The Grammy Awards took a brief detour to the middle of last century last night, when guitarist Jeff Beck led a cover of “How High the Moon” in honor of the late Les Paul. Lead vocals were handled by someone you might not have recognized, but who’s already a sizable star in her native Ireland and the U.K.: Rockabilly singer Imelda May.
The Dublin singer has released two albums, No Turning Back and Love Tattoo, the latter reaching No. 12 on Billboard‘s Heatseekers chart this past December. Check out a clip of May performing “Big Bad Handsome Man” on Ireland’s Late Late Show in 2009. Then let us know what you think: Does Imelda May have what it takes to break out in the U.S. like, say, Amy Winehouse did a couple years back? Were you familiar with her work before the Grammys?
I would imagine that many, if not most, readers had never heard of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately before the tragic announcement this weekend that he had died in Majorca at just 33. And I would guess that a lot of you would be surprised to discover how much space British newspapers such as The Sun, The Mirror, and even a conservative-minded broadsheet like The Telegraph are giving the story.
Nor is the extensive coverage of his death merely due to the fact that the Dublin-born singer was an openly gay pop star. It is hard to overemphasize quite how hugely, and enduringly, successful the Irish Boyzone and their British boy band rivals Take That have been in the UK and Ireland over the past two decades. I lived in England for the two bands’ first periods of success in the ’90s, and although in truth I was not a fan of either act, I couldn’t help but acquire through cultural osmosis a working knowledge of their hits and various personality traits. Pretty much everyone in the country, for example, could have told you Take That’s Robbie Williams was the band’s resident joker, but that it was the quintet’s chief songwriter Gary Barlow who was destined for solo success. (And thus the entire country had to eat its collective metaphorical hat when the former’s solo career ultimately easily eclipsed that of his former colleague.)
Take That were the first to crack the UK top ten with “It Only Takes A Minute,” their 1991 cover of the old Tavares song. Over the next five years they racked up an astonishing number of hits and no fewer than eight chart-topping singles. Meanwhile, Boyzone broke through in the UK with their 1994 version of the Osmonds’ “Love Me For A Reason,” and would themselves score a half dozen number ones over the next five years, including “Words,” “All That I Need,” “You Needed Me,” and “No Matter What.”
Take That split in 1996 and Boyzone followed suit in 2000, the year after Gately went public with his sexuality. In 2005, Take That reformed without Williams and continued their hit-making ways as if they had never gone away. In November 2007, Boyzone leader Ronan Keating announced that they too were getting back together, and last year they embarked on a wildly successful tour of the UK and Ireland. Their first reunion release, “Love You Anyway,” was, remarkably, their 17th single in a row to reach the British top five.
Given the fame of Boyzone, and the fact that Gately died at such young age, you can be sure this is story that will run for a while in the British press. Anyone still bewildered by the fuss, or anyone who wants to remind themselves what the group sounded like, should check out the clip of Boyzone performing “No Matter What” below.
Rap’s foremost MC pays tribute to the King of Pop in British music magazine NME’s new issue, which is dedicated to lost musical icons. Jay-Z begins his written remembrance of Michael Jackson by trying to find some good in the legendary singer’s unexpected death.
“I think it gave Michael a chance to be celebrated for the genius he was without all the other stuff in the way,” Jay-Z writes, “and I don’t know if that would ever have happened had he been alive.”
Shawn Carter also mentions the little-known fact that Jackson sang on the remix of “Girls, Girls, Girls” back in 2001, which went mostly unnoticed because MJ wasn’t credited on the single. But take a listen to the song below—once you know what to expect, you can totally tell it’s Michael’s silky voice on the hook.
“I remember him calling me and him just talking about, you know, ‘syncopation’ and musician stuff like that,” Jay-Z says at the end of his piece. “The Michael Jackson I knew was just a musician who loved music.”
Did you know this was the real Michael, and not a sample? What other collaborations do you wish the King of Pop had lived to do?
If my desert island discs were made up just of music by acts who had worked with Jim Dickinson then I really wouldn’t complain. Never heard of the guy? Don’t feel bad. The Memphis-based session musician and producer, who died yesterday at the age of 67, was hardly a household name and released only a handful of solo albums, none of which were exactly blockbuster hits (though his 1972 solo debut, Dixie Fried, is a terrific collection of idiosyncratic blues whose title nicely summed up this larger-than-life character.) That doesn’t stop Dickinson being a legend, particularly to the many stars of several generations who benefited from his musicianship and his production skills.
This is a man who worked with Sam & Dave and Green On Red; with Bob DylanandMudhoney; Aretha Franklin and Big Star. Not impressed yet? Then, it is also worth mentioning that Dickinson played piano on the classic Rolling Stones lament “Wild Horses” (because, so legend has it, the band’s regular pianist, Ian Stewart, refused to play minor chords) and produced the Replacements’ great Pleased To Meet Me album. Meanwhile, the strength of the Dickinson musical genes is evident in the careers of his sons, and North Mississippi Allstars members, Luther and Cody.
Below, you can find a tiny sample of his work, including Bob Dylan’s epic track “Highlands,” on which Dickinson played keyboards. If the clips make you want to find out more, then check out his Zebra Ranch website. Amongst the material to be found there is a quote from producer Daniel Lanois in which he recalls how Dylan once told him, “If you’ve got Dickinson, you don’t need anybody else.” Sadly, the option of “getting Dickinson” has now disappeared, and the world of music is much poorer and less colorful for it.
I’ve just learned via Pitchfork that Chris Knox, of lo-fi New Zealand oddballs Tall Dwarfs, suffered a stroke last month and is currently recuperating at home. “It looks like it could be a long recovery process, but Chris is still Chris,” writes a friend in a statement posted online. On the bright side, that same statement says that a tribute album titled Stroke is already in the works, with covers of Knox’s tunes by artists including Jeff Mangum, Will Oldham, Guided By Voices, Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, the Mountain Goats, Bill Callahan, and Jay Reatard.
That’s a pretty awesome list. But the name that’s really jumping out for me is that of Jeff Mangum, the intensely private genius behind Neutral Milk Hotel. It’s no secret that Mangum is a friend of Knox’s: One of his rare public performances since NMH went on hiatus ten years ago was a 2001 gig with Knox in Auckland under the name World of Wild Beards Incorporated. You can hear a great live recording of Knox and Mangum covering John Lennon’s “Mother” at that show below. (Side note: I saw these two share a bill four years later when Tall Dwarfs opened for the reunited Olivia Tremor Control, who featured guest vocals from Mangum. During the Dwarfs’ set, Knox raced through the audience and inadvertently shouldered me in the ribs. This did not hinder my enjoyment of the show in the slightest.)
Twenty-five years ago this month, a classic album touched down on Earth in Minneapolis. Perhaps the most classic of new classics, even. I'm talking, of course, about Prince's untouchably awesome Purple Rain. Spin magazine is celebrating this momentous anniversary by putting together a tribute set titled Purplish Rain (ha), featuring track-by-track covers of the entire original album by hip folks like the Twilight Singers, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Of Montreal, Fol Chen, and more. Spin readers will be able to download the whole thing for free on June 23; in the meantime, the mag is currently streaming a cover of "When Doves Cry" by Greg Dulli's band the Twilight Singers online. That cover happens to feature additional vocals by actual Purple Rain co-star Apollonia, which is pretty much too cool for words. Head over to Spin's site to hear how "When Doves Cry" turned out and read the rest of the tracklist — then let us know how you think Purplish Rain measures up to your favorite Prince covers.
