Robert Baird

It's sweet! It's vocals! It's Christmas!

Joe Walsh before the Eagles . . .

Even better than the STAX museum in Memphis however, is the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. I had friends in Nashville give me the whole rap about… “You don’t have to even know the music to love the museum”…to which I rolled my eyes, but it’s actually true. The CMH integrates music so beautifully in the museum. It could be an utter disaster in there musically, with listening stations bleeding into each other until it’s just a cacophony of noise. But through the intelligent uses of curled Nautilus shell shaped listening booths that control the sound yet still allow the listener to hear what they’ve chosen, the CMH is a model of keeping the music nearby yet allowing folks to look at cases of artifacts and talk among themselves without being blown out by music playing.

Now that O.J.'s come out with his TV interview and his book, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. The DVD/CD tie-in. How about a soundtrack album featuring OJ enthusing about he "may" have done it. Or a tribute record: "Song for OJ." Or possibly "OJ sings the hits of …" Don’t laugh (or gag). Anyone unbalanced enough to write this book, presumably for the money, no matter what it's doing to his children, is ego-blind enough to think he could make it in the music business. Hey, he's already been an actor.

Heard a fairly scary rumor this week that I'm trying to confirm. Supposedly, you now only need sales of 50,000 units to jump into the upper third of the Billboard album charts. Consider that number against the fact that the two largest selling albums ever, Thriller and the first edition of the Eagles Greatest Hits have sold something north of 25 million copies and you get some idea of how shocking this stat is if true.

Had the old boy lived past the ripe old age of 27 (thank you tequila and morphine), Gram Parsons would have turned 60 last week on November 5.

Would a reputable chain like Newbury Comics be selling LPs, of super well-known titles, that were cut from CDs or some other compromised source?

It was described to me as an “art piece.”

Back at the Barcelona Jazz Festival, after many espressos, a hunk of Cod, potatoes with olive oil mayo and tomato sauce, grilled mushrooms, and some of the best cookies I’ve ever had (thumb sized sugar cookies with chocolate centers), I made the trip to several record stores including Jazz Messengers, which has perhaps the finest collection of live jazz CDs and some LPs, in the world. If you’re feeling strong, pay down a credit card and then check out their website, www.jazzmessengers.com. They ship to the States, I checked. I picked up a CD of Clifford Brown’s final concert in Norfolk, Virginia, which was recorded in 1956, the week before his tragic death at age 26 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The tenor player on the date was Sonny Rollins. Max Roach, Brownie’s friend and constant musical companion was on drums. It’s a legendary concert that has never been available in the US and needless to say I am thrilled to finally have a copy.