I am home on this Sunday Afternoon, listening to a 3 hour show from WFMU on the musical career of Earl Palmer, a session drummer who passed away in September just shy of his 84th birthday. Earl played on thousands of records, going back to the 1940s--he played on many of the classic rock/pop songs of the 1950s (La Bamba, Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally, You Send Me, Summertime Blues, Good Golly Miss Molly, The Purple People Eater) the 60s (Book of Love, Twisting the Night Away,The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, Ramblin Rose--the Nat King Cole Hit--, Can't Get Used to Losing You, Dead Man's Curve, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, Unchained Melody, River Deep Mountain High)...worked with the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, James Brown, the Monkees...plus you have heard his beats on TV show themes like Batman, the Flintstones, the Partridge Family, Mission Impossible, M*A*S*H, The Brady Bunch, Mannix, etc etc. To top it off, he played uncredited on tons of Motown hits, Berry Gordy did a trick of hiring some L.A. session musicians to cut 'demos' at less than full pay--and used them as the backing tracks for hits by the Temptations, Martha & the Vandellas, etc etc. Woah!
I have an MP3 of the show, it's about 150Mb, and if you write me an email (follow the contact link) I will send you the show via yousendit.com. Amazing!
Christmas chez les Stringfellows was very quiet. Aden stayed with the grandparents in Dom's hometown in the Loire Valley. On the 24th Dom & I dined at
Chartier, an institution in Paris since 1896. Brightly lit, boisterous, far from austere, it's a great way to see real Parisians out for the night. We spent the 25th with Aden and Dom's folks, eating piles of foie gras, drinking delicious sweet Vouvray and and watching Aden unwrap thousands of presents (or so it seemed!).
I've since been back and working in my home studio again--doing vocal sessions for Mark Lassiter and mixing for Seattle band the Purringtones.
One great addition to Christmas was listening to
A Very Rosie Christmas, a collection of Holiday songs from Seattle singer Rosie Thomas. I was expecting a hurredly thrown together kind of indie haha, but in fact this a real work of love, and it is recorded immaculately. I was blown away! Highly recommended. The reworking of the Chipmunks signature Xmas tune 'Christmas Don't Be Late' is outstanding! You won't believe your earbuds.
Love
KS
Paris
