Levon Helm: The Possibilities of the Blues (1977)

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: This morning I noticed in Down Beat (March 23, 1978), Mikal Gilmore’s record review of Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars – Levon’s first solo album. I loved everything about this album when it was released in 1977. That’s not to say this is a perfect album, but I think I would have rated the album five stars for its spirit/concept, and an overall four stars for the music, against some five star song performances, like Blues So Bad.

“Without being stodgy or sermonic, it’s an album about the possibilities of the blues, its derivations and variations, and it’s an album about friendship,” writes Mr. Gilmore.

Agreed.

Levon’s drumming is a pleasure to hear throughout this album.

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John Von Ohlen: Reading and Writing Drum Charts (1984)

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: From the transcript of my interview with John Von Ohlen, published in the March 1985 Modern Drummer. This interview was done by phone. I was at home in Connecticut taping with a telephone answering machine that recorded sound to audiocassettes. John was home in Indiana. My introduction to John’s playing, years earlier, was through Stan Kenton’s Live in London album.

You’ll hear me at the very start of this excerpt mention the name Szantor. I’m referring to John Von Ohlen’s March 16, 1972 Down Beat magazine interview with Jim Szantor titled, “Let the Limbs Fly.”

Mel Lewis, who I had befriended by the time of this interview, spoke very highly of John. I happened to be in Mel’s apartment for one of his birthdays when he received a Happy Birthday phone call from Von Ohlen. “He always calls me on my birthday,” Mel said.

And prior to this interview I had listened a few times to John’s Blue Wisp Big Band albums. A terrific big band.

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Bob DiSalle: Recording in France with Blue Rose

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Since listening for the first time in over 30 years to the cassette shown in this YouTube video, I’m trying to recall the circumstances of the taped conversations. It’s possible – because of the months between my interviewing Bob DiSalle, and the Modern Drummer publication of his feature interview – that I called Bob for an updater: If I was interviewing you today, Bob, is there anything you would like to talk about that we haven’t already talked about?

So, Bob’s updates are the positive influence of friend and mentor, Keith Gilroy (which I posted earlier), and an album Bob recorded in France with the Blue Rose group.

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Owen Hale’s Modern Drummer Profile 1982

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Scott K Fish

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SKF NOTE: The latest news I have on Owen Hale is almost exactly a year old: “‘Now I’m doing what I wanted to do all my career,’ he said, of the new album he started to work on in January at Mandeville’s JT Studios,” Owen told The Times-Picayune.

When I first spoke with Owen in 1982 he was the in-house session drummer at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Roger Hawkins recommended Owen as an up-and-coming drummer new to most Modern Drummer readers. Having studied trumpet 15-years, Owen taught himself drums – and he’s been at it ever since – including a four year stint with Lynyrd Skynyrd.

[SKF NOTE: 6/17/17 – Owen Hale’s profile interview is now available on MD‘s Archive Page.]

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Mixing John Denver Applause on Lou Reed’s ‘Rock n Roll Animal’ Album

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: This story had me smiling.

THE BLOG
Musician Steve Katz Revisits A Career Of Blood, Sweat, Blues And Rock
05/30/2015 08:22 am ET | Updated May 30, 2016

katz_steveThe Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears, and he went on in the 1970s to produce Lou Reed’s classic live album, Rock n Roll Animal.

Katz says one of the stereo feeds of the audience track for Reed’s concert at New York’s Academy of Music, the basis for Rock n Roll Animal, was lost so there was only mono crowd sound. That wouldn’t work, so the engineer went through his archives and matched that with a mono audience track from a concert by the ultra-square John Denver. (Both were RCA artists at the time.)

“I said, ‘That’s perfect. Lou would love that,’ “ Katz says in a phone interview. “Lou went to his grave not knowing we did that. It’s my ultimate prank on him.”

Full Story

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