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I saw a TV show years ago where Pete Townshend of The Who talked about the first time he saw Jimi Hendrix. A friend had told him about this new American guitarist who was swiping Townshend’s trademark “windmill” arm-swinging stage move. After watching Hendrix perform, an awed Townshend said, “He can use it.”

Hendrix is remembered mostly for his stage performance — both for his incredible skill, and for silly touches like playing with his teeth or setting his guitar afire. But he was a songwriter, too, and several of his songs have had a life beyond Hendrix’s own recordings.

Here is a young Korean woman playing the Hendrix song “Little Wing.”

There’s a different version, with guitarist Monte Montgomery on a hollow-body guitar, here.

It ain’t over:

Outspoken pop country artists the Dixie Chicks continue to stir up political controversy, with two TV networks refusing to air a commercial for a new film documenting the uproar that ensued after singer Natalie Maines spoke critically of President Bush during an overseas concert.

NBC … said it rejected the commercial for “Shut Up and Sing,” which debuted last week in New York and Los Angeles and opens nationwide Nov. 10. The network cited a policy against ads dealing with “public controversy.”

…

Directed by Cecilia Peck and Oscar winner Barbara Kopple, “Shut Up and Sing” examines the sometimes vicious backlash that resulted from Maines’ comment. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, Cumulus Broadcasting, the Atlanta-based owner of 262 radio stations nationwide, ordered all of its 42 country outlets to stop playing Dixie Chicks music. At a Cumulus-sponsored pro-war rally in Shreveport, La., a bulldozer crushed a pile of the band’s CDs. Many of the 1,225 radio stations owned by San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications also banned the group’s songs.

Some country stations even refused to run ads for the Dixie Chicks’ current tour, leading the band to cancel some dates in the South and Midwest.

From CNN:

Paul Mauriat, a French conductor whose arrangement of “Love is Blue” topped U.S. charts in the 1960s and who garnered a large following in Japan, has died. He was 81.

Mauriat’s recording of the song was a big hit in 1968. It was an off-beat hit for the days of guitar bands, starting with the harpsichord and strings intro.

Oh, happy day…

There’s another version of this song here.

Via Bob Geiger:

All we have to do now
Is take these lies
And make them true somehow

(Warning: video contains some disturbing images.)

The video is shaky. Someone held a camera and pointed it at the TV set. In the background, you can hear sounds from the room. Nevertheless, here is Neil Young.

Did he give me the gift of voice
So some could silence me?
Did he give me the gift of vision
Not knowing what I might see?
Did he give me the gift of compassion
To help my fellow man?

When God made me
When God made me

Marianne Faithfull has cancer. Rats.

Her publicist says her prognosis is good. Best wishes to her for a complete recovery.

In the New York Times, Virginia Heffernan tracks down a web guitar wizard:

Eight months ago a mysterious image showed up on YouTube, the video-sharing site that now shows more than 100 million videos a day. A sinewy figure in a swimming-pool-blue T-shirt, his eyes obscured by a beige baseball cap, was playing electric guitar. Sun poured through the window behind him; he played in a yellow haze. The video was called simply “guitar.” A black-and-white title card gave the performer’s name as funtwo.

…

Like a celebrity sex tape or a Virgin Mary sighting, the video drew hordes of seekers with diverse interests and attitudes. Guitar sites, MySpace pages and a Polish video site called Smog linked to it, and viewers thundered to YouTube to watch it. If individual viewings were shipped records, “guitar” would have gone gold almost instantly. Now, with nearly 7.35 million views — and a spot in the site’s 10 most-viewed videos of all time — funtwo’s performance would be platinum many times over. From the perch it’s occupied for months on YouTube’s “most discussed” list, it generates a seemingly endless stream of praise (riveting, sick, better than Hendrix), exegesis, criticism, footnotes, skepticism, anger and awe.

The most basic comment is a question: Who is this guy?

Heffernan tracks down funtwo, a 23-year-old Korean named Jeong-Hyun Lim. On the way, she introduces us to Jerry Chang, who created this guitar arrangement, and takes us into a half-hidden world of spectacular talent, creativity, skill and dedication outside fame’s spotlight.

Online guitar performances seem to carry a modesty clause, in the same way that hip-hop comes with a boast. Many of the guitarists, like Mr. Chang and Mr. Lim, exhibit a kind of anti-showmanship that seems distinctly Asian. They often praise other musicians, denigrate their own skills and talk about how much more they have to practice. Sometimes an element of flat-out abjection even enters into this act, as though the chief reason to play guitar is to be excoriated by others. As Mr. Lim said, “I am always thinking that I’m not that good player and must improve more than now.”

…

Mr. Lim’s fans said they watch his “Canon Rock” video daily, as it inspires them to work hard. When I watch, I feel moved by Mr. Lim’s virtuosity to do as he does: find beauty in the speed and accuracy that the new Internet world demands.

I’m not terribly concerned that our popular culture values swagger and denigrates competence. But I do worry that our political culture does that, too.

At the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, after he introduced the band who had come from all around the world to perform for free, George Harrison stopped suddenly and shouted, “We’ve forgotten Billy Preston!”

No, we haven’t. In 2004 I saw Eric Clapton in concert. The keyboard player looked like a middle-aged minister, but man, could he play. Midway through the show, Clapton introduced his band, and the crowd let out a roar when he came to the great Billy Preston.

I was sorry to hear that Billy Preston died today, and that he had been in a coma since November.

I saw Preston in concert early in the 1970s. At that time, I wouldn’t stand up and clap my hands to the music at a concert. I wouldn’t sing along. But somehow, Billy Preston got me on my feet, clapping my hands and singing along to “That’s the Way God Planned It,” and I’ve never been quite the same since.

He sure could dance. I think you had to see him in person to understand just how amazing his dancing was. In the film of Concert for Bangladesh, the cameramen lost track of Billy when he stepped out from behind the keyboards during “That’s the Way God Planned It.” You can hear the crowd roar, but the cameras miss almost all of Billy’s amazing footwork.

I saw him again in 1976, at a Rolling Stones concert, where he sang one of his own songs and danced across the stage to the cheers of the stadium-sized crowd. At one point he went to the side of the stage and pulled out someone to dance alongside him. I felt sorry for the poor victim, who seemed awkward and fumbling next to Preston’s fancy footwork. It took a moment to recognize the poor victim was Mick Jagger.

I’m going to be playing a lot of Billy Preston songs tonight.

I’ve never been a fan of country music, but I bought Taking the Long Way, the new album from the Dixie Chicks. It’s good.

We Americans like to think that we stand up for those rebellious souls who dare to think for themselves, to say what they mean, and to stand their ground when powerful forces try to silence them.

As I said, we like to think we do that. But every few years, it seems, mobs gather across America to toss records into bonfires, or to run a steamroller over a pile of CDs. Every few years, it seems, a few big radio chains declare that they will no longer play some popular artist’s music because that artist said something unpopular. Every few years, it seems, groups pop up to declare a boycott not only of some rebellious soul’s work, but of any business that doesn’t join in banning that rebellious soul’s work.

And every few years, it seems, some of those who dare to speak their minds in America face death threats and worse.

Three years ago, when the Dixie Chicks criticized George W. Bush, the Iraq War had not yet begun. Bush was still saying that war was a last resort, but everyone could see that he wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of his “cake walk” war.

The war was a popular idea then, and radio chains banned the Dixie Chicks for daring to think for themselves and say what they meant. CDs were plowed under. Death threats came in.

The past three years of the Iraq War and a long list of other Bush fumbles would seem to have validated the Dixie Chicks’ criticism, but many country music stations continue to ban the group from their airwaves.

The Dixie Chicks new album, Taking the Long Way, came out on May 23. Time magazine wrote:

Whether the Dixie Chicks recover their sales luster or not, Taking the Long Way’s existence is designed to thumb its nose at country’s intolerance for ideological hell raising, and buying it or cursing it reveals something about you and your politics — or at least your ability to put a grudge above your listening pleasure. And however you vote, it’s tough to deny that by gambling their careers, three Texas women have the biggest balls in American music.

The verdict is coming in. From Variety:

For the third time in their career, the Dixie Chicks roost on the top of The Billboard 200. The Columbia album “Taking the Long Way” tallied 526,000 copies in its first week of U.S. sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the trio’s best-selling week since 2002’s “Home” debuted with 780,000.

And while country radio has remained cool to the group in the wake of a 2003 boycott following comments group member Natalie Maines made about President Bush, “Taking the Long Way” also nabs the No. 1 spot on the Country Albums chart…

At this moment, the album is number 1 in music on Amazon.com, and is the top album in Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Is it possible that this country is better than the boycotters and record burners?

Over at Crooks and Liars, a blog devoted mostly to politics, they’ve added a daily musical entry. Today they feature one of my favorite songs, George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

If everything works correctly, you should see an embedded video player below, featuring a performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Or you can click here to go to a Youtube.com page featuring several versions of the song.

A new Kate Bush music video: King Of The Mountain.

Today would have been John Lennon‘s 65^th birthday.

Lennon was killed in 1980, not long after his 40^th birthday. Every year, fans have marked the anniversary of his death with various memorials. His widow, Yoko Ono, has said she would rather have fans observe his birthday, to commemorate his life rather than his death.

If you’re a huge fan of the Beach Boys, and you’d like to get a phone call from Brian Wilson, here’s your chance:

Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson has been personally telephoning fans who pledge more than $100 … to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

…

[Wilson] will also match donations of more than $100 until 1 October, with money going to the American Red Cross.

You can find details at Wilson’s website, www.brianwilson.com.

When a disaster stirs a wave of charitable giving, I worry about scams disguised as legitimate charities. This offer seems difficult to validate through traditional methods. The news story is from the BBC, and Brian Wilson’s own considerable reputation is on the line. I believe the offer is genuine.

You didn’t believe me, did you? Back in June, when I said Kate Bush was releasing a new album, you didn’t believe me. After all, it’s been twelve years since her last album, The Red Shoes.

Well, here is katebush.com, with a tiny Flash animation, and a short audio snippet of a new song called “King of the Mountain.” The new album, called Aerial, is coming out in the U.S. on November 8.

Rosabel, believe.