July: Shine On Harvest Moon

Milton Brown: Shine On Harvest Moon

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Leon Redbone: Shine On Harvest Moon

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Asylum Street Spankers: Shine On Harvest Moon

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Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster: Shine On Harvest Moon

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The term “classic” is certainly overused, but I think it’s fair to say that Shine On Harvest Moon has earned it. The song was written and originally recorded in 1908, and countless artists have performed it since. At this point, you could also call it a folk song, and I can live quite comfortably with that as well. The versions I have chosen show only a small part of the range of possibilities for performing the song.

Milton Brown is one of the subjects of a fierce argument in the field of western swing music. Bob Wills is widely known as the father of western swing. In fact, however, Wills, though not heard here, cut his musical teeth in Milton Brown’s band. So adherents feel that the title of creator of western swing should belong to Milton Brown. On the basis of this 1935 performance, I would say that one can hear western swing beginning to take shape, but we are not quite there yet. To be fair, however, I would have to listen to a lot more of both Brown’s and Wills’ music before giving a real opinion. It’s an assignment I would not mind at all, given the time.

I am sure I must have heard other versions of Shine On Harvest Moon, but this one by Leon Redbone was the first to make an impression on me. This is actually one of the best known songs Redbone recorded. He specializes in finding forgotten gems from the American songbook, and giving them the folk orchestra treatment heard here.

I included the Asylum Street Spankers here because, first of all, they do a great job with the song. But this version also restores the original female lead vocal, and the delivery here is close to how the song was originally sung. Also, the Spankers restore the original order of the months. Most performers nowadays sing, “January, February, June and July” But the original lyric is heard here: “April, January, June or July”, with April stretched somehow to three syllables. The Spankers opt for a musical feel that somewhat recalls Redbone’s version, but adds the klezmer feel of the clarinet line and the doubletime verse at the end.

I was done with this post, or thought I was, when I came across my last selection, by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster. Here is an instrumental version during a theme dedicated to lyrics. This version is just so sweet I had to include it. This is small combo jazz from 1959, at a time when bebop and cool jazz were all the rage, and free jazz was about to make its appearance. But this performance harkens back to an earlier time. I would put this on a short list of tunes to play for someone who is just hearing jazz for the first time.

Prison: Prisoners of Their Hairdos

Christine Lavin: Prisoners of Their Hairdos
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My recent run of television-related posts would suggest a discussion of The Prisoner, one of the great TV shows of the 1960s, and one of the first shows designed to blow the viewers’ minds, and I still might, but while it had a theme song (with a great credit sequence), it really wasn’t a music based show.

I’ve also recently written elsewhere about Jason Isbell’s cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” so that’s out. As I perused my music library, I came across this song, which I hadn’t listened to in years, and which reminded me that you don’t need to be in a cell to be a prisoner.

Christine Lavin has been on the folk scene since the 1980s, and while she has had a long, successful career as a singer-songwriter, she never had the sort of national breakout that some of her contemporaries like Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman or Shawn Colvin, although she is incredibly well respected in the folk music world. Lavin writes mostly about relationships, and while she can write seriously, she is probably best known for her sense of humor. Many of her songs are laugh out loud funny. I sometimes wonder if her lack of fame stems from the fact that women folk singers are stereotypically supposed to be sad, tortured souls, and Lavin’s humor prevents her from being taken seriously. But that’s really too bad, because she has consistently written and performed great songs, not all of which are jokey.

In addition, she has long been an incredible supporter of other musicians, playing them on the radio, and working with them. I remember listening to her as the first host of WFUV’s Sunday Breakfast, playing music by artists she liked, sometimes even unreleased tracks. Even after friend (and fellow former WPRB Program Director John Platt) took over the show, Lavin would send him music to play, and she occasionally would sub for him. As much as I loved listening to John, which I don’t get to do as much since the station, in a bad move, pushed him to Sunday evening, when sports, TV, life and dinner usually take precedence (sorry!), it was fun to hear Lavin’s unique style every once in a while.

“Prisoners of Their Hairdos” is on the funny side of Lavin’s musical spectrum, and points out that some people’s coiffures are so distinctive that:

If they changed the way they combed their hair 
They'd never be recognized anywhere 
They're prisoners 

Lavin lists Crystal Gayle, Dorothy Hamill, Don King, Lyle Lovett, Gloria Steinem, Stevie Nicks Leon Redbone, Pee Wee Herman, Tom Wolfe, Pope John Paul, Ted Koppel, and Mary Travers as hairdo prisoners, and I’m sure we could think of more recent ones, since the song was released in 1991. An amateur golfer/more amateur president comes to mind…..

The song points out that ZZ Top are, similarly, prisoners of their beards, and Dolly Parton is a prisoner of her…….wigs. But, on the other hand, the B-52’s beehives, she suggests, are prisoners of the band.

There was a time where I had a great deal of hair, but time and genetics has rendered me almost bald, and now I keep my hair short, for ease of care. Typically, when I go to the barber, she asks me, “what do you want to do?” And my response is usually, “there really isn’t much you can do.” My daughter’s father-in-law (English really needs a word like machatenester or consuegro) shaves his head daily, and has tried to convince me to do the same. I’ve declined, because I don’t want to become a prisoner of my baldness.

Stage Names: Leon Redbone

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A look at the thesaurus provides the scholar with variations on our theme such as appellation, sobriquet, moniker, cognomen, eponym and more, each with its own nuance to the fact that it is a name, after all (think: a rose is a rose. )

There are any number of reasons why an artist might go by a name other than that which s/he was born with: the birth certificate name may sound pretty strange or worse, the manager may have said a stage name would be better, or perhaps the artist thought the stage name would convey a deeper/different innuendo.  Some artists put a considerably greater effort into obscuring their original designation, leaving fans to discuss among themselves the whyfor and wherefore.

Born Dickran Gobalian, Leon Redbone has been entertaining audiences since the 1970s. Various sources provide differing accounts of the origins of his name. Assuming that it is in fact Gobalian, I would be inclined to side with the version that puts his family roots in the Middle East (some say Cyprus). But that is actually of little matter except in an exercise like “Stage Names”. Obviously, what matters most to us here at StarMaker is his musical output.

Whether it’s on account of his physical appearance, his demeanor or his musical style, I have to second the remark that he does in fact come across as “ so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78rpm]." The man further endears himself to me because no small number of the songs in his repertoire are songs that Ry Cooder has also performed. To wit:

 Leon Redbone: Big Bad Bill

The Naughty Bits: Jelly Roll

Leon Redbone: Ain't Gonna Give You None Of My Jelly Roll

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Tom Rush: Jelly Roll Baker

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Bessie Smith: Nobody In Town Can Bake A Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine

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Even Wikipedia knows that "jelly roll" is an old euphemism for a variety of sexual terms, most usually the male genitalia. Knowing this fact makes the Leon Redbone tune above - actually a Clarence and Spencer Williams classic from the early days of Louisiana swamp jazz - come across as a song of masturbatory self-discovery and marginally-veiled pedophilia, recasts Tom Rush's take on Lonnie Johnson's field blues as a tune about a man so prideful and celebrated for his sexual prowess, it gets him out of a jail term and has him booking married women three weeks in advance, and turns Bessie Smith's sultry bakery setting - actually another Clarence & Spencer Williams original - into a braggart's bordello, and Smith herself into a slut. And it brings an entirely new meaning to Jelly Roll (aka "Penis") Morton's entire body of work.

You'll never look at pastry the same way again.

Holiday Classics: Blue Christmas

Leon Redbone: Blue Christmas

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Blue Christmas provides the template for the holiday heartbreak song. Usually, the emotion gets heaped on, with big string sections, cloying background vocals, and a lead vocal performance that milks the song for every ounce of emotion it contains and then some. Elvis Presley’s version of Blue Christmas is exactly the sort of thing I mean, but the song is treated this way by almost everyone who records it. There are some odd counter-examples that set the song against a sterile techno backdrop, with a passionless vocal up front. But Leon Redbone shows in his version what can be done with the song by taking it at face value. The emotions here are real, not pumped up to theatrical proportions. The heartbreak is presented honestly, not glossed over or denied. I always hated the song until I heard this version. To me, Redbone finds the essence that so eludes others, and delivers a fine performance.

Seven Deadly Sins: Lazy Bones

Leon Redbone: Lazy Bones

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I hope there will be more than seven posts this week, and that means that some sins may be represented by more than one song. There may also be sins we never get to at all. Sloth will not be one of those.

Lazy Bones was originally done by Hoagy Charmichael, and there have been some surprising covers, including Chanticleer and The King’s Singers. But Leon Redbone was the artist who introduced me to the song. His version has the necessary lazy vibe, and also Redbone’s trademark wink. You know listening that Leon Redbone loves these old songs, but he never takes them too seriously. They are for fun, and his versions always make me smile.

Soundtrack Songs (Holiday Edition): Baby It’s Cold Outside

Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel: Baby It‘s Cold Outside

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside is one of those accidental holiday songs. There is no mention in the lyrics of Christmas, and the spirit of the piece is really not very Christmasy at all. Frank Loesser wrote Baby It’s Cold Outside in 1944, and he marked the two parts in the score "mouse" and "wolf". For four years, Loesser performed the song with his wife, Lynn Garland, at informal occasions. Then, in 1948, Loesser sold the rights to the song to MGM. Garland was reportedly furious.

MGM’s first move was to place the song in a movie, Neptune’s Daughter, where it was sung twice, by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams, and also by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. Another notable soundtrack appearance of the song was by Bette Midler and James Caan in the 1991 film For the Boys. But here, we hear the version from the song’s most recent soundtrack appearance, in the movie Elf. As far as I can tell, this is the first time the song was used in a holiday-themed movie. Leon Redbone and Zooey Deschanel play the parts of the wolf and the mouse perfectly.

Over the years, the song has been performed by some very unlikely couples. Here are a few: Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart, Martina McBride and Dean Martin, James Taylor and Natalie Cole, and my favorite for sheer weirdness, Ann-Margaret and Al Hirt.

Nonsense: Diddy Wa Diddie

Leon Redbone: Diddy Wa Diddie

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Thanks to Geoviki, I now know that La La La La La Means I Love You. But, can somebody tell me what Diddy Wa Diddy means? There is not even agreement on how to spell it. Blind Blake probably wrote the song, and some of his recordings of say Diddie Wa Diddie. Others have it as Diddy Wah Diddy. To add confusion, there is even a completely different song with the same name, and there too, the spelling varies.

This Diddy Wa Diddie comes from Leon Redbone’s second album. I had discovered him first on Saturday Night Live, and then on his debut album the year before. I didn’t know much about where this music was coming from at the time, but I was hooked right away. Now, I can recognize strains of blues, jazz, and jug band music, all as they sounded before World War II. The music still sounds as fresh to me as it did then, and it opened the door for some wonderful artists who have come along since then.

Christmastime: Christmas Island

Leon Redbone: Christmas Island

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Maybe visiting Star Maker Machine will help somebody win a trivia contest one day. Consider Lyle Moraine. Moraine was a film actor who appeared in over forty films from 1936 to 1975. But you don’t know his name. The vast majority of his appearances were uncredited. His best known film was probably Vertigo, but again, his appearance did not even warrant a listing in the titles. Moraine also wrote a song once, and that is possibly his best claim to fame. The song, Christmas Island, was a hit for The Andrews Sisters in 1946. There were a flurry of cover versions for about the next ten years, and then silence descended. In 1987, Leon Redbone rescued the song, and made it the title track of his holiday album. Since then, there has been another flurry of cover versions. Jimmy Buffet also made the song the title track of a holiday album. I can find no trace of any other song that Lyle Moraine may have written.

Thankfully, Leon Redbone, while not exactly a household name, is far better known. Redbone has made a career of rescuing old songs. He plays guitar in a style that shows a ragtime influence, and sings in what I would call a warm bass growl. His love of his material is obvious in everything he performs. His Christmas Island is no exception.

The Moon: Shine On, Harvest Moon

Ada Jones & Billy Murray: Shine On, Harvest Moon

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There's been a Harvest Moon song posted already, but Shine On, Harvest Moon is worthy of an entry of its own. It was composed in the early 1900s by the husband and wife team of Jack Norworth and Nora Bayes. Billy Murray and Ada Jones, the Acoustic Era's John Legend & Lauryn Hill, scored a #1 hit with it in June of 1909.


Leon Redbone: Shine On, Harvest Moon

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Leon Redbone, who's somewhere between fifty-eight and seventy years old, is such a mystery man that at different times it was rumored he was actually people disparate as Andy Kaufman, Frank Zappa and Father Guido Sarducci. All you hipsters out there most likely know him from his duet with Zooey Deschanel of Baby, It's Cold Outside, from that Elf flick.

Since Leon is a singer and guitarist that specializes in Tin Pan Alley classics, it's only natural he covered Shine On, Harvest Moon - one of a series of moon related songs of the era.