1996: Inside

Patti Rothberg: Inside

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1996 was an important year for me musically. It was the year I discovered music could mean something, that it wasn't just about being catchy and fun to listen to. As I've written on here before, my breakthrough came as a high schooler discovering Lisa Loeb's album "Tails" and it grabbed me so much and made me think "wow, is there more music like this out there?". Luckily for me, this was the start of the beautiful few years where female singer-songwriters actually got airplay on mainstream radio, so my mind (and music collection) expanded at an alarming rate.

One of those first discoveries after "Tails" was hearing this single on the radio. I loved it immediately and remember turning the volume up in my dad's car as we drove home from dinner one evening to hear if the radio would say the artist's name so I knew what to look for when I got to the music store. I played this CD a lot that year, and I still really love it. It's one of those singles that a lot of people wouldn't remember if you asked them about it, but if you played them some of it they'd say "oh yeah, that was a pretty good song!". And the whole album is like that, not a bad song on it. It was a shame that the album did not get more recognition, but since then I've come across a number of people who get so enthusiastic if I mention this album because they have such fond feelings towards it as well.

1996 was a good year.

1996: Farewell Angelina

Tim O'Brien: Farewell Angelina

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Former Denverite Tim O'Brien released his brilliant tribute to Bob Dylan in 1996. He wittily named it Red on Blonde (he's a redhead, get it?). Darius posted another song from this album back in 2008 (Man Gave Names to All the Animals). I waffled a bit on which one to pick since they're all great, but I've gone with this one because it features his sister Mollie on vocals. Really, though, if you like "newgrass" you really should check out the whole album.

1996: The Barricades of Heaven

Jackson Browne: The Barricades of Heaven

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Jackson Browne has been known since the early 1970s not only for his performances, but also as a great songwriter. That makes the writing credits on his 1996 album Looking East interesting reading. Each of the songs is credited to the same seven writers, including Browne. Looking at who plays on the album, I assume that Browne wrote the lyrics, and then brought them to his working band at the time. They then would have created the melodies and arrangements together. The lyrics are personal, as they often are in Browne’s work, so I have to assume he created those himself. On the other hand, it is possible that Browne always worked this way, but he felt it was high time his band got a share of the writing royalties. It must have made some music industry types nuts, especially with all of the different publishing credits.

As for the song I have chosen, The Barricades of Heaven finds Jackson Browne looking back at his youth, when he was just discovering the joy of making music. The song has some of the feel of early Bruce Springsteen, only in LA instead of Asbury Park. The title refers to Browne being on the verge of becoming a professional musician with a major label contract.

1996: Penthouse in the Woods

Scud Mountain Boys: Penthouse in the Woods

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Joe Pernice holds an MFA in creative writing from The University of Massachusetts where he apparently learned less is more. His lyrics are sparse. They give flavor to the often moody songs he writes, but they explain nothing. "Penthouse in the Woods" could be about anything...but I'm thinking a murder is involved. The weapon: an airtight garbage bag. The singer's guilt can't be washed off stained gloves. The song comes from 1996's Massachusetts, the last album Scud Mountain Boys would record before Joe would head off with brother Bob and record the sensational Overcome By Happiness as The Pernice Brothers. Those who mourn The Scud Mountain Boys will be pleased to learn The Scuds have a five-date East Coast reunion tour beginning in mid January of next year. In 2009 Joe realized a life long dream by publishing his first novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop  via the hip Penguin imprint Riverhead Books.

By the way, the photo is of a Free Spirit Sphere I visited on Vancouver Island,BC.

1996: Requiem Aeternum

GSA Mile High Concert Chorale and Orchestra: Requiem Aeternam (John Rutter)

(unavailable for purchase)

This one's just for kicks and giggles. My first song celebrating 1996 features…me!

Well, me, a choir, an orchestra, and some soloists. And how we all came together to make this recording is pretty unusual.

The Geological Society of America holds an annual meeting every October, frequently in Denver. For the meeting in 1996, for some unexplained reason, GSA's head honcho also organized a performance of John Rutter's Requiem for any geoscientist who wanted to participate. GSA sprang for the venue (St. John's Cathedral), the professional orchestra (and some talented geologists), and the 4 soloists (who were terrific). We were mailed the sheet music and a tape ahead of time so we could learn it on our own. In fact, we had only one rehearsal and one final run-through before this performance. I think it sounds pretty decent, and I loved the piece, especially this first movement.

I still haven't worked out why it all came to pass—after all, it really has nothing to do with geology—but it was a great experience.

1996: Up in the Attic

Carrie Newcomer: Up in the Attic

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We all have parts of our lives that we pack up in boxes and stash away, never to be seen again. In Up in the Attic, Carrie Newcomer’s narrator finds one of these boxes, and the memories it contains. The song comes from her album My Father’s Only Son. Newcomer plugs in and rocks out in some songs on this album, and those songs sound better than the rock efforts of many of her contemporaries among folk artists of that time. But Newcomer really shines in the quieter moments on the album, and they give a better idea of how she sounds today.

Special Projects: Coast of High Barbary

Joseph Arthur: Coast of High Barbary

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I didn’t want to let our week of special projects pass with posting something Hal Wilner was involved in. Who? you may ask. Hal Wilner is a producer who has made a career out of tribute albums and other special projects that put lesser and better known musicians in unfamiliar, and possibly uncomfortable, combinations, and get them to make amazing music that sounds like nothing they have ever done before. Wilner’s best known project was possibly the album Stay Awake, which featured a surprising mixture of artists doing Disney songs. Sun Ra’s version of Pink Elephants on Parade must be heard to be believed. One of Wilner’s more recent projects was Rogue’s Gallery, a collection of pirate songs and sea shanties. So you might expect an entire album of folk music, but not from Hal Wilner.

Joseph Arthur is known for songs that straddle the line between folk and pop. The songs are expertly crafted, and Arthur knows how to make it work. He normally surrounds himself with fine sympathetic musicians who are great at helping him realize his sound. But, for Rogue’s Gallery, Arthur showed up alone, and he was at Wilner’s mercy. The result is a version of Coast of High Barbary that sounds like some sort of mutant cabaret number. This one might have been heard in a seaside club where a hard rock band and an avante-garde jazz combo were playing, and the drinks were flowing freely. Arthur sings in a sinister baritone at the bottom of his a range, a voice I’ve never heard from him before.

Special Projects: Bangla Desh

George Harrison and Friends: Bangla Desh

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George Harrison was always my favorite of the Beatles, even at my tender age of 10 when they hit the music scene in 1964 -I loved his thoughtfulness, his playfulness, his spirituality... so imagine my delight at discovering the two-part Martin Scorsese documentary, Living in the Material World, recently airing on HBO...

It brought back memories, as I re-discovered much and learned a lot - of course I must have known, but it was surprising to realize that George's August 1, 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh (actually two shows the same day) was the first of its kind (long before Live Aid) to bring together famous musicians (Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and others) to raise global awareness as well as money for a charitable cause...

According to Wikipedia: "As East Pakistan struggled to become the separate state of Bangladesh during theBangladesh Liberation War, the tremendous political and military turmoil and the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities led to a massive refugee problem in India. This problem was compounded by the 1970 Bhola cyclone, bringing torrential rains causing devastating floods and threatening a humanitarian disaster."

In reply to a request for help from musician Ravi Shankar, Harrison not only wrote and recorded the single Bangla Desh but took Shankar's idea of a small fund-raising concert in the United States and turned it into an enormous event, organized in only five weeks, in Madison Square Garden.

The concert raised $243,418.51 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF. Sales of the album and DVD continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.

I recall going to the Fox Theater in Atlanta, during my senior year in high school, to watch the film with friends - I owned the album and, after watching the Scorsese tribute, just purchased the 2-disc CD. I always knew I loved George best - the documentary reinforced why...

Special Projects: Well Did You Evah?

Deborah Harry and Iggy Pop: Well Did You Evah?

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1990 saw the release of Red Hot & Blue. The album is a special project for two reasons. First, it was recorded to raise awareness of AIDS research, and some of the proceeds from the album went to that purpose. Second, Red Hot & Blue is a tribute to the music of Cole Porter. The resulting album has a mix of music that often occurs on benefit albums. It seems like more artists want participate than there are room for, so some have to double up, and some unlikely collaborations are the result. Well Did You Evah? pairs Deborah Harry of Blondie fame with Iggy Pop. It may be worth remembering that Blondie got their start playing the famed punk club CBGBs. Well Did You Evah? as rendered here is a power pop blast with a punkish disrespect for its source. But most of all, it is the sound of two artists having a lot of fun.

Special Projects: Riders on the Storm

George Winston: Riders on the Storm

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Sometimes a real genre-shift is all another artist needs to make their music sound shiny and new. In 2002 George Winston, contemporary pianist and mainstay of the Windham Hill label, took 13 songs by the Doors and transformed them to introspective and melodic solo piano songs. It took me a while to choose one because I really love the whole album, but I went with one of my favorite Doors tunes.

This week is hard for me just for the fact that I am spoiled for choice and can't decide among all the great tributes and special concerts out there. I've started several posts, only to be swayed by something even better… And yes, if you were curious, Japanese artists put out as many tribute albums as western artists do. In fact, one just showed up last month: Visual Kei Rock Tribute to Disney! But sadly it's too new to make our arbitrary year cut-off, or I'd be tempted to share a pop-punk Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Special Projects: Let's Clean Up The Ghetto

The Philadelphia International All Stars : Let’s Clean Up The Ghetto

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Always a socially conscious label, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International Records released a compilation in 1977 that called for urban rejuvenation through the call: “Let’s Clean Up The Ghetto”.

The record featured some of the label’s great names: The O’Jays, Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, Intruders, Billy Paul, Dee Dee Sharp and Archie Bell. All but four of the songs on the album were exclusive to it. Some were covers, such as Harold Melvin’s version of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talking’”, Dee Dee Sharp Gamble’s take on “Ooh Child” by The Five Stairsteps, and The Intruders’ remake of Gil Scott-Heron’s “Save The Children”. The highlight is Lou Rawls’ “Tradewinds”, which was first recorded by The Three Degrees in 1972 and in Rawls’ version also appeared on his When You Hear Lou, You've Heard It All LP, released shortly after Let's Clean Up The Ghetto.

The song here is the joint collaboration on the title track. Lou Rawls, whose “Tradewinds” preceded “Let’s Clean Up The Ghetto”, sets the scene with a spoken intro about the grime of the ghetto, backed by a funky groove created by the label’s backing band, MFSB. Then Billy Paul comes in, followed by Archie Bell, Dee Dee Sharp, Teddy Pendergrass and The O’Jays. The whole seriously funky exercise was arranged by the great Dexter Wansel, who lets the instrumentalists shine during the extended instrumental play-out.

Ghetto is our home
That’s where we live, where we live
Get some paint, fetch your hammer, your nails
If you broomed, you mop and you pails
We’re gonna wash it, polish
And make it all clean
Let's wash away all of the sins
Time for a new life to begin
In the ghetto

Special Projects: I Can't Forget

The Pixies: I Can't Forget

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  The fact that even my unknown garage band got to provide a track to a Who tribute album (called, presciently,  Who Cares) has given me insight into just how difficult it must be to enlist well known artists to team up on a special project. There will always be songs listeners will skip over and songs bands rushed into production to meet deadline.

I'm Your Fan, dedicated to the songs of Leonard Cohen,  is better than most tribute albums (even though two artists, Robert Forster and Nick Cave, contributed covers of the same song). The artists involved included R.E.M., Lloyd Cole, House of Love and The Pixies. That's all I needed to know in 1991. The Pixies rocked out on "I Can't Forget" which  features some vintage Cohen lyrics: I stumbled out of bed/ I got ready for the struggle/ I smoked a cigarette and tightened up my gut/ I said this can't be me, must be my double.

I knew some Leonard Cohen in 1991. This album helped turn me on to his 70's albums like New Skin for the Old Ceremony. I'm Your Fan was just the first Leonard Cohen tribute album ( not counting Jennifer Warnes's Famous Blue Raincoat). Bigger names like Elton John, Billy Joel and Sting would gather in 1994 for the critically savaged Tower of Song. That's one tribute album I can forget!

Religion = > Special Projects: Here I Am, Oh Lord, Send Me

Alvin Youngblood Hart: Here I Am, Oh Lord, Send Me

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Mississippi John Hurt was one of those bluesmen of the pre-war years, (1920s in this case), who disappeared from the music scene, and was then rediscovered during the folk music revival of the late 50s and early 60s. Many of these musicians tell of how, as children, they developed a love of blues music over the objections of their parents. The parents in these tellings believed that blues was the Devil’s music, and they would beat their children to teach them to resist this temptation. So Mississippi John Hurt may have written Here I Am, Oh Lord, Send Me in self defense. But it could just as easily have been religious devotion that inspired the song.

Avalon Blues is a tribute to Mississippi John Hurt that was put together by Peter Case. Hurt is one of the influences that you can hear in Case’s guitar playing, so it’s not surprising that Case would want to do the album. But some of the artists he asked to participate are certainly surprising. Alvin Youngblood Hart is not a surprise at all. His own albums are soaked in blues. Likely or not, the artists on this album all deliver strong performances, paying tribute to Hurt by making his songs their own.

Religion: Holy Now

Peter Mayer: Holy Now

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Sundown this evening marked the end of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement; twenty years ago, or even five, the day would have had me in temple, naming my sins alongside the community in a language I can speak but cannot understand, hoping that G-d would find my repentance sincere enough to inscribe me in the book of life for yet another year.

But the older I get, the more my belief system drifts away from the conservative Judaism of my birth, and towards that of the Unitarian Universalists - a humanistic practice with no common creed among its followers save that of the ongoing search, the sacredness of community itself, and the urgency of social justice. And where most religions tell us where and how to pray, the UU sense of ritual is fluid enough to allow us to celebrate in whatever way best befits our mood, our needs, and our sense of the universe and our place in it.

And so, today, I found myself home, preparing a feature for Cover Lay Down about the ways in which I have come to use blogging itself as a mechanism for writing myself into the world, by year and by day.

And so, perhaps, it is fitting to find myself finishing up here, posting the song which most clearly speaks to that growing sense of the sublime in the mundane.

Because Minnesota singer-songwriter Peter Mayer's Holy Now serves as a sort of personalized UU hymn, one which reflects my own drift from Judaism even as it describes the move many lapsed Catholics have made from their own churches to the shared table where we worship through song and story each Sunday. In lyric and tone, it reminds us that returning reverence to the totality of creation need not imply a creator, but it sure does demand mindfulness in everything.

On my best days, I aspire to his vision.

May every day of your life bring atonement and prayer, joy and solace, no matter what you believe. For there is none of us so lost that we cannot find ourself again. Happy Yom Kippur, everyone.

Religion: What About The Bond

Bruce Cockburn: What About the Bond

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In 1980, Bruce Cockburn released Humans. The album is a collection of songs about the various forms of injustice in the world. What About the Bond comes almost exactly in the middle of the album, and it makes clear that Cockburn sees testifying about these injustices as a religious obligation. Cockburn urges all of us to stop turning a blind eye to human suffering, a message that is at least as relevant today as it was in 1980. I haven’t read the whole Book, but I’m pretty sure that there is a parable about that…

Religion: Love, Devotion, and Surrender

Santana: Love, Devotion, and Surrender

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We've had a lot of Christian music this week, so I thought I'd offer up something a little more universal by Latin-jazz-rock-fusion guitarist Carlos Santana. In the years before this release, he'd been making quite a musical splash, first in late-60s San Francisco, then at Woodstock (his blazing debut), and then worldwide. But around 1973 his music took a definite turn towards jazz fusion, a blend of jazz, funk, R&B, and rock heavily dosed with complicated time signatures. Miles Davis was at the forefront of jazz fusion, releasing in short order the groundbreaking albums Miles in the Sky (1968), In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew (1970). Some of the musicians on these LPs went on to further to fusion cause: Joe Zawinil and Wayne Shorter formed Weather Report, John McLaughlin formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea, Airto Moriera, and Flora Purim became Return to Forever, and Herbie Hancock formed Headhunters, among others. Some of these artists also show up in Santana's albums around this time, but John McLaughlin in particular is a prominent influence.

Just as music made dramatic changes in the late 60s, religious ideas became more diverse and took a pronounced turn eastward. Like many trends of the era, this started with the Beatles. In 1967, the Fab Four, along with a passel of other A-list celebrities (Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Cilla Black, Donovan, Mike Love of The Beach Boys, Mia Farrow, and flutist Paul Horn) became interested in an unknown Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and his technique of Transcendental Meditation. As you might expect, fascination with all things Indian---especially Indian mysticism--- soon followed.

By 1973 John McLaughlin was a member of the Self Realization Fellowship led by Indian-cum-American guru Sri Chinmoy, and he converted Carlos Santana and his drummer Michael Shrieve to the fellowship. Sri Chinmoy taught that rapid spiritual progress could be made with divine love, divine devotion and divine surrender, which gives us our title. McLaughlin and Santana released an album with this title several months prior, but this song is from the album Welcome. Vocalists are Santana, Wendy Hass, and Leon Thomas.

"We are all seekers, and our goal is the same: to achieve inner peace, light and joy, to become inseparably one with our Source, and to lead lives full of true satisfaction.” Sri Chinmoy

Religion: Love...Thy Will Be Done

Martika: Love...Thy Will Be Done

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This song blew me away the first time I heard it on the radio (though admittedly, I was only in junior high). It's beautiful, and anthemic, but yet it is pretty much a gospel song just jammed in there among the rest of the pop schlock that was being played on popular radio in 1991. The song was written and produced by the one and only Prince, and then performed by pop singer Martika, who is best known for her hit single "Toy Soldiers". "Love...Thy Will Be Done" did well commercially though, it made it into the top 10 pop charts.

To this day it remains one of my all time favorite songs because I find it so powerful...undoubtedly because of what it stands for to me. When having a religious discussion with a friend of mine and attempting to explain how I feel on the subject the only thing I could think of was this song. I told him, "as an agnostic, the one thing I feel like I can get behind without reservations is love as a religion. To me, if you can't replace the word "Lord" or "God" with "love" and still have your beliefs make sense, then you're doing something wrong". And of course, the original phrase is "Lord, thy will be done", and the song is "Love, thy will be done". Changing two letters changes everything.

Religion: Fix It Jesus

Reverend Charlie Jackson: Fix It Jesus

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When your burden gets too heavy, sometimes all you need is a southern preacher armed with a Fender Mustang, playing and singing like a man possessed. No matter what you believe in, or don't believe in. Ain't that the gospel truth.

Religion: Church

Lyle Lovett: Church

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I like to say that mankind invented religion to answer the question, “What’s for dinner?” Think about it. The oldest religions have mythologies and rituals that are centered around hunting and farming. Even Judaism has a seasonal cycle of festivals that include a harvest festival, (Sukkos), and Passover can be seen as a ritualized tale of leading the livestock to their spring pastures. Christianity is the first one to replace the old question with a new one, “What happens when we die?” But Lyle Lovett finds the old question returning in a powerful way one Sunday. What’s for dinner? The preacher’s answer will surprise you.

Religion: Do Lord

Jane Russell, Connie Haines, Beryl Davis, Della Russell: Do Lord

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It's a fascinating bit of trivia: Sex symbol actress Jane Russell headed a gospel quartet in the 1950s. Russell, a life-long Christian who died at 90 in February this year, met her fellow group members, singers Connie Haines (a former singer in the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey orchestras) and Beryl Davis, at a Christian social in Hollywood.The three were periodically joined by Della Russell and Rhonda Fleming (another bombshell).

The story goes that during the filming of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1953, Russell tried to convert co-star Marilyn Monroe to Christianity. Monroe later recalled: "Jane tried to convert me and I tried to introduce her to Freud".

"Do Lord", in which the singers are helfully introduced individually, was a big hit in 1954, shifting 2 million copies.