Sound Bites

Album Review: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders - GarciaLive Volume 22

Any one of the few people who witnessed Jerry Garcia fronting an unnamed quintet for two shows Sept. 25, 1971, in San Anselmo, Calif., would’ve been forgiven if they’d walked out not knowing the band had played “Imagine” and “Summertime.”

Both instrumental and neither sounding much like the respective John Lennon or Gerwshin songs they are, the tracks are now out - and identified - on GarciaLive Volume 22. The album, comprising both shows with just one song MIA, is credited to guitarist Garcia and keyboardist Merl Saunders, but also features former Creedence Clearwater Revival guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist John Kahn and Garcia’s Grateful Dead bandmate Bill Kreutzmann on drums.

This is the sound of Garcia transitioning away from his role as only the Dead’s frontman and toward the polymathic approach that would carry him toward Old & in the Way, Legion of Mary and the Jerry Garcia Band as the ’70s unfolded. And hearing him play alongside a traditional rhythm guitarist in the form of Fogerty is revelatory on its own as Garcia develops mainstream rock ‘n’ roll chops on the fly.

Garcia, Fogerty, Saunders, Kahn and Kreutzmann sound most like a working band on the slow-build balladry of “Biloxi,” which closes show No. 1 and show No. 2 opener “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” which previews the arrangement of “Big Boss Man” Garcia would bring to the Dead the following decade.

Fogerty and Garcia sing co-leads on “Baby What You Want Me to Do,” delivered in a slow shuffle not dissimilar to “Deal.” Saunders, meanwhile, is the bandleader on originals like the instrumentals “Save Mother Earth” and “Man-Child,” where Garcia previews what would become the Dead’s “Space” in the 1980s.

More jam session than ticketed concerts, the music on Volume 22 will fascinate Dead Heads for its freeform approach, obscure songs and unusual lineup. And Garcia’s take on “One Kind Favor” is another reminder the guy could play the blues with authority.

Grade card: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders - GarciaLive Volume 22 - B

“Rare Recording” Captures Walter Hyatt and Champ Hood Playing “Norwegian Wood” in 1970

- “The Beatles were a huge influence on Uncle Walt’s Band”

From the take-what-you-can-get department comes a snippet of Walter Hyatt and Champ Hood acting Fab while rehearsing “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” in 1970.

The informal home recording finds the future Uncle Walt’s Band mates doing their best to recreate with two guitars and two voices what the Beatles did with a studio, some guitars, a sitar and George Martin in 1965.

“The Beatles were a huge influence on Uncle Walt’s Band, but you never heard them covering the Beatles in their live shows,” read a descriptor on Uncle Walt’s Facebook page accompanying the “rare recording.”

The audio of the late musicians ends abruptly after Hyatt sings, It’s time for bed around the 70-second mark, leaving listeners to wonder how the balance of the song might have unfolded and whether Hyatt and Hood attempted other Liverpudlian songs that long-ago day.

Song Review: Widespread Panic - “And it’s Stoned Me” (Live, May 8, 2026)

Widespread Panic is perfectly capable of playing “Stoned” - with a big “S” - thank you very much.

As performed May 8 in Las Vegas and released on professional black-and-white video, Panic’s take on “And it’s Stoned Me” reveals fidelity to both Van Morrison’s original recording and the band’s own sonic aesthetic.

John Bell’s vocals are the most apparent lines in the Widespread fingerprints; however, Nick Johnson and Jojo Hermann enhance the Panicky flavor on guitar and piano, respectively. Johnson’s solo is particularly alluring as he balances restraint with intensity in the first instrumental break.

Taken in toto, Panic’s reading of “Stoned” is something of a breather, a chance for band and audience to catch their collective breath - perhaps inhale deeply - amid the energetic arc of a Widespread Panic performance.

Grade card: Widespread Panic - “And it’s Stoned Me” (Live - 5/8/26)

Colorized Version of “All You Need is Love” to be Released for Global Beatles Day, June 25

- Informal commemoration gets Apple Corps’ stamp of approval

After 17 years as an informal, fan-initiated movement, Global Beatles Day has Apple Corps’ stamp of approval.

Celebrated since 2009, GBD 2026 will be marked with the release of a colorized version of the Beatles June 25, 1967, performance of “All You Need is Love” for broadcast to 400 million people around the world.

It’s the first official release of the complete video, though it can be easily found online.

“More than ever, the message of the Beatles, and of ‘All You Need is Love’ speaks to something vital for community, connection, and the power of bringing people together,” Apple Corps. CEO Tom Greene said in a statement.

“That is what makes Global Beatles Day so special. It asks nothing more than for people, wherever they are, to stop, listen and share a little joy.”

Song Review: James Taylor - “Fire and Rain” (Live, July 16, 1999)

Though he always makes a point to fuss with his arrangements, James Taylor knows better than to mess too much with “Fire and Rain,” leading him to always sing the fade-out lyrics on stage as they were preserved on the recorded version.

So it was in July 16, 1999, at the Nice Jazz Festival, where fans greeted the opening notes with shrieks of delight and rewarded the performance with similar jubilation.

But Taylor did make some subtle changes, slowing the tempo a touch and giving Clifford Carter a lot of room on the piano. While Carter is a bit too busy, electric guitarist Bob Mann is the guy to listen to, as his tasteful, crying fills add more sadness to the already-terribly sad song.

Just sprung from Taylor’s vault, this performance video strikes a smart balance between keeping things interesting for the performer who pretty much has to play “Fire and Rain” every night and keeping it familiar for the fans who pretty much demand he play “Fire and Rain” every night.

Grade card: James Taylor - “Fire and Rain” (Live - 7/16/99) - B+

Stevie Nicks Gives $3M to USC Medical School

- Gift created the Stevie Nicks and Joseph Sugerman, M.D., Endowed Chair in Otolaryngology

Stevie Nicks has given $3 million to USC’s Keck School of Medicine in honor of the doctor who’s helped the former Fleetwood Mac singer care for her voice for decades, the Guardian newspaper reports.

The gift creates the Stevie Nicks and Joseph Sugerman, M.D., Endowed Chair in Otolaryngology and recognizes Sugerman’s “talent and insights” as an ENT specialist.

“Through late nights on the road, years of touring, hours in the recording studio, I always knew I could count on Dr. Sugerman to be there to help keep my voice healthy, just as he does for his other patients,” Nicks said in a statement.

The chair will be dedicated to “advancing vocal medicine,” said Sugarman, who added he was “touched and humbled” by the support of Nicks and other patients.

Darrell Scott Presents “Another Rainy (Sun)Day” Video

- Weekly series travels to New Orleans for episode 86

Think Darrell Scott ain’t a true bluesman? Consider this opening line from “Another Rainy Day:”

Woke up blue this mornin’

That’s as blue as you can be and Scott sung that line April 25 in New Orleans, a solo-electric rendering captured on professional video and released as the latest episode (the 86th) of “It Must be Sunday.”

Electric and solo, Scott is free to improvise musically and vocally. He colors outside the melodic lines without resorting to scribbles and uses his vocal range to go as low as he feels in delivering the lyrics.

This “Rainy Day” is yet another piece of the puzzle that is Darrell Scott, a polymath singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who’s as comfortable playing bluegrass in a rural setting as he is slinging the blues in urban environs.

Blind Boys of Alabama at Bicentennial Park, Columbus, Ohio, June 5, 2026

The Blind Boys of Alabama brought a sense of (Stevie) Wonder with them to Columbus, Ohio’s, Bicentennial Park, playing a variety of cuts from Songs in the Key of Life alongside a smattering of tracks in regular rotation in the Blind Boys’ sets.

The June 5 Celebration of Stevie Wonder gig kicked off the 2026 Scioto Mile Free Concert Series and the Blind Boys kicked that off with a rambunctious rendering of Key’s “Another Star.”

If there was one knock on this show, it was that the Wonder songs were slightly under-rehearsed, leading to a few uncharacteristic vocal lapses and harmonic miscues. Yet, the concert nevertheless did what all Blind Boys’ performances do, namely left their fans feeling better on the way out than on the way in.

Formed in 1939 and with a revolving door of membership ever since, the contemporary Blind Boys are centered around Ricky McKinnie, who joined the group in 1990 alongside co-founders Clarence Fountain, who died in 2018, and Jimmy Carter, who retired in 2023. The bandleader and onstage emcee addressed the crowd following the opener and said he was disturbed after watching television back at the hotel.

“We got some serious things going on in these United States,” he said before the band launched in to a couple of Blind Boys standards, beginning with the urgent sounds of “Praying Time.” This led to a funky rendering of “I Can See” that was so celebratory, it seemed McKinnie, Sterling Glass and J.W. Smith really could see.

Seven of the show’s 12 songs were In the Key of Life, including “Have a Talk with God,” which was tailored for the Blind Boys as much as their smart grey suits. “Village Ghetto Land” was set to synth strings and four-part harmony with the assistance of music director/guitarist/singer Joey Williams, the only sighted Blind Boy. The emphatic “Sir Duke,” meanwhile, overcome rough vocals owing to the Blind Boys’ emphatic dance moves and exuberance on the mic.

Between the covers were other Blind Boys standbys such as “Amazing Grace” set to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun” and “Heaven Help Us All,” a gospel plea written by Wonder (natch) for humanity to embrace its similarities. Backed by keyboards and rhythm section, the Blind Boys presented these songs exquisitely - they were flawless with a sense of in-the-moment joy not often seen on a concert stage.

Late in the 75-minute set, Glass took that joy into the audience with an assist from the band’s road manager. As he moved through the crowd, Glass sung, shook hands and danced with fans as he and his compatriots performed a fiery rendition of “I Wish.” When Glass returned to the stage, he removed his jacket, threw it to the ground and continued to dance on his own.

The singers, arms on one another’s shoulders, were guided on and off stage and returned to encore with a powerful version of Wonder’s Inversions track “Higher Ground,” replete with band introductions, solos and a special refrain:

We hope you had a happy, good time

We did.

Grade card: Blind Boys of Alabama at Bicentennial Park - 6/5/26 - A-

Setlist: “Another Star,” “Praying Time,” “I Can See,” “Have a Talk with God,” “Heaven Help Us All,” “Village Ghetto Land,” “Pastime Paradise,” “Amazing Grace,” “Sir Duke,” “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” “I Wish” E: “Higher Ground.”

See more photos on Sound Bites’ Facebook page.

King Crimson Releases Isolated Tony Levin Tracks to Mark Bassist’s 80th Birthday

- “Tony’s Interludes” culled from Sept. 8-10, 2014, performances in New York

One of Tony Levin’s distinguishing characteristics as King Crimson bassist is his “conspicuous lack of interest in showboating or grandstanding.”

So said producer Alex Mundy, who, given the dearth of Levin solos, isolated his tracks from Crimson’s Sept. 8, 9 and 10 performances of “Interlude” and combined bits of each of them to create “Tony’s Interludes” in honor of the musician’s 80th birthday, today, June 6, 2026.

The result is three minutes of well-chosen notes as Levin plucks and bows his standup bass with precision and a clear understanding of the importance of open spaces in music.

“Some players in the profession, when given the opportunity, might use a piece as open as ‘Interlude’ as a vehicle to display how quickly they can traverse the fingerboard or to place the breadth of their technical prowess firmly in the headlights,” Mundy said.

“However, when approaching any piece, Levin’s guiding principle is always ‘What can I do to serve the music?’”

He served it well. And now Mundy has served Levin - and his fans - well with “Tony’s Interludes.”

Sound Images: Blind Boys of Alabama at Bicentennial Park, Columbus, Ohio, June 5, 2026

Blind Boys of Alabama celebrated 50 years of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life with a free gig June 5 at Columbus’ Bicentennial Park.

Sound Bites would’ve gladly paid admission to witness this uplifting performance. Here are a few of the sights from the evening; come back to the blog later for a full review of the sounds and see more photos on Sound Bites’ Facebook page.

BEAT Goes on as Stick Man Tony Levin Turns 80

Low-playing Tony Levin’s numbers keep getting higher.

Born June 6, 1946, the bassist - currently touring Europe with his former King Crimson bandmate Adrian Belew as BEAT - turns 80 today and shows no signs of slowing his music-making pace. This, despite Robert Fripp’s decision to dismantle Crimson, with whom Levin played over four stints between 1981 and 2021.

The bassist, keyboardist and Chapman Stick innovator has played regularly with Peter Gabriel since 1977, was a member of Yes spinoff Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe, tours with Stick Men and counts recording and/or touring gigs with John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Buddy Rich, Peter Frampton, Carly Simon, Judy Collins, Chuck Mangione and James Taylor among many others in his multi-page resumé.

Levin is also a photographer and prolific blogger, chronicling his semi-anonymous, but altogether-seminal, life on the road.

He released his seventh solo album, Bringing it Down to the Bass, in 2024.

And BEAT goes on.

Song Review: Molly Tuttle - “Big Yellow Taxi” (Live, May 28, 2026)

Molly Tuttle did a number on “Big Yellow Taxi,” making the song her own without erasing Joni Mitchell’s fingerprints from the number.

As captured on video May 28 in New Hampshire, the performance finds Tuttle setting the “Taxi” in a key appropriate for her own vocal range and surrounding it in an arrangement that combines elements of rock and bluegrass music. There are drums.

The original melody remains but with extra space for Tuttle to show off her chops on acoustic guitar while showcasing her bandmates on mandolin, banjo and electric bass.

It’s a gutsy approach and one that works well as both homage and reimagination by a young artist who clearly has a bit of Mitchell in her DNA.

Grade card: Molly Tuttle - “Big Yellow Taxi” (Live - 5/28/26) - B-

Song Review: Jefferson Airplane - “Somebody to Love” (Live, 1970)

Fun fact: a piece of rarely heard music can be both fascinating and, frankly, pretty terrible.

Case in point is a newly unearthed Wolfgang’s Vault video of Jefferson Airplane performing “Somebody to Love” in an unidentified studio in 1970.

It’s fascinating because the band sets the ubiquitous Sumner of Love number to a different arrangement and stretches it to nearly five minutes without relying on solos to do so. Grace Slick, meanwhile, alters her vocal phrasing accordingly and improvises some lyrics while Marty Balin gives a tutorial in tambourine as essential instrument.

Things turn toward the terrible when Slick, Balin and Paul Kantner join for what is supposed to be a harmonious chorus. It is not at all harmonious, giving the Grateful Dead of this era a run for its worst-vocal-performance money on this one.

All of which makes this “Somebody to Love” a must watch - once.

Grade card: Jefferson Airplane - “Somebody to Love” (Live, 1970) - D

Song Review: Norah Jones - “Blue Bayou” (Live at Home)

From Roy Orbison to Linda Ronstadt to Leslie Mendelson and Bob Weir and on to Norah Jones, “Blue Bayou” continues to inspire singers.

Jones recently recorded and released a solo-piano arrangement of “Bayou” as part of her revived Live at Home video series. It’s informal and joyful as Jones reads - and occasionally stumbles over - lyrics from a sheet of paper set on her piano and plays a melody rooted in Orbison’s original and woven through with on-the-spot inspiration.

And Ronstadt - not Oribison or Mendelson/Weir - was clearly Jones’ inspiration, as she soars on the chorus.

“I’m no Linda but I did my best,” she says as the recital concludes.

Grade card: Norah Jones - “Blue Bayou” (Live at Home) - B

Song Review: Warren Haynes and the Asheville Symphony Orchestra - “Shakedown Street” (Live)

Too much. Too fast.

That’s the quick summation of Warren Haynes’ version of Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street” recorded live with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra and a band that included Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge, drummer Jeff Sipe, keyboardist John Medeski and a couple of background singers.

The pace is brisk - a little too brisk. ASO is unsubtle, overbearing even, as its flashy flourishes are more disco-dance floor than colorful nuance. And the background singers overplay their parts.

Haynes, as per typical, sings and plays Jerry Garcia’s parts with a smart mix of imitation and imagination. But it’s not enough to pull the song away from the things that plague it; that said, the audience goes bonkers at the end, so perhaps something was lost between the performance and its release.

“Shakedown Street” follows “Banks of the Deep End” from Haynes’ forthcoming (no release date) LP, Dreams & Songs.

Grade card: Warren Haynes and the Asheville Symphony Orchestra - “Shakedown Street” - C+

“Paul Simon: The Quiet Celebration Concert” Premieres June 26

- Live album to follow Oct. 9

Paul Simon’s Quiet Celebration tour is spawning a concert film and live album.

“Paul Simon: The Quiet Celebration Concert” debuts June 16 on Hulu and Disney+; the as-yet-untitled LP arrives Oct. 9.

Simon, who retired from touring in 2017, launched the tour in support of Seven Psalms in 2025.

“There’s been a feeling of camaraderie and elation that we were playing this piece of music that we were really interested in, and that had a significant effect on me,” Simon said in a statement to Rolling Stone magazine.

“It made for one of the most extraordinary tours I’ve done - maybe the most joyous.”

Song Review: Elizabeth Cook feat. Evan Felker - “Razorwire Wall”

If “Razorwire Wall” was credited to anyone other than Elizabeth Cook, it might be OK. But the middle-of-the-road country-rocker, with a Heartbreakers-esque arrangement and references to jail, trucks, Mama and moonshine, has none of the elements that make Cook, Cook.

Her twang is toned way down. And her lyrics, typically wry or devastating but always keen on observations of humanity, are trite as Cook and guest vocalist Evan Felker declare:

Boy I’ll drive this truck right through a razorwire wall/if there’s any doubt, they don’t know us at all

The track announces the Aug. 14 release of Great Television, which features Wynonna on “The Easy Kind,” also the title of Cook’s forthcoming film, and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” among its 11 tracks.

Grade card: Elizabeth Cook feat. Evan Felker - “Razorwire Wall” - C-