Saturday Jukebox: Nostalgia

Pretty much an open thread – wherever your past takes you.

Begin the Beguine – Ella


Paradise – Richie Havens

Bugle Call Rag – Sidney Bechet

12 Replies to “Saturday Jukebox: Nostalgia”

  1. NOSTALGIA…, from WIKI…
    The term nostalgia describes a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.[1] The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning “homecoming”, a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning “pain, ache”, and was coined by a 17th-century medical student to describe the anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home. Described as a medical condition—a form of melancholy—in the Early Modern period, it became an important trope in Romanticism.[1]

    Yeah…, thanks Doc Wellington…, but I once “stole” a recording of Bob Dylan’s Greatest
    Hits
    from a great friend. Before I knew who Bob even was. It still takes my breath away when I hear, “Like a Rolling Stone.” My favorite version is from The Band’s Before the Flood”…, couldn’t find it on YouTube. This is the closest I could get.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JolwUqCKn_4

    Right on partner…, write on.

    1. What cracks me up is the current fashion for ‘retro’, from clothing to interior decoration to automobile styling.
      25-year-olds claiming ‘nostalgia’ for things from the 1960s? Pseudo-nostalgia? 😀

  2. If I did personal nostalgia, it would be the Winky Dink theme song (Saturday mornings with the TV) or Froggie Went a-Courting (rather long, rambling story on memories). So here are the first nostalgia song I remember liking a lot:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O5EeBjxhiY

    and one that’s got several kinds of nostalgia: the characters in the scene, the subject of the movie, the pre-rock music, and for me, the best lesson on standard chord sequences.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NiF33BSWaM

  3. Damn, they took down the original Bob Dylan “Simple Twist of Fate”.

    It’s one of the few where he’s not bitter, and it used to make me cry,, in my twenties…..

    Jerry Garcia: “Simple Twist of Fate”

    a good version,but much mellower, slower, and longer.

    1. Here’s another about feeling nostalgic:

      Grateful Dead – Stella Blue

      This one comes with a bit of a story. Firstly, this is nearing the end of Keith Godchaux’ glorious tenure with the band. This was also one of those GD songs, that, when I heard it live, I really really got it.

      But also, it came back to haunt me one night. I was visiting a friend who at the time was working for KFLY radio in Eureka, California. He was living in Ferndale, in Hobart Brown‘s art gallery/studio/art commune – a huge building on the main street in Ferndale, built sometime late 19th c. We were preparing for a halloween party at the Eureka Armory. Hobart had a huge, labyrinthine attic filled with everything you could possibly imagine, and deep within the depths of this maze was a costume wardrobe about the size of an average bedroom. We were encouraged by Hobart to select costumes for the party.

      While I was walking up the main stairway from the gallery/studio level, I turned the first landing and came face-to-face with a huge, framed photograph, presumably one of Hobart’s friends. She was a lady (I mean, really!!!), maybe mid 50s, wearing old-west-style dance hall outfit, complete with a feather boa. Her expression was so ‘Mona Lisa ambivalent’ with that look that she’d seen it all, that I was instantly feeling Stella Blue in my head.

      More than 20 years later, I can still see that photograph and it’s setting above the landing of a huge stairway, and still feel that favorite live version of Stella Blue from 31-DEC-1987, echoing in my head and luring me down that alley where the mind wanders among the what-ifs and shouldna’a’done’that’s we all keep in our too powerful memories.

    1. Fantastic!
      Too bad they won’t let this one be embedded.
      And if anyone can listen and it doesn’t hurt, they haven’t dared live.