Tom Waits Covers: Come On Up to the House

Sarah Jarosz: Come On Up to the House

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God and heaven are never mentioned in the song, but Come On Up to the House has the fervent quality of a gospel prayer nonetheless. This is true in Tom Waits original version, but perhaps even more so in Sarah Jarosz’ cover. Jarosz uses bluegrass instrumentation, but also gives the song a jazzy feel. It all adds up to that rare cover that actually improves on the original. And I say that from the point of view of a Tom Waits fan who feels that covers rarely even do his songs justice. This one does.

Tom Waits Covers: Big Black Mariah

John Hammond: Big Black Mariah

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I can understand why no one has posted Big Black Mariah this week. The song is one of Tom Waits’ most menacing works. The band on the original sounds like an ancient steam engine, threatening to shake itself apart at any moment. On top of that, Waits adds his signature growl. The song also has a mystifying lyric. Tom Waits can be coy about his song meanings, but “big black mariah” can be a slang term for either a paddy wagon or a hearse. So the song could be about a man being taken away by the police, who expects to wind up on death row. The ambiguity is deliberate on Waits’ part. You can find notes on the meaning of the song here.

But Big Black Mariah is an emotionally powerful song. Love it or hate it, you can not be unmoved. And that is probably what inspired John Hammond to include the song in his collection of Tom Waits covers, Wicked Grin. Hammond has remade the song as a Chicago blues number. Now it sounds like the original artist might have been Howlin’ Wolf, and it suits the song perfectly. Tom Waits apparently agreed; he produced Wicked Grin.

Tom Waits Covers: (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night

Shawn Colvin: (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night
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Madeleine Peyroux: (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night

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Shawn Colvin's mostly-live 1994 covers album Cover Girl marked a key moment in my evolution as a cover fan; it also introduced me to one of Tom Waits' most hopeful, beautiful songs. It's not the strongest cut on the album - a privilege shared by songs originally by The Band, John Prine, Talking Heads and others - but I found Colvin's version of Looking For The Heart Of Saturday Night a gem nonetheless, with that little girl voice and a light acoustic swing offering a nuanced, wistful exploration of the eternal pursuit of the nirvana moment, the perfect meeting of place and time and company of which every barfly dreams.


Then, in 2006, Madeleine Peyroux released her own version - a slow, low cowboy ballad of a song, utterly gorgeous and dripping with late-night drowsiness - and my life was transformed again. And so we see through this, and a thousand other takes from a thousand other jazz-bent female vocalists, how Tom Waits compositions translate so well to the female chanteuse. Writ large, it is a near-universal truth of musical performance: the inevitable feminine counterpart to gruff and gravely was, is, and always has been sultry and smooth. But nowhere does this play out better than in Tom Waits coverage, in this coverblogger's opinion.

Tom Waits Covers: Downtown Train

Moneybrother: Tåget Som Går In Till Stan

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After ska rockers Monster parted ways in 2000 frontman Anders Wendin started his solo project Moneybrother.

Everything he has even done under this name has gotten pretty much rave reviews in his native Sweden, but his biggest commercial success to date was the 2006 album Pengabrorsan, on which he covered songs by everyone from My Morning Jacket and Wire to Ron Sexsmith and Donna Summer, all translated into his native tongue.

The best of the bunch though was this one, Waits' Downtown Train.

Tom Waits Covers: The Piano Has Been Drinking

Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks: The Piano Has Been Drinking

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Dan Hicks' delightfully weary "cowboy jazz" take on this old Tom Waits tune lurches around like its unreliable narrator's attention span: it's a different bar, of a different type, than the woozy original - better populated, too - but it still spins like a wobbling top in its own way. It's also the cover which finally turned me on to the Tom Waits songbook in its entirety in the first place, way back at the turn of the century, despite a few others which had already come my way with their own power and potency, so I'm getting this one out of the way today, as our week begins.

Those unfamiliar with Dan Hicks should know he's a musician's musician, a critical success who never sold much in the way of albums even though he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone way back in - gulp - the year I was born. Beat The Heat, his 2000 comeback album as bandleader of the Hot Licks, features this and numerous other gleefully sly, silly tunes, and special guest spots from Bette Midler, Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Waits himself, and other well-known luminaries who came out of the woodwork for Hicks when he called, proving his continued relevance after a few decades piddling around off the charts entirely as an ensemble member and solo artist.

Circuses and Carnivals => Tom Waits Covers: Table Top Joe

Neptune Quartet: Table Top Joe

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Tom Waits is an interesting subject for a week of covers, because his art is almost impossible to duplicate. Waits has a knack for portraying vagabonds, drunkards, and freaks in a way that is honest but sympathetic. Waits shows these characters with all of their warts, but he gives them their dignity. This delicate balance comes as much from Waits’ performance as his writing, so this quality is often lost in cover versions. But artists are drawn to his writing, so they must make these characters their own. Reinvention is almost always required, as we shall probably see for most of this week. But I keep hedging. That’s because I found this remarkable performance of Table Top Joe that largely preserves the feel of Waits original, while filling out the arrangement.

In fact, for all of the reasons I mentioned above, Table Top Joe is one of the most unlikely Waits songs for anyone to cover at all. The title character is based on the life of Johnny Eck, who was born with the lower half of his body missing. That’s a picture of Eck above. Even the thought of it is enough to make a person uncomfortable. Eck appeared in the notorious cult horror film Freaks, and he wanted to appear in another film as a mad scientist’s monster. Yet, Tom Waits focuses on Eck’s hopes and dreams, and finds his essential humanity The real life Eck accomplished many things that most people would have considered impossible for him, including conducting an orchestra. He also spent most of the Great Depression working in circus and carnival freak shows. By all accounts, Eck never lost his optimism until a robber took advantage of his physical limitations when Eck was in his seventies. He never seemed to accept the word impossible, and that is what Tom Waits sees in him.

Neptune Quartet is normally an instrumental group, but, for their version of Table Top Joe, they added singer Wes Ivankovich. Neptune Quartet arrange the song for guitars, mandolin, bass, and accordion, in a way that Tom Waits might have done if he thought of it. Ivankovich delivers a vocal that is somewhere between Tom Waits and Dr John, if you can imagine, and it all works beautifully.

Circuses and Carnivals: That Song About the Midway

Joni Mitchell: That Song About the Midway

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In British folksongs, gypsys represent freedom, or the yearning for it. A woman in the song runs off with a gypsy, but she is really seeking to escape the yoke of class expectations. In the United States, class consciousness is less overt, but the urge to run away is still there. We represent it in popular culture as the urge to run away and join the circus. Joni Mitchell’s That Song About the Midway combines these two archetypes, by presenting a woman who wants to run off with a potential lover in a traveling carnival. Mitchell’s narrator knows that this man probably won’t be good for her, but the “urge for going”, if you will, is still strong.

Circuses and Carnivals: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

The Beatles: Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite

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A blog request!

This poster, nabbed in an antique shop, was the inspiration for John Lennon to write Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite, one of the stellar songs from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Apparently he wanted this song to recreate the sounds of the circus, down to the "sawdust on the floor." How many lyrics can you spot?

Not only didn't I know about the cribbed poster, I also didn't know this factoid, courtesy Wikipedia (aka, the blogger's bible): It was one of three songs from the Sgt. Pepper album that was banned on the BBC, supposedly because the phrase "Henry the Horse" combined two words that were individually known as slang for heroin.

Circuses and Carnivals: Five From The Midway

Dan Zanes: Wonderwheel

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I went to a weekend fair
met someone while I was there
we put flowers in our hair
and rode the wonderwheel...

It sure sounds like a carnival, thanks to a rollicking accordion, a bouncy beat, and a subtle surfer's acoustic groove. And that's the point, for sure: after all, Dan Zanes is a master of the seemingly-casual kidsong, when in actuality, every note and tone is designed to add to the perfect festive mood, the inner child called to exquisitely.


Richard & Linda Thompson: The Wall of Death

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Roller coaster as metaphor for the nauseating thrill-ride risk of the love affair? Yes, please. REM covers this one, but the Richard Thompson original is better by far, a perfect take from his mid-eighties solo work with ties to both true-blue rock and roll and his early folk rock sound with Fairport Convention.



David Wilcox: Top of the Roller Coaster

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A bit more specific, softspoken southern folkie David Wilcox - a master of the sustained metaphor - looks at the roller coaster's moment of anticipation as a model of the inner heartjump turning thirty can bring. Love the way the bouncy tonality and sweet harmonies bring midlife crisis alive. So much joy.



Norah Jones: Carnival Town

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A broad title belied in the first few lines - this is actually a song mostly about carnival rides and their motion as a reflection of life-movement, with each of the first two verses taking on a different ride (the third verse covers clowns). Loneliness on the downswing makes this a perfect lullaby.


Mary Gauthier: Merry Go Round

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Gauthier holds off on her titular metaphor until the chorus, setting the stage with the violent and stark images of an early life of drug and family abuses that fit cleanly among the rest of the songs on powerful third album Filth & Fire. The carousel "horse" here is heroin; the turning of the wheel a path of addiction and recurrence - and so we come full circle, as it were, from the cheerfulness of Dan Zanes, proving the versatility of midway as macrocosm, reflecting the vastness of the inner world.

Circuses and Carnivals: Crocodile Man

Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer: Crocodile Man

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Our Circuses and Carnivals theme is almost done, and no one has visited the freak show until now. There must be other songs that would work, but let me at least share a favorite of mine. I suppose that the term “freak show” is not appropriate for this song. The crocodile man tells the story from his point of view, as a human being just trying to get by as best he can. And that is exactly what makes this song so special. Oh, and a killer groove doesn’t hurt either.

Circuses and Carnivals: Send in the Clowns

Pat Martino: Send in the Clowns

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Send in the Clowns, now a jazz standard but originally a 1973 show tune by Stephen Sondheim, is a slow, regretful ballad. This guitar version by Pat Martino, one of my new favorite artists (and I can't believe this is the first I've posted by him!), brings out the most soulful, introspective nuances of the song.

Martino has an astounding musical history: a prominent guitarist by 1980, he suffered an aneurism followed by brain surgery that caused him to lose all memory of how to play guitar. Painstakingly, he relearned, regaining his former abilities the hard way. You'd be hard-pressed to hear the difference between his "before" and "after" recordings unless you looked at the date. This one is from 1976.

Circuses and Carnivals: State Fair

Rasputina: State Fair

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It may not be about a specific attraction at a carnival, but this song definitely fits the bill as far as being about the wonders of the summer carnival, or as we here in U.S. are accustomed more often than not, the fair. State fairs are notoriously pretty cheesy, and lacking integrity. Of course, if you ask me, that's part of the appeal. Where else can you ride a ferris wheel after eating your weight in food items that were unhealthy to begin with, but then the good people at the state fair had the good sense to fry and put on a stick, all while enjoying the lovely smell of menure? It really is a miraculous event. All that, and pig racing as well? The Ohio State Fair is currently running and I am not sure I am going to have a chance to go. This makes me sad. I do so love funnel cake.

But listening to this song helps ease the pain. Rasputina, the all cello rock band fronted by singer-songwriter Melora Creager in her creepy dusty corset collection sings her tongue-in-cheek ode to the State Fair. I am sure her tongue is in cheek as much as mine is. The events can hardly be taken too seriously, but are still seriously fun to attend.

Circuses and Carnivals: Tight Rope

Leon Russell: Tight Rope

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I'm up on the tightwire,
Flanked by life and the funeral pyre,
Putting on a show for you to see.

Leon Russell is best known as a session player, where his distinctive keyboards (mainly) and guitar back up too many rock, bluegrass, country, blues, and pop musicians to even begin to list. He wrote early hits for diverse folks like the Carpenters (A Song For You), George Benson (This Masquerade), Joe Cocker (Delta Lady)…and himself – this song was his first hit in 1972. Russell was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last March.

Allmusic calls his style "swamp fusion," punched up by his Oklahoma-tinged vocals and bayou-laced lyrics. I'd certainly never heard music like this when I left suburbia for Ann Arbor. This album, Carney, became the most-played of my first freshman term, and I even got my roommate, a classical music kind of girl, hooked too. Goes to show that sometimes all we need to fall in love with new music is enough exposure.

Drums => Circuses and Carnivals: Tears of a Clown

The English Beat: Tears of a Clown

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The sad clown is an irony that many artists have found irresistible. Smokey Robinson took it and created a pop music classic. But, for me, this version by The English Beat really does the job. The opening rat-tat-tat of the drums sets the stage musically, and that figure reappears throughout the song to push it forward. Tears of a Clown was the first ska cover I ever heard. The sheer surprise of it, plus the undeniable energy of the performance made this version a classic in its own right. Since then, I have noticed that many ska bands include an unlikely cover in their repertoire, and many of them are great. But, for, me this one has never been topped.

Drums: X

X Japan: X

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Man, it's almost too hot to blog here.

Almost.

I can't let Drum Week go by, though, without paying tribute to one of the hottest drummers I know. We've actually seen him before on this blog in his pianist incarnation, but he's also one of the world's most intense, diva-like drummers on any continent. I'm talking, of course, about Yoshiki, the prima donna, leader, and producer of J-rock group X Japan. He's one of those musicians who's larger than life.

This version of their self-titled anthem was recorded in 1989. After a ten-year hiatus, X Japan is back touring, and as you can see, Yoshiki is a bit worse for wear. That neck brace protects him after years of headbanging and recent spinal surgery.

The song, though doesn't do him justice. For that you'll have to check out some concert footage, where his over-the-top antics during extended drum solos sends the crown into a screaming frenzy. He's got it down: first there's the slow build-up, then his drum platform takes off into the sky and circles around, then there's water fountains, then fireworks, then a rousing finish followed by Yoshiki collapsing and crawling off the stage. The whole thing takes long enough for the rest of the band to catch the first half of the Lakers game.

Here's one from last year in Yokohama. You can check out YouTube for a boatload more ("Yoshiki drum" will get you all you need).

Drums: Tales of Brave Ulysses

Cream: Tales of Brave Ulysses

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I remember the first time I heard Cream. My oldest brother bought the album Disraeli Gears when it came out, and my other brother and I had to hear it. We listened in silence until the end of side one, and before my oldest brother turned the record over, he said, “and that’s only three guys!” Listening to Cream now, I can hear how the trick was done. Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce each has a big sound, and each covers part of the rhythm guitar part. And Ginger Baker thunders along, covering both the drum part and part of the bass. Most drummers in rock hit the beat, and play fills in between. Baker plays a continuous rumble of pulses, varying the pattern in unexpected places but always keeping perfect time. And he makes it sound like it’s something that just happens; it is forceful, but never forced. Tales of Great Ulysses shows this off beautifully. The song opens with Baker playing just a wash of sound on the cymbals, but then the drums kick in. In the course of the song, there are spots where Baker goes back to just the cymbals, and then back to his full kit again. The contrast between these sections makes it easy to appreciate just how important Baker’s playing was to the band’s sound. The other trick to Baker’s sound was that he had two bass drums in his kit instead of the usual one.

Drums: Pursuance

The John Coltrane Quartet: Pursuance (Part 3 of A Love Supreme)

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I may be coming to this week's theme the wrong way round. I suspect that the rest of the SMM gang will first think of a song with a striking drum part; instead, I'm checking out some of my favorite drummers and looking for songs where they really shine. And for me, the shiniest drummers are found in jazz.

Elvin Jones played on a bunch of jazz albums you've probably heard, or heard of. His lengthy recording career (from the 40's to this century; he died in 2004) saw him backing major artists such as Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Art Farmer, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Burrell, Yusef Lateef, Freddy Hubbard, Grant Green, Ornette Coleman, John McLaughlin, Dewey Redman, Bill Frisell…well, you get the idea. But one of his greatest periods was during his 5 year stint with tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. The Quartet also featured McCoy Tyner on piano and Jimmy Garrison on bass.

A Love Supreme is one of the best examples of modal jazz, a free-form style pioneered by Miles Davis and John Coltrane in the late 50's and 60's. This four-part suite, released in 1965, is widely considered to be one of the best jazz recordings ever. Part 3 begins with a 90 second solo by Jones and demonstrates his polyrhythmic style, which is why I chose this track, but I encourage you to listen to the entire album, which was powerful and spiritual enough to launch the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church of San Francisco.

DRUMS: I'M CHIEF KAMANAWANALEA

The Turtles: I'm Chief Kamanawanalea

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For their 1968 concept album, Battle of the Bands, The Turtles tried to sound like a different group on each track. They even had photographs taken of themselves disguised as each group. The Turtles recorded the Top 10 hit "You Showed Me" as Nature's Children and another big hit, "Elenore" , as Howie, Mark, Johny, Jim & Al.
   As Chief Kamanawanalea and his Royal Macadamia Nuts, they let drummer John Barbata lead the way. Kamanawanalea ( named after the fictitious "God of Lust and Perversion") is of course the kind of silly pun that makes Hawaiians roll their eyes.
    But it's those drum breaks that make this 94-second song irresistible, especially to rap artists like The Beastie Boys, Big Daddy Kane and De La Soul, the latter of whom used the breaks ( and samples from "You Showed Me") without crediting the Turtles. De La Soul met the fury of the litigious lead singers, Flo & Eddie. They won a share of the royalties and punitive damages.
   Today Eddie ( Howard Kaylan) looks back on the critical reception this album received with disappointment.
  "Battle of the Bands was our Sergeant Pepper." He told blogger Cody Conard ."And it still bugs me, all these years later, that it was under-appreciated by the music critics upon its release. I was happy with it then, and I still think it's the strongest stand-alone album that the band ever recorded".

Drums: Saved

LaVern Baker: Saved

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Could I be asked to choose a favourite drum track between the percussive detonations on Stevie Wonder’s ‘Uptight’ and the assault of drums on Tim Rose’s pre-Hendrix version of ‘Hey Joe’? And if I do, will I not be lacking in fidelity to the pulsating flourishes on The Five Stairsteps’ ‘Ooh Child’?

I suppose none of those would qualify in terms of this week’s theme, with its expectation that the drums be part of the song’s essence.

Of course, the use of drums reached a zenith in a gospel song recorded on 12 June 1960 by the R&B singer LaVern Baker, who had been recording since she was a teenager in the mid-’40s, going by several names, most famously Little Miss Sharecropper .

‘Saved’ was written by the legendary songwriting and publishing team Leiber & Stoller. Fans of Elvis’ Comeback Special in 1968 will know it as a decent little gospel number, but Elvis couldn’t possibly hold a candle to Baker’s explosive version. She sings it forcefully, but it’s the thundering bass drums with which she proposes to do her missionary work that makes this track rock furiously. Try and sit still to this!

Album Cover Art => Drums: Dance of the Hunter’s Fire

Mickey Hart: Dance of the Hunter‘s Fire

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Planet Drum became the first album to win a Grammy for World Music in 1991. But that was only part of the story. I got it as a book and CD set, and the book was amazing. Mickey Hart, of Grateful Dead fame, had traveled the world on tour, and had learned about the local drums and drummers wherever he could. The book was a highly readable and fascinating survey of the world of percussion, with lavish illustrations. The CD was just as amazing. Hart gathered some of the greatest percussionists from various parts of the world, and gotten them to work together to prove that drumming is a universal language. Players on Dance of the Hunter’s Fire include Babtunde Olatunji from Nigeria, Airto Moreira from Brazil, as well as players from the United States, Puerto Rico, and India.

The album cover shows the planet earth, with drummers and dancing animals circling it. The whole thing appears on a drumhead. Artist Nancy Nimoy perfectly captured the spirit that Mickey Hart was trying to present.