, he doesn’t let it show in the arti­cle.

Most­ly, he rues the loca­tion of his home town.

“I think it is very hard for a band to make it in this state, even if they’re good. Main­ly because there aren’t any big record com­pa­nies or stu­dios in this state. I real­ly feel that if we would have lived in Los Ange­les or New York or some oth­er big city, we would have got­ten over by now.”

By the ‘80s, of course, he had made Min­neapo­lis the cen­ter of his own musi­cal empire, and Pais­ley Park became his home, com­pound, and music stu­dio, the place where he would even­tu­al­ly pass away.

But he did like high school, accord­ing to him, because the music teach­ers let him do his own thing. Already a mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist, the arti­cle finds Prince just start­ing to explore singing. This might be the most sur­pris­ing part of the piece. Prince’s range and the amount of char­ac­ter (and lit­er­al­ly char­ac­ters, male, female, or a mix) in his songs would lead you to believe that his voice came first.

Maybe some of the humil­i­ty came from his sta­tus in the high school band. The name Grand Cen­tral was inspired by Prince’s obses­sion with Gra­ham Cen­tral Sta­tion, whose bass play­er Lar­ry Gra­ham would lat­er join Prince’s ‘90s band and also con­vert him to become a Jehovah’s Wit­ness. Com­pet­ing for atten­tion was Mor­ris Day and André Cymone, who Prince would write for and pro­duce after he got his record con­tract. It was friend­ly but seri­ous com­pe­ti­tion.

To round out the arti­cle, Prince—who plays by ear—gets asked if he has any advice for fel­low stu­dents: “I advise any­one who wants to learn gui­tar to get a teacher unless they are very musi­cal­ly inclined. One should learn all their scales too. That is very impor­tant.”

You can read the full arti­cle below:

Nel­son Finds It “Hard To Become Known”

“I play with Grand Cen­tral Cor­po­ra­tion. I’ve been play­ing with them for two years,” Prince Nel­son, senior at Cen­tral, said. Prince start­ed play­ing piano at age sev­en and gui­tar when he got out of eighth grade.

Prince was born in Min­neapo­lis. When asked, he said, “I was born here, unfor­tu­nate­ly.” Why? “I think it is very hard for a band to make it in this state, even if they’re good. Main­ly because there aren’t any big record com­pa­nies or stu­dios in this state. I real­ly feel that if we would have lived in Los Ange­les or New York or some oth­er big city, we would have got­ten over by now.”

He likes Cen­tral a great deal, because his music teach­ers let him work on his own. He now is work­ing with Mr. Bick­ham, a music teacher at Cen­tral, but has been work­ing with Mrs. Doep­kes.

He plays sev­er­al instru­ments, such as gui­tar, bass, all key­boards, and drums. He also sings some­times, which he picked up recent­ly. He played sax­o­phone in sev­enth grade but gave it up. He regrets he did. He quit play­ing sax when school end­ed one sum­mer. He nev­er had time to prac­tice sax any­more when he went back to school. He does not play in the school band. Why? “I real­ly don’t have time to make the con­certs.”

Prince has a broth­er that goes to Cen­tral whose name is Duane Nel­son, who is more ath­let­i­cal­ly enthu­si­as­tic. He plays on the bas­ket­ball team and played on the foot­ball team. Duane is also a senior.

Prince plays by ear. “I’ve had about two lessons, but they didn’t help much. I think you’ll always be able to do what your ear tells you, so just think how great you’d be with lessons also,” he said.

“I advise any­one who wants to learn gui­tar to get a teacher unless they are very musi­cal­ly inclined. One should learn all their scales too. That is very impor­tant,” he con­tin­ued.

Prince would also like to say that his band is in the process of record­ing an album con­tain­ing songs they have com­posed. It should be released dur­ing the ear­ly part of the sum­mer.

“Even­tu­al­ly I would like to go to col­lege and start lessons again when I’m much old­er.”

via That Eric Alper

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Prince and Miles Davis’ Rarely-Heard Musi­cal Col­lab­o­ra­tions

Prince Plays Mind-Blow­ing Gui­tar Solos On “While My Gui­tar Gen­tly Weeps” and “Amer­i­can Woman”

Prince (RIP) Per­forms Ear­ly Hits in a 1982 Con­cert: “Con­tro­ver­sy,” “I Wan­na Be Your Lover” & More

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Sure­ly you’ve heard of Dis­co Demo­li­tion Night, when Chica­go DJ Steve Dahl invit­ed lis­ten­ers to the 1979 White Sox dou­ble head­er against the Tigers at Comiskey Park, offer­ing tick­ets for .98 cents if they brought a dis­co record he could blow up between games. The event drew thou­sands more than Dahl expect­ed, turned into a riot on the field, and has since passed into his­to­ry for its ral­ly­ing cry of “Dis­co sucks!” and its herald­ing of the end of disco’s reign.

Dis­co died at the end of the 70s, the sto­ry goes. But many music fans know dif­fer­ent­ly. Dis­co didn’t die. It mutat­ed, became House music, New Wave, and oth­er hybrid gen­res. It made its way into the music of the Clash, Blondie, Michael Jack­son, Madon­na, and oth­ers. Nonethe­less, Dis­co Demo­li­tion Night rep­re­sent­ed a wide­spread back­lash that drove dis­co off the pop charts and back where it came from—the most­ly black, Lati­no, and gay clubs in New York, Chica­go, Detroit, and oth­er cities.

Many peo­ple who have writ­ten his­to­ries of Dis­co Demo­li­tion have come to see it “as a not-so-sub­tle attack” against those groups of peo­ple, writes NPR, against “disco’s ear­ly adopters.” Dahl, who has co-authored his own book about the night, dis­agrees, but he admits that images of the event look “like a book burn­ing.” Dis­co “obvi­ous­ly threat­ened a lot of rock­ers,” he con­cedes. Anoth­er wit­ness to the event, an African-Amer­i­can ush­er named Vince Lawrence, saw evi­dence first­hand.

Lawrence—a dis­co fan and aspir­ing musician—tells the pod­cast Undone that he was actu­al­ly look­ing for­ward to the event. He liked Dahl and “had strict inten­tion of keep­ing records that were good that I didn’t have.” How­ev­er, as he col­lect­ed the records at the gate, he noticed among them Mar­vin Gaye and Ste­vie Won­der albums, “records that were black records,” he says, but not dis­co. He tells NPR, he saw “Cur­tis May­field records and Otis Clay records.… Records that were clear­ly not dis­co.” He balked, but was told he had to take them and issue tick­ets.

After Dahl rolled onto the field in a Jeep and blew up the dump­ster full of records, chaos ensued, and the stunt turned into “this zany, real life slap­stick rou­tine,” says Undone’s host Pat Wal­ters, “until all the sud­den, it’s just not.” Riot­ers set a bon­fire, stole the bases (lit­er­al­ly), and became a rag­ing mob. On his way out of the park, Lawrence was attacked by fans yelling “Dis­co Sucks!” and break­ing records in his face.

Colum­nist Renee Gra­ham, a gay woman of col­or who was a teenag­er at the time, recalls see­ing pho­tos of the event and being remind­ed of White Cit­i­zens Coun­cils smash­ing rock and roll records because they brought white and black kids togeth­er. “This wasn’t just ‘We don’t like this music,’” she says, “this was ‘We don’t like these peo­ple who lis­ten to this music.’” By 1979, how­ev­er, “those peo­ple” includ­ed many of the same kids’ class­mates, sib­lings, par­ents.… Dis­co had gone main­stream after Sat­ur­day Night Fever and the Bee Gees’ break­out. “It was almost like musi­cal gen­tri­fi­ca­tion,” says Gra­ham.

The Rolling Stones, Rod Stew­art, Led Zep­pelin, KISS—all of them appro­pri­at­ed dis­co. And the rock kids were furi­ous. After the riot at Comiskey, “dis­co became a four-let­ter word.” Careers col­lapsed, radio sta­tions changed for­mat, record stores reordered, almost overnight. Had none of this hap­pened, it’s pos­si­ble dis­co would have fiz­zled out. Dri­ven under­ground, back to its roots, it instead found new expres­sion in the hands of pio­neers like Chica­go DJ Frankie Knuck­les, the “God­fa­ther of House,” and New York’s “Lit­tle” Louie Vega and Ken­ny “Dope” Ramirez.

Knuck­les DJ’ed at Chica­go club the Ware­house, which lent its name to the music—predominantly dis­co or dis­co inspired—he played. As house music evolved, “you could hear it fill in the space that dis­co had occu­pied,” says Wal­ters. Vince Lawrence, too young to get into the Ware­house, began stag­ing his own house par­ties, and these spread to cities all over the coun­try, and even­tu­al­ly to Europe, where the music influ­enced bands like the Eury­th­mics and New Order, who dis­cov­ered house on the Span­ish island of Ibiza. Undone makes the case that Dis­co Demo­li­tion Night saved dis­co, in a way, so that it could emerge and influ­ence many more appre­cia­tive crossover fans in the decades to come.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­co Saves Lives: Give CPR to the The Beat of Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”

Rita Hay­worth, 1940s Hol­ly­wood Icon, Dances Dis­co to the Tune of The Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive: A Mashup

Sat­ur­day Night Fever: The (Fake) Mag­a­zine Sto­ry That Start­ed it All

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

After this inspir­ing week­end, I did­n’t need any­thing par­tic­u­lar­ly ener­giz­ing to start my week. But, then again, it’s hard to refuse a shot inspi­ra­tion when it falls right into your lap. Above, watch “Andante,” which the web­site Aeon describes as fol­lows:

Andante (a musi­cal term mean­ing ‘at walk­ing pace’) fol­lows the cel­list Ruth Boden as she climbs 10,000 feet to a peak in Oregon’s Wal­lowa Moun­tains for a deeply per­son­al, yet breath­tak­ing­ly pub­lic solo per­for­mance. With her prized cel­lo strapped to her back, Boden reflects on how she wants to do some­thing with music that tran­scends the com­mon­place, and on the par­tic­u­lar joy of play­ing from Bach’s cel­lo suite at ‘the top of the world’.

Hope this helps you get to Wednes­day. And, to reach Fri­day, we’ve added some oth­er fine Bach mate­r­i­al in the Relat­eds below.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent:

All of Bach is Putting Bach’s Com­plete Works Online: 150 Done, 930 to Come

Down­load the Com­plete Organ Works of J.S. Bach for Free

Watch a 27-Year-Old Glenn Gould Play Bach & Put His Musi­cal Genius on Dis­play (1959)

The Genius of J.S. Bach’s “Crab Canon” Visu­al­ized on a Möbius Strip

Stream the Com­plete Works of Bach & Beethoven: 250 Free Hours of Music