John L

I really loved his sound. RIP

Vietnam may be a more important cultural divide, but WWII does seem like a useful divide for American music. Somehow, everything became very different after the war, from gospel to blues to jazz to R&B to Rock & Roll to Country. The development from around 1945 to 1955 was pretty astounding, probably the pinnacle of American music for some time to come. Before the war, entire genres like bebop, rhythm & blues, hard gospel, and bluegrass did not even really exist. "Chicago blues" was still Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy. By 1950, those genres did not just come into existence, but arguably already reached their absolute peaks.

Then there is Sam Cooke. And Maria Callas. Aretha - yes!!!!! You just have to add the qualifier as "one of" the best. She was all that back in the day, one of the greatest singers of our time.

Fascinating that he lived so long. RIP

Does that include the 1936 alternates? Yes, because there is often great pleasure in what we don't fully understand. Sometimes it is even better that way.

I just had a chance to hear this one - a VERY nice recording. Add Sonny Cox to the list of fine "sour" altos.

This is good well-recorded music. Much of it has be reissued through the years, some of it as "Count on the Coast," volumes 1-3. Other concerts were only on bootlegs, I believe. It would be nice to have it all in one place.

Some Dylan fanatics have listened through all the tapes of concerts between 1988-2000, and have assembled three discs of the very best performances. I listened through them with real enjoyment. I think that it would be against forum rules to give a link here, but you might search for the 100 greatest bootlegs. :)

I couldn't believe that these archives would sell for only $15 million. Hell, people pay that these days for one of Lady Gaga's bras. I guess that Dylan probably liked the idea of who he was selling it to, and how it would be used. I am sure that he could have gotten much more money for it if that was his goal.

It's been a great place to interact about jazz, better than the Blue Note Board ever was.

I am a big fan in particular of Black Fire, Compulsion, Point of Departure, and Smokestack. Let me also give a second endorsement to Joe Henderson's Our Thing. That is also essential Andrew.

RIP. I like his books quite a bit, and enjoyed seeming him live once in London.

Vienna? No thanks. We all have different measures of quality of life. Vienna would rank very low on my list. For people who are a bit tired of life, Vienna might provide some nice relaxation, however.

The additional tracks from the Prophecy session were also released on various European bootlegs long before the Holy Ghost box. Mine was called "Albert Smiles" and looked like this:

Damn

By examples, do you mean recorded examples? You could begin with his gospel album: "The Gospel Truth." The album is packed full of performances that I would classify as mini masterpieces. His initial explosion of creativity in the 1960s on Won-derful Records is another great accomplishment. Perhaps the pinnacle is "That's How it Is," which I consider to be one of the greatest soul/R&B singles, but there are many other songs from that time that are not close behind. He continued to churn out small masterpieces on Atlantic records in the late 60s and early 70s: check out Baby Jane, Is it Over, You Hurt Me For the Last Time. "Soul Man Live in Japan" is one of the greatest soul/R&B live albums (IMO) that gives an idea of what he could do in concert. If fact, he could do even a lot more than that in concert. I can testify to that. That is a start.

I just saw this now. I really can't agree with labeling Otis Clay a "journeyman." As I wrote above, I have long considered him as one of the true greats, somebody who put Julius Cheeks and Sam Cooke together in a unique and compelling fashion. Whether singing gospel or secular, Otis Clay could deliver a lyric in a manner that could make you a believer. His best live shows were among the best musical experiences I ever had in my life. You would come out feeling like your soul had been rejuvenated. Yes, he had his distractors, including Robert Christagou, who always seemed to love bashing him. Christagou also bashed Sam Cooke. So that puts Otis in very good company. For me, there is probably nobody alive any more who I would enjoy seeing live as much as Otis Clay.

These posts have been very interesting. Thank you. I never considered myself to be much of a Natalie Cole fan, but I see that I have clearly underestimated her talents. RIP

One of the true greats, in my view, and one of my personal favorites. This hurts. RIP, Otis. Rest easy, and save a seat for me.

RIP. He was quite an artist.

Thanks for the advice, mjzee. I didn't think of that.

iTunes has me really pissed right now. This is the issue: As we all know, there are plenty of errors and inconsistencies in the music database accessed by iTunes. So we all edit the labels on the music that we download from iTunes as needed. Right? Fine. Well now iTunes also puts copies of all the music that you have downloaded from the store in an iCloud for you. Nice. Now the iCloud files use all of the original labels that went with the files, some of which are different than what you have labeled in your iTunes library. OK. I just changed to a new computer and loaded up my iTunes library. Evidently in an attempt to synch my iTunes library with the iCloud that it created, it somehow located all of the files that I downloaded from iTunes and re-labeled them back as they were before. So, for example, single artists discs that are mistakenly labeled "compilations" in iTunes were converted back into compilations in my iTunes library. :((((( All in all, I have a mess on my hands - multiple entries for single artists followed by "trio" "quartet" "with bra bla bra" Holy shit! I began changing the labels back again, which works temporarily. But then iTunes finds them and changes them back again. How can I stop this? I don't see anything in preferences for breaking the link between my iTunes and the iCloud.