So this mainline Jesus is on, right, what is it actually? I always thought it was about a train, especially with the world of gospel awash with songs about trains. Surely it must be God's preferred form of transport, such is the plethora of references, from the Staples Singers to the Carter Family, each espousing the sure-fire way to heaven is by locomotive. It's an odd idea, given how few were around in nothing A.D., but it seems a good idea. Plus it sort of fits that the journey in the other direction is more often by road, if only to please the optimist in me; more folk fit on a train than a car.
But then I got confused. Mainline is also a word associated with drugs and with addiction. Jesus doesn't have that mainline, does he? Scouring the literature, only a few are saying that. But it is interesting how the imagery continues, the tell-tale signs being also tracks. Few encapsulate it better than these guys. Even the rhythm sounds like a choo-choo.
Pity we can't ask Lou how, or if, he got to Heaven, in the end, by train. Or did he take a car in the other direction.
But it seems I got it all wrong. It seems Jesus was on the mainline as in telephone line. Or was, at least, available to take a call. With supportive evidence lobbied. Again it's a rum 'un, wondering how such discussions took place before Alexander Graham Bell. Written, I guess.
I find myself pre-disposed to prefer the Ry Cooder version of this because that's where I first heard it (and the version I, myself, play in open-D tuning). And because I have posted again and again and again and ... songs by Ry Cooder. My first SMM guest post as a possible SMM writer included a reference to Ry.
Ry Cooder fully credits Bobby Miller (of course he would) on his '74 album Paradise and Lunch, but I never dug deeper into the story of the song. Now that I have, I see that there was much that I missed. I knew that Ry regularly focuses on music that is at the roots of contemporary pop/rock. But without that exploration, I have been missing some great music.
Miller, known as a producer and songwriter, doesn't appear to have left a recording of himself performing the song. Me, I find it hard to imagine that a songwriter didn't also play the song in some version himself, but we'll have to rely on the version he first produced for/with Little Milton back in the '60s. I assume it was what he himself might have played - if in fact he played an instrument. I can also see what might have attracted Ry Cooder to come up with his own rendition. "It's the same old song .." but with a different beat. The original Little Milton version was released on the Checker label, a subsidiary of Chess records.
The notion behind the lyrics is certainly not new. What goes on behind closed doors that the walls could tell us about if only they could speak is a theme as old as ... well... the hills that could also tell a lot of stories. There's a peepin' tom side to it as well as an element of eternal truth about the human condition.
Geraint Watkins and the Dominators have a version
as does Koko Taylor
Here's a version by Dr Feelgood
And another from Duke Robillard that harkens back kind of to the original by Little Milton (at least in the strumming intro)
This is a year where Christmas is very much what you and you alone make of it.
Yeah, I managed to get the tree and lights up. I even managed a couple of wrapped gifts under it. No mean feat. We are under some serious restrictions over here: No one is allowed out all weekend. It's been this way all December and for New Years, the lockdown runs from Thursday through Monday morning. I'm also in the "over 65" category, which means that even Monday-Friday, I am only allowed out on the streets between 10AM and 1PM. Makes it hard to shop for gifts.
Add to that the fact that Christmas is not much of a thing in this Moslem majority country. So... Christmas music? Not much. Even in the best of years (which this has most certainly not been).
But that's fine. We've called the theme Pandemic Holiday Songs for a reason. And as I said, Christmas is what you make of it. That goes for my music choice here as well: a song that I find myself listening to again and again, kinda like I might have been doing with the Christmas favorites. Maybe I'll get to those on the day itself.
But for now: a pandemic holiday song (instead of the usual). It really has absolutely nothing to do with End of the Year Holiday - except in my current frame of mind (allowed under the "whatever fits this season"):
As you saw last week, I've been on a Clarence White binge. Digging around I found that session at the top that he recorded with Ry Cooder (and you know that Ry's my #1) It appears to have been one of the last recordings Clarence made (Summer, 1973), part of a solo album. It appears to be his brother Roland doing the backup vocals and although I'm sure I hear a pedal steel in addition to Ry's slide (could it be Sneaky Pete?)
And then I came across this "cover" of the song that - to me - equals the vibe of Clarence and Ry's version. They are more or less my neighbors!!
Christmas? Not really - unless you consider the lyrics: a time where we can't go home to our families (gone so long). And of course, there are lots of other versions of this song credited to Mickey Newbury: Tony Rice, Carl Perkins and more if you do a Youtube search for the title.
As I said, not Christmas, but hey ... it brings me some holiday cheer and hopefully to you, too.
John Hiatt is just terrific, one of the best, if not in sales, certainly in terms of influence and output, up there, in my book, with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. When he's good, he's very, very good and when he's bad, well, I haven't encountered that yet. And Bring the Family, the album from which this song comes, is possibly one of his best, positively enhanced by the backing band on hand. Backing band? O, just Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner. And yet it was born out of near desperation, a banknote or so away from ruin. Alone in the Dark, the feature song of this piece, epitomises the tight but loose feel of the disc, and is often overlooked amongst some of the other goodies on board. The lyrics may reflect a differing loneliness and a differing dark from these dangerous days, but the mood sure fits.
Ahead of this time, Hiatt had been a slogging workaday singer-songwriter, starting his career as a pen for hire. When Three Dog Night hit the top 40 with one of his, a recording contract beckoned, although, over the ensuing seven discs, scattered across various labels, more money came from royalties recouped, as the likes of Roseanne Cash and Willie Nelson recorded his songs, than he made from his own originals. Even the mighty Geffen label tried and failed to break him. This was arguably not helped by Hiatt being a drunken cuss who hadn't endeared himself to label bosses. So, newly sober, with a bunch of songs he had lost faith in, straits were indeed dire. Luckily the maverick UK label Demon still believed in him, and could offer a threadbare budget to record them. (The story of Demon makes for interesting reading, established by the earlier team behind Stiff records, Radar and F-Beat.)
Bring the Family, released in 1987, is a joy, from start to finish, the four musicians laying down a lean muscle honed from their collective road and studio experiences, Hiatt's holler a celebrant to his limited range: who needs more notes when you can do this much with these? Plus the songs, ten gems that can crack open a smile just from memory. Even if you don't know them, you know them, and even if you do, even over know them from the myriad cover versions of many, the freshness and vitality of the originals stand head and shoulder over most of those. It is hard to believe the whole project took only four days, Lowe sharing a motel room with Hiatt to keep costs down, Cooder delaying his departure a few hours as the final song was hastily written.
Neither the schedules of the four musicians, nor, then, the budget could allow this line-up any time on the road. True, Hiatt rounded up some likely culprits, including perhaps the only man who could reasonably ever deputise for Cooder, bayou slide master, Sonny Landreth, and they hit the trail. Following in the slipstream of Bring the Family, this crew, the Goners, produced a second deal breaking LP for Hiatt, Slow Turning, only a whisker away from being as good as its predecessor, being merely excellent. Hiatt was on a roll, with these and his next seven records all making substantive waves in the Billboard chart.
But the dream team were not done. In 1992 the diaries of Hiatt, Lowe, Cooder and Keltner finally realigned, and they went back into the studio. This time a band, Little Village, also the name of the sole studio offering, having ditched the earlier, and better, working title of Hiatus, and this time a pooling of resources, rather than just a backing band for Hiatt. The songs were all co-writes between the four, and whilst Hiatt sings the majority, Lowe took lead on two, Cooder on one. Perhaps there was too much hope, but the lightning failed to strike twice, and it was a deeply disappointing set. Nick Lowe later said they were given too much time. The subsequent tour was a little better, live sets testifying to that, allowing a presentation of some Bring the Family favourites, as well as scattering of Cooder's solo repertoire. One could sense a simmer of "sibling" rivalry, maybe some resentment that Hiatt was drawing more focus over Cooder's own sense of entitlement. It all ended, apparently, in tears.
Hiatt remains on the road, as do his former compadres, occasionally sharing a bill with one or another, all now senior statesmen and rightly so. Hiatt's recent work is, in my opinion, still of top quality and can stand close to the height of this period. Give him a go.
Ryland P Cooder has always gone out of his way.
Gone out of his way to promote music that most others would not. See his JAZZ album that includes non-traditional instruments such as: cimbalo, tuba ... See various songs from Into the Purple Valley, Paradise and Lunch, Chicken Skin Music, Bop Till You Drop
Gone out of his way to bring back music that others forgot. Hawaii, Carribean ...
Gone out of his way to speak up for others who had only a small voice. (How's about Down in Hollywood, for that perspective?) Then there's the Buena Vista Social Club project that - in and of itself -revived an entire genre of music.
Among the issues he has raised (because raising issues through his music is what he does) is the <Chavez Ravine> story.
Now .. you're about to ask what the relation to the theme is?
<3rd Base, Dodger Stadium> is about BASEball, because the Chavez Ravine area was torn up by eminent domain in order to build the baseball stadium, and its mostly Latino residents were left out in the open - the land eventually ending up as the ball park.
Cooder's song highlights one of the displaced residents who eventually ends up with a job tied to the new ball park venue: parking cars around the stadium. (His house was 3rd base, folks!) But, at least in Cooder's version he takes it with a grain of salt, without the kind of chip on his shoulders that you and I might have had...
The song relates how his home was located at the spot where 3rd base ended up. He lost his home, but found work right there all the same.
I only know of Charles Calhoun/Jesse Stone from digging through the Internet. Maybe if I had held on to my vinyl 33's, I could have gone back and looked at the jackets for track details, but like most everyone else, I shifted away - in fact, I gave my rather large collection of maybe 700 LPs to a local radio station. For free, in the hopes that they would make better use than myself (sitting on a shelf for 20 years)
"Chuck" Calhoun (you'll need to search for Jesse Stone as well), seems to have had a pretty long life (1901-1999). What he did with that time is even more impressive: He is credited with writing this post song: "Smack Dab in the Middle", but is also the author of "Money Honey" - another Ry Cooder "hit".
It looks like Calhoun got around in the 30s and 40s - his songs were performed by Duke Ellington, Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman and more - no wonder Ry Cooder came across his music: he's hard to miss if you do a little research. His version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" appears to have been a chart topper that lead to "Rock Around the Clock"
Charles Calhoun (aka Jesse Stone) appears to have also been the first black musician to join Atlantic records - via Ahmet Ertegun (and that leads us back to my home city of Istanbul, Ertugun being Turkish)
Other version of possible interest:
The above claims to be the man himself in 1955, I can't verify, but it seems to fit.
and then, there's .. Ray
and the Deep River Boys:
and on and on the list goes. You want more? Do a YouTube search for the title .. Looks like there could be 50 or so there.
I would have preferred to post this 24 hours earlier: hate to be accused of
tilting the votes one way or another.
Rather than ramblin’ off on a tangent about how the state of the poor in
the US is a result of politics and dragging Ry Cooder into the whole business,
I might have gone directly to some Cooder politics in my previous post.
An article published via NPR a while back noted that Barack Obama was only
the 2nd US president to visit Trinidad. He was preceded by FDR. To follow up on
FDR's visit, Atilla the Hun composed a song.
To me, Cooder's <Into the Purple Valley> is about the time he solidified what I see as his style: crisp guitar of a semi-jazz style, assertive vocals, unusual backing bands and song-choice/themes that bring (musical) history to life.
Several others have taken up the song (van Dyke Parks and Ry among them).
The NPR story noted that FDR's Secretary of State received a certain amount
of credit in the song (it was Cordell Hull), and the article continued by
asking if Obama's Secretary of State (at that time) would have gotten as much
credit today (need I tell you who that was?)
Now, we know a little about Obama’s musical taste - see the various artists
he has invited to the White House, and we know that FDR became a fan of calypso
following his visit to the island. But how much do we know about his Secretary
of State’s (AT THAT TIME) musical preferences? Hope the results wont skew your
votes either way!
Politics is very muchly on my mind these days. Mind you, I'm not talking about the US elections (I am assuming that is a forgone conclusion). My focus has been on the materials I have used for my work/lessons for many years:
As part of my DigitalCitizenship computer lessons, I direct my students to the WayBack Machine - part of the Internet Archive (archive.org). Aside from the millions of legally free video and music files they host (woohoo! Grateful Dead!!), the WayBack Machine offers a look back to the early days of the Internet - you can call up the Facebook site in its earliest incarnations. The point I try to make to my students is that there is always, somewhere, a copy of that SnapChat photo.
But on to politics... As you might well imagine, a mirror on the past might upset some of the powers that be: we humans may forget that so-and-so said such-and such 30 years ago. The WayBack Machine can prove it one way or another.
And so, to my great disappointment, this year, as I head into the "Your Internet Footprint" unit, I discover that the local <powers that be> have blocked access to archive.org - I dont know why, but I can surmise that there is information there that might not be ... er ... in our favor.
Music-wise, aside from his "chops", perhaps the thing I most bow down to is Ry Cooder's academics - the way he researches his music. From the very first album, his selections have shown a respect and understanding for the historical perspective: rock music is rooted in its antecedants (IE: cotton field music, which in turn has its roots ....)
As noted above, more often than not, perspective allows one to take a backward look with more information than we previously had. We once thought one way, but now see another: Jim Crow, LBGT, ...
Ry Cooder frequently zeroed in on songs about the poor: dustbowl farmers and such. Often his first albums included songs from previous stars like Woody Guthrie or relative unknowns like Blind Wilie McTell. Much later, he worked to give due credit to the Cuban Buena Vista Social Club. But behind each oevre, there is an academic approach: learn, teach and share. Subtle politics, but political in nature all the same.
Cooder's repertoire is extensive, but we'll go for a few.
Way back when, Johnny Cash came out with Get Rhythm - a song filled with references to working conditions for African Americans. A few years ago, Cooder upgraded the song
first Cash, then Cooder
Way back when, Woody Guthrie sang about the plight of the dustbowl farmer, Ry Cooder upgraded that one too.
Politics? Not directly, but there are commentaries in the lyrics about the man who votes and why he votes the way he does. Politics all the same ...
Ry Cooder is the kind of eclectic musician that would include an accordion
from time to time. He also would include a tuba, and you can hear them both in
on his 1976 Chicken Skin Music album. Among other unusual instruments that he
has included are the cimbalom, the tiple, the bajo sexto, the laud, the mandola
- many of which he himself plays.
Since way back in the Chicken Skin Music days, his go to man for the
accordion has been Flaco Jimenez. Jimenez also plays on the 1994 Rolling Stones'
Voodoo Lounge. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Jimenez has played with David
Lindley - kind of from the Ry Cooder camp. Or with Los Lobos because, of course, the accordion
features heavily in Mexican music.
The paring of Mexican & accordion has a curious and circuitous history.
A PBS show called Accordion Dreams relates how the ostensibly German accordion
made its way into Mexican music via German settlers moving to Texas in the mid
18 hundreds. The Tejano music which resulted is a mix of polka inspirations and
Mexican band. That's a simplification, of course. Mexican music includes all
sorts of styles, but the accordion does seem to have been brought that far by
Texas Germans. It's also a simplification to call it accordion music: there are
several different types of accordion.
If all you came here for is the accordion, you can cut to Jimenez's solo at about the 7 minute mark.
Many people just listen to music as background noise, or something to sing or dance to, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But those of us who consider music a hobby, or an obsession, aren’t satisfied with that. We investigate. We try to learn more about the songs and the artists we love, and in that effort are often rewarded with deeper knowledge. Or, at least, more knowledge. Much of what I know about the blues comes from investigating covers by musicians that I already knew, and that is consistent with the blues tradition of artists learning traditional songs, or original songs (or original songs thought to be traditional) from recordings or performances by others.
I first became aware of Rev. Gary Davis through listening to Jorma Kaukonen’s performances of his music, solo and with Hot Tuna. And I learned about Davis’ influential finger-picking style that had an impact on Jorma, and others, including Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, David Bromberg, and many, many more. I learned that he was born in South Carolina in 1896, was blind since infancy, and was an actual Baptist minister. That he played and recorded music into the 1940s to niche success. But that the folk and blues revival of the 1950s and 1960s catapulted him to greater fame, performances at the Newport and other folk festivals, and led to covers of the songs he wrote or popularized by popularartists. I learned that Davis generously taught many of these younger musicians how to play in his style, and his songs, and that he died on the way to a gig in New Jersey in 1972. And I discovered that while many of Davis’ songs were religious, he also wrote secular songs.
“I Am The Light of The World” is a religious song, based on the Gospels, and steeped in his faith. I’m not a religious person, in the sense of believing in a god or anything like that, but I do believe that humans have an obligation to try to do right by each other and, in the best of situations, help each other to do right. And while I suspect that Reverend Davis would disagree with me in the particulars, I think that he would, ultimately, focus more on the deeds than the beliefs.
Now, I am far from perfect. I’ve committed all seven of the deadly sins, and more of the less lethal ones, over my lifetime. Not to mention, I’m a lawyer. But one thing that I am comfortable in putting on the good side of my personal ledger is my 20 years as a volunteer with AYSO, the American Youth Soccer Organization, which I have written aboutbefore. We are a soccer organization, but one that tries to focus more on enriching children’s lives than a team’s won-loss record. For a number of years, I have been involved in training volunteers in management—not only the nuts and bolts of running a program, but in the AYSO way of doing things.
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to help instruct at Regional Commissioner training. RCs, as we call them, are the leaders of local programs. I was one back at the turn of the century, and it was one of the most important things that I have ever done. RCs work incredibly hard, spend countless hours making sure everything is done right, and are all volunteers, as are all of the board members who help the RC, and all of the coaches and most of the referees. People say that it is a “thankless task,” but I found that many people thanked me, and in turn I tried to thank all of the RCs who followed me, and all of the other volunteers, not only explicitly, but by continuing to assist the organization locally and nationally.
A few years ago, pressed by some very smart and committed staff and volunteers, AYSO decided to put together a weekend of training for RCs from around the country, usually at its office in California. The weekends are instructional, but they are more. They create relationships, act as therapy sessions (there are tears!), and help the RCs, some who are brand new, and even others with experience, recognize the support that they have both from the staff and the volunteers around the country. And the constant message is that it is the RCs’ mission to provide a good environment for the kids, and a positive experience for the volunteers. It is an inspirational weekend, not only for the students, but for the instructors as well. I got to see a group of nearly 40 strangers, from all over the country, with different racial, educational and financial backgrounds, varying political beliefs and very diverse lives, bond, learn, interact, socialize, act crazy, marvel at magic tricks, and, at the end, have an enormous group hug as a new AYSO family.
What does this have to do with our theme, and this song? Each of the RCs who were trained at this session will go back home, to Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, all over the hand that is Michigan, Nevada, California, Tennessee and Hawaii, and be the light of their soccer worlds, and bring the light into the lives of thousands of children. And when those kids’ smiles light up their faces, into the lives of their parents.
I tell folks that I could listen to Ry Cooder "all day and all night". Take my statement with a grain of salt, but the fact remains (see my many other posts here that speak to this) that he is one of my music idols. Be it rockin' and rollin', be it bringing back the roots of popular music (or jazz), be it mentoring others - there ain't noone else does what he do. It was through Ry that I first heard this song about hard (financial) times. In fact, there was more than one Ry tune that came to mind related to this theme- I initially thought "Money Honey" - (I want money, honey), but then recalled several other of his songs that touched on the lack of "scratch". Perhaps more fitting for a year or two back when the Great Recession was front page news, to me Blind Alfred Reed's 1929 song evokes images not only of the 1920s, the dust bowl and of California but also - of anyman's plight if he ain't got the "do-re-mi".
Bruce Springsteen is online at YouTube with several versions that doesn't do it right. (Comes to mind the line: Prohibition's good if it's conducted right) Of the Youtube links that I sifted though, my favorite is this first link:
Second in line of the YT versions is this from the New Lost City Ramblers:
And finally, the YT link to a scratchy version by the original author:
What you and I might call a side project may not be such a “side” for the musician himself: you could argue that Ry Cooder has been building towards his Cuban work all his life. You could argue that most everything he does is a “side project”.
Ry's work – more than being a collection of side projects – appears to have a focus: I’d say it is to turn us on to the best of many different musics; be it the forgotten American 30s, be it the best of modern Africa or Cuba or … Although Ry’s main focus over the years has its roots in America (Blind Willie Johnson, Woody Guthrie and more).
Ry's mission to give us some of the best of the past include songs by Bix Beiderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton on ”Jazz”, Woody Guthrie on “Into the Purple Valley”, Lead Belly on “Chicken Skin Music”.
Yet another “side project” , if you prefer, features his efforts to share with us some of the best of Cuba through his work with the “Moula Banda Aces”, or his sojourn to African music with Ali Farka Toure,or from India with V.M. Bhatt of India, and many more beyond the Cuban style I feature here:
Buena Vista Social Club
When Cooder writes and performs his own work, he tends to criticism, often in support of “the working class”. Arguably, much of his output leans in this direction (How can a Poor Man Stand Such Times, Alimony, and even Fool for a Cigarette in that “the rich don’t smoke”)
I don’t have an inside line to the man’s mind, but I guess it’s true that nothing is “side” to him. Besides, Ry has worked with a number of folks on a regular basis. Again and again, Ry appears with Bobby King, Terry Evans and friends doing supporting vocal backups - hardly a side project. And well he does; their versatile 3-part harmony (and stage show) suit him and his musical choices well. Likewise his repeated collaboration with Flaco Jimenez on the accordion.
Here's yet another, where he is doing some "side work" with Mick Jagger (Memo from Turner). His guitar work absolutely drives the whole song.
Almost nobody knows this musician and that is a
pity: reason enough for a “case for”. I was introduced to Roy Bookbinder (b. ’43)
back in the days when I was a middle-of-the-night radio DJ at WQFS. Blown away
by the man's skills back in the 70s, I not too long ago googled the man and
came up with a YouTube link or two showing that he still picks a tune or two.
Admittedly, I tend to gravitate to American
folk/country: I have boundless respect for anyone who can pick a clean, fast,
stringed instrument. Think Earl Scruggs or Bella Fleck . It's the picking skills
combined with vocal harmonies that turn me on. I confess that a clean/fast
"saz" is at least as good.
One of the issues on my mind for this post is
musicians that keep traditions alive: picking the guitar and then recording it
without digital assistance; choosing songs that are 100 years old, but that still
resonate. That's why I love Ry Cooder.
The song "Delia"
goes back a long ways - like many of Bookbinder's songs. The song was likely
written by Blind Willie McTell back around 1929, and has since been covered by
many others including Bob Dylan. It's kind of a sad song about a relationship
gone bad, but the listener’s take-away emotion depends on how fast you pick the
strings. He sings:
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