EUROPEAN ANTHEM- ODE TO JOY

This is the first time I have really enjoyed the singing of the European Anthem.

BATTLE OF THE BANJOS IN FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE AND THE HALF MARATHON

This is just the right combination of modern vanity and old timey reality in the hills of Tennessee.

Watch the whole thing for the runner-napping.

Yeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

MERLE TRAVIS- THIS IS REAL COUNTRY

I suspect Chet Atkins got his inspiration from Merle. Any of you  readers from Kentucky and Tennessee will love this real music. I especially think of the folks I spoke to in a little Bible church up a coal mining river valley in southern Kentucky in the town of Putney. 

For you people who never have been in Kentucky, that "u" in Putney has a pronunciation all its own. The deacon told me if I could not learn to say Putney right I would not get the offering. I learned, and I bet I will go back and visit those folks again some day.

He also told me I had come down there from Detroit, but I would go home to Deee-troit. 

So, here is the Nine Pound Hammer, a tool most essential to survival in Kentucky.



I have never seen double wides perched on the side of mountains like in Kentucky. They had one edge against the mountain and the rest of the double wide hanging on thin air. I asked how they got them into those spots and was told with a Caterpillar tractor. Once they get them there they are never moved again.

THE GIBSON BROTHERS FROM NORTH CAROLINA

I just needed to show you a bluegrass group
that is all music and no affect.



BUT, when these boys get crazy,
no one can keep up with them.....

WHAT DO YOU CALL IT WHEN VLADIMIR PUTIN IS STANDING ON A CRACKER?

Answer: Putin on the Ritz

And, though this is a year old, and some of you have seen it, this flash mob in Russia is amazing. The crowd participation is exceptional also.

MUSICAL START TO THE NEW YEAR- 2014

I thought it only fitting to start the New Year by raising the level of artistic forms in music. Modern music lacks the art content and articulation common to music long ago. 

At age 70 I long for the music of my earlier years, so here I give you a tune commonly played on classical music radio station KFWB in Los Angeles in 1959.

MUSICAL ART FORMS FROM LONG AGO

I truly regret messing with your mind like that. 

Here is a serious song about nature and the creatures that populate our earth and make our hearts sing:

MUSICAL OFFERING
ON A MORE PROFOUND NOTE

Well, that did not work out either. I shall thus go clear away from our own nation with its profane music and give you a sampling of something from the Congo in Africa:

POIGNANT MUSIC FROM THE DEEP JUNGLES

Get out of here, all of you. 

You people just expect too much from the past anyway.

:-)

BUBBA MURPHY FROM GEORGIA MADE DRUDGE WITH HIS TRICK

This hick from Georgia deserves a good round of applause for his Christmas display.

TOMMY EMMANUEL AND FRIENDS

This is musical testosterone if I ever saw it.

Volume up, full screen, and grab your seat please.....

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN WAS NEVER BETTER SERVED

I watched the video, and I was made to remember that I taught English and Christian Education in Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music long ago in 1972. I also remember that I used to visit the Eerdman's book clearance store in Grand Rapids and find some real bargains, though they had some defects causing them to be marked down 80%.

And, one day in 1989 I was going to that very store following an old Buick in my red beater Valiant, and he turned left just ahead of me, and I followed him. The siren wailed, the red and blue lights started flashing, and I was served a nice ticket by a Grand Rapids cop for doing a left turn against a no-left-turn sign. The guy in the Buick needs to buy me pie and coffee at the Amway Plaza for taking the ticket instead of him. The thing that will not leave my memory is when the cop handed me the ticket and said, "Sorry buddy." They don't make cops like that anymore.

So, here is a piece of promotional work like nothing I have ever seen before. The music theme is a bit blasphemous, but you really need to watch this and marvel that so many Michiganders could do so much so well in the lip dub department.




HEY-- I bet you watched it at least twice, right?

COVER YOUR EARS JOHANN

Fur WHO?

Keep them ears covered JSB-- It gets worse.

SO, DID YOU THINK TEXAS WAS GUN CRAZY?

And, did you hear that Aussies were super paranoid about guns?

Think again:

DOC WATSON FROM DEEP GAP, NORTH CAROLINA

WINDY AND WARM