It's been an interesting couple of days here as we experienced our first significant snowfall of the year. I think there are still portions of the area that are still working on digging out. I know that crews have been working on restoring power to various areas over the past couple of days.
It was a wet heavy snow that brought down a lot of trees and utility lines. Then it was followed by another couple inches of lighter powdery lake effect snow, and finally after all that was finished, the cold temperatures moved in. Nothing like they get out in the northwest or up in Canada, but still pretty significant.
-20 degrees fahrenheit is nothing to mess around with!
I took this photo on Saturday evening after the bulk of the store had moved through. The clouds were finally starting to break up and it looked like we might get a hit of the sun setting in the west. It gave me some pretty interesting shots with the yellow from the sun contrasting all the white. As pretty as the woods behind us are in the summer when they are all green, I think I prefer the white of winter.
Maybe not the temperatures though.
If you haven't guessed, based on the title of the post, the theme for this weeks #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze is "cold".
With so many songs fitting that theme, it's going to be interesting to see what I come up with this week. Even I haven't settled on my third song to share yet, so it will be as much a surprise for me as it is for you!
I've had the distinct privilege of seeing Chris Stapleton live twice. The first time he hadn't even released or possibly written this song "cold". It's actually one of my favorite songs of his now that it is out. It lends itself really well to his voice and later in the song it gives him a good opportunity to show his guitar chops.
I think part of what I like about this song is the fact that it kind of builds. If you read my post last week, you know that is something that I kind of enjoy. It never really gets faster, but the intensity definitely ramps up the further he goes into the song.
Chris Stapleton is pretty amazing if you aren't familiar with a lot of his work. It's well worth your while to dig into some of the other stuff he has done. Definitely branch out beyond the hits that you might have heard on the radio.
He is an accomplished songwriter who has written many hit songs for artists that you never might have realized. He also used to be part of a band called the Steeldrivers. They have some really good stuff out there. It leans a little more towards bluegrass, but if you can handle that, you will certainly enjoy it.
As I watch the video back, I'm actually a bit impressed with the quality of it. That has to be at least 4K or something like that. I don't think I've ever seen a YouTube video so sharp. I honestly don't watch a ton of YouTube though!
A long long time ago I bought a CD from the service that I was subscribed to on a whim. It was later in my life and long after The Band had probably broken up, but I was in that phase where I was exploring different music that I had missed growing up. At the time, the names of the individual members of The Band didn't really mean much to me, but now knowing what I do, I can understand how this might have been considered a "super group".
Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, etc. were just a handful of the great members of the group. While Canada isn't exactly in my backyard, it's not too far away. I remember "Acadian Driftwood" was one of my favorite songs from that CD and it continues to be even today.
Sure, I love "The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down" and "Cripple Creek" which might be more familiar to many of you, but "Acadian Driftwood" will probably always be my favorite song by The Band.
I apologize for the quality of the video, but I wanted to give you an idea of just how old this band is. It's no wonder it took so long for them to get on my radar as I was just a baby when this performance took place!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Feel free to find better versions of them performing it if you want, but this live performance holds pretty well to the album version.
As I said, there are a ton of directions I could have went with this theme, but since we are talking about snow storm in Michigan, it felt only right to include a band from Michigan. Sure, I could have thrown out Madonna's "Frozen", but I wanted to go a little alternative and share The White Stripes with you.
I got to see the Meg and Jack a long time ago when they were just getting started. They were playing a show at an outdoor park in Detroit with another newer band called The Strokes. The amphitheater at the park sits right on the Detroit River and is named after Aretha Franklin.
It was a long time ago that I saw them play, if I remember correctly the album that this song is from "Elephant" hadn't even been released yet.
"In The Cold, Cold Night" just felt like a fitting end to this post about the cold. It's pretty amazing to imagine what these two were able to accomplish with basically just a drummer and guitar player in the band. It's actually quite sad that they had to part ways, but Jack has went on to accomplish some pretty amazing things on his own. As for Meg, I'm not really sure what she ended up doing.
I'll admit, this probably isn't their most technical or complex song, but as I said, it just felt like it would fit really well.
I hope you dig it!