Burn/Fire: Fire On High

Electric Light Orchestra: Fire On High
[purchase]

Regular readers of my work here and elsewhere know that I’m a fan of prog rock, and I think that it is pretty clear that the Beatles were a profound influence on prog bands, many of whom have acknowledged this directly, or have covered Beatles songs. Electric Light Orchestra,which was founded when Roy Wood, of The Move, wanted to explicitly pick up where the Beatles left off, and use orchestral arrangements and instruments to fuse classical music with pop shows how it is possible to mix the two.

Initially, Wood recruited Jeff Lynne to join The Move, which also included drummer Bev Bevan, and they gradually morphed the older band into a new unit, Electric Light Orchestra. Wood left the band during the recording of their second album, leaving Lynne as the leader. And, there is no question that Lynne loved the Beatles (and the Beatles loved him—as you can see in the article that I linked to above, not only did they like his songs, Ringo and George guested on their albums, Lynne produced solo albums for Ringo, Paul, and George, replaced George Martin as producer for the Beatles’ last singles, and, of course Lynne was a Traveling’ Wilbury).

I was a fan of ELO during their mid-late 1970s heyday. I enjoyed the mix of pomp and pop. “Fire on High” is one of their stranger songs, suitable only as a B-side—an instrumental (mostly), with backwards vocals ("The music is reversible, but time... is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"), choral segments and all sorts of odd stuff going on, making it still a fascinating listen.

Interestingly, despite its weirdness, a portion of the song was used by CBS for its sports coverage in the 70s. I have a strong memory that it was used for the network’s NBA coverage, but the Internet disagrees, telling me that it was actually, used for a sports anthology show, sort of like the better-known Wide World of Sports called the CBS Sports Spectacular. As we know, memory is a strange thing.

Back in the late 1980s, my friend Bill and I shared an apartment in New York, in the days when having an answering machine was still something that everyone had, and creating a theoretically clever outgoing message was popular. I remember that we used a few seconds of “Fire on High” and pretended that we were announcing a game while imparting the standard “we aren’t home, leave a message at the beep” message.

As I am writing this, I’m having second thoughts about whether it is a good idea to share this story or not. But we're all friends, here, right, and you won't think less of me. Right?

Burn/Fire-Have Love Will Travel

[purchase] 

We'd like to welcome a new writer--Gregory W. Smith--to our ranks.  Here's his first post!!

For the theme of Fire/Burn, I’m choosing Tom Petty’s The Last DJ generally, and “Have Love Will Travel” specifically. I know neither of these have flames or burning in the title, but bear with me.

Let me set the stage, the year is 2002 and music is not what it used to be.  Satellite paid radio is on the rise and am/fm radio is being replaced by AOR, instead of the latest and greatest from the artists we have all known and loved for years.  American Idol is just finding its sea legs, where judges tell you who is the latest and greatest, instead of homegrown or even nationally known DJ’s.  The music business is in shambles at worst, or a cheesy popularity contest at best.  Along comes Tom and the boys to release a scathing attack on the music industry in album form.  The same Tom Petty that went to war over album prices in the eighties and never, ever took a corporate sponsor to go on tour.  Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the last great American rock band IMHO.

The album starts off with the title track, a love note to Los Angeles DJ Jim Ladd.  I don’t know much about this guy, but Tom thought the world of him apparently.  “Money Becomes King” follows at  number two, with “Joe” coming in at track four.  These three tracks all take aim at the music industry, but in three different ways.  “Money” is a shot of that feeling we’ve all had, when our hometown music god or goddess hits the big time.  You can still see in your mind’s eye, the large constellation they were in your small universe.  “Joe” takes aim at those notorious producers that seduce and use all the dreamers with stars in their eyes, just trying to score a record deal.  Once again, not about fire, but I think the world of those tracks.

The track that I first thought of at the mention of Burn/Fire is “Have Love, Will Travel” (track 11 on the album.)  Let me preface, that since his passing, this is the song of his I have most turned to most. It speaks to me now in ways it never did before.  His lines stand out it this song and stirs up imagery of what I have always viewed music to be.  Two lines or stanzas stand out most to me.

How about a cheer for all those bad girls

And all those boys that play that rock n roll  
They love it like you love Jesus
It does the same thing to their souls
 

That is the first one.  Music is by its nature spiritual.  It moves people to dance, to sing, to feel that you are no longer alone in the world, much like the Pentecostal denomination does for its parishioners.  A concert, whether it rock, rap, country, or polka dotted dinosaurs that play tambourines, is nothing but revival church writ large.  It stirs everyone deep down in their souls, at least it always has for my friends and I.

The next stanza is:

Maggie’s still trying to rope a tornado

Joe’s in the backyard trying to keep things simple

And the lonely dj’s digging a ditch,

Trying to keep the flames from the temple

And now you know why I chose this track.  The imagery in that one stanza gets me every single time.  I don’t what tornado Maggie’s chasing, but her hope is still there that she will rope it.  The simplicity of Joe, a man that appreciates the simple things in life, makes him loveable in his own. And then there’s that DJ.  He’s already tried creating a  line to keep the flames away and he’s down to his last line of defense, digging that forsaken ditch.  The flames are approaching, rising, burning the very air he breathes into his lungs, and still he won’t relent, won’t give up, won’t wave that white flag or won’t back down, if you will.  The temple is sacrosanct, the temple is all, the temple must survive at all costs.  And what is in the temple pray tell?  Why music of course.  The one thing that will never let us down.  The one thing that is there through the smiles and the tears.  The one fragile thing that protects our souls from the evil, vindictive, insane world.

Burn/Fire: Crash and Burn

Crash and Burn is a pretty popular phrase (Wikipedia says it's a "euphemism" for fail utterly, often with spectacle.) It's the title of several movies, some video games, and numerous songs - many of them unrelated except in title.

I had originally picked out the song by Yngwie Malmsteen, partly because I hadn't listened to him in a long time and recalled that I thought he was pretty good. But a little deeper digging revealed all the other songs with the same name. (I confess I am left a little confused about the role of copyright when so many can use the same without infringement.)

Starting with Yngwie [purchase]: the name immediately places us somewhere north or Europe (at least originally), and, yes if for some reason you never picked up on him, he's a hard rock guitarist with a classical background who hails from Sweden. And he's got lots of accolades dating back to the 80s. Apparently, if you can hit 1000 notes in succession in Guitar Hero II, you achieve the Yngwie Malsteen award.

Moving on: I linked to Sheryl Crow a few posts back and now again. Her "version" of Crash and Burn [purchase] has essentially no relation to the Malsteen song. To me - it's much nmore accessible (I don't really care for pyro-technic guitar behind Malsteen's style although I appreciate the skill involved). Sheryl Crow's more <Clapton> style is what I generally look for.

And then there's Thomas Rhett, country singer who has piled up a few hits, including Crash and Burn from 2015. You keep waiting for the girl in the video clip to change her mind, but then ... it is called Crash and Burn [purchase], so ... not.

And finally Savage Garden, another band whose name I know but am confessedly pretty ignorant of except for what I found online: to my loss. Like the above, they've got a Crash and Burn [purchase] song off their second and last album before they disbanded.

Burn/Fire: B.B. King - Lay Another Log on the Fire

purchase [Another Log on the Fire]

Fame is fickle. B.B. King had it, C.L. Blast missed it. He had a knack for music - but no luck to go with it. B.B.King's <Another Log on the Fire> was penned by this man - Clarence Junior Lewis (aka C.L. Blast). And in fact, Blast at least once played with B.B. King, Otis Redding and others.
But he never made it to the "big time" on his own.

Because B.B. King played with him at one time, he may have picked up this song back then. Amazingly, IMHO, Blast's version of "Fire" is at least as good as BB's, so you have to wonder at the fickleness of fate.

Various sources note that Blast's [bad] luck included mis-management.
The story of the Juana label partially lays it out. Juana, a record label out of Atlanta, was poorly managed by Frederick Knight (of Ring My Bell Fame) and Blast was part of the line-up/artists signed up to the label.


From '55 to 80 or so, Blast worked without coming up with a major hit.
He did his military service in the late 50s touring and singing to fellow soldiers. In 1980, Atlantic/Cotillion (thanks, Arif Mardin) put out his first LP.

Blast, however, might take a Guinness record for number of labels a musician has worked with:
Fury, Atlantic, Columbia, Knight's Juana label, and United.

C.L.Blast also penned a few other songs, some of which you may have run across:
Love Don't Feel Like Love
What Can  I Do
If I Had Love You More
I Just Don't Know
And to his further credit, he collaborated on "Ring My Bell" with Frederick Knight.

The 1984 version of the song was recorded at Muscle Shoales studios.

Burn/Fire: Fire Door

Ani DiFranco: Fire Door [purchase]

I’m using this Ani DiFranco song, which mentions fire, as an excuse to write about the recent Clearwater Festival, where DiFranco performed. More to the point, though, the weekend was hot and sunny, and despite some precautions, I did get a little burned.

I’ve written about Clearwater before, and it is one of the regular musical highlights of the year for me. Every year is the same, but different, and not just because there are different acts. Like most years, it was a long weekend filled with great music, some of which are new discoveries. Like most years, we get there early, claim our spot at the main Rainbow Stage, and walk around the place, shopping, visiting the Activist Area, and taking in the beauty of the Hudson River. As usual, we ran into friends. And like most years, there is some weather issue—as noted, this year it was hot and sunny both days, which is better than rain, or high humidity, but can be uncomfortable.

This year, though, it seemed as if the festival bookers didn’t have as many big name acts as in the past, especially on Saturday (and some “regulars” such as Toshi Reagon and Josh Ritter were absent). I don't know whether that was a money issue, an editorial decision, or based on availability, or some combination, but it meant that we spent the weekend sampling lots of music from bands that we were unfamiliar with, often moving from stage to stage to catch partial sets. My wife and I (and our daughter who attended with us—another difference) spent more time apart because different things interested us. Because there were fewer “must see” acts on the main stages, I visited the Dance Stage multiple times, which I had never done, to hear Cajun and Zydeco music, and we spent time at the intimate Workshop Stage for the first time, which led to my favorite performance of the weekend.

So, here we go. On the bus ride from the parking lot to the Festival site, we overheard a group of young women bemoaning their hangovers, and their concern that it would affect their performance. Of course, we had to ask them about this, and they turned out to be singers from a band billed as “Upstate Rubdown,” but which at the Festival called themselves “Upstate.” In my exhaustive pre-Festival research, I had checked out their music, and they were on the list of bands that I wanted to try to see. But we began, traditionally, at the main Rainbow Stages with what I call the “old folkies show,” now called “Songs for Pete and Toshi,” to honor the founders of the event. It included, David Amram (87), Josh White, Jr. (77), Tom Chapin (73), The Kennedys, Mike & Ruthy, Tom Paxton (80) and the Don Juans (58 and 66), and Joanne Shenandoah (60).

After a bit of that, we decided to move to the smaller Hudson Stage to check out Upstate. And they were great, despite any lingering hangovers. My daughter described them as like Lake Street Dive crossed with the Staves. She also believes that she may have met some of the women we spoke to on the bus when she visited their alma mater, SUNY New Paltz, for an a capella event.

Next up on that stage was Making Movies, two sets of brothers, one of Panamanian heritage and the other of Mexican heritage, who rocked bilingually, and included many songs focusing on the newsworthy plight of immigrants. Their music reflected many influences, including various genres of rock, Latin and African music.

 
We then returned to the Rainbow Stage for husband and wife-fronted The War and Treaty, which melded blues, rock, R&B and gospel.

They were also excellent, but it was really hot, and I wanted to check out singer/songwriter Margaret Glaspy back at the Hudson Stage (where I could stand in the shade). She was good, too, and I particularly enjoyed her Lucinda Williams cover.

After that, I met up with my wife, and we browsed some of the environmentally focused vendors, before I plunged into the Dance Stage for Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, and enjoyed their Cajun dance music (but not as much as my friend Frank, who was dancing hard, and sweating through at least his first shirt of the day).

 

I headed back to the Hudson Stage for Beth Orton, and while I was a fan of her early songs, I was not familiar with much of what she was performing, and I had some trouble connecting with some of the unfamiliar songs, which were pretty dark and downbeat.

So, it was back to the Dance Stage for C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band, a hard rocking Zydeco unit, which filled the floor with joyous dancers (including Frank, sweating through another shirt).

 

It was finally time for the “headliners” at the Rainbow Stage, and we got to hear pop humorists They Might Be Giants. My daughter again pithily remarked at how much work they put into very silly songs.

 

After that, we took a brief trip over to the Sloop Stage, where festival regulars, The Kennedys, displayed their usual excellent singing, playing, songwriting, and storytelling.

But we returned to the Rainbow Stage to hear first night closer, Ani DiFranco, another regular Clearwater performer, who played an strong set that combined her distinctive guitar style with her broadly political, thought provoking songwriting. I don’t believe that she played “Fire Door,” but I wasn’t really listening for it—nevertheless, it is a fine song, about dealing with the aftermath of a relationship betrayal. She did start the set with “Little Plastic Castle,” which I love. So that was nice.

Not bad for Day 1, right?

Sunday promised to be even hotter, but undaunted, our trio of music lovers arrived early, set up at the Rainbow Stage, wandered around a bit and returned for a new feature. Choir! Choir! Choir!, a couple of Canadians who specialize in creating participatory choirs, invited all interested to the front of the stage to learn the background parts to the folk classic, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” My wife and daughter participated, because they have beautiful voices and love to sing. I sat back and listened, because as anyone who knows me knows, I cannot sing. At all. They had fun, although it was a bit disappointing in the end because the lead singers, some of the “old folkies,” didn’t seem to understand what was going on, and were even less rehearsed than the choir.

After that, my wife and daughter headed over to the Workshop Stage for a “harmony workshop” with the band Mipso, while I went to check out River Whyless at the Hudson Stage.

I enjoyed their folk rock sound, but decided to leave part way through their set to join my wife and daughter for two reasons—to hear Mipso, and to try to make sure I got a seat for the next performer at that small tent, Rhiannon Giddens. The tent was packed, with an overflow crowd standing and sitting around the edges. Mipso, a rootsy, folk rock band, played songs and answered questions from the crowd. What I heard made me want to check them out when they did a full set later in the day.

When they were done, a few people left, but the crowd size increased as the time for Giddens to take the stage approached. Luckily, I was able to get a seat.

Rhiannon Giddens is remarkable. Her latest album made my list of favorite music of 2017. She’s a MacArthur award winner, and her bio on their website begins:

Rhiannon Giddens is a singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter enriching our understanding of American music by reclaiming African American contributions to folk and country genres and revealing affinities between a range of musical traditions, from gospel and Celtic to jazz and R&B. 

During the next hour, she sang, played the guitar, banjo, and fiddle, and discussed each song with us, and they included everything that is mentioned above, including a song in Gaelic and one in Spanish.

Being able to see a genius with such prodigious talent in an intimate venue was one of the best things that I have ever experienced at Clearwater.

After a quick lunch, I checked out Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience at the Dance Stage (Frank, however, wasn’t there on Sunday—maybe he was doing laundry), and they provided some rocking Louisiana sounds.

Then, I checked out country rock legends Dave Alvin and Jimmy Dale Gilmore, who played some songs that I recognized, both originals and covers, while never missing a chance to say each other's full names.

I wandered back to the Hudson Stage to listen to Mipso, and their music was equally enjoyable in a larger setting.
 

It was now time for the headliners, so it was back to our base at the Rainbow Stage to hear an hour of Rhiannon Giddens, with a full band, including fellow former Carolina Chocolate Drop Hubby Jenkins on guitar (and lead vocals on a few songs). What the set lost in intimacy, it made up in power. As you can probably guess, her performances were the highlight of the weekend for me.

Next up was Jeff Tweedy, who I am also a huge fan of. Tweedy delivered a set of mostly Wilco songs, with a few covers, Loose Fur songs, and new songs mixed in. As much as I like him, I think that his solo act would be better in a small club than a large festival stage. His stage banter, though, mostly about his perceived personal and professional failures, was extremely amusing, as expected.

Finally, the weekend ended with an amazing, rocking set from The Mavericks, who are not only a great band to see live, they also seem to be enjoying themselves on stage as much as we did in the audience. I think that my daughter, who was not familiar with the band, is a fan now.

 

I grudgingly left during the Mavericks’ last song, to try to beat the crowd, sadly listening to the sound of them tearing the joint up fade away while we approached the buses, although I suspect the extra few minutes wouldn’t have made a huge difference in our exit time.

We returned home, exhausted, hot, burned and tanned, and in awe of all of the great music we heard over the weekend. It wasn’t the best lineup I’ve ever heard, but to some that is to some degree beside the point.

BURN/FIRE: BURN by RAY LAMONTAGNE

Now seems as good as any to fan the flames of the ultimate slow burn career of Ray LaMontagne, celebrating, roughly, his 15th year of recording. Unashamedly reflecting the music of the Laurel Canyon era; he was inspired to sing and write by the example of Stephen Stills, yet is more, way more, than the retro pigeon hole he is often placed. If the name means little, you will have heard his songs, seemingly of appeal to the commissioners of TV box sets, featuring in shows like 'Bones', 'ER'*, 'House' and 'Criminal Minds'.
 (Briefly changing the point, ain't that the dream job? I am forever shazaming away during TV nights, as husky blue-collar americana vies with quirky electronica to set the vibe onscreen, buying no few albums on the strength of the snippet heard, rather too often finding it to be their one moment in the sun, but hey, what can I do?)

'Burn' is from his 2003 debut, produced by no less than Ethan Johns in 2003. A largely low key acoustic affair, it took the glorious strings and brass settings of his next record, 2006's 'Til the Sun Turns Black' to fully showpiece his fragile charm. (*The clip from ER is the title track) A 3rd record, still with Johns, introduced a band setting, further developing the emotional palette, yearning enough in the raw form, exquisite when enhanced. Another song from this record, 'Gossip in the Grain' comes below. Entitled 'Sarah', it was also featured on/in 'House'.

A slight change of direction came with his next recording, self-produced and credited to Ray LaMontagne and the Prairie Dogs. Sensing some restlessness and, arguably, finding him treading water, it then took a brace of new producers to bring more out of him, firstly Dan Auerbach and then Jim James for his 5th and 6th respective discs. The former saw a echoes of a more distant past added to the colour scheme, 60s pop with Auerbach and a neo-psychedelia with James. To say 'Ouroboros' , the one helmed with James, was a radical departure might be no undestatement, with comparisons including Pink Floyd and 'Dark Side of the Moon'. OK, even with LaMontagnes's husky voice, but see how little understatement this is:

Here's what the singer had to say about it.

So where to go now? Well, he has just put out his latest. Back to his own production, I have yet to hear it but the reviews sound promising. Here's a great article from 'Uncut' magazine, travelling through his back pages with less of a pace, together with the new single.

'Part of the Light', including the above,  came out last month. Mine is in the post.

Last of all in this hardly covert fanboy tribute comes a clip that is a favourite of mine, showing our Ray, holding his head up in august company: