My previous post, I interpreted the current theme as covers of a jazz classic. Here, a jazz band (well ... jazz-fusion) doing covers of music from the 70s.
One of my favorite jazz-fusion groups is Spyro Gyra. Their music is kind of easy to listen to - not the kind of jazz that requires you to work hard. And while I recognize that there is a place for that kind of musical experience, it's generally not my favorite experience: I prefer accessible melody.
I don't keep track of what most bands are doing on an ongoing basis and I had my doubts that they had ever done any covers - mostly not their "thing". But wait ... no ... There's their <Vinyl Tap> album: all covers in their jazz/fusion style. The band has been around in various configurations since 1974, and this collection from 2019 was their 31st.
A number of prominent reviewers express scepticism that the band could pull off an album of covers - but they do. Remarkably well. All of them filled with unexpected notes- the essence of jazz.
And, while you really should go out and get yourself a copy of the whole album, we can give you a handful right here. And then maybe you'll head out a buy it for the rest.
I have not been the moderator here for quite some time now. Usually, that doesn’t make much difference, but it does with regards to our new theme. I have some ideas about how to treat the “Incompetent” part, and I will be presenting at least one of those as we move on. But I am not sure what was intended. Perhaps it is better not to know, but rather to put forward one’s own interpretation, which should make this a fascinating theme. But the “Can’t” part is easy enough. Can’t Find My Way Home immediately came to mind, and no wonder. The song is almost fifty years old now, and it continues to be covered in new and interesting ways. That is a fine definition of a classic.
You could say that the song deserves to be obscure. The lyric is barely there, consisting of only one verse and a chorus. The words express a sense of helplessness, and there is no resolution to this, no solace offered. But that is, in a way, the point. For all the idealism of the hippies who embraced the song and made it a hit, there was always a sense that they were fighting something they could not stop, something that was just too big for them. Of course, it did not hurt that the song was by a new supergroup. Blind Faith featured Steve Winwood from Traffic and Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker from Cream, and both of those groups had just broken up. Only bass player Rick Grech, then with the group Family, was relatively unknown. But Blind Faith was not popular just because of their lineup, nor was it simply the fact that they were one of the first supergroups. The talent that came together for this project delivered the goods, and it is ultimately the performance of Can’t Find My Way Home that makes it work, and has made the song an inspiration to musicians ever since. The song has brought together unlikely groupings of musicians for some great performances, so I wanted to include some of those.
Bonnie Raitt with Lowell George: Can’t Find My Way Home
In 1972, Bonnie Raitt was making wonderful blues-based music, but she was far from well known. Lowell George and his band Little Feet were just getting started themselves. Raitt would record her own solo version of Can’t Find My Way Home, although I couldn’t find it on any of her albums. But this version comes from a radio broadcast in New York City. Either Raitt or George could be playing the acoustic guitar or the slide guitar on this one, and there is also an acoustic bass part played by Freebo. This spare treatment really brings out the emotion of the piece.
Allison Krauss and Union Station: Can’t Find My Way Home
Allison Krauss and Union Station are known as a bluegrass group, but that label does not fully describe their artistry. This version of Can’t Find My Way Home honors the song’s roots in blues rock, while also updating the sound in brilliant ways. The recording was done for the TV show Crossing Jordan.
Sheryl Crow with Warren Haynes and Trombone Shorty: Can’t Find My Way Home
[Not Available for Purchase]
As seen here, Sheryl Crow and her band are a part of the jam band scene. She invites Warren Haynes and Trombone Shorty to join them on stage for this one, and Crow’s band supports them ably, with very satisfying results. Crow and her band do not show the elasticity that allowed the Grateful Dead to, for example, segue from Scarlet Begonias to Fire on the Montain, but this is still a strong performance. It makes me wonder why Sheryl Crow has not so far put Can’t Find My Way Home on any of her albums.
Hey ho, at least I have the theme right this time, but what's an 'n' between friends? Martial/martian, I mean aren't they the same? (Editor now declares martian law on my future posts.) I confess this one too took me on the hop for a second, and I nearly filed a post of the chimp loving one time governor of California/President of the USA, sending me scuttling for the Woodstock soundtrack, but I digress.
Stev(i)e Winwood has always been one of my heroes. Old enough to remember the Spencer Davis Group on Top of the Pops, he was the impossibly young singer and, usually, hammond player who has notched up an incredible 54 years of musicianship since he joined that group. Still at school initially, aged 14, it took 3 years for his distinctive vocals to be number 1 on the UK singles chart with 'Keep on Running'. Playing guitar on that song, the success allowed him to buy his first Hammond B3 organ. Staying with the band a further 2 years, he co-wrote a number of their further hits, 'I'm a Man' and 'Gimme Some Lovin.' During this time, in 1966, he made his first collaborative contact with another musician to feature frequently in his musical life. This was a one-off project called the Powerhouse, who had 3 tracks on an Elektra compilation album about the emergent white boy electric blues scene. With 3 tracks featured, here is one of them, the collaborator being Eric Clapton.
Traffic were the band perhaps most widely associated with Winwood, coming together in 1967 following a chance jam in a Birmingham (UK) pub. Setting the archetype for 'getting together in the country', the original line-up shared a cottage in the sticks, coming up with the psychedelic whimsy of 'Hole in my Shoe', written, like most of their earlier hits, by Dave Mason. Personally, at least on these shores, this seemed somewhat of a shibboleth, detracting from their serious credibility, and Winwood's desire to pursue a more folk-blues direction, possibly contributing to the first fracture of the group. This had been accelerated by the return of Eric Clapton, who, following the break up of his own band, Cream, teamed up with Winwood in short-lived supergroup Blind Faith. Cream had not been to my then taste, so I didn't then take much to this, only later appreciating the simple beauty of the sole record released.
Blind Faith's (mis)fortune was ultimately the making of Traffic, who promptly re-formed, minus Mason, as the core line up of Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi and Winwood. The time was right for their folk-blues amalgam, their version of traditional folk song 'John Barleycorn Must Die' making this teenage folkie delight. Over several albums they expanded their line up and widened their repertoire, always innovative and always interesting, Winwood's expertise on guitar now getting as much acclaim as his keyboards. Sadly, with physical health issues playing havoc with his stamina, Winwood walked off-stage in 1974, the band then calling it a day.
A solo career was always going to beckon, but it was a few years before he produced his 1st solo album, 'Arc of a Diver', with this and its follow-up each featuring Winwood on all vocals and all-instrumentation. My favourite period of his career, the songs 'While You See a Chance' and 'Valerie', remaining firm favourites. It is thus strange that the song that this piece name-checks is only now one I enjoy, with Winwood having been roped into producing a top-notch session-men New York record. I recall being distinctly upset by this polished and commercial product, the follow-up single, 'Higher Love', with Winwood gamefully mugging his way through an awkward video, seeming bereft without the prop of an instrument other than his voice. It was certainly the High Life of his career though, the videos still a staple on oldies music channels.
After this peak he has continued to produce intermittent albums, even reviving the Traffic name once more for the now duo of himself and Capaldi, but keeping a generally lower profile. I was lucky enough to see him play live, maybe a decade ago, in Birmingham, on home turf. Playing mainly hammond and occasional guitar, a tight band modelled on the Traffic template of himself on keyboard, percussion heavy backing plus reeds, he played songs from all stages of his career. He did not play 'Hole in my Shoe', perhaps a blessing, but all the others were there. And he still looked impossibly young.
Since then intermittent output, but, inevitably, yes, a further and possibly final collaboration with Eric Clapton, recorded for posterity with a sort of joint greatest hits. It has to be a Traffic song I include.
So, apart from the title, what's this got to do with 'again'? Probably only this, one of the several covers of the song out there, this being Warren Zevon, slowing the song and maximising any irony available, his 'High Life" being the terminal cancer he was facing. And duly succumbed to. I think that trumps any irony Steve Winwood may have felt about the song as he sang it.
I think one of the most incredible things about Buddy Holly is not that he influenced so many other musicians, or that he wrote so many songs that have withstood the test of time and have been re-recorded by so many other bands and singers, but that he did it all at such a young age and in such a short span of time. Holly had his first hit with the Crickets in May of 1957, at the age of 20, and he died in the infamous plane crash in February 1959, at the tender age of 22. Just a little over a year and a half, but what an impact he had in that short time! He was really just a kid through all of it, but he still runs strong in the blood of rock and roll.
Choosing a song to feature here was a tough choice, as there are so many great options. I considered the ones that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones chose to record early in their careers, acknowledging their debt to Holly -- "Words of Love" and "Not Fade Away," respectively -- and "Rave On," which I think could arguably be pointed to as one of the earliest forms of punk and power pop.
But I finally settled on "Well . . . All Right," the flip side to Holly's 1958 single, "Heartbeat." I find the song to be remarkably mature in its melancholy sound and confidently defiant lyrics. The message is actually quite an upbeat one, but there seems to be some element of wisdom beyond his years running through it. The acoustic instrumentation is also something rarely heard in pop music of that time, hinting at Holly's country influences but staying firmly within the bounds of a pop song. It's a sound that the Beatles fleshed out years later with Rubber Soul, an album heralded for its maturity very much thanks to that type of song, but its roots can most definitely be found here.
"Well . . . All Right" was covered quite well by Blind Faith (Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech) on their one and only album in 1969, but it was much more forceful and lost the quiet fortitude of Holly's original. Listen here to Holly's original for a song truly ahead of its time.
I happened to be in Seattle in the summer of 69, and although I was just barely a teen (14 counts, doesn’t it?), my parents gave me and my younger brother permission to see Blind Faith. We got mugged on the way back home after the concert, but that’s another story and that was in the days before “terror” carried the meaning it does today.
Like so many others, including boyhowdy, my brother and I wore our hair long. Mine being thin (in more ways than one), I wore it tied back; his was even longer, kind of a cross between Tiny Tim’s and Ginger Baker’s. I kept mine long until I took a full time job after college.
I was schooled in a co-ed boarding school in the Philly area in the early 70s. Although it is a little bit of a stretch to say I was a hippie, there were forays into the culture – to the extent that circumstances allowed (maintaining a passing gpa, staying on the tennis team…). The school was bordered on one side by a river called the Neshaminy, and there were times that we would leave our clothes on the school-side riverbank and cavort nekkid in the field/woods on the other side for an afternoon’s fun. All very “Hair” even if we were only teens.
Do What You Like, from the only album Blind Faith made (the band came together in early 69 and disbanded in late 69), has lyrics that espouse the mentality of the hippy lifestyle:
Do right, use your head (one wonders exactly how)
Get together, break your bread… (peace, man)
The song also has the prerequisite extended jam that the hippie generation loved: nigh on 15 minutes of it, and it ends in a rather spacey ramble of notes.
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