Opposites: Southern Man/Girl From The North Country

Neil Young: Southern Man
[purchase]

Bob Dylan: Girl From The North Country
[purchase]

Bob Dylan w/Johnny Cash: Girl From The North Country
[purchase] 

Watching the Trump Party and its propaganda outlets whip themselves into a frenzy over what they are mischaracterizing as  “Critical Race Theory,” either due to political calculation or ignorance (or both), when what they are really afraid of is not the actual theory, but the “Truth,” could easily send me spinning off into a discussion, centered around Neil Young’s 1970 song, “Southern Man,” about institutional racism, the Civil War, and the Lost Cause myth, but I’ve written about that before. 

Instead, let’s (mostly) talk about the two songs I’ve chosen for the Opposites theme which are basically double opposites—one about a southern man, the other about a northern woman (although, if gender is really a spectrum, are they really opposites?) But there are even more things about the songs that are opposites. 

Young’s “Southern Man,” as most readers of this blog probably know, was released in 1970, at the height of the anti-war and civil rights unrest in the country. It is an angry song, about racism and slavery, and features harsh, searing electric guitars. (It also famously inspired, at least in part, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” but there really wasn’t any sort of rivalry between Young and Skynyrd, who were mutual fans of each other. Really.) 

Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country,” on the other hand, released in 1963, is a wistful, acoustic love song, maybe about one of Dylan’s actual former girlfriends, or some of them, or all of them, or none of them. While it didn’t inspire a response song, it did inspire Dylan to record a duet version of the song with Johnny Cash, which was released in 1969, about a year before “Southern Man.” 

Despite the Opposite features of the songs, there was great mutual respect among Young, Dylan and Cash. They’ve performed together and covered each other’s songs, and Dylan and Young were both on Cash’s TV show (where Cash and Dylan sang “Girl From The North Country” together—you can read more about it, and watch the video here.). The Young performance was part of a a special episode of Cash’s show, shot at Vanderbilt University. It focused on students’ issues, including drugs, and Cash openly discussed his own problems, before introducing Young at the Ryman Auditorium, where he performed “The Needle And The Damage Done” and another song. 

I’m guessing that was pretty much the opposite of what many of Cash’s country music fans would have expected. 

A small footnote—after the Ryman performance, Young and his guests, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor, hit the studio and worked on songs for the forthcoming Harvest album.

Mr./Ms.: Hey Mister, That's Me Up On The Jukebox

James Taylor: Hey Mister, That's Me up on the Jukebox
[purchase]

If you’ve been reading my work on this site since 2011 (!), you might notice that I often discuss why various artists aren’t as famous as I (or others) think they should be. That isn’t the problem this time, since our featured song was written and performed by James Taylor, who was, and still is, pretty famous. 

Today, we’re looking at a song written from the perspective of someone who achieved fame, and is maybe not all that happy about it. 

Taylor’s path to stardom is pretty well known. Born into a prosperous family, he was a sensitive musical child who eventually struggled with both mental illness and drug abuse. After his first “real” band, the Flying Machine, which also included his longtime friend and future collaborator Danny Kortchmar, failed to take off (sorry—I’m guessing that I’m not the first person to make that joke), he moved to England. Through Kortchmar, Taylor connected with Peter Asher, who at the time was running A&R for Apple Records, and Asher played Taylor’s demo for McCartney and Harrison, who loved it. Taylor was the first non-British act signed to Apple Records. 

Taylor’s self-titled debut, despite positive reviews, and a fine single, “Carolina On My Mind,” failed to sell well, in part because Taylor couldn’t promote the album because he was again in rehab. Upon his release, Taylor was unable to maintain the momentum from enthusiastic crowds at live shows, including the 1969 Newport Folk Festival, because he broke his hands and feet in a motorcycle accident. 

Signing with Warner Bros. Records, Taylor moved to California and recorded his next album with a big assist from Carole King (and Asher and Kortchmar). That album, Sweet Baby James, was justifiably a smash hit, garnering both critical and popular acclaim. This led to high profile concerts, benefit shows, TV appearances, and Time magazine’s declaration that he was the “face of new rock.” Let’s take a brief digression here to remind our readers who were not alive in 1971 that this was not at all as strange at the time as it sounds today. 

As often happens, the followup to the big hit album pales in comparison. That’s not to say that Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon was a bad album—it just wasn’t Sweet Baby James. Despite that, the album did spawn Taylor’s only Billboard No. 1 hit, a cover of King’s “You’ve Got a Friend,” featuring Joni Mitchell on background vocals, as well as Kortchmar and the crack rhythm section of Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel. 

Also on Mud Slide Slim is “Hey Mister, That's Me up on the Jukebox,” in which the singer, presumably Taylor, is pointing out to the titular Mister that it is, in fact, he who is singing the sad song on the jukebox. On the one hand, there has to be some pride in that, but there’s also a little shock, and some sadness about the fact that: 

I have wasted too much time just to sing you this sad song
And I've done been this lonesome picker a little too long 

Taylor has said that the song “is basically a way of dealing with the shock of being a private person going public.” When asked if he found it jarring, Taylor responded: 

Yeah. I found it - you know, of course, it's exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be successful. And I wanted to get people to hear my music. I wanted my music to make a difference to people. But at the same time, you know, making yourself the product, it's very distracting. 

Coincidentally, not long before starting to write this, I got to see my daughter experience a small amount of similar weirdness, although without the corresponding ambivalence (or, so far, massive commercial success). I may have mentioned before that she’s a standup comedian in Barcelona, and for a few months has been appearing semi-regularly on a TV show there, The Weekly Mag, designed to help locals practice their English. I stumbled across her IMDB page, listing her one credit, and she was shocked when I sent it to her. No, it’s not the same as what JT went through, but it is a cute story, and it allows me to make this piece a little more personal than just a discussion of the early career of James Taylor. 

Anyway, despite decades of fame, Taylor has always seemed to have a certain ambivalence about his place in the public spotlight consistent with “Hey Mister’s” lyrics, even as he has continued to record and perform, be a political and environmental activist, have a high profile marriage and divorce from Carly Simon, and a second marriage to actress Kathryn Walker (and another divorce). However, he seems to have settled into a quieter third marriage, to Kim Smedvig (who my wife, a huge Taylor fan, would point out is a Smithie), a comfortable recording and performing (pre-COVID) career, and maybe, finally, happiness.

LEFTOVERS: 'EMPTY', "SPIRIT'

A leftover to encapsulate both ‘empty’ and ‘spirit’, as in I am in danger of being drained of all celebratory Christmas spirit. OK, it’s true, my score on the humbuggery meter has always been on the higher side of stripey, but whither my goat? It’s bloody Christmas songs. You’d think, what with tiers and lockdowns, that exposure to seasonal dross would have been reduced, but no, it is as if this plague year has given folk carte blanche to wheel out their own version of any old warmed up fare from years gone by. And even, in those rare instances of when a Christmas hit does other than make you want to hit someone, most of the rebakes are so soggy as to insist you do. Or yourself, or the wall, anything to block out their ceaseless epiphanies. So, for your delight and delectation, here are some of this year’s turkeys.

Fairytale of New York is (was) a pretty good song by any standard, and one, in the original, I still enjoy. But it does not translate, and I don’t even mean the fuss and nonsense about the language used. There have always been dire versions, but this years offering takes the proverbial tin of shortbread. What were you thinking, Jon bloody Bon Jovi? Just because it’s for charity dose not let you off the hook for excreting this pot-pourri of scented manure. It’s supposed to be a duet, FFS, at least try to get that, but the arrangement, the distorted vowels, the all of it, it’s awful. (One tiny weeny positive, in that the replacement lines for the term of foodstuff abuse highlighted above, is a little more inventive than many of the other bowdlerisations out there.)

I should here add my disclaimer, I never was that much keen on Slade, and was always more of a Wizzard man in the day. OK, it was good the first million or so times I heard it, but that still only takes it to about 1975. But, when you might fear it may be its own nadir, along comes bloody Robbie Williams and Jamie Cullum, the Puck and Bottom of Christmas, and, by heck, don’t they look pleased with themselves. Apparently it came out last year, but, being then spared that joy, they are now giving it an extra boost this year, clogging up all the cosy TV magazine shows with interviews and performance. (Apparently they each also have new songs apiece for this year, but I have suffered enough already, so you don’t have to either, if you are wise.) From the gurning and mugging, to the smug complicity of the horn section, aaargh. Simply aaargh.

Call me out of touch, as I understand this one is nearly a decade old, but, forgive me if I haven’t kept up with the Bieby and try to avoid the wretched Busta Rhymes at all cost. And, whilst it could be said the Bing’n’Bowie version, probably the template for odd pairings everywhere, is the best known of this venerable tune, as well as growing on me, year by year, this abomination is one I could cheerfully never hear again. If the odious vocalisaions aren’t enough, the rap, like many, it’s true, plumbs all known depths in search of a sickly slickness that will burn equally, whichever direction it explores your gut.

Had enough? I could go on but I think that is enough for one sitting, and clearly now what is needed is something soothing to bring in the new dawn of a new year. One for Robert Burns, clearly, but, sadly there being no recordings of his own renditions for posterity, instead we must make do with sweet baby James, his voice itself like a hot toddy sipped as the pipes skirl and the clock chimes. What’s that? Too much sugar? Damn right, too much sugar. I’m off to the pub. 

(They’re still closed.)

Happy Christmas!

LEFTOVERS: NO, THANKS: HOW SWEET IT IS

 

purchase  [ Gorilla ]

SMM has done Leftovers at this season every year since its inception back in 2008. That theme, something Christmassy, followed by our In Memoriam theme are our traditions.

With ony two in the house for "turkey day" this year (in Istanbul, Turkey no less), we had no leftovers besides the pumpkin pie and a dab of cranberry. To compensate, I cooked a second batch of stuffing and turkey the next night. Want some more? Yes, please. Gotta have those leftovers.

But ... the music ... No leftovers here. Does Village Voice critic Robert Christgau like James Taylor? His comment about Taylor's version of this song are a pretty clear: "No, thanks". He labelled it "disgraceful". Further remarks he has made about Taylor indicate that it is not just this song. He writes: "I am no more likely to enjoy a James Taylor concert than an Engelbert Humperdink concert, and [...] this prejudice is not primarily musical."

In almost a rebuttal  to Christgau's "no way, thanks", Taylor's version of the lyrics of Marvin Gaye's original, again and again sing "thank you baby" - to Carly SImon. 

I kind of side with Christgau -but not as vociferously - Sweet Baby James was a good album. I'm mildly prejudiced because I had one foot in Chapel Hill, NC in those days, so Taylor was a home-town hero (and the songs were provocative in their own genre for the time). After that ... we discovered the true baby james.

For contrast, there's narry a thanks in Marvin Gaye's lyrics, The song "vibe" itself is thanks enough. Christgau is right.

SUPERSTITIONS: KNOCK ON WOOD

Now that we all know that it is often hard surfaces that carry the droplet particles we excrete contracted coronavirus out and about into the population, arguably this ain't such a good good luck charm. Unless we ritually wash our hands thereafter, for the required two minutes whilst singing a suitable song. So may I assume that given as an adjunct to this post?

As to why knocking on wood, or even just touching wood, should confer positive outcomes, this stems back to the days when it was believed that spirits and deities lived in trees, and so a way of making contact. Somehow seems a more tactile expression of faith than just projecting your thoughts into the ether, maybe why christianity appropriated the superstition, with a slight sleight, with the idea of it stemming from the tapping the wooden beams of the cross of the crucifixion. Made from, thus, a dead tree, clearly giving a mixed message to the noviciates transferring over from paganism.

Be all that as it may, clearly the authors, Steve Cropper, guitarist of Booker T's MGs, and soul singer Eddie Floyd, thought it a potent totem for their 1966 chart hit, themselves then muddling matters up with its talk of thunder and lightning, forgetting what also "touches" wood in a thunderstorm. But their luck duly held, the song was a hit for Floyd, hitting number 28 on the Billboard chart, even better, 19, in the UK., and is now an acknowledged star in the Stax firmament.

But it didn't end there, with, to date, well over a hundred and twenty covers, spanning many styles and genres. Cropper himself reprised the song for an often overlooked album, Jammed' In, a trio effort between himself, Pops Staples and Albert King. I commend the album. Floyd also repeated himself, as part of the Blues Brothers circus of films and tours. (And, yes, I am sure that is also Cropper in that clip, his face often inconveniently masked by the neck of the bass guitar.)

David Bowie, on his exit from the Ziggy/Aladdin years, famously went funky, or his manifestation thereof, and David, Live, the live showcase of the Young Americans style, produced this version. The backing is all a bit loopier than the precision of original Muscle Shoals studio setting, the vocals all over the shop. Not originally included in the album, it was released as a single in Britain, hitting a very reasonable number 10 in the chart during 1974.

Which wasn't a patch on the 1978 version by Amii Stewart, made during some down time from musical touring duties in London's theatreland. This never more disco, syndrums to the fore, version became a worldwide smash, a number one in her American home territory. Whilst I was way too cool to ever then admit to liking either her version or disco music in general, I certainly recall her performance/outfit enlivening episodes of Top of the Pops. So huge was the song in the clubs that, when the film of Studio 54, 54, was made, in 1998, it was Stewart's showstopping performance that was reimagined as a set piece performance for the film, if pseudonymised. I have never worked out quite why a song with such subject matter should be so successful with the often largely gay clientele of such clubs, most of the surrounds being metallic. (Yeah, right.)

I would have liked to have found a really out there version to finish with; sadly this wasn't to be. So iconic is the song and so distinctive the riff that none seem to stray from the rigidity of the template. However, I confess to liking this version by James Taylor, as much for the smile on his face as he sings it, acknowledging just how great a song it is.

Knock, knock.....

Slide: Mud Slide Slim

purchase [Mud Slide Slim]


What to make of James Taylor's musical career?
Myself - having spent a number of formative years in North Carolina ... I kind of embraced his early career. I loved his simple, but crisp, guitar picking: his plaintive vocals and somewhat mournful messages. Lots of loss and sadness.

And then, at what appeared to be a high point in a rising career, comes the Carly Simon story (that - while potentially a win-win affair - didn't seem to bring either career any benefits)

Now, I don't mean to say he has become irrelevant - his music from the 70s (Sweet Baby James, Mud Slide Slim) guarantee him a top spot in the history of rock/pop, but since then, he had slid (slided?) down the list of important musical influences - and you wouldn't have thought he would become so irrelevant if you were living back in 1972 or so. Mud Slide Slim makes for "pleasant listening",but  it nowhere near carries  the  value of Sweet Baby James.

Said Rolling Stone at this point in his career:
"Something has gone askew. James’ career is the lie to his art, for, if he is by nature an introspective reclusive, the effect of his career is the opposite. The discrepancy which makes James’ enormous success grotesque to the outsider is exactly what makes it personally threatening to him. So James himself perpetuates his problems, by releasing a best-selling record which aims at their solution."

The  Rolling Stone review of the album back in '71 pretty muchly panned Taylor's effort as no follow-up to the previous.

OK. Heard. How's about this?
Marianne Faithful:

Hmmm...

HISTORY/AGAIN : Mark Knopfler

Some artists clearly love a true story, if only and at least as a template from where to launch into fanciful forays of imagination. Knopfler is someone who seems forever digging around in the past as inspiration, uncertain whether he likes to research or has just a vast accumulated knowledge. Probably a bit of both, having trained and worked as a journalist, before a degree in english and working as a college lecturer, his career in music on a slow side simmer until the relatively advanced age of 28. Of course, Dire Straits became huge and possibly so ubiquitous that they and he became an easy target for the taste police, deeming him dull and anachronistic bombast, an irony given the majority of their/his songs retained a virtue of their lack thereof. I like him and always did, an early adopter, as Sultans of Swing soundtracked my student years in London. (Come to think of it, it's now so long ago it probably counts as history in its own right!) While Dire Straits dabbled in ye olde historical, meaning more WW1 than Italian familial vendetta, it is in his less acknowledged and still smouldering solo career that this side of his songwriting style has really found wings, now 9 albums strong, along with collaborations with, amongst others, Emmylou Harris and Chet Atkins.

Does the legend of Imelda Marcos' shoe cupboard count as history? I think it does, even if the song is a retread of that song indirectly referred to above. Arguably one of the weaker cuts from his first post Straits non soundtrack output, it wasn't until his 2nd record that he really found his narrative skills. The title track from that record follows, and I like to feel it alerted many a listener to the hitherto untapped world of cartography. A beautiful duet with James Taylor, himself no stranger to a shot at history*, it remains the high point of live performance.

Whilst his next record was largely a paean to his Northumbrian roots, it was 2004's Shangri-La that really outed his love of the biographic, with songs inspired by Elvis, by Sonny Liston and the UK King of Skiffle, Lonnie Donegan. And this one, about the developer of McDonalds, yes the meat patty people, Ray Krocs, with many of the lyrics, included below, lifted directly from his autobiography.

A distinct feature of successive output has been the greater immersion in traditional and rootsy forms, whether an anglo-celtic folk tradition or from country music. Lyrics increasingly based upon folklore perhaps, than hard evidence, but no less cinematic, like this whimsy around the Reivers, cross-border bandits really, who flitted between the english north and scottish south, sheep stealing, cattle rustling and generally causing havoc. (Hence the derivation of the word bereaved, meaning the fate of those who had been "reived".)

His next work substituted border cowboys for pirates, again using the metaphor of a band of marauding rogues for, maybe, the lifestyle of an itinerant rock and roll band. By this stage I fear the lyrical conceits get the better of his tune smithery, but it continued to add to his reputation as a reliable and authentic musician, selling respectably.

Finally we come up to date with last years 'Tracker', more confirmation of his comfort zone, but again featuring songs relating to real-life individuals, one to little known poet, Basil Bunting, and another musing on the legacy of novelist Beryl Bainbridge and her attempts at the Booker prize, the prestigious UK grail for novelists, and in style a tip of the hat to earlier musical memes.

So this is but a mere dip into the historical sources put to use by this gifted and self-effacing Northumbrian, clearly a well-read man, usually issuing these songs as either the title track or lead single. In concert he can seem embarrassed by his earlier successes, oft dashing off his hits with a grimace before another earnest folk-hued story unfolds. I suspect the audiences still come mainly for those hits, but overall, given the choice, I think I prefer the best of his solo work.

(*Machine Gun Kelly was written by Taylor guitar to go, Danny Kortchmar.)

Start buying!!

Carole King Covers: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

Me First & The Gimme Gimmes: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
[purchase]

You could argue that one of the ways to tell if a song is really well-written is to see whether it holds up when performed in different styles. Some songs would seem to only be effective in a particular style—for example, the Sex Pistols’ great “God Save The Queen” only works as an angry blast of punk, and not, for example, as a folk tune. Although you might be surprised at how good King Crimson’s prog-rock archetype “21st Century Schizoid Man” sounds in Delta blues style.

“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” seems to sound great no matter how it is played. Written by King and Gerry Goffin when she was still in her teens, the song was first released by The Shirelles in 1960, in classic girl group style, with tight harmony vocals and lush orchestration. Although apparently banned by some radio stations because of the sexual nature of the lyrics (!), it nevertheless reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

I’m not going to give you a long tour through the many, many covers of this great song, except to point out that it works in Swedish. And when King recorded the song for the great Tapestry album, she did it in a slower, piano-driven, contemplative style with Joni Mitchell and James Taylor contributing background vocals.  It was both an artistic and commercial success, getting played regularly on FM radio.

It is sort of a gimmick to take classic rock songs of this, and other, eras, speed them up, and turn them into punk songs. Few artists are as committed to this niche that honors the songs, but with sufficient ironic detachment to retain their punk cred, than Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. A “supergroup” of sorts, with members that include Fat Mike of NOFX, Chris Shiflett of Foo Fighters, and Spike Slawson of Swingin’ Utters and Re-Volts, they have released a bunch of albums, EPs and singles, including their 2001 album, Blow In The Wind, which focuses on pop hits of the 1960s. Their version of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” is, appropriately, loud, fast and surprisingly catchy, like The Shirelles’ version, but still retains some of the melancholy of King’s.

Carole King Covers: You've Got A Friend

It's possibly a fact that Ms King's best known song is in itself best known as a cover, namely the comforting and syrupy balm of James Taylor singing "You've Got a Friend", perhaps also "his" best known song. I don't know whether this can or could be proven as, with someone having a career stretching from being a Brill Building manufactured popsmith in the early 60s, to hippie chick troubador a decade later, to damn right, yes, she's still going with a bit of both and everything in between, it's difficult to work out. I guess it's in part generational, with the hepcats of '66 nodding sagely as the by then far and wigged-out Byrds phase their way through "Goin' Back", or the soulsters grooving to Aretha and "...Natural woman", so my generation picked up on "Tapestry", through her old friend and guitar slinger lifting a song from it as his break through single. But this isn't about sweet baby James, being more a tribute to some of the less well travelled versions. (Or is that so far travelled?)


I remain uncertain whether this is the worst thing I have ever heard or whether it is worse even than that, inescapably making me see the Muppets in my minds eye, so expertly do Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire channel Fozzie and Kermit. From the hideous patronising patronage of "contemporary" to the plodding singalongagramps of the performance, any nostalgic buzz for, say, "The Little Drummer Boy" evaporates.

Let's try something a bit more up-tempo, yeah, a James Brown influence:

Nooooooooo, take it off, take it away. Hideous even more than the old groaning above, is this supper club travesty really that Fred Wesley, those J.B.s? No wonder the album was "The Lost Album". I would.

Let's try again, some UK 80s indie, that'll be something, eh?

The Housemartins were the short-lived first band of Paul Heaton, later of "The Beautiful South" as here, and Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook. And this version of the song is awful.

I'm beginning to lose faith and falter here. I mean, how difficult can it be? Hell, premium cover version listings site, Second Hand Songs, lists 125 versions. OK, so the list includes everyone from Billy Ray Cyrus to Barry Manilow, and God knows who in between.

One more, some late 90's acid jazz:

Brand New Heavies were/are a UK originally instrumental band forming in the mid 80s, diversifying into a somewhat bland vocal hybrid between jazz, funk and nods toward hip-hop and dance music, with a string of sultry southern US vocal divas passing through their ranks, Carleen Anderson and N'Dea Davenport being perhaps the 2 best known, but with Siedah Garrett on the above, a minor hit in the UK. Tellingly, it was not even on the US copy of its parent album. I have to say it's the best of the lot I have found today, if purely by virtue of comparison.

So what's my point? Is it a good song? Well, I had always thought so, but maybe there is rather more of the Brill Building professional hit maker weave in "Tapestry" and "You've Got A Friend" than first hearing makes believe, hence the ease with which it sheds any credibility into a nylon leisure suit of schmaltz. And thus, maybe it is just the consummate interpretation skill of Taylor that embues it with any subtlety at all, although, to be fair, the original is pretty damn good too. Carole King was trained to write songs that would sell. 125 versions is a lot of versions and, by virtue of the names mentioned, hideous though to my ears, a lot of royalties. Success by any marker.

Finally, by way of a lift to my sorry conclusion, was it a fluke? Has the song got the capability of rising above it's apparent formula? Well, who better to give us that answer than the writer and the singer already mention, both here together, a mere 5 years ago.

Praise be! No fluke. Song good, interpretations vary............

JUKEBOX: HEY, MISTER, THAT'S ME UP ON THE......

Time for a quickie again, much as promoted by erstwhile and occasional Darius of this parish, 'cos there isn't always time for learned theses and sometimes just the song will do.

I have to admit to one big soft spot for Sweet Baby James, tho' I prefer the soft-rock addled troubadour of the 70s to his later more earnest presentation. Who can but fail to be bowled over by the plaintiveness of his vocal in this no-little self-reverential song? And if you aren't, what about :

The lovely Linda Ronstadt etches the country up a notch or two, and, if I am not mistaken, ol' JT plays the guitar on this version too. What, you want more quirky?

That's Judith Owen, occasional Richard Thompson sides(wo)man and wife, no less, of Harry Shearer. And if you want outright odd, how about this, about which I know nothing:

I guess the problem with this song, and, arguably, it's author and most well-known interpreter, is that they were, for a while, just too damn ubiquitous. But I don't care. They can do no wrong with me. (Well, except for that godawful Mexico song.........)

Nostalgia fest: Buy it! (This page covers all the above and more.)

New: New Hymn

James Taylor: New Hymn

[purchase]

Put away your image of James Taylor as a poetic lightweight, mere chronicler of the gentle muse: though his radio popfolk canon is tailor-made for easy listening, this track is a difficult one, with slant rhymes, an odd flowing meter, and a baffled imagery of the unknown, chock full of despair and darkness.

And yet, in many ways, New Hymn represents the under-appreciated apex of Taylor's prowess as a songwriter. Released only on his 1993 live album, this new hymn lives up to its titular promise, honoring the challenge of modern spirituality head on in a song that lingers long after its final notes fade. If it doesn't give you chills, you're not listening right.

So sit with it for a while: it's worth the visit. Soak in the tensions of the warm harmonies against the known darkness and the unknown fears evoked in its dense lyrical incantation. Note how the arrangement supports its fragmented vision, how the performance so effectively parallels its flares and flashes. Let its tiny coda sink in, and play it again, reveling in the short uplifting moment, the four word rise into hope at the song's end a deliberate echo of the Zen perfection psychedelic visionary Baba Ram Das described. Listen, and then accept its challenge: may we work to be here now, and in every moment, for this year, and for the years to come.

Show Tunes: Millworker

Pearl Jam: Millworker

[live, 2004]

Emmylou Harris: Millworker

[purchase]

Lavinia Ross: Millworker

[purchase]

I posted the author's "original" of this song way back in 2008 for our Work theme; aptly enough, the song was written for the score of the James Taylor-penned musical "Working", based on the Studs Terkel novel of the same name. Though neither the musical nor the 1979 album this song ultimately appeared on were terribly well received, I've always liked this simple song, and ol' JT clearly does, too, or he wouldn't keep recording it, trying to find just the right balance between the resignation and the desperation of the narrator, a widowed blue-collar millworker and mother from my home state of Massachusetts.

But today is for coverage, and thankfully, a number of musicians have taken this one on, from Pearl Jam to Emmylou Harris. Here's both: the former live and ragged; the latter, recorded relatively early in Emmylou's career, a solid countrypop tune exactly as plaintive and haunting and dreamlike as you'd expect it to be - plus a warm, gentle cover I just received in the mail last week from organic farmer and occasional singer-songwriter Lavinia Ross.

Doublespeak -> Dance Moves: Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha

Sam Cooke: Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha

[purchase]

James Taylor: Everybody Loves To Cha Cha Cha

[purchase]

Things heat up a bit as we move from one title theme to another this week, leaving behind songs that use the same word twice to start a set of songs which mention dance styles or dance moves in their title. Yes, folks, it's a Star Maker Machine Dance Marathon, and if it works, I'm hoping it'll become an annual pre-spring event, marking the warming of the world with a bit of energy as we shake off winter with some dance floor moves.

Sam Cooke provides a solid transitional tune with his hot, humid, heavily rhythmic tribute to the Cha Cha Cha, a dance of Cuban origin often referred to doubly in American parlance; Sam's original is a worthy addition to the canon, and it'll certainly teach you how to do the moves, but it's James Taylor's 1991 version, off his sorely underrated Adult Contemporary album New Moon Shine, that brought me here: slow, sultry, languid, and aching with a kind of longing that Sam surely never envisioned, bless his heart.

Late: Traffic Jam

James Taylor: Traffic Jam

[purchase]

Damn this traffic jam
How I hate to be late
It hurts my motor to go so slow
Damn this traffic jam
Time I get home my supper'll be cold
Damn this traffic jam

In a bit under 2 minutes, James Taylor's syncopated vocal and percussive instrumentation explore the sacrifices (punctuality, warm food, auto performance, health and fuel efficiency) incurred by gridlock - little did he know in 1977 how much worse it would get!

And, thanks to boyhowdy, here's an amazing cover from one of my favorite a cappella groups:

Da Vinci's Notebook: Traffic Jam

[purchase]

Public Domain: The Water Is Wide

Karla Bonoff (with James Taylor): The Water Is Wide

[purchase] - Click the Online Store button and then scroll down to Restless Nights

Tim O'Brien, Darol Anger, David Grisman, Michael Manring, Bela Fleck, John Jennings: The Water Is Wide

[purchase]

Indigo Girls, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan: The Water Is Wide

[purchase]

From the Wikipedia entry:

"The Water Is Wide" (also called "O Waly, Waly") is thought to be an English or Scottish folk song that has been sung since the 1600s and has seen considerable popularity through to the 21st century... Cecil Sharp collected this song during his journey to America in World War I.

The inherent challenges of love are made apparent in the narrator's imagery: "Love is handsome, love is kind" during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship. However, as time progresses, "love grows old, and waxes cold". Even true love, the narrator admits, can "fade away like morning dew"...

This post came in a roundabout way, in that my first song choice for this theme was Shenandoah, and I remembered the Heritage CD I had, which contained a version by the lovely Jane Siberry - however, when I listened, it was over 7 minutes long and a child's voice chimed in and... it just didn't resonate... so I used only Laura Love's interpretation...

However, also on the Heritage CD (an amazing project produced by fiddler Darol Anger, with a terrific array of guest stars) was a gorgeous rendition sung by Tim O'Brien, joined by other brilliant musicians... which in turn made me remember the Lilith Fair collaboration (with Indigo Girls, Jewel and then Sarah McLachlan taking turns on the verses)... which brought to mind an old favorite a few years post-college by Karla Bonoff, joined by James Taylor who lends his distinctive guitar and voice....

All are different and all are goosebump-inducing - as Darol says in his liner notes:

"In my life between the cracks as an art/folk musician, I've always dealt with the metaphor of traditional music as a river connecting the present with our parents, grandparents and on back It's a good metaphor because you can just about tease it to death. In that spirit, I've been moved to try to bring some old songs a ways downriver... They've been alternately worn smooth and built up again and again, polished to mirrors, so we see ourselves in them. They are truly emissaries from upriver, reminding us of who we are and where we come from. Point us in a direction. Are you going upriver or down?"

Cold: Frozen Man

James Taylor: Frozen Man

[purchase]

We've posted numerous James Taylor songs in our time here at Star Maker Machine, but none so recent as this one - an interesting commentary on the aging of the popular, given that the song is almost 20 years old. But our preference for James' earliest work is not, after all, atypical: though James still makes waves on the nostalgia circuit, generally, audiophiles cite his early, delicate folkwork as his heyday, and most eschew his lighter fare, especially the radio-ready products of his late seventies and early eighties poprock period, while ignoring the vast majority of what has come out since.

Count me an exception to the rule, then. For I have great respect for James' late-to-mid-career work, flawed though much of it it may be. And that goes especially for 1991 release New Moon Shine, and later nineties album Hourglass.

This song is a great example of James' middle-age period: contemporary, to be sure, and highly produced in that inevitable AAA-format folkpop style, it nonetheless manages to attain poignancy without resorting to the older formulae of confession and broken-souled youth so typical of his early work. Instead, here JT takes on the character of a man awoken out of time after being frozen in the ice for centuries, speaking to our middle-aged fears of loneliness and loss in the midst of full-flourish plastic culture in ways that few can attain at their best, either.

It's no Millworker, and it's certainly no Sweet Baby James. There's a veneer of cultural criticism here and elsewhere on the same album which is not so much forced as just plain obvious, in ways that only a middle-aged famous person might produce. But in the end, the viewpoint is tender, and the story unique; for what it claims to be, this is good, solid stuff, creative, sentimental almost to a fault, but nonetheless music from a master who can still hit the emotional high notes.

Oh, hell: let's be clear. It makes me ache, for myself and for all the loved ones that are and might have been in my life. Isn't that the true test of good music, under all our words?

Live: Carey-Mr. Tambourine Man

Joni Mitchell: Carey-Mr. Tambourine Man

[purchase]

I second the motion of Ramone666 - count me in for an Official Joni Bootleg Series!

In late-October of 2009, the Joni-list was all a-buzz with confirmed stories of a soon-to-be-released two-disc concert CD, complete with a 48-page booklet of photos and text, of a "forgotten" recording that was about to see the light of day, 40 years later...

Amchitka: the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace took place October 16, 1970 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - the line-up: Phil Ochs, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor (who was a last-minute addition, at Joni's request)...

You can read all about it here (to hear all the songs, go to the Music button, then click the green Playlist and Streaming link)... but nothing compares to listening with your whole heart and soul - I bought the CD for my husband and myself before we left for our Christmas vacation and, every time we put it into the car player (which was often), we never failed to be amazed by the pristine quality of the sound, the richness of the voices and the innocence of a time in which 10,000 people paid $3 each to come together for a common cause: to stop nuclear testing in Alaska...

The CD can only be purchased from the website, and all proceeds go to support the continuing work of Greenpeace - I came very close to posting Joni's stunningly haunting version of Woodstock, but this Carey-segues-into-Mr.-Tambourine-Man is special for a few reasons: Joni covering Dylan... and, at about the 6-minute mark, Joni forgets the words and asks James for help (and the rest, as they say, is history... :-)

Early: Anti-Procrastination Edition

Let's face it - I'm not only never early for anything... but I'm rarely even on time. I seem to go through life with a 15-minute Bermuda Triangle of "how did it get to be (insert _____ o'clock I was supposed to be somewhere) already?!?". To that end, I'm attempting to be Early in all definitions of the word (rather than my usual 11:59 Saturday night post) - I think Stephen Wright said it best: "The early bird gets the worm... but the second mouse gets the cheese." (ha!)...

James Taylor: Rainy Day Man

[purchase]

Rainy Day Man was originally released in 1971, on his James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine album (of the four vinyl covers, I have the one that's plain white with penciled titles) - however, I'm including a version of the song from a bootleg of his October 29, 1970 Paris Theatre show in London, England with Joni Mitchell...


Joni Mitchell: Eastern Rain

[purchase] (never officially released/not commercially available)

The Joni Mitchell website lists her Early Unreleased Songs, many of which have been compiled on a CD for list members (thanks, Bob!) - from AllMusicGuide:

"At the beginning of her career, Joni Mitchell wrote so many songs that she never got around to recording a few of the ones she regularly performed on stage in the late 1960s. One of those was "Eastern Rain," which was covered by Fairport Convention as a highlight of their second album, What We Did on Our Holidays." More here...


Todd Snider: Talkin' Seattle Grunge Rock Blues [plus intro]

[purchase]

Boyhowdy covered this one over a year ago but, since it's the first song of Todd's that turned me on to his music (as the hidden track on his 1994 debut CD Songs for the Daily Planet), I had to revisit - however, rather than the studio track, I'm posting a live version from his August 19, 2001 performance at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest in Lyons, Colorado, which includes an hysterical introduction, as well as a few extra verses admitting he "borrowed" the talkin' blues style from Bob Dylan... but Dylan got it from Woody Guthrie!


Mary Chapin Carpenter: The Opening Act

[purchase] (never officially released/not commercially available)

From Country Universe:

"In a rare coup for a new artist, Mary Chapin Carpenter earned a coveted performance slot on the 1990 Country Music Association Awards [a YouTube video can be found here], and she used it to establish her identity as one of country music’s left-of-center talents. She decided to perform the biting “You Don’t Know Me (I’m the Opening Act),” a cutting dismissal of country star power gone awry. It was a risky move, with the less-than-famous artist taking a stab at the music industry who would determine the fate of her career...

She received a standing ovation at the end of the semi-scandalous story of a rising musician’s struggle. But Carpenter didn’t struggle for long. Two years later, she won the first of back-to-back Female Vocalist of the Year trophies in a CMA career that included 12 nominations, among them, a nomination for Album of the Year and Single of the Year (for the similarly sharp “I Feel Lucky”) in 1992."


Dave Carter: You Must Slumber

[purchase]

From my friend Ron's wonderful website:

"This is a song that Dave wrote when he was 17 years old, and which Tracy indicates was recorded for – but eventually left off – the "Tanglewood Tree" CD. Although it was never released on an official Dave & Tracy album, a recording of it is now available on the Signature Sounds 10th Anniversary Collection disc."

Drinkin' Songs: Last Call Edition

It's been a crazy week (what else is new?!?)... and I seem to have run out of time - figured I'd just set up a round of drinks on the bar... and you can "choose your poison"until this place closes down at midnight.

Cheers!

James Taylor: Captain Jim's Drunken Dream (rum)

[purchase]

Jules Shear (with Freedy Johnston): Revenge (whiskey)

[purchase]

Todd Snider: Beer Run (beer)

[purchase]


Joni Mitchell: A Case of You (wine)


[purchase]

Crash Test Dummies: A Worm's Life (tequila)

[purchase]

One: Only One

James Taylor: Only One

[purchase

Only One is from James Taylor's twelfth recording, That's Why I'm Here, released in 1985:

Rolling Stone: "With its heartening aura of renewed faith and burgeoning self-knowledge, James Taylor's That's Why I'm Here reveals a man at peace with himself, his notorious inner demons finally silenced."

AllMusicGuide: "he had found his long-term niche with Baby Boomer fans now permanently tuned to soft-rock radio... (Notwithstanding its initial commercial reception, That's Why I'm Here eventually went platinum.)"

I bought it (in album form) when it first came out, but it was definitely a turning point for me - I didn't want to be lumped in with the "Baby Boomer fans" the review above describes. I missed the demons, the Sweet Baby James who was anything but... with his growling Steamroller, his poignant Her Town Too, his double-entendre'd Handy Man - I purchased October Road for my husband for his birthday one year... but I gave myself permission to call it quits with the man I always teased about marrying (if Robert hadn't asked me first). I preferred to have the memories of what once was... rather than move forward into a self-perceived Candyland (too many Gum Drop Mountains, not enough Molasses Swamps) - and oh, the memories (almost every song on those first 11 albums is near and dear to my heart... :-)

As an extra treat, here's the "official music video", complete with harmonies by Joni Mitchell and Don Henley (of the Eagles)... as well as JT's regular back-up vocalists Arnold McCuller and Rosemary Butler... Leland Sklar on bass... Billy Payne (of Little Feat) on keyboards - check out the cigarette in Joni's right hand!