Who exactly was the 'Tambourine Man'?

The bass player on the right in this photo is jazz man Bill Lee, father of Spike Lee.


"Does anyone have an E-harp? Anybody?".

The Byrds, classic lineup - Roger McGuinn (lead gtr. vocals), Chris Hillman (bass), Gene Clarke(gtr. vocals), Michael Clark (drums) and David Crosby (gtr. vocals)

Bruce Langhorne in the Village days.

Recent photo of Bruce Langhorne.

A young Jack Ashford - Mowtown's tambourine man.

For some reason, when I was younger, I had always assumed that the 'Tambourine Man' referenced in Bob Dylan's masterpiece alluded to 'Black Jack' Ashford, the Mowtown 'Funk Brother' percussionist, who made the famous tambourine sound on countless hits and featured heavily in the 90s documentary 'Standing in the Shadows of Mowtown'.

In fact, much of Dylan's inspiration seems to have come from a young multi-instrumentalist called Bruce Langhorne, a singer/song-writer, from the early 60's Greenwich Village folk scene, who habitually carried around a giant Turkish hand-held percussion instrument (as one does). Langhorne played the delicate counter-melody lead guitar part on the original recording, but seems to have kept a really low profile since those days;

Mine is much bigger than yours.

THE Tambourine Man

Tune of the day - Pete Seeger at the Obama Inauguration

Was trying to get this down on the banjo today. This is commie/pinko/folkie/leftie-activist Pete Seeger doing his old friend Woodie Guthrie's 'This land is your land' at the Obama inauguration. I believe Seeger turned 90 last year...

He is joined here by Bruce Springsteen, with Pete's grandson and a group of high-school choir kids. In this rendition, they include slightly altered versions of the 2 'lost' verses from the song; verses which seemed to have often been omitted on most cover versions in the past:-

"In the squares of the city, and the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I saw my people,
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling...
This land was made for you and me?"

"A great high wall there, that tried to stop me;
A great big sign there saying 'Private property';
On the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me"

Ubuntu (if you wunt to)

Spent a good part of the weekend trying to figure out how to dual-boot Vista with Ubuntu, without wasting cash on 3rd-party software, or destroying my laptop. Got it done eventually...

Am loving Ubuntu - got web access sorted in seconds, and some of my lost Unix/Linux/OpenOffice skills are coming back to me. It is worth it for the games alone - about 12 variations of Solitaire (which, as Neil Sedaka pointed out, is the 'only game in town').

Tune of the day - Small Faces (cockney knees-up)

From BBC archives, The "Small Faces" joyous "Happy Days Toy Town". One of the most catchy tunes ever made/performed, from their concept album "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake". The mics seem to be on for the hyperactive Steve Marriott on lead and Ronnie Lane on bass, as is audible/visible from their badinage.

Otherwise, the tune is mimed. Stanley Unwin provides the nonsense spoken piece towards the end.

Mariott wasted his talents after this, in the cesspit of progressive rock; the other three formed 'the Faces' with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart. Years later, Kenny Jones replaced the dead Keith Moon on sticks in 'the Who'.

Anyhoo, turn it up loud and enjoy, and remember that 'Life is just a bowl of All-Bran'...

Funkin' Excellent !

One Nation, under a Groove - Get your funk on, Funkateers...

Wahoo! The Mothership landed in town... Went to see the legendary George (no relation to Bill) Clinton and the current P-Funk incarnation at Tripod last night. Great gig, and perhaps the best collection of musicians I've ever seen live.

The show was as brilliantly eccentric and crazy as expected, with band members regularly inter-changing, taking impromptu individual breaks and wandering around the stage and wings at random. Probably due to the fact that the 20+ band couldn't all safely fit on the small stage at any one time...

Highlight for me was a scintillating version of 'Maggot Brain', which seemed to go on for a good 20 minutes.

One of the two drummers (Rico Lewis, I think?), whenever it wasn't his turn on the kit, spent a lot of the show lighting up the spliffs thrown onto the stage, sometimes climbing the ladder up to the adjacent sound desk to consume them. Hope the fire inspectors weren't in that night...

At one point an audience member rushed the stage (pursued, pretty quickly, by a very large bouncer) and went to try to shake George's hand, then proceeded to rip the multi-colored wig from George's head and exited stage left, captured in the bouncer's headlock, but with the trophy still firmly in his grasp.

George stayed cool, finished the duet he was doing and made some remark along the lines of "Motherf*cker trying to strip me naked!".

From what I could see, most of the band looked initially surprised about this incident, then seemed amused. The spliffer drummer was at the side of the stage laughing his ass off, so, I have an inkling that it was a 'Bruno/Borat-style' arranged stunt that at least some of them were complicit in... If it wan't a joke, then I hope the gatecrasher got a right good hiding backstage!

Anyway, George was back later in the show with a baseball cap covering his barren pate.

Hope the wig survived! If not, I'm sure he has a couple of spares in his suitcase. Some photos below...

Possibly, slightly stoned Rico Lewis in the white vest and no, that's not Prince crouching to his right

P-Funk veteran Garry Schider (centre) in his trademark diaper/nappy/incontinence pad thing. George Clinton with cap on. B.B. King's stunt double with trumpet in hand.


(left to right) P-Funk nemesis - Sir Nose, George Clinton (with hair) and Poo-Poo Man all keeping the groove going.

Just as an addendum, here is a list of P-Funk alumni/contributors over the years. It reads like a phone book... Even then, think there are quite a few missing from the list...