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      Nick Gravenites, Mainstay of the San Francisco Rock Scene, Dies at 85

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      A blues devotee from Chicago, he tasted fame in the late 1960s with the Electric Flag, a band that made its debut at Monterey but proved short-lived.Nick Gravenites, a Chicago-bred blues vocalist and guitarist who rose to prominence during the explosion of psychedelia in San Francisco in the 1960s as a founder of the hard-driving blues-rock band the Electric Flag and as a songwriter for Janis Joplin and others, died on Sept. 18 in Santa Rosa, Calif. He was 85.His son Tim Gravenites said he died in an assisted-living facility, where he was being treated for dementia and diabetes.Mr. Gravenites grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where he was part of a cadre of “white misfit kids,” as he put it on his website, who honed their craft watching Chicago blues masters like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in local clubs. His colleagues included the singer and harmonica player Paul Butterfield and the guitarists Michael Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop; all four of them would go on to help fuel the white blues-rock boom that began in the 1960s.“Being a ‘bluesman’ is the total blues life,” Mr. Gravenites said in a 2005 interview with Sound Waves, a Connecticut lifestyle magazine. “It has to do with philosophy.”“The life in general doesn’t ask much from you in terms of personality,” he continued. “It doesn’t ask that you be a genius, or a saint.” Many bluesmen, he added, fell far short of sainthood: “They just ask that you be able to play the stuff. That’s all.”Mr. Gravenites sang with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. From left: Mr. Butterfield, Jerome Arnold, Mr. Gravenites, Sam Lay, Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield.David Gahr/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Nuanced, Unreleased Live Bob Dylan Cut, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Linkin Park, Halsey, Queen Naija and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Bob Dylan and the Band, ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’On Sept. 20, Bob Dylan will release “The 1974 Live Recordings,” the entire gigantic archive — 431 tracks — of his 1974 arena tour with the Band. Most of “Before the Flood,” the 1975 live album culled from that tour, had Dylan shouting brusquely through his 1960s classics. But he never performed a song the same way twice, and there’s far more melody and nuance in this version of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” from Madison Square Garden. With the Band in full rowdy roadhouse mode — J.R. Robertson’s twangy guitar jabs, Richard Manuel’s honky-tonk piano, Garth Hudson’s wheezy organ — Dylan delivers the lyrics in a long-breathed croon that merges defiance and tribulation. By the time he belts, “Goin’ back to New York City — I do believe I’ve had enough,” he’s earned the inevitable roar from the hometown crowd. JON PARELESCorinne Bailey Rae, ‘SilverCane’With the single “SilverCane,” Corinne Bailey Rae exults in the adventurous streak that she revealed on her 2023 album, “Black Rainbows.” It opens with a blast of noise and — over a parade-worthy drum thump — struts through an ever-morphing funk arrangement. The lyrics mention American towns (though Bailey is English) on the way to envisioning a future where “All the people shout hurray/There will be no more hate.” PARELESLinkin Park, ‘The Emptiness Machine’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      John Mayall, Pioneer of British Blues, Is Dead at 90

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      Mr. Mayall was best known for recruiting and polishing the talents of one gifted young lead guitarist after another, starting with Eric Clapton.John Mayall, the pioneering British bandleader whose mid-1960s blues ensembles served as incubators for some of the biggest stars of rock’s golden era, died on Monday. He was 90. The death was confirmed in a statement on Mr. Mayall’s official Facebook page. The statement did not give a cause or specify where he died, saying only that he died “in his California home.”Though he played piano, organ, guitar and harmonica and sang lead vocals in his own bands with a high, reedy tenor, Mr. Mayall earned his reputation as “the godfather of British blues” not for his own playing or singing but for recruiting and polishing the talents of one gifted young lead guitarist after another.“Blues Breakers,” colloquially known as The “Beano” album, featuring Eric Clapton was the debut studio album by the English blues rock band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, was released in 1966.DeccaIn his most fertile period, between 1965 and 1969, those budding stars included Eric Clapton, who left to form the band Cream and eventually became a hugely successful solo artist; Peter Green, who left to found Fleetwood Mac; and Mick Taylor, who was snatched from the Mayall band by the Rolling Stones.A more complete list of the alumni of Mr. Mayall’s band of that era, known as the Bluesbreakers, reads like a Who’s Who of British pop royalty. The drummer Mick Fleetwood and the bassist John McVie were also founding members of Fleetwood Mac. The bassist Jack Bruce joined Mr. Clapton in Cream. The bassist Andy Fraser was an original member of Free. Aynsley Dunbar would go on to play drums for Frank Zappa, Journey and Jefferson Starship.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Phil Wiggins, Virtuoso of the Blues Harmonica, Dies at 69

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      First as half of the duo Cephas and Wiggins and later on his own, he was one of the best-known musicians playing the style known as the Piedmont blues.Phil Wiggins, a harmonica player of such range that he could make his instrument sound like a clarinet one minute, an accordion the next and then an entire percussion section — all in the service of the complex melodies and steady rhythms of the style known as the Piedmont blues — died on May 7 at his home in Takoma Park, Md. He was 69.His daughter Martha Wiggins said the cause was cancer.For much of his career, Mr. Wiggins was best known as half of the duo Cephas and Wiggins, in which he performed and recorded with the guitarist and singer John Cephas. The two were considered one of the country’s top Piedmont blues acts, and they toured regularly at home and abroad for over 30 years, until Mr. Cephas’s death in 2009.The Piedmont blues is distinct from its Delta and Chicago cousins in its relaxed yet complicated melodies and its insistent rhythms. Its influences include gospel, Appalachian folk and early country music.Mr. Cephas played his instrument with the sophisticated fingerpicking typical of Piedmont blues. Mr. Wiggins would wrap all manner of counterpoints around it, then burst out in a solo that could be aggressive or restrained, tight or relaxed.“The harmonica works the same way as your voice,” he told Blues Blast magazine in 2021. “You have an idea in your mind that you want to express, and it just comes out, the same way speaking happens. In a lot of ways, it still feels that intuitive to me, except that, for me, the harmonica works better than my voice!”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kendrick Lamar Gets Inspired (by Drake), and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Miranda Lambert, Illuminati Hotties, Mabe Fratti and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Kendrick Lamar, ‘Euphoria’Beefs make rappers productive. Earlier this week, Kendrick Lamar dropped a new salvo in his recently rekindled feud with Drake: a six-minute, multipart rejoinder to Drake’s recent “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle.” It starts with Lamar rapping quickly but calmly over a smooth-jazz backdrop, taunting, “I make music that electrify ’em, you make music that pacify ’em.” But after he warns, “Don’t tell no lie about me/And I won’t tell truths about you,” the track changes to a tolling, droning trap dirge and Lamar’s delivery becomes biting, nasal and percussive. He switches from flow to flow with an accelerating barrage of attacks, professional and personal, from recording deals to parenting skills: “cringe-worthy” is a milder one. This track is unlikely to be the last round. Lamar posted a follow-up, “6:16 in LA,” on his Instagram Friday morning. JON PARELESMiranda Lambert, ‘Wranglers’The country queen Miranda Lambert commands an atmosphere of smoky guitar licks and smoldering defiance on her new song “Wranglers,” her first solo single since her 2022 album “Palomino.” Lambert spins a third-person yarn of heartbreak and revenge at something of an emotional remove during the verses, but there’s a welcome grit in her voice when she gets to the irreverent hook: “She set it all on fire, and if there’s one thing that she learned/Wranglers take forever to burn.” LINDSAY ZOLADZIlluminati Hotties, ‘Can’t Be Still’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dick Waterman, Promoter and Photographer of the Blues, Dies at 88

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      A “crackpot eccentric Yankee” from Massachusetts, he revived the careers of long-forgotten Southern artists during the blues boom of the 1960s.Dick Waterman, a beacon in the world of blues who as a promoter, talent manager and photographer helped revive the careers of a generation of storied purveyors of that bedrock American art form while lyrically documenting their journeys with his camera, died on Jan. 26 in Oxford, Miss. He was 88.His niece Theodora Saal said the cause was heart failure. A native of Massachusetts, he had lived in Oxford for nearly four decades.Through his company, Avalon Productions, which was considered the first management and booking agency devoted primarily to Black blues artists, Mr. Waterman provided overdue exposure — and income — to early blues luminaries like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House and Skip James.He also shepherded the careers of a younger blues cohort, including Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, as well as one young white artist, the singer-songwriter and future Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt.Mr. Waterman in 2003 in Oxford, Miss. A native of Massachusetts, he lived in Oxford for nearly four decades.Bruce Newman“Dick Waterman just may be the most knowledgeable man on the history of blues,” the music writer Don Wilcock wrote in 2019 on the website American Blues Scene. Mr. Waterman, he added, “sought out the originators of the genre, pulled them out of ‘retirement’ and presented them to a folk audience that to that point considered blues to be a footnote in the American musical history.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Red Paden, Juke Joint ‘King’ Who Kept the Blues Alive, Dies at 67

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      His unassuming Mississippi Delta nightspot is one of the last of its kind, giving blues musicians a welcoming venue and lately drawing visitors from around the world.Red Paden, who as the self-proclaimed “king of the juke joint runners” spent four decades as the owner of Red’s, an unassuming music spot in downtown Clarksdale, Miss., and one of the last places in the United States to offer authentic Delta blues in its natural setting, died on Dec. 30. He was 67.His son, Orlando, said the death, in a hospital in Jackson, Miss., was from complications of heart surgery.Juke joints, once commonplace across the Deep South, were the loam out of which blues music grew, a vast network of shacks, old shops and converted homes where traveling musicians would play a night for a share of the cover charge, then move on to the next gig.Red’s is the quintessential example: low-ceilinged and the size of a large garage, decorated with old music posters and lighted with neon signs and string bulbs (red, of course).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      The Best Songs Our Readers Discovered in 2023

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      Songs by Labi Siffre, Bessie Banks, the Brat and more that became invested with fresh meaning.A Liz Phair song offered some unexpected parenting advice to one Amplifier reader.Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times Dear listeners,A few weeks ago, I asked readers to share the best older song they discovered — or rediscovered — in 2023. As usual, the Amplifier community did not disappoint.Today’s playlist is a compilation of some of the best submissions along with your (condensed and edited) explanations of why these songs resonated so deeply. The track list is an eclectic mix, featuring rock, soul, jazz, hip-hop, folk, punk and just about everything in between. Quite a few of you introduced me to artists I’d never heard before, like the British singer-songwriter Labi Siffre, the Los Angeles punk band the Brat and the underrated North Carolina-born soul singer Bessie Banks. I’ll definitely be seeking out more music from all of them.I was especially struck by the stories about rediscovered songs. Sometimes a piece of music we’ve known for decades (or, in the case of one reader’s story about a Rosemary Clooney song, about as long as we can remember) boomerangs back into our lives with poetic and fortuitous timing. A classic Chiffons hit becomes an anthem for a freshly resumed relationship; a wry Liz Phair song becomes more earnest in the light of new parenthood. Some of these narratives are fun and playful, while others are powerful reminders of the ways that music can buoy us through our darkest times.Thanks to every one of you who submitted a song and a story. I wish I could have included hundreds of them, but I settled on these 13. Also, on a personal note, reading through them all provided a welcome distraction this week. Remember in Tuesday’s newsletter when I mentioned I was coming down with a cold? That “cold,” I learned shortly afterward, turned out to be Covid. So once again, like the earliest days of the pandemic, I spent my week in isolation — but at least I had all your submissions to keep me company.I hope today’s playlist helps you kick off 2024 right. Here’s to another year of music discovery!Listen along on Spotify while you read.1. Badfinger: “No Matter What”While wandering the aisles in a supermarket this year, I heard this song and launched a mini investigation into why it had such a Beatle-esque sound (answer: recorded at Abbey Road and released on Apple Records). Recently, I was pleased to hear it included in Alexander Payne’s movie “The Holdovers.” The harmonies and hooks really evoke the ’70s for me, just like that film’s nostalgic rhythms and interiors. — Cathy Boeckmann, San Francisco (Listen on YouTube)2. Bessie Banks: “Go Now”When I read that Denny Laine of the Moody Blues died, I immediately thought of his greatest hit, “Go Now.” When I went online, I found out that an American woman, Bessie Banks, recorded it first. It’s fantastic — no disrespect to Mr. Laine, but it is tremendous. Should have been a hit. — Finn Kelly, Long Beach, Calif. (Listen on YouTube)3. Labi Siffre: “Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying”It seems like a perfect encapsulation of the roller coaster that was 2023, pushing through a rainbow of emotions and holding close what matters most. It’s also just an excellent song from an artist that too few people know. — Jeremy Kotin, Milan, N.Y. (Listen on YouTube)4. John Prine: “Souvenirs”At 69, I am starting to think more about mortality and memories. This song evokes both. It also evokes the memory of Steve Goodman, one of my favorites, who recorded it with Prine. — Dennis Walsh, Media, Pa. (Listen on YouTube)5. The Chiffons: “One Fine Day”This song, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, resonated this year because a former girlfriend and I got together after being apart for many years, and we are now so happy! — Nick Lange, Cambridge, Mass. (Listen on YouTube)6. Liz Phair: “Whip-Smart”My wife and I had our second child this year, our first boy. I am constantly thinking about how to raise both of my kids in this world and then I rediscovered this song, which flips the script on centuries of raising macho, stiff-upper-lip boys. — Ryan Humphries, Millersville, Pa. (Listen on YouTube)7. Big Maybelle: “My Country Man”This song swings so hard and has an appreciation for proper farming technique. It is a welcome burst of elemental pleasure in a year with a lot of bleakness. No one can remain motionless with this on. — Brent Bliven, Austin (Listen on YouTube)8. Billy Bragg: “A New England”I like the lyric “I loved the words you wrote to me, but that was bloody yesterday/I can’t survive on what you send every time you need a friend.” It’s a short, cut-to-the-quick tune that I didn’t immediately take to, but now I’m always in the mood for it. — Kimberly Melinda Hogarty, Tucson, Ariz. (Listen on YouTube)9. The Brat: “The Wolf (and the Lamb)”The Brat were a Chicano punk band from Los Angeles that emerged in the early ’80s. As a fan of ’80s indie rock, I thought I knew all of the bands from that era, but this year I was astonished to hear this urgent, ferocious song for the first time. Had the Brat come around later, they likely would have been much bigger, but the music industry in 1980 was unwilling to accept a Chicano punk band with a female lead singer. Hearing this song, and this band, is a reminder of all that we’ve lost through the years when we ignore artists outside the mainstream. — Kelly Mullins, Seattle (Listen on YouTube)10. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: “Superrappin’”It’s such an influential track that has been name-checked, sampled and quoted by so many artists, yet I’d never heard it until hip-hop turned 50 this year. I think it does a great job of capturing the vibe of what I imagine hip-hop was like its first decade. It’s hype, it’s a party track, and when I listen to the song I can see Flash and the crew performing it live at a rec room party in the Bronx. — Jack Kershaw, New York City (Listen on YouTube)11. Doris Troy: “What’cha Gonna Do About It”Doris Troy was part of the original lineup of the greatest ensemble I had never heard of, the Sweet Inspirations, whose members included Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mother) and her nieces Dee Dee and Dionne Warwick. There’s something about the staccato piano combined with Troy’s elongated “I love you”s that reassures me that love isn’t fireworks — it’s the world they illuminate as they ascend and break up the darkness. — John Semlitsch, Austin (Listen on YouTube)12. Nina Simone: “Blues for Mama (Live at the Newport Jazz Festival)”This year has been a lot. War, rockets, drones: All that I could hear and see in Kyiv as a civilian resident. One might be amazed at how people can adjust. This is a song I discovered when I was riding my bike to the hospital in Kyiv where I work. It was a morning after some powerful explosions overnight. But there was also sunlight and spring, and the tune playing in my headphones, forcing me to smile. — Nazar, Kyiv, Ukraine (Listen on YouTube)13. Rosemary Clooney: “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”A young woman I know recently posted a photo of herself and her newborn baby girl on Instagram with Rosemary Clooney’s rendition of this Irving Berlin song in the background. When my mother passed away and I was only 4 years old, her older sister, my aunt Edie, sang this song to me often as she tucked me in for the night. It’s a bittersweet memory, but now, 71 years later, it still reminds me of how fortunate I am to have had so much love in my life. — Norman Reisman, New York City (Listen on YouTube)When they do the double Dutch, that’s them dancing,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Best Songs Our Readers Discovered in 2023” track listTrack 1: Badfinger, “No Matter What”Track 2: Bessie Banks, “Go Now”Track 3: Labi Siffre, “Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying”Track 4: John Prine, “Souvenirs”Track 5: The Chiffons, “One Fine Day”Track 6: Liz Phair, “Whip-Smart”Track 7: Big Maybelle, “My Country Man”Track 8: Billy Bragg, “A New England”Track 9: The Brat, “The Wolf (and the Lamb)”Track 10: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “Superrappin’”Track 11: Doris Troy, “What’cha Gonna Do About It”Track 12: Nina Simone, “Blues for Mama (Live at the Newport Jazz Festival)”Track 13: Rosemary Clooney, “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”Bonus TracksWant to get an absurdly early head start on your Best Songs of 2024 list? Jon Pareles and I have compiled our first Friday Playlist of the year, featuring some notable new tracks from Béla Fleck, A.G. Cook, Mary Timony and more. More