Hello, today the 163rd post of GoldyRhox, classic pop rock in the darklight is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist (born 21 September 1934). His work has explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. He has been inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, he received a Prince of Asturias Award for literature.
In 1951, our man enrolled at McGill University, where he became president of the McGill Debating Union and won the Chester MacNaghten Literary Competition for the poems "Sparrows" and "Thoughts of a Landsman". He published his first poems in March 1954 in the magazine CIV/n. The issue also included poems by his poet-professors. Our man continued to write poetry and fiction throughout much of the 1960s and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf. While living and writing on Hydra, our man published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). His novel The Favourite Game was an autobiographical bildungsroman about a young man who discovers his identity through writing. Beautiful Losers received a good deal of attention from the Canadian press and stirred up controversy because of a number of sexually graphic passages. In 1966 he also published Parasites of Heaven, a book of poems. Both Beautiful Losers and Parasites of Heaven received mixed reviews and sold few copies
In 1967, disappointed with his lack of financial success as a writer, he moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer-songwriter. During the 1960s, he was a fringe figure in Andy Warhol's "Factory" crowd. Warhol speculated that he had spent time listening to Nico in clubs and that this had influenced his musical style. His song "Suzanne" became a hit for Judy Collins and was for many years his most covered song. After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the attention of Columbia Records representative John H. Hammond who signed him to a record deal. His first album became a cult hit in the US and UK. He followed up that first album with Songs from a Room (1969) (featuring the often-recorded "Bird on the Wire") and Songs of Love and Hate (1971). While the relationship between men and women was often the framework for his songs (he didn't earn the nickname "the master of erotic despair" for nothing), he didn't write about love; rather, he used the never-ending thrust and parry between the sexes as a jumping off point for his obsessive investigation of humanity's occasional kindness and frequent atrocities (both emotional and physical). His world view would be heady stuff at nearly any time and place
Canada has been showering this buddist Jew with Juno Awards ah yes those Canadians... Anyway he's still releasing albums (most recent 2012) though 6 albums since the mid eighties when he released Various Positions which contained what turned out to be his most famous song Hallelujah, isn't exactly hard work. However he does tour and releases the odd live album too. He's much loved in the Nordic countries as well. There's seven tribute albums thusfar and the man is still alive..go figure
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Most of the albums i 'll post made many millions for the music industry and a lot of what i intend to post still gets repackaged and remastered decades later, squeezing the last drop of profit out of bands that for the most part have ceased to exist long ago, although sometimes they get lured out of the mothballs to do a big bucks gig or tour. Now i'm not as naive to post this kinda music for all to see and have deleted, these will be a black box posts, i'm sorry for those on limited bandwidth but for most of you a gamble will get you a quality rip don't like it, deleting is just 2 clicks...That said i will try to accommodate somewhat and produce some cryptic info on the artist and or album.
Today's mystery album is the debut album by our mystery artist released Xmas 1967. It foreshadowed the future path of his career, with less success in the United States than in Europe, reaching #83 on the Billboard chart and achieving gold status only in 1989, while it reached #13 in UK and spent nearly a year and a half in the UK album charts. Although the famed record producer John Hammond (who initially signed Cohen to his contract with Columbia Records) was supposed to produce the record, he became sick and was replaced by the producer John Simon. They clashed over instrumentation and mixing; our artist wanted the album to have a sparse sound, while Simon felt the songs could benefit from arrangements that included strings and horns. According to biographer Ira Nadel, although mystery man was able to make changes to the mix, some of Simon's additions "couldn't be removed from the four-track master tape." The instrumentalists - not credited on the album sleeve - included Chester Crill, Chris Darrow, Solomon Feldthouse and David Lindley of The Kaleidoscope, who had been recruited personally by Cohen after he saw the band play at a New York club. Backing vocals were by Nancy Priddy, who at the time was John Simon's girlfriend.
Today's mystery album was a truly audacious achievement, as bold a challenge to pop music conventions as the other great debut of the year, The Velvet Underground & Nico, and a nearly perfectly realized product of his creative imagination. A number of his finest songs appeared here, including the luminous "Suzanne," the subtly venomous "Master Song" and "Sisters of Mercy," which would later be used to memorable effect in Robert Altman's film McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Many artists work their whole career to create a work as singular and accomplished as Songs of Leonard Cohen, and Cohen worked this alchemy the first time he entered a recording studio; few musicians have ever created a more remarkable or enduring debut.
Mojo has described the album as "not only the cornerstone of our mystery man's remarkable career, but also a genuine songwriting landmark in terms of language, thematic developments and even arrangements. On the back cover of the album is a Mexican religious picture of the Anima Sola depicted as a woman breaking free of her chains surrounded by flames and gazing towards heaven. In a Rolling Stone interview, the artist describes the image as "the triumph of the spirit over matter. The spirit being that beautiful woman breaking out of the chains and the fire and prison." He found the picture in a botánica near the Hotel Chelsea in 1965. A remastered version, with 2 bonus tracks, was released in the United States on April 24, 2007. It's up for grabs here
Goldy Rhox 162 (flac 267mb)
Goldy Rhox 162 (ogg 123mb)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
In 1951, our man enrolled at McGill University, where he became president of the McGill Debating Union and won the Chester MacNaghten Literary Competition for the poems "Sparrows" and "Thoughts of a Landsman". He published his first poems in March 1954 in the magazine CIV/n. The issue also included poems by his poet-professors. Our man continued to write poetry and fiction throughout much of the 1960s and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf. While living and writing on Hydra, our man published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). His novel The Favourite Game was an autobiographical bildungsroman about a young man who discovers his identity through writing. Beautiful Losers received a good deal of attention from the Canadian press and stirred up controversy because of a number of sexually graphic passages. In 1966 he also published Parasites of Heaven, a book of poems. Both Beautiful Losers and Parasites of Heaven received mixed reviews and sold few copies
In 1967, disappointed with his lack of financial success as a writer, he moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer-songwriter. During the 1960s, he was a fringe figure in Andy Warhol's "Factory" crowd. Warhol speculated that he had spent time listening to Nico in clubs and that this had influenced his musical style. His song "Suzanne" became a hit for Judy Collins and was for many years his most covered song. After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the attention of Columbia Records representative John H. Hammond who signed him to a record deal. His first album became a cult hit in the US and UK. He followed up that first album with Songs from a Room (1969) (featuring the often-recorded "Bird on the Wire") and Songs of Love and Hate (1971). While the relationship between men and women was often the framework for his songs (he didn't earn the nickname "the master of erotic despair" for nothing), he didn't write about love; rather, he used the never-ending thrust and parry between the sexes as a jumping off point for his obsessive investigation of humanity's occasional kindness and frequent atrocities (both emotional and physical). His world view would be heady stuff at nearly any time and place
Canada has been showering this buddist Jew with Juno Awards ah yes those Canadians... Anyway he's still releasing albums (most recent 2012) though 6 albums since the mid eighties when he released Various Positions which contained what turned out to be his most famous song Hallelujah, isn't exactly hard work. However he does tour and releases the odd live album too. He's much loved in the Nordic countries as well. There's seven tribute albums thusfar and the man is still alive..go figure
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Today's mystery album is the debut album by our mystery artist released Xmas 1967. It foreshadowed the future path of his career, with less success in the United States than in Europe, reaching #83 on the Billboard chart and achieving gold status only in 1989, while it reached #13 in UK and spent nearly a year and a half in the UK album charts. Although the famed record producer John Hammond (who initially signed Cohen to his contract with Columbia Records) was supposed to produce the record, he became sick and was replaced by the producer John Simon. They clashed over instrumentation and mixing; our artist wanted the album to have a sparse sound, while Simon felt the songs could benefit from arrangements that included strings and horns. According to biographer Ira Nadel, although mystery man was able to make changes to the mix, some of Simon's additions "couldn't be removed from the four-track master tape." The instrumentalists - not credited on the album sleeve - included Chester Crill, Chris Darrow, Solomon Feldthouse and David Lindley of The Kaleidoscope, who had been recruited personally by Cohen after he saw the band play at a New York club. Backing vocals were by Nancy Priddy, who at the time was John Simon's girlfriend.
Today's mystery album was a truly audacious achievement, as bold a challenge to pop music conventions as the other great debut of the year, The Velvet Underground & Nico, and a nearly perfectly realized product of his creative imagination. A number of his finest songs appeared here, including the luminous "Suzanne," the subtly venomous "Master Song" and "Sisters of Mercy," which would later be used to memorable effect in Robert Altman's film McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Many artists work their whole career to create a work as singular and accomplished as Songs of Leonard Cohen, and Cohen worked this alchemy the first time he entered a recording studio; few musicians have ever created a more remarkable or enduring debut.
Mojo has described the album as "not only the cornerstone of our mystery man's remarkable career, but also a genuine songwriting landmark in terms of language, thematic developments and even arrangements. On the back cover of the album is a Mexican religious picture of the Anima Sola depicted as a woman breaking free of her chains surrounded by flames and gazing towards heaven. In a Rolling Stone interview, the artist describes the image as "the triumph of the spirit over matter. The spirit being that beautiful woman breaking out of the chains and the fire and prison." He found the picture in a botánica near the Hotel Chelsea in 1965. A remastered version, with 2 bonus tracks, was released in the United States on April 24, 2007. It's up for grabs here
Goldy Rhox 162 (flac 267mb)
Goldy Rhox 162 (ogg 123mb)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
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