Tom Morello, Crosby & Nash Steal "E-Town" Show in Denver

David Crosby and Graham Nash did "Teach Your Children" and "Guinnevere" and reunited with James Taylor for 1971's "You Can Close Your Eyes," but musicians the audience had barely heard of took over Tuesday night's "E-Town" during the second night of the Democratic National Convention. The first were singer Irma Thomas and pianist Henry Butler — both New Orleans residents who left their homes after Hurricane Katrina. (Thomas returned a year ago; Butler lives in nearby Boulder, but Thomas vowed: "He'll be back — trust me.") They turned Denver's Temple Buell Theatre into some kind of church service, playing Thomas' gospel-and-blues-spiced "If I Had Any Sense I'd Go Back Home" and "River Is Waiting." Afterwards, coaxed by the show's host and founder Nick Forster, the duo closed with Thomas' pre-Stones "Time Is On My Side." Inspired, as the Nightwatchman, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello did two dark, sparse folk originals about New Orleans, including the title track of his upcoming album, The Fabled City. During a convention packed with live music, the 17-year-old save-the-environment public-radio show was sort of the concert keynote address, with Mayor John Hickenlooper, Gov. Bill Ritter and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. showing up for speeches and singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco lambasting the Bush Administration in "Our Next Bold Move." Elsewhere in the city Tuesday night, Melissa Etheridge sang and Nelly partied, but nobody left the three-hour "E-Town."

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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