Got a ticket to Sir Paul's second Montreal show the other day, and am really surprised how much I'm already looking forward to it. For one thing, and I'm ashamed to say this, it'll be the first time that I've ever seen a Beatle in concert. I know. I can't believe it myself. How could this have happened? I guess living in either Montreal or Edmonton my entire life didn't help, but on the other hand, there are planes, boats, cars, trains in existence - so that argument isn't very good. In any event, I'm going to really enjoy not only the concert itself but also the build-up to it. What do I mean by that, you wonder? For one thing, I'm going to prepare for it by re-listening to all the McCartney I can - be it Beatles, solo, Wings, or Fireman - and I hope to write a few posts about it along the way as well.

Speaking of McCartney solo work, I'm going to mention an album that I think is just amazing, even though I've written about it in the past, the tragically under-appreciated Chaos and Creation in the Backyard from 2005. Produced by Nigel Godrich (of Radiohead fame), who may be the best producer he's had since George Martin, it's one of my favourite McCartney recordings (and I include the second side of Abbey Road in that assessment). Here's the wonderful "Jenny Wren": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9GvXFphCFc. The description under the video (i.e. the "Show More" thing) is worth checking out, too.

Gotta love the Google thing today - a very cool tribute to the great Les Paul. It'd be hard to think of a more influential twentieth century musician, if you think about it. I mean, overdubbing and the electric guitar, what more could someone be asked to contribute? Anyone who uses either (or in most cases, both), which means virtually everyone in popular music, owes him a tip of the cap - and a serious re-listening to his recordings. The place to start, for me, is obvious: his work with the astonishing vocalist, Mary Ford (talk about a singer who is in tune!). Without these two pioneers, would we have had The Beach Boys or Queen? Or Led Zeppelin? Props needed. Here's a cool clip of the duo doing one of their most famous numbers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ffdwBUL78.

Another very cool thing about the Keith Richards' book, Life (2010), is the credit that he gives to other musicians for inspiring/helping him and the Stones. The sections that treat the early years of the band and their blues purist attitude are great, as are the tributes that he gives to Chuck Berry and Gram Parsons. The former name has been associated with the Stones since their inception. Not only did they record a whole whack of his songs, but Keith, by his own admission, stole (or is it borrowed?) virtually every lick that he played. Here's "Bye Bye Johnny", the first song on their first EP (from January, 1964): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdBKH4-6q1w. But Parsons' influence on the band wasn't as well known (before this book, to me, anyway), but now I hear it loud and clear. I hope that his charismatic style and true love of country music will inspire other rockers to keep that door to the past (and future) open as well. Here's "Dead Flowers" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YRdxHHFKvQ) and "Juanita" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvquxLSW64M&feature=related) for your consideration and enjoyment.

Finished Keith's book (Life), and even though I got a little bogged down in the heavy drug years, found it to be a remarkable read. I guess that, for me, honesty is the most important attribute for an autobiography, and this book has plenty of it. And it's also really well written, and both surprising and insightful, particularly about music. Speaking of which, I always find that I hear an artist's music a little more clearly after reading about them, and that was certainly the case here. Specifically, the book got me to give another listen to some of my early Stones LPs and have a better appreciation of the energy they contain. I realize that I've been one to undervalue their early work sometimes, mostly when it's compared to the glory years of 68-72, but that's not really fair for a couple of reasons: One, the glory years wouldn't have happened without the formative ones. Two, the four albums released in that period put almost every other rock and roll act in the rear-view mirror, as well. And don't get me wrong, I've always liked their early stuff, and I do even more now, with images of their early days in mind. Here's their great version of "Under the Boardwalk": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6A9zqRY-ME.

Of course, there's a bit of a downside to the book, and that's the realization that in some ways the group broke up a long time ago, that many of the albums from the late seventies on were not made with the same team spirit that had made them giants in the first place. Oh well. I, for one, am very glad that they stayed together anyway, and that I (and how many others) got the chance to see them a few times and that they kept on making music. Even though we never got another Exile, we did get some other really good stuff. You've also gotta love the fact that they stayed true to their original blues heroes, who also didn't retire, or let anyone tell them what to do. Inspiring. And they certainly were the originators of many more smiles than the dingdongs who spent their careers trying to imprison them. Hope they stay around for as long as they want to. ("Brown Sugar": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59K2kF6o9Tk)

Watched the opening of Saturday Night Live last night, including the opening song (a funny one about not singing a song) from Justin Timberlake, and was struck again by a fact that I haven't written about nearly enough. I think there's no doubt about it: Stevie Wonder is the most influential musician in pop, rock or r&b music in the last fifty years. Turn on the radio (or TV, as in the case above) and you'll hear him in almost everything. His singing, harmonic innovations, tremendous attention to detail in building rhythms (the episode from the Classic Albums series about Songs in the Key of Life provides some cool stuff about his process), and his hugely under-rated accomplishments as a lyricist, all of it grounded in the Motown school of music - well, it's no wonder that his influence is up there with anyone you could name (Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, James Brown, like that). And amazingly, he's equally great as a singles artist (example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkQKk2ukiyw) or album artist (the five released between 1972 and 1976, all masterpieces - here's the discography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevie_Wonder_discography, and here's "Saturn" from Songs in the Key of Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3KpUO6t9qQ).

I'm about two thirds of the way through Keith Richards' Life (2010), and I'm finding it to be quite simply terrific. Some of the descriptive bits are so vivid you'd think the guy was a novelist rather than a rock 'n' roller - I nearly wrote "rocker" there, which would have been a mistake, because one of the really big deals to him is the importance of the swing element in music. He comes back to the point several times in fact, and one of the criticisms that he has for a lot of rock is that the roll part has been forgotten (but I don't agree with him in thinking that the charge can be applied to the Beatles - just listen to "Eight Days a Week": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtuybFrq7Rw, in comparison to "Something Happened to Me Yesterday": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=banNjTF6qEI, if you want evidence. However the Stones did learn to swing much harder later on, like on this one for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geQ_SmCZWjE). The book has a lot of very insightful stuff on music from the various perspectives that he's assumed (fan, student, performer, composer, band leader), including some things I'd never seen written about before, really important for musicians and fans to think about. It's not only a great and fun autobiography, it's an essential book on music.

One of the many musicians originally inspired by the Stones, David Johansen, had a similar comment recently about how vital swing rhythms are to rock, pointing out that without it, rock becomes militaristic - which was the case with a lot of punk. It's also the case with techno and any other style of music played (largely) by machines. The human element necessary in trying to figure out how the triplet and the eighth note co-exist (playing swing eighth notes is one of the most difficult things a jazz musician has to learn) is crucial to the excitement generated and will never be replicated or replaced. The best swing music - be it jazz, country, rock, r&b - has the power to draw in the listener in a very subtle and seductive way, and I'm not sure that music that doesn't understand this is destined to last. Which won't be the case with the work of any of the names above.

Came across an interesting thought from the great detective writer Raymond Chandler the other day. I'm not sure of its original context (it was quoted in a book review), but I imagine it was somehow or other in defense of his genre, which is usually under-rated. Anyway, the words went this way: "There are not vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that." Upon reading this I understood my rather eclectic musical listening tastes, which run from the Sex Pistols to Stravinsky, and which I've tried to explain on this blog in the past, much more clearly. Chandler said it all, and with his usual concision (one of the main reasons that Lou Reed is a big admirer): it's either art or it isn't. Therefore the task of people who write about music, or play it, or even quite simply only care about it, is to differentiate between the two categories, and to understand their reasons for doing so.

I listened to Fleetwood Mac's Tusk several times the other day, and found that it's stood up really well to the test of time. I mentioned it during a recent post on the Beatles' White Album, which sent me through my collection to find it, and was glad I did. Like the Fabs, the group is centered around three distinguished and distinctive songwriters, who are all splendid lead vocalists but who also have the ability to blend for ensemble singing. Also, the two groups have outstanding rhythm sections who are able to bring a wide variety of material to life. It's hard to pick specific highlights on an album as well-balanced as this one, so here's a link to the first track, Christine McVie's "Over and Over": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhUsXxdAkbg. I hope it'll make you want to listen to the whole thing.