Arlo: Low & Lonely

Rick Robbins: Low & Lonely
[purchase]

You know how in “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” Arlo sings that it:

all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the Restaurant?

The friend at issue, an unindicted co-conspirator in the criminal garbage dump, was named Rick Robbins. They had been friends since the early 1960s, when they both attended the Stockbridge School, where the librarian was a woman named Alice Brock. That Alice. At the Stockbridge School, Robbins was exposed to American music from Bessie Smith to Arlo’s dad, to current stars such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.  He's the guy on the left.

In 1965, Robbins and Guthrie set off on the road to discover music and themselves, and spent a lot of time singing and playing folk music and the blues. But rather than opt for the life of a professional musician, Robbins settled down to build houses and learn architectural design.

Fast forward to 1995, when Robbins was trading construction work at a music studio for recording time to create a record of some songs for his family.  Rory Block, the blues guitarist and singer (who I saw the other day, opening for Richard Thompson), happened to hear him playing, added some vocals, and persuaded Robbins to release an album. Block produced the album, Walking Down The Line, which also features Ramblin' Jack Elliott, John Sebastian, Eric Weissberg, and Larry Campbell, as well as old buddy Arlo. Not bad for an unknown carpenter/folk singer, right?

Robbins and Guthrie perform a fun, jaunty version of “Low & Lonely,” a song written by “the father of the Nashville music business,” Fred Rose, who wrote, under his own name, and as “Floyd Jenkins,” a number of legendary songs including "'Deed I Do" and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” He’s the “Rose” in the name of famed music publishing firm Acuff-Rose.

“Low & Lonely” was originally released in 1942 by Rose’s partner, Roy Acuff and His Smoky Mountain Boys, and has been covered a few other times, notably by Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, one of Robbins’ main mentors and influences, Hank Williams, and George Jones, who recorded the song with Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys.

Robbins has released two more albums of music, most recently an album of original songs, in 2006.

Gold: The Golden Vanity

Rory Block: The Golden Vanity

[purchase]

Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir, Ed Trickett: The Golden Vanity

[purchase]

Sam Kelly: The Golden Vanity

[purchase]

Unlike in my last post, there is no need for make to make the case for The Golden Vanity as a folk song. Instead, the song and the versions offered here give a great example of the folk process. What are now traditional songs once served a role in society that is filled now with far less artistry by tabloid newspapers. In a culture that was mostly illiterate, songs like The golden Vanity were how the masses got their news. As stories like this got told and retold, different singers would add their own agendas to the lyrics. The Golden Vanity may have begun as a tale about a specific sea captain. The singer might have left him unnamed, secure in the knowledge that his audience would know who he was. But the song is also a tale of the unfairness of the class structure of British society. There are versions that present the tragic conclusion as inevitable, citing how impudent the cabin boy was to expect to be rewarded for his efforts. The universality of the main theme of the song assured it a long life that extended well beyond the life of the people it was written about. So the enemy is often a “Turkish Revelry”, but sometimes it is a Spanish ship. Likewise, it is important to some singers that the enemy deserves their fate, so there is a verse that describes them as sinners, playing cards and shooting dice as they sink into the sea. Rory Block gives us a lyric where the crew give the cabin boy an honorable death, as if the teller is a former shipmate struck by pangs of guilt. It is unlikely, in the actual event, that the captain would have allowed this, but it puts the blame on him alone for what happened. Gordon Bok and crew give us an exchange between the captain and the cabin boy that exposes the villainy of the captain for all to see; here, the reason the cabin boy does not take revenge is an act of class solidarity.

Another aspect of the folk process is on display here as well. All three versions here are recognizably the same song. But Rory Block and Bok, Muir and Trickett take very different approaches musically, although both are ballads. Sam Kelly turns the song into an uptempo burner, and it really cooks. As these songs pass from news items to parts of the traditional culture, each new artist uses their unique talents to put the song over the best way they can. There are times, like this one, where there never becomes an “official” way to do the song, so each artist must make it their own. I could have presented many more versions, including classic takes by Pete Seeger, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Peter Paul and Mary, but the versions I have chosen suffice to illustrate the point.

Green: Elder Green Is Gone

Rory Block: Elder Green is Gone

[purchase]

If it wasn't for pure fidelity, subtle production dynamics, and that high, clear voice, it would be easy to imagine that this recording was older than the hills, from the early days of folk or "country" blues.

But this is no Lomax field recording. It's acoustic blues guitarist and five time WC Handy award winner Rory Block, who set out at fifteen to learn her trade from a set of dying old men, all she could track down -- Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis and Son House among them -- before heading out into the folk scene in the early seventies.

Block didn't really hit her stride until she was picked up by Rounder Records in 1981, who convinced her to go back to her blues roots. Her catalog after that is plentiful and stunning. This deep cut - a Charlie Patton cover - comes from Blue Horizon, her second Rounder album.

Hell Week: Hellhound On My Trail

Cassandra Wilson: Hellhound On My Trail

[purchase]

Rory Block: Hellhound On My Trail

[purchase]

Two of my favorite still-living blueswomen from opposite ends of the blues spectrum -- one a sultry jazz-pop chanteuse, the other a 5 time WC Handy award-winning acoustic folkblues guitar player of the Mississippi Delta Country Blues style -- deliver vastly different but equally powerful interpretations of this old country blues tune usually attributed to Robert Johnson.

"Hellhounds on my trail" may be merely a metaphoric mannerism, but each in her own way manages to bring the weariness of a sinner's life to what is otherwise a pretty standard sneakin' 'round song. As an added bonus, given the subject matter, the gender-bender approach is reasonably empowering, all things considered. Especially nice to hear powerful musicianship coupled with such powerful, sparse narrative.