Vice-President Joe Biden joins Mayor Dave Bing, Pastor Marvin Winans, and thousands of Detroiters who have had their vehicles stolen. Welcome to Detroit, Mr. Vice-President.
U-Haul Truck Carrying Biden Gear Stolen in Detroit
A U-Haul truck carrying equipment for Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign event in Detroit Monday was stolen this weekend, ABC News confirmed with United States Secret Service.
Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the USSS, told ABC News the truck carrying equipment was stolen between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning at the Westin Hotel in Detroit. He would not specify what kind of equipment was in the truck.
Biden’s speech at the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO Labor Day Rally in downtown Detroit will still go on as planned starting at noon Monday.
This dude’s music has always inspired me. The depth of his funk and soul raise the bar for all of us who strive to – as he quotes Beethoven in this article – “make music for the ages.”
Like his other fans, I hope he gets it together and puts out another timeless album. As an artist who tends to take my own time in the studio when working on my personal stuff, I know that the pressures we place on ourselves can far outweigh outside forces.
This fantastic article by Amy Wallace illuminates this past hazy decade in D’Angelo’s life, casting a sympathetic glow on his process, and on his perils. After reading it, I can be patient a bit longer.
Take your time, bro. Do your thang, and let us all hear it when the time is right.
He was once hailed as the next Marvin Gaye. Then, after his ripped body threatened to overshadow his music, he vanished into addiction. So what the hell was he doing recently singing his heart out in a Pentecostal church in Stockholm? And how are his abs? Amy Wallace witnessed D’Angelo’s ecstatic return to the stage—and hung out with the master of the sacred and the profane as he finishes his first album in a dozen years
Note from Nadir: Earlier this week I posted about the passing of bass master Donald “Duck” Dunn of Booker T and the MGs. Well, wouldn’t you know it, before the virtual ink of my blog had dried, we heard that Detroit’s own, P-Funk and Brainstorm vocalist Belita Woods also left us. The very next day we got the news that Chuck Brown, the Godfather of DC Go-Go,made his transition. UPDATED: And right after I posted this, we learned that Donna Summer passed away. What a week!
Our good friend, Bob Davis of Soul-Patrol.com, by virtue of his esteemed role as connector between artists and fans in the worlds of soul and funk, sometimes holds the unenviable position as bearer of bad news. He laments that too often his weekly Soul-Patrol newsletters function as a black music obituary column. As you could expect, this has been a trying week for him in that regard. Yet, in his late night email, he comments on these deaths with his usual eloquence and poise. I can’t say it any better, so we’ll let Bob do the talking.
There has certainly been a whole lot going on in my world and the world around me over the past week, that has absolutely nothing to do with music. I won’t bore you all with the details, but I will tell you that it has all been quite good.
All of that good stuff is somewhat tempered by all of the bad stuff that has been happening in the neighborhood of the world that Soul-Patrol lives in.
This has been one of the worst weeks that I can recall. (and the week is not yet even 1/2 over yet)
We lost 3 soldiers this week. FUNK soldiers that is: Continue reading
While Motown bassist, James Jamerson, revolutionized the bass guitar by applying his jazz training to 60s pop music, the great Stax bass god Donald “Duck” Dunn melded gut bucket blues with good old-fashioned southern soul. The result was a rugged blue-collar groove that shines on dozens of timeless recordings.
On May 13, 2012 the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer passed away in his sleep after a hit at the Blue Note in Tokyo. His music, like the two classic cuts below, will live on forever. Rest in the Funk, Duck Dunn.
Beastie Boys filmed an unreleased musical performance of “The New Style” for the aborted 3rd season of “Chappelle’s Show” in late fall 2004. It was on a boat in the East River, NYC. Rest in the Funk, Adam Yauch…
After the overwhelming (surprised? horrified?) response to the appearance of Tupac Shakur’s hologram during Snoop Dogg’s Coachella set, promoters are now talking about a Tupac hologram tour. Of course they are. Would you pay to see an entire concert performed by a computer-generated hologram of Tupac? If not, what artist would you pay $50 to see perform as a hologram? Michael Jackson? Whitney Houston? A resurrected Sublime? A reunited Led Zeppelin?
As much as I regret never seeing Miles Davis live, I’m not going to pay $75 to watch M Dewey’s hologram turn its back to me on stage, but I’d have to think about those Jimi Hendrix hologram tickets, especially if they could make him burn a real Fender Strat on stage.
Yaminah Brock is a veteran of stage and studio, and has sung every style of music from house and funk to country and Big Band and swing.
But now, she’s the boss, leading her own band, Yaminah and Jazzy Soul, and financing and marketing her solo debut, “Endless Journey,” a full-length collection of jazz-inflected soul music slated for a spring release.
While spending more than two years recording and assembling her band, Brock discovered the rewards and challenges that lie on the road to independence. Yet, she stays on course by staying true to herself—and the music.
“I have new respect for anybody who has [recorded an album] independently, because this is no joke,” Yaminah says. “It’s a whole other job! But it’s well worth it. I’ve learned a lot.”
Highland Park, Michigan native Rick Robinson is on a mission to transform classical music. As a bassist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for 22 years, Robinson is rooted in the storied classical tradition.
But the animated original compositions and inventive arrangements of classical and jazz masterpieces that he creates for his own ensembles, the nine-piece CutTime Players and his string sextet, CutTime Simfonica, inject vim and vigor into the sometimes-staid classical form.
Now with the performance series Classical Revolution Detroit, the 2010 Kresge Arts Fellow aims to remove the physical barriers between classical musicians and their audiences by offering intimate presentations in restaurants, cafes, bars and other non-traditional venues around the city.
Kelly Beckett of G4’s Attack of the Show features the Beat Thang and a few other great products at NAMM 2012 in Anaheim, California. As she mentions, Beat Thang won DJzone DJ Magazine’s Crystal Disc Award for Best DJ Innovation of 2011-2012. Congrats, guys!!
I was honored to meet Jimmy Castor at the 2007 Soul-Patrol Convention. After that brief conversation, I was compelled to go back and listen to his music which I had loved as a kid.
As Soul-Patrol’s Bob Davis said to me when we were talking about the man later, Jimmy Castor’s genius is often overlooked. He’s dismissed as a “parody” artist. But when you really get into the music, you’ll feel the depths of the grooves. You’ll be impressed by the musicality and the arrangements. And you will laugh your behind off.
I was really sad to hear that Mr. Castor passed away on January 16, 2012, at the age of 71. I hope there will be a long line of tributes for this man, though he deserved so much more attention during his life.
Here are a couple of my favorite Jimmy Castor joints.
Vice-President Joe Biden joins Mayor Dave Bing, Pastor Marvin Winans, and thousands of Detroiters who have had their vehicles stolen. Welcome to Detroit, Mr. Vice-President.
