Friends, asking for a bit of help here. While I appreciate the continuing strong interest from all of you (FREE) subscribers, it’s harder and harder to reach new readers, thanks to politically-inspired partial suppression of my feeds at Twitter and Facebook—the new reality for many. But you might help attract more readers here if you’d take the trouble to “share” below, or “re-stack,” or post a link on your other outlets, or recommend to a friend in a good old fashioned email. Thanks again for your support!
As you may have read this week, there is a new version of “The Office” coming (to be set in Toledo, OH), with at least one former cast member, the character Oscar, returning…or is it actually this?
In music news: Columbia has released today another Springsteen tune from the forthcoming massive package of unreleased material. This one, “Adelita,” is quite different, with a mariachi feel, from an album “Inyo” that was to follow “The Ghost of Tom Joad” but never completed.
Per a press release, Inyo was written in 1990s California when Springsteen became interested in corridos and Mexican history due to ongoing border reporting. “It was a big part of your life,” he explained, calling Inyo one of his favorite albums. “Inyo was a record I wrote in California during long drives along the California aqueduct, up through Inyo County on my way to Yosemite or Death Valley I was enjoying that kind of writing so much.”
Meanwhile, Columbia is also marking the release this week, back in 1963, of Dylan’s breakthrough “Freewheelin” album, with this little trailer:
But they don’t mention that Dylan was set to “go electric” a few months earlier—and nearly three years before Newport—with this cut, which was released as a single at the end of 1962 (when Dylan was planning a bluesy album), quickly pulled, and not placed on the subsequent album.
From Tunes to Toons
TACO Thursday, from Steve Brodner:
We live in a joke country. Taco president and all.
Oh man, these cartoons are just dead on, one more cutting and clever than the next! I sure hope someone explains them to trump every Thursday. I mean I’ve seen Pulitzer grade work on this page now and in past weeks. Y’all keep up the genius work!