Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Make the World Go Away

Posted in Biographical, Music, tagged , , on May 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers Mothers Day 1994 smI thought I would take the opportunity on this Mother’s Day, to dedicate this week’s Sunday music to my late mom.  It’s hard for me to believe but later this year will mark twenty years since she passed away after a short but brutal battle with cancer. Needless to say, I miss her very much and wish she could have seen the things that came in the years after she died, such as the great-grandkids she never got to dote on.

For my parts, she never lived to see my work hanging in a gallery or museum, never got to see how it has grown over the years.  Looking at two large pieces on easels next to me at this moment, I realize that there is a whole different world of mine she never got to witness.

But I think she would be pleased to know that things worked out okay, that I found something to ease my mind and give me something of a purpose.  I would hope she would like the work I’ve done.  I know she liked the earliest pieces, the only ones she would know, like the piece at the top which was one of my earliest efforts in early 1994, long before I had experienced any kind of creative breakthrough,  It was gift to her on Mother’s Day of that year and it hangs in my studio now, always reminding me of her.

So, for this bit of Sunday music, I thought I would play one of the songs I know to be a favorite of hers.  She always loved Eddy Arnold‘s voice and I have specific memories of this song coming from our old stereo console.  The title,  Make the World Go Away, just seemed to fit Mom so well.  For that matter, looking at the alternative world that surrounds me here in the studio, I guess it fits me as well. I am my mother’s child, after all.

Have a good Mother’s Day.

Read Full Post »

Heroes

Posted in Biographical, Music, Video, tagged , , , , , on May 3, 2015| 6 Comments »

Arthur Ashe HeroismKeeping up the theme that was the subject of an earlier post this week, I decided that for this Sunday morning’s musical selection I would play a lovely version of Heroes from David Bowie.  It’s an acoustic version (with Gail Ann Dorsey accompanying him on vocals and bass) from a 1996 performance at the Bridge School Benefit, an annual concert began by Neil Young to benefit the Bay Area school that helps kids with severe speech and physical impairments.  In that context, the song takes on additional layers of meaning as you see the many parents in the audience with their children, many cradling them.

Heroism.

Looking for an image to illustrate this post, I did an image search by punching in the word hero.  It was all superheroes and warriors which saddened me because I know that heroism is something far more than that.  It’s about doing those things that need to be done, about taking responsibility  in  order to serve a purpose beyond your own needs.  We think of it as a rare thing but it is evident every day in the actions of those people who give so much of themselves to others.

For me, an example of this came to me in a very personal way.  When my mother was struggling in the last months of her battle with cancer, I visited her for  last time.  Her and my father had been together for about 46 years at that point, years which could be described as turbulent at best.  For such a long married couple, they had an odd love/hate relationship which had them always on the edge of huge screaming  battles that were fraught with violence.  They were terrible things to see and even as a child I often wondered why they remained together.  But they did and as she neared the end of her life, Dad became her cook, her maid, her nurse,  and her driver to the many treatments that made up the last months of her life.  Her everything.

When I made my last visit, I noticed a photo on her bedside table.  It was photo of the two of them together from several years before, standing at some Florida site drenched in sun.  On the cheap little frame, underneath my father was a word formed in simple block letters, those type of things that you rub on from a sheet.

It was the word Hero.

Now, at that point in my life I didn’t see my father in heroic terms.  Far from it.  No, he was and is a very flawed human being with many traits that are far from any definition of heroism.  But in this case, he took on the form of a hero for my mother and in that moment, looking at that photo, for  myself as well. I realized that the word was not about great accomplishment but rather about following that need to serve another.

So it can be for everyone, as the song says :

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day

I finally came across the  quote at the top from the late Arthur Ashe that seemed to best fit the thought .

Have a great Sunday. Be a hero to someone today.

Read Full Post »

Black Coffee

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , , , on April 26, 2015| 4 Comments »

black coffeeTime for some Sunday morning music and since I was up extra early this morning the idea of something to pick me up seems like a good idea.  Something like some black coffee.

Not the drink, though I am sipping my coffee as I write. I mean the song.

The sultry Black Coffee was written in 1948 by Sonny Burke and originally recorded by Sarah Vaughan and a few years later by Peggy Lee. There have been many, many covers of this song and most are very good. But there are four versions that really stick out for me, all very distinctly different. They are Vaughan’s original, the one from Peggy Lee, k.d. lang‘s darkly twangy version and the one I am featuring this morning from the great and grand Ella Fitzgerald.

Her version is elegantly spare with her voice and piano interweaving beautifully. It is darkly tinged but there is such strength in her phrasing that it keeps the song feeling surprisingly upbeat. Just a great, great song.

A little bit of trivia about this version: It was the favorite song of Nobel Prize winning poetess Wislawa Szymborska , who requested it be performed at her funeral. You might remember Szymborska from a blog entry here last month that featured her poem Possibilities.

So,give a listen as you sip the morning beverage of your choice.  Maybe a little black coffee…

Read Full Post »

Budapest

Posted in Influences, Music, Neat Stuff, Video, tagged , , , on April 19, 2015| 2 Comments »

Sandor Galimberti- Tában Cityscape in Budapest (1910)It’s funny how you sometimes come across things.

I had heard the song Budapest from George Ezra recently and had decided to share it on my Sunday music interlude.  It just has an infectious sound that seemed like a good way to start what looks to be a beautiful day.  Plus I liked the fact that he lists Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly as influences– kind of unexpected from a 20-something Brit.

So I began looking for something visual to accompany this lead-in to the music and punched in Budapest painting into my search engine.  Up came many lovely watercolor-y  images of the beautiful  grand riverfront along the Danube.  They were nice but tucked in among them was a rougher, more modernistic cityscape that really stuck out to me.

Red roofs.  Simple forms and dark linework.  A path leading in and up.  Even the tree that divided the upper right section of the scene looked familiar.  It looked like something that could have easily been tucked away somewhere  in my own body of work.

The painting, shown above  was titled Taban Cityscape in Budapest and the artist was listed as Sandor Galimberti.  Looking deeper, there was little info on Galimbert’s life except that he was Hungarian, born in 1883.   From a rough translation on a Hungarian site, I gleaned that he studied with Matisse and  had began to achieve notoriety for his work around Europe before World War I.  Married to another artist, he lived in Paris then finally Amsterdam before returning to Hungary to enlist in the army during the early days of the war.  In 1915, Learning that his wife had contracted lung cancer, Galimberti returns from the battlefield and his wife then dies.  Hour later, he takes his own life at the age of  32.

Yet another tragic story of what may have been an epic career cut short.  Looking at his work online (including his final work, Amsterdam, shown at the bottom) I am impressed on so many levels and can only imagine what may have come from an artist just reaching his maturity in the aftermath of the war.  We might be talking of him in the same terms as Matisse and Picasso and other modern masters.  But a tragic fate intervened and he is little known outside of a few certain circles.

So what began as a simple search for an image gives me a new artist to wonder at and study- perhaps my Hungarian cousin?  So many hidden treasures in this world.  Enjoy the song, enjoy the day and be glad for those things that bring you joy.

Sandor Galimberti- Amsterdam 1914

Read Full Post »

After the Talk/ In My Life

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , , , on April 12, 2015| 3 Comments »

GC Myers-Family Path smYesterday’s Gallery Talk at the Kada Gallery went really well.  Many,many, many thanks to Kathy, Joe and Morgan at the gallery for providing a comfortable setting and the many folks in attendance for taking time out on a rare sunny Saturday afternoon to spend it with me.  They were an absolutely wonderful group –attentive and inquisitive–which made my task much easier, making me feel very welcomed and at ease in front of them.

Hopefully not so much that I over-talked  or came across as too full of myself.  I always worry about things like that on the ride back home, agonizing over things I said or didn’t say.  It comes easy because at that point I am pretty tired of hearing my own voice, tired of pretty much being the public me at that moment.

One thing I forgot to mention which bothered me as I was on my way home was that it was the input that I get from the encouragement and stories shared by the folks that attend these events are such a huge inspiration and the motor that drives my work.  I work untold hours alone in my studio and it is their reaction to the work and the fact that they allow me to glimpse briefly into their lives that make them seem almost present at times in my studio.  Distant eyes looking over my shoulder.

I shared one recent inspirational story that took place very recently right there at the Kada Gallery.  A week or so ago, they received an email inquiry from a lady in Switzerland about a large painting, titled Family Lines with the Red Tree with a Red Chair in its branches.  It turns out that she had recently lost her husband to Alzheimer’s and one of their final exchanges was about that very painting, obviously seeing it in online.  Her husband said that he was the Red Tree and she was the Red Chair.  I have to admit to being made teary-eyed by that.  How can something like not stick with me, not find its way into my thoughts when I am alone in the studio?

That story, like so many others shared with me over the years, brings a sense of purpose to the sometimes abstract and introverted act of painting.  I can never fully thank these people for the gift in their sharing.

991126 Color RisingOne of the ways I do try thank folks at these talks is by having several giveaways, including an original painting.  We had a very good time with it yesterday and the group was so receptive that I thought they deserved another.  I had a painting, Color Rising, from a few years back that won by a young lady in her 90’s which leads me to this week’s Sunday music selection.  The painting, shown left, was a monochromatic piece, shades of back and gray with just a dash of color.  I explained that I do these paintings periodically to just more less refresh my color palette in the period between working on shows and that seeing one of my compositions with the color removed was a bit like hearing a song that you’ve heard a thousand times before done by one person done by somebody else.  The song has the same notes, chords, melody and lyrics but it is somehow different, somehow changed.

That brings me to this musical example, a version of the Beatles‘ song In My Life from 1965‘s Rubber Soul album.  My god, I can’t believe this song is fifty years old!  This version is from the American recordings of Johnny Cash, done in the final months of his life.  His age and ailments changed his delivery and imbued the songs with real heart-felt emotion and purity.  A powerful group of music.  This version of the Beatles’ song is not so different but it has  his own personal meaning which makes it his own.

Again, so many thanks to everyone who came yesterday.  It was my great pleasure to spend the day with you all.  Hope your Sunday is a good one…

 

Read Full Post »

Resurrection Shuffle

Posted in Music, Video, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2015| 3 Comments »

Giovanni-Bellini- The Resurrection 1475It’s Easter Sunday.  As I’ve pointed out here in the past, I had no religion of any sort in my upbringing so Easter was  a holiday marked by coloring eggs and eating big chunks of chocolate rabbits and multi-colored jelly beans for somewhat vague reasons.  Most things came down to the food involved for me in my youth.

Of course, I picked up on the tales behind the religious holidays I had eaten my way through as a kid.  And it’s hard to not be moved by the tale of the Resurrection, even from a decidedly non-religious perspective.  Whether you are a believer or non-believer, the tale of rebirth creates a template of hope for all people so that they may endure the many hardships of this life and rebuild new lives from failed pasts.

And it takes on even more significance when that new life is devoted to some purpose that is greater than our own needs.

The painting at the top is The Resurrection, painted by the great Giovanni Bellini, my favorite Renaissance painter, around 1479.  Just a beautiful piece, as most of his work is.

It being Sunday, it’s time for a little music.  I thought I would continue the theme of Resurrection into the music today.  Of course, after seeing this video, some of you might put me down as some sort of heretic.  It’s a song called The Resurrection Shuffle which was  a minor Trans-Atlantic hit in the early 70’s for a British band called Ashton, Gardner & Dyke.  It wasn’t a big hit, maybe just into the top 40, but I remembered the chorus.  Looking it up this morning I came across this version from Cher‘s self-titled television show in 1976 that features her in a duet with Tom Jones, who performed the song in his act for many years.  Maybe it is heresy but it made me laugh if only for the visual impact.  Maybe it will make you smile as well.

Have a great Sunday.

Read Full Post »

Seventh Son

Posted in Influences, Music, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2015| Leave a Comment »

mose-allison_1Artistic influences,  seeing how a certain artist will take the work of others and transform it into their own, is a fascinating thing.  Sometimes it’s very obvious especially when the influence is of equal renown or when one artist directly copies the work of another.  But sometimes there are great influences that you may not even recognize.

Mose Allison (born in 1927) is such a person, a name you probably don’t know.  But for many musicians in the who found their voice in the 60’s, he was a huge influence.  Jimi Hendrix,  The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Animals, Tom Waits, Van Morrison and many, many others have all cited him as a strong influence on their work.  But Mose Allison, while achieving considerable fame, never became the household name like so many of his admirers.

He was pretty hard to pigeonhole as a musician- at times very bluesy, himself strongly influenced by the delta blues of his home in Mississippi, other times very jazzy or even pop tinged.  But always a unique and individual sound that allowed him to take a song, his own or those written by others, and  give it a new perspective.  I have to admit that I didn’t know much about Mose Allison until just recently but have been thrilled to find his work and can easily see it in the work of so many others.  I encourage you to seek out his work and give it a listen.

To that end, here’s a small sample for this Sunday morning.  It’s his version of the Willie Dixon blues classic The Seventh Son, a song that became a pop hit for Johnny Rivers.  But here, it definitely feels all Mose Allison.  Enjoy and have a great Sunday.

Read Full Post »

Zombie Painter

Posted in Music, tagged , , , , , , on March 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

white-zombie-movie-poster-1932-1020199092Been battling a cold the last few days with all that comes with it– filled sinuses, sore throat, throbbing headaches and a now constant rattling cough that echoes around my chest.  Nothing unusual, just one of those despicable three or four day affairs of misery we all go through every so often.

But, oddly enough, I have had a couple of very productive days in the studio.  I think sometimes my painting is best done when I don’t (or in this case, can’t) think too much about it and instead fall into a kind of trance where it is all instinct.  A weird kind of unfocused concentration that is all about constantly moving ahead with little distraction or thought.

Like a zombie relentlessly searching for fresh brains.

Zombie painter.

Which is a convenient segue into this week’s Sunday music selection.  Maintaining the zombie theme, I thought I’d bring out something from The Zombies, the 60’s British Invasion band who had really nice string of hits that have all survived well over the years and stand as iconic remnants of that era.  Songs like She’s Not There, Tell Her No and this week’s song, Time of the Season.  Anyone of a certain age who hears this opening bass and drum line will no doubt have the lines What’s your name?/Who’s your daddy?/ Is he rich. is he rich like me?  immediately running through their mind.

Zombie mind control, that’s what it is.  So enjoy a little of it and have a great Sunday.  I have fresh brains to find.  Well, a fresh canvas to smear stuff on.  Paint, brains–whatever.

PS:  Please use the zombie grip that is depicted on the old movie poster at the top  ( White Zombie— Bela Lugosi– 1932) with great care.  Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

Read Full Post »

Eire

Posted in Music, tagged , , , on March 17, 2015| 3 Comments »

st_patrickI have much to do this morning but thought I would take a moment on this Saint Patrick’s Day  to play a bit of traditional Irish music.  There’s always the temptation to play some America-Irish song that is now attached to our celebrations here which have evolved from a celebration of the Irish saint into an excuse for a one-day drunkfest for obnoxious folks regaled in Kelly green plastic derbies and Mardi Gras beads.  But I thought today deserved something a little more true to the timbre of the day.

I’ve always been drawn to the sound of pipes from a round the world and the uillean pipes of Ireland have a uniquely sorrowful yet sweet sound.  It produces what can described as a mournful wail which fits in well with an aspect of the Irish character.  Here’s a tune called, fittingly, Eire played by a master, Liam O’Flynn,  of the uillean pipes which differ from thetypical  bagpipe in that they are not blown into by the mouth.  The air that flows over the reed to create the sound is produced by a bellows that is pressed against the player’s body by their elbow.

So enjoy a bit of true Irish music and enjoy the day whether you are Irish or not.  Now where did I put that plastic derby?

 

Read Full Post »

Weary Blues

Posted in Music, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on March 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Dorothea Lange- 1936 Daughter of a Migrant Coal MinerI was looking at some of Dorothea Lange‘s classic Depression-era photos recently and came upon this image of a young woman. The label says it is from late 1936 and the young woman was the daughter of a migrant Tennessee coal miner living in a camp on the American River near Sacramento, California.  It is such a compelling image that you can almost feel the weariness and sorrow in her.  I find myself wondering whatever became of that girl, if she ever found happiness or contentment or at least shook off those weary blues that seem to be consuming her in the photo.

Lange had a real genius for extracting raw emotion from her photos–it’s so evident when you scan a page of her work where you can see the images together.  It’s obvious that she connected on a very personal level with her subjects, allowing them to expose themselves and their inner emotions within the trust they extended to her.  And with that trust Lange created photos that showed these folks honestly and with dignity, making  you care about these strangers from another era as much as she did in that moment.

That is an extraordinary gift.

Looking at this photo brings me to this week’s Sunday music.  I chose a cover of the old Hank Williams song Weary Blues but done by modern chanteuse Madeleine Peyroux in a more bluesy style.  You would think old Hank was looking at this photo when he wrote the chorus:

Weary blues from waitin’
Lord, I’ve been waitin’ so long
These blues have got me cryin’
Oh, sweet daddy please come home

Have a great day and hope you can use it to shake any weary blues you might have.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »