Pour: Rain, by The Beatles

Purchase Rain, by The Beatles 

I’m going to reach a little here. Our theme is “Pour”, as in pouring rain, or a beer, but as is the fashion with SMM, interpretation is an open-ended exercise and itself its own tolerantly loose term.

I thought a lot about pouring and due to my partiality towards spirits and libations, I was thinking on drinking songs to try to fit the theme. But writing about drinking songs gets as old as drinking songs themselves—heard ‘em all a few too many times. Expanding on the theme, there’s rain. Easy. Some great songs have been written about rain. And why not? Rain is as evocative a metaphor on paper as in real-life. And “Rain”, by the Beatles, is not only a fine piece of trippy melodic pop sugar, but it’s a track I never get tired of hearing.

The Beatles “Rain”, released as a B-side to “Paperback Writer”,  remains one of my favorite Fab-Four songs. I always thought it was their first foray into their experimental, psychedelic side, and it came out before their genre-crossing masterwork—and harbinger of things to come, sonically, aesthetically, and otherwise—Revolver.  

It’s a wonderful song, in all the best ways that pop songs are great: the swirling guitar comes close to sounding as if its crunching through the soni-scape, but it’s light enough to seem as if it’s just happily caught in a tilt-a-whirl, lazily going round and around. That fuzzed-out guitar lead by George is as ‘60s as it gets, and the lilting, sing-song vocals by John and Paul’s slippery groove bass line combine with what I think is my favorite drumbeat that Ringo ever laid down, all tripped out gun shot and gently propulsive, to bring 2 minutes and 45 seconds of exactly the kind of song that touches into the best part of your brain that makes you love, love, love music…

Meaning: a song like “Rain” sends the listener scrambling through their onomatopoetic thesaurus looking for tangible words to describe not just the sound, but what the sound feels like, what it does as it works on you and makes you reach for the rewind button again and again. The Beatles will perhaps always serve as the greatest band for drawing a listener into a beautiful interior world, a bubble of sound that, once experienced, colors, literally and metaphorically, all the rest of the music they might ever hear. 

I suppose that’s what makes The Beatles so great (not that the subject nor my instance is necessary at this point): once you’ve heard them, and if you were lucky enough to fall in love with rock music because of them, and to them, the band will color, in brilliant hues, whatever else you listen to, pretty much for life…

As a P.S. of sorts, I wanted to send a shout out to one of my favorite music blogs, Cover Me, which, you can guess, specializes in cover versions of songs we all know, by delivering mp3s of cover versions we don't...Cover Me's write up on "Rain" is pretty cool and the five choices they present as for our tune are just out of this world fun...Five Good Covers: Rain 

Pour: Jose, Weather Girls & Supertramp

purchase [ Jose Feliciano ]
purchase [ Weather Girls ]
purchase [ Supertramp ]

The current theme [pour] came came to mind from a number of places: a theme that hasn't been done before... a theme that is somehow current ... a theme that might spark the disparate contributors and therefore interest the audience. Actually, it was raining cats and dogs as the theme idea was in gestation. Buckets.  But at the the same time, it occured to us that there are a number of things that pour: liquids .... yes; ... some solids as well (marbles and beads pour well), but also emotions. Emotions, as in what a vocalist or a piano player puts into his/her performance: they pour out their hearts, and it is that which makes one performance  different or better than another. It is songs where the artist pours out his/her heart that draw us in and that we love.

There is no small list of songs that include "pour" either in the title or the lyrics: poring rain, pouring out my heart, pouring  liquid or other.

Of course, as a child, you likely learned: It's raining, it's pouring ... the old man is snoring.
Jose Feliciano's Rain make the most of it.

But - keeping in mind that pouring has multiple connotations ... here's a couple more:
Weather Girls:

 

Supertramp:

it's the sax player that is pouring it out here ...

Rain: I Wish it Would Rain

The Temptations: I Wish it Would Rain

[purchase]

When I attended high school in the 1960s as a “military brat” in Japan, I would have to ride a drab Navy-gray school bus daily for about 40 minutes to Yokohama. We’d have a lot of fun during those rides, and I’m not sure how the Japanese bus drivers put up with us. One great memory is the back of the bus rendering a terrible version of The Temptations’ “I Wish It Would Rain.”

Sunshine blue skies please go away, The girl has found another and gone away. With her went my future my life is filled with gloom, So day after day I stay locked up in my room. I know to you, it might sound strange but I wish it would rain.

One good musical friend (Brent Cooper, drummer in one of my high school bands) would sing lead while the rest of us would respond with “Oh how I wish that it would rain.” Even if some of us didn’t know all the lyrics, the entire bus of kids would build a final crescendo when the part came around exclaiming “Oh I wish it would rain, Let it rain, let it rain.” It was a sure way to bring a little sunshine to our teenage lives.

Sadly, on New Year’s Eve 1967, songwriter Roger Penzabene committed suicide a week after the release of “I Wish it Would Rain.” He couldn’t bring himself to leave his cheating wife. Besides "I Wish it Would Rain," his other last composition ("I Could Never Love Another") is also full of heartfelt soul and emotion.

A year or so later, The Chambers Brothers covered The Temptations’ hit. The USO brought them and The Temptations (as well as many other great acts like Sam & Dave, The Supremes, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, etc.) out to the Yokosuka Navy Base where I was lucky enough to see them live in concert for about $5. Released in 1968, the song appears on their vinyl album “A New Time – A New Day” as the opening track on the B-side. The Chambers Brothers had hit it big with "Time Has Come Today," and I liked their sound. They had great vocals backed up with their signature Sixtyesque psychedelic soul, jams, cowbell, screams and fuzz-toned guitars. I think I’ll go hunt down that LP and give it another spin for some fine nostalgic memories of the sixties and my high school bus rides.

Rain: As The Rain

Jeb Loy Nichols: As The Rain
[purchase]

My last post discussed a memorable concert that I attended with my whole family in 2004, memorable not only because of the great music, but which has stuck in my mind for a silly reason---some guy yelling out at a random moment in a song. Today’s post is about a concert that I attended with my wife, a few years earlier, that is memorable not only because of the music, but because of another, not at all silly reason.

Jeb Loy Nichols is another one of those guys who I tend to write about—people who seemed close to a commercial breakthrough, but never quite got there. “As The Rain” was probably the first song of his that I was familiar with, from his debut album, Lover’s Knot. His sound was an interesting mix of rock, folk, jazz, R&B, and whatever, and his voice was unusual, in a good way. His next album, Just What Time It Is, released at the end of 2000, was the one that seemed poised to do something—it had at least three great songs on it. After that, though, I kind of lost track of him, although I have recently discovered some more good music from him. He was one of the performers at the concert at issue.

Lucy Kaplansky was the other. Although a Chicagoan by birth, she became closely identified with New York, both because of her participation in the local folk music scene and because she went to college and practiced psychology here before she fully committed to her music. Her literate songs and exquisite covers, combined with her beautiful voice, has made her a family favorite for years. Here is a link to a bonus track from Kaplansky: Manhattan Moon [purchase] which not only references her adopted city, but also our theme, rain.

One of the great things about living near New York is that there are many opportunities to see outdoor concerts, many of them free, and the kind of musicians that I like often participate in these free shows. The Nichols/Kaplansky show, which was a fine, free concert, sponsored by the wonderful WFUV, part of a series of folk/rock shows on the plaza of the World Trade Center, was held on a beautiful July evening.

Less than two months later, coincidentally on the same day that Kaplansky released her album Every Single Day, the plaza ceased to exist.

RAIN : THE HISTORY OF RAIN

                      

Jackie Leven :  The History of Rain

(purchase link)

At last, a reason to post an offering from my hero, if that be an odd concept for someone of my, um, mature years. Having dipped my toes into the waters of  this Machine, I now feel sufficient confidence to put up what may read little more than a paean of praise, albeit wherein my bias is accepted freely and openly. This man, with us sadly no longer, is a GENIUS. And I can say "is" rather than "was", as his legacy lives on and is there for the finding, yet many may be unfamiliar with his considerable back catalogue. Let this be an introduction, from perhaps his most conventional and accessible LP, the Argyll Cycle, Volume 1. Forget  all the brouhaha around any other ideas of celtic soul, for this is the real deal, gorgeously evocative of his homeland, drenched in mists of melancholia, aching at the seams of heartbreak.

A gigantic bear of a man, Jackie had what many may call a colourful life, even when extricating the mythology from his usually self-penned manuscript, as there was a delight, maintained lifelong, in embellishing the truth, as if this lily ever needed any extra gilding. For the truth involved near-death, serious drug abuse, torrents of alcohol and the poetry of the gutter. I won't regurgitate the details, but this eulogy by eminent media scribe, Paul Du Noyer, covers most of the tracks, as well as pointing toward a not half bad sampler. The problem with Jackie, however, is that samplers can merely but flicker over the quantity of his output, rushing out product on a more than yearly basis, whether under the ever supportive patronage of his always loyal record label boss,or side pseudonymed projects to soak up his excess. And songs were not always or even his greatest strength, as his live shows, usually just himself in shorts and ripped denim shirt, tousled hair and battered accoustic, with his tapping foot miked up for percussion, adjacent to a pint glass of indeterminate sustenance, were a whole other experience. A song, lovingly crafted over very many layers in the studio, would emerge, beautifully barren and bare, accompanied only by his stunning instrumental technique. But a song would often be preceded by an as long as the song anecdote, wherein he could display, within the same tale, both the heights of his literacy and the depths of his profanity. Truth, as cited, often immaterial to the telling, he could have you laughing for your life, ahead of then making you weep for and with his widescreen window on a bleak humanity, populated in granite streets leading to stormy harbour walls, rain, always rain, falling incessantly.

If you do nothing else today, search out this man. You will, I promise,be the better for it.

Rain: Rain (De Rain)

Alzo and Udine : Rain ( De Rain)

  [purchase]


Some "strum and be happy" pop from the NYC combo Alzo And Udine captures the sunny hippy vibe of the late 60's with a dash of latin soul and a guitar riff borrowed from Archie Bell and The Drells.
     Little is known about childhood friends Alzo Fronte (born Alfred Affrunti) and Udine ( whose birth name may have been Ali Noor Uddi) except that they originally recorded together as Keepers of the Light with Brill Building songwriter Jeff Barry producing. With Udine sidetracked by drugs, Alzo continued recording as a solo artist with little commercial success.



 


 Eventually he and his wife opened up a store selling "new furniture made in the old ways". Village Chairs and Wares is still there in Port Jefferson, NY. The couple were featured in House Beautiful in the late 90's. In 2004, just as a Japanese reissue of Alzo & Udine led to the duo's rediscovery, Alzo died of a heart attack in a local restaurant. 

     I've got that Japanese reissue and all I can say is that sunny hippy vibe shines throughout the album. But it's a bit of a one trick pony. Nearly every song has the "Tighten Up" guitar riff.

Rain: Let It Rain

 

Eric Clapton: Let it Rain

[Purchase mp3 @ Amazon]

 

I may not be of the "Clapton is God" school - but I am not far off. I have gone out of my way/paid big bucks to see him in concert on 3 continents (not because I traveled for the purpose, but because we were in the same place at the same time) - most recently in Istanbul, Turkey, 2011 but also as far back as Blind Faith @ Seattle in '69.

This collection of videos of "Let It Rain" prove that even on his worst day, he is a guitarst "par excellence".

 

Let it Rain dates back to Clapton's immediate post-Cream days: from the first solo/eponymous album (1970)- more or less the Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett era (just after the Blind Faith days).

Of the set of YouTube videos I am linking to, the Hartford/Youtube version(above) strikes me as the best of the live video Youtube video versions available today, if not the best recording overall. It takes him a few seconds of the solo to get going, but when he hits the higher notes, it's pretty good stuff.

The piano (see minute ~ 1:05 and again ~ 2:09) is the "tinkling sound" of rain itself - in wonderful contrast to the sharper/cutting guitar. The video image may be on the dark side, but the sound is bright.

 

As for the lyrical value (and I am going back to our recent themes), "The Bard" it's not: (interestingly,  credited to Al Jarreau - remember him?):

 

Let it rain, let it rain

Let it rain, rain, rain...

 

Musically, however, would that all rain was this sweet.

 

Other Youtube versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbJHzR2wXEs

Craig Twister Steward version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifff5NbKQZI
Montreaux '96 Phil Collins @ drums

This aint too shabby either!

Rain: Save It For A Rainy Day

The Jayhawks: Save It For A Rainy Day
[purchase]

I never saw The Jayhawks with both Gary Louris and Mark Olson, although about a year after I saw the Louris-led version of the band at Town Hall in New York, I saw a Louris/Olson show at the Bowery Ballroom, and yeah, their voices do sound incredible together. But I also like the music that the band did after Olson left, and the album Rainy Day Music is probably my favorite with that lineup.

In early 2004 my family and I went to see The Jayhawks, with Josh Rouse opening, at Town Hall, a venerable, relatively small venue in New York where I also took my bar review course. So, enjoying myself in that space, where contracts, torts and other arcana were drilled into my brain, always seemed a little strange. But I digress. Somehow, we got great seats, very close to the stage, and it turned out to be a memorable concert. Josh Rouse was an excellent opener—he had recently released his 1972 album, which my family enjoyed maybe as much as we did Rainy Day Music.

The Jayhawks were also great. I hadn’t focused on how good a guitarist Louris is, and the band was tight and the songs were exactly what we expected. One thing I enjoy about going to concerts with my wife and kids is hearing them sing along, because they are actually talented, unlike yours truly, who is much, much better at writing about music than singing. Ask my daughter.

During the performance of “Save It For A Rainy Day,” after Louris sang:

Waiting for a breakthrough
What will you set your mind to?
We stood outside the Chinese restaurant
in the rain

someone in the crowd whooped loudly. I mean, incredibly loudly. And from that moment, I have never heard this song without actually whooping myself at that point in the song, out loud, or internally, if it wouldn’t be appropriate for a grown man to scream at that particular moment.

So, thanks, Mr. Jayhawks-concert-going-whooper for forever changing how I listen to this song. And, if by some strange coincidence, you are reading this, please let me know what there was about standing outside a Chinese restaurant in the rain that so excited you. Because for the past 9 years, I have wondered.

Rain: Rainy Day

DJResi: Rainy Day
[purchase link]


In my efforts to "stay clean" & stear clear of the music police, I continue to search far and wide but seem to end up at SoundCloud again and again. Well ... there's some fine stuff there - and at least it's free and legal.

I decided early on that for this theme that I would go for Jimi Hendrix's "Rainy Day". Electric Ladyland blew me away - almost as much as the entire "Are You Experienced" album when I first heard it back in '69 - and that says a lot to me: I had never heard anything remotely like this before. The guitar literally sounded human: Hendrix' guitar technique (wah-wah, for example) is nigh on anthropomorphic.

But Hendrix' command both of the instrument and the theme doesnt stop there: to me, the music manages to convey the senses associated with a rainy day: mixed emotions of gray opresssion and a better day to follow. There is a sense of "wet"  and bleared (not bleary). Wonder what he had on his mind?

As for DJResi ... you're on your own here. Maybe he'll see us and comment. Maybe you know more and will chime in. In either case, the music stands on its own: classified as Jazz/Fusion at SoundCloud and it's a mighty fine version - fairly true to the essence of the original.