Deserted Island Music home page
my Amazon reviews, mostly about books, movies and music
Steve Kohn's list, 2nd five
Artist: Mark Knopfler
CD Title: Favorite songs from DIRE STRAITS, BROTHERS IN ARMS, and GOLDEN HEART
Comments: Plus many other fine albums, but these three stand above the rest.
By now, Mark
Knopfler shouldn't be a new name to you.
He played lead
guitar on Dire Straits and was the group’s main (only?) songwriter. A
picture of him on his '70s albums, when he was young, he looks out at us
like a British hooligan in a lineup, just arrested at a soccer riot. Who
is this guy?
A tremendous guitarist, if nothing else. Technically maybe not the all-time greatest, but the one I'd rather hear before any other. (OK, maybe after Leo Kottke.) Somehow he finds exactly the right notes, ones that no other guitarist hears. For an example, listen to his solo in the last few minutes of "They're be Some Changes Made." When Chet Atkins says "Now don't make me look bad," it's not entirely a joke.
The lyrics to Knopfler's songs are often nothing less than poetic, even if we do have to read them to catch their beauty. As an example of his lyrics, try Done with Bonaparte, best read slowly to savor the image in each line, or Imelda, which you’d never guess had such a rocking good tune.
One day I’m reading an article about him, and it turns out he has a degree in English from Leeds University. I had hoped he was some untutored natural genius, like Blake or Edison. Still, millions of other English majors all over the world wish they could write half as well. His lyrics often catch us by surprise with their intelligence or beauty. He uses them in songs with tunes we can’t stop humming, or in songs with a beat that won’t let us sit still.
In 2006, Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler teamed up for the album, ALL THE ROADRUNNING. A fine album, of course, with a few great songs. But don’t get the album. Instead, look for the DVD called REAL LIVE ROADRUNNING. It includes the ALL THE ROADRUNNING CD along with a DVD of a concert of mostly Roadrunning songs. Backed by as talented a group of musicians we'll ever hear, this is my single favorite concert DVD.
Artist: Paul Simon
CD Title: Favorites from BEST OF SIMON & GARFUNKEL, NEGOTIATIONS AND LOVE SONGS, and GRACELAND
Comments: This won’t take long, either. What can I add you don't already know?
As surely as America has been graced with many great songwriters, just as surely is Simon one of the best.
What’s
been most wonderful was to enjoy his genius as it evolved over the
decades.
He spoke for our generation back in the '60s, with songs like The Sound of Silence, I Am a Rock, The Boxer, and Bridge Over Troubled Water.
In the '70s we grew older with him, enjoying Mother and Child Reunion, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Still Crazy After All These Years, and Slip Slidin’ Away.
Finally, in the 80s, we rejoiced as he found new inspiration in the music of South Africa (GRACELAND) and Brazil (RHYTHM OF THE SAINTS).
In 2011, he's still going strong, as his concert at Webster Hall shows.
If forced by some cruel tyrant to choose only one singer/songwriter to take to the Deserted Island, it might have to be Paul Simon.
But then what about Mark Knopfler? What about Leonard Cohen?
It's too hard, it's just too hard, to choose just one of them.
Artist: Doc Watson
CD Title: Favorite Songs Burned From Many Albums
Comments:
Mr Watson passed away in May 2012 at age 89, having blessed us
with a lifetime
of great music.
If we go to Amazon, for example, and search for "Doc Watson" in the Music category, it brings up 331 (!) albums. And most of them are rated 5 stars.
Renowned for his guitar playing, I also thought his voice was wonderful.
DOC & DAWG (with David Grisman, another brilliant musician) is almost a Deserted Island CD all by itself.
I can't decide which is my favorite of his albums. The most recent one I've bought is SITTIN' HERE PICKIN' THE BLUES, with his son Merle Watson, and it's terrific, as usual.
If you're new to Doc Watson, the best introduction has to be LEGACY, a 3-CD, 72-page-booklet autobiography. Maybe even if we're not new to him, this is one to look for.
Artist: George Winston
CD Title: Favorite Songs Burned From Many Albums
Comments:
Another of those Mission Impossibles, trying to fit multiple
albums onto just one CD. Most of Ge
orge Winston’s albums are
perfect, with not a song to skip when programming the CD player.
Some albums, like AUTUMN, are masterpieces in themselves, with
each song an essential ingredient of the whole.
George Winston is a composer of piano pieces who I believe centuries hence will be as highly regarded as Chopin is today. His compositions are often introspective, with several titled by seasons or locations intending to convey their mood. It doesn’t necessarily work for me, when I might fall into a different reverie than the one he intended, but it doesn’t matter.
My favorite of his albums is AUTUMN, though BALLADS AND BLUES 1972 could be a better introduction to him. REMEMBRANCE shows us he's also a master of the guitar and harmonica.
And then there’s NIGHT DIVIDES THE DAY – THE MUSIC OF THE DOORS. George Winston? – of all musicians - interpreting the music of a rock band like the Doors? With solo piano?
Bad joke or great music?
Great music.
Great musician.
--------
11 February 2017. Mr Winston plays a sold-out concert in San Antonio's Tobin Center Alvarez Hall. I was priviliged to be there, able to see that he's not just our age's Chopin (great composer) but also our Liszt (great pianist). No stage presence ("The next song is titled ....") but we fans don't come for the patter.
4 June 2023. George Winston dies of cancer at age 74.
Artist: Philip Glass
CD Title: Favorites from AGUAS DE AMAZONIA (with Uakti), PASSAGES (with Ravi Shankar), and GLASSMASTERS (a 3-CD collection of his favorites)
Comments: Well, here I am, at the last of my ten Deserted Island selections. Where’s the African? The bluegrass? The jazz?
And
especially, where's the classical?
Now how is it possible to choose just one CD of classical music? Even one composer of classical music?
The CDs on my shelf include works by Bach, Beethoven, Bizet, Chopin, Dvorak, Gershwin, Grieg, Haydn, Khatchaturian, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Offenbach, Orff, Paganini, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Rossini, Schumann, Sibelius, St Saens, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi ….
How can I possibly choose the “best” or “favorite” of them? Would be like choosing a favorite child.
So I’m backing out. I’m choosing none of them.
Instead, here’s a modern composer of classical music. Be warned, though: if you’re hearing Philip Glass for the first time, you’ll find his music either a) repetitious and boring, or b) rhythmic and hypnotic. Don’t need to tell you what it does (much of it, anyway) to me.
You may have heard his work already. He's written scores for a number of movies. KOYAANISQATSI and THE HOURS are two I like a lot.
Even within the self-imposed limits he's set for himself, Glass is not afraid to experiment, and seems to enjoy foreign take-off points. You'd like AGUAS DE AMAZONIA, his interpretation of the rivers of the Amazon basin, and PASSAGES, his collaboration with Ravi Shankar, where each composes in the style of the other.
The 2007 documentary, GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS, should be of much interest to Glass fans.
But feel free to skip Glass and find something from any of the traditional composers above -- or from my next list, not quite masterpieces but much too good to be left behind.