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In this episode of Hebrew Voices, The Last Bastion of Free Speech, Nehemia Gordon takes us on an extraordinary tour of Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park. Speaker's Corner is the most famous location for free speech in the world. … Continue reading → The post Hebrew Voices #104 – The Last Bastion of Free Speech appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.
Ginger Baker, the volatile and propulsive British musician who was best known for his time with the power trio Cream, died Sunday at age 80, his family said.Baker wielded his blues power and jazz technique to help break open popular music and become one of the world's most admired and feared musicians.With blazing eyes, orange-red hair and a temperament to match, the London native ranked with The Who's Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham as the embodiment of musical and personal fury. Using twin bass drums, Baker fashioned a pounding, poly-rhythmic style uncommonly swift and heavy that inspired and intimidated countless musicians. But every beat seemed to mirror an offstage eruption — whether his violent dislike of Cream bandmate Jack Bruce or his on-camera assault of a documentary maker, Jay Bulger, whom he smashed in the nose with his walking stick.Bulger would call the film, released in 2012, "Beware of Mr. Baker."Baker's family said on Twitter that he died Sunday: "We are very sad to say that Ginger has passed away peacefully in hospital this morning."His daughter Nettie confirmed that Baker died in Britain but gave no other details. The family had said on Sept. 25 that Baker was critically ill in the hospital.While Rolling Stone magazine once ranked him the third-greatest rock drummer of all time, behind Moon and Bonham, Baker had contempt for Moon and others he dismissed as "bashers" without style or background. Baker and his many admirers saw him as a rounded, sophisticated musician — an arranger, composer and student of the craft, absorbing sounds from around the world. He had been playing jazz since he was a teenager and spent years in Africa in the 1970s, forming a close friendship with the Nigerian musician-activist Fela Kuti.Ginger Baker (c) with Cream in 1967. Photo / AP"He was so unique and had such a distinctive personality," Stewart Copeland of the Police told www.musicradar.com in 2013. "Nobody else followed in his footsteps. Everybody tried to be John Bonham and copy his licks, but it's rare that you hear anybody doing the Ginger Baker thing."But many fans thought of Baker as a rock star, who teamed with Eric Clapton and Bruce in the mid-1960s to become Cream — one of the first supergroups and first power trios. All three were known individually in the London blues scene and together they helped make rock history by elevating instrumental prowess above the songs themselves, even as they had hits with "Sunshine of Your Love," ''I Feel Free" and "White Room."Cream was among the most successful acts of its time, selling more than 10 million records. But by 1968 Baker and Bruce had worn each other out and even Clapton had tired of their deafening, marathon jams, including the Baker showcase "Toad," one of rock's first extended drum solos. Cream split up at the end of the year, departing with two sold-out shows at London's Albert Hall. When told by Bulger that he was a founding father of heavy metal, Baker snarled that the genre "should have been aborted."To the surprise of many, especially Clapton, he and Baker were soon part of another super group, Blind Faith, which also featured singer-keyboardist Stevie Winwood and bassist Ric Grech.As Clapton would recall, he and Winwood had been playing informally when Baker turned up (Baker would allege that Clapton invited him). Named Blind Faith by a rueful Clapton, the band was overwhelmed by expectations from the moment it debuted in June 1969 before some 100,000 at a concert in London's Hyde Park. It split up after completing just one, self-titled album, as notable for its cover photo of a topless young girl as for its music. A highlight from the record: Baker's cymbal splashes on Winwood's lyrical ballad "Can't Find My Way Home."From the 1970s on, Baker was ever more unpredictable. He moved to Nigeria, took up polo, drove a Land Rover across the Sahara, lived on a ranch in South Africa, divorced his first wife and married three more times....
William Pullen is a fascinating guy. His story is an interesting one. I first became aware of William watching his Ted X talk about the work he does in his practice as a psychotherapist treating those with anxiety and depression issues using a mic of traditional talk therapy and doing what we all love - getting out and running with his clients. Check out William's Ted X talk here: https://youtu.be/Sq6393AreD4He and I did a lap of London's Hyde Park and the time flew by. The weather was fantastic and he made great company. I hope I get to run with him again.
Episode 86: Movie Review: “The Cure - Anniversary 1978-2018 Live in Hyde Park London” (2019) It’s been quite some time since Brian and Sarah published an “emergency episode” of the Permanent Record Podcast, but they both decided recent circumstances called for one. Our hosts attended a special screening of the Tim Pope film “The Cure Anniversary 1978-2018 Live in Hyde Park London” on July 11, and since they a) enjoyed the film immensely and b) are still on a “Cure High” after spending the month of May talking about the iconic album “Disintegration,” they decided to devote an episode to talking about the movie they just watched. It should come as no surprise that both Brian and Sarah very much enjoyed Tim Pope’s cinematic treatment of The Cure’s 2018 concert in London's Hyde Park, which took place almost exactly 40 years to the day from the first live performance by The Cure, at The Rocket in Crawley, England. Brian sets forth a plan for the two of them to break the 29-song setlist into groups of five songs each, with each host focusing on a particular song of each five-song group. However, as the discussion progresses, they both find themselves unable to limit their commentary that strictly, and they pretty much end up talking about almost every song. Read more at http://www.permanentrecordpodcast.com/ Visit us at https://www.facebook.com/permrecordpodcast Follow us at https://twitter.com/permrecordpod Check out some pictures at https://www.instagram.com/permanentrecordpodcast/ Finally, you can call Brian & Sarah at (724) 490-8324. "We're ready to believe you!"
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 1851 Great Exhibition. “Its grandeur does not consist in one thing, but in the unique assemblage of all things. Whatever human industry has created you find there. It seems as if only magic could have gathered this mass of wealth from all the ends of the earth.” So wrote Charlotte Bronte in 1851 after visiting the Great Exhibition set in the vast Crystal Palace in London's Hyde Park. By the time the exhibition closed, one quarter of the entire British population had visited Crystal Palace, the first pre-fabricated building of its kind, to marvel at an extraordinary array of exhibits there. Amongst them were the biggest diamond in the world, a carriage drawn by kites, furniture made of coal, and a set of artificial teeth fitted with a swivel devise which allowed the user to yawn without displacing them. The Great Exhibition was huge in terms of the development of British manufacturing, the burgeoning of a global consumer market, the development of museums and the international standing of Britain culturally and technologically. It was also a triumph for Prince Albert and it turned a tidy profit. How did the Exhibition crystallise a particular moment in early Victorian Britain? In what way did it capitalise on the dawn of mass travel and greater levels of international co-operation? How did fears of revolutionary Europe define the policing and organisation of the event? And how far, if at all, did the Great Exhibition go in blurring class distinctions? With Jeremy Black, Professor of History at the University of Exeter; Hermione Hobhouse, Architectural Historian and Writer; Clive Emsley, Professor of History at the Open University.