Great: The Great Pretender

purchase [ Platters version]
purchase [The Band version ]
purchase [ Freddy Mercury version ]

There are many notable version of The Great Pretender and it is no surprise that it was voted one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone magazine back in 2004 (Yeah, OK, in @ #360, but still...) But the song also carries on our previous mask theme, where the protagonist puts on a public face/performance that just aint true. And it would appear that this is something you just about have to do when you get up on a stage, be you Dolly Parton, Elvis, Freddy Mercury, Roy Orbison or Sam Cooke.

Way  back in  the year I was born, the story goes, a music producer named Buck Ram wrote this song in 20 minutes in a Vegas hotel washroom. At the time, he was the manager for the Platters, who recorded the song as a follow up to their first hit, Only You. When Mercury records signed them in a two-fer deal on the coat-tails of The Penguins (who, unlike the mostly unknown Platters, had a charting hit called Earth Angel), it wasn't at all clear that The Platters would go down in history. But they did- for a number of reasons - and the Penguins mostly did not. They went on to have many hits (something like 40 of them in about a 10 year span), they were like the first cross-overs from doo wop R&B to rock, they included a female in the line-up, and then they rapidly fell out of favor after they were busted.

Sam Cooke did a  version on his 1960 album Hits of the 50's

Dolly Parton covered it in 1984. Now there's someone who was well aware of the need for pretense as part of her show/pesona. Says Michelle Lindsey [link], "‘The Great Pretender’ is what she set out to be as a poor kid playing dress up, writing songs and hoping to become a star. ...  [Parton] admitted, ‘I do it because I’m a show person.’ To drop the pretence, the persona and age like a normal human being is not an option. You see this now in almost every famous person, trickling right down even to the average person in the street."

The most familiar to me is the version from the Band. I guess by that time I was consuming most of the music that was being produced and The Band, as J David recently noted was [link] hot. J David references the Stage Fright album. How appropriate! The best way to get over your stage fright? Pretend.

The version by Freddy Mercury in 1987 has a certain poignance to it in that it immediately predates his HIV public announcement, and most research indicates that he must have been aware of his health issues well before the song came out. That said, there isnt much debate about his sexual orientation at that time, and that, too, could certainly entail an element of pretense. These factors may be part of the strength of his commanding performance of the song. About Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddy's lover, Jim Hutton said "Freddie was never going to admit it publicly, because he had to carry on the charade about being straight, for his family. But we discussed it many times."

Old and In the Way also cover the song in a wonderful country style, this recording without Garcia unfortunately.

None of the above will be confused with the Foo Fighters' song similarly named The Pretender, which is a great song but doesn't pass our theme test for "great" unless you force a match like this :

TREES/GRASS: DEAD GRASS

(It's extraordinary the things you discover in this job, one being the difference a space between 2 words can make. And the similarity. 'Dead Grass' is the name of an album by the late great fidler extraordinaire Vassar Clements, of whose music I have been a fan since I was 15. 'Deadgrass' is the name of a band who peddle the self same concept as did that album, albeit as a current working live band. And whose bio seems resolutely to avoid any reference to the earlier. Funny that.)

So, 'Dead Grass', then? More or less as it says on the tin, the music of the Grateful Dead through a bluegrass filter. Arguably not as great a leap as it sounds, Garcia's pre-Dead background in jugbands and his lifelong love of and sidetracking into banjo based acoustic hillbilly music being well known. I have racks of this stuff from Old and in the Way, through myriad duet sets with David Grisman, a celebrated mandolin player, also a member of OaitW. Vassar Clements, himself no stranger to Garcia and the band, having played on 'In the Wake of the Flood' and been also a 3rd member of OaitW, was, or certainly looked, much older school than his cohorts, and had an interesting life.

Born in 1928 and self-taught on the fiddle, he soon came to the attention of Bill Monroe, joining his Bluegrass Boys, barely as he turned 20. After a few years live experience he was ready for greater recognition, spending time with many of the bluegrass giants, including playing, alongside Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs on this masterpiece. However, the middle of the 60s saw him fall prey to the bottle, and it seemed it had fully let him down, he scraping by in dead-end jobs.

Newly sober and developing a new name for himself, in sessions, he was fortunate enough to find himself swept up into the commotion of a groundbreaking moment in american music, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken', in 1972.

This fabulous collaborative piece of work was the idea of the Dirt Band and their then manager, to team up their no mean talents with those of the generation behind them, putting a bunch of longhaired hippies into the room with a bunch of distrustful short-back-and-sides elder statesmen, like Roy Acuff, Jimmie Martin and the aforementioned Scruggs. Astonishingly it gelled, the recorded between song dialogue reflecting the initial suspicions. Clements featured heavily, arguably, alongside Doc Watson, the blind guitar-picking maestro, coming off the best of an impressive roster. From there, his second wind was off, Grateful Dead sessions, work with an immediately post Allman's Dickey Betts and a solo career.  As mentioned earlier, he joined up with Jerry Garcia, Dave Grisman, bass player John Kahn and another ex-Bluegrass Boy, Peter Rowan, on guitar, to form Old and in the Way. With Garcia on banjo, they had a modus operandi of playing both traditional songs and grassed up covers of contemporary songs. Whilst no Dead songs made it on to any of their records, I would think it strange if they didn't sneak the odd one into their live sets, no doubt fuelling the idea for 'Dead Grass', which appeared in 2000, arguably helped along by the 'Pickin' On' series. For me, 'Dead Grass' has the greater whiff of authenticity, Clements being a tangible link to the band, the songs remaining songs, proper songs with vocals, rather than the slight sterility of meticulously rehearsed instrumentals.

In the intervening years Clements had remained busy, taking forward his concept of Hillbilly Jazz, a freewheeling amalgam of blue grass, western swing, jazz and old-times standards. The similarly entitled 1975 album is a thing of some wonder. Seldom ever can Bob Wills and Benny Goodman have sat alongside each other in the song credits. Very much Clement's project, backing musicians included David Bromberg and longtime Elvis drummer, D.J. Fontana. I remember reading about this record a year or two after 'Will The Circle', never ever seeming to be able to find a copy. I finally remedied that about 15 years ago, about the time Amazon were becoming a player, and from whom you could get anything. A joy better late than never.

There were a few more similar recordings, but the ever itchy fingered Clements kept stretching his boundaries, including a fascinating duet live recording with Stephane Grappelli, their styles seemingly poles apart, the Hot Club de Paris translated to a log cabin in the Appalachians. It shouldn't, but it works, believe me. Towards the end of his life; he died in 2005, he was exploring the blues, his final recording being 'Livin' With the Blues', another belter, alongside the likes of Elvin Bishop, Maria Muldaur and likeminded genre-defining harmonica man, Norton Buffalo.

I love fiddle music and how it can touch any style. If my top three exponents include Sugar Cane Harris and Dave Swarbrick, Clements is surely the king.

Oo, before I forget, final word, Deadgrass.

Hillbilly!

The Moon: Midnight Moonlight

Old & In The Way: Midnight Moonlight

[purchase]

Some bluegrass records are more welcoming than others; the Old & In The Way record is like bluegrass bait for deadheads. Here's the scoreboard: Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, and John Kahn on bass. Definitely one of the first I would recommend, then it's just one more step to Muleskinner, the fascinating guitar work of Clarence White, the KY Colonels, then it's on to Doc, Bill, Ralph, and you're in for life.

This Peter Rowan tune has always been a favorite, one of the first that got me hooked.