The Weekend Planet

Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Parker and country music are not often found in the same sentence. To dobro supremo Jerry Douglas, all are apropos. So are Ireland, New Orleans, even Baghdad: all are connected to his new CD, Glide. Douglas has done more than anyone else to raise the dobro’s profile and to make it ‘at home’ in lots of ‘new’ musical territories. The slide-wizard is a steel-worker’s son who fell in love with his instrument as an eight-year-old, forty-four years ago. In explaining why, the man hailed as ‘the holy ghost of the resonator guitar’ says of the dobro, ‘It’s just like a voice.’

Jerry Douglas’ site:
www.jerrydouglas.com

A recent interview (with Douglas playing, too) can be heard here:
http://wpln.org/?p=842

Playlist

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Details of each track are presented in the following order:
BROADCAST TIME
TRACK NUMBER AND TITLE
COMPOSER
PUBLISHING AND COPYRIGHT DETAILS
RECORDING COMPANY AND CD NUMBER
( distributor/ source details, in brackets like this, in lower-case)
ARTIST AND CD TITLE
Duration of track
Description of track, in lower-case.
Where relevant, further info links to information, gigs/events/related programs

’THE WEEKEND PLANET’ SAT 4.10. 08

2205
THEME:
(details below, as per the original CD.. This cut is also on these compilations Ketama - ’ Nuevos Medios Coleccion’ - Nuevos Medios NM 15 820
{ in Australia via MGM www.thegroovemerchants.com
worldwide, via: www.flamenco-world.com/noticias/nuevos.htm }
and ’ Jarabi - the best of Toumani Diabate’ (Hannibal 334352 )

CD CUT 1, ’JARABI’
TRAD, ARR TOUMANI DIABATE
HAMILCAR MUSIC LTD
HANNIBAL HNCD 1323
( in Australia, some releases through Stomp Enquiries to: ben@stomp.com.au
worldwide: www.rykodisc.com )
KETAMA, TOUMANI DIABATE, DANNY THOMPSON - ’SONGHAI’
THIRTY SECONDS (EXCERPT)
(retains a stately-Manding air, whilst also embracing flamenco elements. Toumani Diabate’s kora, Danny Thompson’s beautiful double bass and Ketama’s flamenco guitars )

2208
CD CUT 11, ’PUSHED TOO FAR’
JERRY DOUGLAS, RUSS BARENBERG
FLUX MUSIC (ASCAP) ADMIN BY MCS MUSIC AMERICA INC/ LAUGHING HANDS MUSIC (BMI)
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
4: 50
( Wordless, but very much a song - a hymnal-tinged, elegant shade of post-grass/newgrass, introduced by the leader’s dobro. The other soloists are fiddler Luke Bulla and flat-picking ac guitarist Chris Eldridge. Todd Parks plays bass and Doug Belote the drums.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE DOBRO AND RESONATOR/RESOPHONIC GUITARS IN GENERAL?

These are two well-linked starting-places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonator_guitar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobro

A concise history is here:
www.melbay.com/guitarsessions/nov05/resonator.asp

LIKE TO SEE AS WELL AS HEAR JERRY DOUGLAS IN ACTION?

He is amazing to see, as well as to hear! Go to:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gukFvG8VbK4 )

SEGUE

2213
CD CUT 7, ’FRENCH BLUES’ (JE M’ENDORS)
TRAD, ARR DAVID DOUCET
HAPPY VALLEY MUSIC (BMI)
ROUNDER CD 6040
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.rounder.com )
DAVID DOUCET - ’QUAND J’AI PARTI’
3: 51
(sweetly dolorous, slow-waltzing song in Cajun French. David is the singer and ac guitarist and Jimmy Breaux the accordionist. The fine dobro-player { here, in 1990, when he was in his 60s} is ’Uncle’ Josh Graves. Circa 1964, a then 8-year-old Jerry Douglas was inspired to take up the dobro when he first heard/saw Graves. Graves { 1925 - 2006 } brought the dobro into bluegrass. As this cut - and plenty of other examples show - Graves was not a single-genre guy.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ’UNCLE’ JOSH GRAVES?

Two obituaries:
www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/uncle-josh-graves-418522.html
http://worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/20061116083510401 )

2219
CD CUT 1, ’BOUNCE’
JERRY DOUGLAS, EDGAR MEYER AND SAM BUSH
NOLIVIAN SONGS, ADMIN BY BUG MUSIC (BMI)/ SAMANDA LYNN MUSIC (BMI)/ EGGBERT MUSIC/ HENDON MUSIC, INC, A BOOSEY AND HAWKES COMPANY (BMI)
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
4: 10
( very limber, virtuosic trio in ’newgrass/post-grass’ mode: Douglas on very fleet slide dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin. Edgar Meyer plucks and bows his bass with equal gusto )

SEGUE

2223
CD CUT 17, ’SONG FOR A WINTER’S NIGHT’
GORDON LIGHTFOOT
WARNER BROS MUSIC (ASCAP)
ROUNDER CD 0370
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.rounder.com )
TONY RICE - ’SINGS GORDON LIGHTFOOT’
3: 07
(lyrical love song for Rice’s warm male voice, deftly delicate ac guitar, plus harmony vocal, mandolin, dobro and ac bass. Taken from his 1986 album ’Me and My Guitar’. Tony still plays wonderful guitar, but has lost his singing voice, alas)

SEGUE

2226
CD CUT 4, ’ROUTE IRISH’
JERRY DOUGLAS
NOLIVIAN SONGS, ADMIN BY BUG MUSIC ( BMI )
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
4: 03
( sometimes-eerie, sometimes-lyrical instrumental, named after the road from Baghdad Airport to the ’Green Zone. ’ It begins with just Jerry’s eerie elec lap steel guitars. Soon, Jerry’s dobro becomes centre of attention, atop bass, drums, violins, guitars and elec lap steel guitars )

2233
CD CUT 6, ’HOW I LOVE THIS TANGO’
KRISTINA OLSEN
TAKE A BREAK PUBLISHING
TAKE A BREAK PRODUCTIONS TAB2009
(available from Take A Break Productions, Po Box 21, Venice Ca 90294 USA
or via internet: www.amazon.com )
KRISTINA OLSEN WITH PETER GRAYLING AND GEORGE BUTRUMLIS - ’ALL OVER DOWN UNDER’
5: 00
(AUSTRAL PERF: ’live’. An erotic song which celebrates the tango’s connotations: Kristina’s American voice ac guitar, with Australians Peter Grayling and George Butrumlis on cello and accordion, respectively.

LIKE TO KNOW WHEN AND WHERE KRISTINA PERFORMS?

Her touring details are here:
www.kristinaolsen.net/tourdates.htm

Imminent dates are in northern NSW:
10 Oct Bangalow
11 Oct Uki Hall Uki )

SEGUE

2236
CD CUT 9, ’CAFÉ 1930’
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA
LEMOINE
JAZZHEAD HEAD059
(in Australia, through MGM
www.jazzhead.com )
ROB BURKE - ’THE EDGE OF TODAY. A MAPPING OF THE MELBOURNE SOUND’
8: 05
(AUSTRAL PERF AND ARR: intimate, haunting-melancholic tango duet for Rob’s tenor sax and Slava Grigoryan’s classical guitar.

ABC RADIO NATIONAL TANGO ALERT

On ’Into the Music’
Saturday 11 October 5.05pm
repeated Friday 17 October 3.05pm

Tango Argentino - A Passionate Embrace

No other dance draws a man and a woman into such intimate contact; no other music connects so completely body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. Tango fulfils the innate human need to hold and be held. Sydney Tango DJ and musicologist Martin Cohen traces the evolution of Argentine tango from the brothels of Buenos Aires in the 1890s to the world’s concert halls, theatrical stages and dance venues.

The giant figures of Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla loom above a galaxy of tango composers, lyricists, arrangers, instrumentalists and singers. This passionate program features Argentinian author/psychiatrist Sonia Abadi, Australian tango PhD Faye Bendrups, Argentinian tango musician/historian/broadcaster Guillermo Anad, visiting Dutch bandoneon maestro, Carel Kraayenhof and the revolutionary Piazzolla himself. We also meet South American immigrants and other members of Australia’s tango dance community and hear a generous sampling of classic Tango Argentino.

Reader Monica Trapaga
Sound engineer Mark Don
Narrated and produced by Martin Cohen
Executive producer Robyn Ravlich

’Into The Music’, with Robyn Johnston
First broadcast: Saturday, 5.05 pm
Repeat broadcast: the following Friday, 3.05 pm
www.abc.net.au/rn/intothemusic
Audio can be demanded from website for four weeks after radio broadcast )

2248
CD CUT 6, ’RED ROCKET’
GERARD MASTERS
( PRESUMABLY ) APRA
JAZZGROOVE RECORDS JGR041
( www.jazzgroove.com
distributed in Australia by Creative Vibes: www.cvibes.com )
GERARD MASTERS TRIO - ’PENDULUM’
7: 54
(AUSTRAL COMP AND PERF: Modern jazz trio, in genially-robust, propulsive modern mode, with blues and Afro-Cuban tinges and some gentler-delicate sections. The leader’s piano, Cameron Undy’s bass, and Evan Manell’s drums.

GERARD MASTERS ’FIVE CITIES IN FIVE DAYS!’ TOUR ALERT ( NSW, ACT )

Saturday 11th Oct Wollongong
7.30 pm @ 313
www.iima.org.au/events.htm

Sunday 12th Oct Melbourne
9pm @Bennetts Lane Jazz Club, Bennetts Lane
www.bennettslane.com

Monday 13th Oct Adelaide
8:30pm for C.O.M.A @ the Wheatsheaf hotel, Thebarton
www.myspace.com/musicadelaide

Tuesday 14th Oct Sydney
8:30pm @ Excelsior Hotel for Jazzgroove
www.jazzgroove.com
www.excelsiorhotel.com.au

Wednesday 15th Oct Canberra
9pm @ Hippo Bar, Garema Place, Canberra CBD
www.hippobar.com.au

Gerard Masters
gerardmasters@optusnet.com.au
+61 404 094 061
www.myspace.com/gerardmastersmusic
www.myspace.com/thekeyboarddoctor
www.myspace.com/thegerardmasterstrio
www.gerardmasterstrio.com )

2255
CD (DISC ONE) CUT 3, ’AND ALL THE SNOW MELTED’
JEFF LANG
ORIENT PACIFIC MUSIC/ ORIGIN
ABC MUSIC 14500
( in Australia through Warner Music.
Available at ABC shops & online: www.abcshop.com.au )
JEFF LANG - ’YOU HAVE TO DIG DEEP TO BURY DADDY’
2: 10 ( excerpt )
(AUSTRAL COMP AND PERF: brooding, slow-tolling piece with weissenborn slide guitar to fore, plus amplified national steel guitar and tolling percussion.

LIKE TO KNOW WHEN AND WHERE JEFF LANG PERFORMS?

Full details are posted - reliably - here:
www.jefflang.com.au/tour.php )

----
11 PM NEWS
----

2305
CD CUT 8, ’HOME SWEET HOME’
TRAD/ ARR JERRY DOUGLAS
TUNE IS PUBLIC DOMAIN. ARR IS NOLIVIAN SONGS, ADMIN BY BUG MUSIC ( BMI )
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
2: 34
( The familiar song as an instrumental tour-de-genial-force for Jerry’s slide dobro and Earls Scruggs’ banjo. Tony Rice plays rhythm ac guitar.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT EARL SCRUGGS?

Born 1924, still playing very well, Earl Scruggs re-invented what could be done with a 5-string banjo. This is a good, well-linked place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Scruggs )

2310
CD CUT 1, ’ME AND MY GUITAR’
JAMES TAYLOR
COUNTRY ROAD MUSIC (BMI)
ROUNDER CD 0201
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.rounder.com )
3: 55
(1987-vintage, when Rice was still able to sing. His voice and mind-boggling flat-picked acoustic guitar lead a blue/new-grass-inflected treatment; more hairy-chested than Taylor’s original. Other featured soloists are Jerry Douglas on dobro, ac bassist Mark Schatz, mandolinist Sam Bush and fiddler Vassar Clements )

SEGUE

2314
CD CUT 5, ’SWAY SUR LA RUE ROYALE’
JERRY DOUGLAS
NOLIVIAN SONGS, ADMIN BY BUG MUSIC ( BMI )
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
6: 01
( homage to New Orleans, in the style of a New Orleans funeral number. Recorded on location, with New Orleans players. Begins slow-syncopated, with Jerry’s slide weissenborn guitar alone, then with tuba-like bowed bass support. Midway, it shifts gears to jubilant, and enter the ’singing’ clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piano, sousaphone, bass and drumkit. Ends sweet-and-slow-again, with the full ensemble. The other players are drummer Doug Belote, bassist Todd Parks and the New Orleans contingent - clarinettist Orange Kellin, Kirk Joseph on sousaphone, trumpeter Charlie Fardella, trombonist Craig Klein and pianist David Torkanowsky )

SEGUE

2320
CD CUT 4, ’TRUTH DECAY’
RODNEY CROWELL
SONY/ATV MUSIC/J ONLY PUBLISHING ASCAP
CTX431 CD
( in Australia through Shock: www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.rodneycrowell.com )
RODNEY CROWELL - ’SEX AND GASOLINE’
4: 27
(song of love and uncertainty. Intimate in tone, it shuffles along atop ac bass and brushed drums, with multiple, delicately-applied various guitar and slide guitar species. Greg Leisz is the slide player. Phil Everly {once of The Everly Brothers} is Rodney’s harmony vocalist.

LIKE TO SEE THE LYRICS?

They are here:
http://rodneycrowell.com/index.php?content=saglyrics )

2326
CD CUT 3, ’MARRIAGE MADE IN HOLLYWOOD’
PAUL BRADY AND MICHAEL O’KEEFE
SANDYFORD SONGS ADMIN BY TEN TEN MUSIC GROUP INC (ASCAP)/ STANDARD GLANDS INC (ASCAP )
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
5: 17
(Sardonic song, delivered by a well-chosen country singer - Travis Tritt. A song about - as the slide dobro-wielding Jerry puts it - ’a drug addicted man, bent on getting his 15 seconds of fame.’

The key couplet:
It’s a marriage made in Hollywood
Between greed and you

LIKE TO SEE THE LYRICS?

They are here:
www.paulbrady.com/lyrics/spirits.asp#04 )

SEGUE (same-disc)

2331
CD CUT 10, ’TROUBLE ON ALUM’ ( INTERWEAVES TWO TUNES: ’HECTOR THE HERO’ AND ’WOOED AND MARRIT’)
TRAD, ARR JERRY DOUGLAS
TUNES ARE PUBLIC DOMAIN. ARR IS NOLIVIAN SONGS, ADMIN BY BUG MUSIC ( BMI )
KOCH RECORDS KOC-CD-4553
( in Australia through Shock www.shock.com.au
worldwide: www.kochentertainment.com )
JERRY DOUGLAS - ’GLIDE’
4: 20
( ancient Scots tunes as vehicles for Jerry’s slide resophonic guitars. He plays the back-up, normal ac guitars too. A wistful, unrushed/waltzing treatment of ’Hector’ is wrapped around a jaunty, more overtly-American-accented treatment of ’Wooed..’)

SEGUE

2335
CD CUT 4, ’YOURS FOR A SONG’
DAVE HOLE
DAVE HOLE MUSIC
BLACK CAT BCD10009
( in Australia through Shock. www.shock.com.au
Available worldwide via www.davehole.com )
DAVE HOLE - ’ROUGH DIAMOND’
5: 14
(AUSTRAL COMP AND PERF: a soulful slow-blues-ballad-cum-love-song which features its author’s voice and slide electric guitar, with Bob Patient on organ, electric bassist Roy Daniel and drummer Ric Eastman )

2343
CD CUT 6, ’RESURRECTION’
E. MEYER/J. DOUGLAS
EGBERT MUSIC BMI/FLUX MUSIC, ASCAP
WATERLILY ACOUSTICS WLA-CS-47-CD
( no current Australian distributor
www.waterlilyacoustics.com )
VISHWA MOHAN BHATT AND JERRY DOUGLAS - ’BOURBON &
ROSEWATER’
7: 28
(Meditative, with an Indian accent. Recorded in a single take in a chapel in Santa Barbara, California, in 1994. Edgar Meyer is the bassist. His co-author and fellow American - Jerry - plays slide dobro. The other slide player - from Rajasthan - is Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, whose ’mohan vina’ is a much-modified arch-top ac guitar, played with a slide )

SEGUE

2350
CD CUT 4, ’ASA BRANCA’
LUIZ GONZAGA AND HUMBERTO TEIXEIRA
FERMATA (BRAZIL)
NAXOS WORLD 76017-2
( in Australia through Select Audio-Visual Distribution:
www.savd.com.au
worldwide: www.naxos.com )
CHITRAVINA N. RAVIKIRAN - ’RAYS AND FORAYS’
7: 21
(Brazilian song’s romantic-cum-dancing essence retained but performed instrumentally on an unlikely combination of Indian slide lute { the chitravina - a large, low-toned cousin to the veena and sitar - is played with a slide and was being played that way before the blues }, Chinese pear-shaped, plucked lute {pipa}, piano and percussion.

LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE CHITRAVINA?

Ravikiran’s account (which quotes a ’colourful introduction’ by yours-truly ) can be read here:
www.ravikiranmusic.com/chitravina.htm )

2358
CD ( DISC ONE ) CUT 3, ’NASHVILLE BLUES’
EARL SCRUGGS
PUB NOT SPEC
CAPITOL RECORDS 7243-5-35148-2-2
( through EMI )
VARIOUS - ’WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN’
0: 30 ( excerpt )
(unhurried, but really motors along, led by Earl Scruggs’ banjo. From a 1971 project which broke down a lot of silly walls between ’country’ and non -’country’ musicians/musics )

Presenter

Doug Spencer

Producer

Doug Spencer