Richard Grayson, an Amer­i­can com­pos­er and pianist, has a knack for impro­vis­ing on the piano. Ask him to play Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars in the style of Beethoven, and he has it cov­ered. (Watch above.) The same goes for The Mup­pets’ Theme in the style of a Bach fugue; “Sin­gin’ in the Rain” in the style of Wag­n­er, or Wag­n­er’s “Ride of the Valkyries” in the style of a Tan­go. You will find 70+ impro­vi­sa­tions on Grayson’s YouTube Chan­nel. Find it here.

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Next week, Bob Dylan will release The Wit­mark Demos: 1962–1964, a col­lec­tion of 47 songs that the artist record­ed for the M. Wit­mark & Sons pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, all before his 24th birth­day. The young Dylan knocked out these tracks in a sparse 6x8 foot stu­dio, accom­pa­nied only by his acoustic gui­tar, har­mon­i­ca and piano. And, right now, you can stream 23 of these demos (for free) on NPR’s First Lis­ten site. The line­up includes some of his finest ear­ly sin­gles – Blowin’ In The Wind, A Hard Rain’s A‑Gonna Fall, Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, Girl From The North Coun­try, Mr. Tam­bourine Man, The Times They Are A‑Changin’… You get the gist.

If you’re inclined to pur­chase the album, then you’ll want to con­sid­er this Ama­zon deal. Buy The Wit­mark Demos on CD or vinyl before 10/18/2010 and you will also get a live con­cert CD – Bob Dylan: In Con­cert, Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty, 1963 – that has “nev­er been heard, boot­legged or cir­cu­lat­ed in any way.” Not bad for $13.99. Find more details here.

In 1975, John Lennon released Rock N Roll, where, work­ing with Phil Spec­tor, he revis­it­ed and cov­ered songs from the ear­ly days of rock. Chuck Berry and Bud­dy Hol­ly songs made their way onto the album, as did Ben E. King’s 1961 clas­sic “Stand By Me” (watch above.) Lennon was 35 years old at the time, and today (if you haven’t heard) he would have turned 70. Imag­ine if the sec­ond half of his life, so abrupt­ly stolen from him, could have been as fruit­ful as the first half. Just imag­ine…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Lennon Sings Bud­dy Hol­ly

John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) on the Dick Cavett Show

I Met the Wal­rus: An Ani­mat­ed Short Film with John Lennon

In a bit of his­tor­i­cal irony, the British Inva­sion hit Ger­many before it reached the UK or any­where else. From 1960 — 1962, the Bea­t­les played the grit­ty night­clubs of Ham­burg and real­ly learned to play togeth­er as a band. There, they final­ized the cast: John, Paul, George and then Ringo. And there they refined their live act, play­ing 281 con­certs, some last­ing as long as 12 hours. Need­less to say, The Bea­t­les built up a fan­base in Ger­many, and they lat­er nur­tured it by re-record­ing some ear­ly hits in Ger­man. Above, we have “She Loves You” reworked as “Sie Liebt Dich” (Jan­u­ary 1964). Oth­er Ger­man record­ings includ­ed “Komm, gib mir deine Hand” (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”) and the rather amus­ing Geh raus (“Get Back”).

PS Look­ing to learn some Ger­man? Don’t for­get about our col­lec­tion of Free For­eign Lan­guage Lessons.

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