STEVIE WONDER

"Stevie Wonder," I think, is the least imaginative title for a post I've come up with yet. But on the other hand, it's Stevie Wonder: you don't need to say much more. I just love the guy and his music.

Unfortunately, I missed out when tickets went on sale for the concert he is playing tonight at Madison Square Garden. And, of course, they sold out really quickly. So, I'm not going. Which is a big time bummer.

Still, in the weeks leading up to this show, I've been listening to a lot of his music, sort of as a prayer vigil in hopes that tickets would somehow materialize. That fact is, it's always good to listen to some Stevie. He truly is on of the greats. I don't know if it is cliche at this point to talk about how 1976's Songs In The Key Of Life is just one of the best records ever. But that's one that I always go back to. I have it on vinyl: it's a double LP, but it came with a bonus 45". That's unbelievable: a double album wasn't enough for him, and he didn't want to hold on to the other songs for his next album. He was 26 years old at the time. And it was like his 20th album.

I always love to sort of turn people on to non-"greatest hits" songs from iconic artists. In Stevie's case, there are a bunch of them - which is crazy, when you consider how many huge hit singles he's had. From his early days, I love "A Place In The Sun" and "Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday." From the '70s, there's like an embarassment of riches: "I Believe (When I Fall In Love With You It Will Be Forever)" is one of them. I love the richard nixon bitch-slap of "You Haven't Done Nothin'," which, today, sounds like it could've been written about w. Another song that not a lot of people cite is "As," from Songs In The Key Of Life. It's such a great love song, and it kind of works for any kind of love. I remember when we hired the band for our wedding, they asked if we wanted them to learn any songs for us, and I asked for "As." "No problem!" I was like, "Are you sure, it's a pretty long, pretty complex song..." They ended up playing the CD version. I actually told Stevie Wonder this story, and he laughed (more on that below). I'd read that he has said that "As" is his best lyric. Another one I love is Stevie's version of Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind." He first recorded it when he was 15, and years later he performed it at the Dylan tribute concert in 1992. The performance is just so moving, and in my mind he kind of owns the song. Oh yeah, one more: "Love's In Need Of Love Today," which opens Songs In The Key Of Life. He also performed it at the post-9/11 telethon America: A Tribute To Heroes.

So, my meeting with Stevie. I got to interview him at the Grammy Awards, I think it was 2005. I was packing up my VH1 crew to go to the edit when I heard he might talk to us. "Wait!" We set back up, and then Stevie Wonder appears in the door of our one-on-one room. I was told he would answer one question. Luckily, no one told Stevie that. It wasn't the longest interview, but I'll never forget it. A weird thing happened: at these events, when you do an interview, there's a ton of people in the room: everyone from VH1, and the artists publicist, maybe some label people, management, other people from their entourage. Stevie came by at the end of the night, everyone was beat, and no one was in the room except for me, him, and two members of my crew. We were chatting while the crew was setting up, I told him the "As" story, asked him about his next album (he said he was finishing it up, the album was A Time To Love) and he says "How old are you anyway?" He was surprised that I knew so much about him. I told him that I saw his last New York concert at Radio City Music Hall in 1994 or 1995, and that I'd never seen such a wide mix of young and old, black and white people at a concert, and he smiled.

Another thing about these interviews, is that you usually have people telling you that your time is up. But there was no one in there to do that. But after a few minutes, I thought I shouldn't take advantage of the situation, and said, "Stevie, I could talk to you all night, but I know you gotta go." Then I realized, he can't just get up. I walked over to him, and he held my arm in both hands as I led him out the door. I just couldn't believe it, and I have chills writing about it right now.

Well, I'm still bummed about missing the show tonight. But I feel blessed to have seen his Radio City concert, and to have had a conversation with the man, brief as it was.

"HEY MAN, THAT SUIT IS YOU!"

So, this week I went to see Van Halen' s reunion tour with David Lee Roth. I'd seen some of Dave's solo shows in the '80s, but never Dave with VH, and none of the non-Dave versions of the band.

Truth be told, I probably hadn't listened to any Van Halen at all in a really long time. Earlier this year, when it was announced that they were going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I started listening again. And in the weeks leading up to this concert, I started yet again. It really is amazing how well thier music (from the DLR-era) has held up. In the course of six albums, they hardly had any bad songs - Van Halen, II, Fair Warning, Women & Children First, Diver Down and 1984 - they were just great albums. I think for a long time I sort of lumped them in with hair metal, and kind of decided that I wasn't into them anymore. Well, listening to them over the past few weeks has made me realize what a great band they were.

The show was a lot of fun. I bet any singer of any Van Halen tribute band probably sings better than Dave - but they wouldn't be better than Dave. What I mean is, his charisma and stage presence is so undeniable, and is such a huge part of the band's vibe. So what if he couldn't hit all the notes. The show was really satisfying. Unlike The Police, they weren't trying to stretch the old songs out, or show how they've grown, or whatever. I'm a bigger fan of The Police, but I think Van Halen's show was much better.

What surprised me most was the vibe between Dave and Eddie Van Halen. They seemed to be loving playing together again: it was almost like they were wondering, "Why did we ever break up? What the hell were we fighting about anyway?" That rapport definitely took the show to the next level.

I don't think any fan was happy with the way things went down with Michael Anthony: Ed essentially kicked him out of the band, and replaced him with his 16 year old son, Wolfgang Van Halen. Michael was there from day one, and Ed's rationale for ditching him was that Michael was playing with Sammy Hagar's band. I think there's no doubt that Michael would have dropped everything to do a VH tour, and Sammy has said he would have had no problem with that. Sammy has even said that Eddie was trying to boot Michael since their Van Hagar reunion tour a few years back. The only positive thing about it was that Eddie was totally enjoying playing with his son, and the 16 year old kid really rose to the occasion.

My only complaint was during the synth-heavy 1984 songs "Jump" and "I'll Wait," Eddie didn't play keyboards - yet you could hear keyboards. Either they had someone playing backstage (which is corny) or they were playing to canned backing tracks (also corny). I know that there were canned backing vocals (Ed and Wolfgang sang backing vocals, but it was obvious that they were singing with recorded backing vocals - The Police did the same thing, by the way), I was OK with that, sort of. But they keyboard thing bugged me a bit. Also, Ed's guitar solo and Alex Van Halen's drum solos were both too long.

Anyway, great show, and I hear they're extending the tour. I don't know if I'll go again (I imagine it would be the exact same show as I saw this week - they didn't leave out many songs), but I'm glad that I saw it at least once.

A GOOD TIME TO BE A DYLAN FAN

A lot of cool Bob Dylan stuff going on lately.

1 - The 3-CD compilation, Dylan. Not many artists can have a 3 CD "best-of" which still has tons of omissions. The best starting point for people who want to know what the big deal is (and it makes The Essential Bob Dylan obsolete).

2 - Mark Ronson's remix of "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)." It's the first time Dylan has let anyone remix his music. Ronson is the guy who produces Amy Winehouse - yes, she has a great voice, but his production is why the records have that awesome vintage sound. As he did on her album, on this remix, he uses The Dap-Kings, who really have that vintage soul sound (their main gig, if not their best paying one, is as Sharon Jones' backing band).

3 - The upcoming film, I'm Not There, a biopic starring a number of different actors, including Christian Bale, Richard Gere and even Cate Blanchett as Dylan. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

4 - The I'm Not There soundtrack. It has a big indie-rock slant, which is cool: Dylan's music should be as welcome towards the margins as it is in the middle of the page. Still, it's weird to hear Pavement's Stephen Malkmus - a guy who isn't the most passionate singer I've ever heard - warbling though venomous songs like "Maggie's Farm" and "Ballad Of A Thin Man." It's like weird karoke. Eddie Vedder doing "All Along The Watchtower" is a bit obvious... so much so, I'm surprised he did it. But I hope he brings that one back to Pearl Jam. A big highlight is Mark Lanegan doing "Man In The Long Black Coat." I guess that one is a bit obvious too, but man, he nailed it. Calexico is an indie group that I've been impressed with. I liked the song that they did with Roger McGuinn, "One More Cup Of Coffee," but their best contribution on the album was backing Willie Nelson on "Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)." I really liked the album that Willie did with Ryan Adams last year - I'd love to see what he would do with Calexico. Some other highlights: Cat Power's "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again" (which suprised me, as I've never been knocked out by her, I think she's using Al Green's band on this one) ; John Doe's "Pressing On" (I'd never heard the song before), The Hold Steady's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window," and The Black Keys' "Wicked Messenger." And Dylan's "I'm Not There," which I'd never heard before.

5 - Perhaps most exciting was the project that seemed to get the least amont of hype: a new DVD, The Other Side Of The Mirror: Live At The Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965. It's all footage of Dylan's performances at the legendary folk fest, both on the "main stage" (don't know if they called it that back then) and also at "workshops." You've read it before: the evolution that the guy went through in three years is pretty incredible, as is the way people reacted to him. The set he does in '65 with a rock band is as punk as anything I've ever seen. People are just booing him. I can't imagine what an artist like that could possibly do in 2007 to upset their fans that much.

I'd love to add a "#6" to this list - hopefully Bob is working on new music. Last year's Modern Times was my favorite album of the year. On the other hand, if that's his final album, it's a great "last word." And there's lots of archival material out there. I'd love to hear some live recordings from the '90s: I went to lots of shows in the '90s, and despite the bad rap Bob had for his shows, the ones I saw were pretty incredble.

BLIND FAITH REDUX?

I think it's pretty cool that Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood are going to be doing some concerts together: my understanding is that these aren't co-headlining gigs. Rather, they're going to be playing together.

I think it's been impressive how both of these guys have had enduring careers through the '60s, '70s, '80s and even '90s.

After playing with The Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith and Derek & The Dominoes, Clapton in the '70s became a middle of the road mellow rocker, which was probably pretty appropriate for where he was at that time in his life. Phil Collins produced some of his '80s albums, which haven't aged well, but they pointed him towards the boomer adult contemporary market that VH1 mined so well at the time. Clapton's commercial peak probably came with 1989's Journeyman. John Mayer once told me that that was the best thing Clapton had ever done. I would disagree, but it was a huge album at the time. He followed it up with the Rush soundtrack, which included "Tears In Heaven," and then the Unplugged album and then his Babyface collab, "Change The World." He hasn't really made any records that I've been excited about since then, although I liked his Robert Johnson tribute albums.

Winwood is sort of easy to overlook, because he has a pretty laid back personality - he doesn't seem to have the charisma of many of his peers, although he has more talent than most of them. Not only is he a great singer and songwriter, he's incredible as a keyboardist and guitarist. Like Clapton, he was in some pretty cool bands: The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith, Ginger Baker's Airforce, and Traffic again before going solo. His solo career took off in the '80s, starting with Arc Of A Diver, on which he played every instrument himself. But his biggest album was Back In The High Life. Like Journeyman, it had a load of hits and videos, and seemed to bring him to a more "adult" phase of his career.

Unlike Clapton, Winwood didn't seem to mind the idea of reuniting with old bandmates, and in the mid-'90s he reunited Traffic with drummer/singer Jim Capaldi. I don't know if the album was that great, but I saw their tour, and I thought they were great.

But like Clapton, after a while, Winwood seemed to lose his direction a bit. At some point, VH1 moved on from playing new music from boomer artists, and no radio format would play thier new music anymore. In 2003, Winwood returned with a very Traffic-y album called About Time. I remember seeing him at the Austin City Limits festival that year and being blown away. (I'd seen Winwood do a club show a few years earlier, and wasn't too impressed). He was doing what he wanted, he had a good album of songs to perform, it was cool.

I saw some footage from Clapton and Winwood's set from the Crossroads festival, I thought it looked pretty hot. I may try to get these tickets - of course, they'll probably be out of my price range. But it would be cool to see them. I regreted missing the Cream reunion shows at the Garden a few years back, but I almost think I'd rather see this show than Cream.

TALK ABOUT THE PASSION!

I wonder if R.E.M. have tarnished their legend by continuing as a band after drummer Bill Berry left. It seems like every time they put something out, people are so quick to point out that they aren't as good as they used to be.

Fair enough - their albums since Bill left aren't as good as the ones that they recorded while he was still in the band. And of course, bands tend to lose a bit of thier magic after ten years or so.

Still, people seem to attack new R.E.M. releases with a particular venom. As if the band betrayed them or something. The fact that they would release their first live album - but that it was recorded on a recent tour, not during the Bill Berry era - probably doesn't help. I think that the album is pretty solid, though, and highlights the fact that some overlooked songs, like "I Took Your Name," "So Fast, So Numb" and "Final Straw" are, in fact, good songs.

I have to admit, I was hoping that Bill Berry would rejoin the band, at least temporarily, after he performed with them at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year (they also recorded John Lennon's "#9 Dream" for the Instant Karma Amnesty International album). I was bummed when I realized that that wasn't going to happen. Still, I hear that their next album is going to be more rocking. I, for one, look forward to hearing it. I'm looking forward to a great R.E.M. album. But if it isn't a five star deal, I won't take it personally.

PRINCE: "NO PHOTOS 4 U!"

OK, I'm sure I'm like the millionth person to come up with that headline. And I'd also like to point out that in the following post, I do not use any images, authorized or otherwise, of The Artist Whom I Am Writing About.

Prince, one of the greatest artists of all time, has proven to be an innovator, not only as an artist, but as a businessman. Selling his albums with concert tickets, bundling his albums with a weekend newspaper, offering fans subscriptions to his music... he's always taken innovative approaches to getting his music to the fans, often bypassing record labels to do so.

Like any other artist who bypasses the major label system these days - including The Eagles, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead and Madonna - he would not be in a position to do that without the fanbase that he built through the major label system. I don't think that any of these artists would claim that they would be able to make a living at what they're doing - much less live a very comfortable lifestyle as a result - without the muscle of the major labels. The labels empowered them to cultivate huge fan bases.

It's kind of mind blowing to me that Prince is now suing his fan base: particularly some Prince fan sites that are using his images, lyrics, album covers, etc. True, they may be copyrighted images and lyrics, but these sites are non profit, and anyway, it's 2007. You should be so lucky to have fans who are dedicated to do all that work to create an online shrine to you.

This doesn't - in my opinion - take away from Prince's great music. But still, lighten up dude. You can read more about this at Prince Fans United. And again, at no time were any images of said Artist used in this blog. And if the royal purple lawyer squad is reading this, and you don't want me to use His name - by all means, let me know. I can change it to "The Guy Who Did The Soundtrack of The First Batman Movie," or "The Guy Who Played That Awesome Guitar Solo During 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' At The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony A Few Years Ago," or something else like that.

"I HATE THE F@#$IN' EAGLES!"

In The Big Lebowski - one of my favorite movies ever - "The Dude" yells at his cabdriver: "I hate the f#$%in' Eagles!" The Dude was a big Creedence Clearwater Revival fan, but the cab driver took Don, Glenn and co. pretty seriously, and unceremoniously threw The Dude out of the cab.

(I wonder how the guys in the band took that? Joe Walsh has a pretty warped sense of humor, and Don Henley once joined Mojo Nixon onstage for Mojo's classic "Don Henley Must Die," so I guess at least some of the members can laugh at their own expense.)

Anyway, I'm not a huge Eagles fan, but I don't hate them. And I'd like to offer them congratulations: their first new album in 30 years, Long Road Out Of Eden, is the #1 album in the country. The album was sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, and sold over 700,000 copies (well more than what Springsteen's Magic sold in it's first week).

This is cool for a few reasons: one, it clobbered the first week sales of the new album by Britney Spears. I hate to jump in with all the people who rip on her all the time, but she deserves it. She exemplifies America's junk culture. Another cool thing is that, like an increasing amount of older artists (and not-so-old artists, like Trent Reznor and Radiohead) The Eagles have decided to bypass the major label system. I have lots of friends at major labels, and while I think the labels do great work with reissues and box sets and stuff like that, they seem not to be too interested in artists that have been around for a long time.

Finally, Don Henley knew what he was getting into with Wal-Mart - I know he had some conditions about their enviornmental practices, and since they've become a little more "green," he was OK with going into business with them. Which is a good thing.

I like some of Don's solo music, and I usually find myself 100% with him when it comes to politics, whether he's talking about the government or major labels.

So, congratulations, guys. And thanks for keeping Britney out of the #1 spot.