Kiss­es On The Bot­tom — it’s Paul McCart­ney’s 35th post-Bea­t­les album, his most provoca­tive­ly-titled album to be sure, and a great stroll down mem­o­ry lane. The album fea­tures cov­ers of jazz stan­dards, most­ly writ­ten dur­ing the 1920s and 1930s. It’s the music that McCart­ney’s father loved to play on the fam­i­ly piano, giv­ing the younger McCart­ney his first intro­duc­tion to music. Diana Krall, Ste­vie Won­der and Eric Clap­ton make guest appear­ances. The new album goes on sale next week (pre-order it here), but you can stream it for free (in its entire­ty) on NPR or via The Guardian. Lis­ten quick­ly, because the free stream will only last for a lim­it­ed time.

P.S. Leonard Cohen’s lat­est album, his first in sev­en years, is still stream­ing online too. More here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig

Here Comes the Sun — it’s one of George Har­rison’s con­tri­bu­tions to Abbey Road (1969). And, among the many great Bea­t­les’ songs, it’s my sen­ti­men­tal favorite. While we’re feel­ing sen­ti­men­tal, let me bring you this — Dhani Har­ri­son, the son of the late gui­tarist, returns to the record­ing stu­dio (pre­sum­ably at Abbey Road) with George Mar­tin, the Bea­t­les’ leg­endary pro­duc­er, and Mar­t­in’s son Giles. Togeth­er, they play with the mix of “Here Comes the Sun,” and then the won­drous lit­tle moment of dis­cov­ery hap­pens. They stum­ble upon the long lost gui­tar solo that nev­er made the final cut. It’s a plea­sure to see.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

H/T @WFMU

Relat­ed Con­tent

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

George Har­ri­son Explains Why Every­one Should Play the Ukulele, With Words and Music

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

In Decem­ber, the alter­na­tive rock band Wilco played a spe­cial series of home­town shows called the “Incred­i­ble Shrink­ing Tour of Chica­go.”

The tour kicked off on Decem­ber 12 at the majes­tic Civic Opera House and con­tin­ued over the next four nights, mov­ing to suc­ces­sive­ly small­er and more inti­mate venues: the Riv­iera, the Vic, the Metro, and final­ly Lin­coln Hall, with a capac­i­ty of only 500 peo­ple.

At the opera house on open­ing night, Wilco played a 24-song ret­ro­spec­tive of the band’s 18-year his­to­ry, fol­lowed by an extend­ed series of encores fea­tur­ing Mavis Sta­ples and Nick Lowe. The grand finale was a stir­ring ren­di­tion of The Band’s clas­sic “The Weight.”

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Zoran Orlic caught a spe­cial moment before the show (above), when the musi­cians gath­ered in the dress­ing room to rehearse “The Weight.” You can see ama­teur footage of the on-stage per­for­mance of the song here, and learn more about the con­cert (plus see a clip of the band per­form­ing “One Sun­day Morn­ing”) on the WXRT web­site.

And for an inter­est­ing com­par­i­son, watch The Band’s per­for­mance of “The Weight” (below) from Mar­tin Scors­ese’s film The Last Waltz, which also fea­tures a guest appear­ance by Mavis Sta­ples, along with her father and sis­ters in The Sta­ple Singers. Although the film con­sist­ed most­ly of footage from The Band’s farewell con­cert on Novem­ber 25, 1976, Scors­ese filmed “The Weight” after­ward, on an MGM sound­stage.

Fans of Leonard Cohen, you’ve wait­ed patient­ly. Sev­en long years. Now it’s final­ly here. Cohen’s new album Old Ideas offi­cial­ly hits the streets next week. But it’s now stream­ing online for free cour­tesy of NPR. It will only last a lim­it­ed time. So set­tle in now and lis­ten to the ten tracks, which as Guardian crit­ic Kit­ty Empire puts it, are not about “death, betray­al and God, juicy as these are,” but rather “the stuff that has made Cohen indis­pens­able for six decades: desire, regret, suf­fer­ing, mis­an­thropy, love, hope, and ham­ming it up.”

The poet­ic lines of the first track, “Going Home,” have been pub­lished in The New York­er. You can pre-order the album here. H/T @opedr

More Leonard Cohen Videos & Movies:

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen (1971 Doc­u­men­tary)

Leonard Cohen Recounts “How I Got My Song,” or When His Love Affair with Music Began

Leonard Cohen Reads “The Future” (Not Safe for Work)

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Watch the Film

“When I’m singing blues,” Etta James once said, “I’m singing life.”

Hers was a dif­fi­cult life. The leg­endary singer, who died this morn­ing at the age of 73 after a long strug­gle with leukemia, was born Jame­set­ta Hawkins on Jan­u­ary 25, 1938, to an unwed 14-year-old girl, and her life was marked by drug addic­tion and emo­tion­al volatil­i­ty. Through it all, James rose to become one of the most influ­en­tial and admired singers of the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

“There’s a lot going on in Etta James’ voice,” Bon­nie Raitt told Rolling Stone in 2008. “A lot of pain, a lot of life but, most of all, a lot of strength. She can be so rau­cous and down one song, and then break your heart with her sub­tle­ty and finesse the next.”

Her great­est hit came in 1961, with the soul­ful bal­lad “At Last.” For anoth­er side of James’s ver­sa­tile style, lis­ten and watch above, as she per­forms the gospel-influ­enced “Some­thing’s Got a Hold on Me” in 1962. To learn more about James, and to watch video high­lights from her career, see today’s arti­cle by Ben Green­man on The New York­er’s “Cul­ture Desk” blog. And over at the Guardian, see Richard Williams selec­tion of 10 Clas­sic Etta James Per­for­mances.

In 1997, James summed things up in an inter­view with Rolling Stone: “Life’s been rough,” she said, “but life’s been good. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I would live it the exact same way.”

One of the catchi­est grooves from the rhythm and blues of the late 1950s is “Willie and the Hand Jive,” by John­ny Otis. In this live­ly scene from his ear­ly TV show, Otis per­forms the song as Marie Adams and the Three Tons of Joy demon­strate the hand jive. Lionel Hamp­ton joins in on the vibra­phone.

Otis, known as “the god­fa­ther of rhythm and blues,” died Tues­day at the age of 90. The son of Greek immi­grants, he grew up in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly black neigh­bor­hood of Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, and devel­oped an ear­ly affin­i­ty for African Amer­i­can cul­ture. “Genet­i­cal­ly, I’m pure Greek,” Otis said in 1994. “Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, envi­ron­men­tal­ly, cul­tur­al­ly, by choice, I’m a mem­ber of the black com­mu­ni­ty.”

As a band­leader in the 1950s, Otis helped bring rhythm and blues to a main­stream audi­ence. He dis­cov­ered a num­ber of impor­tant artists, includ­ing Big Mama Thorn­ton (Otis pro­duced her orig­i­nal 1952 record­ing of “Hound Dog”) and the great Etta James, who died this morn­ing.

“Willie and the Hand Jive,” with its infec­tious Bo Did­dley beat, was a top 10 pop hit for Otis in 1958, and was cov­ered by a vari­ety of well-known artists, includ­ing Eric Clap­ton. Otis con­tin­ued to per­form into his 80s, and worked at var­i­ous times as a disc jock­ey, an ordained min­is­ter and an organ­ic farmer. You can read more about his remark­able life in the New York Times obit­u­ary.

You can also watch the com­plete half-hour episode of The John­ny Otis Show (below) from which the clip above was tak­en. The John­ny Otis Show was broad­cast on KTLA in Los Ange­les from 1954 to 1961. This episode fea­tures great per­for­mances by Lionel Hamp­ton (with the mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist Otis join­ing in on drums) and oth­er artists, includ­ing more from Marie Adams and the Three Tons of Joy.