Friday, September 12, 2014

R.I.P. Cosimo

Cosimo at work
Everyone knows the names of Fats Domino, Little Richard -- and veryone ought to know the names of Irma Thomas, Professor Longhair, Ernie K-Doe, Bobby Charles and Clarence "Frogman" Henry. Unfortunately, far fewer people know the name of Cosimo Matassa, the New Orleans recording studio genius responsible for a big chunk of what came to be known as rock 'n' roll.

Cosimo died yesterday at the age of 88.

He opened his famed J&M Recording in the back of his family's appliance store on Ramparts Street. As the New Orleans Times Picayune's Keith Spera wrote yesterday:

It hardly seemed like the setting for a musical revolution. Upstairs, bookies ran a horse-betting operation. In the alley outside, a shoeshine man plied his trade. But Mr. Matassa engineered sessions featuring some of the biggest stars of the day, maximizing the sonic potential of relatively primitive recording gear.

Soon the hits started coming. In 1947 Roy Brown recorded "Good Rockin' Tonight," at J&M. In 1949 he began a partnership with piano player/producer Dave Bartholomew, who would become a major architect of the New Orleans sound. And later in '49, a chubby little guy named Antoine "Fats" Domino recorded eight songs (in one day!!!) there, including "The Fat Man," which would launch his career.

Little Richard recorded "Tutti Fruitti" at J&M. Professor Longhair cut "Tipitina" there.

By the mid '50s Cosimo moved his operation to a larger space on Governor Nicholls Street in the French Quarter, which he named Cosimo Recording Studio. He ran that until the 1980s, when he got out of the music biz and went to work for his family grocery.

In case you have any spare cash in your music budget, today would be a good day to pick up one or both four-disc Cosimo box sets, The Cosimo Marassa Story (which my daughter gave me several years ago) and Gumbo Ya Ya: The Cosimo Matassa Story Vol. 2 (which I bought when I was in New Orleans last year.

Thanks for all you did, Cosimo.

Here's three of the songs Cosimo taught us, starting with Mr. Domino:



The Frog Man cometh!



And the one that started it all ...



Sunday, September 07, 2014

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST


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Sunday, September 7, 2014 
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Friday, September 05, 2014

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, September , 2014 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
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10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
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TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: What I Did on My Summer Vacation



This week's Tune-up column is a recap of all the great shows I saw in Portland last week, nearly all of it based on my accounts published here in this blog.

So I'll just post the section on Mission of Burma here (I saw them Saturday night and had to catch a plane early Sunday, so I didn't have much on them that day) then the links to the posts on the other shows. Hail Portlandia!

Mission of Burma at the Doug Fir, Aug. 30: I have to admit that after four straight nights of concerts — and knowing that I had to catch a 7:35 a.m. flight the next day — I was feeling pretty burned out just before the start of MoB’s set. I even started having troubling thoughts like “Are you getting too old for this kind of thing?”

But then I remembered that the members of this band are about my age. If they can be up there playing, I should be able to make it through a performance.

And indeed, from the opening guitar blast through the last chord of their final encore, “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” I was rejuvenated. (This feeling lasted until the alarm clock rang at 6 a.m. Sunday morning)

And the band was in top form as well. They roared; they soared; there was blood on their swords.
On a Mission in Portland

Onstage were original members Roger Miller (who looks like he could be Neil Young’s tougher little brother) on guitar, Clint Conley on bass, and Peter Prescott on drums. And somewhere offstage was longtime member Bob Weston, who does tape loops and electronic effects.

Normally classified as “post-punk” (whatever that means), the Mission sound is most like that of Hüsker Dü. Both groups released their first recordings in 1981, and both were stripped-down guitar bands playing raw, urgent music.

As I’ve written before in reviewing their last few albums, since the beginning of the second phase of their career (which began about 10 years ago, following a 20-year layoff), MoB is as fiery as ever.

OK. Here are the links to the other posts:

* The Afghan Whigs
* Southern Culture on the Skids
* Negativland

And here are some videos

The Afghan Whigs also played The Doug Fir in April. Here's a video of the opening song "Parked Outside" (They opened with it when I saw them too.)



Here is Southern Culture on the Skids in Portland -- a few years ago at the Doug Fir



And here is 49 minutes (!) of the very Negativland show I saw last week at the Crystal Ballroom. You probably can see the back of my head up front.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

The Rock 'n' Roll Tourist 2014: Mission (of Burma) Accomplished



No, this is not a real review of The Mission of Burma show in Portland last night. I made the mistake of bookings flight back to New Mexico at the ungodly hour of 7:35 am the morning after a Mission of Burma show.

But suffice it for now to say that they were tremendous. I'll have more details in Friday's Terrell's Tune-up column. And HERE is my review of their most recent album.

Now back to my daze.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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