One of the most unique con­certs from the British blues revival of the 1960s was the “Blues and Gospel Train,” filmed May 7, 1964 by Grana­da TV for the BBC. Fans who were lucky enough to get tickets–some 200 of them–were instruct­ed to gath­er at Man­ches­ter’s Cen­tral Sta­tion by 7:30 that evening for a short train ride to the aban­doned Wilbra­ham Road Sta­tion. When the train pulled in at Wilbra­ham Road, the audi­ence poured out and found seats on one plat­form. The oppo­site side, dec­o­rat­ed to look like an old rail­way sta­tion in the Amer­i­can South, served as a stage for Mud­dy Waters, Otis Spann, Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe, Son­ny Ter­ry, Brown­ie McGhee, Cousin Joe and Rev­erend Gary Davis. The per­for­mances are avail­able on DVD as part of Amer­i­can Folk-Blues Fes­ti­val: The British Tours 1963–1966. In the scene above, Mud­dy Waters sings, “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had.”

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Leg­end of Blues­man Robert John­son Ani­mat­ed

Andrés Segovia first vis­it­ed the Alham­bra, the sto­ried 14th Cen­tu­ry Moor­ish palace in Grana­da, Spain, when he was ten years old. “It was here,” he said, “that I opened my eyes to the beau­ty of nature and art. To be here is to feel one­self to be near, very near, par­adise.”

Segovia is often called the father of clas­si­cal gui­tar. As a young boy he learned to play fla­men­co, the tra­di­tion­al music of his native Andalu­sia, but by the time he was a teenag­er he was tran­scrib­ing Bach and oth­er com­posers, adapt­ing music orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed for dif­fer­ent instru­ments. Over the course of his life­time, Segovia tran­scribed much of the clas­si­cal reper­toire, refined the stan­dard tech­nique, and estab­lished the gui­tar as a seri­ous instru­ment, bring­ing it out of the par­lors and into the con­cert halls.

In 1976, at the age of 84, Segovia returned to the Alham­bra to per­form for the doc­u­men­tary, Andrés Segovia: The Song of the Gui­tar. In the excerpt above, Segovia plays one of his favorite pieces, “The Leg­end of Asturias,” by Isaac Albéniz, who com­posed it for the piano as a pre­lude to his “Can­tos de España.” The com­plete doc­u­men­tary is avail­able on a two-film DVD, Andrés Segovia: In Por­trait.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Gui­tar Prodi­gy from Karachi

A per­fect way to chase away the Mon­day morn­ing blues. Once obscure, the Brazil­ian musi­cal group A Ban­da Mais Boni­ta da Cidade (or “The Most Beau­ti­ful Band in the City”) has been rid­ing a wave of pop­u­lar­i­ty for the past two weeks, ever since their video, guar­an­teed to put a lit­tle smile on your face, went viral on YouTube. Oração (or “Prayer”) is their song; and it has reg­is­tered some 4.7 mil­lion views since May 17.

Thanks to a com­menter over at Metafil­ter, you can now find a quick and dirty trans­la­tion of the lyrics. (The trans­la­tion also appears after the jump). Plus we have Por­tuguese primers in our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

And if you’re look­ing for a par­o­dy of the viral video — it was only a mat­ter of time, right? — you can find it here. It’s now clock­ing in at 1.2 mil­lion views…

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Inspired by Tyler Cul­len’s project in New York, Dan Maas hit the streets in Lon­don and asked “Hey! What Song are You Lis­ten­ing To?” The tracks, list­ed below the jump, appeal a bit more to my geezer­ish tastes. By the time we reach Krakow we should be in good shape …
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