OVER: SHAKIN' ALL OVER

Can there be a more evocative intro to a song? The pizzicato guitar plucks, with then the rolling riff of the lead guitar, sounding exactly how a shiver feels, creeping up your back(bone), standing all the hairs up on end. It's glorious. But the version you know is possibly not the version I know, the original failing to cross the atlantic at the time. Which is a pity, as it that rarity, a song of the early pre-Beatle 60s that can still hold its head up, undrenched in the syrupy strings that would spoil most of the UK's rock'n'roll output, often a tawdry and anodyne bowdlerisation of the real thing.

Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were huge during that short period of homegrown rockers, their calling card being their appearance, always in pirate costume, Kidd sporting an eyepatch and a cutlass. With the line up including the now legendary session man on drums, Clem Cattini, the guitar motif, both bits, was provided by one Joe Moretti, a Scot who also played on Vince Taylor's Brand New Cadillac. Number one in 1960, Kidd and his band couldn't hold on to that momentum, each further follow-up bringing diminishing returns, the line-up frequently changing until Kidd was killed, in a car accident, in 1966. For trivia lovers, also injured in that same crash was then Pirate, Nick Simper, later to be a founder member of Deep Purple. The Pirates weren't finished though, and I saw a revived version perform at the famous London pub venue, The Hope and Anchor, in the late 70s. A trio including the dynamic guitarmanship of Mick Green, he was one of the first players to play in a hybrid lead/rhythm style. Somehow, despite their age and portliness, they were lumped into the punk movement, mainly due the speed and precision of their sonic assault. Green was a key influence on Wilko Johnson, who picked up and ran with that style in first Dr Feelgood and then is his own band and with Ian Dury. I remember they did play Shakin' All Over that night, and I was bemused, knowing the song but not why they were playing it, other than the fact it was fast and ferocious. Green later became an integral part of Van Morrison's band, in the days when fellow 60's survivor, Georgie Fame was musical director and organist supreme. He died in 2010.

Wilko Johnson is then a link to the next version, courtesy his still fairly recent album with Roger Daltrey, the excellent Going Back Home, from 2014. Daltrey, of course, the then, the very much earlier and the still vocalist of the Who. Often cited as one of the best live albums of all time, their Live At Leeds, their version is a little slower and has a harder rock sound, with less roll. Legend has it that the only reason they played the song, was to get over the sometime confusion between themselves and Canadian band, the Guess Who, who had had a big North American hit with the song, in 1965. If a confused section of the audience were to muddle them up, and to call out for the song, it was easier to just play it, rather than have to explain. 

(By coincidence, and possibly for the same reason, guess what song the Guess Who played on their possibly less well remembered 1967 Live in Winnipeg opus? Good stuttering practice for a  later collaboration, too.)

Another noteworthy version was by from veteran rockabilly shouter, Wanda Jackson, who possibly shared a stage with Kidd at some time in the late 50s or early 60s. Better perhaps known for another song about shaking, she gave it a delightfully retro twang, including it on her 2011 collaboration with Jack White, The Party Ain't Over.

Quite why the emerging country and blues singer Eilen Jewell included it in her repertoire, on Sea of Tears, I do not know, other than that the idea was to reproduce the twangy tone of that time period, it suiting well her own material, if written nearly a half century later. But I'm glad she did. Still then an avid mix-tape maker, quirky covers were always a welcome discovery to slip alongside other songs I was trying to impress upon friends and family. It meant, in her case, I got to hear more of her own work, liking them and keeping up with her continuing career. Again, her cover is not a radical rewrite, but offered a little more of a western swing to it, with a decidedly more touchy vocal.

Johnny, Rog, Wanda, Eilen.

Sinking & Falling: Free Fall

Dixie Dregs: Free Fall
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One of my minor pleasures is when I get to write about a band that I like, but which has never been featured here. The Dixie Dregs fit that bill. And speaking of Bill, the only time I saw the Dregs was, inexplicably, in a dive bar in Kingston, New Jersey in August, 1981, with some fellow WPRB staffers, including my friend Bill Rosenblatt. (Inexplicably, because setlist.fm shows that a couple of months before that show, they played Pier 84 in New York, a fairly large venue, the night after playing the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, another large venue, and a couple of weeks later, they played the Lakeland, Florida, Civic Center, which holds 8,000 people.)

My memory of that show is basically limited to the fact that they were incredible, especially in a place the size of a large living room, and that I was able to talk with them, go “backstage” (the kitchen, if I remember) and drink their beer. Bill’s more detailed memories of the evening can be found here. We did promote some other shows at the Tin Lizzie, but this was the only “big name” that I remember being there (although the Internet has evidence that Jorma Kaukonen played there about a year later, after I graduated).

It is also fun to be able to follow my first post in this theme, about a ska-punk song, with a sunny, fusion song. The Dixie Dregs were one of the best fusion bands of the 70s and early 80s, and as is my habit when someone else has written something better than I could, I’ll quote Rosenblatt:

The Dixie Dregs were a band from Georgia that played jazzy instrumental rock in a style that sounded sort of like Kansas without the vocals, or Lynyrd Skynyrd meets Mahavishnu Orchestra.. . .Their leader was guitar virtuoso Steve Morse, who would later join Kansas and Deep Purple when those bands reached their “playing the zoo” stages. 

Although they were mostly from Georgia, they really came together as a band at the University of Miami, at a time when musicians such as Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny (and future members of his band, Dan Gottlieb and Mark Egan) and Bruce Hornsby were studying and/or teaching there. After self-releasing an album of demos, they were signed by Capricorn Records, the Allman Brothers’ label, and released their first official album, Free Fall. The title track, which leads off the album, is a good example of their music—generally upbeat, complex but not annoyingly complicated, impeccably played, and with a southern twang. And no vocals (until an early 1980s bad experiment with guest vocalists…..). I found a review of the album that refers to the song as "a jazz-country-funk breakdown with a digital synth alien laser beam effect solo, whilst a footstompingly good delay-drenched electric violin follows up with a pentatonic jam." 

The Dixie Dregs (briefly officially shortened to The Dregs late in the game) continued to release a string of similarly excellent albums, despite some turnover in personnel, until 1982, without much commercial success despite critical acclaim and a few Grammy nominations. Because instrumentals are a hard sell anyway, and certainly during the 80s. There were a few reunions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but basically, the band has been quiet. Until now—a tour of the Free Fall lineup has been scheduled, and it doesn’t look like they are playing any place like the Tin Lizzie.

FARMING: Farmer's Daughters......

Quick submission loosely lauding the legend of farmer's daughters, usually involving buxom beauties, forever enticing the sort of man, well, any man really, of which their father, inevitably a brick shithouse of humanity, would disapprove, and the shenanigans thus ensuing. Here's 3 of my favourites:

"Anyone's Daughter," which also includes another staple of songsmithery, the judge's daughter, is from Deep Purple's 1971 LP, Fireball, and it really caught my teenage ears as it was so unlike anything else in their oeuvre, thus, as ever the awkward, I had to profess it  to be my favourite. (I was never really, or for long, a fan of the hard rock school of the Deeps, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and all that malarkey.) Listening again, as the decades disappear, it isn't even much good. Hey ho.........

Onto something perhaps a bit more authentic, "Wolverton Mountain," this being the version by Doug Sahm, from his evocatively titled Texas Rock for Country Rollers, in 1976, cementing my peculiarity amongst my peers. Actually written much much earlier and covered first by a number of different acts, it was seemingly based on a real character. Nowhere does it actually say the daddy was a farmer, but I somehow have always assumed he was at least a farmsteader. And I'm writing this piece.

Finally, here is a more innocent offering, the Beach Boys with their, at least accurately, entitled, "Farmer's Daughter." Little happens, beyond yearning, and it is short. Great vocal, though, reminding you of quite why Brian Wilson was (and is) so revered. Such a pity his voice is so shot now. But, as an excuse to shoehorn in yet another vid, until today, I had no idea that this song by Fleetwood Mac was one and the same

Purchase the Purple
Dig Sir Doug
Buy the Boys
Mine the Mac

Deep Album Tracks: Until I Believe In My Soul

Dexys Midnight Runners: Until I Believe In My Soul

[purchase]

In the United Sates, Dexys Midnight Runners are regarded as a one hit wonder, on account of their 1982 megahit Come On Eileen. One may charitably ascribe such a narrow view to the insularity of a society that believes its biggest sporting codes enjoy such global popularity as to justify calling their national competitions “world series”.

Of course Dexys are not a conventional one hit wonder; in most parts of the Western world they had at least one big hit before Come On Eileen. Their 1980 tribute to R&B singer Geno Washington, titled Geno, was a #1 hit in Britain, and a big hit throughout Europe (follow-up There There My Dear was a UK #7 hit). It may well be my favourite single of the 1980s.

Geno came from the outstanding Searching For The Young Soul Rebel album. For that exercise Dexys sported the shorehand look; for 1982’s Too-Rye-Ay Kevin Rowland and his fellow nocturnal joggers adopted the Irish peasant look.

Searching For The Young Soul Rebel was one of the great albums of the ’80s. My view may be anathema to Dexys fans, but I consider Too-Rye-Ay even better. Oddly, Come On Eileen was only the fourth song from the album to be released as a single. It was #1 everywhere but in North Korea (though even there the Dear Leader locked himself in the toilet and secretly had his thoughts verge on dirty). Follow up Jackie Wilson Said, a cover of the Van Morrison song, was also an international hit. Even the sixth single off the album, Let’s Get This Straight, managed to be a UK top 20 hit.

Until I Believe In My Soul wasn’t a single, but is something of a centrepiece of the album, traversing musical genres from folk to jazz, glorious horns and fiddles, impassioned vocals, whistling, coughing, orgasmic noises and angry mumbling (including a bit of swearing), plus one of the best cynical laughs in pop, and a killer chorus.

By the way, the name Dexys takes no apostrophe. It’s a reference to the drug Dexedrine (which makes you run at midnight, you see).

One Word: Hush

Deep Purple: Hush

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Written by Joe South, covered most effectively by Deep Purple. This is one of the great singles of 1968, in my opinion.

Beatles Covers: Help

Deep Purple: Help

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Back in 1983, I was a expanding my musical world outward from the Beatles and into...heavy metal. Not sure how that happened, but it did. I blame it on "Helter Skelter".

One day I was at a local discount store, rummaging through their bin of discount cassettes. Remember those? Coming of age in the Walkman era, cassettes were my preferred format for listening to music until CDs (remember those?) became ubiquitous. I used to love digging through those bargain bins!

But I digress. So I was rummaging through the discount cassettes, and I came across an album by Deep Purple. Newly converted to the headbanging cause, I knew that Deep Purple were a band I needed to have. So I bought the cassette, which was called Shades of Deep Purple. When I popped it in my cheap Walkman knockoff, I realized right away that this was not quite the same band as the one that recorded the ur-riff "Smoke On the Water". This was psychedelic. Some of it was quite catchy.

I did some research, and discovered it was their debut album, from 1968, and they had a different singer (and a different bassist) than the band that recorded all those '70s classics. Despite my initial disappointment however, I ended up falling in love with the album.

The early Purple were indeed a psychedelic band, in the mold of Vanilla Fudge. They often recorded long, drawn-out psychedelicized covers. (They also recorded shorted bursts of psych-pop, like their cover of Joe South's "Hush", which was the big hit from this album.) On Shades of..., they applied the Fudge formula to John Lennon's most famous cry for help. Hearing the lyrics slowed down was an eye opener.

They recorded three albums with this lineup, before bringing in Ian Gillian's leather lungs for In Rock. To my ears, Shades of... is the only one of the three that still holds up.

Or maybe it just like the memories of my younger self the album evokes. I'm definitely listening to it through nostalgia-colored glasses.