Once they were part of the counter cul­ture. Now they’re get­ting the red car­pet treat­ment in the estab­lish­ment. (Not that I have a prob­lem with that!) Last night, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and oth­ers per­formed in the East Room of the White House. It was all part a pro­gram called “A Cel­e­bra­tion of Music from the Civ­il Rights Move­ment,” which will air on PBS on Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. ET. Above we have an audio record­ing of Dylan per­form­ing the time­less “The Times They Are A‑Changin.” You can also watch a sam­ple of the oth­er per­for­mances here.

Great find by Robert B., who cap­tions this clip: “the teenage Glenn Gould at his Cana­di­an home.” Gould is play­ing here J.S.Bach’s Par­ti­ta #2. Give this a minute to get going. It’s a pret­ty awe­some dis­play of Gould’s tal­ents. Thanks for shar­ing Robert…

As we’ve men­tioned in the past, Archive.org hosts some won­der­ful free, pub­lic domain media. Many of their clas­sic films appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Movies. And they also pro­vide access to lots of free pub­lic domain music (includ­ing a large Grate­ful Dead con­cert archive). Thanks to a new site, Dewey Music, you can now sort through this exten­sive music cat­a­logue with greater ease and find the free gems faster. Dewey Music was cre­at­ed by six indus­tri­ous col­lege stu­dents, and we thank them.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Vladimir Horowitz, one of the great pianists of the 20th cen­tu­ry, left Rus­sia to set­tle in the Unit­ed States in 1939. But, once the Cold War thawed, he famous­ly returned home and played before rapt audi­ences. What we have here, I believe, is Horowitz play­ing Mozart’s Sonata in C Major dur­ing a 1986 recital Moscow. A beau­ti­ful piece. For good mea­sure, I’ve also added Horowitz play­ing Chopin’s 2nd Piano Sonata at the White House. Both clips have been added to our YouTube favorites.

A lit­tle some­thing for Neil Young fans. Right now, you can stream online (click and scroll down) his new album, Dreamin’ Man Live ’92. It’s a live per­for­mance of Young’s 1992 album Har­vest Moon, which itself returned to the sounds of Har­vest, Young’s clas­sic 1972 record­ing. A good find by About.com.

Image by Roy Ker­wood, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

The anniver­sary of John Lennon’s death jogged my mem­o­ry, remind­ing me of this lengthy 1970 inter­view. Con­duct­ed by Jann Wen­ner, the founder of Rolling Stone mag­a­zine, this impor­tant con­ver­sa­tion was record­ed short­ly after The Bea­t­les’ bit­ter breakup.

Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more. It’s not always flat­ter­ing, but it gives you a good feel for the man and the great artist.

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