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Music News: Chicago gets Muddy Waters mural by Minneapolis Dylan mural artist

A Muddy Waters mural by Kobra, in Chicago
A Muddy Waters mural by Kobra, in Chicagovia Muddy Waters on Facebook

by Jay Gabler

June 07, 2017

The city of Chicago is getting a new mural featuring Muddy Waters, the father of Chicago blues. The mural, which will be officially unveiled Thursday before this year's Chicago Blues Festival, was painted by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra, whose signature style will be familiar to Minnesota music fans: Kobra painted the massive Bob Dylan mural in downtown Minneapolis. (Billboard)

Speaking of Bob Dylan, the pianist who performed the accompaniment to Dylan's taped Nobel lecture has come forward. He's Alan Pasqua, a jazz pianist who played on Dylan's albums Street-Legal (1978) and Bob Dylan at Budokan (1979).

Pasqua says that Dylan's manager called and asked him to record a half-hour of music similar to that which played behind Steve Allen — the founding host of The Tonight Show — while he interviewed guests. Pasqua sent over a two-minute sample and the manager replied, "This is totally what we're looking for. Bob loves it." Pasqua then had only a day to record the finished music. (New York Times)

Woodstock site gets historic designation

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. That name might not ring a bell for music fans, but the center's campus occupies the site that was home to the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969. That history was key to the designation, said Cuomo, who called Woodstock a "pivotal moment in both New York and American history." (Billboard)

Manchester music for charity

Noel Gallagher, who was criticized by people including his brother Liam for missing last weekend's One Love Manchester concert, has announced that he plans to donate his royalties from the Oasis song "Don't Look Back In Anger" to the concert's charitable fund. Chris Martin later defended Noel Gallagher, saying that it had always been clear Noel would be unable to attend the concert and his participation had never been announced. (Billboard) Update: Liam is now donating his royalties as well.

Ariana Grande has released her live recording of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as a fundraiser for the victims of the May 22 attack. The song, which was written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg and immortalized by Minnesota native Judy Garland, was Grande's closing number at the Sunday benefit concert. (Billboard)

Eddie Vedder pays tribute to Chris Cornell

Eddie Vedder took a moment at Pearl Jam’s concert in London on Tuesday to pay tribute to the late Chris Cornell. The remarks, as transcribed for a Pearl Jam fan site, are below. (Rolling Stone)

Sometimes it's hard to concentrate these days. I was thinking about the history of this building and the Bowie history. So I started to think about that and my mind began to wander. It's not a good...

So I haven't really been talking about some things and I kind of... now it feels like it's conspicuous because I lost a really close friend of mine, somebody who...(applause).

I'll say this too, I grew up as 4 boys, 4 brothers and I lost my brother 2 years ago tragically like that in an accident and after that and losing a few other people, I'm not good at it, meaning I'm not...I have not been willing to accept the reality and that's just how I'm dealing with it (applause starts).

No, no, no, no

So I want to be there for the family, be there for the community, be there for my brothers in my band, certainly the brothers in his band. But these things will take time but my friend is going to be gone forever and I will just have to...

These things take time and I just want to send this out to everyone who was affected by it and they all back home and here appreciate it so deeply the support and the good thoughts of a man who was a ... you know he wasn't just a friend he was someone I looked up to like my older brother.

About two days after the news, I think it was the second night we were sleeping in this little cabin near the water, a place he would've loved. And all these memories started coming in about 1:30am like woke me up. Like big memories, memories I would think about all the time. Like the memories were big muscles.

And then I couldn't stop the memories. And trying to sleep it was like if the neighbors had the music playing and you couldn't stop it. But then it was fine because then it got into little memories. It just kept going and going and going. And I realized how lucky I was to have hours worth of...you know if each of these memories was quick and I had hours of them. How fortunate was I?! And I didn't want to be sad, wanted to be grateful not sad. I'm still thinking about those memories and I will live with those memories in my heart and I will...love him forever.

Brian May opens Queen Monopoly game

Brian May is very proud of the new Queen edition of Monopoly — as you can tell by the 18-minute unboxing video he just released. "This is about Queen live...you're out there, facing the challenges that people actually do face on the road," says the guitarist. "Monopoly has always been about pursuing money...but in this case, you're also pursuing excellence in your craft." (Spin)