Muscle Shoals has a special place in the pantheon of music from the 1960s on. It's the name of multiple recording studios located in the city of the same name in Alabama. The studio we first think of grew out of another studio operation known as FAME Studios, and was unique in that it was the first such operation owned by a group of session musicians. Yes, they partnered with Jerry Wexler to make it work. And yes, the location was previously a coffin viewing showroom.
But the name Muscle Shoals has come to mean a specific sound - first in a soul and R&B style (Percy Sledge & Aretha) and then in rock (the Rolling Stones, Traffic). FAME owner Rodney Hall described the sound as funkier and more laid back than others. The curator of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame notes the existence of a triangle, with Memphis being the home of blues, Nashville, of course, the home of country and the third leg, Muscle Shoals, being a blend.
One of the first musicians to record at Hall's studio was Wilson Picket. The story goes that when he arrived and saw the folks picking cotton, he wasn't at all convinced that this would work out. Later, when Pickett returned to the studio, he found that there was a long-haired slide guitar player by the name of Duane Allman as one of the studio's guitarists. They recorded this cover of the Beatles' Hey Jude
The word began to get around about the Muscle Shoals sound: Clapton heard it and so did the Stones. A large part of Sticky Fingers was recorded there in 1969. Keith Richards has been quoted as saying "I thought it was one of the easiest and rockin'-est sessions that we had ever done."
Bob Dylan's Slow Train Coming was also recorded at Muscle Shoals. Lead guitar is Mark Knopfler and the horns are the studio band. Dylan was looking for a richer, funkier sound and it appears he got what he was looking for despite the concern of some of the musicians about the religious content.
Unless you are super hard or super poor, all of us need some shoes on our feet, so as to protect our tootsies from the assaults of hot tarmac, wet mud, ground glass or dog poop. You name it, any of those can make a make a walk in the park anything but a walk in the park, as well as giving ample opportunity to strut your stuff or stamp your style. So, tonight I am going to be looking at the popular topic of shoes through the medium of popular song. (Well, I like 'em.)
Barefoot/Ray Collins Hot Club
Barefoot isn't shoes, but I can't resist this instance of unshoddery, so delightfully kitsch it is. Apparently the title track of a German film, thus Barfüss, it is by the Ray Collins Hot Club about whom I know nothing. So imagine my surprise as I discover they still exist and are still playing, having only come into being this century.
Men in Sandals/Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby
Ooof! Has there ever been a better exposition of the horror of men in sandals? DOI, here, I am actually quite partial to a sandal in the summer, although only ever paired with shorts or flappy linen trousers, as they don't go with else. And never, absolutely with socks, that peculiarly English affectation that curdles my blood. Wreckless Eric is a chap unlikely to take kindly to the sort of men who rock that particular folly, with his wife, Amy Rigby singing and explaining exactly why.
Bad Sneakers/Steely Dan
I never got the fancy trainers argument, all these megabuck sports shoes worn as a badge of one-upmanship. Wrong generation, I guess, my son still near needing a separate room to house his collection, at 13 his defined go-to essential in a family trip to NY in the 90s being the Nike Store. To me they are just plimsolls or gym shoes, not my bag at all. I don't see Becker and Fagen ever having been that keen either.
New Shoes/Paolo Nutini
Back at the beginning of his career, Scots-Italian singer Paolo Nutini was a simpler soul, the pleasure of some new leather sufficient to give him joy. And inspiration. With his heritage, I can see him in a pair of snakeskin winkle pickers, so his expectation to be walking to the break of dawn, blister free, may be optimistic.
Blue Shoes Stepping/The Bible
I have a pair of blue shoes. Not suede, I am afraid, but still quite natty. I like a fancy shoe, having also examples in green and red, but the blue ones were a mistake, pinching my toes and hobbling my gait. The blue shoes quoted here sound a bit more promising. The Bible never got quite as much acclaim as they deserved, despite boasting Kirsty MacColl's brother, Neil, and ace songwriter, Boo Hewerdine in the frontline.
In These Shoes/Kirsty MacColl
Talking of Kirsty MacColl, perhaps this is the time to veer off into the world of women's shoes, a strange and mysterious money pit where any link between the number of feet and the number of shoes needed is of no connection or relationship. A single pair is never enough and Imelda Marcos the only upper limit. (And, funnily enough, there is a song about Imelda.)
Soul Shoes/Graham Parker & the Rumour
Finally, a song that really makes me smile, especially in this version, filmed decades after Graham Parker and the Rumour originally recorded it, showing exactly my style, a built for comfort ambience embracing the band from head to their soul shoes. Of course, the video never gets around to showing their feet, but I will bet the shoes on show would be well worn and battered, much like the band themselves appear. Marvellous.
All the same thing, aren't they? All have hooves and tails, and the why-the-long-faces, so, yes, they must be. OK, I know, they aren't, but can you all recall the differences? I will assume that you know horses, the odd-toed ungulate mammal, whether cart, race or just a plain old Dobbin, so, moving swiftly on......
Jenny's Got a Pony/Los Lobos
I haven't a clue what this song, by the always excellent Los Lobos, could possibly be about. Is there much of a pony population in East L.A.? Anyhow, this riveting ride, SWIDT, comes from their 1990 opus, 'The Neighbourhood', showing off their best, a fusion of latino, tex-mex and plain good old rock'n'roll. Ponies are horses, in fact, the delineation tending to relate to smaller sizes of beast. Whilst clearly there are tiny ones, whether your steed is a horse or a pony is often as much in the eye of the beholder. In slang a pony might be a small amount of liquor. Is that what Jenny got? Alternatively, in my country a pony is £25, increasingly equal to $25.
Donkey Town/Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris
Donkeys are not horses, but are very close. I think they look cuter but traditionally have tended more to be more beasts of burden than for racing. And to be the butt of many an insult, the derogatory opinion being that donkeys are for peasants, horses being only fit for the higher echelons. Hence, I guess, this song, from the, at the time, critically underacclaimed album of duets, Knopfler imagining himself, yeah, right, as a loser in a one horse, sorry, donkey town. If Emmylou were there, chum, I'd stay.
Muleskinner Blues/The Cramps
This is where it all gets a bit surreal, as I explain a muleskinner is ahead of a mule. And, until today, I had the notion that the pelt of a mule might be a useful commodity. Good leather or something like that. Wrongity-wrong, it is the human handler of a mule or a set of mules. So called as you had to be quick witted to outsmart them, or "outskin" them, me, neither, given their stubbornness. No wonder they got the blues, the song originally a hit for Jimmie Rodgers in the 30s, before the Cramps gave it a reverential kick up the, um, ass. We don't feature the late lamented Cramps here enough, I feel.
A mule is the sterile progeny of when a horse, or pony, mates with a donkey, the genetics close enough to procreate but not close enough to prolong the line further. It seems a bit of a long way to go for a somewhat short end to me. But, mule lovers, worry not, they can now be cloned. Mule is also slang for the middle man in a drugs heist, responsible for transporting the illicit material across county lines and continents, often, literally, in their "middles". Why the name? Presumably as such individuals are seen as slow witted carriers of little importance beyond the carriage of the goods. Confusingly, what they carry may often go by the slang of horse. Or, perhaps in a sly dig at its retrieval, shit.
Jack Ass/Beck
Here's where I could get myself into trouble, as in get my ass kicked, mixing and muddling my homonyms. But, I will resist that temptation and stick to the literal, wherein Beck Hansen compares his situation to that of a Jack, or male, Ass, or donkey, the two terms being near equivalent. (See horse/pony). So it is really back to Mark Knopfler and his donkey town, self-esteem apparently quite a rare premium for worldwide superstars. But, in recompense for reading this far, I can't but leave you without just a little horseplay...... (Spoiler: twerk free; have you ever typed ass into youtube?)
Woah, this might cause some ruffles, SMM being often/usually/mostly a rap and hip-hop free zone, with the name above capable of causing resonating ripples of fear amongst our faithful readership. (Hi, Mom!) Panic not, whilst I have heard of the Bobby Valentino, mainly through search engine malarkey, I am unfamiliar with his body of work. And I am told body is the correct word. In the plural. O, go on, then.......
I refer to the other Bobby Valentino. I dare say you may have seen him, on videos, perhaps more often than necessarily known who he is. A staple on the UK scene for 30 odd years, he has popped up on many a bands output, whenever violin is required to give some additional flavour. Thus, if you remember the the Bluebells, Style Council, Big Country and the Christians, whenever you hear fiddle, chances are it's him. He has also appeared with artists as diverse as Tom Petty and Mark Knopfler. The brother of notable arranger and member of the Art of Noise, Ann Dudley, he is probably best known for his part in the UK top 10 single, 'Young at Heart', by the Bluebells, from which he belatedly received a writing credit, having successfully convinced a judge of the integral part of his violin part. Used extensively in a VW worldwide advert, which gave an even more successful return hit, this income has probably kept him in 'tache wax and hair oil ever since.
Yes, it is also his distinctive appearance, a Clark Gable lookalike, that has arguably as much kept him in the limelight as his playing, although, to be fair, he is no slouch, able also on guitar and mandolin, posessing a delightful baritone croon. I have caught a fair amount of his lesser known and more full-time musical activities, being an acknowledged fan of pedal-steel maestro and maverick, B.J. Cole. Valentino and Cole have had a long running involvement together, first as members of Hank Wangford, the singing gynaecologist's band(s), secondly in their own intermittent country-rock band, Los Pistoleros, with ex-Graham Parker and the Rumour guitarist, Martin Belmont. They are an absolute hoot live, and still gig from time to time, other commitments willing. Valentino has also made a trio of solo recordings, or perhaps the same one thrice, as many of the songs are duplicated across each of them, as well as on Pistoleros recordings. I'll forgive him for this as I am a fan. He has also been a longterm occasional member of another favourite band of mine, The Men They Couldn't Hang, featured here. In fact, I have just bought a ticket for a duo gig, Valentino with Phil 'Swill' Odgers, one of the lead singers/writers of said band.
As an afterword, perhaps buoyed by his earlier success, he took the Bobby Valentino I haven't discussed to court, enforcing the once named Bobby Williams to change his stage name to Bobby V. (I wonder what this fella would have had to say about that?)
You're in the groove, Jackson, is his best record!
I like Mark Knopfler. I mean .. I don't know him to like him in that sense, but from back in the
days of <Sultans of Swing> and <Money For Nothing/I Want My MTV>, and through his collaboration with Chet Atkins (one of my favorites), film sound-track work, various session work and further projects with Clapton, the man has retained my respect. Respect for his musicianship,
respect for what I can sense of his personality. Respect for cutting out when he deemed he'd had enough of the kind of lime-light that Dire Straits must have brought upon his head.
It appears that he commands a similar like-ability/respect from fellow musicians: the list of people
his has collaborated with is best seen at Wikipedia:
Even with the relative <drive/rock fury> of Dire Straits, I think you can sense a certain laid-backness to the man/his style. Maybe that is why he seems to fit in so well with other musicians (with a like mind?)
A much more influential individual than the blank expression that meets the hearing of his name in most circles, O'Flynn was the first uillean pipe player to gain notice to a rock and roll audience, as a core member of the first Irish traditional act to really break through to the same. No, I don't refer to either the Chieftains or to Sweeney's Men, pacesetters though they were. I refer to the mighty and majestic Planxty. The Chieftains were important, for sure, breaking down barriers and bringing the music into respectability outside of otherwise hooleys and bar sessions, latterly also for their work with major names in the fields of folk, country and rock. And Sweeney's Men, who included O'Flynns's later Planxty bandmate, Andy Irvine, took the mainstream safety of the Clancy Brothers into a wilder and more bohemian sensitivity. Go compare the difference between the Chieftains handling of this tune, 'Give Me Your Hand' ('Tabhair Dom Do Lamh') by the blind 17th century Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan, with the altogether more exuberant Planxty version below, the tune kicking in at 2.27, following the song ahead of it:
I bloody loved them. They were hitting their prime in the early 70s, just as I was hitting mid-teens and expanding my then musical palette from the pop charts to anything and everything I could get my ears on, usually directed by the inkies, the music influential press that governed all the hip from the non hip. Planxty were seriously hip. With a line-up of O'Flynn, Irvine, Donal Lunny and Christy Moore, they played traditional irish jigs and reels, airs and ballads, seamlessly integrating their own material into the same. With two fine singers and an instrumental prowess encompassing guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, bodhran, hurdy-gurdy, whistles and, most importantly, uillean pipes, that irish bellows driven bagpipe, capable of a plaintive wail, swirling and bending notes, like nothing on earth, one part banshee, one part lullaby. Yes, I had heard a little of this instrument before; the aforementioned Chieftains had introduced me to it, and Horslips, the Dublin folk-rockers had deployed it a little. But nothing like O'Flynn, who could make it sing, scream, howl and lilt, sometimes simultaneously. This is his description of the instrument. And I haven't even mentioned his whistle playing, both normal whistle and low, a few blasts thereof instantly evocative of joy or sorrow, dependent on mood.
It would be no hyperbole to say this band revolutionised how the world had previously seen irish music. From a twiddley diddley dee diversion, this was suddenly to be taken with the utmost seriousness, alongside and in the same breath as the Stones and Bowie. But with more fun. O'Flynn was possibly the quiet man of the group, more soberly attired and less hirsute than his compadres, but it was his solos that had the crowds in awe. A number of incarnations of this band took place over the years and the decades, as individual members peeled off and others joined in, Paul Brady and Matt Malloy to name two, the band formally breaking and re-forming twice, the last such being 20 odd years after their debut, in 2003-5. But whenever it was called Planxty, so always there was O'Flynn.
After the final demise, and in the earlier breaks, O'Flynn was never short of work, with a who's who of session work that ranged from the folk circles he began within to Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, Emmylou Harris and more. With Planxty no more there was a short period as and in LAPD, he, Irvine, Lunny and Paddy Glackin, the title being to represent Liam, Andy, Paddy and Donal. Hell, on past form they could have called it Planxty and got away with it, but they didn't. However, health was beginning to cause concern, and O'Flynn left in 2013. A private man outside music, he died in March after what was called a long illness. Here's a video of the song featured a little above, 'As I Roved Out', in a live and later setting, Planxty at Vicar Street, Dublin, in 2004, the pipes part transposed to whistle.
His legacy lives on through the wave of younger players who have followed him and been inspired by him, with both pipes and whistle commonplace in the repertoire way beyond any silo of trad. arr.
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.)
Anyone who reads my stuff would probably have bet on an In Memoriam post about the late Daevid Allen, of Soft Machine and Gong, who died on March 13, 2015. But I’ve already written about him here, and decided to look in a different direction--Stephen R. Johnson, one of the most important people in music history that you have never heard of, who died back on January 26, 2015.
If you are a person who came of age watching MTV when it still played music videos, and someone asked you what the most memorable video was, there’s a pretty good chance that you would say, “Sledgehammer,” by Peter Gabriel. And, considering that the video won a still unsurpassed 9 MTV Video Awards, and was the most played video on the channel, it is fair to say that it changed people’s perceptions of what a music video could be. The song is great and moved Peter Gabriel’s solo career from a prog-rock niche into mass popularity, but the video was what made it stick in our minds. It was directed by Stephen R. Johnson.
The animation was done, in part, by Aardman Animations, which went on to create Wallace and Gromit, and the production of the clip required that Gabriel remain under a glass sheet for 16 hours. I’m really not a huge fan of music videos, but this one was special, and still holds up. Johnson also directed similarly wild videos for Gabriel’s “Big Time” and “Steam,” which won a Grammy.
He also directed the video for Talking Heads’ “Road To Nowhere,” and Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” (which, at Mark Knopfler's direction, included sports footage and no shots of his large-nosed profile), received an Emmy nomination for directing the first season of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and did work for Amnesty International.
Johnson was born July 12, 1952, in Paola, Kansas and attended college at Kansas University and the University of Southern California, where he created an award-winning movie using the stop-motion technique that he would use in many of his music videos. His first music video was an awful one for an awful 80’s band called Combonation, redeemed only by an appearance by a pre-stardom Robin Wright, and the fact that a guy in the video is wearing a Mets hat. From that humble beginning, his career went on a rapid upswing to the heights of “Sledgehammer.”
Unfortunately, Johnson passed away, too young, on January 26, 2015, of what was described as “cardiac complications.”
I'll freely confess that I first came across ol' JJ through the works of one Clapton, E, Cocaine and After Midnight. I imagine the same would be true of most, but I was lucky enough to have schoolfriends with the pockets to pursue further to source, opening up dusty and windblown originals, exuding faded workwear and a consummate lack of fashion, meaning he was never quite in style. Or out, ploughing a timeless unchanging farrow of bluesy folky choogle over 4 decades, one I was happy to dip in and out of right up until his last release, 2009's Roll With It.
There seems some uncertainty as to even his real name, various stories existing, but it was probably John, initialised to avoid confusion with a certain welsh viola whizz.
Born in 1938, single-handedly he gifted his home town, Tulsa, with it's own identifiable style of music, the Tulsa Sound, most likely played in Tulsa Time, a laid back minimalist shuffle. Having failed to make any name for himself, he was on the verge of quitting when Clapton lifted his songs (and, arguably, one aspect of his own style) from him, on his 1970 recording of After Midnight. Compare it with the original . (Inevitably, there would come times when they would play it together , with this particular clip giving a snippet of each of their thoughts around it.)
Another artist who undoubtedly channels much of the same feel is Mark Knopfler, whom some accuse of basing his entire career on similar mumbled vocals with a singing finger and thumbpicked guitar over a railroad rhythm track. (Sorry, some of you are no doubt ahead of me here, so, for you, here's his version, again with Eric Clapton)
He died, aged 74, of heart failure. R.I. P. JJ, long may your legacy live. After midnight and into every day henceforward..
(P.S. I noticed in my youtube forays that frequent questions are raised as to who the omnipresent female guitarist in his live shows could be? Well, she is Christine Lakeland, his widow, who co-wrote many of his songs. I couldn't find a version of After Midnight by her alone, but the song highlighted in unmistakeably from the same lode.Go search, there are a couple of albums out there.)
Postcards are a way of sending a short message, just enough to check in. Their shortness would seem to make them perfect for songs. Here is what three artists do with them.
I have previously told my Wendy Wall story here, and reviewed her latest album here. So suffice it to say, she is a favorite of mine.
Wall’s postcard is not bound for Hollywood. She sends it off into space, to whoever might be listening. The song is a humble account by one example of what it feels like to be human and on earth.
Mark Knopfler presents a white collar criminal, on the run and in a hurry. He must leave the scene of the crime now, and has not even the time to send a postcard.
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