Pat: Patrick O’Hearn

Group 87: Future of the City
[purchase] 

When I suggested this theme, I was trying to think of a St. Patrick’s Day theme that didn’t fall back on some variation of Irish music, so it is kind of funny that I’m writing about a guy named Patrick O’Hearn (although it sounds Irish, it turns out that it may more likely be English). 

Frankly, what I knew about Mr. O’Hearn before starting this piece was that he was once in a band that I liked back in the 80’s called Group 87, but I didn’t even know what instrument he played. The band put out a self-titled album in 1980 that was given pretty heavy airplay at WPRB, but I’m guessing that most people reading this have never heard of it. 

Group 87 is an instrumental album that mixed rock, jazz, fusion, and what would eventually be called new age music, and it was really well done (it rocks more than it “new ages,” if that’s a phrase, and we all know it isn’t). Considering the style, and the time, it isn’t surprising that the album went nowhere, and the band was cut by Columbia Records, only to re-emerge in 1984 with a second album on EMI that I have never heard. All because the same A&R guy who signed them at Columbia had moved to EMI—Bobby Colomby, who had been the drummer for Blood, Sweat & Tears. 

But it turns out that O’Hearn, and the rest of Group 87 have had pretty interesting and fairly successful careers, pretty much off of the Jordan Becker radar. Group 87’s trumpeter was Mark Isham, who had played with, among others, Van Morrison, before becoming a new age and soundtrack star and in-demand session musician. The guitarist, Peter Maunu, is also a prolific session musician, with credits that range from Jean-Luc Ponty, and The Commodores. And while not an official member of the group, the drums on their debut were played by Terry Bozzio, who had played with Zappa and U.K. before forming Missing Persons with, among others, his wife Dale Bozzio and other former Zappa band members. 

But this is about O’Hearn, who started as a bass player, and began playing professionally at 15. Moving to San Francisco, he played mostly jazz, playing bass for well-established artists such as Charles Lloyd, Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon, Joe Pass, Woody Shaw, Eddie Henderson, and Bobby Hutcherson, as well as musicians who were his contemporaries, and eventually joined Frank Zappa’s band, where he began experimenting with synthesizers. 

In 1979, he joined friends Isham, Maunu (and Bozzio) to form Group 87. Bozzio then recruited O’Hearn to move into the new wave world, joining Missing Persons, where he played both synthesizer and bass, and hopefully cashed in on their popularity. When that band broke up in 1986, O’Hearn eventually started a solo career in the new age and ambient genres, where he has been quite successful, as well as working on soundtracks. To date, he has released 13 solo albums. And, in another genre-bending move, he played bass with John Hiatt on tour from 2007-2010 and in the studio through 2012 (so he wasn’t there when I saw Hiatt at the Tarrytown Music Hall in 2014). 

Although one of the things I like about writing these little blog posts is that I get to write about stuff that I know, the best part is finding out things that I didn’t know.

GUITAR HEROES: HANK

Why does the phrase "Guitar Heroes" always have me thinking the wanton destruction of guitars? I guess it’s my age, as the sure fire way to gain that status in the 60s would be, literally, to fire it up. Or to smash it up. OK, let’s disregard the apocrypha that inform us of the dodgy guitar, just off stage and out of audience view, hurriedly sleighted into use and destroyed, night after night, whilst the more precious gear went back into the mink lined crate. And why always guitars? How come the keyboards or drums never took equivalent bashings? (Alright, well nearly never….)

John Hiatt has famously had words to say about the practice, rightly decrying it. But he has had oodles of previous posts here, so I have to think harder. The good news is that there are actually a lot of songs about guitars, often by guitarists who are no slouches on the instrument either. There are even a slew of songs about guitarists by guitarists. One I have covered here before, but not this one below.

I am not going to blether ever onward about my love and awe of RT. Partly because I could and partly as I, and others, have already. But the song, not, I agree, his strongest composition, does at least give some faithful insight of who he was trying to emulate,  in his bedroom all those years ago. But I notice that one of the fellas included in the song always appears in the lists of the favourites of our favourites, that being Hank Marvin, of the Shadows. Those queueing up to pay homage to this mild mannered anti-axe hero are many and varied, including some surprising names: Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Neil Young even. (And you thought From Hank to Hendrix was about Mr Williams?!)

I like the video above, if only presenting Hank and the boys in a slightly cooler setting than the usual suits, grins and little dances. Not that they too, in hindsight, don't have their own certain whiff of something unattainable.

There is something slightly thrilling in revisiting these old tunes and these old clips. Remember this is the cusp of the 60s and England. Sure, we had rock and roll over here, but a largely gentler and milder version, nothing too shocking to shift our upper lips. Cliff was as rowdy as it got, the Shadows getting their break as his backing band. The advent of the Beatles so then tilted the universe that Cliff and the Shads seemed forever displaced to light entertainment and TV variety shows. But, listen again: that tone, that tremolo. Magnificent.

He has even had a tribute album created in his honour, Twang!, with an A list of the gurners and shredders, including those mentioned above, along with Mark Knopfler, Brian May and Peter Green, all lining up to play his praises. It’s a good listen, too, in turns surprising, as you realise quite who is on it, as well as realising and remembering quite how good a body or work he produced all those years ago. But who does he rate and who were his inspirations? Here's a pretty good interview and, unsurprisingly, it lists the icons of the golden age of rock and roll, Scotty Moore and James Burton to name but two. He comes over as a decent fella, too, with feet still firmly on the ground.

So you can keep your long hair, your tapping and your pedals, when I want something simple and sublime, gimme some Hank!

Guitar Heroes , get 'em both!!!!

Lesson: Lesson In Love

Paul Carrack: Lesson In Love 

[purchase] 

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?

ALONE: ALONE IN THE DARK/JOHN HIATT

John Hiatt is just terrific, one of the best, if not in sales, certainly in terms of influence and output, up there, in my book, with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. When he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad, well, I haven't encountered that yet. And Bring the Family, the album from which this song comes, is possibly one of his best, positively enhanced by the backing band on hand. Backing band? O, just Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner. And yet it was born out of near desperation, a banknote or so away from ruin. Alone in the Dark, the feature song of this piece, epitomises the tight but loose feel of the disc, and is often overlooked amongst some of the other goodies on board. The lyrics may reflect a differing loneliness and a differing dark from these dangerous days, but the mood sure fits.

Ahead of this time, Hiatt had been a slogging workaday singer-songwriter, starting his career as a pen for hire. When Three Dog Night hit the top 40 with one of his, a recording contract beckoned, although, over the ensuing seven discs, scattered across various labels, more money came from royalties recouped, as the likes of Roseanne Cash and Willie Nelson recorded his songs, than he made from his own originals. Even the mighty Geffen label tried and failed to break him. This was arguably not helped by Hiatt being a drunken cuss who hadn't endeared himself to label bosses. So, newly sober, with a bunch of songs he had lost faith in, straits were indeed dire. Luckily the maverick UK label Demon still believed in him, and could offer a threadbare budget to record them. (The story of Demon makes for interesting reading, established by the earlier team behind Stiff records, Radar and F-Beat.)

Bring the Family, released in 1987, is a joy, from start to finish, the four musicians laying down a lean muscle honed from their collective road and studio experiences, Hiatt's holler a celebrant to his limited range: who needs more notes when you can do this much with these? Plus the songs, ten gems that can crack open a smile just from memory. Even if you don't know them, you know them, and even if you do, even over know them from the myriad cover versions of many, the freshness and vitality of the originals stand head and shoulder over most of those. It is hard to believe the whole project took only four days, Lowe sharing a motel room with Hiatt to keep costs down, Cooder delaying his departure a few hours as the final song was hastily written.

Neither the schedules of the four musicians, nor, then, the budget could allow this line-up any time on  the road. True, Hiatt rounded up some likely culprits, including perhaps the only man who could reasonably ever deputise for Cooder, bayou slide master, Sonny Landreth, and they hit the trail.  Following in the slipstream of Bring the Family, this crew, the Goners, produced a second deal breaking LP for Hiatt, Slow Turning, only a whisker away from being as good as its predecessor, being merely excellent. Hiatt was on a roll, with these and his next seven records all making substantive waves in the Billboard chart.

But the dream team were not done. In 1992 the diaries of Hiatt, Lowe, Cooder and Keltner finally realigned, and they went back into the studio. This time a band, Little Village, also the name of the sole studio offering, having ditched the earlier, and better, working title of Hiatus, and this time a pooling of resources, rather than just a backing band for Hiatt. The songs were all co-writes between the four, and whilst Hiatt sings the majority, Lowe took lead on two, Cooder on one. Perhaps there was too much hope, but the lightning failed to strike twice, and it was a deeply disappointing set. Nick Lowe later said they were given too much time. The subsequent tour was a little better, live sets testifying to that, allowing a presentation of some Bring the Family favourites, as well as scattering of Cooder's solo repertoire. One could sense a simmer of "sibling" rivalry, maybe some resentment that Hiatt was drawing more focus over Cooder's own sense of entitlement. It all ended, apparently, in tears.

Hiatt remains on the road, as do his former compadres, occasionally sharing a bill with one or another, all now senior statesmen and rightly so. Hiatt's recent work is, in my opinion, still of top quality and can stand close to the height of this period. Give him a go.

Un-Sainted Nicks: Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time

purchase [Nick of Time]

Well ... here's a new word for you that you probably won't ever need, but if you were to remember to pull it out at the right time, it might impress someone.
hypocorism: a nickname that shows affection that can include both major alterations to the original (calling your sweetie "possum") or abbreviating Nicholas to "Nick". Ever wonder if they called Khrushchev "Niki"?

A search of the Intertubes will provide the dedicated researcher with lists of musicians with the first name Nick, and a deeper search can call up others that have some form of Nick somewhere in their full names, and that's all well and good. And then there are songs or albums that incorporate those four letters in that order somewhere within, as in <Nick of Time>.

If you have followed my posts over the years, you already know my lasting affinity for Ms Bonnie Raitt. About Raitt, I've posted, Seuras has posted, Darius has posted ...

Nick of Time was her 10th album and it includes a number of collaborators you'd be likely to recognize in their various roles. Among the better known:
Herbie Hancock
Michael Landau
Don Was (who also produced)
David Crosby
Graham Nash
It's a pretty long list of credits, and you might well know more of them than those I chose to list from my own limited experience.

The album got a ton of awards: Grammy's Album of the Year, inclusion in Rolling Stone's 500 greatest, but for some reason, never in my list of favorite Raitt works (I think that'd be <Give It Up>).

Although John Hiatt doesn't play on the album, one of his songs is included, and I choose that, in part because I included a Hiatt song back in out Spring <Steps & Stairs> theme

So ... this, partly for the purpose of comparisons of sorts: Hiatt in different hands sounds like this ...?

Trick/Treat: Candy

Iggy Pop featuring Kate Pierson: Candy
[purchase]

And now here’s the Treat.

That Iggy Pop wrote a catchy pop love song is more than a little surprising. Best known for musical and personal excess, confrontation, and a wildly unpredictable stage persona, Pop reached out in early 1990 to Don Was, a fan and fellow Michigander, who was beginning to make a name as a producer, to try to make an album that would be more polished and commercial than his recent output. Was gathered a diverse group of musicians, including Slash and Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses, Kate Pierson, from the B-52’s, whose recent hit album, Cosmic Thing, he had produced, John Hiatt, studio veterans Waddy Wachtel, Kenny Drayton, Kenny Aronoff, and David Lindley, and members of his own band, Was (Not Was).

He succeeded. Brick By Brick is a great album, filled with great songs that split the difference between the harder rock of his prior work and a more commercial sensibility, but with, for the most part, angry, cynical lyrics.

And then there’s “Candy.” A love song sung as a duet with Pierson, it is an anomaly, and was a hit. As Pop has said, “I’ve written one good pop song, ‘Candy.’ It’s a very decent, proper pop song, but that’s as far as that went.” It is a more than decent pop song. On its surface, it appears to be a song about a lost love, who herself regrets the loss. Although it is a duet, the characters are singing past each other, but are heading to the same place. If you take that interpretation, which Pop has advanced (he says it is about a teenage girlfriend, Betsy), it really is sweet, and poignant.

But this is Iggy Pop, we are talking about, so there are other, darker, interpretations. One is that Pierson’s character is a prostitute, who gave Pop’s character “love for free.” And another is that Pierson’s character represents heroin, to which Pop was addicted to on and off over the years (and which he has written about before, maybe most famously in “Lust for Life,” a song that someone thought was an appropriate tune to use in commercials for a family cruise line. At least they edited out the part about liquor and drugs.)

You know, I’m going to take Iggy’s word for it—that he reached into his past to write a love song to a childhood sweetheart who still meant something to him—and not try to read too much into it.

AMAZE: AMAZING GRACE (USED TO BE HER FAVORITE SONG)/AMAZING RHYTHM ACES

Two for one here, a band with amazing in their title and amazing in the song, which is, um, amazing. And my "research", the search button in the top right of this page, suggests they haven't been here before, surprising if they are indeed up to their modest entitlement. And are they? Let's see.....

I was a bit of a country nerd in the early 70s, or country rock more accurately, that hybrid of long hair and pedal steel, disowned, largely, by each of its parents at the time, yet proving enormously resilient and robust. Now given I was living and raised in East Sussex, in the south of England, my cowboy credentials were pretty slim, but I dug hard and deep to nail my colours to the (confederate?) flag. So it was way more than the Byrds or Burritos for me, more, much more than the New Riders and Poco. I would rifle through the vinyl at record shops for hours until I could find something yet more arcane. And there were a host of trinomials, bands with 3-word names, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Pure Prairie League and these guys, but I could never remember which was which and who sang what. Indeed, I still had to look as listening was no great differentiator. The League I thought were great, ARS were a little bland, with the Aces somewhere in between. The featured song, their sole chart botherer of any great note, is typical of their style, a 4:4 harmonied croon with appropriately wailing steel and lyrics about drinking and crying. It's actually held up quite well, I think. It comes from their 1975 debut, "Stacked Deck", which is probably the best introduction to the band. It contains also another song you may recall, especially if you are Canadian, the number one in Saskatchewan hit, Third Rate Romance, which has dated terribly, the product of when other influences get chucked into the pot. They lasted until 1980, successive albums producing limited returns. (They reformed in the mid to late 90's but that need not trouble us here.)

More interesting to me is what happened to the erstwhile piano tinkler, James Hooker, not realising he had been in the band. A decade or so on from crate digging in dusty record shops, I was married and living, by chance and to my glee, next door to another country rocker, although Paul was slightly more attuned to the country than the rock. He had a bigger collection than me and introduced me to many an act I hold dear to this day, Steve Earle and Nanci Griffith, to name but two. Back then Earle was only beginning to revive his career after his drug habit had led to incarceration. But Nanci was in her prime and, being someone with a bigger european audience than at home, toured the UK regularly. I just have seen her play half a dozen times in those late 80s, always with faithful Hooker alongside, playing piano and leading her band, the Blue Moon Orchestra, which would also showpiece whichsoever hip young guitar slinger she had unearthed in the country & irish clubs of Dublin. Her shows were a delight and could have me alternately yelping and weeping, not least in the song below, co-written with Hooker, the much covered Gulf Coast Highway. Live, Hooker was always given due credit for his overall role in the Griffith sound, he seeming quiet and unassuming, smiling in embarrassment as attention was drawn to his pivotal position and exquisite playing.

Life intervened in so many ways and Paul and I lost contact. I stopped going to Nanci Griffith and indeed any shows for actually quite a long time, picking up again roughly 15 years ago. Hooker had however kept busy, and I was astonished to see he had worked with and was on so many records I love. Like John Hiatt's "Slow Turning"and ex-Brinsley Schwarzer Ian Gomm's "Rock'n'Roll Heart", both as organist. Also that he had, full circle into and within my trajectory toward the Rhythm Aces, been a latter day Flying Burrito Brother, or at least appeared on a couple of albums, albeit far from their heyday. (And, fact fans, original Rhythm Aces drummer, Jeff 'Stick' Davis, was a member of the 'Sneaky' Pete Kleinow/Garth Hudson collaboration, Burrito Deluxe.)

Hooker is now seemingly retired and was certainly never a returning Ace. As I look back over my years of gigging, he has certainly always seemed one of the good guys. And, through appreciating his later work, suddenly I find myself listening to 'Stacked Deck' with a whole lot more enthusiasm.

Stack yours!

Steps & Stairs: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - One Step Over the Line

purchase [One Step Over the Line]

<One Step Over the Line> is not to be confused with the better known <One Toke Over the Line> despite the fact that the syllabication and hence - to some extent the application to a musical format -is pretty similar.

The latter by Brewer and Shipley, the former by John Hiatt.

But the choice for the theme is John Hiatt (and Rosanne Cash) performing with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.


The Dirt Band first appeared mid 60's doing Mr Bojangles among other pieces. And then they sort of faded into the background until they came back with their <Will the Circle Be Unbroken> albums, the 2nd of which includes this piece.

I read somewhere that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was the group that made country music appeal to rock music fans.
That's certainly true for me (although I do like Country music of a certain style with or without the Dirt Band).

This song seems to appear most often with a female backup vocal. Rightly so. John Hiatt has an inimitable style, but his crooning improves with a female side-kick on vocals.

The End: Surrender

Cheap Trick: Surrender (live)
[purchase the full concert—it’s cheaper than the original version!]

When you Surrender, it is The End, right?

I’m willing to bet that the first time that most of us heard the word “Budokan,” it was because of the release of Cheap Trick’s 1978 album, Cheap Trick at Budokan.” There was a slightly earlier release, Live at the Budokan by the Ian Gillan Band, so if you were a metal head or Deep Purple fan, you might have heard of that one first (John Gustafson, the bass player in the Ian Gillan Band, also played on Roxy Music’s “Both Ends Burning,” the subject of my last piece, which is a total coincidence.)

The Budokan is, according to Wikipedia, “an indoor arena located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.. . .originally built for the judo competition in the 1964 Summer Olympics, hence its name, which translates in English as Martial Arts Hall.” The Beatles were the first rock band to play there, in 1966. Also according to Wikipedia, a couple of dozen or so live albums have been recorded there, by artists including Bob Dylan, Dream Theater, Quincy Jones, Avril Lavigne, John Hiatt and Sheryl Crow.

But I think that Cheap Trick’s album is the most well-known, and it is the only one that made Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 greatest live albums of all time (#13). Like 1976’s Frampton Comes Alive (Rolling Stone’s #41), the live set helped to break an act that had not really clicked with the public into the big time.

“Surrender” is a great, anthemic song, that appears to be about teenagers discovering that their parents aren’t as “uncool” as they believe—and, in fact, may even be cooler than they are. It is sort of an illustration of that point in your life when you realize that your parents actually are people, with experiences, who might have some wisdom that is worth listening to. What you are supposed to be surrendering to is, I think, unclear, especially since the chorus is:

Surrender, Surrender, but don’t give yourself away.

Away to what?

It really doesn’t matter, does it?

"Surrender" is a song that you can listen to over and over and over, and the live version has that little edge of excitement that the best live performances add to a song.

I remember listening to this with my kids when they were young, and bouncing around and singing at the top of our lungs:

Mommy's all right 
Daddy's all right 
They just seem a little weird 

Are we, though?

John: My Dog & Me (John Hiatt)

John Hiatt & The Goners: My Dog & Me
[purchase]

That handsome guy pictured above was named Strummer, after the great Joe, who died in December, 2002, about a year before his canine namesake was born. And, on Sunday, our Strummer passed away quietly, in his home, with people he loved.

I didn’t want to get him, and I didn’t want to have him, and certainly more than my wife and children, I resisted his considerable charms. For years, I took a predictably passive aggressive position about getting a dog. They talked about getting one, and I nodded and did nothing to advance the project. This strategy was remarkably successful for years, but one day, to my surprise, on a February day in 2004, I found myself in a minivan on the way to the North Shore Animal League. We looked at a bunch of dogs, none of which satisfied the selection committee (while I stood in the back, trying to remain detached). But when Adam found this little black Lab mix, with white markings, he was smitten, and his enthusiasm swayed his sister and mother. I was pretty much indifferent, although I had to admit that he was a nice looking puppy.

On the ride home, the little guy was scared, he sat on Adam’s lap, and even baptized him with piss. We got home, and were dog owners. Of course, in the traditional manner of all kids who promise to do all of the work relating to a dog, in reality, most of it fell on my wife, and to a lesser extent on me. At the time, I was working full time in New York, and my wife was home more, and cared more, so she did most of the heavy lifting.

Strummer was a good dog. He was, as could be expected from what we believe was a Lab/Pit Bull mix, very territorial. As I said on Sunday, he retired undefeated in preventing the mailman, the UPS guy and the FedEx guy from getting in the house, because he barked like crazy when they approached. In fact, he barked at pretty much anyone, or any dog who walked by the house. He especially seemed to hate these two greyhounds that lived in the neighborhood, and I used to joke that they had, as Woody Allen once said, “passed a remark” about him. But once we let you into the house, he was an affectionate and friendly guy, even though he grew to be about 100 pounds and could look pretty imposing. He loved my family unconditionally, and when my kids came home from college, he gave them an excited greeting that was something to see.

I have to admit that I kind of resented having to deal with him at times, like when it was freezing and he needed to go out, or when we needed to pay to have him taken care of so that we could go away for a day or longer. And as my kids got older and became more independent, I was not pleased about still having to worry about him. To be clear—it wasn’t the dog that bothered me, it was having a dog at all, which is a different thing, at least to me.

In March, 2013 I left my job in the city and started working from home. All of a sudden, I was Strummer’s main caretaker, which was quite a change for me. And we bonded a bit. I found myself talking to him in the quiet house, which for some reason seems somewhat less crazy than talking to no one. And at times, it wasn’t bad to come downstairs from my office to his wagging tail and hopeful eyes. Of course, sometimes he insisted on barking while I was on the phone with clients, or demanded to go outside when I wanted to do something else. And it was still a pain in the butt having to deal with taking him out during the winter, or when I was working. But we also started taking regular walks, and having Strummer gave me an excuse to explore local trails that I would never have chosen to walk alone.

Unfortunately, a few months back, Strummer hurt his leg, and the vet diagnosed him with a torn or strained ACL in his back right leg. Considering the cost of operating, the difficult rehab and his age, she advised only to give him pain meds and have him take it easy. So, the long walks stopped, and he became a bit more sedentary. He was still alert and seemed happy, if a bit hobbled, which I could sympathize with.

Suddenly, last Tuesday morning, he had trouble walking, and his “good” back leg was swollen. The vet hoped that it was just an infection, but suspected something worse. On Thursday, we got the diagnosis of lymphoma, and a bad prognosis. His condition deteriorated quickly, and a few family friends and relatives came to say goodbye. By Sunday, he couldn’t walk at all. We knew it was time to let him go, and had the vet scheduled to come to the house that afternoon to put him down. But, before that, and sitting with Adam as he did that day he joined the family, Strummer completed the circuit of life and died on his own terms. We buried him on the perimeter of the territory he guarded so jealously, with Adam, his girlfriend Robin, my wife and my parents standing by, and with my daughter watching on Skype, sadly only 6 days before she would be returning from a year abroad.

We aren’t religious people, so we don’t think that Strummer is off in some big dog park in heaven running with Max and Maggie, or his friends from day care, but I’m glad that he is no longer in pain. I know that all of us—even me—were enriched by his life and his years as part of our family. You’ll be missed, big fella.

Clearly, John Hiatt had a dog that he loved, because the lyrics to “My Dog & Me” could only have been written by someone who did. I mean, Hiatt is a great songwriter, and all, but this song has the ring of truth.

Vacation: Slow Turning

John Hiatt: Slow Turning
[purchase]

I just returned from a long weekend away with my wife to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Our honeymoon, back before we had kids, and still had some money, was a trip to Greece. The past weekend was somewhat less grand, but still enjoyable. Because there is just something great about getting away, changing your routine and seeing new things.

There is a huge difference between traveling with just your spouse, and traveling with kids. Yes, going on vacations with kids can be a pain—they need to be watched and entertained, and they often share your room. They like to do childish things, which, it is sometimes hard to remember, is what they are supposed to like. When they are younger, they only want to eat fast food, and when they are teenagers, they supposedly just want to be somewhere else (I say “supposedly” because somehow that never seemed to be an issue for us—or my kids were good at faking it).

John Hiatt is an incredible songwriter. He happens also to be a good guitarist and singer, but my guess is that, when the final report on his career is written, he will be best remembered as a songwriter. According to his Wikipedia entry, he has won two awards, Songwriter/Artist of the Year at the 2000 Nashville Music Awards, and the 2008 Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. Also in 2008, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. So, I’m not the only person who thinks he is a good songwriter (not to mention, he has been written about often on this site over the years). Despite his long career as a performer and recording artist, he is probably best known to the general public through covers of his songs, most notably Bonnie Raitt’s cover of “Thing Called Love,” the numerous covers of “Have a Little Faith in Me,” and maybe even Buddy Guy’s cover of “Feels Like Rain.”

Hiatt has the gift of being able to very quickly sketch out a character or tell a story, and his songs have made me laugh out loud, cry uncontrollably, cringe and think. And often, his songs make you nod with understanding, because he has captured something universal. “Slow Turning,” fits into a few of those categories. It is a meditation on the vagaries of life, and how sometimes things turn out for the best, even if they don’t turn out how you want or expect. I think the key line in the song, maybe the reason that Hiatt wrote the song which describes his family life, is: “And you can learn to live with love or without it/But there ain't no cure.”

But is this song about a vacation? I’m not really sure, but it certainly is about a car ride, so indulge me. In what have to be some of Hiatt’s most memorable lines, which I think most fathers can sympathize with, he writes:
 
Now I'm in my car
I got the radio on
I'm yellin' at the kids in the back
'Cause they're bangin' like Charlie Watts

You think you've come so far
In this one horse town
Then she's laughin' that crazy laugh
'Cause you haven't left the parkin' lot

You can just see the scene: the father, yelling at his kids, face red and eyes bulging, the kids banging on the seat—not just banging, but banging like Charlie Watts—and the mother, head thrown back, mouth wide open and cackling hysterically, because all hell is breaking loose and they are still in the parking lot.

And Bands: Almost Fed Up With the Blues

John Hiatt and The Goners: Almost Fed Up With the Blues

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Is it fair, this week, to post a song by a long-time solo artist who made exactly one album billed as the work of an And Band? In the case of John Hiatt and the Goners, I would say yes. In addition to Hiatt, the Goners included Sonny Landreth, Kenneth Blevins, and Dave Ranson. Although Beneath This Gruff Exterior is the only album credited to the Goners, they had been Hiatt’s touring band for many years. Almost Fed Up With the Blues is the sound of a group of musicians who know each other well having fun. The fade out at the end is needed because these guys sound like they would happily jam away on the song for hours if nobody stopped them. The baritone sax on the song is by guest musician Bobby Keys.

Off-Genre: I’m Satisfied

John Hiatt: I‘m Satisfied

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Many artists do their thing on their albums, and never go off course. And this is true even for an artist like John Hiatt, whose style is not easy to pin down. Hiatt is known for the amazing wordplay in his lyrics and the clever twists in his storytelling. He’s worth listening to because, for all the cleverness, he never loses sight of the humanity of his characters. And it doesn’t hurt that he is also a fine instrumentalist. But, if you want to hear John Hiatt go off genre, you must leave behind the albums he records in his own name.

Tribute albums are a fine source for material this week. At their best, these albums allow artists to reveal an influence that the listener never suspected. If there is a weakness in the album Avalon Blues, it is that many of the choices of artists are too obvious, The album pays tribute to the music of blues legend Mississippi John Hurt, and the roster contains a mix of artists working in the acoustic blues scene, as well as some artists whose love of the blues is obvious in their work. But there are some ringers, and John Hiatt is one of these. Here he is, with only his own acoustic guitar for accompaniment. I’m Satisfied is a straightforward tale, with no irony involved, and Hiatt’s vocal is low key and radiates warmth. It’s a wonderful performance, and a wonderful surprise from one of my favorite artists. And let me emphasize that the rest of the album is just as good, just not always so surprising.

Cold: Icy Blue Heart

John Hiatt: Icy Blue Heart

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I can see my breath when I hear this song. John Hiatt makes you feel the chill in the air. This probably takes place in a well heated bar, but that heat isn’t reaching these two. Yes, cold is an extended metaphor for matters of the heart, but it’s no less real for that.

Four-Legged Friends: My Dog and Me

John Hiatt & The Goners: My Dog and Me

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This week’s theme is challenging for me for a couple of reasons. Not long ago, I posted a set of dog songs at my place, and I don’t want to repeat myself. Also, I am a cat person, and dogs are not really my thing. Still, duty calls.

Actually, if I was ever going to change my mind about dogs, this might be the song that would do it. John Hiatt describes a peaceful day with just him and his dog, and it sounds wonderful. I remember when this album came out that some reviewers hated this song. They were looking for a jaundiced view of the world, and clever word play, and Hiatt is often the best place to look for both of these things. But here, he plays it honest and straight, and keeps it simple, and it works. To me, it just shows another side to his talent.

Leftovers (Cars): Elvis Presley’s Cadillac Edition

One of the things I love about being involved in SMM is discovering new music. Usually, this happens because my fellow Starmakers are a great resource for wonderful music I’ve never heard, (thank you all!), and I try to return the favor with my own posts. But sometimes one of my own posts indirectly leads me to something new. This is the greatest reward of all. This post will illustrate what I mean.

Jesse Winchester: Just Like New

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During Cars week, I posted a set of songs about Cadillacs. One of the responses to that post was a comment from pilk00, who suggested that I would like “Just Like New” by Jesse Winchester. I’ve kept that suggestion in mind ever since, and now was the time to act on it. And pilk, you were right.

Jesse Winchester is an artist I had heard of, but never heard. He fled the United States to escape the draft during the Vietnam War, and as a result, he cannot tour in this country. This is why Winchester is not better known here. Now that I have heard him, I would love to be guided through more of his work by someone who is familiar with it. Comments, please.

John Hiatt: Tennessee Plates

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This song was one I wanted to post during Cars week, but I ran out of time. It’s just as well, because it makes the perfect companion for “Just Like New”.

Jesse Winchester describes feelings about Elvis Presley’s Cadillac that border on worship. John Hiatt tells us what happens when these feelings are taken to extremes. If you’ve never heard this before, I hope I haven’t given too much away.


If you enjoy this post, save a big thank you for pilk00. And pilk, if you’re still out there, let me know you’re listening.

Adjective Noun: Pink Bedroom

John Hiatt: Pink Bedroom

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Rosanne Cash: Pink Bedroom

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The girl in this song wants for nothing. She got her tight jeans, short shorts, import records, Seventeen magazines, and stuffed animals... everything a girl could want. In spite of this, our heroine is bored and frustrated. Her parents shower her with gifts and possessions all while withholding their attention and affections. She takes her valium and spends time with all of her stupid boyfriends. Of course... teenaged boredom combined with a lack of parental intervention can often lead to sexual promiscuity. She lets his fingers talk her into it.

Now, with her innocence lost, she goes downtown to take the grown up test and finds she has something crawling beneath her porcelain skin. The teen game has turned serious. She finally has her parents' attention. She got it all in her pink bedroom.

Here is the original version of the song by John Hiatt from 1980's Two Bit Monsters and Rosanne Cash's remake from 1985's Rhythm and Romance.

Johns: John Hiatt

John Hiatt: Real Fine Love

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There isn't a whole lot I can say about John Hiatt that I haven't already said over at my own site. I wrote a concert review after seeing Hiatt play this summer, and another post after it was announced he will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting this year from the Americana Music Association. You can find both posts here.

Heaven Week: Angel

John Hiatt: Angel

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I was surprised to find that we haven't posted any John Hiatt songs here yet -- had I noticed, I would have rectified the problem long before now. As it is, I'm a bit too busy packing for my summer folkfest rounds to do this song justice, so perhaps it's enough to note that, though Angel is not one of John Hiatt's best known songs, it can be found on his highest charting album...and that this angry second-person tale of being on the receiving end of a break-up -- of losing one's wings to the snow, to be called Angel no more, to become earthbound alone -- is pure rock and roll, and good rock and roll can speak for itself.

Plus, the bridge of this song contains the most vivid couplet about breaking up that rock and roll has to offer, period:

He peeled the skin off of the world and you stopped breathin’
You drew a breath, he sighed, the air was freezin’