This is my photo montage video of this wonderful area where I think you would love to hike and spend some quality time in communion with nature.

CHEERS!

If I was just a drop of this enormous sea
within my very molecules
there would be
an ocean.
And rising high
across the sky
the waves, my very own,
would fly like eagles…

If I was just a speck of sand
upon an empty beach,
within my tiny cells
there’d be
enormous deserts
and lying low
beneath the waters you would see,
humanity,
crawling like starfish…

If I was just a thought that crossed your mind,
the memories I’d left behind
would frighten and surprise you.
Perhaps you’d never think again of days of rain and thunder.
Perhaps you’ve learned to dream.
But deep within the darkest of those dreams
rises an ocean,
and a sandy shore,
and then a desert
and then you’d dream again
and then, although you’ll never learn to see,
you’ll see you’ve learned to fly.
And you can soar weightless on the waves,
pushing aside the clouds that crowd the sky
and paint black rainbows
by the by…

C.2020, Francisco Bravo Cabrera, 20 OCT 2020, Valencia, Spain

Billy Joel, what can I say? Loved his music from the first time I heard it. I recall that I was on holiday in Fort Meyers, (on the Gulf coast of Florida), when I first heard a song by Billy Joel. It was “Piano Man”. From that song on I was a fan…

Billy Joel’s music followed me around and became a part of the things I was doing that coincided with one of his many, many hit singles. When “Streetlife Serenader” was released I was graduating from college. I was in the Army when “Just the Way You Are” and “Only the Good Die Young” came out. The album Glass Houses became my go-to musical escape when I came back home. “Pressure” then became my anthem when I was going through a divorce, and at the time going through the police academy. While “on the job” “Innocent Man” was my tune that I sang to some of the ones that I gave rides to in the back of my police car. And, well, you get it. Billy’s songs were like a soundtrack to my life, no wonder I owned all his records (vinyls which I still have in a safe somewhere where I will never reveal, hehehe).

“It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” is from 1980, it’s from Glass Houses, number one on Billboard for two weeks, and was the seventh biggest hit of 1980. The record went Platinum for selling over one million copies in the United States.

So…

How do I tie these three “rockers” together? My analysis was that the revolution began with kids wanting the freedom to “rock around the clock” and that they got it and that from then on it was fun, it was a party to rock and roll and no matter how trivial and banal it may be, it is still rock and roll. That was up to 1974. By 1980, things were changing, rockers were getting older but the spirit was still there, the movement was still going strong, no matter the age, the attitude continued to be defiant and the statement wasn’t simply that it was fun and I like it but that it…the present situation…is still rock and roll. Long live the revolution! Long live rock and roll!

Here is Billy Joel’s official video of “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”. Hope you sing along…

CHEERS!

The world’s “greatest” rock and roll band? Or the world’s longest lasting, never ending rock and roll band? You choose. I choose the greatest, although I really dig The New York Dolls…

But the Stones are a living legend of rock and roll and they deserve respect, recognition and acknowledgement. These guys are pushing eighty and they are still rocking! How they made it through the sixties, and in good health…God bless them…I will never know, but I do know that I am glad they did.

Although my favourite music by The Rolling Stones was their early work, up to and including Some Girls. My favourite songs are “Ruby Tuesday”, “Brown Sugar” and “She’s Like a Rainbow”, among a few hundred other ones like “Honky Tonk Women” and “Under My Thumb”…

So, I guess most everybody knows all there is to know about the Rolling Stones, but I will just say that this song in particular, “It’s Only Rock’n’Roll” was from the 1974 album of the same name It’s Only Rock’n’Roll, writing credits given to Jagger/Richards, reached the top ten in the UK and the top twenty in the US.

In this song Mick Taylor makes his farewell appearance with The Rolling Stones. He was replaced with Ronnie Wood who actually played acoustic guitar on the song.

So…

In part one, the revolution began, the quest for liberation, the freedom to “rock around the clock” was the inspiration and the quest. This was represented in “Rock Around the Clock”. I want to join this to part two, where the fun begins, where the revolution has triumphed and the masses can be quite happy to say that, yes, it is only rock and roll, but I like it!

Let’s see what part three will resolve…

Here is the official video made to accompany this song:

CHEERS!

Perhaps the song that started it all, rock and roll that is, which led to “rock”, which led to “heavy metal”, which led to “punk”, which led to “new wave”, which led to “disco”, which led to “techno-pop”, which led to who knows where…

“Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and his Comets was the “first” rock and roll record that was actually heard by millions of people worldwide. That is what makes this song important to the history, or to the origins of rock and roll.

The song was recorded on the 12th of April 1954. At the moment it was considered rockabilly as that was the music Bill Haley made. So was it the first rock and roll song ever made? Not quite, “That’s All Right” by Arthur Crudup, from 1946 can, and is, thought of by many as being the transitional song, from blues to rock and roll. That can make it the first, but not the most important.

But, let us get back to our featured tune. Here are some facts:

“Rock Around the Clock” was written in 1952 by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers. It was first recorded by the Italian-American band called Sonny Dae and His Knights. The song reached number one in the United States and in the United Kingdom as well as in Germany. Rolling Stone magazine lists it as number 158 in their list of the best 500 songs of all times.

So, to kick off this edition of Tuesdays Tunes, songs that “Rock”, I leave you with the video of the first recording of this great piece by Sonny Dae and his Knights, because I know you’ve all heard Bill Haley’s version:

Cloud structures over the Atlantic Ocean. Photo taken in Miami, Florida