On the Playlist 12DEC2018…

As you might guess I am going to roll with the Christmas theme for as long as I can. On the playlist today is an album from Elvis Presley but unfortunately not "Elvis' Christmas Album" but rather "Christmas Peace". The former album was alluded to yesterday as it is the highest selling Christmas album in history. Today's album is a compilation of reissues put together long after Elvis passed away. It is a good collection of a lot of Christmas standards in a 2 CD set. Perfect to put on and get into the Christmas spirit with Elvis and what could be wrong with that. The first CD includes pretty much the whole holiday repertoire in chronological order while the second CD is more gospel and inspirational music that is not the traditional Elvis rock music.

Elvis Presley - Christmas Peace

On the Playlist 25OCT2018…

Listening to Blind Boy of Alabama - "Spirit of the Century" this afternoon. Best version of Amazing Grace ever on this album. I bought this album to get a copy of their version of Amazing Grace which blew me away. It is sung to the tune of House of the Rising Sun. You have to listen to this to hear how well it works.

This is a gospel singing group with some serious history. They first sang together in 1939 and have been performing for seven decades. They have won five grammys and when I saw them a couple years back they still have some of the original members.

I saw them in Irvine in one of the stranger concerts I have ever been to. You have to understand Irvine to understand why this story would happen here. Irvine, where I live in Orange County, is a very conservative, by the rules boring place. Nothing interesting happens here and that is the way the city likes it. So in order to promote the opening of the Great Park here (long story on this one) they had a free outdoor summer concert series. They had a lot of local acts and a couple bands I would bother to come out to see including Blind Boys of Alabama. Concert started at 7:00pm sharp and ended one hour later at 8:00pm sharp. The crowd was just starting to get into it and the band was starting to really rock and then 8pm rolls around and it is all over. Organizers pretty much had to escort the band of the stage as they were shutting down the lights and tearing down the sound system. Despite the long applause from the audience they weren't even allowed an encore. You could see the band was even confused. I guess they were worried about the neighbors complaining about the noise or something. Anyway, it was just weird. Now that I have lived here several more years it is not at all surprising in the least though. 

Blind Boys of Alabama - Spirit of the Century