One Love (Bob Marley)

This is fun to watch and listen to:


Yesterday was Valentine's Day...one of the most overhyped "holidays" in my view...maybe that says more about me than the day. To fight my inner cynic, I made a playlist on my iPod to play at work yesterday. I included all songs in my library that have the word "love" (or include it, aka "Lovely Rita) in their title. I was only moderately surprised to find that of my 4,000+ songs, 285 of them have a title containing those four letters - L-O-V-E.

If I go to iTunes and search on "love" I get a gazillion results.

My 285-song playlist included some classics and some funny results, that represent the spectrum of the human condition vis-a-vis the concept of love. A few examples:

What's Love Got to Do with It - Tina Turner
Love Hurts - Gram Parsons
Love Has No Pride - Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt
The One I Love - REM
Runaway Love - Ludacris
Love Shack - B 52's
Falling in Love Again - Billie Holiday and, of course,
Love is All You Need - The Beatles (Duh)

But the song that captures the vibe of what love really has to do with "it' is Bob Marley's One Love...and you can't help but sing along:

One Love!
One Heart!
Let's get together and feel all right.

The Lucky One (Alison Krauss)

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Alison Krauss - Th...

Tonight is the 50th Grammy Awards, so it seems fitting that I would post something on my episodic blog. Why Alison Krauss? Because she has won more Grammys than any other female. Period. Shocking, isn't it?

Here's the rundown on her achievements:

• A total of 20 Grammys
• Her first win was 18 years ago - 1990 - for the best bluegrass song
• Every award she has won has been in the Country, Bluegrass or Folk category with the exception of being part of the Album of the Year team for "Oh Brother Where Art Thou's" soundtrack
• She is nominated tonight for Best Collaboration (with Robert Plant) for a song from their very cool album Raising Sand AND for Best Female Country Performance.

She is a Renaissance woman for sure.

It's 8pm. Time to watch to see if the "lucky one" wins again.


UPDATE: Alison Krauss and Robert Plant won the 2007 grammy for "Gone, Gone, Gone." The 2007 Grammy program was horrible.

Raining in Baltimore (Counting Crows)

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Debbie and I went up to the Ram's Head Live in Baltimore last night to see Adam Duritz of Counting Crows play a benefit acoustic set. I won the tickets on 94.7 The Globe Classic Rock radio station a couple of weeks ago. I called and identified the name of the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou ("What was the name of the movie starring George Clooney that had a bluegrass soundtrack produced by T-Bone Burnett?"). Yeah for Weazel.

The performance was awesome. The venue was so-so. And the crowd sucked.

The highlights:

• The show was a benefit for the Johns' Hopkins' Pediatric Epilepsy program. It was totally organized by some 40-somethings whose daughter was treated there after having some pretty scary seizures. The Harris' are doing good stuff, and raised $260,000 around the event. Check out The CarsonHarris Foundation for what they are doing.

• The concert was fabulous (what i could see/hear - more on that in the lowlights section of this post). It was Duritz and two former roommates - members of the band Lonestar - on acoustic guitar. They come out, with a wheelie Coleman cooler of beer, plunk down on the stage and proceed to play some very innovative versions of lots of Counting Crows songs, and quite a number of covers. They had planned a great somewhat Baltimore-themed set.

• Adam played a song from pre-CC days that he hasn't performed since 1989. It was from a band called The Himalayans, and the song was called "Save My Life." It was fun to hear.

The Lowlights (I'm sure I am old and crabby and I was tired last night, but...):

• Sloppy drunk is never pretty. For the first half of the show we stood (there is no seating at Ram's Head) in the balcony. During the warm-up we staked out a place with a view. But the shit-faced couple to our right were so blotto that they morphed from taking about 4 feet of space to taking (to quote Debbie), "the space of five people" at the railing. Needless to say, for a short girl like me, that pretty much meant no seeing Adam. And then there was the stumbling, and American Idol-like performance by the guy, throughout the set, augmented by constant groping and making out. The spilling of a drink on the woman next to them was a nice touch. Did I mention he had a wedding ring and she did not. Jeez - take it somewhere else where you can drain the mini bar and perform your rendition of "Rain King" in private.

• So, we go downstairs to SEE and HEAR the show. Why do people go to concerts in small, intimate venues, and then stand around talking throughout the show? Between the well-meaning, big swinging dick investment bankers who were sponsors, the "VIPs," and the partiers in the back, there was a constant drone of chatter during the show. Show some respect people. Go to a freakin' bar if you want to talk the whole time.
  

Ok, now I've vented. Time for a run. Adam, please come back again. I promise to be less grumpy.