I love it when musicians write something new in response to another artist's song. One great artist inspiring another is what makes the world go round, in a way, and it's fun to find examples of artists reacting to one another's work.

One of the more famous examples of this is "Sweet Home Alabama," Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1974 response to Neil Young's earlier songs slamming stereotypical Southern racism, "Southern Man" and "Alabama." Neil apparently loved it when he heard his name in the track, as the bands were friendly:

"Well I heard Mr Young sing about it
Well I heard old Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
Southern Man don't need him around anyhow..."


 
 

Apparently Neil Young is extremely inspiring, because the other song that springs to mind as being written in response to a great song is Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game," which she wrote for Neil after hearing his "Sugar Mountain." Both songs are about growing older and youth slipping by. The two songwriters met back in 1964, the same year 19 year old Neil wrote "Sugar Mountain," which contains the line "You can't be 20/on Sugar Mountain." Joni's response in "The Circle Game": "So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty/ Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true/There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty/Before the last revolving year is through."

One of the central figures in The Beatles' lives and career died yesterday. 



Neil Aspinall went to school with Paul McCartney and George Harrison and he remained a trusted confidante until the end.  Neil worked as a personal assistant and road manager to the Beatles throughout their rise to fame and became an indispensable member of their inner circle.  When the boys formed Apple in 1968, they made Neil Chief Executive.  I remember reading somewhere that Neil had no idea what that meant or what precisely he was supposed to do, but in the halcyon days of the late 60s, it was anything goes and he managed to make it work as best he could, though Apple Corps is known to have leeched money from the get-go.

Nonetheless, Neil remained at Apple until last year.  He must have figured out the way to run the company successfully because he saw Apple through the breakup of the Beatles all the way to the lawsuits against Apple Computers and Steve Jobs.  He was behind the fantastic Beatles Anthology series, and contributed his own set of interviews to the documentaries, which was one of the few times he allowed himself to be seen on camera talking about his career.

At long last, Pattie Boyd has written a book!


I read it last weekend.  It's entitled Wonderful Tonight and it's quite a page turner.

You'll remember Pattie Boyd-- she's the beautiful blond who met George Harrison on the set of A Hard Day's Night and married him a few years later.  She lived the high life, literally, during the entire height of Beatlemania and beyond.  She and George discovered India and meditation together. Years after all that, Eric Clapton came a-calling, wrote "Layla" for her and soon she was Mrs. Clapton...until all that ended unhappily in divorce as well.

Her story is one that I have always wanted to know more about.  There are plenty of juicy details in this book!  Perhaps I was hoping for even more juice though, seeing as this woman lived through some of the most exciting musical times right in the vortex of the whole thing.  Her writing is a bit polite, a bit hesitant, but the book is still a good one, still highly readable.

Pattie Boyd grew up in Africa, and moved back to England when she was about 10 or so.  She ended up a model, working with Twiggy and for Vogue, among many other publications.  When she met George, she was swept away by his charm and fame.  (Who wouldn't have been?)   In the book she recounts their many years together with affection, but also notes that eventually a pattern emerged:  for a few months George would become so absorbed in his meditation and Eastern Thought that he would neglect everything around him, and then he would go completely the other direction and party so hard she lost respect for him.  Then he'd turn back to transcendental meditation again for a while, and so on.  During one of his party phases, he declared his love for Maureen Starkey, Ringo's wife, and Pattie had had quite enough. (Ringo was not pleased either.)

Music, one of the best things about music, is that it touches everyone in it's own way. Like a prayer sent up to heaven, once you release a song, it belongs to the universe. This is truly a beautiful video:



As you may know, we are big supporters of the ukelele here at Amoeba, and most of us are crazy about Those Beatles. This video and his amazing prowess on the instrument sure brightened up my day.

If you want to see more of Jake Shimabukuro, or others on Uke, you can hop over here to this website and uke your holidays away: http://www.ukuleledisco.com/jake

Miss Leah
Cashier Manager
3 Years Employment

ME: Hi Leah.  So, what music was playing around your house when you were a kid and before you had a choice?

L.B.: The Beatles.

Which albums?

I don't remember any specific one, just kind of all of them.

Do you remember a song or artist in particular that you really attached to and that became an obsession when you were a kid?

There wasn't really any particular artist but there are songs I always remember hearing and I associate with be a kid, two specifically:  One was a Supertramp song and one was "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty.

Wow, I have no idea what that is.

You probably would if you heard it.

Do you remember the first show you ever went to?

The first show I went to was REM when I was in 8th grade, the first like bigger show.  It was in Worcester, Mass.  I can't remember who they played with-- I think it was the Indigo Girls!

I just interviewed Sabrina, who is also from Boston, and I asked her about the scene.  What is your take on the scene and what are/were your favorite bands from there?

Well, when I was in high school a lot of my friends were in local hardcore bands and that scene at the time (like the early 90s) was totally fun.  It was a good time in Boston.  Lots of good times, good energy and at the time we thought it was good music.  Lots of kids were straight edge then and they weren't like preachy about it.  A lot of the bands I liked when I was in high school broke up cause they were local bands and they went to college and got into different things.  I would go to tons of shows and they weren't all hardcore shows, like I saw lots of "alternative" rock shows at the Orpheum.  It's kind of like the Warfield but more decrepit.  They closed it down for a while, so when Sabrina started going it was a totally different generation of shows there.  I saw the Sugarcubes and Sonic Youth there and stuff like that.