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Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Monday, April 07, 2014

John and Yoko Inteviews


As this year is the Beatles U.S. Invasion 50th Anniversary, I feel ok about one more post about John Lennon. If you are a John Lennon fan, you may already know about the Smith Tapes. Now is the time to order your set of these interviews.

Never before released on CD, an 8 disc set of the five iconic conversations between John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Oscar winning film director, broadcaster and Village Voice journalist Howard Smith. These conversations took place between 1969-72 and the original tapes remained buried in the back of Smith's West Village loft for 40 years.

Smith Tapes: I'm Not the Beatles: John and Yoko Inteviews Audio CDs
Pre-order -- will be released on April 15, 2014
Click here to order Smith Tapes: I'm Not the Beatles: John and Yoko Interviews

These CD's include "discussions about music, love, creativity, peace and politics, following the couple's evolution from the Beatles into revolutionaries."

Beatles U.S. Invasion 50th Anniversary

Other posts you might like:
Today we remember John Lennon 
Remembering John Lennon


Saturday, April 05, 2014

Happy

You have probably heard this song already. It's everywhere these days. "Happy" comes from the film Despicable Me 2 soundtrack., for which Pharrell helped create the soundtrack.

Both the film and “Happy” were nominated for an Academy Award  for best animated film and best song.

Pharrell Williams - Happy (Official Music Video)

"Clap along if that's what you wanna do!"  





Updated 5/1/17

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Today We Remember John Lennon

Today we remember John Lennon on the anniversary of his death. John Lennon's music was part of the background music of my life when I was young. The Beatles' lives and careers paralleled what was happening to baby boomers like me across the country and John was the smart articulate one.
"The Beatles were simply the biggest thing in the world, short of nuclear fear. They represented a sea change -- in music, in culture, in democracy itself. They weren't always comfortable with having that effect. 'People said the Beatles were the movement,' Lennon later said, 'but we were only part of the movement. We were influenced as much as we influenced.' True, but the Beatles were a key part of that movement. They represented youthful hope, and they represented the new social power that rock & roll might achieve -- a power not only to upset but to transform. The world was changing -- or at least it felt that way -- and the Beatles served as emblems of that change." ~ Mikal Gilmore, Music journalist writing in Rolling Stone
To many of us, John Lennon's death felt like a personal loss. Why? Henry Marchand, Assistant Professor of English at Cedar Crest College, answers this question so well:
" Why? Because John Lennon mattered. He was smart and he was funny and he was arrogant and he was a man who loved what he loved and who hated what he hated with utter clarity and no apology at all. He would have been an important voice in the Reagan eighties, and if he was with us today...it's hard to envision him quietly suffering..."
"Give Peace a chance"...we remember the man who wrote the words, and who wrote  "Happy Christmas/War is Over." We remember how it felt when he died. Now 30+ years after his death, his music and message endure. Lennon's iconic "Imagine" became the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album of his solo career and was one of the 100 most-performed songs of the 20th century. "

Imagine - John Lennon (Original video with lyrics included)




Imagine John Lennon
Imagine CD
"The song ranked number 30 on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of the 365 Songs of the Century bearing the most historical significance."  
  "It earned a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll."  "Rolling Stone ranked it number 3 in their list of  'The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time'...Emeli Sandé recorded a cover for the BBC to use during the end credits montage at the close of the 2012 Summer Olympics coverage in August 2012." 
"I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one imagine freedom." ~ John Lennon     

Read more about "Imagine" on Wikipedia Click Here       


John Lennon
John Lennon
In The Cynical Idealist: A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon the author and artist Gary Tillery credits Lennon with making significant contributions to many modern spiritual movements.   
The reviewer writes "Cynical Idealist reveals, for the first time, the spiritual odyssey of this extraordinary man. Out of a turbulent life, from his troubled, working-class childhood throughout his many roles — Beatle, peace advocate, social activist, househusband — Lennon managed to fashion a philosophy that elevates the human spirit and encourages people to work, individually and collectively, toward a better world." 
"Imagine all the people/Living life in peace" 
Check out Remembering John Lennon 
Visit the Imagine Peace Tower site. Click here 

Edited 5/1/17

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Sing For Your Health

Café Singer Edgar Degas
Café Singer
Edgar Degas
GNU Free Documentation License

A friend of mine posted on her FaceBook page a poster extolling the health benefits of singing which inspired me to write todays article. Here's a tip! Try singing and chanting for your health!

Singing, laughing and chanting make the sternum (the breast bone) vibrate which stimulates the immune system as the oscillations boost the thymus, a small gland in the chest behind the sternum which controls the production of the body’s key defense cells called T lymphocytes. When you sing or shout, pray or chant, laugh or listen to music, whether it be recorded or played live by many musicians, the Thymus is stimulated.

The early Greeks referred to the Thymus as the "Seat of Life Energy", but western medical science has not always understood the function of the thymus gland. Now the thymus is recognized as a gland closely related to the immune system, stress, and general well-being.  It directs life-giving and healing energies of the body, and is strongly influenced by an individual's physical environment, social relationships, food and posture.

The thymus becomes smaller and smaller with age and almost disappears in the end. It is largest and most active during the neonatal and pre-adolescent periods, but by the early teens, the thymus begins to atrophy.

Some researchers believe that different infections and cancers in old people are closely linked to the decline in T lymphocyte production. Hence, stimulating the thymus in some way either through laughing, chanting or singing can be helpful in maintaining or improving health as we age or experience illness.

Chinese Medicine uses Tapping the Thymus to help stimulate the production of T-cells, which are primary immune factors. Practiced daily, tapping will also increase the size of the thymus.

Vibrations in the throat also stimulate the Thyroid, the gland which produces hormones that regulate metabolism and the body’s energy consumption and body weight.

So now you know! The Fountain of Youth was inside YOU all the time. Keep laughing and singing for a long and healthy life!

What do you do to stay young and healthy?

Learn more about Chanting

Edited 4/30/17

Monday, December 07, 2009

Remembering John Lennon



By 1980, former Beatle John Lennon had become an icon for the anti-war movements of the 1970s. His music embodied the struggle for peace and love amidst the horrors of war and destruction.

On December 8, 1980, Lennon emerged from his Manhattan apartment after five years of living in seclusion with his family. A fanatical fan, Mark David Chapman, obtained Lennon's autograph outside his apartment and then shot him dead.



Read more Remembering John Lennon
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Edited 12/8/15