Leftovers: Cutlery (that Cuts) (and Alabama)/A Knife and Fork

Rockpile: A Knife and Fork
[purchase]

I took some time off from this blog over the summer, so for the Leftovers theme I’m trying to hit some of what I missed--and this post covers three in one!

I have to believe that more food is eaten from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day than any other similar period during the year. At least in my family, this period is filled with big family meals, parties, dinners out, and many, many cookies, thanks mostly to my wife, the master baker. As someone who struggles with weight and diet and the related health issues that this has caused, it seemed appropriate to write about this song, a cautionary tale about overeating.

My introduction to the song came from its inclusion on the only studio album released under the Rockpile name, Seconds of Pleasure, despite the fact that the musicians (Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, and Terry Williams) acted as the band for both Edmunds and Lowe on a number of solo releases. At the time of the album’s release, I remember being a little disappointed, despite the fact that there were a number of strong tracks, but as a fan of both Edmunds and Lowe, maybe I expected too much. I think that the critical opinion of the album has improved over the years, though.

What I didn’t realize until I started writing this was that “A Knife and Fork” is a cover—which is a little embarrassing for someone who sporadically contributes to a cover blog. It was originally written and performed by a mostly forgotten performer, Kip Anderson, back in 1967. The song was recorded at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (hey—that’s another theme that I missed), and was produced by Rick Hall. Check out the original version:


Look, I’m a big Dave Edmunds/Rockpile fan—ask my college roommates—and their cover of the song is good—I liked it then, and I like it now, although I was never a huge fan of when Edmunds’ voice sounds processed. But if you compare it to the more soulful, horn-filled original, the Rockpile version feels restrained. So, I have to say, the original is better. Because, in part, everything is better with a horn section.

Edmunds, to his credit, often covered obscure songs, giving them a new life—on Seconds of Pleasure, for example, in addition to giving Kip Anderson some royalties, he covered a lesser known Chuck Berry song.

Although I do expect to indulge during this festive period (and I already have), I hope that the situation isn’t as dire as the song portends.

Alabama: Alabama Bound

purchase [Doc Watson]

As I noted last post, the train is a classic element of music from the south -be it the blues or country. Whether it is the rhythm of the wheels on the rails that matches the musical beat, the role the railroad played in the escape from the south, the resemblance of the whistle and some of the sounds you can get from the harmonica or the loneliness that can come from being on the road.


Herewith 3 versions in somewhat chronologichal order of the classic that combines once again Alabama and trains:

Leadbelly:

Doc & Merle :

Arlo Guthrie

and just for silliness:

ALABAMA: 3

Don't know why this didn't come to me sooner. Possibly because I could never work out who Alabama 1 and Alabama 2 might be, and possibly because I always need a smartarse comment to blot my copy. But, let's run with this, who would be 1 and 2? There have been a number of groups with alabama in their title, but fewer with that as their only name. But there are two. Namely, Alabama and Alabama. Presumably the dissolute aggregate of reprobates that formed the Alabama 3, and of whom there were more than 3, named themselves in respect of that......

 Of course they didn't, but quite why they did  remains a mystery, with as much info as I can muster included here. Plus what I have learnt, in the time honoured tradition of near duplicable names, in the USA the band are legally required to be known as A3. Under normal circumstances they would, I guess, also be a mere footnote in the history of odd UK bands who dabbled in country and related, never western, world famous in Islington and the strange festivals that crop up on the fringes of the UK circuit. (See also the Rockingbirds.) But luck came a'knocking and a'knocking big, when, in 1999, the makers of The Soprano's chose their song as the theme.

The band came together sometime in the early 90, the 2 main front men, Robert Spragg (AKA Larry Love) and Jake Black (AKA the Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love), meeting at an acid-house party at a south London squat. Whether true or not, it's a great story, even if one the record companys struggled to buy into, most dismissing them as a novelty troupe. Not until 1997 did appear their debut, 'Exile of Coldharbour Lane', the title a play on the name of the Rolling Stones' 'Exile on Main Street', Coldharbour Lane being a historically disreputable road linking parts the South London Boroughs of Camberwell Green and Brixton. Many of their titles play similarly, with songs called 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlife' and 'The Devil Went Down to Ibiza.'

Chucking elements of country music into a blender with electronica and dance music might seem an unwieldy mix and it often is, and can often be a limited avenue to explore. There are few who have chosen any similar path, but, strangely, it is mid-period Chumbawamba, perhaps unsurprisingly on the same label, they remind me most, predominantly on account of the equivalently manic experience of the live show. For to get the point of this band requires the live experience, a maelstrom of lights, beats, flailing limbs and a feral audience at one with the ritual. I gave never been to a pentecostal church in the deep south, communing with serpents and talking in tongues, but my feel is that the frenzy therein may be kindred. It is no coincidence the early working name of the band was the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK), the title giving a hint of their ethos, along with the stage names outlined above. (The parentheses here make me chuckle, wondering if the legals team had found a similarly entitled US organisation. STOP PRESS, they did!)

Astonishingly the band have made it to 20, seemingly constantly on the road. Their last record, 'Blues', their 6th or 12th, depending on the degree of official attached thereto, came out in 2016, designed to bring in the feel of the delta blues the acoustic offshoot of the band had been touring alongside the bigger and noisier version. Whilst the album is the big band version of that, it, against expectation, works, showing off arguably better the genuine love and feel for the musical styles distilled in the band. When, suddenly, Jake Black died earlier this year, I felt this would be the death knell of the band, but far from it. Indeed, there is scarcely a mention of this on the band website, but his obituary does give a quote on the subject from his bandmate. They tour on, relentlessly.

Stuff.

Alabama: Mobile

Purchase [  Let It Rock]

If you had no other American reference to go by, you could be forgiven for confusing the pronunciation of the Alabama city of Mobile. There are at least 3 forms, but one is correct. 'Course, it's not the only US city name to throw the unsuspecting, is it?

Located on I-10 (which is inherently kind of a cross-roads -as are all of US Interstate hiway cities), Mobile, like the state itself is classic Deep South, and that includes the good as well as the better known bad. Hey, the city that lays claim to the first Mardi Gras must have (had) something going for it beyond the fact that it is the state's port city (AL doesn't have much coast anyway.)

While the city is hardly bereft of music recording studios, its better known role in music is more as a source of lyric inspiration. As in Chuck Berry's Let It Rock.
It doesn't appear that Berry experienced the train gang referred to in his lyrics, but, growing up in the South, he certainly had all the background necessary to put together a valid narrative incorporating the right themes in a song. And Alabama has gone back and forth on the use of chain gangs even after a mid-90s general halt to their use.

But rather than a song about gangs, trains or the deep south for that matter, it's a rock and roll song about how life is just plain tough, a song about the blues. And it sounds a lot like Berry's most famous song, don't it?

ALABAMA:THE BLIND BOYS OF

Being neither resident in the state, or even the country, my observations from afar lead me to feel Alabama doesn't get much good press, even in the medium of popular song. Especially in the medium of popular song. And when the only two positives come from Al Jolson and Lynyrd Skynyrd, you know you're in trouble. (Nah, I take that back about Skynyrd, I bloody love that song, but it only exists as an attempt to justify the place from the ire of others. But we all know that. Right?)

Moving swiftly on, there is one Alabama icon that really does make me gleam, that being this astonishingly lasting vocal group from the state. Granted it can not have been an easy start in life, born both blind and black below the Mason-Dixon line in the pre-war years of the great depression. But maybe, just maybe, being at the now anaethemically named Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind gave these boys a start they mightn't have otherwise achieved. For they were boys, just 9 years old as they gave their first concerts, in the school chorus as the Happyland Jubilee Singers. The idea of blind gospel singers seems somewhat of a lame trope these days, a cliche to fill gaps in our knowledge, yet it was actually quite a big deal back then, the Happyland Jubilee Singers getting their big break from a 'Battle of the Blind Boys' music competition. (Beat that, Simon Cowell, although X Factor does increasingly feel it is muscling in on disabilities.) Up against the Jackson Harmoneers, the publicity gave both bands a boost, as they became the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi respectively, touring both together and, sometimes, as each other. The Alabama version got a record contract and a hit, in 1948, and that was the end, all but, of the rival version.

Gospel was big in the 1950, and it was to this genre the boys stayed true. Original founding member Clarence Fountain had this to say about this decision. Of course, as the decades have rolled by, there have been many instances where they have seemed to sing of more secular themes, but never have they sung a lyric where an ambivalence about to whom the song is addressed cannot be drawn. Thus, as the 60s became the 70s, with R'n'B and Soul taking great strides through the white dominance of the day, so the Blind Boys were there, reminding all as to where these musical forms had a common home. (Indeed, how many of the giants in those styles hadn't started off in the church? Aretha and Al were certainly no exceptions.)

It wasn't because any of this I was drawn to the group, almost more despite the religion. I have little truck with it myself, probably since, as a teenager and when asked, ahead of having my appendix out, my father proclaimed me as heathen. (The nurse duly wrote that down.) But I do love a harmony vocal, but, rather the honey smooth, the more raggedy the better, think Lindisfarne and the Jayhawks, so when the Blind Boys starting cropping up on albums I was listening too, my attention was picqued. These were often tribute albums, whereby the great and the good would queue up to pass cover on their peers, such as Richard Thompson. And then came Solomon Burke's majestic comeback in 2002. So, when in 2004 they collaborated with Ben Harper, more so because of their involvement, this was a record I had to have: 'There Will be a Light'. And again, in 2005, with 'Atom Bomb', they having been now tucked under the wing of Peter Gabriel's Real World record label. Astonishingly, a full 50 albums into their career, suddenly they were hot property, filling concert halls both alone and in cahoots with musicians from all walks and at all stages of their careers. True, there have had to be changes along the way; there are none of the original 5 left, let alone performing, newer members snucking in seamlessly over the decades, different voices, different timbres, the overall sound, the overall performance remaining little changed. The current line-up does however still include Jimmy Carter, also a pupil at that Alabama Institute, but too young for their debut in 1939. Whilst a touring member ahead of that time, it was only officially in 1982 that he made his recording presence as a member. Nonetheless, his legacy with the originals is sufficient to consider him as one. Here's his take on it all. (Clarence, mentioned above and in the interview, died last year.)

I can't even begin to give full due acclaim to this wonderful institution, coming so late to their game, having to be born and whatnot, but, scattered both within the piece and below, enjoy some musical heaven.

Finally, and with enormous excitement, I can report I am finally getting to see them live, next month, at the Cambridge Folk Festival, here in the U.K., alongside Amadou and Maryam, blind husband and wife world music titans from Mali, who themselves met similarly, at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind. I cannot wait.

Any of these....