Nonsense: I Zimbra

Talking Heads: I Zimbra

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I Zimbra led off Talking Heads third album, Fear of Music, and it was quite a departure from what had come before. The sound was denser, with overdubbed parts instead of the basic four- piece band sound the band had exhibited on their previous albums. The rhythm was complex. Soon enough, I would come to understand that this sound was influenced by African music. And the words made no sense, but the groove more than made up for it. Still, where did Talking Heads come up with a complete lyric of detailed nonsense? That turns out to be an interesting question.

The words to what Talking Heads called I Zimbra are by Hugo Ball, who the band properly credited. Ball was one of the founders of Dadaism. I have heard the term, but I never really knew what it was. So, for this post, I thought I had better find out. What follows is what I came to understand after a brief bit of research. Any mistakes are my own.

The art and poetry of the Victorian Era, and of the early 20th century are marked by extravagant beauty. In music, this period represented the flourishing of Romanticism. But World War I began to change that. Ball initially was an idealist and a patriot, and he volunteered for the German army at the beginning of the war. But, like so many others, he quickly became disillusioned, not only with the war but also with the culture that produced it. After the ugliness of the war, the beauty of prewar culture seemed absurd to Ball and his fellow Dadaists. Their work was meant to emphasize this absurdity by shattering the forms of prewar art, and also by using these forms but stripping them of meaning. The words that became I Zimbra were an example of the latter. Interestingly, the Dadaists were drawn to African and other native musics. They were considered primitive, and therefore less shaped by a culture that had no meaning. David Byrne’s lyrics for Talking Heads, even though they were in English, often had an absurd feel. I think Byrne may well have been reacting to the “deeply meaningful” lyrics of 1970s singer-songwriter’s by creating lyrics that meant nothing at all, or at least not very much. If so, it is easy to see what would have drawn him to the work of Hugo Ball.

Nonsense: Phish

Phish: The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony

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Phish: Guelah Papyrus

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Phish: Gotta Jibboo

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Notorious for choosing words for their mouthfeel, rhythm, and sound rather than any specific meaning, long-standing jamband kingpins Phish have an entire catalog of songs with both titles and lyrics that make little sense - starting with "Fee" and "You Enjoy Myself", the first and second tracks on their 1988 debut (the second of these being mostly an instrumental based on an especially heavy LSD experience in Italy, with the sole lyrics "Boy! … Man! … God! … Shit!...wash Uffizi, drive me to Firenze.").

Here's three favorites from the quartet, presented in the order of their release: the bouncy improvisational gin-joint jamjazz of The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony, the sweet and groovy Guelah Papyrus, and the trippy horns-and-all funkjam of Gotta Jibboo, a song which apocryphally takes the second word in its title from the invented name which lead singer Trey Anastasio's pre-literate firstborn gave to her milk and juice.

Ironically - or perhaps not so - the term "jibboo" has nonetheless come to be used as a slang term for marijuana in many hidden recesses of user culture, which says just about everything about the community that would follow these awesome musicians to the end of the earth.

Nonsense: Ya Ya

Lee Dorsey: Ya Ya

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This song is so infectious and fun, it's hard not to love. America agreed by making it a number 1 hit in 1962.

In the song, which was apparently inspired by a nursery rhyme, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you which, seems to be referring to a lover as Ya Ya. He's "sitting in La La waiting for my Ya Ya". Regardless, the song is clear, he wants her to hurry up and get to where he is.

Nonsense: Diddy Wa Diddie

Leon Redbone: Diddy Wa Diddie

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Thanks to Geoviki, I now know that La La La La La Means I Love You. But, can somebody tell me what Diddy Wa Diddy means? There is not even agreement on how to spell it. Blind Blake probably wrote the song, and some of his recordings of say Diddie Wa Diddie. Others have it as Diddy Wah Diddy. To add confusion, there is even a completely different song with the same name, and there too, the spelling varies.

This Diddy Wa Diddie comes from Leon Redbone’s second album. I had discovered him first on Saturday Night Live, and then on his debut album the year before. I didn’t know much about where this music was coming from at the time, but I was hooked right away. Now, I can recognize strains of blues, jazz, and jug band music, all as they sounded before World War II. The music still sounds as fresh to me as it did then, and it opened the door for some wonderful artists who have come along since then.

Nonsense: Doop-Doo-De-Doop

Blossom Dearie: Doop-Doo-De-Doop (A Doodlin' Song)

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Jazz singer and pianist Blossom Dearie was a mainstay in the early days of Verve Records, thanks to her distinctively girlish voice and a wry sense of humor that shines through clearly here, on a delightfully lighthearted album recorded in 1959 at the peak of her rising popularity.

There's little more to say about this fun little ditty, but in general, it is a typical example of the great work Dearie produced throughout her life. Dearie's catalog is well worth exploring in other ways: through her work with Bob Dorough for Schoolhouse Rock, for example, or through her constant appearance on indie soundtracks in the last couple of decades before her death last year at the age of 84. Among those who track the rise and fall of the industry, she is notable for starting her own private label, Daffodil Records, in the mid-seventies after tepid support from her own label left her frustrated about how best to get her particular style of supper-club jazz to the masses. And her solo instrumental piano work is delish, too.

Nonsense: Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu

Bad Manners: Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu

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I actually remember this one with a couple extra Nas in the title, but no matter. Madness, the Specials, and Bad Manners all belonged to the wave of ska bands that emerged from the London punk scene in the late 70s, and reached American shores starting in about 1980. Ska is not punk, of course, but the scene welcomed them anyway. Like punk, ska served as a conduit for the anger of working class youth, but ska also added in the grievances of immigrants to London from the Caribbean, who faced not only working class exploitation, but also racial prejudice. In the music of Bad Manners, the answer to these issues was to party. Bad Manners also covered some of the kitschy songs of early rock, such as My Girl Lollipop and even The Monster Mash, but done ska style. Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu is a Bad Manners original that recalls the use of nonsense syllables in the rock n roll of the fifties, while delivering the high energy of ska. It is also a fine example of this band's unique sense of humor.

Nonsense: La-La Means I Love You

Laura Nyro: La-La (Means I Love You)

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This nonsense song title includes its own handy parenthetical interpretation for those of us who aren't quite sure what "la-la" actually means. Now we know.

There's not a cover of this song that I don't love, which lets me know right away that I need to be checking out the writer – Thom Bell. Just as the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland defined the Motown sound in the 60's, the same is true for Thom Bell and the Philly Soul sound. Bell was an influential session pianist, songwriter, and producer who, with partners Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, was instrumental in some pretty awesome hits by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, the Spinners, Billy Paul, and the O'Jays.

This cover of the 1968 Delfonics tune is by one of my favorite vocalists and a superb songwriter in her own right. She's performed a number of 60's soul hits over her too-short career. This one's from the posthumously released Angel in the Dark and was recorded around 1995.

Magic -> Nonsense: Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo

Bobby McFerrin: Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo

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Joyce: Bobbidy-Bobbidy-Boo

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Two vastly different takes on a bit of Cinderella magic ease us from one theme into the next this week: Bobby McFerrin's totally deconstructed high-concept vocaljazz, which starts with almost a full minute of the original before kicking in all fragmented and scatlike, and Brazilian mononomic vocalist Joyce's jazzy, bouncy bossa nova, which - given the nonsensical lyric at the song's core - works out just fine for those of us who can't understand a lick of Portuguese. Both tracks originally came to me over at Covering The Mouse, a well-constructed, well-curated coverblog which features Disney covers exclusively. Viva la inscrutable!

Magic: I Can't Get Next To You

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….

Magic: Marie Laveau

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.

Magic: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis

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.

Magic: James

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...

Magic: The Grey Wizard Am I

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.

Magic: Crazy Man Michael

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.

Magic: Country Magic Edition

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.

Magic: Love Potion Number Nine

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.

Magic: I Walk On Gilded Splinters

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.

Magic: Hoochie Coochie Man

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”.

Call Me: Bananaphone

Raffi: Bananaphone

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Rhonda Vincent: Bananaphone

[purchase Country Goes Raffi - it's amazingly awesome!]


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.

Call Me: Hello Old Friend

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.

Call Me: Operator Edition

Bob Dylan & The Band: Long Distance Operator

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Jim Croce: Operator (That's Not the Way it Feels)

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Roman Reese: Come in Operator

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Bert's post got me thinking about the now obsolete job of the telephone operator.  Odds are that my daughter, who is now three months old will never have the experience of picking up a phone and simply dialing the switchboard operator for assistance with making a call.  Heck, I'm 32, and I don't think I've ever done it either.

My grandfather worked 30 years for AT&T.  When he started working for the phone company, the switchboard operator was an absolutely essential piece of the puzzle.  Now his great-granddaughter will likely have no idea the job ever existed.  Maybe he can tell her about it someday.

The first two songs here are fairly classic.  The third is a more recent track from former Knoxvillian (now in the DC area) Roman Reese about a more metaphorical phone call.  In it, the singer is sending up a prayer, and God is working the switchboard.

Call Me: Past to Present Edition

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."

Call Me: Call Me (Two Soulful Versions)

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."

Call Me: New York Telephone Conversation

Lou Reed: New York Telephone Conversation

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It seems that a lot of telephone talking (judging by what I overhear on the bus, anyway) deals with "who has" "who did" "...did not!" "...better not!", and all that same stripe of gossip.

It's disheartening.

Lou Reed nails that wearying, spot-on, during the set up of New York Telephone Conversation.

Getting woke up, and deciding whether to answer... is much easier now, what with caller ID, no?

Deciding to answer and finding out it is nothing important, just idle chatter and gossip. No more easier then than now, no?

But then Lou spins it. curing the emotional bend of too-much-talking into what every person who has been in love has ever wanted to hear:

"For I know this night will kill me if I can't be with you."

Call Me: Memphis, Tennessee

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.

Call Me: Hanging On The Telephone (x3)

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.

Call Me: Until We Die

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.

Call Me: Don't Answer The Phone

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!

Call Me: Telephone

Shelby Lynne: Telephone

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Sometimes it can be hard to end a relationship. You know it’s over, but you can’t quite take the action that would make it official, as if doing so would constitute a personal failure. At such a time, you might be tempted to call your former other at a time when you are fairly sure they won’t pick up. Then, you “tried”, and it’s not your fault. But be careful. Shelby Lynne tells what happens if they pick up anyway, and its not pretty. It is a beautifully rendered song though. Lynne’s seemingly calm delivery has just enough cracks to make this emotionally powerful.

Call Me: Under My Wheels

Alice Cooper: Under My Wheels

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Religions pray for a convert like me. Six months ago I was quite happy with my pre-paid, minimal-minutes phone plan...

Weird circumstance, twin'd with ability, decided that I ought own some Smart Phone...

Now I have trouble waking up without looking at the thing, first thing.

Mostly I use it as a consumer of information... Looking at news, blogs, etc.,... but sometimes I use it as a telephone. Sometimes I get incoming calls, too.

Which wierds me out.

Back when I was a kid, taking calls on our family line always made me nervous. I'd hear the phone down the hall ring... some short silence, then muffled voices. Soft steps getting louder. Knock on the door: "Matthew! Telephone!"

Who'd want to talk to me, I'd trepidate.

I'd have to lift the needle off whichever Cheap Trick or Alice Cooper record I was listening to.

Same way, nowadays, though the delivery is different... a buzzing in my pocket.

But with Caller ID!

Parody and Satire -> Call Me: Fountains Of Wayne Hotline

Robbie Fulks: Fountains of Wayne Hotline

[purchase]

Our transition song this week was released as a one-off single in 2005, making it a bit more recent than we usually go for. But it was supposedly recorded as a private joke a couple of years earlier and then shelved for a long while before fan pressure prompted its release, and the songcraft it parodies has certainly been around long enough to count.

Full disclosure: I love Fountains of Wayne, especially 2003 hit record Welcome Interstate Managers, which is the same disc which Fulks and his band were listening to during the time they recorded this song in their friend's garage. [Ed: read more about the backstory here.] But Robbie Fulks' total breakdown of their formulaic approach to music is funny as hell, and a worthy addition to a vast and far-too-often underrated catalog which includes both the serious electro-pop satire of 2001 fave Real Money and such faux-country singalong love song hilarity as The Scrapple Song.

I have to admit, I'm not sure if this song is as funny if you haven't had college level courses in music theory. But let's give it a try, shall we?

Parody and Satire: Take a Look Around Mrs. Brown

Jeremy Spencer: Take a Look Around Mrs. Brown

[out of print]

I've mentioned this song before, but thanks to this weeks' theme, you can finally hear it.

Jeremy Spencer released his first solo album in 1970, while still a member of Fleetwood Mac. All of his bandmates played on it, and it's possible it was recorded to make up for the fact that Spencer didn't play at all on the Mac's then-recent Then Play On album.

It's basically a collection of rock'n'roll pastiches and send ups of Elvis, the Beach Boys, "heavy" blues, and more. "Take a Look Around Mrs. Brown" spoofs psychedelic rock, and after a dodgy start, it's spot-on.

Spencer was never much of a songwriter. His early contributions to Fleetwood Mac albums were largely Elmore James impersonations. When founder Peter Green left the band, Spencer and fellow singer/guitarist Danny Kirwin had to pick up the slack for Kiln House, and Jeremy's attempts at real songwriting are particularly weak. But his ability to mimic a variety of genres was always spot on.

Parody and Satire: Yuppies in the Sky

Tom Paxton: Yuppies in the Sky

[purchase]

In the 1960s, there were hippies. The 1980s had yuppies. It stands for Young Upwardly-mobile Professionals, and I was never clear on why it wasn’t yumpies. The idea was that the youth of that period were obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth, and with showing that wealth off with their conspicuous consumption. Yuppies would sport the latest technology, and would dress in a way that suggested they had attended ivy league schools. The mind set is still very much with us today, but the term has all but disappeared. Tom Paxton satirized the yuppies perfectly in Yuppies in the Sky, and the song also qualifies as a parody, since it is based on Ghost Riders in the Sky.

Parody and Satire: A Simple Desultory Philippic

Simon & Garfunkel: A Simple Desultory Philippic

Paul Simon: A Simple Desultory Philippic (Original Acoustic Version)

Purchase

Purchase original version

A Simple Desultory Philippic is a hilarious parody of the 60's and, more specifically, of Bob Dylan and his fans. Of this song, Paul Simon said, "This is, of course, a take-off, a take-on, a private joke, but no joke is all that private or any less serious for being a joke."

Dylan and his fans are most scathingly mocked in the middle section when Simon sings, in an obvious Dylan-esq whine, about a man who's "so unhip, when you say 'Dylan' he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture. But it's alright, Ma, everybody must get stoned!"

I think Simon keeps the parody at a humorous, as opposed to a personal or hurtful, level when he includes his own work in the list of things that he's sick of. "Been Roy Halee'd and Art Garfunkel'd."

Listen to the original version for alternate lyrics and a more mockingly authentic Dylan guitar riff.

Parody and Satire: Filk Songs

The Brobdingnagian Bards: If I Had 1,000,000 Ducats

[purchase]

John Anealio: Angels & Vampires

[purchase]

Filk Music is an eclectic genre based on that section of the bookstore which seems to think that fantasy and Sci-Fi are a single type of literature, and on those who ground their identity within the bookworlds which spring from those aisles. Its songs are not always parody songs by strict definition, and not always of the silly sort, but they fit the mold for the most part, in that they use the folk and bardic traditions to match existing melodies and songstyles with lyrics which tell of fantasy/scifi settings and, quite often, the particular worlds of a particular author or series. And though the internet has changed the anthropological ground for the filk song, spreading the songs farther than the late-night convention hallway circles where they were born, their lyrics and trope retain their casual, in-crowd nature.

For those who browse outside the SciFi/Fantasy shelves, and think of folk music as a narrow band of solo singer-songwriters with cheesy guitars, Filk may seem small indeed. To prove otherwise, today we bring you the filksongs of two very different musical acts: The Brobdingnagian Bards, my favorite pair of silly Celtic-slash-Renaissance Fair parodists, and Sci Fi Songwriter John Anealio, who doesn't actually self-define as filk, but tends towards electric poprock instrumentation and poignant community self-reflection much like the technologically-aware pop of Jonathan Coulton. Both are professional musicians, proving that there is a real market for this music even as the vast majority of filksong continues to come from amateurs in the community. And yes, both have written at least one song about Star Wars - though I think today's songs better represent the breadth of the genre in general.

Parody and Satire: My Old Flame

Spike Jones and His City Slickers: My Old Flame

[purchase]

I hope everyone knows who Spike Jones was. I grew up listening to his music, which, along with Tom Lehrer, was the closest we got to kid’s music in my house. But I realize that other people may have been raised differently. Spike Jones was a band leader in the 1940s and fifties who specialized in parodies of popular songs. My Old Flame is a perfect example of his method. For one verse and one chorus, Jones plays it straight, giving the listener a taste of what the original song sounded like. But then, all heck breaks loose. The music changes abruptly to a sort of mutant Dixieland. And the lyrics go completely off the rails, to humorous effect. Here, a mock Peter Lorre takes over the vocals, and he has trouble containing his unusual urges. This one turns up sometimes on Halloween compilations, so it seemed appropriate. I should note that Spike Jones’ songs may seem like simple novelty numbers, and it is easy to dismiss them as such, but there is actually a high degree of musicianship involved.

Incidentally, the image above is the cover of the album as we had it when I was growing up. However, following the purchase link will take you to an album with a different title and cover; it is the same album repackaged.

Discoveries: Not Pretty Enough

Kasey Chambers: Not Pretty Enough

[purchase]

I've told this story a hundred times over.  I've told it on my own site more than once.  I even got the chance to tell Kasey Chambers this story in person backstage at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville in August of last year.

Still... for this week... for this theme... I feel the need to tell it again.  It's not just the story of how I discovered Australian songbird Kasey Chambers, it's also the story of how I came to discover Americana music in general, start working as an Americana DJ, start writing an Americana blog, and generally become obsessed the genre in general.

Here's what I wrote on my site back in September of 2008.

In the spring of 2002, I was working as a Graduate Assistant at Morehead State Public Radio in Morehead, Kentucky. I mostly worked in the newsroom writing news and sports copy and anchoring the occasional newscast. On Friday nights, it was my job to sit in the broadcast studio and make sure nothing went wrong while we aired a few nationally syndicated music programs. Essentially, I would introduce a program, do nothing for an hour, and then introduce the next program.

I spent most of those Friday nights chatting with friends on line, making fantasy baseball trades, or just reading and doing classwork. Every so often, however, I would actually listen to the shows I was airing. One night, on a show called E-Town, I heard the voice of an Australian country singer named Kasey Chambers. The down under twang in her voice was unlike anything I had ever heard before. I wasn't sure what I was hearing... but I knew I liked it.

The next week, I asked the music director at the station if he had ever heard of this Kasey Chambers person. He started raving about this thing called "Americana Music" and how great it was and how great Kasey Chambers was, and he gave me a copy of her CD, Barricades and Brickwalls that had just been released in the U.S. I still wasn't sure what this Americana thing was he kept talking about, but I took the CD home for a listen. I had no idea at the time what that CD would lead me to.

I pushed play and was immediately met with the ominous guitar riff of the title track followed by Kasey's distinctive vocal twang. I was immediately hooked. The song itself is a meditation on obsession. Kasey runs through a laundry list of things that have been placed between her and the object of her desires. Barricades and brickwalls, iron bars and big ol' cars, locked doors, screaming and shouting... nothing will hold her back. In the chorus, she makes her intentions clear by declaring, "I'll be damned if you're not my man before the sun goes down."

The rocking title track is followed by the softer "Not Pretty Enough" (the song that got my attention from the E-Town broadcast) and continues to mix ballads like "On a Bad Day" and "Nullarbor Song" with country weepers like "A Little Bit Lonesome" and "Still Feeling Blue" and alt-country blueprints like "Runaway Train" and "If I Were You."

Each time I listened to the disc and read through the liner notes, I heard something different and discovered something new. The album became my gateway drug into Americana music. It was my introduction to Buddy Miller, who provided backing vocals on "Runaway Train." I heard Lucinda Williams for the first time on "On a Bad Day." The album also introduced me to Gram Parsons with Kasey's cover of Parsons' "Still Feeling Blue."

Not long after I fell in love with the album, I discovered that Kasey would be appearing at a taping of The Mountain Stage just a few hours up the road in Charleston, West Virginia. Of course, I wanted to go see the show. I didn't even care that I also had to sit through listing to four other artists who I had never heard of. Of course... those artists turned out to be Laura Cantrell, Dar Williams, James McMurtry, and Rodney Crowell with Kenny Vaughn.

Holy Cow! How could one artist and one album expose me to so many other artists who would all become such staples of my music collection just a few short years later? I don't know... but Kasey Chambers did it.

I first heard Kasey Chambers and Barricades and Brickwalls in the early months of 2002. That summer, I began hosting Morehead State Public Radio's nightly Americana program one night a week. The story goes on from there. Who knows what might have happened to me and my musical tastes without this album?

Discoveries: You're Aging Well

Joan Baez with Dar Williams: You're Aging Well

[purchase]


Dar Williams: You're Aging Well

[purchase]


I am the coordinator/booker for my UU church concert series in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (this is my sixth year)... and last Saturday night was beyond special for me - here follows my introduction of that evening's headliner, which speaks for itself regarding my discovery:

Everyone who knows me realizes I am not a 25-words-or-less woman and, given my love for the music and spirit of tonight's performer, I could easily wax poetic and forever – tonight... I promise brevity!

We all have those epiphany moments... when the metaphorical light bulb goes off over our heads and our lives are forever changed – mine occurred when I bought Joan Baez's Ring Them Bells CD in 1995 and listened to Joan duet with a then-unknown-to-me songwriter, who taught me that aging well was not an oxymoron. That song led me on a stepping-stone journey into the world of contemporary folk: involvement with my local folk community, making and meeting friends through music discussion lists, crossing state lines for shows and festivals, hosting house concerts in my living room... and these days presenting the Labyrinth Cafe. Tonight is a blessing and a joy and an honor... as well as a personal and professional dream-come-true – finally... the six words I've waited 15 years to say: Please help me welcome... Dar Williams!

[ The picture above is of the Barnes & Noble in Plantation, Florida, which was where I bought Joan Baez's CD when it was first released - I now have a B&N about 3 miles down the road, but at the time, this was the closest... and I had to drive 30 minutes to get my music fix! ]

Discoveries: A Sinful Life

Timbuk 3: A Sinful Life

[purchase]

I was in middle school, a loser and a loner; my best friend that year was a kid who lived down the street, a year older and just as socially maladjusted - but his home life was better, so we always went there after school. PJ was into a particular sort of eighties drum-machine-driven echo-harmony new wave music: he introduced me to The Thompson Twins, Everyone But The Girl, and Wang Chung, too, though I seem to remember that Howard Jones was all mine. And when this song and album came to me, it was my first step as an audiophile from mood to songwriting, and one of the first moments in my life that my attention shifted from song-at-a-time to LP and catalog.

Oh, sure, I must have heard The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades on the radio that first year, though truly, I was 13, and my tastes were running more towards even cheesier popsongs that year. But I didn't really discover one-hit wonders Timbuk 3 until their sophomore album, Eden Alley, which PJ brought to my attention when it emerged the following year... and though by then Timbuk 3 was already fading from public view, it was this album that stuck, a perfect collection that held and still holds together track by track, falling into place in my ears somewhere between Suzanne Vega and The Boomtown Rats.

Today, PJ is a reluctant lawyer, playing a couple times a month at a local open mics, hoping ever-after to make it as a musician so he can leave the legal life behind. He's moved on from that suburban house which you can see above, angled to show it as it always looked as I approached it, from my own home from down the street. But his own songwriting echoes those 80s bands more than most folksong, most especially in its quirky intellectualism, polysyllabic meter and rhyme, bittersweet cynical worldview, and tongue-in-cheek, high-metaphoric, commonground concreteness. And hearing Timbuk 3's slower, folkier side, which crops up on this album here and there, is a key indicator of where that sensibility came from.

Oh, and full disclosure: I have a co-write credit on one of the songs on PJ's long-shelved debut album I Know What You're Made Of, which you can check out and purchase here.

Discoveries: Cold Wind to Valhalla

Jethro Tull: Cold Wind to Valhalla

[purchase]

If you have read a number of my posts, you know that I grew up listening to FM radio in the 1970s. If you remember those days, you may want to know how I can call Jethro Tull a discovery. Isn’t that like saying you discovered breathing? And why didn’t you post Aqualung? Surely that was the first Jethro Tull you heard? Indeed it was. Let me explain.

This week, we have seen that there are a number of ways to discover music. A song can follow you around. You can read about it in a newspaper or magazine. You can win tickets to a show. Or a friend can make introductions. In my life, there was another route to musical discovery, a big one. I married it. If you care deeply about music, you are going to marry someone who does too, at least to some extent. Or so it was for me. When we decided to join our lives together, we also joined together our record collections. Now I had heard Aqualung long before, as I mentioned. I didn’t like it. I dismissed the song as hard rock, and I never bothered to find out what else Jethro Tull might have done. But my wife did before we met. As she learned my musical taste, she began to insist that I had to hear their albums Songs From the Wood and Minstrel in the Gallery. Finally, I did, and I was amazed. The lyrics, while not strictly authentic, were steeped in the mythology and folklore of the British Isles. And the music took the ideas of folk-rock as pioneered by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, and took them to the next level.

Cold Wind to Valhalla starts as a folk piece, and then turns electric. But notice how the electric guitar is mirrored by a fiddle. It sounds kind of hard-rockish, but there is more to it than that. Cold Wind is on Minstrel in the Gallery, and musically, it is the perfect bridge from what I thought I knew about Jethro Tull to what I discovered.

Incidentally, the image I have chosen for this post is obviously an album cover, but it’s an odd shape. That’s a cassette cover. To this day, we only have Minstrel and Songs on cassette. Luckily, we still have something that will play them.

Discoveries: Rid of Me

PJ Harvey: Rid Of Me

[Purchase]

I have a confession...

I don't have a time line of discovery and growth like many of you. Since I was old enough to sing along with music I've liked the same thing...catchy pop or rock songs, preferably with female vocals. I often am frustrated with myself because I can't seem to go the extra length to give the same effort to finding good new music with male vocals as I do to the ladies. I try to quell my frustration over this by remembering that there's a lot of people that are the opposite of me, that discount musicians because they ARE female, and therefore it's good to have a few people like me around to even the score. As it is, when I visit blogs I often will scroll through and pause the longest for those with band photos with women in them. I've even found some male vocal bands simply because there's a female in their band and therefore I gave them a try...sad, I know, but when there's as much new music out there on the internet as there is these days, you find whatever ways you can to narrow down the search for something you'll enjoy. And hey, maybe that's just my thing, and everyone has their thing.

There was a time when I didn't even realize this about myself. It took a male acquaintance in high school to bring it to my attention. It's senior year, the seniors have a lounge area to themselves where they can spend their free periods, otherwise known as study halls, and I have my CD folder out and am paging through. The guy asks to look at it. He pages through at it and says "so you only listen to girls?" and I am surprised, why would he say that? And he continues "every CD in here is by a woman". I seriously hadn't noticed. So he says he only has one female artist in his collection but that she's amazing because no other female artist he's heard has the seething power he likes (his favorite band was The Jesus Lizard) as this lady and asks if I've heard of her, it's someone named PJ Harvey. I hadn't. So he gave me his headphones and played me a song. At the time I wasn't sure what to think, I hadn't heard anything like it before. It took me a few years to finally get one of her CDs, and then another, and another...you get the idea. This was the song he played me.

Discoveries: Empty Pages

Traffic: Empty Pages

Purchase:

I hope FiL doesn't mind me copying his flow chart - a good idea is a good idea, so here's mine:

Bee Gees / Elton John > The Clash / The Specials > Dylan & the 1970's > Everything Else

Each of these periods has discovery moments that I could write about and talk about for hours. For this post I'm going to focus on the third phase of my musical development. I was introduced to the music of the late 1960's and early 1970's when I was a freshman in college. I had been steeped in all things punk, post-punk, and new wave for the previous several years, and it was time for a change. The music scene was getting stale as the edge wore off of bands like The Cure and R.E.M. and other bands like The Smiths simply broke up.

At this time a couple of us took a road trip to Salt Lake City to visit a friend who had previously lived in my hometown of Fresno, California. While we stayed at this friend's house we got to know his incredibly cool father. I couldn't believe a dad could be like this! He watched the best movies, he listened to great music, and he had an excellent and decidedly irreverent sense of humor. He may not have been the best dad in the traditional sense, but he sure was fun to hang out with.

At one point during our visit my friend's father gave us a cassette tape of Traffic's album, John Barleycorn Must Die. As we drove north on I-15, at almost exactly the point pictured above, we slid the cassette into the car stereo.

Most everyone reading this is familiar with the feeling that you occasionally (rarely, actually) get when you hear new music: Oh man, this is good. I'm going to want to pursue this!

That's the feeling I got when I heard track one of John Barleycorn. I purchased the album the moment I returned home. This album led me to Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, The Who, and eventually to our blog-mother Joni Mitchell. I spent the next several years listening to music produced from about 1968 to about 1974. John Barleycorn was a deep vein that paid dividends for years to come.

Discoveries: Hungry, So Angry

Medium Medium: Hungry, So Angry

[purchase]

I haven’t listened to the radio in quite some time. Do they still have those contests where the seventh caller wins a prize? In the 1980s, I listened to college radio, courtesy of WPRB out of Princeton University. In those days, they played a lot of punk, which I didn’t like and still don’t. But they also played some new wave that was strange enough that even MTV wouldn’t touch it. (For our younger readers, yes there was a time when MTV was all music videos, and they played things commercial radio tried to ignore.) Anyway, WPRB had those give-aways I mentioned, and usually the prize was an album or tickets to a show. They started playing this song by a band no one had ever heard of, Medium Medium, The song was Hungry, So Angry, and I loved it. Looking back at it, I can describe it as a funk song with new wave style vocals and a dissonant sax part. At the time, I just knew that it really cooked. So, one day the DJ had a contest. The prize was Medium Medium’s album, but there was a catch. To claim the prize, there was also a show ticket, and you had to go to the show to get the album. The show was at City Gardens in Trenton, and that is the beautiful structure you see above. City Gardens was a converted warehouse on the outskirts of the city, and it was known to attract a bad element. Also, I only knew one song by the band. Did the rest of their songs suck? I had been burned that way before. Still, free is free, so, with more than a little anxiety, I went. And you know what? It was great! The energy that I so loved on the record was all there in person. The band had incredible energy, and the rest of their songs were just as good as this one. And I went to a show in big scary Trenton, and nothing happened to me. After that, I became a regular there whenever they had a new wave show.

Epilogue: I have no idea what became of Medium Medium. The album was called The Glitterhouse, and the purchase link above will take you to that same album, but it has been repackaged and retitled Hungry, So Angry. City Gardens lasted a number of years after that, but it is gone now. But this song is available, so I can’t be the only one who remembers it. And it still sounds as good to me now as it did then.

Discoveries: Starship Trooper

Yes: Starship Trooper

[purchase]

Let me give you an abbreviated history of my teenage musical obsessions:

The Beatles -> Heavy Metal -> Prog Rock -> Everything Else

For this post, I'm going to feature the third element in this flowchart. It was 1986, and I was a freshman at Rutgers. I had been deep into heavy metal for the past two years, but college was already expanding my musical horizons. One of my dorm mates was, like me, not really part of the "in" crowd. And like me, he was very into his music. However, while I was banging away to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, he was deep into ELP and Yes. We both influenced each other musically, but i definitely got the better part of that deal. For while ELP have not aged particularly well, Yes has become one of those groups I always find myself going back to, like visiting an old friend.

And I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Yes: I was laying on the floor of his dorm room--possibly in a bean bag chair--with headphones on, listening to The Yes Album, bathed in the warm sunlight shining through the dorm room windows. No mood-altering drugs were involved, yet it all seemed so...blissful.

Fragile, Yessongs, and the then-recent 9021Live: The Solos soon followed, and I was hooked. I got my hands on every Yes album I could, then expanded into ELP, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and King Crimson. And they led to the whole pantheon of "classic rock" and jazz artists that made up the bulk of my listening time in college. It really wasn't until the end of my college stay that I started getting interested in more contemporary music.

But so much contemporary music is "hear" today, gone tomorrow. A song like "Starship Trooper" I could listen to forever.

The photo accompanying this post is a shot of my dorm room circa '86-67. Hard to believe but at the time, those cassettes you see there were my entire music collection. Oh, how times have changed!

Discoveries: Lovers in a Dangerous Time

Bruce Cockburn: Lovers in a Dangerous Time

[purchase]

I always wanted to be a writer. My mother was a reporter for a local newspaper, and she always told us what a chore it was to write up the meetings she had to cover. But she would sometimes get a feature assignment, and then her eyes would light up, and we would hear all about what she was working on. My father was not that interested in writing. His thing was making things work. We were the last family in the universe to own a working black-and-white TV, and that was my father’s doing. He also liked to get numbers to do his bidding, and he dreamed of me becoming a mathematician. But he ruined that, and he was the one who inspired me to write. That’s because my father expressed his love for me by sharing stories. He made sure I read all 14 of L Frank Baum’s Oz books, and he introduced me to the Andrew Lang fairy tale collections. So I took to writing science fiction and horror stories.

Of course, I also grew up surrounded by music. So most of my nonfiction reading was about music. I was lucky to have access to some of the best music writers, including Robert Palmer in the New York Times, and Timothy White and others in Musician magazine. And I always read the reviews. So, I remember reading about a musician from Canada who was new to me. Palmer wrote about how Bruce Cockburn had spent time in Nicaragua living among the Sandinistas, and had written an album about it. And then I saw the review in Musician, and I knew I wanted the album. Stealing Fire opened with Lovers in a Dangerous Time, and I knew my sources had led me to something good.

Putting all of this together, I realized that I was on a path back then whose nature I did not fully realize at the time. I was on my way to becoming a music writer myself. I don’t know if I will ever be as good as Robert Palmer or Timothy White, but that is what I strive for in my writings here and on Oliver di Place.

Pipes and Woodwinds -> Discoveries: So Flute

St. Germain: So Flute

[purchase]

For our new theme this week, we'll be sharing discovery stories - those tales of sudden connection, when a new artist or song arrives in your ears so strongly that the moment becomes fixed in your memory. Sharing those few defining moments in the development of an audiophile's development should prove to be a great way to glimpse into the minds and souls of our little band of bloggers, and expect it's going to be an interesting week.

I shared this particular story last year, but it bears repeating - and not just to introduce a song that has turned out to be the greatest road trip soundtrack-starter ever.

My first trip to Amsterdam was as an adult, in March of 2000; my wife had just miscarried after several years of earnest attempts at bearing a first child, and although the doctor advised against flying, we really needed to get away from it all. I have fond if somewhat inevitably hazy memories of a week museum-hopping and roaming the castles and small rustic villages of the countryside, sitting by the side of canals eating bread, cheese, and salami -- about all we could afford on my teacher's salary.

But my strongest memories from that week are of St. Germain's Tourist, an album whose jazz-informed rhythms, jazz-club instrumentation, and long, trance-inducing tracks emanated from what seemed at the time like every coffeeshop and bar, providing the perfect atmospheric soundtrack to what otherwise could have fast become an insular and morose period in our lives. I bought the disc at overseas prices -- a comparative fortune, back then -- and have kept it with me ever since. Rose Rouge is one of the shorter pieces on the album, but it really blows away the blues, even now.

...and so does So Flute, come to think of it.

Pipes and Woodwinds: Behind Blue Eyes

The Chieftains with Roger Daltrey: Behind Blue Eyes

[purchase]

To finish out my posts for this week’s theme, I wanted a song that had both pipes and woodwinds. For that, I knew I would need The Chieftains. The Chieftains began life as an Irish traditional band, one of the best. But, in 1991, they were looking to make a live album, and leader Paddy Maloney wanted to do something to make it special. So he invited Roger Daltry of The Who and Nanci Griffith to participate. It was a decision that would turn out to be very important to The Chieftains. Since then, most of their albums have included collaborations with artists who wouldn’t normally be thought of as traditional artists of any sort. In the process, The Chieftains have made fascinating connections between their music and those of their guests. It doesn’t always work, but the results are never dull. With Daltrey and Griffith, it did work beautifully.

Behind Blue Eyes, as rendered here, shows that Roger Daltrey could have been an Irish ballad singer in another life. The woodwind here is Matt Molloy’s flute. The pipe is the Irish version of the bagpipe, the uilleann pipes. It is played by Paddy Moloney.

Pipes and Woodwinds: Roland Kirk Edition

Roland Kirk: Mingus-Griff Song

Roland Kirk: Mood Indigo

[purchase]

Rahsaan Roland Kirk was a one-man woodwind section. He could play three reeds simultaneously, and then go right into a flute solo (as he does on Ellington's "Mood Indigo"). He also modified his horns to produce unique instruments like the manzello and the stritch. and he was fond of throwing a siren into the mix whenever the mood struck.

He was often seen as a novelty act by the jazz purists of the day, but eventually came to be recognized as one of the truly unique voices in the genre. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson nicked a fair bit of his flute style from Kirk, and they even recorded a cover of his "Serenade to a Cuckoo" on their first album.

The two songs I'm sharing in this post originally came from the live album Kirk in Copenhagen, recorded in October 1963 and released the following year (predating is adoption of the "Raahsan" moniker). Years later, the tracks were reissued as part of a mammoth 11-CD boxed set that included a much-expanded version of the Copenhagen album with the songs resequenced in proper order, putting these two tracks back-to-back. Not only do they make for a nice contrast in tempos, but at the end of the "Mingus-Griff Song" track, he explains how he will play "Mood Indigo" with the three reeds simultaneously playing different parts of the original arrangement. It's worth stating explicitly that Kirk is the only horn player on these tracks. Kids, don't try this at home!

Pipes and Woodwinds: Clarinet Connections

Brave Old World: Brave Old Sirbas

[purchase]

One of the pleasures of this week‘s theme for me is the chance to present some klezmer music here. Some readers at this point may be going “aha!!” But probably more of you are wondering what I‘m talking about. Klezmer is Jewish celebration music that Jewish immigrants brought with them from eastern Europe to the United States in roughly the period from 1890-1920. This music often featured the clarinet, and it reached its peak in the 1920s, with clarinetist David Tarras leading the way. And then, klezmer disappeared.

Fifty years later, a group of Jewish-American musicians seeking their roots began to discover old klezmer recordings from the 20s, and klezmer was reborn. Brave Old World were a group that was in the thick of this revival. Brave Old Sirbas is a fine example of the sound of klezmer clarinet. I presented a fuller discussion of klezmer music last year on my blog, Oliver di Place. The songs are no longer up, but you can read that here.

Benny Goodman: Puttin‘ on the Ritz

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So klezmer may be new to you, but I’m sure that you have heard of Benny Goodman. In discussions of Goodman’s music, not much is usually made of his Jewish background. But Goodman apparently received his first musical training in 1919 at the Kehelah Jacob Synagogue, so I think that it is not too much of a stretch to say that he must have heard klezmer music as a boy. I can hear the influence in his playing, although he was also obviously influenced by the sounds of early jazz that were coming from New Orleans. Still, the connection is there. Goodman is, of course, best known for his big band recordings, but I have chosen a trio recording to better focus on his clarinet playing. It may well be fair to say that the klezmer revival musicians, many of whom started out playing jazz, were also influenced by Benny Goodman.