Song Chain : Responsible

Freedy Johnston :Responsible

[Purchase]

When The Silos broke up, co-founder Bob Rupe kept busy as a member of the indie supergroup Gutterball, as bassist for seven years with Cracker and by making guest appearances on albums as diverse as Daniel Johnston's Hello How Are You? and Freedy Johnston's 1992 album Can You Fly?. ( No, they're not related)

   A Kansas native who literally sold some of the family farm to finance the recording of Can You Fly?, Freedy was joined on the record by a who's who of indie rock legends including Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Stamey ( The dB's), Kevin Salem (Dumptruck), Dave Schramm ( Yo La Tengo), Jane Scarpantoni ( who's played with 10,000 Maniacs and Richard Barone) and Rupe among others.

  Freedy's gamble paid off. Robert Christgau called Can You Fly? "a  perfect album" and Rolling Stone named Johnston songwriter of the year.

Song Chain: Caroline

The Silos: Caroline
[purchase]

There seem to be many songs with “Caroline” in the title, but when I saw the previous song, I immediately thought of this one by The Silos. I love the way the singer just yells out the name before the music starts.

So, when did alt-country music start? Who knows, but as much as I love Uncle Tupelo, they clearly weren’t the first alt-country band. The album that this song comes from was The Silos’ third, and was released months before No Depression. It’s a silly argument anyway, just as trying to figure out what the first rock and roll song was.

The Silos' first few albums were a great mix of country and rock, with great songwriting and playing. They have gone through lots of members, and their recorded output is inconsistent, but on this track, they rock, and I strongly recommend this album, and the one that preceded it, “Cuba.”

Song Chain: Caroline

MC Solaar: Caroline
[purchase]

 I was cool, sitting on a bench.  It was springtime.  For a genre so dependent upon lyrics, not many rappers have the nerve to be lyrical.  There are, to be sure, many MCs who are possessed of a deft turn of phrase and verbal skill, but true poetry is a little harder than that.  The blame can't really be placed at Hip-Hop's door: popular music isn't really about literary cleverness, after all.

Perhaps it's something to do with the nature of the language in which he raps, but MC Solaar has always been a little different.  This tale of amour fou begins with him watching lovers gather daisies, gathers pace through the reminiscence of an obsessive, doomed love and ends with slightly rueful hope (against hope) for a future reconciliation that won't happen.  The tale is grounded upon two central metaphors: the addictive nature of obsessive love, as made plain by the fact that the object of our hero's affection's name is also slang for cocaine (as in the English 'Charlie,') and that of the relationship as game of chance.  Je suis l'as de trèfle qui pique ton coeur - he is the ace of clubs who trumps her heart, or indeed her diamonds ('caro').  At least that's what he tells himself, but in the casino that is Paris he knows he has already lost. C'est la vie.

Song Chain : Reconnez Cherie

Wreckless Eric : Reconnez Cherie

[Purchase]

Decades before marrying Amy Rigby, Wreckless Eric recorded some of the great Stiff Records punk-pop singles of the late 70's including "(I'd Go The) Whole Wide World", "Veronica" and "Reconnez Cherie". As he details in his autobiography, A Dysfunctional  Success -The Wreckless Eric Manual, he eventually lost everything he earned to the bottle and moved to the French countryside for ten years. In his book you meet all kinds of famous characters including Ian Dury, Nick Lowe and Huey Lewis ( the tea boy at Stiff Records office the day Eric wandered in).

Song Chain: All I Want

Amy Rigby: All I Want

[purchase]

Money may be what the Beatles and the Flying Lizards want, but in her song "All I Want," Amy Rigby longs for something more basic: "Just a little something to show me that you care whether I live or die." On her first records (this one is from 1998's Middlescence), Rigby specialized in these working class love-on-the-rocks songs, some with an alt-country sound, others -- like this one -- with a '60's girl-group feel. Amy Rigby (nee McMahon) launched her career in the aftermath of her divorce from dBs drummer Will Rigby. Though she's never quite broken out as either a singer or songwriter, she released a series of very enjoyable records in the late '90s and aughts, including a couple of duet albums with her second husband, the artist formerly and still known as Wreckless Eric.

Song Chain: Money (That’s What I Want)

Flying Lizards: Money (That‘s What I Want)

[purchase]

The rules of our game this week are to post the first song that comes to mind based on the previous post. Kkafa‘s post made me think of Beatles remakes, and Money (That‘s What I Want) immediately came to mind. It‘s not a pure Beatles remake, because the Beatles were themselves covering the song. The original version was by Barrett Strong, and it was the first single released by the Motown label, in 1959. By the time we get to the Flying Lizards’ version heard here, we are firmly in the territory of 80s remakes. Perhaps no other reinvented the song to the extent this one did. Some people would probably regard this as a destruction of the song. All I know is that it always brings a smile to my face when I hear it.

Song Chain: I Don't Want to Spoil the Party

Nu-Utopians: I Don't Want to Spoil the Party
[free download at Beatles Complete on Ukelele]

Time to get out of the TV funk we've been stuck in for some time now. I admit I am not much of a TV person, nor am I a party type, either. Having said so, let's use J David's reference to TV parties to move on. Now, it's not my intention to spoil anyone's party. I am, however, a die hard Beatles fan and a Creative Commons buff. I know, I have previously brought you something else from the Beatles Complete on Ukelele project, but all the same, in the interest of moving on ...

The Nutopians are dedicated to keeping the music of John Lennon alive. Rex Fowler, previously of Aztec Two Step, is one of the band members. As with all the songs at the Beatles Complete on Ukelele, you'll hear some ukelele on this fine rendition of  a not-so-well-known Beatles hit from the mid 60s.

Song Chain: TV Party

Black Flag: TV Party
[purchase]

We seem to be in sort of a television phase here. Here is a fun, kind of sloppy song by Black Flag, called “TV Party.” This album came out just after I graduated from college, and I pretty much missed it when it came out. But it has a number of great songs on it.

This one, which really does sound like a bunch of friends singing about watching TV and having a few beers, has a certain charm. I particularly like that these guys mention Hill Street Blues, which was one of my favorite shows at the time.

I’m one of those people who think that there is actually a great deal of good things to watch on TV, and most nights, I’m having a little TV party of my own.

Song Chain: All The Young Dudes

David Bowie: All the Young Dudes
[purchase]

Geoviki's mention of a strange dream/nightmare combined with the mention of a television, brings to my mind this song that Bowie wrote for Mott the Hoople. Here, Bowie performs the song. He sings, "Television man is crazy saying we're juvenile delinquent wrecks", and take us from dreams of fame and fortune in the name of Jesus to the fame and fortune of various personalities of the 70s glam rock scene with much that is likewise disquieting.
(tip of the hat to Bert: I see belatedly that he sent the Mott the Hoople version your way a while back)

Song Chain: Antichrist Television Blues

Arcade Fire: Antichrist Television Blues

[purchase]

Joe Ross' post had a vivid description of a scene by someone who grew up in a Christian church, son of a minister. It brought to mind this story, much more disquieting, of a man who badly wants his young daughter to pursue fame and fortune in the name of Jesus. His dream, he realizes, is becoming a nightmare for her, and yet we get the impression that he won't stop with his heartless quest.

Song Chain: Dust on the Bible

Blue Sky Boys: Dust on the Bible

[purchase]

For a song chain theme, one writes quickly and posts the first song that comes to mind. When I heard the beautiful silky smooth voice of Loreena McKennitt singing “All follow this and come to dust,” it made me think of the Blue Sky Boys (Bill and Earl Bolick) harmonizing on “Dust on the Bible.” It’s one of those sweet traditional bluegrass gospel tunes that comes from the brother duos of the 1930s and 1940s. We like to pick and sing the song with my own band here in Oregon, the Umpqua Valley Bluegrass Band. The song has a message which is still relevant today.

The song was written by Walter and Johnny Bailes. Walter once said, “I was born and raised in West Virginia in an area now considered a part of Charleston. My dad, being a minister, and my Christian mother led us children to believe in Christ and go to church. It was in church while in my late teens that I found the origin for ‘Dust on the Bible.’ A young minister by the name of Willard Carney came there and started a church in store basement. Since our parents had always taught us respect for all Christ-believing churches, I started attending Brother Carney’s church pretty regular. In one of these services, I heard him relate this experience of going into a home to visit, which story is told in this song. I just put his story in song and bless him for it. I believe him to be a very sincere minister of Christ!”

Song Chain: Cymbeline

Loreena McKennitt: Cymbeline

[purchase]

Have you ever played Word Association? It’s the game where one person says a word, and the next player has to say the first word that comes into their head. The results can be funny, revealing, or just wonderfully odd. This week, we will be playing a musical version of that game, and forming a song chain. Each song will have something, anything at all, to do with the last one. To start off, here is the first song that came to mind when I saw Mt Vernon Mike’s post of The Reduced Merle Haggard.

So how did I get to Loreena McKennitt from Merle Haggard? Mike mentioned Shakespeare. Now, if I were normal, I would have posted Romeo and Juliet. But no, I had to think of one of the Bard’s most obscure plays. Cymbeline can only be regarded as a history if you regard the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth as being more historical than folkloric. In any case, it is clear that Shakespeare expanded the plot of Cymbeline with material that came not from Geoffrey at all, but rather from the Bard’s own mind. Loreena McKennitt uses Shakespeare’s own words from near the end of the play as the text for her song. The result is a beautiful lament for a pair of doomed young lovers.

Suites and Medleys: The Reduced Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard: Medley of Hits

[purchase]

Just as the Reduced Shakespeare Company boils down the epic works of Williams Shakespeare into two hours, this excellent medley of Merle Haggard hits does a good job of condensing some of the Bard of Country Music's best songs from the 1960s into a slightly overmodulated six-minute medley. The set is taken from his legendary live album, Okie from Muskogee, recorded in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. It was Haggard's first live album, and also his first record to go gold, then platinum. If this is your introduction to these songs, they sound complete; in fact, after I got used to these abbreviated renderings, the extra words in the full-length songs almost seemed unnecessary. Almost.

I would write more about this....but something about unnecessary extra words makes me want to stop here.

Suites and Medleys: Try A Little Tenderness/(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons/You Send Me

Sam Cooke: Try A Little Tenderness/(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons/You Send Me

[purchase]

Before “Try A Little Tenderness” was a soul classic, it was a standard beloved of crooners. Little Miss Cornshucks was the first to give it an R&B edge in 1951, and Aretha Franklin recorded it in 1962, drawing from the Cornshucks version. But it was Sam Cooke’s interpretation of it, as part of a medley recorded at the Copacabana club in New York City, that inspired Otis Redding’s definitive version from 1966 (which we have cause to remember this month following the death last week of Andrew Love, who with fellow Memphis Horns founder Wayne Jackson played that iconic horn intro).

Sam Cooke was Redding’s idol, but unlike Cooke, Redding didn’t compromise. The medley here, recorded on 8 July 1964, is Cooke at his compromisingest: he sings two standards which the mostly white audience can identify with, and then delivers his big crossover hit. To hear Cooke in a soul environment, one has to hear the live album recorded at the Apollo, and unreleased until the mid-’80s.

But make no mistake, bubbling just under the surface at the Copa, and especially on the “Try A Little Tenderness” part of the medley (which Cooke apparently based on Aretha’s version), is Sam Cooke the soul singer, the gospel singer, the voice that Otis Redding idolised and which he heard when he set off to record the song originally recorded in 1932 by the Ray Noble Orchestra (and shortly after by Bing Crosby and Ruth Etting).

There is a lovely story that Redding actually didn’t want to record the song, which was arranged by Isaac Hayes, because he could not stand the idea of competing with the by then dead Sam Cooke, and so intentionally sang it in a way he thought would make the recording unreleasable.

For more on the background to “Try A Little Tenderness”, go HERE

Suites and Medleys: Sailing Shoes/ Hey Julia/ Sneaking Sally Through the Alley

Robert Palmer: Sailing Shoes/ Hey Julia/ Sneaking Sally Through the Alley

[purchase]

Robert Palmer isn’t that unusual a name. So, when I first heard Addicted to Love, I wanted to know if this was the same Robert Palmer I was thinking of. After all, he didn’t sound all that much like the Robert Palmer I knew. But, they are indeed the same person. I was thinking of the Robert Palmer who opened his debut album with an amazing medley of a Little Feat cover, Sailing Shoes, and two originals, Hey Julia and Sneaking Sally Through the Alley. What an introduction! The whole thing is a blast of funky New Orleans-inspired swamp boogie, and the three songs are distinct, but Palmer stitches them together seamlessly. He had to rearrange Sailing Shoes to do it, changing it from the slow burner Little Feat performed, into a funky groove. Little Feat never performed the song this way, but that’s most of them backing Palmer on the track.

Side Note: I know of at least one other famous Robert Palmer. The other was a pop music critic for the New York Times when I was young. “Pop music critic” is a term that doesn’t really do the man justice. He could write intelligently about an amazing variety of musical genres, and was one of the first to introduce me to world music. Palmer was one of the first people who inspired me to want to write about music. He was an authority on the blues, and his book Deep Blues is required reading on the subject.

Suites And Medleys: Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto

PM Dawn: Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto

[Purchase]

I bought a brand new sealed cassette copy of Jesus Wept from a small record store I was driving by in Montrose, Colorado. Had it not been $4, and had I not a hundred miles to go before I got home,  I probably would have passed on it and missed out on what I still consider to be 1995's best album.

   Prince Be was still the heavyweight spiritual love guru that wrote the 1992 #1 hit "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" and he and his brother still sampled like mad. The single "Downtown Venus" borrows  Deep Purple's groovy "Hush" groove. Maybe as a way to thank those who inspired them, PM Dawn ends the album with a medley featuring Prince's "1999", Talking Heads's "Once In a Lifetime" and Harry Nilsson's  "Coconut". There's even a nod to The Beatles's "Flying". It shouldn't work at all. But as you'll hear, it's amaze ( as the kids and Bill Mahar say).

Suites and Medleys: Texas Trilogy

Frummox: Texas Trilogy

[purchase (CD only)]

Steven Fromholz was a big part of the first wave of singer/songwriters who defined the always-in-search-of-a-better-name Texas outlaw country/folk/redneck rock progressive alt.country movement. A suite of three songs, called “Texas Trilogy,” is his masterpiece.

The songs, recorded in 1969 (predating the Preston Jones plays of the same name by several years), form a story arc depicting a “day in the life” of Fromholz's hometown, Kopperl, Texas. A recently published book, Texas Trilogy: Life in a Small Town, documents the songs and the town that inspired them. “It’s simply the story of what it was like growing up in Kopperl," Fromholz writes. "There’s not a great deal that happens in a small town like that, but what does happen has a lot of feelings attached to it.” "Texas Trilogy" kicks off with "Daybreak." ("Six o’clock silence of a new day beginning is heard in a small Texas town. Like a signal from nowhere, the people who live there are up and moving around.") After a spoken interlude, "Trainride" reminisces about the changes brought about when railways were replaced by highways. The three-pack closes with "Bosque County Romance," which sets to rhyme the hard times of Mary Martin and Bill Archer, who married young and lived out life as bad-luck farmers. ("The mortgage got the money and the screwworms got the cows. The years have come for Mary, she's waiting for them now.")

Fromholz first recorded the song as part of Frummox (“a cross between Fromholz and a lummox”), a folk duo formed with Dan McCrimmon. Frummox's debut album, which included "Texas Trilogy," was released just moments before its record label went belly up. ("It was the second most obscure album of 1969," Fromholz joked to journalist Jan Reid.) Fromholz went on to play with Stephen Stills and enjoyed a modicum of success as a singer/songwriter in the 1970s. John Denver and Willie Nelson were among those covering his songs. (You can hear Fromholz’s ragged call-and-response vocals on Nelson’s “I’d Have to Be Crazy.”) He mostly retired from the music business in the 1990s and became the Poet Laureate of Texas in 2007.

“Texas Trilogy” is decades out of print, but the song remains Fromholz’s best known work, famously covered by Lyle Lovett in his salute to Texas songwriters, Step Inside This House. In the book Texas Trilogy, Fromholz summarized the suite's impact this way: “I think I’ve painted a picture that will live much longer than I will.”

Suites And Medleys: The Homestead Suite

Michael Johnathon: The Homestead Suite: Sunrise (Jenny's Theme)/ Homestead/ Suppertime

[purchase]

Michael Johnathon is a consummate singer and songwriter with something profound to say. On his 2003 album called Homestead, the poetic theme revolves around home, with songs composed in the glow of the musician’s Kentucky farmhouse fireplace. After the album’s reflective opener called "Winter's Eve," the album launches into "The Homestead Suite" with three tunes: Sunrise (Jenny's Theme), Homestead and Suppertime.

The album's title cut, "Homestead," tells a story of a peaceful autumn evening at home in woods, complete with music, family, homemade bread and a glass of wine. The song even makes mention of a couple of the assisting musicians, Sam Bush (mandolin, fiddle) and J.D. Crowe (banjo). Some others appearing on this album include Rob Ickes (dobro), Ronnie McCoury (mandolin), Mike Cleveland (fiddle), Barbara Lamb (fiddle), John Cowan (bass), and Don Rigsby (mandolin).

Johnathon's seventh album also features cello, flutes, percussion, French horns, fluglehorns, trumpets, sitar, electric guitar and jaw harp on various cuts. The nicely-arranged, multi-instrumental patchwork of tones and rhythms resemble a cozy quilt that warms you while you relax in your old rocking chair. Johnathon’s vision for "folkestral" music incorporates elements from folk, blues, bluegrass and classical genres. Besides his own rootsy vocal styling, Michael plays guitar, banjo and mandolin. With his fine accompanists, the band always successfully dispenses "song conversation" to the music.

On the same album, Johnathon offer another suite called "The Crimson Rose Trilogy." That begins with Conception, a one-minute prelude of three mandolins. It segues into The Garden, the story of a maiden with a secret that only a garden knows, a child who was lost and buried there near a crimson rose. The third piece in the trilogy, Redemption, provides a joyous instrumental "musical expression of the maiden's freedom from pain after she dies."

Michael Johnathon is a busy touring folksinger. He's also written a book (with accompanying CD) called WoodSongs which combines songs, poetry and social commentary. That project helped Michael launch the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour, a live weekly internationally syndicated program broadcast on hundreds of stations (and internet) which provides exposure for up-and-coming artists. Johnathon is a hardworking musician who’s dedicated to his art. Homestead is a soothing, touching and caring album that also emphasizes his devotion to home and family.

Suites and Medleys: Jack & Neal / California, Here I Come

Tom Waits: Medley: Jack & Neal / California, Here I Come

[purchase]

Sometimes you don't have to be in the gutter to be looking at the stars.  And sometimes, when you look at the stars it's only because you're winking at them as you give the moon the finger.

Beautiful losers making the ultimate road trip, New York to California.  Searching for something.  God, maybe, or maybe just a good time.  Cigarettes, cheap booze, benzedrine and girls who want all of those things, and are happy to share. You dream of Bird, even though Wilson Pickett's voice tells you that you're neither Kerouac nor Cassady, you've just borrowed their shoes for a while. Forget for a moment Dean Moriarty standing alone by the side of the road, that there is precedent and that these things never end well.  These things never end. Sometimes it's best not to sweat the big stuff.

Open up that Golden State, California here I come!

Suites and Medleys: Suite Judy Blue Eyes

Crosby, Stills and Nash: Suite Judy Blue Eyes

[purchase]

Originally a grouped set of four movements/dances including the gigue and the sarabande, the suite as a musical form was used by Bach, Handel, Tchaikovsky and other classical composers. The pop/rock musical style with its 3-minute format would be unlikely to include many examples of a suite. However, a group such as Genesis, which frequently composed longer songs, is more likely to come up with a suite. Segueing from one 3 minute pop/rock song into another, on the other hand, produces the musical form we call a medley.

Suite Judy Blue Eyes (with the obvious play on "sweet") is the result of a collection of work that Stephen Stills wrote as he tried to make sense of his deteriorating relationship with Judy Collins. The four sections of the song go from fast to slow and back to fast, ending with a section in Spanish. All come together to create a unified whole with smooth transitions between each part held together by Stills' vocals and guitar, backed by harmonies from Crosby and Nash. The story is told that the group Crosby, Stills & Nash was formed specifically for this song. Although the version most of us know came out on the debut CSN album in 1969, Stills notes that he had previously recorded a version as part of a taped demo session from 1968 which was lost for 40 years but later released as Just Roll Tape.

There are several resources you might find worth checking out if you would like to dig deeper:
 - an article reflecting back on 35 years of CSN
- Stills' official web site where you can listen to a more recent solo version
- a review of Just Roll Tape with a short preview of the '68 version