DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
My Fellow Americans, Life is actually just a microscopic, deluded moment in time, so let's cut to the freakin' chase. One look at our impending election debacle can solidify my case. It has been my contention since birth, that the answer to every difficulty we encounter on this sacred yet demented Stone, can be revealed with ultimate clarity through the ultra neurotic engagements of Music, Art, Literature, Film, Poetry and a good Pastrami sandwich. Why would any sane human spend so must time on a film set (Do you know how long you gotta wait until your 8 second deliverance of an edited beyond repair line gets a chance to become a professional embarrassment etched in time forever? ) or expend so much energy in a recording studio, piecing together another ode to a man or woman who could not care less how much love existed within your digestive tract? It's all about hymns and prayers and a quest for mercy and forgiveness and silence and faith. We were blessed with Charles Bukowski, Gene Chandler, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Ryder and a legion of creative explorers whose influences provided the air we breathe. So Let's Dance! This site shall explore the reaper, find a way to disarm the stench of injustice, discover some true loves and talk it all over before it's all over. So what's the worst that our desires could produce? Failure? So sue me. I'm going to require your assistance in making as much trouble for the grown-ups as possible. Let the record show that my childish heart yearns to disrupt the madness. Join me Ladies and Germs!
With Gratitude For Gena Rowlands, Nancy Sinatra, Jerry Quarry, Leo Gorcey, Arthur Alexander and Joey Heatherton, Your Splendid Bohemian, Rich Buckland.
DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT "DOUBLE TROUBLE" - HARMONIC CONVERGENCE: ROBERT PLANT, ALISON KRAUSS, AND THE LOUVIN BROTHERS. "DOUBLE DOWN!!"
There is something that happens when two particular voices blend together that transcends all understanding or logic. And, when those voices share the same DNA, the magnetic pull is such that they become one voice. We’ve heard that family blend many times: The Everlys, The Wilsons, The Gibbs, The Andrew Sisters, etc. The list goes on.
One of the most uncanny examples of this phenomenon belongs to Charlie and Ira Louvin, those titans of Country and Gospel music. When they sing with religious devotion, such as they do here in The River of Jordan - you can hear God and his miracles working in every keening, harmonic fifth. The other song presented today features Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, - a pair of folks about as far from siblings as you can get, but whose vocal cords also combine miraculously.
THE LOUVINS
The first time I heard of Ira and Charlie Louvin was through Emmylou Harris’s 1975 version of If I Could Only Win Your Love, and I had to know from whence this other-worldly sound originated. Like a hound on the scent, I tracked down several recordings from the brothers, and sat open mouthed as song after song cut through me.
The Louvins, whose birth name was Loudermilk (cousins to the noted songwriter), had a contentious relationship, owing to Ira’s drunken temperament and womanizing. Charlie contemplated going solo, but Ira’s early demise, at 41, in a drunken car crash, made the decision permanent.
Ira usually takes the high harmony, but they had the ability to switch mid way through a song so that it was often hard to tell who was covering which part. Truly one of the all time great sibling singing duos.
ALISON KRAUSS AND ROBERT PLANT
A musical marriage made in heaven that no fiction writer could have invented, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss came together in one of the most celestial combos ever. The Led Zeppelin frontman, renowned for his soaring falsetto, melds with the rawboned steadiness of bluegrass’s sweetheart in an eclectic stew of influences that somehow create a single entity. Today’s featured song, Please Read the Letter, nestled among cuts by the Everlys, Gene Clark, Mel Tillis, and Townes Van Zandt was written by Plant and his Zeppelin brother, Jimmie Page, and is added seamlessly to the mix.
The resulting album, Raising Sand, produced by the curatorial genius T-Bone Burnett, was released in 2007, and swept the Grammies and Americana Music Awards, taking its place in the pantheon of beautiful enigmas.
