The Temptations: I Can't Get Next To You
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The sorcerer in this song is a self-proclaimed BAMF. Dude can turn back the hands of time. He can change anything from old to new. He can turn a river into a raging fire. He can even live forever! Scary!
All this incredible magical power, however, is proving utterly ineffective at turning around the guy's chances with one particular woman. Don't believe me? Hold it, hold it, listen….
Dejan‘s Olympia Brass Band: Marie Laveau
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This week would not be complete without a song about Marie Laveau, “The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans”. The best known song about her is probably the one by Bobby Bare, and if someone else would like to post that, please feel free. Laveau is usually portrayed as evil and capable of doing great harm with her magic. I like this song because it shows another view of the matter. Here, Laveau is a folk hero, offering charms and fortunes to those who seek her out. New Orleans legend Dr John also likes this song; he would later cover it.
Richard Shindell: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis
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Richard Shindell: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis [live]
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Solas: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis
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Solas: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis [live]
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One of the best-known songs in ex-pat Fast Folk-era singer-songwriter Richard Shindell's catalog, and one of the most cryptic, this song appears as the centerpiece to his 1992 debut album Sparrows Point, and - in its original form - it features the appalachian dulcimer, on which it was composed.
Like so much of Shindell's songs, On A Sea Of Fleur De Lis tells its tale in first person; as near as I can tell, the narrator is a nun, though it could merely be an autobiographical echo of Shindell's own time in the seminary before he set out to become a songcrafter. But truly, there are layers upon layers here. Perhaps it is enough to say that the narrator, seemingly caught in a web of religious trappings, longs to be a witch again, naked and cradled in the arms of the sacred elm or willow, and the song is her prayer.
But like a spell, an ex-witches prayer can take many forms. The vast difference in tone and mood between the hollow, ringing original and the rich, joyous celtic-tinged cover Solas brings forth in live performance is an exercise in transformation, turning pensiveness into celebration, completing the circle that four versions lay out for us, setting free the trapped soul of the tale.
Annie Gallup: James
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I am a long-time fan of Annie Gallup, part songwriter-part poet-part novelist - each of her songs is a story within itself, powerful enough to make me weep but brilliant such that I am smiling through my tears, appreciating the way she has drawn me in to connect, to relate, to captivate...
Listening to her lyric weavings is magical in and of itself: her gift of language and whispery vocal, clever plotline and perfectly-timed tempo - this tune speaks of a magician. We have all known a James... someone we wanted to believe could pull rabbits out of hats, even when we knew the secret behind the trick was old and repetitive and predictable - then again... sometimes they end up surprising us... and themselves...
Gandalf The Grey: The Grey Wizard Am I
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My fellow Tolkienites and I rejoiced today upon the announcement that the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit will indeed be filmed on director Sir Peter Jackson's homeland of New Zealand, following much boring legal nonsense. Not the biggest issue in the world, but for us nerds it was a life or death decision. New Zealand is Middle Earth, period.
What better way to celebrate than to listen to Chris Wilson's weirdo project Gandalf The Grey from 1972 (not to be confused with Gandalf, a complete different band). More info here.
The image at the top of this post is taken from Hobitit, a Finnish 1993 TV production of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. It was incredibly entertaining, but not for the reasons intended.
Watch it at your own peril here. It's one of the most gloriously rubbish things you will ever see.
Richard Ruane: Crazy Man Michael
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I have mentioned before how I once did a guest post on Boyhowdy’s excellent blog, Cover Lay Down. That post included the original version of Crazy Man Michael by Fairport Convention, as well as an American version by Natalie Merchant. There, you can also find the story of how Crazy Man Michael came to be written. All of the other versions I could find at that time were by artists I had never heard of. To change that, an artist I am familiar with could have done a version since then. Or, I could have found out about an artist who had already done the song, and that is what happened. I discovered many artists this past summer at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, including a wonderful band called Bread and Bones. The band includes Richard Ruane, Beth Duquette and Mitch Barron. Although Crazy Man Michael appears on an album by Richard Ruane, recorded before the band officially got together, all of the future members of Bread and Bones are heard here, and the album is available on their website. All of this matters only because Ruane and company have taken Crazy Man Michael and made the song their own, with beautiful results. Beth Duquette appears elsewhere on the album, but the female singer here is Patti Casey.
But what about our theme? In the case of this song, it’s a good question. You could say that the song describes a man’s madness, and no magic is involved. But I prefer to think that Michael or his true love have gotten on the bad side of a sorcerer, who clouds Michael’s mind and causes him to carry out a terrible curse. Indeed, once this happens, Michael’s mind clears, and he discovers what he has been driven to do. Also, when the raven utters his curse, Michael calls him a sorcerer. So this is a different kind of magic than we have been seeing so far this week, but it is consistent with the traditions of the British Isles.
Larry Jon Wilson: Sheldon Church Yard
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Country Joe and The Fish: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
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Tony Joe White: Conjure Woman
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It's true that in many rural areas of America magic has and likely always will be practiced to some degree. The 'roots' of magic have been credited to the Celts living between 700 BC and 100 AD, who are believed to be descendants of Indo-Europeans. From the Latin word Paganus we have Pagan which means 'country dweller'. Witch, having its origin in the Anglo-Saxon word 'wicca' is derived from the word 'wicce,' which means 'wise'. Rumors of black magic, witchcraft and voodoo around rural areas are the inspiration behind Larry Jon Wilson's Sheldon Church Yard. In Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine by Country Joe we see that being unfamiliar with country ways can be deadly! Conjure Woman by Tony Joe White demonstrates that while fear is a factor for some folks when dealing with certain witches, it also shows the isolation she certainly feels from living in the swamp for so long.
The Searchers: Love Potion Number Nine
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Originally this song was performed by The Clovers in 1959, but when I think of it, I always think of this 1963 version by The Searchers which peaked at #3 on the charts.
It tells the tale of a young man who visits a gypsy because he needs help in the love department and heard that she sold love potions. She reads his palm and then brews him a potion. The potion ends up not making people fall in love with him, but instead he falls in love with everyone he sees. The song was banned by some stations because it mentioned that he ends up kissing a cop. Pretty risque back in the day.
Dr. John: I Walk on Gilded Splinters
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Johnny Jenkins: I Walk on Gilded Splinters
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Darius posted a great example of a hoodoo-influenced blue song yesterday and gave me the idea for this tune, which is a Louisiana voodoo-influenced blues song. Wikipedia tells us the difference between hoodoo and voodoo is that "Voodoo is a religion, whereas Hoodoo is a group of magical practices." This may be a typical Wiki oversimplification – there seems to be a lot of overlap between the two.
Malcolm Rebennack, Jr., was a New Orleans-bred session guitarist turned pianist in the 60's when he created his Voodoo stage persona, Dr. John, the Night Tripper. I Walk on Gilded Splinters is the last song on his 1968 debut album, Gris-Gris, and it features a slow, hypnotic rhythm that sounds like a spell, over lyrics that pledge vengeance against his enemies ( Walk thru the fire, fly thru the smoke, See my enemy at the end of dey rope…. After listening to this, I'm pretty sure I never want to get on the wrong side of this scary dude.
(this song was also featured here by Dean back in 2008, but I thought it bore repeating)
Johnny Jenkins, an American blues artist, covered the song on his 1970 Ton-Ton Macoutte!. The album was intended as a Duane Allman solo LP and includes most of who would soon become the Allman Brothers Band – that's Duane on dobro. Jenkins added the vocals to make what I think is a nearly-superior version. Which one do you prefer? If you can't decide, you might try the covers by Humble Pie (a 23-minute live marathon from the Fillmore East) or the 1995 live cut by Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher.
Muddy Waters: Hoochie Coochie Man
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Our theme this week is open to many musical genres. My first thought was folk music, and I will get to that later this week. But there is plenty of magic in blues songs as well. Many of the folk beliefs of Africa survived here in the United States as hoodoo, and those beliefs are central to Muddy Waters’ classic Hoochie Coochie Man. Here is a man whose enchanted nature is prophesied before his birth. The circumstances of his birth, (all those sevens!), only reinforce this. As an adult, he carries a list of magic items: a black cat bone, John the Conqueror root, and a mojo. All of these are said to magically enhance male sexual potency and attractiveness. And that’s “what it’s all about”.
Raffi: Bananaphone
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Rhonda Vincent: Bananaphone
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Seriously: this song isn't as bad as you think it is.
Sure, it's made for kids. It's plenty silly, enough to have staying power as viral meme in the digital world. It's got such a high catchiness quotient, it's prone to get stuck in the brain for days.
But so what if it's an earworm: it's also so infectiously fun, you can't help but sing along once you know the words.
And check out that jazz drum intro, the jaunty piano riffs, the clarinet. It would make a wonderfully playful song to play over the credits for a Woody-Allen-meets-Elmo flick, if there could ever be such a thing.
Rhonda Vincent's swingin' countrygrass take kicks it, too. And in the end, doesn't good coverage say what it needs to about the innate soundness of a song?
So let yourself go: try 'em both, and then try to get the damn thing out of your head. I'll be over here, dancing around the living room with the five year old, laughing my head off.
Kim Richey: Hello Old Friend
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Our theme this week lends itself to contemplation of technological change. I’m not the first to mention it, but the fact is that the telephone and its use have changed drastically in my lifetime. Hello Old Friend brings this to mind in a different way than most of the songs so far this week. The narrator gets a call out of the blue from an old friend. The conversation is awkward at first. The conventional pleasantries hide the fact that they are not sure what to say to one another. Eventually, they find just a small piece of common ground, and it is enough. So what does this have to do with changing technology? The song dates from 1999, and I can’t imagine anyone making a call like that today. Now, you would just send a friend request on Facebook, and hope that the other person would eventually post something you wanted to respond to. Something has been gained, but something has also been lost.
I am on something of a Kim Richey kick lately. I just reviewed her latest album, Wreck Your Wheels, on my blog Oliver di Place. That got me thinking of this song, and I’m glad this theme came along so I could share it.
White Stripes: Hello Operator
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Hoyt Axton: Telephone Booth
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Brian Setzer: Pennsylvania 6-5000
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Drive-By Truckers: George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues
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This week's theme got me thinking about how greatly telephones have changed in the last few decades. Years ago operator assisted long distance calls were common. So were phone booths and letter prefixes. Land line hard wire telephones have becoming increasingly scarce with over 285 million American mobile subscribers.That's about 91 percent of the total population of the United States. Some 24.5 percent of U.S. households have also dumped their landlines which translates to about 52 million mobile-only subscribers. Worldwide, mobile subscriptions have reached 4.6 billion! Quite the distance we've traveled since Alexander Graham Bell said to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson in another room, "Mr.Watson, come here, I want to see you."
Aretha Franklin: Call Me
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Al Green: Call Me (Come Back Home)
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I'm back from 3 weeks in Europe; didja miss me? I missed SMM, especially Discovery Week, which I watched from afar (and great, great job, everyone!) Every day I wrote a post in my head about a discovery of mine, which I'd change by the next day. I mean, where would I even begin? With my very first 45 record that I listened to over and over on my little kiddie record player at the tender age of 4? That would be The Andrews Sisters "Sugar in the Morning" (and if I could ever get hold of that single, I'd be over the moon!) Or would I write about my most recent discovery, NICO Touches the Walls, a group I'm exploring right this very moment after hearing "THE BUNGY" last week? Because I've been around for a long time, you could say I'm spoiled for choice. And while I may not know you well or even at all, I can pretty much say for certainty that all of you are the same – music moves you and your life. The song may not remain the same but music is important. Do you find yourself at a loss for words when you find yourself fervently proselytizing about some special song or group, only to be told that your listener "doesn't really pay attention to music at all." I'm left guppying in amazement.
Therefore, I'm going to sneak in a bit of discovery for my "Call Me" songs.
I grew up in suburban Detroit (aka The Motor City – Motown) in the '60s, which means I listened to a whole lot of soul music at a tender age on WKNR (Keener 13) and CKLW (which, okay, was technically a Canadian station, but it was just across the river). One of my favorite singers then and now is Aretha Franklin, a Detroit native.
Aretha wrote "Call Me" in 1970 as a slow piano-backed ballad, which is backed with the famous session musicians, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. She pleads with her lover to keep in touch during their upcoming separation, but expresses confidence that love will carry them through. And you get the feeling it will.
Another powerful soul singer expresses the same sentiment in a song of (nearly) the same name. Al Green's 1973 hit implies that his upcoming separation may be permanent and perhaps their love isn't quite so solid, but he urges his lover to "come back home" if the going gets rough.
I was reminded of the staying power of this tune when I heard it Tuesday while shopping at my local Ross, a store that plays some pretty good music and isn't afraid to turn it up, either. I know you notice ambient music, too, admit it. You're the person next to me in the elevator who knows I'm not some crazy woman laughing at nothing - I'm just chuckling at the incongruity of that Muzaked version of "White Wedding."
Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown: Memphis, Tennessee
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In 1993, Greg Brown and Bill Morrissey were big names in folk music, so the news that they had done an album together was big news. Friend of Mine has some traditional songs, songs by folk artists old a new, and some ringers, like this one, originally by Chuck Berry. But try finding more versions of this song. There are simply too many. Memphis, Tennessee has been done in country, punk, rockabilly, and rock versions. Tom Jones, Elvis Presley, and Sammy Kershaw have all done it. So this is a song that has become part of the culture. That’s because Chuck Berry expressed something universal here, the yearning of a father who has been separated from his daughter. So Memphis, Tennessee has become part of the culture and has a universal theme. Maybe that means that it is a folk song after all. And maybe it’s really not so surprising that Brown and Morrissey recorded it.
Blondie: Hanging On The Telephone
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The Nerves: Hanging On The Telephone
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L7: Hanging On The Telephone
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Most folks know where this week's theme title came from. But less seem familiar with Blondie's "other" phone-themed song, an earlier, popular cover of an obscure song by Jack Lee's short-lived US West Coast power pop trio The Nerves, which sped up the song a la punk and gave Blondie their third top 10 song on the UK charts (Trivia note: their first chart-topper, the previous year's Denis, was also a cover). By the time all-American all-girl thrashpunk band L7's even faster cover found it's way to the Jerky Boys Movie soundtrack in 1995, the song was already starting to fade from the national consciousness - tellingly, L7 and The Nerves were both from Los Angeles - and until Cat Power revived the song for a Cingular commercial in 2006, it hadn't really stuck in mine, either.
But despite my affinity for all things sweet, I think sticking with the punk evolution is a better way to appreciate this one, in the end. The opening ring is cute, and the drum-beat rich and just frantic enough in all three versions here today. Blondie's harmonies are sweet, and typical of the sound that brought the American New Wave to the forefront of popular music in my own formative years, and lead singer Debbie Harry has a great tone here. But I mostly like this tune for the room it opens up for the guitars - something you can hear in every incarnation.
Chantal Kreviazuk: Until We Die
I'm not a phone person myself, in fact I'd say it's my least favorite way of communicating, but I can still understand the sentiment behind this beautiful love song by Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk. "Until We Die" was featured on her album "Colours Moving and Still", which was released in 1999, the same year she married her boyfriend, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida.
As one could imagine, two successful musicians with extensive touring schedules would have to deal with a lot of time apart. If this song tells us anything, it says that their conversations during those times away were a little bit of heaven and made them realize how much they were meant to be together. I've had a history of spending long periods of time away from the one I love, and I know how sometimes just hearing their voice is the most comforting and wonderful thing.
Monster: Don't Answer The Phone
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Hearing of this week's theme I couldn't help but think that with the crazy cell phones people have these days "connecting via telephone" could mean virtually anything. Having a phone with which you can only make calls is as antiquated as using a Walkman.
Not that I would know anything about these fancy gadgets, I didn't even own a cell phone until last year at the ripe age of 28. And I didn't even buy it myself, it was a birthday present from friends who were sick of never being able to get hold of me. It was ultimately a present for themselves more than for me, as I only use when someone calls me.
To paraphrase Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento: "I'm not too good on the phone, I prefer to look people in the eye when I talk to them." So just to be subversive I'll contribute a song about not communicating via telephone. Let's all take our lead from Monster:
Don't answer the phone!
