Opposites: Awake/Asleep

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"A tad obvious" says our own Seuras, speaking of feathers and lead in his heavy/light post a few days back. The same holds true for any of the opposites we have poked at in this theme - "a tad obvious". My choice of awake/asleep is no less obvious, once we say it outloud, it is: "but, of course."

That said, I think I can say I now have a favorite song from The Band's oevre. I mean, there are several fine tunes over the 10 years from '68 to '78 that included Robertson in the band. But I particularly like the  - I'm going to call it a jangle - of the song. Maybe it's the semi-ragtime keyboards in the original recording? I like the sound almost as much as I like the lyrics. Just a few of them that are stuck bouncing around my head:

you will be hangin' on a string from your when you believe

you will relieve the only soul that you were born with to grow old and never know

I could wake up in the morning dead

And if I thought it would do any good I'd stand on the rock where Moses stood 

But then I came across a version that Rick Danko (the vocals on the original) shared, and -for me - the song gained further respect.

Another awake. I confess I have never really felt a reason to follow Katy Perry's music. I can see why some folks do and did, however. But when I see that she, too, has an awake song, I guess it's time for me to dig a little deeper than knowing that she's done some American Idol stuff. Her <Wide Awake> from 2012 sounds to me like most of what I have heard of her music/style ("...anthemic and often sexually suggestive...electro-pop...", per britannica)

As for the other side of the coin ("ah", he says a little belatedly, "another pair of opposites we have here"), let's go back to Abbey Road, 1969, pretty much the end of the Beatles as a band.

Golden Slumbers is one of eight short songs that make up the 16 minute track titled <Medley>. You know the song. It's the one that begins "Once there was a way ... to get back home ... sleep pretty darling do not cry ..."

Let's continue sleeping with a listen to the better known version of Mbube, the song originally from Solomon Linda back in 1939 - the one that you've probably heard the version of from The Lion King as well as this one from The Tokens. It's not particularly going to put you to sleep, but maybe you don't want to spend the night near a sleeping lion, whether you "hush my darling" or not.

And we'll wrap it up, although there's plenty more to cover, with an appropriately named band (that I again really don't know much about except their name, which fits the subject): Asleep At The Wheel. They've got a coupla songs that - besides their name - touch on sleep: Midnight in Memphis, and an album titled <Keep Me Up Nights> plus more, for sure (In My Dreams ...)

All That Jazz: Hubbin’ It

Asleep at the Wheel with Huey Lewis: Hubbin‘ It

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I couldn’t let this week’s theme go by without sharing some western swing with y’all. And I can’t think of a better way to do that than to feature Asleep at the Wheel paying tribute to Bob Wills. Huey Lewis, (Really? That Huey Lewis? Really!) is just a bonus.

Western swing is a hybrid of country music and big band swing. It arose in the 1930s and 40s. Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies are the pioneers of the style, but Bob Wills was the man who popularized it. Western swing was almost a fad and nothing more. By the 1950s, a song or two might show up in the repertoire of a Texas country artist, but nobody played it full time. I first heard of the style growing up. My father grew up in Oklahoma, and he would fondly reminisce at times about hearing Brown, Wills, and the Light Crust Dough Boys on the radio during his childhood. Then, in the 1970s, Asleep at the Wheel emerged. They were a band that was committed to reviving western swing, and they succeeded to the extent possible. The style is still not massively popular, but new bands have emerged, and country artists such as George Strait have had hits with western swing songs.

Hubbin’ It was written by Cindy Walker, and was a standard for Bob Wills and his band. Huey Lewis used to play the song with his band Clover before he became famous. In Clover, someone else sang the song, so this is the only recording of Huey Lewis singing it.

For the Birds: Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens

Asleep at the Wheel: Ain‘t Nobody Here But Us Chickens

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It’s always a pleasure to share some western swing from Asleep at the Wheel. The band was inspired by the pioneers of western swing music, especially Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. It was not unusual for those bands to adapt swing tunes to their style, and Asleep at the Wheel follows suit here. Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens was originally made popular by Louis Jordan.

Street Names: Route 66

In my house, the movie Cars is a great favorite with six year old son, and therefore the rest of the family knows the movie well. Fortunately, it’s a good one. There are two versions of the song Route 66 on the soundtrack. The one by Chuck Berry is not his best work; he even gets two of the town names wrong. And John Mayer is an artist I enjoy, but his version doesn’t do it for me either. But the connection between the movie and Route 66 does not end there. The town of Radiator Springs is an amalgam of landmarks on the real Route 66. Notably, the Cozy Cone Motel (shown above) is based on the Wigwam Motel, (below). The Wigwam was a chain, and there was even one still in operation in New Jersey when I was growing up. But many Wigwams could be seen along the length of Route 66. The song has been around a while, so there many great versions to choose from.

The Rolling Stones: Route 66

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You never forget your first one. This is how I first heard Route 66, and I thought for a while that the Rolling Stones wrote it. It still sounds great after all these years.

Asleep at the Wheel: Get Your Kicks on Route 66

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Much of the soundtrack of Cars had a country feel to it, so I think they should have used this great western swing version by Asleep at the Wheel. The musical style hails from Oklahoma and Texas, so its right on the way.

Nat King Cole: Route 66

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But where did the song come from? Bobbie Troup wrote it in 1946, and Nat King Cole was the first to record it. My introduction to the music of Nat King Cole was an 8-track tape of his crooning hits that my school bus driver played to death. I hate that stuff. But Cole started out as a jazz player, and his Route 66 reflects this. The crooning would come later.

Buckwheat Zydeco: Route 66

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A quick check of the map will confirm that Route 66 does not wind through Louisiana. But I came across this version while gathering the other tracks for this post, and I couldn’t resist. Enjoy! Or should I say, “Bon temps roullez!”

Trains: My Baby Thinks She’s a Train

Asleep at the Wheel: My Baby Thinks She‘s a Train

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My father grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the years leading up to World War II. This was before video games, before television even, and radio was king. Years later, my father could still recite from memory a radio ad for Carter’s Little Liver Pills. And the music he grew up hearing on the radio was western swing. My brothers and I may have been the only boys in 1960’s New Jersey who had heard of the Lightcrust Doughboys and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. After the war, western swing all but disappeared. It surfaced occasionally as a flavor used by country artists, but there were no bands solely devoted to playing it.

In the early 1970s, that changed. Asleep at the Wheel was a band that had its roots in Philadelphia (!), but eventually settled in Austin, Texas. And from the beginning, they were devoted to reviving western swing. For me, this meant that I could finally hear the musical style my father remembered so fondly from his childhood. And I loved it then, and I still do. So it should come as no surprise that My Baby Thinks She’s a Train was the first song I thought of when I saw this week’s theme.

Bonus Track:

Asleep at the Wheel: Choo Choo Ch‘boogie

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Choo Choo Ch’boogie was actually a more popular song for Asleep at the Wheel than My Baby Thinks She’s a Train. And it is also a better example of the sound of western swing. But it’s more of a train station song.