Snow & Ice: Winter

purchase [Goats Head Soup]

My memory told me that <Goats Head Soup> followed <Exile on Main Street>. Must have been one of the toughest Stones' outputs. (I mean .. pretty hard to improve on that one)

That said, Goats Head Soup (who named it??!?!?) actually includes a few of my favorite Stones pieces - ones I could listen to back to back/over and over again. [Maybe I did once upon a time]. The AllMusic review says as much: difficult placement after Exile ... lots of good overlooked songs.
But, it's <Winter> we need to zoom in on.

Something about the melodic structure - the sound of the instruments ... something else I'm missing that manages to convey a real sense of winter/cold.. Is it the reverb? Or just Jagger's uncanny ability to fit the voice to the theme?

Granted, the lyrics slightly miss the theme of ice and snow, but ...hey ... Winter: the season of ice and snow.

And ... the Stones

July: Walking The Dog

Rufus Thomas: Walking The Dog
[purchase]

At this point, Rufus Thomas is probably best remembered for this fun, nursery rhyme influenced song, but it was only one of his hits, mostly novelty dance songs, often about dogs or other animals, in a long musical career that started as a child tap dancer on the streets of Memphis in the 1920s, and included stints in minstrel shows in the 1930s, as a vaudeville performer in the 1940s, as a songwriter, performer and DJ in the 1950s, as a popular recording artist in the 1960s, and he continued to perform and record thereafter, often billed as “The World’s Oldest Teenager” and “The Funkiest Man Alive,” until not long before he died in 2001 at the age of 84.

Thomas recorded for Sun and for Stax, the minister at his wedding was Aretha Franklin’s father C.L. Franklin, he worked for 20 years in a textile factory, he acted in Jim Jarmusch and Robert Altman movies, and he performed with Prince, at the 1996 Olympics, and with the Blues Brothers Band. And his daughter Carla Thomas is considered the Queen of Memphis Soul (and who I missed when I wrote this.)

Pretty much everyone has covered “Walking The Dog,” from the Stones, to the Everly Brothers, to the Flamin’ Groovies, as well as Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey, Bruce Springsteen (in an epic 14 minute plus version), Ratt, The Grateful Dead, and John Cale. And many, many more.  Even in Finnish! But Thomas’ version, with its New Orleans influenced style, and the joy that he brings to the silly lyrics, is still remembered because it is just that good.

And yes, it mentions July.

As I was writing this piece, I thought back to walking our family dog, Strummer, who died back in 2014. In July. You can read more about him, and our relationship, here.

fireworks: U2/Promenade

U2: Promenade
purchase [promenade]

Yes, the fourth is still a few days away, but the upcoming celebration was a part of the thought behind our current theme of fireworks. July 4th ... there may be reunion somewhere in your fireworks, but I'll make no further attempt at a conceit/an effort to combine these two themes. Just a fire-related thought or two to get us rolling ...

Things in the sky above use are naturally spacy (as in ether = air?). You look up. You see the stars. You see lights. You see beyond.  And it's often even more awesome/beautiful when there are human-made colors and lights above your head. For example, airplanes, satellites and fireworks.

This is one of those songs that embodies the qualities of the air/the sky: As in the lyrics, as in the stars above - there is a spiral to the guitar, to the music. The song makes use of a repetition that seems to embody the motion of the stars, to lights in the sky: to the continuity of "earth, sky, sea and rain". To me, it calls to mind the roman candles of its lyrics, lights that spiral and spin through the heavens and enthrall us from below.

For some reason, this song also called to mind a realization that there is a similar effect in Midnight Mile off of Sticky Fingers - part of it is that guitar, part of it is the vocal style and part of it is the ethereal lyrics. Cf:

Light: Dancing in the Moonlight

Buy Toploader: Dancing in the Moonlight
Buy Harvest King: Dancing in the Moonlight

Light it is, this theme around.

If you're going to classify your lights, moonlight is possibly the most romantic of all lights, closely followed by firelight, candlelight - and some folks  would include firefly light. And if you are going to classify your hits, you might take a moment to consider why King Harvest is not remembered for the original version, but TopLoader is for theirs.

I won't lay claim to being a great fan of these guys: TopLoader, but that won't stop me from promoting this song for our theme, either. In fact, (probably like you) all I know about them is that they have this one hit song. But I will give them kudos for coming out with this. Note: not coming up with, but *coming out* with it: although they are the band best remembered for the song, it isn't their composition: it belongs to King Harvest (who?!?) However, like them or not, (their version of) the song is catchy - and that's probably why it became more popular than the King Harvest original. For that matter, it strikes me that it isn’t all that unlike some other songs that took someone to the big time (Please, Please Me &c) in relation to the lack of depth of its lyrics.

TopLoader

 

Harvest King

 

 

Of course, there are many ways to rank your musical preferences other than "best" or "original" - and even then, you are walking a thin line in calling *your* definition of best/original the same as other people's! I recall a t-shirt I bought in the 60s that said "Cool is as cool does" - and I guess that applies here. Harvest King wrote a decent song, TopLoader made it "cool".


To the extent that SMM aims to enlighten its audience, let me add a hidden gem in the way of a version that you would be unlikely to run across unless you followed my "trail". To me, this clip is so, so typical of what it means to be on the stage as an amateur musician: acceptably competent, but everyone just walks and talks right past them. Make your own comparisons: "tightness" of the band, showmanship, backup vocals …what else is it that makes a song/a band a hit?

RoadRunnerBand

 

For that matter, The Rolling Stones' Moonlight Mile (a totally different genre/emotion) is equally a best as a "moonlight" song, n'est ce pas?

 

And Bands: Bill Janovitz and Friends

Bill Janovitz: Tumblin Dice
[Janovitz's website]

And so … for the next two weeks it’s “Bands with <and> in the name”. You could make a game out of this: how many such bands can you think of without Internet help? But the real/money question is: how many can SMM highlight and which would you have had us mention? (You can do so in the comments)

For the most part, bands in this category include the famous leader in the name (ex: Eric Burdon and the Animals), but there are almost equally many others where the “lead” is a figment (Derek and the Dominoes).

Bill Janovitz is prolific. He founded Buffalo Tom back in 86 and they are still playing together out of the Boston area. If you do a YouTube search for him, you’ll find clips of Bill Janvitz and Crown Victoria, Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz and more collaborations/ands. One of his projects has been a coversong blog started back in 2007 where you can read his thoughts about and download close to 100 songs. In his blog, he says:

I would love to share what I have been listening to more often, and as an artist, I encourage such use of music as another outlet for exposure. I don't want anyone posting files for downloads of whole records as thievery, but a sample tune or two would be fine.

Several years back, I had the fortune to pick up a couple of songs by Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria, from music.download.com in what was then a legal process. Despite Bill Janovitz’s sentiments about sharing, the song I wanted to post has been flagged as copyrighted by my file hosting service, so I can’t share it here.

Winter: Winter

Rolling Stones: Winter
[Purchase @ Amazon]

“Winter”, from Goat’s Head Soup – the ’73 Rolling Stones release – got this review from Bill Janovitz (one of my favorites): “ Here they were in sunny Jamaica, and the Rolling Stones were writing and recording an entirely convincing and evocative picture of a Northern Hemisphere winter. Perhaps they were so happy to be escaping the season they felt that starting the sessions with "Winter" could transition them out of the old and into the new climate. Though it bemoans many of the negatives of the season [in the] lyrics... "Winter" seems to simultaneously celebrate the season as something inherently beautiful, with other evocations of holiday scenes and wanting to wrap a coat and keep a lover warm…”

Wikipedia says the song was probably a product of Jagger and Taylor, but that Taylor didn’t get much credit for his efforts (seems to be a common thread about his role in the Stones). Apparently, Keith Richards had nothing to do with this oevre.

From my own perspective, Goats Head Soup – and “Winter” in particular – carry poignant memories. I was a high school senior and the year was ’73 (Probably you had to be there to relate, but it was a seminal place and time). Of course, this was following on “Exile on Main Street”. Like the years (’73 is a distant memory), seasons also come and go, but classics songs (like “Winter”) go on and on and ….

Back to Janovitzs’s remarks (and the current condition of Star Maker Machine): winter comes and goes. The wind blows cold, and then warm. Music is at heart a celebration: musicians feel something, and as a result produce music. That’s the idea that has driven Star Maker bloggers so far, too.

Birthstones: Ruby Tuesday

The Rolling Stones: Ruby Tuesday (via YouTube)

Now … I was ‘round and actively listening to this stuff called rock (not too far – relatively - from St Petersburg) when this song came out, and my exposure to it was when I picked up a copy of Between the Buttons in about ’67. Although many of the songs on the album (is it only me?) call up a (bland) taste of Herman’s Hermits (cf: Something Happened to Me Yesterday), Ruby Tuesday has survived the intervening 45 years fairly well.

One source credits Brian Jones as author – reporting that he (fact) played the tune on a recorder. Other sources tell the story of Keith Richards’ input. My guess is that Jones conceived the music and Richards took the next steps. Jagger has clearly said that it isn’t his work, but that he always loves singing it. It is, like most Stones songs, credited to Jagger and Richards.

Like the diamond, the red ruby is the subject of this week’s theme of Birthstones. It is (currently) the birthstone for July, but it hasn’t always been so: Wikipedia tells us that before the 19^th century, it was the birthstone for December, not July. And in Hindu lore, it equates with the month of August. I guess the good news is that it has always been special: ruby lips … What else comes to your mind (aside from the restaurant chain)?

My favorite lines?

"Dying all the time" 

"Cash your dreams before they slip away"

Street Names: Route 66

In my house, the movie Cars is a great favorite with six year old son, and therefore the rest of the family knows the movie well. Fortunately, it’s a good one. There are two versions of the song Route 66 on the soundtrack. The one by Chuck Berry is not his best work; he even gets two of the town names wrong. And John Mayer is an artist I enjoy, but his version doesn’t do it for me either. But the connection between the movie and Route 66 does not end there. The town of Radiator Springs is an amalgam of landmarks on the real Route 66. Notably, the Cozy Cone Motel (shown above) is based on the Wigwam Motel, (below). The Wigwam was a chain, and there was even one still in operation in New Jersey when I was growing up. But many Wigwams could be seen along the length of Route 66. The song has been around a while, so there many great versions to choose from.

The Rolling Stones: Route 66

[purchase]

You never forget your first one. This is how I first heard Route 66, and I thought for a while that the Rolling Stones wrote it. It still sounds great after all these years.

Asleep at the Wheel: Get Your Kicks on Route 66

[purchase]

Much of the soundtrack of Cars had a country feel to it, so I think they should have used this great western swing version by Asleep at the Wheel. The musical style hails from Oklahoma and Texas, so its right on the way.

Nat King Cole: Route 66

[purchase]

But where did the song come from? Bobbie Troup wrote it in 1946, and Nat King Cole was the first to record it. My introduction to the music of Nat King Cole was an 8-track tape of his crooning hits that my school bus driver played to death. I hate that stuff. But Cole started out as a jazz player, and his Route 66 reflects this. The crooning would come later.

Buckwheat Zydeco: Route 66

[purchase]

A quick check of the map will confirm that Route 66 does not wind through Louisiana. But I came across this version while gathering the other tracks for this post, and I couldn’t resist. Enjoy! Or should I say, “Bon temps roullez!”