Stay with Me - Lorraine Ellison

Al Kooper’s tribute to songwriter & producer Jerry Ragavoy:

In 1963, Frank Sinatra booked a session in a New York studio with 46 musicians, then canceled less than a week before the session. So the record company (Warner-Reprise) sent out notices to all their producers that if anyone wanted to use the musicians, it was theirs because Warner’s had to pay for it anyway. Jerry grabbed it and then stayed up for three days with arranger Garry Sherman, as they feverishly wrote out the parts for 46 musicians to be ready on time. 

At 7pm Jerry convened the session, gave out the parts, and began rehearsing the band. Lorraine was singing live on the session and Phil Ramone was engineering. At 7:30, they took take one. It was perfect except that Lorraine had flubbed the first line in the second verse. They gave the band a break and Lorraine punched in the mistake, also in one pass, and at 7:45 they thanked the musicians and bade them goodnight. Phil Ramone’s stereo control room mix was used as the final mix. This track you are about to listen to was recorded and FINISHED in 45 minutes! It is a legendary, one-of-a-kind performance.




Cadel TDF 2011

Cadel Evens: “Start as fast as possible and finish as fast as possible, and hope it’s fast enough.”

More than fast enough.




Hottest 100 Australian albums

Mess & Noise break down triple j’s Hottest 100 Australian Albums (more readable list), including the preponderance of ‘bogan prog’:

Bogan prog is a genre that originated either in Bondi or Perth (no one’s really sure) featuring men with weird goatees and Tool t-shirts (dreadlocks optional); loud-soft-loud dynamics; emotive “yardling”; odd time signatures; five string basses; and more notes than sense.

I’m still mourning the absence of The Triffids classic Born Sandy Devotional.