Bartender's Blues

Vince Gill with James Taylor performing Taylor's song "Bartender's Blues".

Heart of Gold

James Taylor covering Neil Young's "Heart of Gold".

Jerry Goffin

To mark the passing of Jerry Goffin yesterday a couple videos of songs he wrote with his then wife Carole King.

Their first hit, "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" performed by The Shirelles



Aretha Franklin - "Natural Woman"



James Taylor - "Up On The Roof"

You Can Close Your Eyes

From about 20 years back, James Taylor performing "You Can Close Your Eyes" with Iris Dement singing harmony.

Mother

My last post was of Roger Waters and Eddie Vedder performing "Comfortably Numb", a song originally from Pink Floyd's The Wall album. Here is "Mother", another song off The Wall album, performed by Natalie Maines and Ben Harper. Maines—a Dixie Chick—just released her first solo album, and this is the title track. I am not sure if this is an appropriate song for Mother's Day weekend, but at least it is on topic.

The second song below is a Maines/Vedder duet of the James Taylor song "You Can Close Your Eyes", which I am including because this makes the second post in a row with an Eddie Vedder duet.

Mavis Staples/James Taylor

From a recent Kennedy Center Honors, Mavis Staples and James Taylor perform "Let It Be" and "Hey Jude".

Appalachian Christmas

A couple videos of songs from Mark O'Connors new release, Appalachian Christmas. At least part of these songs have been released on previous albums, but this is a collection of songs with vaguely Christmas themes.

Alison Krauss & Yo Yo Ma- "Slumber My Darling", as Stepenen Foster song.



James Taylor - "Ol' Blue"



Steve Wariner - "Now it Belongs to You"

Birds - Pt. 1

All this week, songs about birds.

"Mockingbird" - Carly Simon & James Taylor



"Little Bird" - Annie Lennox



"Birdhouse in Your Soul" - They Might Be Giants

Hard Times Come Again No More

Not many songs have 100 years of recorded history. The song "Hard Times Come Again No More" does though. This song was written by Stephen Foster in 1854. For obvious reasons it was popular during the Civil War.

Foster wrote many other songs that are still remembered, including "Old Susanna", "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Camptown Races". But "Hard Times Come Again No More" is probably that one that is recorded the most today.

This song was first recorded in 1905 by the Edison Male Quartet. You can hear that recording here.

Mavis Staples recorded this song for a recent album of Foster songs called Beautiful Dreamer - The Songs of Stephen Foster. Here is a video that was made of that recording.





James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer record the song for the album Appalachian Journey.





Here is an Irish version done by Dé Danann, with vocals by Mary Black and Dolores Keane.





And for good measure here is Bob Dylan covering the song.