If you’re going to back Dave Grohl behind the drums, well…. As so many have said, in so many ways over the week­end, in poignant trib­utes to Foo Fight­ers’ drum­mer Tay­lor Hawkins, who sad­ly passed away at age 50 on Fri­day — you’d bet­ter be damned good. As the Foo Fight­ers formed with Grohl on gui­tar and vocals, the for­mer Nir­vana drum­mer, now front­man “need­ed some­one who would not make fans keep wish­ing he had stuck with drums,” as NBC’s Daniel Arkin writes.

Grohl almost did stick with drums, at least in the stu­dio, record­ing the parts him­self for the band’s first album, The Colour and the Shape, after con­flicts with orig­i­nal drum­mer William Gold­smith. Hawkins was the tour­ing drum­mer for Ala­nis Moris­sette at the time — a much big­ger act than Foo Fight­ers in the late 90s. But the two kept bump­ing into each oth­er “back stage at fes­ti­vals around the world,” as Grohl wrote in his 2021 auto­bi­og­ra­phy, The Sto­ry­teller: Tales of Life and Music. “Our chem­istry was so obvi­ous that even Ala­nis her­self once asked him, ‘What are you going to do when Dave asks you to be his drum­mer?’ Part Beav­is and Butthead, part Dumb and Dumb­er, we were a hyper­ac­tive blur of Par­lia­ment Lights and air drum­ming wher­ev­er we went.”

Not only did Hawkins become Grohl’s “best friend and part­ner in crime” — his blond, beard­ed dop­pel­gänger behind the drums — but he was a fero­cious musi­cian on his terms, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Bri­an May, Den­nis Wil­son, Slash, and mem­bers of Jane’s Addic­tion, form­ing his own band, Tay­lor Hawkins and the Coat­tail Rid­ers, and get­ting vot­ed “Best Rock Drum­mer” in a 2005 read­ers poll by drum­ming mag­a­zine Rhythm. The acco­lade, if high­ly sub­jec­tive, is still high­ly deserved.

Revis­it Hawkins’ great­ness above in the BBC Radio 6 Drum­ming Mas­ter­class above, a near­ly hour-long spe­cial in which the man him­self walks us through his ear­ly life, his influ­ences, his drum­ming tech­niques, and his behind-the-scenes expe­ri­ences play­ing with Moris­sette and Dave “Steve Miller on steroids” Grohl. It’s an essen­tial watch for fans and per­haps one of the best ways to remem­ber the only drum­mer who could suc­cess­ful­ly back Nir­vana’s for­mer drum­mer for over two decades. He will be dear­ly missed for far longer than that.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dave Grohl Tells the Sto­ry of How He Wrote “Ever­long”

Dave Grohl & Greg Kurstin Cov­er The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop” to Cel­e­brate Han­nukah: Hey! Oy! Let’s Goy!

Watch 1,000 Musi­cians Play the Foo Fight­ers’ “Learn to Fly,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” and The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

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

“Dylan… was real­ly into the whole idea of it for the refugees.…” says George Har­ri­son over the restored footage above from 1971’s Con­cert for Bangladesh. The qui­et Beat­le’s scouser lilt will sure­ly tug at your heart­strings, as will Har­ri­son and Dylan’s care­ful rehearsal take of “If Not for You,” a song they did not end up play­ing togeth­er dur­ing the con­cert. It’s a sig­nif­i­cant shared moment nonethe­less. As fans know, “If Not for You” became a key­stone song for both artists at the turn of the 70s.

Dylan wrote the song the year pre­vi­ous as the first track on his 1970 New Morn­ing, a record crit­ics her­ald­ed as a return to form after the panned dou­ble album, Self Por­trait. Har­ri­son him­self sat in on a ses­sion for the song and record­ed a “lan­guid ear­ly ver­sion,” notes Bea­t­les Bible, “at Columbi­a’s Stu­dio B in New York.”

The track is “thought to be Har­rison’s first record­ed instance of slide gui­tar,” a tech­nique that would char­ac­ter­ize the sound of his dou­ble debut, All Things Must Pass. His pres­ence arguably helped shape the direc­tion of Dylan’s record­ing, which Dylan him­self would lat­er describe as “sort of Tex-Mex.”

Har­rison’s album, released in the same year as New Morn­ing, fea­tures his — per­haps bet­ter known — ver­sion of “If Not for You,” a song that has been cov­ered dozens of times since. (All Things Must Pass also fea­tures a 1968 col­lab­o­ra­tion between Har­ri­son and Dylan: name­ly, the open­ing track, “I’d Have You Any­time.”) It’s a song that seems to sum up the two musi­cians’ con­tent­ment with their mar­riages and lives at the time. The per­for­mance, though only a sound­check, pro­vides “an inti­mate glimpse,” crit­ic Simon Leng com­ments, “of the warm friend­ship between two major cul­tur­al fig­ures at a point when both were emo­tion­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble.”

On one hand, the Con­cert for Bangladesh was a world-his­tor­i­cal event, pro­vid­ing inspi­ra­tion for Live Aid and oth­er sta­di­um-sized ben­e­fit shows. “In one day,” as Ravi Shankar put it, “the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh.” NME called it “The Great­est Rock Spec­ta­cle of the Decade” and Rolling Stone’s edi­tors described “a brief incan­des­cent revival of all that was best about the Six­ties.”

But on the oth­er hand, in moments like these, we can see the con­cert as a turn into a more mature, sen­si­tive sev­en­ties. “Instead of cry­ing ‘I want you so bad,” wrote Ed Ward in his 1970 New Morn­ing review, Dylan is “cel­e­brat­ing the fact that not only has he found her, but they know each oth­er well, and get strength from each oth­er, depend on each oth­er.” In the take at the top, Jack What­ley observes, Har­ri­son and Dylan “spend the entire song look­ing at each oth­er, as if they’re singing about their own rela­tion­ship.”

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Har­ri­son “My Sweet Lord” Gets an Offi­cial Music Video, Fea­tur­ing Ringo Starr, Al Yankovic, Pat­ton Oswalt & Many Oth­ers

Bob Dylan’s Famous Tele­vised Press Con­fer­ence After He Went Elec­tric (1965)

How Bob Dylan Cre­at­ed a Musi­cal & Lit­er­ary World All His Own: Four Video Essays

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

Though not as well known as John­ny Cash’s con­certs at Fol­som and San Quentin pris­ons, James Brown’s 1972 con­cert at Rik­ers Island equal­ly quelled ris­ing ten­sions, and dis­played the humil­i­ty of the artist at the top of his game. Fifty years ago on March 16, Brown and his full band played two sets in front of a crowd of around 550. And until a bet­ter source is found, the above video is the only mov­ing record of that event, a shot from a tele­vi­sion news broad­cast. How did this con­cert come about? Accord­ing to the research of New York Times writer Bil­ly Heller, a lot comes down to the tenac­i­ty of Glo­ria Bond, who worked at the New York Board of Cor­rec­tions.

Ear­li­er in 1972, Rik­ers Island had seen major unrest. Inhu­mane con­di­tions and over­crowd­ing had led to a riot that injured 75 inmates and 20 guards. The post-riot atmos­phere was a “pres­sure cook­er”. The Board had pre­vi­ous­ly brought in Coret­ta Scott King to speak to pris­on­ers, and Har­ry Bela­fonte to per­form. But James Brown was some­body dif­fer­ent, with music that was rev­o­lu­tion­ary, and lyrics that were influ­enced by, and an influ­ence on, the Black Pow­er move­ment.

Brown’s man­ag­er Charles Bob­bit told Glo­ria Bond that the God­fa­ther of Soul was a hard man to get a hold of and rarely came to the office. Accord­ing to Bond’s daugh­ter Anna, Glo­ria replied:

“She says to him: ‘Well, Mr. Bob­bit, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll bring my knit­ting and I’ll sit in that cor­ner over there,’” Anna Bond said. “‘I won’t both­er any­body. I’ll just wait till he comes.’”
Glo­ria Bond did just that. “Every­body in the office got to know her, and they’d bring her cof­fee,” Anna Bond said. “She became part of the entourage by sit­ting in her lit­tle cor­ner, knit­ting.” Even­tu­al­ly, Brown arrived at the office and came face to face with Glo­ria Bond. “And the rest is his­to­ry,” Anna Bond said.

It helped that Brown was on a musi­cal cru­sade to save kids from drugs and a fast track to prison. Hav­ing once served time in his younger days, Brown saw too many Black youth going to jail for drug-relat­ed crimes. He had record­ed a song, a spo­ken poem in the style of “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” called “King Hero­in.” The drug was dec­i­mat­ing com­mu­ni­ties by the turn of the decade.

At Rik­ers he told the most­ly young audi­ence: “When you leave here, you can have a good life or you can have a bad life. How­ev­er you do it when you get out is up to you.” Brown used his own life as a mod­el of ris­ing above adver­si­ty. He also brought his full game (and his full ensem­ble to the show), treat­ing this gig as impor­tant as a show at the Apol­lo, maybe more so.

The pho­tog­ra­ph­er Diana Mara Hen­ry shot sev­er­al rolls of film that day and doc­u­ment­ed in black and white Brown and his band. Her quote from the short video below (note the incor­rect year) serves as a vibe for the whole expe­ri­ence:

“As an artist, you put every­thing you can into a per­for­mance and at some point you turn it over to the audi­ence.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Brown Gives You Danc­ing Lessons: From The Funky Chick­en to The Booga­loo

The Best Com­mer­cial Ever? James Brown Sells Miso Soup (1992)

James Brown Saves Boston After Mar­tin Luther King’s Assas­si­na­tion, Calls for Peace Across Amer­i­ca (1968)

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

You have seen The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain (UOGB)  pay trib­ute to The Clash, Nir­vana and Bowie. Now, it’s time for The Ramones and their 1978 clas­sic, “I Wan­na Be Sedat­ed.” The UOGB took shape in 1985, and they’ve been per­form­ing cre­ative cov­ers of pop­u­lar songs and musi­cal pieces ever since. Enjoy this one, and find a long playlist of their oth­er cov­ers here.

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, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain’s Head­bang­ing Cov­er of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it”

David Bowie’s “Heroes” Delight­ful­ly Per­formed by the Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain

Ukulele Orches­tra Per­forms Ennio Morricone’s Icon­ic West­ern Theme Song, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” And It’s Pret­ty Bril­liant.

The Ukulele Orches­tra of Great Britain Per­forms The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Sat­is­fac­tion”

The orig­i­nal rock super­group, Cream, last­ed two years, changed the course of rock music, bare­ly held togeth­er because of ran­cor between mem­bers and said good­bye in 1968. Their farewell con­cert at the Roy­al Albert Hall in Lon­don was one for the ages. Maybe not their best per­for­mance, but one of their most ener­getic. And inside the cav­ernous Hall, the three men laid down a wall of unde­ni­able sound.

Too bad that it wasn’t prop­er­ly doc­u­ment­ed, despite a series of cam­eras there that evening. A Youtube denizen called Mike Left­on has tried to rec­ti­fy the his­to­ry by assem­bling a cut of the 70-minute con­cert that plays in real time. It’s the kind of fan project for which YouTube is designed—something not pro­fes­sion­al enough for offi­cial release, but vital­ly impor­tant for the fans.

Go on to the Bezos­Borg site (you know, it rhymes with Glama­zon), and you can find a con­cert film offered on Blu-Ray. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? Cream fans will tell you. Instead of let­ting the band play, the offi­cial Farewell Con­cert leaves off sev­er­al songs, and includes a “total­ly square voiceover by Patrick Allen (who refers to the band as “The Cream” through­out),” accord­ing to the moviesteve.com web­site, while anoth­er review­er notes this could be the gen­e­sis of Spinal Tap’s inten­tion­al­ly bad inter­views. (But let’s be fair, the 1960s in gen­er­al were filled with non-rock jour­nal­ists inter­view­ing musi­cians as if they were alien life forms. D.A. Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back is a com­pendi­um of such cringey moments.)

On top of that, direc­tor Allen real­ly over­did the zoom lens, which was every­where those days. It’s fun­ny to see how it was used to “spice up” rock band footage, where real­ly you could just hold the cam­era on Gin­ger Bak­er play­ing drums.

This edit cuts Allen’s footage togeth­er with black and white footage from the BBC, and gen­er­al­ly does a fair job fill­ing in the gaps, let­ting the con­cert stand on its own mer­its. It had plenty—the afore­men­tioned Gin­ger Baker’s drum solo on “The Toad.” The rep­e­ti­tion of footage is easy to spot—Jack Bruce tunes his gui­tar quite a lot, Eric Clap­ton looks off­stage, and Bak­er smokes the final half-inch of a rol­lie over the hour—but Mike Left­on made this one for the fans, which is more than you can say for Allen, who made it for fright­ened BBC view­ers still unsure about what all this “rock and roll” music was about. Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

When Afrobeat Leg­end Fela Kuti Col­lab­o­rat­ed with Cream Drum­mer Gin­ger Bak­er

Behold the Blis­ter­ing Bass Solos of Cream Bassist and Singer, Jack Bruce (1943–2014)

Jimi Hen­drix Arrives in Lon­don in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clap­ton Away: “You Nev­er Told Me He Was That F‑ing Good”

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.