Way the world's going, what we need and what we need now is some head's down, no nonsense, mindless boogie. (No, not that one.) After a disastrous start, UK has begun to vaccinate itself to a state of current easing, but large parts of the rest of the world are daily scuttling ever more perilously to the edge of wipe-out. How to, what to, why to? None of this I know any more, but, in the avoidance of the harsh and bleak, new variants willing, grant me a couple of minutes of escapism.
Brinsley Schwarz were and are a staple of my listening pleasure. Actually the name of one of the guitarists, the name became that of the band, bastions of the burgeoning UK pub-rock scene, that pre-punk escape from the scourge of prog pomp posturing, embracing flavours of country, blues and soul into short punchy songs. Nick Lowe was the most lauded member, going on, via Rockpile, to build himself a healthy solo career that runs to this day. (Not all healthy: down on his luck in the early 90's, the chance pick up of one of his songs for Hollywood blockbuster, The Bodyguard, was said to have led a cheque, for a seven figure sum, dropping into his postbox. Which must have been nice.) Other members later found their way into Graham Parker's Rumour. BS, the band, were as famous, at the time, for a disastrous promo exercise, going disastrously wrong, whereby they were flown to the Fillmore East, NYC, for a showcase gig in front of a throng of top music biz journos. Late on arrival, unpractised and under-rehearsed, with pick-up kit, it was a fiasco, with them laughed out of town and pocket. Astonishingly, rather than throwing in the towel, they picked themselves up and built themselves a strong grassroots following, back from the bottom, producing a run of well received records. This is typical of their style, a bucolic mix of keyboards and choogling rhythm. But, never enough a concern to make their fortunes, and they folded their four year career in 1974. The song comes from their 1973 album, 'Please Don't Ever Change', and was written by Lowe.
Ironically, shortly before they split, one of their final gainfully was to back Welsh retro-rocker Dave Edmunds on tour. Edmunds and Lowe hit it off and the next step was the formation of Rockpile. Initially, again, Edmunds' group but they gradually became co-pilots, the band then backing each other on each of their then solo output recordings, and then a specific Rockpile as a band album release, 'Seconds of Pleasure'. The band, a four piece, with later 2nd generation Pretender Billy Bremner on additional guitar and vocals, and later Dire Straiter Terry Williams on drums. I really expected huge things for them, but the honeymoon bubble burst, and they split, their legacy hidden as much in those solo albums, and that of Lowe's then wife, Carlene Carter. (Yup, that one, Johnny Cash's step-daughter!) Their version of the featured song eschews some of the melodic swagger for an altogether more muscular take, guitars to the fore and no piano. But no less pleasurable. (And, special credit clearly must here go to the video, one of several made by Garren Lazar, all featuring the Peanuts Gang giving their best to a whole host of songs, culled from all genres and all decades.
But the song was not dead, and it took Nashville country-rockers BR549 to kick some yee-haw sawdust in the face of the song, adding some fiddle and altogether western swing flavours that give yet more zest than the versions before. From their 3rd 2001 album, 'This is BR549', this has them perched between a traditional country take and some of the more populist hat act territory of the time. This song bestrides that fence perfectly.
That's it, no message, no preaching. That is beyond, if and when in doubt, Play That Fast Thing One More Time!!
Of course, the musically knowledgeable readers of Star Maker Machine know who Paul Carrack is. But, on the off chance that you’ve stumbled across this blog and don’t think you know who Paul Carrack is, I bet that you do.
That great song by Ace, “How Long”? Sung by Carrack. “Tempted,” one of Squeeze’s most well-known songs? Carrack on lead vocals. Remember Mike + the Mechanics? Their songs “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” and “The Living Years,” among others? Paul Carrack is the singer. Did you like Roger Waters’ albums Radio Kaos and The Wall—Live in Berlin? Carrack sang lead on some of the tracks. And he’s released a bunch of solo albums.
In 2013, Record Collector magazine stated that “if vocal talent equalled financial success, Paul Carrack would be a bigger name than legends such as Phil Collins or Elton John.” Clearly, it doesn’t, and he isn’t.
Oh, Carrack also plays keyboards well enough to have been briefly in Squeeze, mostly to play, not sing, and also in Roxy Music (which was a surprise to me), and has backed Nick Lowe. He’s been a studio or touring musician for acts as diverse as Elton John, The Smiths and B.B. King, and has had songs recorded by artists as different as Diana Ross, The Eagles and Jools Holland. Check out his Wikipedia page for more details.
In 1981, after his stint in Squeeze, Carrack joined up with Nick Lowe, former (and future) Rumour guitarist Martin Belmont, bassist James Eller and drummer Bobby Irwin, to form Noise to Go, which, like how Rockpile backed both Lowe and Dave Edmunds, was created to back Carrack and Lowe on solo albums. The band also played on one album by Carlene Carter, Lowe’s then-wife (and June Carter’s daughter and Johnny Cash’s stepdaughter).
Carrack’s 1982 solo album, Suburban Voodoo, featured this group of musicians, and was produced by Lowe. It is a very good album, was a modest chart success and got fairly good reviews at the time. Most reviews of the album fail to mention “Lesson In Love,” which is a song that I’ve enjoyed since I first heard it back in the day (and it did hit the Billboard Rock Chart). It’s got a bouncy feel, great organ playing by Carrack, and features his clearly underrated blue-eyed soul vocals. “I Need You,” a soulful ballad from the album, was a minor hit, but I like our featured song better.
Noise to Go backed Lowe on 1982’s Nick The Knife, and after Eller departed, were renamed “Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit,” releasing two albums (and also backing John Hiatt on part of Riding With The King). After that, Carrack joined up with Roger Waters, then Mike + Mechanics, worked as a session musician and as part of a number of different collaborations (not all of which led to recorded music), with musicians from many genres, including King Crimson's Tony Levin, Timothy B. Schmidt and Don Felder of the Eagles, Ringo Starr, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Eric Clapton. And he even jumped back into Squeeze briefly.
Carrack periodically released solo albums, with occasional, limited, chart success, and the fact that in 2012 he was the subject of a BBC Four documentary called Paul Carrack: The Man with the Golden Voice, indicates that despite his relative anonymity to the general public, Carrack is respected by critics and his fellow musicians, across a wide spectrum of styles.
So, if you knew who Paul Carrack was, maybe you learned more about him. And if you didn’t think you knew who he was, did I win my bet that you actually did?
Summer days, a holiday, time on your hands, so where does that take you? Yup, quite possibly here, happy juice, the water of life, the scourge of society that keeps us loose at the edges. Context clearly is all, so here's my disclaimer, but I'm off to Turkey today, where, so far, the grog is still legal. So some unashamed odes to the results of overdoing it. (Kids: just say no.............)
Why is it always country music that is the first thought for hooch ditties? Probably on account the inescapably deep well of inspiration the drink has offered the singers and writers, from Hank through, well, Hank Jr, Hank III, everyone really. This old staple, 'Drunkard's Dream' comes from the well worn hand of trad.arr. and was popularised in the 1920s, via an initial transit from the folk songs of old england. (Original title 'Husband's Dream', surely casting a slur on the effects of matrimony.) This version comes from an excellent 1972 recording by Gene, not Gram, Parsons, although he too was both a Byrd and a Burrito. Covering all tropes in the country diaspora, 'Kindling' is a record that still gives me pleasure.
But before I forget, a message from our sponsor. No, don't do that neither, but I make this point, together with an instrumental version of this Stevie Wonder classic to avoid the wisecracks around don't drive blind, inevitably greeting the song as Steveland sung it. O my aching sides. Not. In the N'Awlins marching band tradition, the Dirty Dozen Brass band come over as no strangers to an ice cold pitcher.
A hit for Johnny 'Guitar' Watson before he was Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, this 1953 toe-tapper was billed as being by Young John Watson, only shortly after he ditched playing piano for guitar. With a vast catalogue behind him, in blues and, later, in jazz, he was hitting his 40s as he reinvented himself as a sharp-suited and booted funkateer. Sadly, on the crest of yet a 3rd breakthrough, he died, on tour, in 1996.
It's back to country, this time to the dynasty of Cash/Carter. Actually daughter of June, she was step-daughter to Johnny and step-sister to Rosanne, learning her chops on the road from an early age, in the family band. Arguably a wilder child than her near sibling, she ended up in London after a couple of failed marriages, cutting an album with Graham Parker's Rumour on backing duties. a year or so later saw her hooking up with Rockpile, married to the bass player, Nick Lowe, once of Brinsley Schwarz, producer to Elvis Costello and later (and still) a name in his own right. This track comes from 'Musical Shapes', the album arising out of that relationship, never as much of a success as it deserved to be.
The title of this charming song possibly comes ahead of the last one, as, if you can remember what you failed to accomplish, that implies memory. In the real world, or so I am reliably told, being TDtF, is, however, more often relegated to the wastes of TDtR, few being upstanding enough to joyfully recall such peccadilloes with honesty or candour. Upstanding perhaps the wrong choice of word. I find the original of this song, by the Dead Kennedys, a little too full on for my taste, this gallic take offering a more sophisticated european stance on blotto.
Brewers Droop were a UK blues-rock band in the early 70s.
Well, that's what any self-respecting drunk, if that is not an oxymoron, would say, don'cha think? Actually written by the devoutly teetotal Richard Thompson, apparently his avoidance of alcohol came more through his personal experiences on the road with the famously convivial Fairport Convention*, rather than his later conversion to Islam. (*It's number 4.) Norma Waterson is from the fabled folkie family, the Watersons, mother of Eliza, husband to Martin Carthy. Mean nothing? Go check.......
We're back in N'Awlins again, via Sweden, where this bluesman was born. I suspect he knows here what he was singing about, struggling with his own demons of addiction until a decade ago, now channeling many of his efforts into 'Send Me a Friend', a charity/self-help group to help musicians struggling with similar.
Ha! You know you can't have the above, like the Dubliners who provided the portal for this piece, without some form of payback. Squeeze, themselves no strangers to the odd ditty round the manifestations of a life liquoric , or rather Difford/Tillbrook, the writing team, actually pitched this song to Frank Sinatra, laughably thinking the subject matter might be up his street. Sadly, he declined, but that doesn't matter now.
I hope your heads will be fine after this tribute to Bacchus and his many and varied gifts.
Cheers.
And plink plink fizz. Imbibe away.......
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