Watch Link Wray Play a Downright Dirty Version of “Rumble,” the Only Instrumental to Be Banned on Radio (1974)

in Music | November 9th, 2020

It takes a lot of swag­ger and con­fi­dence to play a cou­ple of barre chords on a gui­tar, look like the coolest cat doing so, and rev­o­lu­tion­ize rock music while doing so. That’s Link Wray we’re talk­ing about, and the song is the 1958 instru­men­tal hit “Rum­ble.” It still sounds fresh today for the same rea­sons it was con­tro­ver­sial at the time. It sounds sleazy, grungy, dirty. This is a song for a pool hall, or a bik­er bar, and just reeks of cig­a­rettes and liquor. And from Pulp Fic­tion onwards, the song has popped up in many movies and TV shows, giv­ing a scene a bit of cool dan­ger.

The above video is from a one-hour gig that Wray and his band per­formed at the Win­ter­land Ball­room in San Fran­cis­co, 1974, the for­mer ice skat­ing rink that pro­mot­er Bill Gra­ham turned into one of the pri­mo music venues of its day. And Link Wray play­ing was like one of the gods of rock descend­ing to anoint the crowd. Presley–though Wray defend­ed him dur­ing his act–had dropped out of main­stream cul­ture. The orig­i­nal rock and rollers, Wray’s peers, were either dead or nos­tal­gia acts. So this appear­ance is mag­i­cal, rock spir­it made flesh, look­ing dan­ger­ous and sex­u­al in all his swag­ger.

That swag­ger was well earned. Fred Lin­coln Wray was born in North Car­oli­na to a Shawnee moth­er, as a Chero­kee and White father had returned from WWI with PTSD. In the most­ly Black neigh­bor­hood where he grew up, he would hide under­neath the bed when the Ku Klux Klan would come through on a ter­ror cam­paign. “Elvis, he grew up — I don’t want to sound racist when I say this — he grew up white man poor,” Wray said in an inter­view. “I was grow­ing up Shawnee poor.”

He suf­fered weak eye­sight and bad hear­ing from child­hood measles, and lat­er when he served time in the army, he’d con­tract tuber­cu­lo­sis, lose one lung, and was told he wouldn’t have a singing career.

But he did have his gui­tar skills, which he’d learned as a child from a trav­el­ing Black gui­tarist called Ham­bone. Back from the army he formed a group with his broth­ers Ver­non and Doug, and was going by the name Lucky. They gigged around Vir­ginia and Wash­ing­ton, DC, and were asked by a local pro­mot­er to come up with a song sim­i­lar to The Dia­monds’ “The Stroll.” What they came up with was an instru­men­tal called “Odd­ball.” It was a hit played live but when they went into a stu­dio to record a demo, it just didn’t have “that sound”. Wray start­ed punch­ing holes in his speak­ers with a pen­cil and in one stroke cre­at­ed the fuz­ztone gui­tar sound.

The big labels wouldn’t bite, but Cadence Records’ Milt Grant said yes. Or rather, his teenage step­daugh­ter and her friends said yes, and Milt put aside his own dis­taste. Juve­nile delin­quents were at once both a “prob­lem” and a way to sell prod­uct, espe­cial­ly with the hit musi­cal and movie West Side Sto­ry. “Rum­ble” was a much bet­ter name than “Odd­ball,” and, on March 31, 1958, it was released.

Some DJs refused to play the sin­gle in cities where teenage gang vio­lence was a prob­lem. When Wray and his band played Amer­i­can Band­stand, Dick Clark didn’t men­tion the title. It didn’t stop the sin­gle from being a hit.

And it was influ­en­tial. Wray pret­ty much invent­ed pow­er-chord riff­ing, and influ­enced Jimi Hen­drix, Jeff Beck, Neil Young, Jim­my Page, Pete Town­shend, and count­less oth­ers. Cur­mud­geon-genius Mark E. Smith of the Fall named him as one of the only two musi­cians he respect­ed (the oth­er was Iggy Pop).

Link Wray’s Chero­kee and Shawnee her­itage was not well known among the gen­er­al pub­lic, but the recent doc­u­men­tary Rum­ble: The Indi­ans Who Rocked the World brought the influ­ence of Native Amer­i­can musi­cians out into the open for cel­e­bra­tion, con­nect­ing Link Wray with Rob­bie Robert­son, Char­lie Pat­ton, Mil­dred Bai­ley, and Ste­vie Salas.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Only Instru­men­tal Ever Banned from the Radio: Link Wray’s Seduc­tive, Raunchy Song, “Rum­ble” (1958)

Two Gui­tar Effects That Rev­o­lu­tion­ized Rock: The Inven­tion of the Wah-Wah & Fuzz Ped­als

The Sto­ry of “Wipe Out,” the Clas­sic Surf Rock Instru­men­tal

Quentin Taran­ti­no Explains The Art of the Music in His Films

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.

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Patti Smith & Fred “Sonic” Smith Perform a Stripped-Down, Beautiful Version of “People Have the Power”

in Music | November 7th, 2020

It’s fit­ting for the day, even though it was record­ed long ago (1990). The footage above fea­tures Pat­ti Smith and her depart­ed hus­band Fred “Son­ic” Smith per­form­ing a stripped-down, acoustic ver­sion of her clas­sic “Peo­ple Have the Pow­er.” A rare record­ing of Smith and Son­ic per­form­ing togeth­er, this is a lit­tle trea­sure. Savor the moment.

Peo­ple have the pow­er
The pow­er to dream, to rule
To wres­tle the world from fools
It’s decreed: the peo­ple rule
It’s decreed: the peo­ple rule
Lis­ten. I believe every­thing we dream
Can come to pass through our union
We can turn the world around
We can turn the earth­’s rev­o­lu­tion
We have the pow­er!

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

Pat­ti Smith’s List of Favorite Books: From Rim­baud to Susan Son­tag

Pat­ti Smith Sings “Peo­ple Have the Pow­er” with a Choir of 250 Fel­low Singers

Hear Pat­ti Smith’s First Poet­ry Read­ing, Accom­pa­nied by Her Long­time Gui­tarist Lenny Kaye (St. Mark’s Church, 1971)

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Neil Young Releases a Never-Before-Heard Version of His 1979 Classic, “Powderfinger”: Stream It Online

in Music | November 6th, 2020

If Neil Young proved any­thing in his feud with Lynyrd Skynyrd (actu­al­ly “more like a spir­it­ed debate between respect­ful friends,” writes Ulti­mate Clas­sic Rock), it’s that Cana­di­ans could play south­ern rock just as well as the South­ern Man, an argu­ment more or less also won at the same time by The Band’s Music from Big Pink. Young’s song­writ­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the tra­di­tion are just as well rec­og­nized as “The Weight.” Fore­most among them, we must place “Pow­derfin­ger,” cov­ered by every­one from Band of Hors­es to Cow­boy Junkies (below) to Rust­ed Root to Phish, and which Young sent to Ron­nie Van Zant, who might have record­ed it for the next Skynyrd album had he not died in 1977.

South­ern rock stal­warts Dri­ve-By Truck­ers, who’ve cov­ered “Pow­derfin­ger” fre­quent­ly, often sound like the son­ic equiv­a­lent of the Young-Skynyrd debate (they even wrote a song about it), chan­nel­ing their Alaba­ma roots and Skynyrd obses­sions through the sen­si­tive, sharply observed, char­ac­ter-dri­ven nar­ra­tives Young wrote so well. “Pow­derfin­ger” was penned dur­ing the Zuma era, when Young and Crazy Horse rede­fined psy­che­del­ic Amer­i­cana with bar­room weep­ers like “Don’t Cry No Tears” and “Barstool Blues,” and wan­der­ing gui­tar epics like “Cortez the Killer” and “Dan­ger Bird.”

The com­bi­na­tion of beau­ti­ful­ly loose, sham­bling gui­tars, lop­ing rhythms, and “bizarre and bril­liant” twists on Amer­i­cana themes defined what many con­sid­er to be Young’s great­est peri­od. “Between 1969’s Every­body Knows This is Nowhere and 1978’s Rust Nev­er Sleeps Young reached a lev­el of genius that few song­writ­ers have ever topped,” Rolling Stone writes.

“Pow­derfin­ger” rou­tine­ly tops best-of-Neil-Young lists. Though intend­ed for Zuma, the song did not actu­al­ly appear until four years lat­er, open­ing the elec­tric side of the live clas­sic Rust Nev­er Sleeps. Now we can cel­e­brate the unre­leased ver­sion at the top, record­ed dur­ing the Zuma ses­sions and just post­ed to the Neil Young Archives Insta­gram page.

Not only does “Pow­derfin­ger” show Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their duel­ing gui­tar best; it is a lyri­cal mas­ter­piece of lit­er­ary com­pres­sion, with a nar­ra­tive fans have often strug­gled to piece togeth­er, and have seen as rep­re­sent­ing every­thing from the Civ­il War to Viet­nam. But the gen­er­al inter­pre­ta­tion of the folk-poet­ic vers­es goes some­thing like this, notes Rolling Stone:

It’s about a fam­i­ly of boot­leg­gers (or some oth­er kind of back­woods crim­i­nals) some­where up in the moun­tains. They’ve been through many tragedies, and now the author­i­ties are mov­ing in on them – explain­ing why the approach­ing boat has “num­bers on the side.” The 22-year-old son has been forced to deal with the sit­u­a­tion because “Dad­dy’s gone,” “broth­er’s out hunt­ing in the moun­tains” and “Big John’s been drink­ing since the riv­er took Emmy-Lou.” The young man is stand­ing on the dock with a rifle in his hand when the boat begins fir­ing, so he rais­es the gun to return fire – but it back­fires and blows his head off. 

It’s a cin­e­mat­ic, dark­ly com­ic scene con­veyed with haunt­ing pathos and con­fused urgency. The track will appear on Disc 8, Dume, of the upcom­ing box set Neil Young Archives Vol­ume II, which cov­ers the pro­lif­ic peri­od between 1972 and 1976. “This 1975 ver­sion of the song was pro­duced by Young and David Brig­gs,” Brock Theis­sen writes at Exclaim!, and fea­tures all the orig­i­nal mem­bers of Crazy Horse. You can also stream the unre­leased ear­ly “Pow­derfin­ger” at the Neil Young Archives site. Fur­ther up, see an ani­mat­ed video for an acoustic ver­sion of the clas­sic Neil Young track and hear the orig­i­nal live record­ing from Rust Nev­er Sleeps below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Who Is Neil Young?: A Video Essay Explores the Two Sides of the Ver­sa­tile Musician–Folk Icon and Father of Grunge

Neil Young Per­forms Clas­sic Songs in 1971 Con­cert: “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold” & More

The Time Neil Young Met Charles Man­son, Liked His Music, and Tried to Score Him a Record Deal

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

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When Louis Armstrong Stopped a Civil War in The Congo (1960)

in History, Music, Politics | November 2nd, 2020

When Louis Arm­strong appeared in his home­town of New Orleans for the first time in nine years in 1965, it was, Ben Schwarz writes, “a low point for his crit­i­cal esti­ma­tion.” A younger gen­er­a­tion saw his refusal to march on the front lines of the civ­il rights move­ment, risk­ing life and limb, as a “racial cop-out,” as jour­nal­ist Andrew Kop­kind wrote at the time. Arm­strong was seen as “a breezy enter­tain­er with all the grav­i­tas of a Jim­my Durante or Dean Mar­tin.”

The crit­i­cism was unfair. Arm­strong only played New Orleans in 1965 after the pas­sage of the Civ­il Rights Act, hav­ing boy­cotted the city in 1956 when it banned inte­grat­ed bands. In 1957 after events in Lit­tle Rock, Arkansas, Arm­strong refused a State Depart­ment-spon­sored tour of the Sovi­et Union over Eisenhower’s han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion. He spoke out force­ful­ly, used words you can’t repeat on NPR, called gov­er­nor Orval Faubus an “igno­rant plow­boy” and the pres­i­dent “two-faced.”

But he pre­ferred tour­ing and mak­ing mon­ey to march­ing, and was hap­py to play for the State Depart­ment and Pep­si­Co on a 1960 tour of the African con­ti­nent to pro­mote, osten­si­bly, the open­ing of five new bot­tling plants. When he arrived in Leopoldville, cap­i­tal city of the Con­go, in late Octo­ber, he even stopped a civ­il war, man­ag­ing “to call a brief inter­mis­sion in a coun­try that had been unsta­ble before his arrival,” Jayson Over­by writes at the West End Blog.

Unsta­ble is an under­state­ment. The new­ly-inde­pen­dent country’s first elect­ed pres­i­dent, Patrice Lumum­ba, had just been deposed in a coup by anti-com­mu­nist Joseph Mobu­tu, sur­vived a “bizarre” assas­si­na­tion attempt by the C.I.A., and would soon be on his way to tor­ture and exe­cu­tion after the UN turned its back on him. The coun­try was com­ing apart when Arm­strong arrived. Then, it stopped. As he put it in a lat­er inter­view, “Man, they even declared peace in The Con­go fight­ing the day I showed up in Leopoldville.”

“Just for that day,” writes Over­by, “he blew his horn and played with his band the sweet sound of jazz for a large crowd. But no soon­er after Louis depart­ed, the war resumed.” This being a joint state/commerce oper­a­tion dur­ing the Cold War, there is of course much more to the sto­ry, some which lends cre­dence to crit­i­cism of Arm­strong as a gov­ern­ment pawn used dur­ing “good­will” tours to test out var­i­ous forms of cul­tur­al war­fare. That was, at least, the offi­cial stance of Moscow, accord­ing to the AP news­reel at the top of the post.

The Sovi­ets “blast­ed Armstrong’s vis­it as a diver­sion­ary tac­tic,” and it was. Ricky Ric­car­di at the Louis Arm­strong House Muse­um cov­ers the event in great detail, includ­ing high­light­ing sev­er­al declas­si­fied State Depart­ment mem­os that show the plan­ning. In one, from Octo­ber 14th, the first U.S. ambas­sador to the coun­try, Clare Hayes Tim­ber­lake, argues that “coop­er­a­tion with pri­vate firm might soft­en pro­pa­gan­da impli­ca­tions.”

After the Octo­ber 27th per­for­mance, Tim­ber­lake judged the appear­ance “high­ly suc­cess­ful from stand­point over-all psy­cho­log­i­cal impact on this trou­bled city.” Clear­ly, the 10,000 Con­golese who showed up to see Satch­mo play need­ed the break. But the diplo­mats mis­read the audi­ence reac­tion, think­ing they didn’t like the music when they start­ed to leave at dusk. “Giv­en the cli­mate in Leopoldville,” Ric­car­di writes, “one can’t blame the locals for not want­i­ng to stay out longer than they had to.” But it was, nonethe­less, the State Depart­ment declared, the “first hap­py event” in the city since the coun­try’s inde­pen­dence.

via @ArmstrongHouse

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Only Known Footage of Louis Arm­strong in a Record­ing Stu­dio: Watch the Recent­ly-Dis­cov­ered Film (1959)

Louis Arm­strong Remem­bers How He Sur­vived the 1918 Flu Epi­dem­ic in New Orleans

The Clean­est Record­ings of 1920s Louis Arm­strong Songs You’ll Ever Hear

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

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Sean Connery (RIP) Reads C.P. Cavafy’s Epic Poem “Ithaca,” Set to the Music of Vangelis

in Film, Music, Poetry | October 31st, 2020

This video com­bines three things that make me hap­py: the voice of Sean Con­nery (who passed away today), the music of Van­ge­lis (Blade Run­ner, Char­i­ots of Fire), and the poet­ry of C.P. Cavafy. Put them all togeth­er and you get a bliss­ful sound­scape of rolling synth lines, rolling Scot­tish R’s, and a suc­ces­sion of Home­r­ic images and anaphor­ic lines. And the video’s quite nice as well.

Cavafy, whose work, I’m told, is real­ly untrans­lat­able from the orig­i­nal Greek, always seems to come out pret­ty well to me in Eng­lish. “Itha­ca,” one of his most pop­u­lar poems, express­es what in less­er hands might be a banal sen­ti­ment akin to “it’s the jour­ney, not the des­ti­na­tion.” But in Cavafy’s poem, the jour­ney is both Odysseus’s and ours; it’s epic where our lives seem small, and it trans­lates our minor wan­der­ings to the realm of myth­ic his­to­ry.

Any­way, it seems rude to say much more and drown the poem in com­men­tary. So, fol­low along with Sean Con­nery.

Find the text of the poem after the jump. (more…)

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The Official Trailer for the New Frank Zappa Documentary Is Now Online

in Film, Music | October 30th, 2020

Mark it on your cal­en­dars. Alex Win­ter’s new Zap­pa doc­u­men­tary will be released on Novem­ber 23. To whet your appetite, here’s the offi­cial trail­er for the film: “With unfet­tered access to the Zap­pa fam­i­ly trust and all archival footage, ZAPPA explores the pri­vate life behind the mam­moth musi­cal career that nev­er shied away from the polit­i­cal tur­bu­lence of its time. Alex Winter’s assem­bly fea­tures appear­ances by Frank’s wid­ow Gail Zap­pa and sev­er­al of Frank’s musi­cal col­lab­o­ra­tors includ­ing Mike Keneal­ly, Ian Under­wood, Steve Vai, Pamela Des Bar­res, Bunk Gard­ner, David Har­ring­ton, Scott Thunes, Ruth Under­wood, Ray White and oth­ers.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

The Night Frank Zap­pa Jammed With Pink Floyd … and Cap­tain Beef­heart Too (Bel­gium, 1969)

Andy Warhol Hosts Frank Zap­pa on His Cable TV Show, and Lat­er Recalls, “I Hat­ed Him More Than Ever” After the Show

Frank Zappa’s Amaz­ing Final Con­certs: Prague and Budapest, 1991

Frank Zap­pa Explains the Decline of the Music Busi­ness (1987)

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The Legend of How Bluesman Robert Johnson Sold His Soul to the Devil at the Crossroads

in History, Music | October 30th, 2020

We remem­ber the blues­man Robert John­son as the Jimi Hen­drix of the 1930s, a gui­tarist of stag­ger­ing skill who died before age thir­ty. Both found main­stream suc­cess, but John­son’s came posthu­mous­ly: in fact, his music and Hen­drix’s first music hit it big in the same decade, the 1960s. King of the Delta Blues Singers, an album of John­son’s songs released by Colum­bia Records in 1961, had a great influ­ence on the likes of Bob Dylan, Kei­th Richards, Robert Plant, and Eric Clap­ton, who calls John­son “the most impor­tant blues singer that ever lived.” How did this poor young Mis­sis­sip­pi­an come by his for­mi­da­ble abil­i­ties? Why, he sold his soul to the dev­il at the cross­roads, of course.

Or at least that’s what we all seem to have heard. And indeed, does­n’t the leg­end make the open­ing line of “Cross Road Blues,” King of the Delta Blues’ open­ing num­ber, that much more evoca­tive? “I went down to the cross­roads,” he sings. “Fell down on my knees. Asked the Lord above for mer­cy, ‘Take me, if you please.’ ” Well, it could’ve been the Lord, or it could have been the oth­er one. But in fact we have pre­cious lit­tle record of John­son’s life, and no direct ref­er­ences at all to his bar­gain with Beelze­bub (ani­ma­tions of which we pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture). Why has the leg­end stuck? Music Youtube series Poly­phon­ic address­es that ques­tion in the video essay above.

An ear­li­er episode cov­ered deals with the dev­il through­out the his­to­ry of music. This time, the sub­ject is the cross­roads itself, the set­ting of John­son­ian lore no one ever fails to men­tion. “Of all the marks that humans make on the earth, cross­roads are among the sim­plest and most endur­ing,” says nar­ra­tor Noah Lefevre. “As long as humans orga­nize our­selves in towns and cities, cross­roads will remain, and so will the leg­ends of their dark pow­ers and of the strange spir­its who occu­py them.” The mythol­o­gy of the cross­roads goes back at least to the Greek god­dess Hecate, who rules over “lim­i­nal space, the tran­si­tion from the known to the great unknown beyond.” In the Mis­sis­sip­pi Delta, the mythol­o­gy of the cross­roads inter­sects, as it were, with the realm of Hait­ian voodoo.

“A reli­gion that mix­es Roman Catholic influ­ences with West African spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions” — and the one that gave us zom­bies — voodoo has “one all-pow­er­ful god, but you can only speak to him through spir­its known as loa.” And to talk to loa, you’ve got to go through Papa Leg­ba, the loa of the cross­roads. From the late 18th cen­tu­ry, voodoo began mak­ing its way through the Amer­i­can South, the cra­dle of the blues. Out of this rich set­ting came John­son’s pre­de­ces­sor Tom­my John­son (no rela­tion), a singer and gui­tarist who based his per­sona on the claim of hav­ing sold his own soul to the dev­il. Even Robert John­son’s men­tor Ike Zim­mer­man was said to have prac­ticed gui­tar in grave­yards at mid­night.

“John­son is seen today as the grand­fa­ther of rock-and-roll,” says Lefevre. “That comes not just from his vir­tu­oso play­ing, but also from his mythol­o­gy.” (Con­sid­er this lega­cy in light of how often rock-and-roll was in decades past called “the dev­il’s music.”) Today, in songs like “Hell­hound on My Trail,” we can hear both ref­er­ences to voodoo-inspired rit­u­als and oth­er forms of the occult as well as con­di­tions of life in a South removed only a gen­er­a­tion or two from slav­ery. This Poly­phon­ic episode may con­vince you that “the myth of John­son and the cross­roads may have been birthed out of sheer acci­dent,” but that’s no rea­son not to give King of the Delta Blues Singers a spin this Hal­loween — or any oth­er day besides.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sto­ry of Blues­man Robert Johnson’s Famous Deal With the Dev­il Retold in Three Ani­ma­tions

A Brief His­to­ry of Mak­ing Deals with the Dev­il: Nic­colò Pagani­ni, Robert John­son, Jim­my Page & More

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”

Jimi Hen­drix Plays the Delta Blues on a 12-String Acoustic Gui­tar in 1968, and Jams with His Blues Idols, Bud­dy Guy & B.B. King

Cov­er­ing Robert Johnson’s Blues Became a Rite of Rock ‘n’ Roll Pas­sage: Hear Cov­ers by The Rolling Stones, Eric Clap­ton, Howl­in’ Wolf, Lucin­da Williams & More

Robert John­son Final­ly Gets an Obit­u­ary in the New York Times 81 Years After His Death

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Karen O & Willie Nelson Release a New Cover Bowie & Queen’s “Under Pressure”

in Music | October 28th, 2020

Today, Karen O and Willie Nel­son unveiled their cov­er of the icon­ic David Bowie and Queen clas­sic “Under Pres­sure.” The­mat­i­cal­ly, it’s a song for our pres­sure-filled times. But this ver­sion will keep you cen­tered and calm. Put it on end­less loop through next Tues­day.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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:

Lis­ten to Fred­die Mer­cury and David Bowie on the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track for the Queen Hit ‘Under Pres­sure,’ 1981

Watch David Bowie & Annie Lennox in Rehearsal, Singing “Under Pres­sure,” with Queen (1992)

Watch Queen’s Stun­ning Live Aid Per­for­mance: 20 Min­utes Guar­an­teed to Give You Goose Bumps (July 13, 1985)

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