a good, honest move

Ever since I heard Malcolm Boyd say, in a documentary, "Tape is rolling, on American history," I can't get the phrase "tape is rolling" out of my head.


NY Times








headline today:


"Police in Cleveland Accept Tough Standards on Force"
(written by Mitch Smith and Matt Apuzzo)
Subhead sentence:
The Cleveland police department has agreed to follow some of the most exacting standards in the nation over how and when its officers can use force, part of a settlement with the Justice Department.


_______________________


Tape is rolling.


_________________________
_________________________
There's a writer named Peter Guralnick whose books I am -- going to have to -- read -- for sure.


He writes about American music; his titles include --


Sweet Soul Music 
--Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom


Feel Like Going Home 
--Portraits in Blues and Rock 'n' Roll


Searching for Robert Johnson 
--The Life and Legend of the "King of the Delta Blues Singers"


Lost Highway 
--Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians


Elvis Day by Day 
--The Definitive Record of His Life and Music (written with Ernst Jorgensen)


Dream Boogie
-- The Triumph of Sam Cooke


--------------------------


He has a book coming out later this year about Sam Phillips of Sun Records in Memphis, something I have wanted to find since seeing a tv special about Phillips and Sun. 


Guralnick also helped Rick Hall (Muscle Shoals Fame Studios impresario) write his life story.











And Guarlnick wrote a two-volume biography of Elvis Presley





first volume --


Last Train to Memphis;


second volume,


Careless Love.


An Amazon customer named Irina wrote a customer review:


"I love Elvis and have read this book in Russian.  I now have the opportunity to read the original in English.  I am very happy."


----------------------- [excerpt, Sweet Soul Music] --------------------





"Rick contacted me about the session....I said, 'Who you got?'  He said, 'Aretha Franklin.'  I said, 'Boy, you better get your damn shoes on.  You getting someone who can sing."


Spooner Oldham:  I was hired to play keyboards.  She was gonna stand up in front of the microphone and sing.  She was showing us this song she had brought down there with her ["I Ain't Never Loved A Man"], she hit that magic chord when Wexler was going up the little steps to the control room, and I just stopped. 


I said, 'Now, look, I'm not trying to cop out or nothing.  I know I was hired to play piano, but I wish you'd let her play that thing, and I could get on organ and electric.'  And that's the way it was.  It was a good, honest move...."


...The song was a masterpiece of construction and feel, employing the most subtle dynamics to suggest sheer unrestrained enthusiasm....


...Even Rick Hall, rarely willing, or able, to surrender his skepticism or suspiciousness that fate must have it in for him in some yet-to-be-revealed way, never doubted for a moment that he was standing on the edge of history.


--------------------- [end, excerpt] --------





"Standing on the edge of history"


Tape was rolling.


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