Friday, November 9, 2007

Early in the Morning, I'm Callin' YouTube, Vol. VII

The best thing I've found on YouTube this week is a clip of Billy Bragg singing both the Carpenters' "Superstar" AND Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright." He asks the crowd which of the two artists they'd rather hear, and they choose the Carpenters. After getting up to the chorus of "Superstar," Bragg gets sick of it and changes over to a fierce version of "Don't Think Twice." Gotta love Billy.

A few years back, Bragg and Wilco released Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2 after the success of their first album together, the not-surprisingly titled Mermaid Avenue, of unrecorded Woody Guthrie songs. My favorite song of the bunch is "Airline in Heaven," a track that proves Guthrie was more than just the guy who wrote "This Land Is Your Land."

I wasn't a huge fan of Springsteen's Tom Joad period, but this live version of "Atlantic City," recorded in 1997 while touring for the album, is pretty impressive. Not as good as the original or the Band's version on Jericho, but those are both pretty much perfect.

While Harvest Moon is no Harvest, there are still some worthy-of-your-time tracks on it: "Natural Beauty," "Old King" and "From Hank to Hendrix," an improvement on Neil's other big namedropping song, "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue.)"

This clip is of Howlin' Wolf singing "Dust My Broom." Enough said.

While watching this great clip of Tom Waits performing "Downtown Train" in Italy in 1986, it struck me as odd that he was holding a guitar. I guess I'm much more used to see him with a bullhorn or something that makes a loud clank noise in his hands, rather than an actual instrument. But then I realized how stupid it was to take note of that, and got back to listening to it.

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