RED, YELLOW or ORANGE: PINK ORANGE RED/COCTEAU TWINS

Well this was a stroke of luck, the two colours I haven't already covered, along with a cheeky pink for future reference, together giving an opportunity to offer a SMM debut to this much admired scottish group, active between 1979 and 1997. Never hugely successful in their lifetime, it is the accolades offered afterwards, by their peers and adherents, that have ramped up their reputation, even if their best known song, was not, strictly speaking, by them at all.

Confused? Song to the Siren, a song originally by Tim Buckley, appeared on a record by This Mortal Coil, more collective than band, the collection being, largely, of acts on nominal bandleader Ivo Watts-Russell's record label, 4AD. And within that was included Cocteau Twins, the performers on the track, and who subsequently included it within their CT repertoire. This Mortal Coil existed over three albums, 1984 - 91, the Cocteaus, as a unit, appearing only on the first, although with later member Simon Raymonde heavily involved with the second, leaving briefly the band he had decided to join, at the first sessions.

So, let's revisit this. Elisabeth Fraser, vocals, and Robin Guthrie, guitars and programming, had, along with John Heggie, on bass, formed in the scottish industrial port of Grangemouth, a dreamy mix of Fraser's ethereal vocal, lyrics largely indiscernible within a hazy swirl of effects pedals, anchored some propulsive baselines. When intelligible, the vocals remained, largely, still unintelligible, often being streams of sound rather than identifiable english. (The featured song here has words based around the latin names of various butterflies, but I guess you had worked that out......) After a trio of well-received records, Heggie left, leaving a gap they chose not to fill for the next record. Simon Raymonde, a multi-instrumentalist, then joined, left and joined again, apropos his This Mortal Coil responsibilities. Pink Orange Red comes from this time. Their closest taste of mainstream success arrived in the 90s, with Heaven or Las Vegas even denting the US chart.

Success is always a wily mistress though, with Guthrie retreating into dependency, casting friction on the band, not least with Fraser, by now his partner and mother of their daughter. With this limiting any build forward from that point, together with the time taken for rehab (his) and therapy (hers), the sound, having clarified and become possibly more commercial, retreated back into distort and shimmer. A further few releases and they were done, both as a band and a couple.

Raymonde and Guthrie have continued to work together, setting up the Bella Union record label, both individually and together, often in production and management of bands signed to the label. Fraser has led a quieter life, but has still cropped up in the occasional high profile collaboration, the best known being with Massive Attack, writing and singing the song below. Having had one abortive attempt at reunion, it seems unlikely the three will perform together again.

Here, below, is the acoustic version of Pink Orange Red. It can be found on their 1985 release, the EP Tiny Dynamine. The richer and more highly produced version at the top of the piece comes from Lullabies to Violaine, a 2005 4CD retrospective.
Acoustic.
Electric.

What?!: Be Thankful For What You Got

William DeVaughn: Be Thankful For What You Got
[purchase]

Sometimes, when there’s a theme with almost limitless possibilities, the best course is to jump on the first song that jumps into your head. If that were the case here, I’d be writing about The Buzzcocks’ “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Life.” But I’m not (yet, at least). My second thought was “(What’s So Funny) ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding,” since I heard Nick Lowe sing that live the other day. But I have already written about that song in detail at Cover Me. (Did you know that Cover Me has a Patreon site? Check it out!)

Scrolling through the official J. David iTunes library (yes, I still have one. And an aol.com email address. Proves I’m an early adopter), I came across a bunch of possibilities, but stopped cold when I came to “Be Thankful For What You Got.” You know, that great, smooth, 1970s soul song, with the memorable line, “Diamond in the back / sunroof top / digging the scene with a gangster lean," sung by….by….Curtis Mayfield? Nope. The singer is William DeVaughn, who wrote the song, originally as “A Cadillac Don’t Come Easy,” while working full-time as a government draftsman.  Luckily, he changed the title, or I couldn’t be writing about it here.

DeVaughn took the song to Omega Sound in Philadelphia, maybe a step above a vanity studio, and paid $900 of his own hard-earned money to record it. Omega Sound, however, had connections with members of the MFSB group of studio musicians, who backed up many great acts, including Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, the O’Jays, the Stylistics, the Spinners, Wilson Pickett, and Billy Paul, and had hits on their own, notably “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia).” MFSB sax player John Davis liked the song, suggested a jazzy, smooth, soulful arrangement, booked Sigma Sound Studios and enlisted some of his fellow MFSB members to play on the track.

What they created was something truly special, a song that became a huge crossover hit, and which has been covered, referenced and sampled by artists as diverse as Parliament-Funkadelic, N.W.A., Rumer, Gabor Szabo, Arthur Lee and Love, Rihanna and Massive Attack.

DeVaughn, a Jehovah’s Witness, had a couple of minor hits after “Be Thankful,” but appears to have not fully committed to a music career. Which is a shame, because he has a great voice, and could really write a song.

LEFTOVERS: REMEDIES: PILL HILL SERENADE/MARK LANEGAN

I knew this guy had to get a mention ahead of year end, having briefly invoked his spirit in an earlier post. But once again I fear I may be accused of subverting this theme, supposedly around ways to, if not to get well, to at least get better, so here I go, dredging up yet another allegedly drug-addled troubadour and his lullaby to papaver somniferum or some such. Of course you'd be wrong as, try as I might, I can't squeeze a narcotic reference out of the ethereally vague lovelorn lyric. And there are apparently many Pill Hills, notably in Chicago, areas of town with a hospital at the peak, surrounded by the houses of the support staff. So there.

Lanegan presents quite a contrast. His somewhat daunting appearance and edgy reputation seems to hide a real pussy cat, capable of producing beguilingly beautiful songs like this, certainly more often and reliably than the grungy thrashfests he looks as if he should be performing. And was, at the start of his career. I probably missed out on that part, he first coming to my attention in his duo with Isobel Campbell, herself fresh from a stint with sensitive Glasgow pastoral-pop vendors Belle and Sebastian. Whilst no great fan of theirs, I had picked up Campbells solo offering Milk White Sheets, her record of traditional songs and airs, enjoying it enormously. I hadn't appreciated then that she had already one album out with Lanegan, and would soon produce another. But I heard her, and nominally he, interviewed on a folk radio show. She could and did speak volubly about their music together, interspersed with a session from them, he nearly monosyllabic. However, as he sang, his sandpaper and stubble baritone gave a formidable weight to the songs, underpinning her delicate higher tones in ways that entranced me.

As is my wont, this was my hint to explore the back catalogue. Not all to my taste, his work with the Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age prove a little challenging to my genteel ears, if simultaneously reinforcing my realisation that his voice is a rare gift. And he has been always busy and/or restless, with always another collaboration simmering on one side, another direction pursued on another. So as well as those already mentioned, he has worked with Greg Dulli as the Gutter Twins (or, as well, in the Twilight Singers), Soulsavers, Moby and even Massive Attack, legendary Bristol trip-hop collective. In between time(!), there have been at least 9 solo albums, gradually incorporating ever more hues of electronica, fusing it with his old testament gravel and guts vocal. A good place to start would be either with last years Gargoyle, or Blues Funeral from 2012. (Links go to a song from each.) A more recent revisited collaboration is with protege and band member, Duke Garwood, a guitarist who uses the instrument, heavily processed and fed-back, to produce atmospheric soundscapes. While his own vocals provide suitably spare melody to these shimmers, guess whose makes them sound even better? With Animals came out earlier this year, but this, Pentecostal, is from Black Pudding in 2013.

I don't know how successful Lanegan is at home. Certainly he seems to spend a lot of time in Europe and seems to tour the UK at least once a year. I was lucky enough to catch him last year.

For the record, the song featured for this piece comes from his 5th album, Field Songs, dating from 2001, but helpfully came also as part of a thoroughly decent retrospective, Has God Seen My Shadow: An Anthology 1989 - 2011.

As a covers lover, I also want to give a nod to his many and varied appearances on tribute projects and soundtracks, for artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, the Kinks and the Velvet Underground. He also has a couple of records devoted to cover versions, with songs not always as expected. For 2015's Record Store Day he produced, again with Garwood, a terrific version of Needle of Death, written by the late great Bert Jansch, which just happens to be yet another druggy song, anti, as it happens, for this Remedies theme redux.) It isn't on YouTube so don't look. Have this instead, a reminder of what happens when the remedies don't work.......

If you have watched and listened to these featured clips, and via the links, you will have noticed a distinct trend, that of dissolution and the need for redemption, with the Massive Attack video being an especially galling view. I feel Lanegan knows and faces all these demons, or their reminders, on a daily basis, with the born again vigour yet stony blankness of a old west preacher with a gun.

Praise be!

TRUE STORIES/IT'S ALL TRUE - TRACEY THORN

So here is a quandary for you, both the above are Tracey Thorn and both the above are the song entitled 'It's All True', so it must be. But which one is true for you?
OK, so this is a deceit, but one worth sharing, the two songs being so clearly one and the same and so clearly different. The first is, had you not gauged, the remix, by one Martin Buttrich, (no, me neither) actually came in the year ahead of the second, in 2006, the 2nd, Tracey's "own" version appearing on her 2007 solo record, 'Out of the Woods'. As a boomer from the last century I confess to not always getting the cult of re-mixes. Sure, yes I can enjoy them, as with this, but, as someone who likes to own my music, as shiny black plastic, or smaller silver discs, I can't keep up. With myriad versions and reinterpretations being pumped out willy-nilly, do I want to have them all? This particular song, according to the excellent trainspotter site Discogs, had 16 versions alone of the single, each or most with numerous and differing remixes.
I suspect I miss the point; music for me is a an immersive experience. For the dance floor it is probably a means to the end, for the dancing, for the experience, being even entirely ephemeral to and for the moment. So it is for streaming, for hearing and for disposing, not for listening. (The fact I listen to dance music in the car proves beyond doubt I am not the intended audience.)

Tracey Thorn was the singer, with her husband, Ben Watt, in the hugely accomplished 'Everything But The Girl', who emerged as bedsit jazz in 1984 to drum'n'bass melodicists 12 years later. The connection was always Tracey's honeyed vocal, making her latterly girl to go for any number of electronica projects, most notably Bristol's Massive Attack. She has retired from live music, by and large, to be, initially, carer to her ailing husband, then as mother to their children. (Incidentally, he is now much better, having recovered from Churg-Strauss syndrome, a very nasty auto-immune disease that nearly killed him, and now has a solo career as well, albeit with occasional live appearances.) As well as music, she has also written a couple of well-commended books, one her autobiography of performing, the second around the art of singing. (Should any of this sound familiar, yes, I have written about her before.)

Let's finish with some more truths, sung by Tracey, but written by Stephen Merritt, of  the Magnetic Fields, this time about love, possibly the most powerful truth we ever, any of us, if we are lucky, experience.

Music and Books, go get

SMALL TOWNS: BOY (Bronski Beat) & GIRL (Tracey Thorn)

Sorry, a title like that and you're thinking a Small Town Romance, aren't you? Ain't going to happen, given the demographic, which is a shame, as it removes the opportunity to link to a favourite song. (The hell it does, Richard Thompson's sentiments perfectly and expertly underlining any love in any small town.) But these 2 songs, coming from differing perspectives, ultimately each define the risks of a near horizon, encapsulating and encompassing the threat of seeming/feeling different.

Bronski Beat exploded from nowhere in the early 80s, 2 Glaswegians and a Southend-er, all explicitly gay, united by their shared espousal of the then gay music scene, such as it was, often all camp stereotypes and suggestiveness. Irrespective of their home towns being very large and large respectively, the song nonetheless tapped into the sense of isolation in being the only gay in the village. With the video showing the very evident risks of being 'out' in the sticks. (Or anywhere, especially then?) Jimmy Somerville's voice an almost pure falsetto, unmistakeable, soars above the keyboards, the song remaining both iconic and anthemic to this day. (And here's a delightful clip to confirm that truth!)

"You leave in the morning with everything you own in a little black case
Alone on a platform, the wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face."

Sadly it proved too much for the band, an album and 2 singles later finding Somerville leaving after barely a year, to start the equally pioneering and actively gay rights  band, the Communards, alongside the now Reverend Richard Cole, Church of England pastor and radio personality here in the U.K. Bronski Beat lurched on, one hit with replacement singer, Jon Jon Foster, ahead of various less successful ventures.

Tracey Thorn is better known, arguably, for her partnership, with Ben Watt, now her husband, as Everything But The Girl. Or possibly for her honeyed deadpan vocals with Massive Attack. But, ahead of EBTG, after an earlier incarnation as a Marine Girl(s), she put out a beautifully spare, sparse and simple record, A Distant Shore, just barely amplified electric guitar and vocal. From this comes the featured song. Again the loneliness of perceiving oneself different from your peers, themselves fewer in a small town. But the metaphor holds to the extent that, actually, do we not all have small town hearts in our teenage development? If you feel lonely or different even London is a small town.
But rather than a song about the leaving of the small town, Thorn's song betrays a wistfulness for the simplicity thereof, on having left. Green grass etc.

"This is all too much for such a small town girl
Though I see more than you think
This world, very little did I like
And when I did it was not mine."

I came from a small town. I learnt my trade in the big city and have worked all my career in another. I now look whimsically back at those early formative years. I couldn't wait to leave. I would love to go back. I probably won't.

Boy or girl? Which will you choose?

(R.I.P. Larry Steinbachek of Bronski Beat, d. December 2016.)