Monday, February 10, 2014

Sights and Sounds: 'The Beatles: The Night That Changed America' mini-review; Robby Krieger; Jeff Tweedy; Emmylou Harris

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on CBS special.
Happy Monday everybody! Before I plow into a roundup of early week media updates, here is my oh-so-brief roundup of The Beatles: The Night That Changed America – a GRAMMY Salute special that was aired on CBS-TV last night (Feb. 9) and attracted an audience of 13.95 million viewers (according to a report on Hollywood Reporter). I thought the way it was put together worked well, notably the mix of interviews, archival footage and performances recorded last month at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I think David Letterman was the wrong guy to do the interviews with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney (almost as bad as Larry King in terms of obviously not getting the Beatles and their cultural and music impact). Of the opening performances, I thought Stevie Wonder singing and playing up a storm on keyboards and harmonica during "We Can Work It Out," and the version of "Something" performed by Jeff Lynne and Joe Walsh were especially good. I also loved the energetic sets played by Ringo and Sir Paul with this great long-time band and the night-ending set when they were on stage together. I was less than impressed by Katy Perry and her flat version of "Yesterday." And Dave Grohl played loudly and bashed his drums seemingly in a sonic fight against the work of Joe Walsh and Gary Clark Jr. on a doomed "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."


Robby Krieger performing in Anaheim on Jan. 25, 2014.
The Hollywood Reporter has a great interview and update on Robby Krieger, and plans for the Doors guitarist and drummer John Densmore to stage a memorial concert to the late Ray Manzarek this summer. When I met Krieger at the NAMM show in Anaheim last month, he also noted that he was working with Densmore to get something together and this article seems to confirm sparse details he was able to reveal when we talked. Click here to read the story.

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy is going to appear on the comedy NBC-TV series Parks and Recreation. Read more in Rolling Stone here.

Finally, Emmylou Harris' seminal 1995 album Wrecking Ball is set to be reissued as a deluxe edition complete with a DVD this spring. Read George A. Paul's in-depth post on his Music Minded blog.


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