The Johnny Winter auction

[uwe]

Arrrgh, sorry! I always get Long Island and New Jersey mixed up. Which is unforgivable, I know.



I saw Joel only two weeks ago or so. The (other) American Songbook, no less. It was a great gig, but I wish he'd start writing songs again. "River of Tears" is from 1993! More musically varied than Springsteen I dare say (live, the E-Street Band has become a stadium pleasing one-trick-pony bludgeoning everything with little nuances). After everyone of his beautiful love songs - and he has a couple - he'd quip "but that didn't last long" or "oh, and then we divorced" or "divorcing her was REAL costly".

He must have some real demons with him.

[slinkp]

No harm done... Honestly LI and NJ have a lot in common, though to talk to locals they might as well be Mars and Venus.

I have got to an age where I'm no longer embarrassed to admit I love Billy Joel.  While I've never seen him live, and I fell out of fandom around the time of An Innocent Man (harmless and boring for the most part) and  gave up on him completely after "We Didn't Start the Fire" (one of those songs that proves every genius comes out with a real pile of insufferable crap once in a while... see also "I Just Called to Say I Love You").  But I still utterly love "Nylon Curtain" and everything before it.  And I still think the live "Miami 2017" was a brilliant song and performance.

I wish he'd write more songs too, I think he's got good ones left in him.  I should give "River of Dreams" a try, I hadn't come around to liking him again when that one came out.

[uwe]

"I Just Called to Say I Love You"

Good point, when I first heard that I did wonder whether Stevie had really written all those musically smart and great songs before. That song was bad enough for The Captian and Tenille to have refused it.

River of Dreams (the album) is not a piece of ingenuity, but it has its gems.

[Dave W]

Now don't you go criticizing the Captain & Tennille. Who else could have made Muskrat Love a Top 10 hit?

[uwe]

Ok, I acually liked them for this:



Nice, playful snyth bass!

[mc2NY]

Geez Uwe......"I get LI and NJ MIXED UP" ?!?!

One easy way to tell the difference......Close your eyes in each of the two locations and take a deep breath.

NJ FKIN STINKS!!!!!!!!  Plus they have red dirt. And "da Mob"

LI has spoiled rich kids with no values, from their parents handing them $50,000 cars when they turn 16 y.o.

...and lots of infamous a-holes who grew up there like, Joey Buttafucco (and Amy Fisher,) Lindsay Lohan, Alan Baldwin (and his less famous brothers,) Howard Stern, Mariah Carey, Rosie O'Donnell. It something in the water....good for bagels and a-holes.

However, Billy Joel is one of the good guys.

[slinkp]

We also got Pat Benatar, and a somewhat dubious claim on Joan Jett due to the Blackhearts having lived here for a while.

[Dave W]

Back to the auction, here are some of the more interesting results.

'64 Firebird $160,000

'65 Firebird $60,000

'63 Firebird $120,000

'66 EB-0 $3,250

Cowboy hat $14,000

Johnny's beard $1,400

[uwe]

Johnny didn't earn that much when he was (still) alive (and well).

[Dave W]

I would think he topped that over his whole career. Still, that's an awful lot to pay for memorabilia.

Johnny's Erlewine Lazers were passed. Not sure what that means, maybe they didn't reach a minimum bid.

[uwe]

Hopefully. He spend the 70ies mostly in a drug daze and had bad management for an awful long time in the 80ies and 90ies when he was in a medication daze sustained by his then management.

Had that envisaged power trio worked with Cozy Powell on drums and Rick Derringer on bass (Powell wanted Derringer on bass, but Derringer didn't want to play bass except on the sessions, so Powell - never a man with patience - took his hat), he might have earned a few Dollars more. That would have helped fill stadiums for a while.