All posts tagged: Bruce Hornsby

Bob Weir, Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby

Concert Review: The 16th Annual All Good Music Festival Provides Plenty Of Jams, Memorable Moments

Published by Matt Wardlaw

If you’re ever looking for a place to let your freak flag fly high, the All Good Music Festival takes care of that and so much more. This was immediately apparent when I arrived at Legend Valley, the spacious gathering place nestled in the midst of the Ohio hills near the township of Thornville, a small community that is otherwise normally a quiet footnote in the sprawling landscape of the Buckeye State. The exercise of people watching began almost immediately, as I witnessed within the space of about a half hour’s time, a man very comfortably clad in a patchwork skirt and separately, a gentleman in flowing robes worthy of a king, accompanied by someone – was that his “queen,” I’m guessing? And then there was the guy who walked by wearing headgear resembling a unicorn’s head.

Bootleg City: The End of the Innocence

Published by Matt Wardlaw

I need to remember this So baby, give me just one kiss And let me take a long last look Before we say goodbye Greetings, oh beloved citizens of Bootleg City! When we last talked about the often absent/hardly missed Mayor Cass, I shared the news that he’d gone to prison. What hasn’t been shared, though, is the reason behind his prison sentence, and since even our politically troubled friend is foggy on the reasoning behind his punishment, it’s important that it be discussed. Although it’s widely believed that the mayor’s problems began in Arizona, the truth is that the situation goes much further back. In June of 1998 Mr. Cass, who was Bootleg City’s deputy mayor at the time, got together with Matthew Boles, the Minister of Hip-Hop and Job Displacement, or something like that, to mount a concert featuring reluctant ’80s pop star and piano legend Bruce Hornsby. It’d been nearly ten years since the last concert in Bootleg City, when former teen idol Donny Osmond came to town for a performance that’s still …

CD Review: Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, “Levitate”

Published by Jeff Giles

You know the joke, “It might look like i’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level I’m really quite busy”? Bruce Hornsby’s post-1990 career is a little like that. As far as a lot of people are concerned, Hornsby may as well have quit making music after his last release with the Range, 1990’s A Night on the Town, but to those who have kept listening, that album only marks the spot where things really started to get interesting. From 1993’s Harbor Lights on, Hornsby has moved steadily away from the tasteful piano pop that made him a star, indulging a wanderlust that has been reflected both off his records (during his stint with the Grateful Dead, for example) and on. Along the way, he’s worked with a long and varied list of virtuosos, including Pat Metheny and Bela Fleck, and cut an eclectic swath with his albums, dabbling in programmed beats (2002’s Big Swing Face), bluegrass (2007’s Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby), and jazz (Camp Meeting, recorded with Christian McBride and Jack DeJohnette). Even …

Test of the Boomerang: Soundchecks, Rehearsals and Outtakes, Part Three

Published by Ben Wiser

The 2009 Dead made their last stand on July 4th at Rothbury. The second year of the Michigan festival was a rousing success and the Dead’s solid show was a definite highlight. While the band got off to a shaky start on their spring tour, they proved their mettle beneath the Independence Day sky rockets. Now if there was only a fall tour to start getting fired up about. You can get the boards of the Rothbury show at dead.net and you find several excellent audience recordings on Etree. Today we’re looking at some rehearsals and soundchecks from the ’90s, but I do have some pretty remarkable recordings of Jerry Garcia in the studio from 1969 for your downloading pleasure. Enjoy. Sherman, set the wayback machine for September 1990.

Basement Songs: Bruce Hornsby & the Range, “The Old Playground”

Published by Scott Malchus

The kid from Maple School broke away and dribbled down the court. Just five steps ahead of me, he had a wide open lane for an easy layup. As he lifted the ball for his shot, I plowed into him, sending the two of us into the padding against the gym wall. The ref blew the whistle on me, but I didn’t care. I knew this guy would never make his free throws. I had saved our team two points. And there you have the crowning moment of my basketball glory days on the Chestnut School seventh-grade basketball team. I suck at round ball, although it took me awhile to admit it. When the seventh-grade coach took me aside to ask why I wanted to play basketball, subtly implying that I would never play because, yes, I was terrible, I only got more determined to prove him wrong. Nope, he was right, and I never joined the basketball team again. Still, for a couple years after that single season of pre-teen basketball I lived with …

Test of the Boomerang: Soundchecks, Rehearsals and Outtakes, Part One

Published by Ben Wiser

The Grateful Dead collection at the Live Music Archive contains not only thousands of Grateful Dead concerts, it also holds a good number of band rehearsal, soundcheck, and studio session recordings. As the latest incarnation of The Dead kick off their 2009 tour, I wanted to take a look at some of these hidden gems. Today we’re looking at a couple soundcheck jams from the ’90s, and a rehearsal from 1976. In future installments we’ll look at some of Keith Godchaux’s first rehearsals with the band, some more backstage antics in the later days, and a look at what studio outtakes are still in taper circulation, ie: the stuff Rhino left off the studio album reissues. March 17th, 1995, The Spectrum, Philadelphia Of course by now, virtually no stone has been left unturned in the Dead’s back catalog. Between Phil Lesh and Friends, Ratdog, and Mickey and Billy’s various projects, we’re pretty far removed from the days when rumors of “they soundchecked ‘St. Stephen’!” ran like wildfire over motel payphones, archaic BBS systems or in …

CHART ATTACK!: 11/24/84

Published by Jason Hare

Hey everybody!  Just think: one week from now, you’ll probably be feeling full and somewhat nauseous from all the food you’ve ingested.  I say, why wait a week?  Get that nauseous feeling right now as we tackle the Billboard Top 10 from November 24, 1984! 10.  I Just Called to Say I Love You  — Stevie Wonder Amazon iTunes 9.  Penny Lover — Lionel Richie Amazon iTunes 8.  All Through the Night — Cyndi Lauper Amazon iTunes 7.  Strut — Sheena Easton Amazon iTunes 6.  Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) — Billy Ocean Amazon iTunes 5.  Better Be Good to Me — Tina Turner Amazon iTunes 4.  Out of Touch — Daryl Hall and John Oates Amazon iTunes 3.  I Feel For You — Chaka Khan Amazon iTunes 2.  Purple Rain — Prince and the Revolution Amazon iTunes 1.  Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go — Wham! Amazon iTunes 10. I Just Called to Say I Love You — Stevie Wonder I’m sorry. I know it’s cliché, but I have to. [kml_flashembed …

The Friday Mixtape: 8/15/08

Published by Jeff Giles

Bruce Hornsby – The Show Goes On (live) Bruce Hornsby – Gonna Be Some Changes Made/Brick House (live) Bruce Hornsby – Swan Song (live) Bruce Hornsby – Tangled Up in Blue (live) Bruce Hornsby – Dear Mr. Fantasy (live) Bruce Hornsby – Every Little Kiss (live) Bruce Hornsby – Harbor Lights (live) Bruce Hornsby – I Will Walk With You (live) Bruce Hornsby – Imagine (live) Bruce Hornsby – Man Smart, Woman Smarter (live) Bruce Hornsby – Terrapin Station (live) Bruce Hornsby – Dreamland (live) Bruce Hornsby – The Boxer (live) Bruce Hornsby – My Foolish Heart (live) Bruce Hornsby – Mandolin Rain (live solo) Bruce Hornsby – We’ll Be Together Again (live)