Good evening, Kibitzers! I see there’s another debate tonight, so it’s likely to be quiet in here. Come sit!
This evening, I’m almost done with the holiday leftovers. All the lentil soup is gone (I shared it with my brother), and the remaining bits of ham have gone into sandwiches and eggs and such. Done with the chicken pie, and even the last slice of panettone left from the party. Tonight (Monday), I’m having mac and cheese made with the ends of fancy cheeses that I stuck in the freezer when I got them home. I still have a bunch of frozen Chinese dumplings and buns, but they’re frozen, so perhaps I should save them for the onset of the Year of the Rat on January 25. What I’m saying is, it’s time to do a real grocery shopping.
But, as Arlo said, that's not what I came to tell you about.
I came to say that it’s T Bone Burnett’s 72nd birthday, and that’s a good excuse to fill up my diary with music to entertain anyone who’s had it with these debates. Are you not aware of T Bone Burnett? That’s okay. He’s a musician, but he’s better known as a music producer, and a composer of movie scores. The Wikipedia article linked on his name up there will make your head spin with all that he’s done, but here’s a short piece from PBS NewsHour with an overview and interview to give you an idea. He’s an interesting guy. (6:38)
”One thing I know is, all the best art is made by artists working at full autonomy.”
Here he is sitting in with his pal Warren Zevon in 1984.
And backing up Sara Bareilles, whose work he produces, two months ago.
But the rest of this is just going to be a big list of stuff he produced. Like for Counting Crows.
Roy Orbison.
Brandi Carlile.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
Los Lobos.
John Mellencamp.
Gregg Allman.
Tony Bennett and k.d. lang.
Elvis Costello (Burnett co-wrote this song; he also played electric guitar on the album).
Willie Nelson.
The Wallflowers.
Sara Bareilles again!
B.B. King.
Leo Kottke (here with Albert Lee also on guitar; Lee and Emmylou Harris on background vocals).
Soundtrack of O Brother Where Art Thou? (this track: Alison Krauss et al.)
Let’s wrap this up with Elton John’s collaboration with Leon Russell; Burnett has a co-writing credit on this song too.
I was considerably assisted in assembling this diary by a handy YouTube playlist I did not know about until I started hunting for songs produced by T Bone Burnett. It’s called “Produced by T-Bone Burnett”. Not everything here is from it, but also, by far, not everything on it is here.
Thanks for listening! What’s up with you today?
⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE MARIA 🌊 ⛈️
💥 AND 2020 EARTHQUAKES 💥
846 days since Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico
on September 20, 2017.
Puerto Rico and USVI are still struggling to recover.
And now,a swarm of earthquakes is adding to their misery.
PLEASE FOLLOW Denise Oliver Velez and the SOS Puerto Rico group for the latest news about developments in Puerto Rico and the USVI. Denise continues to collect resonant tweets on the subject, and post them in comments daily in the Abbreviated Pundit Roundup (APR) and twice weekly in the Black Kos diaries, to make them easy to retweet. If you tweet or FB, please share something about Puerto Rico and USVI regularly.
Find links to help HERE (now including earthquake relief).
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🐨 🔥 AUSTRALIAN FIRES 2019-20 🔥 🐨
Enormous bushfires have burned over 12 million acres in Australia, so far in that continent’s summer (which is far from over). The fires have forced widespread evacuations, and have been large enough to generate their own weather, including fire tornadoes and dry lightning that set more fires. Nearly half a billion (with a B) wild animals are estimated to have died so far.
Find links to help HERE.
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🚒 🔥 CALIFORNIA FIRES 2019 🔥 🚒
This piece from Wonkette is a pretty concise explainer about how climate change, overdevelopment, and greed are fueling the California fires. (Spoiler: failure to rake the forest doesn’t figure into it.) Even your dumbest FB friend can probably get something out of it.
Find links to help HERE.
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⛈️ 🌊 HURRICANE DORIAN 🌊 ⛈️
Denise Oliver Velez posts what news there is on the Bahamas in the APR thread. This Black Kos thread has coverage of the scale of the damage.
Find links to help HERE.
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