The Plant Kingdom: Sugar Magnolia

Grateful Dead: Sugar Magnolia
[purchase Europe '72 version]

I grew up in a house with 2 magnolia trees in the yard. One was a venerable tree with a diameter (not circumference) close to 3 feet and a height nearing 50 feet – beautiful, huge white flowers. The other was a third-the-size, pink-flowered tree, and we knew it as a “Japanese” magnolia. Among other specimens of the plantae phylum in that same garden were numerous fig, plum, chestnut, walnut, linden, bay and pine trees (it was a large property in a rather exotic location)

However- more to the point I intended to focus on- there are several Grateful Dead songs that reference plants, among them: China Cat Sunflower, Ramble on Rose, Scarlet Begonias … Further, the Internet Archive (bless their hearts/support them if you can) continues to offer up legally-free live recordings of Grateful Dead music.

My choice here: Sugar Magnolia, has more than one reference to plants. The lyrics include the words “willows”, “rushes”, “tall trees”, “pines”, “roses” ….all related to this week’s focus: Plant Kingdom.  Your interpretation of what the Grateful Dead meant by their lyrics is up to you: “we can have high times ..”

Not for naught, the Dead’s Europe ‘72 album offers up perhaps the best version of Sugar Magnolia, but it is no longer available at archive.org. The Internet Archive, however, does offer many (many) alternate versions – all free for the taking. The one above was recorded considerably later than the ‘72 album release date, but it seems to have both the best sound quality as well as the best musical/band coherence of the many versions you can download from the above resource.

After the fact, I see that Ramone666 posted a version of this way back in 2008, but the mp3 appears to no longer be accessible, so maybe my post will bring it back to life/water the plant once again.

The Plant Kingdom: Rose Garden

Lynn Anderson: Rose Garden

[purchase]

"Rose Garden" (as in I beg your pardon, I never promised you one) was originally a man's song. Joe South wrote it and sang it on his landmark album Introspect. But Lynn Anderson had the smash hit with it, and transformed into a standard for female country singers. Shortly after Anderson was elevated from tiny Chart Records to the behemoth Columbia label in 1969, she started lobbying her producer -- who was also her husband -- to let her record "Rose Garden." Nope, said Glenn Sutton, that's a male lyric, and he had her record something more fitting -- "Stay There 'Til I Get There" -- instead. Anderson kept at Sutton, and eventually he acquiesced. "The reason they objected to my recording it was the line, 'I could promise you things like big diamond rings,'" says Anderson in Tom Roland's Number One Country Hits. "It was not a line a woman would say to a man, therefore it could not be a female vocal on the song."

Although "Rose Garden" featured the overlush string arrangements that typified "countrypolitan" records of the era, producer Sutton added a country shuffle beat and a distinctive steel guitar lick, lifted straight from ska music. Label chief Clive Davis heard the take and ordered it up as Anderson's next single. It became an enduring country hit, notching five weeks at #1 on the Billboard country charts, as well as a long run on the pop music charts. "Rose Garden" has been covered numerous times -- almost always by women. So much for it not being appropriate for "female vocals." Anderson's vocals, as well as a bit of the theme from "The Magnificent Seven," were prominently sampled on Kon Kan's 1989 hit, "I Beg Your Pardon."

The Plant Kingdom: Cedars and the Pines

Rick Jamison: Cedars and the Pines

[purchase]

California bluegrass musician Rick Jamison isn't compelled to constrain his contemporary offerings to only the genre’s more traditional stylings. Rather, he incorporates melodies, tempos and chords that work well with his folksy and amiable voice. It’s kind of nice to hear the II, VII and various minor chords along with the I, IV, and V progressions that more typically characterize bluegrass. The senior writer and editor with a Silicon Valley software company also knows how to work the lyrics in a song to convey emotional messages and feelings. Jamison released an album per year during 2003-2005, and he seized the moment to give us an hour's worth of originals on his latest called The Magic Hour. It’s a musical gift to us.

Jamison is also a painter. Much like the variety of colors used on his canvas, his original material is eclectic and covers many moods from traditional-sounding to contemporary. Rick Jamison plays guitar and sings most lead vocals. His collaborators with California connections included Dave Richardson (banjo), Erik Thomas (mandolin), Megan Lynch (fiddle), Rob Ickes (Dobro), and Cindy Browne (bass).

Jamison’s The Magic Hour album closes with "Cedars and the Pines." If you like your bluegrass with some folk flavorings, you'll enjoy Rick’s tales and the pictures he paints with his lyrics and melodies. His songs like “Cedars and the Pines” are every bit as vivid and impressionistic as Jamison's oil on canvas (Where the Mountains Meet the Sky) that graces the inside of the CD jacket. He mentions that specific location in the song -- a place that feels like home, out among the trees, where life is good, and where one is free.

The Plant Kingdom: Crimson and Clover

Tommy James and the Shondells: Crimson and Clover

[purchase]

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts: Crimson and Clover

[purchase]

Dolly Parton: Crimson and Clover

[purchase]

Jarvis Cocker: Black Magic (Crimson and Clover)

[purchase]

We can call this a title in search of a song. Or maybe a singles artist in search of an album audience. Tommy James has said that this title came to him before the 1968 song itself—crimson was his favorite color, and the clover blossom his favorite flower. I'm sharing the expanded 1969 album version, with a bit of dissonance where they tried to merge new guitar solos with previously recorded vocals.

To me, this song screams late 60s pop-rock, with its tremolo'd guitar and vocals (like Autotune will remind our children of their youth in some distant future). Well, to me it also screams junior high school, which is where I was when it was released, but it may have hit you in different times of your life. Or else you might have heard one of its many hit covers, like the 1981 version by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (who keeps the "she/her" of the original, giving it an interesting twist unusual in the early 80s). Dolly Parton's 2005 take on it features Tommy James himself on vocals. Her version also mimics that tremolo with the banjo accompaniment, clever girl! Man, I love how Dolly is never afraid to tackle any genre. Even Jarvis Cocker, the vocalist of Pulp, did a Britpop song in 2006 heavily based on its riff and vocal chorus. Bet he paid royalties, is how I judge it.

Over and over and over and over and …

…what exactly is a Shondell, anyway?

The Plant Kingdom: Homegrown Tomatoes

Guy Clark Homegrown Tomatoes

[purchase]

Where we live, Mother's Day weekend generally marks the first safe weekend for planting vegetables. Tomatoes are our cash crop. We are a Best Boy family, though we always try to mix in a couple other hybrids. Not being particularly sophisticated growers, we choose the additional plants based on how closely their names correspond to our own personal aspirations: Valiant. Celebrity. Jet Star. Early Girl. Beefy Boy. Globemaster! We may not get there, but maybe our tomatoes will.

Invariably, sometime during our weekend of planting, we play Guy Clark's "Homegrown Tomatoes." We hope Clark's rationale for writing the song will help us. He told No Depression magazine: "'Homegrown Tomatoes' came out because I was sitting there watching my tomato plants grow and I thought, 'These guys need a song.' Music is supposed to make plants grow."

The Plant Kingdom: Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree

The Coleman Hawkins Quartet: Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree
[purchase]

Swing.  A simple enough word; evocative, though perhaps overused.  Still, sometimes the obvious is the only appropriate destination and this track is a case in point.  Hawk and his band wind up and let loose with glee, turning a twee old Andrews Sisters ditty into something somehow other. And while apple trees are as far removed from smoky New Jersey studios as one could possibly imagine, the fit is natural: the tenor sax locates the lasciviousness of the missing lyric, winks knowingly and invites us to join it in the shade of the titular tree.

And of course there is a something so apropos in the tension between the urbanity of East Coast Jazz and the natural world.  It's what makes Swing and Hard Bop so perfect on a hot summer day, within the city or without.  Perhaps it's the joie de vivre, perhaps the sheer abandon of the improvisation, but this summer, when I sit under the apple tree, shut my eyes and allow the sea air to wash over me and clean away all the stress and knots of the year gone by, I know what the soundtrack will be.

The Plant Kingdom : Under The Silent Tree

Honeybus : Under The Silent Tree

[Purchase]

Along with Badfinger, Marmalade and The Move, Honeybus recorded albums full of perfect pop songs and brilliant Beatlesque harmonies. They had one big hit in the UK, 1968's "I Can't Let Maggie Go", but when lead singer and songwriter Pete Dello refused to tour the US, the tires on the Honeybus all went flat.

   If you like "Under The Silent Tree" keep searching. Honeybus deserves all the buzz it can get

The Plant Kingdom: Grassy Grass Grass

Woody & Arlo Guthrie: Grassy Grass Grass

[purchase]

We end our day with a pulsing trance from Woody Guthrie himself, with layers of eerie dreamflute, bells, and shaken percussion added years later by his son Arlo. The tiny kidfolk piece - a world-naming lullaby of elegant simplicity - was first released as a drum and voice duo on 1947 release Songs To Grow On For Mother and Child, thus fitting for the waning hours of Mother's Day.

The Plant Kingdom: Cherry Trees

Deb Talan: Cherry Trees

[purchase]

I wrote most of this entry wholesale back in 2009, for a different song entirely. But it bears repeating, in part because it reminds us how artists rise and fall: before she joined up with Steve Tannen to became half of indieblog darlings The Weepies, but after cutting her teeth on the music industry with an upbeat Oregon popband called Hummingfish, Deb Talan had a relatively low-key, small-scale career as a solo artist on the New England coffeehouse circuit. Her final solo effort from this period, 2001 live release Sincerely, reveals an artist on the cusp of full-formed musicianship -- still a bit unrefined, still a little repetitive -- but the potential for greatness is clearly there. You can hear it in the sweet longing of this favorite tune, the sheer pink-petaled simplicity of its central metaphor a perfect match for Talan's girlish, impish tones and self-doubting, self-aware tendencies.

The Plant Kingdom: Green Onions

Booker T. & the M.G.’s: Green Onions (Live)
[purchase]

I woke up early this morning to two pieces of news—first, that our theme for the week was “The Plant Kingdom,” and second, that Donald “Duck” Dunn, the bass player who was a member of Booker T. & the M.G.’s, had died. I naturally thought of posting “Green Onions.”

Then, I found out that Dunn joined the band after the song was released. On the other hand, having been a member since 1964, I have to assume that he played the song maybe a million times, so I decided to post it anyway. The version that I have attached is not the original studio version featuring Lewis Steinberg on bass, but a live version that I obtained off of a Stax label sampler that I downloaded a few years ago. Based on the length of the track, I’m pretty sure that it is originally from an album called Funky Broadway: Stax Revue Live At The 5/4 Ballroom from August, 1965, which appears to feature Dunn on bass.

Dunn was a legendary bass player, and he also was a songwriter and producer. In addition to being part of The M.G.’s, he was a Stax session musician and appeared on recordings with Muddy Waters, Freddie King, Albert King, Neil Young, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan. He played himself in The Blues Brothers movies, and was in the band.

Booker T. and the M.G’s was one of the first integrated rock bands, and was the originator of the Stax sound. Booker T. Jones sat in with the band on The Late Show with David Letterman last week, and his last two solo albums, Potato Hole, where the backup band was The Drive-By Truckers, with Neil Young adding guitar, and The Road from Memphis, recorded with members of The Roots along with guests including Lou Reed and Sharon Jones, are both excellent.

And to completely tie this up, after deciding to post this song, I had a bagel with scallion cream cheese for breakfast.

Eateries and Watering Holes: The Horseshoe

The Sadies: The Horseshoe

[purchase]

In 2006 Canadian filmmaker Ron Mann asked The Sadies to score his latest documentary about Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, a custom car builder and leader of the hot rod movement of the late 1950's/early 1960s. Tales of the Rat Fink was described by many critics as Mann's masterpiece. The film uses non-traditional documentary techniques such as animation and first person narration (Roth was voiced by John Goodman) to tell the story of Roth's car creations and hot rod life in Southern California. The Sadies scored the movie by bridging animation and photo segments with stylized surf-rock; Dick Dale is alive and well in this film.

All of the songs in this film score are intentionally short, as per the fast pace of the film. Many people/fans were disappointed that the songs on this album were not like full-length songs on The Sadies previous studio albums. But with 26 different surf-rock tunes in the context of a film score, I don't think that one can complain.

The Sadies weren't sure what to name the songs in the score, so they decided to name them after their favorite bars and music venues throughout North America. Track 9 "The Crocodile" is the name of a music venue in Seattle. Track 15 is "The Mohawk" in Austin, Texas. Track 23 "The 400" is in Minneapolis, etc.

The second track on the album is named for The Horseshoe Tavern, in The Sadies hometown of Toronto. The Sadies can almost be described as the "house band" for the Horseshoe as they play there several times a year, sometimes as the backing band for legendary performers, and have served as the New Years entertainment for the last 11 or 12 years. The Horseshoe itself has quite a legendary history, which you can read about on their website. Mostly importantly though, I spent many, many, many nights at the Horseshoe where I not only saw The Sadies live six or seven times (easily securing themselves as my favorite Canadian live band), but dozens of other killer local and nationally touring bands and artists. Not to mention drinking more than my share of Keith's. I miss that place.

I moved from Toronto to Boston in 2010. I notice that the Tales of the Rat Fink soundtrack has no songs named after a Boston venue. Feel bad for me.

Eateries and Watering Holes: Diner

Martin Sexton: Diner
[purchase]

I have to believe that most of us who write or read music blogs like this have a list of favorites who never succeeded to the level that we believe they deserve. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few—all of whom have had some commercial success, but in my mind, should have more: Richard Thompson, The Roches, Alejandro Escovedo and the subject of this quick post, Martin Sexton, to name just a few. I’ve already posted about Thompson and The Roches, so I guess Escovedo has to get his turn at some point.

Let’s get it right out there—I think that Martin Sexton is an incredible songwriter, an amazing guitarist and frighteningly talented singer. He is one of the best live performers I have ever seen. And yet, despite that, and rave critical reviews from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard and others, it seems like Sexton will never be a huge star. He was getting close to stardom when he released two albums, The American and Wonder Bar on a major label in 1998 and 2000, but his next release was a holiday CD on his own label, 5 years later, followed by sporadic independent releases, all of which have been worth listening to, but which have had limited impact. Of course, it is possible that Sexton is happy with the way his career has gone, and I hope so.

“Diner” is from his first full release, Black Sheep, from 1996, and it is a hoot—a tribute to those diners that look like train cars, and serve up delicious, hearty food to travelers all over the country. Even if you haven’t been to the exact diners that Sexton describes, you know exactly what he is talking about.

And he sings so fast.

Eateries and Watering Holes: Tom's Diner

Suzanne Vega: Tom’s Diner
[purchase]

Sitting at the counter unnoticed even by the man who pours her coffee, she watches the people with whom she is briefly sharing space.  The rain outside is pathetic fallacy writ large, but she's trying not to notice because to notice is to remember and if she wanted to do that she would not be distracting herself by watching the people as they come and go.  The lovers she pretends not to see aren't helping, but those who are unattached either die unremembered or are too wrapped-up in themselves to connect to anyone.  Cathedral bells make an announcement - a wedding perhaps, or just the march of time - and the floodgates open, if only for a moment.  Life, of course, continues on unabated and it's time to catch the train.

Forget the DNA remix: it missed the point.  A song this lonely can only truly be delivered sparse and unadorned.

Eateries and Watering Holes: The House of Blue Lights

Ella Mae Morse with Freddie Slack and his Orchestra: House of Blue Lights

[purchase]

"The House of Blue Lights" is a knocked-out shack at the edge of town, serving fryers, broilers, Detroit BBQ ribs and fine egg beats. I always assumed the House of Blue Lights was in Michigan. (Does anyone outside of Detroit boast about that city's brand of barbecue?) But, I can't find any evidence to suggest it was a real place, located anywhere in particular. If there is a House of Blue Lights, you'll want to spend the rest of your brights there. But, before you do, take a moment to think about the talents that created this rock/R&B/country-swing classic.

"Blue Lights" was first recorded by Ella Mae Morse with the Freddie Slack Orchestra. Slack, who wrote the tune with collaborator Don Raye (the lyricist of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"), rose to fame playing in a number of big bands in the '30s and '40s. In the late 1930s, during a stint with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Slack met Ella Mae Morse. She briefly sang with the Dorsey outfit, until Dorsey discovered she had exaggerated her age by several years. (Morse told him she was 19.)

Listen to the interplay between Morse and Raye at the start of "Blue Lights," and you'll hear why Morse was often mistakenly assumed to be black. "People used to tell me, 'I hope you don't take this the wrong way but you sing like a black girl,'" she said in an interview. "I'd wonder, what other way is there to take that than a great compliment?" Legend has it that, upon meeting Morse, Sammy Davis Jr. enthused, "Ella, baby, I thought you were one of us." Morse's views on race were remarkable given the time and place she came from. (Born in 1924, she grew up around Paris and Dallas, Texas.) Both her parents were musicians. The book All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music includes a typical Morse quote on race: "My parents didn't understand racism. They wanted no part of that, and I was brought up to believe in equality and acceptance of others."

Slack and Morse first teamed in 1942 and immediately scored a major hit, "Cow Cow Boogie," the first gold record on the fledgling Capitol label. Morse and Slack continued to work together throughout the 1940s, releasing a series of charting records. Morse briefly retired to raise her kids, while Slack struggled to stay afloat in the music business. He died at age 55 in 1965. Morse returned to recording in 1953, focusing on a wide range of jazz, pop and country material (including a memorable duet with Tennessee Ernie Ford, "I'm Hog-Tied Over You"). She continued to perform around the L.A. area, including frequent appearances at Disneyland, until retiring for good in 1987. She passed away in 1999; her son posted a touching page memorializing his absentee mother.

It's a shame Slack and Morse's collaboration didn't last longer. But, don't let sad thoughts keep you from enjoying your time down at the house, the House of Blue Lights.

Eateries And Watering Holes : Art School Canteen

Godley And Creme : Art School Canteen

[Purchase]

Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were the satirical music geniuses behind 10cc. After 10cc's 1976 album How Dare You! they busted out on their own.

    "We left because we no longer liked what (Graham) Gouldman and (Eric) Stewart were writing." Godley told ProGGnosis—Progressive Rock & Fusion website in 2007. "We left because 10cc was becoming safe and predictable and we felt trapped."

   There's nothing safe about Godley and Creme's early work as a duo. Their second album  L, released the same year as 10cc's Bloody Tourists , is the real gem. "Art School Canteen" is just one of the memorable, highly polished tracks. ( A canteen is a more British way of saying "cafeteria"). It appears to be sung by a high strung art school student who asks a question I have yet to answer for myself:

Does getting into Zappa /
Mean getting out of Zen

Eateries and Watering Holes: Gay Bar

Electric Six: Gay Bar

[purchase]

Electric Six are a Detroit garage-rock-punk-disco band, even though they sound deliberately RP British in this tune. Well, British over a killer punk riff, I mean. Wikipedia tells us that the lead singer claims the song arose from a mondegreen of Devo's "Girl U Want" that he heard as "just a girl, just a girl at a gay bar" while the song was playing in a very loud nightclub. (The actual lyric is "She's just the girl, she's just the girl, the girl you want".)

Oddly enough, the lyrics "Let's start a war…start a nuclear war…" were censored in 2003 since the Iraq war had just begin, whereas the ultra-suggestive "I've got something to put in you" was left alone. Hey, I happen to think war is more obscene than sex, too.

Eateries and Watering Holes: Alice's Restaurant

Jeff Fiorentino: Alice's Restaurant

[download other Fiorentino tracks]

More or less immediately, Arlo Guthrie's (1967) Alice's Restaurant came to mind. I'm not sure why: maybe it's because I worked as a chef in a restaurant for a few years after graduating from college.

I want to assume that any information I can provide here about the original/Arlo Guthrie is superfluous to anything you can find online. (start here?)

While you can check out Arlo's original here, I wanted to send you a different and considerably shorter (Arlo's original is 18 minutes+) version with a different slant. I have been into Berlin-based SoundCloud for nigh on a year now, and continue - almost daily - to find something new and worth my time there.

This post features Jeff Fiorentino's SoundCloud version. This is the first time I have come across his name, but it appears that he offers online guitar tutorials. This cover is a considerably "harder" version  of Arlo's song, but it retains the essence of the original.

Eateries and Watering Holes: Rock Bottom

White House: Rock Bottom

[purchase]

Wouldn’t “Rock Bottom” be a great name for your local watering hole where you can disappear for days? The important thing to remember is it “ain’t very far away,” especially after your woman has packed up and headed back to momma.

White House billed itself as “Bluegrass's New Supergroup” when they released their debut album back in 2003. The five string wizards (who all lived in White House, Tn., a suburb north of Nashville) included Jason Carter, Missy Raines, Larry Stephenson, Charlie Cushman, and David Parmley. Carter has been fiddling with Del McCoury Band's for a couple decades. Bassist Raines was IBMA's Bass Player of the Year from 1998-2001. A regular Grand Ole Opry guest, mandolinist Larry Stephenson has fronted his own band for 30 years. Cushman started playing (at age 14) with Carl Tipton and has appeared regularly on the Opry with the Mike Snider Band. Finally, guitarist (and former Bluegrass Cardinal) David Parmley also has his own band, Continental Divide, and has won several awards over the years.

Despite the impressive credentials of each band member, I believe that White House was a part-time band. At the time of its release, I found White House to have a strong cohesive presence. They played like they’d been together for decades. Being friends and neighbors must have helped them achieve their clarion traditionally-rooted bluegrass sound.

With lead vocals sung by Parmley, “Rock Bottom” was written by a well-known bluegrass songwriter, the late Randall Hylton. While it’s a common message about breakup driving one to the local watering hole, Hylton once said that “Simplicity is the key…I feel that songs must touch a person’s emotions, and simplicity makes it easier to do this.” That’s why I also think that “Rock Bottom” would be the perfect name for the tavern just around the corner.

Eateries and Watering Holes: Vegetarian Restaurant

Aberfeldy: Vegetarian Restaurant

[purchase]

I fell head over heels in love with the brightly melodic Scottish popfolkers Aberfeldy back when their bouncy, gentle Love Is An Arrow hit the early blogs in 2004, though I seem to have missed the recurrent commercial exploitation of fellow single Summer's Gone off the same disc by Diet Coke and Traveler's Insurance; by the time the cutsey companion video for Love Is An Arrow, with its playfully animated love story of Inuit love, emerged a few months later, I would have done anything to show my love for the band.

But this was before my world was made of shuffled singles and socially-networked sharing spaces: I was pushing my mid-thirties already, it was still the tail-end of the CD era, and so - unlike the vast majority of the indie kids - I bought Young Forever, and thereby found a complete set of joy that still makes me smile when it pops up on the errant playlist. The living-room tones and and tableside love story of Vegetarian Restaurant makes an apt if belated b-side introduction to an album whose infectious levity was recorded with one microphone and no overdubbing, fitting for theme and temptation alike; dig up the disc, and you'll find that this is actually one of their slower tracks, though all are worth mention.

Eateries and Watering Holes: Anchor Grill

Descendents: Anchor Grill
[purchase]

Punk rock is not supposed to be about subtlety or maturity. It is not supposed to be about grownups and their problems. It is supposed to be about youth, and anger, and simplicity. But it isn’t always that easy.

Descendents started off as a more traditional punk (or pop punk) band--fast, loud and with songs that focused on simple themes, often with goofy humor, although their music was somewhat more melodic than many other “hardcore” bands of the era. But the band evolved over the years, often taking long breaks while lead singer Milo Aukerman went to college, obtained his Ph.D in biochemistry and worked as a biochemist for DuPont. Not exactly the typical resume for a punk rocker (other than maybe Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin, who has a Ph.D. in zoology).

By 2004, after bands like Green Day had made it acceptable for bands to mix uptempo music with more mature themes, the band released Cool To Be You.  Their music hadn’t mellowed all that much, but they tackled issues that reflected the lives that the band members were experiencing 25 years after they started—having kids, growing up, losing parents.

“Anchor Grill” is a song written by drummer Bill Stevenson (who also played at times with Black Flag, making this the second post I have written related to that band in an attempt to balance the whole “Supper’s Ready” thing) and sung by Aukerman. It is a wistful song, despite the fast tempo, sung by a man to his wife about how complicated it is to be married with children. He sings:

Who knew the way things work in this world we've made for ourselves?
Where I work myself to death, and you raise the kids

He longs to return to the early days of their relationship, when things were easy and uncomplicated, wishing that they could pretend

that I just fell in love with you
At the Anchor Grill

He suggests dropping their kids off at her parents, and going out “where it’s never too late for breakfast.”

As a father of older kids (one about to graduate from college and one about to finish first year), I can still remember back to the early days of my relationship with my wife, and how things seemed so easy. But then came the responsibility of trying to raise children, the hardest and best thing that I believe I have ever tried. And as much as I love my kids, and really have enjoyed almost every minute of raising them, I can’t deny that there are times that I, too, look back wistfully to when life was simpler, and my responsibilities were fewer. On the other hand, I never would have heard of Descendents if my son hadn’t introduced them to me, only one small way that my kids have enriched my life beyond my wildest dreams (and I’m not only saying this because I know they will read this.)

Eateries and Watering Holes: Spanish Moon

Little Feat: Spanish Moon

[purchase]

This week on Star Maker Machine, we will be eating out, and following that up with a nightcap. Eating and drinking are basic human needs, and we don‘t like to do either by ourselves. So it is that the places we go out to eat and drink have been the basis for countless songs. Some songs take place in an eatery or bar, but the focus this week is on the place, not specific people there. Certainly, there will be some overlap however.

Let’s begin with a visit to the Spanish Moon. There actually is a Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge, LA, but I hasten to say that that is not the place shown above. I think the one in Baton Rouge probably takes its name from this song, but this one is a seedy-looking place in the middle of the bayou, but with great music. The picture I have chosen is of an old juke joint. It mat not look like much, but some legendary figures in blues history played there. That’s the kind of place Little Feat are talking about. The women and the men are each dangerous in different ways, but the music draws you in as soon as you hear it from out on the road. The song captures both the temptation and the danger perfectly.

Unusual Instruments: Found Objects Edition

Herbie Hancock: Watermelon Man

[purchase]

Billy Jonas: Old St Helen

[purchase]

As we have seen all week, human beings have built an amazing variety of musical instruments, and made an amazing variety of music with them. But I wanted to close with two songs that feature objects that were never intended to be musical instruments at all.

The first is one you may remember as a science experiment from back in your school days. If you take a bottle and fill it part way with water, you can blow over the top of it and it will make a musical sound. Fill several bottles with different amounts of water, and you can get different notes this way. For his 1973 album Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock had his (usually) percussionist Bill Summers do this, and the result was the unusual sounds that open and close the song Watermelon Man. I know of no other case of anyone recording this “instrument”, and I can’t imagine how it was done live, but it still sounds amazing after all these years.

On the other hand, I know of plenty of cases of Billy Jonas‘ unique “drum kit“ being recorded, and I have had the great pleasure of seeing him play it live. This “kit“ consists of a seemingly random collection of plastic objects played with wooden spoons and other household objects. This is the only percussion Jonas plays, and, in concert he invites his audience to join in on shaken car keys, claps and finger snaps, or any other method of percussing you can find. I like to slap the knees of my jeans myself. A great time is had by all.

Unusual Instruments: Mighty Man

Mungo Jerry: Mighty Man


[purchase]

For a short but important time in the 1950s, skiffle was Britain’s most influential genre of music.

John Lennon ‘s Quarrymen, his pre-Beatles band, was a skiffle band, for example. It was a most innovative genre in as far as it fused traditional musical instruments with those improvised from household items: the washboard or the haircomb.

A decade and a half after skiffle died a rapid death to be replaced by rock & roll, it had a brief revival in the hands of Mungo Jerry, the British pop band best known for the UK chart-topper “In The Summertime” in 1970. Named after a character in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (which also inspired the musical Cats), Mungo Jerry – the name is often mistaken as referring to the exotic-looking lead singer with the Afro and mutton chops, Ray Dorset  – had a string of UK and European hits, such as “Baby Jump”, “Alright Alright Alright” and the exquisite “Lady Rose”. They also did a great cover of the blues classic “Have A Whiff On Me”.

On many of these they used unusual instruments. On the exuberant “Mighty Man”, the b-side of “In The Summertime”, the unusual instrument is the kazoo, a small wind instrument which – and I’ll let Wikipedia explain this – “modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane”. In skiffle tradition, the kazoo effect has been accomplished by using a comb with paper in Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic” and on The Beatles’ “Lovely Rita”.

I might have chosen other kazoo-wiedling songs. Perhaps Jesse Fuller’s 1962 song “San Francisco Bay Blues”, or Frank Zappa’s “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”. Swinging it for Mungo Jerry, apart from “mighty Man” being such a great song, is the additional bonus of Dorset using his voice, lips and breath as a percussive instrument (listen to it starting at 2:14).

Unusual Instruments: Endlessly

Mercury Rev: Endlessly
[purchase]

 In the age of the sampler, few spend much time thinking about Mellotrons.  Essentially tape replay keyboards with a limit of eight seconds to every loop, their limitation was actually a strength, in as much as the necessity to play the rudimentary samples as notes led to sounds that were far out of the ordinary comfort zones of many bands, let alone audiences.  They were perfect for Prog and Psych acts of the sixties and seventies, but began to fall out of favour as technology overtook them and allowed for slicker, more efficient sampling.

They never lost their power to create shivers, though.  When Mercury Rev released Deserter's Songs in 1998, the first thing that people noticed was how different, how other the album sounded.  How very new.  And the reason for that freshness was the Mellotron, and its astounding knack for bringing a glow to the heart of weirdness, like a kiss on the neck from an old ghost.  Spooky and spooked, voice and ethereal electric choir entwine, leading you again endlessly.  Sometimes, you see, technology just isn't what it used to be: a sampler could never even begin to imbue such chilly warmth.

Unusual Instruments: Koto Nuts

Mitsuki Dazai, Radim Zenkl and Joe Ross: Koto Nuts

[Unreleased]

Geoviki’s post about the Japanese koto brought back a wonderful memory of a very interesting recording session that I once had the honor to produce in 2006. I had invited koto master Mitsuki Dazai and mandolin champion Radim Zenkl to lay down a few tracks for some of bluegrass tunes that would appear on my “Spirit of St. Louis” and “Bluegrass Alphabet” albums. That may seem strange enough, and the tracks were eventually accomplished in fine fashion.

Radim’s unconstrained impulsiveness and boundless energy, however, initially led that session down another road less traveled into a territory of free-form improvisation and adventurous tonality. He obviously had a creative vision for a collaboration that emphasized musical joy, understanding and partnership. I felt that a great piece of emotionally stimulating art was being made, and recording engineer Gary Niccolaides kept the computer recording throughout each spontaneous improvisation. Each musician had to know when to lead and when to follow for the group’s collective greater good. I added the synthesized keyboard sounds to the track.

Successive tones in musical space stimulate imagination and create melodic illusions. The sensory and emotional impact of each piece evoked a unique mood based on its configuration of stasis and movement. Tonal realm is divided largely as a matter of culture. Some of these recordings were based on the equal temperment and principle intervals of western folk music. However, many of the improvised melodies and harmonies such as this offering called “Koto Nuts” may seem more uncertain or ambiguous to western ears. It is this very ambiguity that results in an immediate melodic environment with amazing, albeit subtle, expressive power.

Embodying the spirit of meditative Japanese music, the song often casually floats and flows both with and without form. I hope that you find it a joyful experience to tune in to each fleeting moment. Various passages or a piece’s culminating sound inspired their names. The genesis and inspiration for the song called “Koto Nuts” evolved from a Japanese folk melody, “Yashi no mi” (meaning “Coconut”) and provided a perfect moniker for the music.

It was a largely experimental aural journey, and you’re invited to draw your own inspiration from this sample composition. Please listen as closely as we had to, and then formulate your own imagery and associations. Become a part of the creative process. It was truly exhilarating and a very humbling experience to work with musicians of the caliber of Radim and Mitsuki. Their generous sharing achieved considerable chemistry and harmony. Despite individual differences in backgrounds and styles, a bridge was built – both figuratively and musically. Spirits were fused, and I hope that you experience as much pleasure listening as was had making the music. The spontaneous improvisations remain unreleased because I’m just not sure there would be much demand for such experimental music.

Unusual Instruments: Nobody’s Fault But Mine

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant with Hossam Ramzy‘s Egyptian Ensemble: Nobody’s Fault But Mine

[purchase]

Abigail Washburn: Nobody’s Fault But Mine

[purchase]

Here are two very different versions of the same song, each of which qualifies in a different way for our Unusual Instruments theme. Nobody’s Fault But Mine is a gospel blues song that can be traced back to at least 1924, when Blind Willie Johnson recorded it. The song has been done in may ways by many artists over the years. Johnson recorded it with acoustic guitar and growly blues vocals, the Staple Singers did a pop-gospel version, and there have R&B and folk versions as well, just to name a few.

One of the best known versions of Nobody’s Fault But Mine was done by Led Zeppelin in 1976. Robert Plant removed some of the more overtly religious lyrics, and replaced them with verses based on blues lyrical motifs. The whole thing was given one of Led Zeppelin’s trademark thunderous rock treatments. Personally, I never liked Plant’s screaming vocals with the group, or Jimmy Page’s screaming guitar either. But I have come to admire the artistry of how Led Zeppelin put their songs together, while still not caring for the results. Zep always had one secret weapon in their music, that helped make them sound like no one else. Early in their existence, they found a link between the modality of the blues and the music of the Arab World, and many of their songs were built on that link. So it was that, years after the dissolution of Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page got back together to record the album No Quarter. Here, Plant and Page made explicit the connection that had been such an important influence. No Quarter was recorded with a group of Egyptian musicians led by Hossam Ramzy. Some of the instruments they play on the album include doholla, duf, bendir, and reque. The picture above is a doholla. Hossam Ramzy is well versed in the Bedouin music of Egypt, and he is known for collaborations with Egyptian artists like Rachid Taha, but also with Western artists, including not only Plant and Page but also Peter Gabriel.

The banjo is the unusual instrument in my second version of Nobody’s Fault. Of course, a banjo is not that unusual, but it is in this context. Going back to the earliest music that might be considered blues, you find that the old-time black string bands often included a banjo. So there may well have been a version of Nobody’s Fault But Mine that included one, but I guarantee that it didn’t sound like Abigail Washburn’s version. Washburn began her musical career while she was living in China, and she even wrote bluegrass songs with words in Chinese, some of which she has recorded. So it makes sense that Washburn would cross musical as well as political boundaries. Her singing of Nobody’s Fault is somewhere between the song’s origins in blues and as a spiritual, but the banjo is not a guitar. So Washburn creates a percussive backdrop that works as a heartbeat, while also providing harmony for her vocal. The result is not exactly blues or gospel or bluegrass, but something entirely new.

Unusual Instruments: Washington Phillips Medley

Ray Skjelbred: Washington Phillips Medley

[purchase]

Not only is the dolceola a little known instrument, it is hard to find recordings of it. It is a combination of a piano and a zither that was made and sold for $25 (shipping included) for a few years around 1905 by a company in Toledo, OH. The zither, in turn, is a relative of the lyre, and there are some musical authorities that group the autoharp, the guitar and the piano in the same family of instruments: all having “struck strings” in common. I think you’ll note that it sounds a little like a harpsichord.

I ran across this musical contraption when I learned that Ry Cooder’s version of Tattler was based on a song by a gospel preacher-musician by the name of Washington Phillips. Phillips’ story is a curious one, and he is apparently mistakenly credited with playing the dolceola on his recorded music.

Andy Cohen and Ray Skjelbred are among the few musicians I have been able to find that play the doceola. There are YouTube videos of each of them where you can hear and see the instrument in action. The recording above is an mp3 converted from one of those videos. The purchase link is to Ray’s website where he provides an email address to help you buy a CD directly from him.

And, since I have mentioned Washington Phillips – both in the name of Ray’s song and my search for the real dolceola sound, here is an original recording by Phillips (Paul and Silas).

Unusual Instruments : Penetration

The Stooges : Penetration

[Purchase]

     Invented in 1896, the celeste --best known for providing the soft "celestial" melody in Tchaikovsky's "Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairy"--has also been featured in recordings by some of the greatest rock artists of all time: The Beatles ( "Baby It's You"), Buddy Holly ("Everyday"), The Velvet Underground ("Sunday Morning") and The Stooges (in both "Gimme Danger" and "Penetration").

     When asked who played the celeste on "Penetration" by PopMatters.com's Greg Kot, Iggy answered "That was me! I played in the high school orchestra, so I had a little familiarity with these instruments lying around the studio in London."

   In the original CD mix of Raw Power, the celeste got buried , but now you can hear the instrument in all its glory. It shouldn't work with all of James Williamson's dirty guitar sounds and Iggy's nasty snarls... but it does!

Unusual Instruments: After the Gold Rush

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris: After the Gold Rush

[purchase]

...In which Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton meet Benjamin Franklin. Or, more specifically, the instrument Franklin invented in 1761 -- the glass armonica, the first instrument to be invented in Colonial America. The glass armonica comprises 37 chromatically tuned bowls, mounted on a rotating spindle. The armonicist operates the instrument with a foot pedal, and rubs the spinning glass with his fingers. The result is an ethereal, almost spooky, tone. Hearing -- but not seeing -- her husband play the instrument for the first time, Mrs. Franklin said she feared she’d died and was listening to the sound of angels.

Franklin’s invention was particularly well received in Europe. Marie Antoinette was said to have taken armonica lessons. Mozart was inspired to write two works for it. Mozart in turn introduced it to physician Franz Mesmer, who used the instrument’s dulcet tones to help, well, mesmerize his patients. The arminoca’s faint sound made it difficult to be heard in concert halls, and the prolonged exposure to the glass posed health risks to the armonicists. Soon the instrument faded away. The (seriously) glass armonica website estimates there are only a dozen glass armonica players in the world today.

One of those is a fellow named Dennis James, who plays armonica on Harris, Ronstadt and Parton’s cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush." It appears on their Trio II CD, released in 1999. (Ronstadt’s 1992 record, Winter Light, also featured James on armonica.) Even without the armonica solo, it's a strange cover -- the ladies change the lyrics a bit, and Parton later claimed none of them had any idea what the song was about. Still, the accompanying video was quite popular on VH-1 and country music video channels, in part because of the fascinating instrument that managed to one-up the trio’s angelic harmonies. (Watch a performance on David Letterman’s Late Show here; the armonica solo starts at about 3:46.)

Unusual Instruments: Meguru

Kagrra,: Meguru

[purchase]

The koto is a plucked, 13-stringed wooden instrument with moveable bridges allowing for variable tuning (guitar players are drooling right about now). It sounds so distinctively Japanese that it's their national instrument. It's rarely found in Western music, although both John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner incorporated its 5-note scale in some of their music, and David Bowie and Brian Jones (of The Rolling Stones) managed to work it into one song apiece over a long stretch of releases.

Visual kei band Kagrra, (apparently one of my favorites here, 'cuz I've posted their songs previously here and here) moved heavily into the koto-based sound that gave them their distinctive Japanese flavor. (Well, all the kimonos and yukata they wore helped stress their Japanese-ness, too, I think.) Shin, one of their 3 guitarists, took up the ancient instrument and really began using it much more in 2005, with the release of San, and later. See how his guitar is still hanging around his neck as he plucks the koto in my photo. Can we say musical multitasking?

Unusual Instruments: Queen Bee

Taj Mahal/Toumani Diabate: Queen Bee

[purchase album]

Taj Mahal first came to my attention on account of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh. No, he didn't play in the concert - that was Ravi Shankar - but the (however misguided) Indian subcontinent reference quickly led me to Taj, who was coming in to his own at about that time.  When I delved deeper, I came cross Taj as a blues musician in his own right (and purchased most of his albums through the late 60s and early 70s - Satisfied NTickled Too ! Wow !) I also learned that one of Taj's accomplices (Jessie Ed Davis) did play in Harrison's Bangladesh concert.

Thoroughly American (born Henry Saint Clair Fredericks and brought up in Harlem and later Massachusetts), he took the stage name Taj  Mahal on account of an affinity for the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. A musician who has consistently researched and then performed the roots of music, be it the Blues or beyond, he has deepened his "roots" over the years to get back, through "world music" to Africa.

As part of his musical journey, among others, he has run across and worked with Toumani Diabate, a Malian kora player. Mali? Kora? Well... yes: World Music. The kora is a squash (see image above), and - when dried - can become the body section of a stringed instrument that sounds a bit like a harp. Diabate is one of the masters.

What we get here is a unique mix of where African music now is, and a taste of where it may have been when Taj's ancestor's first arrived in America: Blues and its African roots. Honey Bee is from the 1999 album Kulanjan.

Unusual Instruments: Honey White

Morphine: Honey White
[purchase]

Morphine is another band that emerged after I graduated from college. Although I listened to music after college (obviously), I can’t say that I was particularly aware of them until the song “Cure for Pain” appeared on a Rykodisc sampler CD that I got with my subscription to the classic music snob magazine Mojo. (Long articles about defunct and/or little known bands? Check. Almost obsessive articles about The Beatles and other classic bands? Check. Reviews filled with jargon and references to obscure mini-genres and bands? Check. Features about bizarre vinyl? Check. From England? Double check. I recently let my subscription lapse, and kind of miss it, but it isn’t cheap to subscribe to foreign magazines.) There was something about their sound that instantly drew me in.

Morphine was (mostly) a trio, with an unusual lineup featuring unusual instruments. The singer and leader of the band, Mark Sandman, generally played a two-string bass, with a slide (that’s unusual!), and sang in a low, baritone. Dana Colley usually played the baritone sax (also unusual, although not in my house, where my son played one in high school. My daughter played the upright bass, and this may explain why I like Morphine). And there was a drummer, first Jerome Duepree, then Billy Conway, although Duepree later rejoined the band. So, we are talking about seriously low sounds to give your subwoofer a workout.

“Honey White” is a relatively uptempo and poppy song for Morphine from their album Yes. It was popular on MTV back when it played music, and the video appeared on Beavis and Butt-head, so you know it must be good. Seriously, Morphine was an interesting and unusual band that probably should have been better known. They were probably hampered in getting wider popularity by the odd instrumentation—what, no guitar? No keyboards? Hey, it’s the mid-90’s—what are you guys thinking? But their recordings hold up, and they are still respected by critics and other musicians, from what I can tell.

Tragically, Mark Sandman collapsed on stage in Italy in 1999, and died of a heart attack. He was only 47 years old. A year later, Colley and Conway formed Orchestra Morphine, along with a group of other musicians, to keep Sandman’s music alive and to raise money for the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund.

Unusual Instruments: Jah Light

Augustus Pablo: Jah Light

[purchase]

The melodica, also known as the blow-organ or the key-flute, was long regarded as a children's toy and not much more. Minimal music composer Steve Reich was one of the first ones to use it as a 'serious' instrument, while the odd jazz cat had fun with it, too. But it was Jamaica-born Horace Swaby, better known as Augustus Pablo, who made the melodica really respectable. In his able hands, the instrument came alive and added an ethereal, far eastern and sometimes almost otherwordly atmosphere to many a roots and dub classic.

Unusual Instruments: Night of the Swallow

Kate Bush: Night of the Swallow

[purchase]

In the 1980s, synthesizers reached a level of sophistication that allowed musicians to add texture to their songs by creating unusual sounds and tones. But this could be done before the 1980s by using instruments that sounded odd in context. Even now, some musicians prefer to use instruments old and new out of context to enrich their music. This week, we will be presenting some of this music, and seeing how context can matter. We may also feature some instruments you (or I) have never even heard of before.

To start, here is Kate Bush‘s song Night of the Swallow. Bush‘s synthesizer of choice on her 1982 album The Dreaming was the Fairlight, and she got some great sounds out of it. But Bush also used other instruments. Night of the Swallow starts with a slow section that has a fairly normal arrangement. But the faster section on the chorus has this high-pitched instrument that you might think at first is a fiddle. You would be partly right. It doesn‘t sound quite like a fiddle because the line is doubled, played in unison by a fiddle and the uillean pipes. The uillean pipes are the smaller Irish cousin of the Scottish bagpipes. Like the bagpipes, the uilean pipes are used in traditional Irish folk music. By now, some Celtic rock groups are also using them, but Kate Bush in 1982 was one of the first to use them in a rock context.

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.