Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan
It's Bob Dylan's 80th Birthday and that reminded me of this incident. - DH It was December 1977 or 1978 and I was driving from Madison to Minneapolis with April and Rachael to visit our families for Christmas. We stopped in Menominee to pick up April’s brother, Dean. Around midnight I stopped at the Big Steer truck stop outside of Osseo, Wisconsin, to get some coffee so I could make the next hundred miles to the Twin Cities. I saw a new red Cadillac in the parking lot. We sat in a booth and ordered. Dean, who was sitting across ... [Read More]
Don Heffington, Lone Justice drummer and session musician for roots stars, dies at 70
I had the pleasure of working with Don Heffington on two albums, Crooked Hearts and Roots and Branches. Don was a consummate professional. He arrived ahead of time, set up his drum kit, and was ready to roll when most of us were still tuning up. The long list of artists lucky enough to hire Don for percussion reads like a who’s who in roots and Americana music. In the studio Don was low-key and serious, but I remember when we knocked off for lunch while recording at Sunset Sounds, Don asked me why I changed the tempo of “A ... [Read More]
Op-Ed: Why L.A. shouldn’t rename a stretch of Figueroa Street for Kobe Bryant
By Darryl Holter, William Estrada and John Echeveste Los Angeles Times | Dec. 6, 2020 Whether with a bulldozer or stroke of a pen, Los Angeles often shows little respect for its multilayered history. To most motorists, Figueroa, Pico and Alvarado may just be major and meaningless congested streets that crisscross the city, but their significance is deeply ingrained in the rich history and diverse cultural heritage of Los Angeles. A case in point is the controversy surrounding Figueroa Street, one of the city’s earliest and longest streets, stretching in two segments nearly 30 miles across Los Angeles, from the ... [Read More]
Love and the Shorter Work Week
Yesterday one of my dear old friends from Madison, Dave Poklinkoski, sent me an email telling me that he had heard my recording of “Love and the Shorter Work Week” on the radio. I was surprised since I haven’t heard or played that song for nearly fifty years. I dug up the lyrics and was struck by how relevant they are for today. So I pulled my old ’55 Martin off the wall and recorded the song with a little intro and no rehearsal. After nearly half a century I though it sounded pretty good. DH ... [Read More]
San Francisco’s iconic City Lights bookstore on verge of closing
San Francisco's iconic City Lights bookstore on verge of closing Sad news. Another victim of Coronavirus might be San Francisco’s venerable City Lights Bookstore. Like other bookstores in California, including our Chevalier’s Books in LA, it has been shuttered since March 16 and may not survive. I’ve always loved City Lights and never visit SF without stopping to browse the poetry section or the incredible collection of Beat Generation literature upstairs. I stay at a hotel near Union Square, walk through Chinatown up to City Lights, buy a book or two, walk across Jack Kerouac Alley, enter Vesuvio's Bar, order ... [Read More]
2020 Vision: A New Song for a New Year
2020 Vision by Darryl Holter
Watch Darryl Holter’s Performance & Presentation: Life During the Great Depression in Southern California
Darryl Holter’s Performance & Presentation: Life During the Great Depression in Southern California From October 26, 2019 at The Glendale Public Library. Darryl Holter sings Woody Guthrie songs and shares stories from Guthrie's time in Los Angeles. Presented in partnership with the Natural History Museum. Darryl performs several unrecorded and virtually unknown Guthrie songs written for his radio show including “Downtown Traffic Blues”, “Big City Ways”, “California, California”, and “Hooversville.” Darryl also shares stories from Guthrie’s time living in Los Angeles.
Performance & Presentation at Glendale Public Library
The La Crescenta Valley New Year’s Flood of 1934: Life During the Great Depression in Southern California Join local artist Darryl Holter on a musical odyssey of Glendale’s weather history. Holter sings Woody Guthrie songs and shares video commemorating the 1934 Crescenta New Year's Day flood. This video features Darryl singing Woody Guthrie’s Los Angeles New Year’s Flood and includes archival images provided by the Natural History Museum’s Seaver Center for Western History Research. Images of the flood from the Library’s Glendale History Room will shed light on the history of the flood and its impact on local residents and ... [Read More]
Rolling Thunder Revue
In his new documentary, Martin Scorsese revisits a famous Bob Dylan tour that included Joan Baez and Allen Ginsberg. Martin Scorsese’s belated film on Bob Dylan’s “Rolling Thunder Revue” in 1975 is a cinematic gem. We see Dylan joined once again with stunningly beautiful Joan Baez, their duets recreating the magical connection that propelled Dylan to stardom in the 1960s. Joni Mitchell’s incredible voice and fine guitar work offers a backstage performance of “Coyote”. Allen Ginsberg provides poetry as this rag-tag troupe of post-hippy personalities crisscrosses the Northeast, spreading songs from one of Dylan’s best albums, Blood on the Tracks. ... [Read More]
Tony Glover, Master of the Blues Harmonica, Is Dead at 79
Tony Glover was an incredible blues harpist and a major figure in the music scene in Minneapolis. Mick Jagger and John Lennon learned to play blues harp from Tony and his “Blues Harp” book. In the late ‘60s Tony took over the all-night “underground” shift at KDWB AM. While Dave and John were outgoing, Tony was quiet and reserved with a great radio voice. - DH Tony Glover, Master of the Blues Harmonica, Is Dead at 79 By Richard Sandomir | New York Times | June 5, 2019 Mr. Glover, left, with Mr. Koerner at the Newport Folk Festival ... [Read More]
Darryl Holter grew up playing the guitar and singing country and rock and roll songs in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His current brand of Americana music draws from country, blues and folk traditions and often tells stories about people, places and events.