I wasn't actually there then. Almost but not quite - age was a factor (just a year or 3 under the "limit") - permission and location were also limits (right time .. right place ...wrong age). When Deja Vu came out, I was among the millions who bought a copy. I was among the fewer number who totally espoused CSNY's anti-establishment rhetoric (and still do!): F*ck the estabishment - regardless of the consequences or the logic of their point of view- if it is "establishment", it must be wrong. As you well know, 1970's Deja Vu was a landmark in the rock repertoire: a collection of the best (Hey: the lead from the hit-maker Hollies sings some vocals! and there's Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds and ... wow! ) CSNY incorporated an impossible line-up of personalities of greater future destinies. No less awesome than Blind Faith (of about the same era) Somehow, this group managed to pull off a 1974 tour and this clip appears to be from that era (for more ... read a great Rolling Stone article about which), "box set" listed above as a purchase item. The story of the "Our House" song is related in numerous blogs and such (Graham Nash- the N of CSNY) wrote it in a "flash" for his "love" of the moment - the one and only Joni Mitchell (you gotta read this if you have the least interest).
For you and me - aside from the song being a classic and a veritable paen to "love at home", you ought to note the way that CSNY made the best of multiple talents: song written by Graham Nash - totally not-Young style (can you see him doing this kind of collaboration these days? - that's him far right on foot at the mic in the clip above). But it works - they are all giving it their best (mildly off tune - but not too bad for what is almost a-capella.) And more or less classic CSN(Y) - vocal harmony. Togetherness. Peace, man.
That was the sound of the hippies (Sorry: I has been pilloried here before for my affinity to those long haired freaks, but I stand by the basic tenents of letting your freak flag fly...)
Please don’t tune me out! It’s a common feeling that many
musicians have. As I pondered music with “self-reflection,” I quickly decided
to put on an old well-played LP by Joni Mitchell called “For the Roses” that dates
back to 1972. While her first few albums in the 1968-71 timeframe had rather
expressive folkie singer/songwriter material, I always enjoyed hearing Joni’s stylistic
forays into the jazz and pop genres. “For the Roses” documented one of those
transitional periods and is a great album from one of the 20th
century’s most significant female recording artists. Always straightforward, lyrical
and reflective, Joni’s music is close-up and personal.
Joni had been asked by her record label to write a
radio-friendly hit to include on her fifth album, “For the Roses.” So she came up with “You Turn
Me On I’m a Radio.” She had hoped that such a witty song with multiple
references to radio might actually get DJs to sit up, take notice of it and convince
stations to play it. Sure enough, the approach worked, and “You Turn Me On I’m
a Radio” became her first Top 40 hit. It also didn’t hurt that the song was
also about love, had flavors of country and pop, and it was well arranged with
nice backing vocals and a harmonica solo played by Graham Nash. Joni Mitchell
made her song’s purpose quite clear: “And I'm sending you out, This signal here,
I hope you can pick it up, Loud and clear.”
As a musician myself, I always laugh at Joni’s astute advice
and wisdom when she immediately launches the song with “If you're driving into
town, With a dark cloud above you, Dial in the number, Who's bound to love you.”
Hey, in the music world (and radio business specifically), why not practice a
little reciprocity of love? Support those who support you. A little neighborly
exchange and working for each other’s mutual benefit goes a long way to establishing
relationships, finding affection, getting music on the airwaves, building fans
and tuning the static from your reception (puns intended).
As far as Joni’s “self-reflection” in the song, this verse says it all
and is downright genius: “Oh honey you turn me on, I'm a radio, I'm a country
station, I'm a little bit corny, I'm a wildwood flower, Waving for you, Broadcasting
tower, Waving for you.”
And if you want your hit song to get airplay, close with “Call me at
the station, The lines are open.” LOL, what a great way to get people calling in
to request it!
Well, if manliness is next to godliness, where, I wonder, would that place this gent, the self-styled "God of Hellfire"? Certainly a man, if his stentorian croon and beardliness denote, and, perhaps against any odds or expectations, from all and any corner, still alive, still going and still performing, surely that displays some degree of immortality? So maybe, as he introduced himself in this, his only real "hit", maybe he was, maybe he is?
Born Arthur Wilton Brown in Yorkshire, England, in 1942, he was even relatively mature as his career began, having studied both philosophy and law at University before taking to musical boards. When success failed to beckon, he diverted from London to Paris, nominally to bone up on mime and acting, recording a couple of songs along the way for Roger Vadim's film of Zola's La Curee. Here is one of them, recognisably in his style and template, if also never a chance of being hit material. However, it demonstrated his knack for allying himself with life's more free thinkers and spirits.
A return to the UK and he could have been a member of the Foundations, moving onward before they hit their stride with a change to that name, and success with "Baby, Now That I've Found You", top ten in the US, UK and Canada and later covered by Alison Krauss. It somehow seems odd to imagine him within their ranks, crooning along to that, too tame for him by far. But he had now formed the eponymous "Crazy World of....", becoming an established outsider on the lunatic fringe of late 60s psychedelia. "Fire" actually was his most totemic prop, as he repeatedly set himself alight, as well as singing about it, both deliberately and accidentally, more often a combination of the two, necessitating vigilance in his supporters to douse his burning hair and head with anything to hand, usually beer. If that wasn't enough, he would often add nakedness to the act, getting himself deported from Italy, flames and nudity being too much even for the hotblooded Italian authorities.
1968 and "Fire", the title song from their debut LP, was a massive success on both sides of the Atlantic. Forgive my indulgence, but if the flames and the screeching aren't enough, it is also in the running for "best ghoulish laughter in the rock song idiom" canon, 1968 edition, the only other candidate from 1968 being the one from my sophomore piece on this site, now nearly 2 years ago. Apropos "Fire," if my views are worth anything, the rest of the album is frankly disappointing, with the only other standout being the cover of the like-minded maverick, Screaming Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You," which fits, conveniently, also the self-referential requirements of this piece. And I bet he thought he really could!
Vincent Crane, whose Gothic Hammond keyboard signatures were a vital part of the Brown sound, then left the Crazy World, along with their 2nd drummer, a youthful Carl Palmer, to form Atomic Rooster, leaving Brown adrift, although Crane was to later return to his side. The 70s saw his extraordinarily odd traveling circus, Kingdom Come, a multi-media extravaganza of song, mime and melodrama, combining spoken word with ever more controversy. I can't find much self-reverential focus in this time period, sensing a mind spilling over into multiple personality rather than any one core being. (But I do somewhat love this little whimsy, which is both personal and perennial, popping up in many guises on many subsequent releases.)
His later career, which encompasses the last 40 years, astonishingly, has been a scattergun of involvements: the Priest in the Who rock-opera, Tommy, dalliances with ex- Mother of Invention, Jimmy Carl Black, and, almost inevitably, an on-off and lingering association with hoary old eternal UK space-rockers Hawkwind. Here he is, performing with them in 2002. and for a time, in California, he ran a house decorating business, again with Jimmy Carl Black. Imagine the surprise if those hairy loons turned up to paint your house? The colours, the colours, the horror, the horror... Or maybe not.
This decade he has had various short-lived tours and shows with a number of revised line-ups of both Crazy World and Kingdom Come, as well as solo excursions. So, naturally, having become the god he had created, it seems only rational and reasonable to return to his abiding identity, a performance an astonishing 45 years apart from the 1st:
Paco de Lucia passed away unexpectedly in February 2014 while in Mexico. He was in his mid-late 60s. More or less born and bred as a flamenco guitarist, his father, brothers, uncles - all played guitar - some of them as members of his sextet. But de Lucia would probably never have come to my attention if it hadnt been for his musical exploration for ways to extend flamenco beyond its traditional Spanish home. From the 1970s, he teamed with the kind of musicians that I would have been more likely to listen to: Back in the 70s and 80s, my musical muses included Al Dimeola and John McLaughlin , who here collaborate to display what may well be the collected fastest fingers in guitar on one stage/album and they do their best to outshine eachother in this clip. My personal favorite of the trio is Al Dimeola, but Paco de Lucia's classical background seems to stand out as "style". John McLaughlin's performance on the other hand carries the inflections of his Mahavishnu influence - a slightly oriental or almost transcendental juxtapositions of notes.
Although he is going to be remembered as a flamenco master, de Lucia also played with other jazz greats besides his most famous trio above, including at one time or another Chick Correa. Like so:
But I like to see connections, as can be seen by my last piece on Bobby Keys and Ian McLagan, and last year saw the release of Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, which turned out the be the first posthumously released film for both Mickey Rooney, who died on April 6, 2014 at the age of 93, and Robin Williams, who died on August 11, 2014, at the age of 63. Although neither of these show business masters are remembered best as musicians, they both dabbled in the field. And, anyway, I can write about whoever I want.
I’m not going to try to really discuss the careers of these two men—that has been done better and in more detail elsewhere. But their lives and careers, which intersected in these silly movies, have a number of parallels, and a few key differences.
Rooney, who was born in 1920 as Joseph Yule, Jr. to parents who were in vaudeville, made his stage debut as an infant and his film debut at age 6. His career spanned the age of silent films to Netflix, he was a decorated soldier in World War II, and he rebounded from a period where he was nearly forgotten to become a respected character actor on TV, in movies and on Broadway. Also, he was married eight times.
Williams was born in 1951 and was trained in the acting program at Julliard, although he left before graduation, actually encouraged by John Houseman to leave because there was nothing more for him to learn. He worked his way from brilliant, improvisational standup comedy, to Mork and Mindy, to roles in both comedies and serious films and on the stage.
Both men were known for their abundance of energy, their immense talent, their remarkable versatility and their general likeability. Unfortunately, both men also suffered from substance abuse issues—Rooney with alcohol and pills, and Williams with cocaine and alcohol. In Rooney’s case, though, he lived until a ripe old age, and, despite some health issues, was able to contribute a cameo to the Night at the Museum sequel in his nineties. Williams, on the other hand, committed suicide at only 63, with four movies, including Night at the Museum (for which he received much better reviews than the film), already in the can.
But, let’s talk about music, because this is, at its heart, a music blog. To be fair, Rooney’s musical career is a bit more substantial—he could play a number of musical instruments and sang in many films, often with Judy Garland, as in the clip above. He won a Tony Award in 1980 for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for Sugar Babies. Williams’ musical career was much more limited, and was more of a novelty. He did sing as the Genie in Aladdin, and contributed some vocals to charity projects, but the video above is his cover of the Beatles’ "Come Together," with Bobby McFerrin, on an album of Beatles covers by various artists produced by George Martin as, essentially a tribute to himself.
This was still a shock, when, just before Christmas, the news of Joe's passing crept into the newsfeeds. Despite the well acknowledged punishments he had put himself through, he seemed always the eternal trouper, plugging away in the background, touring occasionally, with regular recording to remind of the ragged beauty of his voice, ageing but unmistakeable. Once this man was a colossus, known to all, courtesy of three days of love and peace in upperstate New York, late 60s. Featuring in most lists of best male vocalists, whether in Rolling Stone (a lowly 97/100) or elsewhere, in my list he was up there where he belonged (sic). His critics made great play of his loss of range in latter years, but I believe most singers in his idiom would be more than satisfied by even only the slightest morsels from his larynx. I was a fan and I miss you, Joe.
Born in Steeltown, UK, Sheffield that is, at the tail end of the war, he had, unsurprisingly, had the influence of Ray Charles etched upon his teenage years, as well as of Lonnie Donegan, skiffle-meister supreme. Singing from the age of 12, he started his semi-pro career as Vance Arnold in the south Yorkshire pubs around his hometown, supporting the Rolling Stones as early as 1963, from which came his first recording contract. Dropped after a year or so, he grafted away, with a few name changes ahead of meeting up with fellow sheffield muso, Chris Stainton, to form the Grease band. For someone so well known as an interpreter of songs, his first success, albeit minor, was with his co-write, with Stainton, Marjorine , reaching 48 in the UK charts. But his Midas moment appeared shortly thereafter, electing to cover the Ringo singalong, "With a Little Help from my Friends", transforming this arguably throw-away song into a massive soul anthem. And that was Paul McCartney's opinion rather than mine. Most people would now steam straight into theWoodstcock footage, which undeniably brought him to worldwide attention, through the film, but I recently read that the field recording on the day was apparently dodgy, and that Joe had later crept into a studio and overdubbed his entire vocal, synching every moment perfectly. (On a contrary note, there is a Live at Woodstock recording that begs to differ.........) So what, maybe, but here is my Joe, and it is back to Top of the Pops, the universal portal to pop that graced the BBC for so many years. This is one where even my mother's withering words and my father's disbelief couldn't destroy my joy:
One point consistently undermentioned in most recent eulogies has been the sheer quality and class of the musicians he surrounded himself with in his early years. A glance of my copy of his first LP reveals names such as Jimmy Page, Albert Lee, Steve Winwood, B.J. Wilson, Merry Clayton, all these alongside the exemplary Greaseband. (This record, however, has possibly the worst cover picture of possibly any in my collection, and is the visage at the head of this piece.)
As the 70s opened and my mid teens beckoned, Joe could do no wrong, his Tourette inspired flailing arms and contortions denoting the template of my then dancing style. As he moved into the rock'n'roll circus of Mad Dogs and Englishman, my fantasies of life on the road became further fuelled by tales of excesses, usually holding the image of a bra-less Rita Coolidge well to the fore. Still the sidesmen and the material was exemplary, as was his voice, though perhaps the seeds of its demise were hereby being sown, alcohol getting a hold on his well-being and depression a hold on his mind. He effectively retired for two years, before returning to the live arena in 1972, the subsequent few years marred by a dalliance with heroin and further descent into alcoholism, with the full rack of onstage drunkenness, vomiting and all. To any eye he seemed close to burn and his sales were reflecting this.
In 1976 the unexpected arose and despite major debts, he became signed to a new manager, producer Michael Lang, on the condition he remained sober, getting shakily back into his stride, garnishing a Grammy nomination along the way for his work with the Crusaders. I should also mention he also gave due credit to his wife for the turnaround in lifestyle and fortune. His next stroke of luck was his involvement with Jennifer Warnes for the film soundtrack of "An Officer and a Gentleman". Most of his existing fans may disagree, let alone those of his duet partner, but this ghastly epitome of schlock, I forget it's name (ha!), was massive and catapulted him back into the recognition both of a public who had forgotten him, or had never heard of him in the first place. This time he got the Grammy. This allowed him the recognition and the kudos to keep touring and to put out regular recordings, all bolstered by a canny intuition to continue to ally himself with film soundtracks. It's true he never managed as memorable recordings as within his early years, but the choice of material always remained top-notch, mostly with an ear to the songs and the songwriters who count, making the credits always worth a good read, sometimes pointing towards their originators as much as this consummate interpreter.
And yes, it is still dear old Chris Stainton playing in that last clip!
What to buy? Hell, I don't know. There are a stash of Greatest Hits collections that might suit some. Personally it would be always be this , sorry only that the full majesty of the picture really needs gatefold vinyl
Unfortunately, every year, we lose legendary musicians, people whose names are instantly recognizable, and we also lose a larger number of unheralded performers. And then there are guys like the two I’m writing about—Bobby Keys and Ian McLagan—who were sort of famous. If you are reading a music blog, you’ve probably heard of them, but stop someone (of a certain age) on the street, they would be more likely to have heard of, say, Joe Cocker (who died a couple of weeks later and employed both men) than either one of today’s subjects.
It is one of those strange coincidences that these two men, both of whom were associated with the Rolling Stones, died on consecutive days. Keys died on December 2, 2014 of cirrhosis and McLagan died from a stroke on December 3, 2014. And while they were both known as Stones sidemen, and performed together, their lives and careers were quite different.
Bobby Keys was the classic sideman. Born on December 18, 1943 near Slaton, Texas, Keys (which is his real last name) began touring as a sax player when he was 15, playing with, among others, another Texas boy, Buddy Holly. Keys met the Rolling Stones in 1964 and became friendly with Keith Richards, who was born on the very same day. Keys and Richards shared a love of music, mind altering substances and mischief. It was Keys and Richards who notoriously threw a television from a hotel window, and he toured with the band for years. Keys was also the best man at Mick Jagger’s wedding to Bianca. However, he was booted from the band for a while when he, supposedly, filled a bathtub with Dom Perignon, and then drained it. This was a stunt that reportedly annoyed Jagger. However, Keys was back on the team in the late 1980s, and toured with the Stones until recently.
But it was not only his partying personality that made Keys a popular sideman—he could play, adding the iconic sax solos to many tunes, notably “Brown Sugar” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.” He played with innumerable other acts, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie, all of the Beatles and Yoko, Joe Cocker, Warren Zevon, Sheryl Crow, Jim Carroll, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, John Hiatt, Graham Nash, and on and on. He was part of Lennon’s “Lost Weekend,” appeared in the film Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and while he released two solo albums, he will always be best remembered as a hired gun—if one of the top guns. Unfortunately, it appears that his hard living finally did him in, and he passed away on December 2 in Franklin, Tennessee.
Ian McLagan was born on May 12, 1945, 16 years to the day before me, in Hounslow, England. A gifted keyboard player, McLagan bounced through a few bands, including one fronted by future King Crimson/Bad Company member Boz Burrell, until he was hired in 1965 for a pittance to replace the keyboard player in a band called the Small Faces. After finishing his probationary period, he joined the band, and took a pay cut. Along with Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, and Kenney Jones, McLagan created a body of music that still stands up today. And after Marriott left the band, and Rod Stewart and Ron Wood joined the reconstituted Faces, who reached further heights of popularity before breaking up. McLagan participated in various full and partial Small Faces and Faces reunions over the years. Although initially he left the songwriting chores to others, ultimately, McLagan wrote a number of classics, including “Stay With Me.”
In the mid-1970s, McLagan agreed to join Wood and record and tour with the Stones, apparently turning down the chance to join Kenney Jones in the Who. Tough choice. With the Stones, he contributed, among other things, the piano part to “Miss You.” He also appeared with or recorded with Chuck Berry, Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Westerberg, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Frank Black, John Hiatt, and many others, and recently had significant involvement in Lucinda Williams’ latest album, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone.
Unlike Keys, though, McLagan enjoyed being in or leading a band, rather than being a session musician. He formed the Bump Band, starting in the late 1970s, and he released a number of solo albums as well as recording with the Empty Hearts featuring Eliot Easton of the Cars and Clem Burke of Blondie. He was scheduled to be a part of Nick Lowe’s Quality Holiday Revue along with Los Straitjackets when he was felled by a stroke, in Austin, where he had lived for two decades, and had become an integral part of the local music scene.
The video above is one of a number of crappy videos that are available on YouTube of performances from a 1979 tour by The New Barbarians, a band featuring Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Stanley Clarke on bass, drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste of The Meters, Keys and McLagan. Through the fuzz, you can see both of our subjects playing their hearts out and getting a bit of the glory (while the spotlight remains mostly on Richards and Wood).
The passing of Keys and McLagan, though, raises one significant question—how the hell is Keith Richards still alive?
Christmas is over--so are the 'holidays'--which is too bad. I dig this time of year, mostly because it gives me a no-questions-asked excuse to drink it up and eat like DeNiro getting ready for "Raging Bull". What I won't miss is the music...I swear, if I have to hear David Bowie and Bing Crosby doing the "rum-pump'a pum-pum" thing one more time, I'm gonna kick an innocent bystander right in his jingle bells...
I don't hate the season, really, I promise. I just get a little weary of they way we cart out the same albums year after year, and expect that somehow, the one millionth playing of a Christmas tune is going to somehow sprinkle us all with magic happy dust and turn in holiday seasons into a perfect, Gap-commercial-style celebration.
Uggg...I take it back: I'm glad Christmas is over. I can once again eliminate the "Christmas Tunes" playlist from my iPod that my wife insists I revive every late November, and get around to a much better tradition: making my way through all those "Best Albums of the Year" lists and hear all the stuff I ignored during the year...
Without going too deeply into my personal history of obsession, I want to present an anti-Christmas song by the greatest band ever--Pearl Jam.
Why are they great? Well...
Wait, wait: I said I wouldn't go into it...New Year's Resolution number 46: "Stop Obsessing"...
But, out of the million or so reasons why Pearl Jam is my favorite band, one of the coolest things they do is their "Christmas Singles" tradition. Like the Beatles, who made an annual Christmas single available to their fan club members, Pearl Jam has been releasing their own fan-club-only 45s since 1991, exclusively for 10 Club members.
Strange sleeve art work accompanies an often eclectic selection of two songs, and though it's deemed a Christmas single, fan club members often have to wait until spring to hear the strange little treasure the band has offered up for the faithful. Past highlights are many, but include 2005's "Little Sister", with Robert Plant, 2010's bluesd out "No Jeremy", and 1999's cult fave "Strangest Tribe", an apt descriptor of those of us who like to say we're part of the "Jam-ily" rather than just saying we're fans.
But, perhaps the best single they released was their first, "Let Me Sleep", from 1991. It was the height of the grunge era, when Vedder made a name for the band for amongst many other reasons, penning blistering screeds told from the point of view of the abused and the outcast (Why Go, Jeremy...etc) and probably explains why so many found his voice, along with another miserable flannel-clad Seattle boy name Kurt Cobain, as the one speaking for them. Tell a sad story with some angst and a take it no more attitude, and launch a revolution.
"Let Me Sleep" is in the same lyrical tradition of much of the album "Ten", featuring a speaker lamenting a miserable station in life. "Let Me Sleep" is told from the point of view of a tortured adult looking back to his childhood and begging just to be able to sleep, because it's Christmas time, and go back to what it was like " when I was a kid" and remember "how magic it seemed". It was a nice departure from the sonic boom of "Ten" and, if I recall, the first acoustic song the band released, showing a side they would expand on and ultimately make an even greater reputation for themselves on "MTV Unplugged" a year later.
What else to say about the song? It's spare and sad, darkly poetic and it ranks up there with The Pogues "Fairytale of New York" as not really a Christmas song, but somehow always manages to make it into the playlist every year, just to put a little damper on all that forced Christmas cheer...Which, for those of us who don't really hate Christmas but like to pretend we do, is just the right kind of song to put the spirit in perspective. Bah humbug! Can't wait for next Christmas!
One of the ways that I consider myself lucky is that I’ve never suffered angst at the holidays. Growing up as a relatively secular Jew in a religiously mixed area, I never felt any tension. I celebrated Hanukkah, and some of my friends, did, too. But other friends celebrated Christmas. I don’t remember having any friends from mixed marriages, where there was a question about which holiday to celebrate, or any Jewish families who had “Hanukkah Bushes.” My family never really spent too much time focusing on the religious aspect of Hanukkah—family, latkes and dreidels were more important than thinking about the theological issues of whether oil lasting longer than expected was a miracle, or just a miscalculation. (Not to mention the question of whether Hanukkah represents the triumph of religious fanatics over more secular Hellenizers, and whether that’s really worth celebrating.) And, of course, as a Jewish kid, we got to act smug because we knew that there was no Santa Claus well before any of our gentile friends.
My family was also flexible about celebrating Hanukkah. By the time my cousins and I started going off to college, for example, we exchanged gifts either at Thanksgiving or during Winter Break, whenever we could easily gather a critical mass of family. I think that this gave me an adaptable approach about the December holidays that later paid off.
When my now wife and I were first living together, I knew that she came from a secular Protestant background, and celebrated Christmas with her family. She bought both a small tree and small menorah for our small apartment, which took me a little while to warm up to. Because my family treated Christmas as just another day off, I didn’t have to worry that spending Christmas with her family would conflict with my celebration, and I found myself really enjoying doing both. As it turned out, her Christmas included a slew of Jews, since her aunt converted when she married her uncle, and her cousins were raised as secular Jews. And it also included much drinking, eating, presents and (mostly) merriment.
A few years ago, circumstances led to a parting of the Christmas celebration in my wife’s family, and eventually we morphed the event again. Now, on Christmas Eve, my Jewish family and my in-laws get together at our house for a feast including lasagna (despite the distinct lack of any Italian in any of our bloodlines) and, often, latkes. Everyone decorates the tree, the menorah is lit, if appropriate, and both Hanukkah and Christmas music plays. The next morning is Christmas, with my nuclear family and my in-laws. We eat my wife’s family’s traditional, and scarily delicious, sausage and egg casserole, open presents, slowly, and we end the day with ham. Not to mention some of the millions of cookies that my wife has baked (10 different kinds this year!). In general, everyone gets along, and it is fun. Often, there is a nap.
So, maybe I’m not the right guy to write about Holiday Blues. But Lucinda Williams is. One of America’s great songwriters, her lyrics cut right to the gut, and the featured song today is no exception. It isn’t really a holiday song, but it does reference Christmas. It’s clearly a love letter of sorts, to someone who was damaged by a tough, mentally and physically abusive childhood and life, someone who puts up a hard veneer, but which the singer has seen through, to the rarely disclosed “Sweet Side.” It is a heartbreaking song, but also a hopeful song, because the singer has committed to sticking by her lover, “through thick and thin/ No matter what kind of shape you're in.” Although it is a situation for which I have no frame of reference, Williams’ lyrics makes it relatable, and that, in part, is what makes it art.
Now, even with the brilliance of the lyrics, Williams has been criticized for the song’s musical style, which verges on rap, but really, it isn’t. If anything, it is closer to a “talking blues” of the kind made popular by Lucinda’s musical forebears Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (and apparently “invented” by Chris Bouchillon back in the 1920s). But that raises yet another issue about the impossibility of parsing out all of the influences in any given piece of music. Who’s to say that rap music wasn’t also influenced, directly or indirectly, by talking blues? So, “Sweet Side” has elements of country, rock, rap and blues, and probably other stuff, too. Sure, it doesn’t sound exactly like most of the rest of Williams’ music. And while a total stylistic shift by an artist can be jarring, it also can be exciting for listeners, and invigorating for performers. What’s wrong with that?
It's a bit bloody obvious, I know, and I can't even be arsed to see if it has been done before, but it seems so apposite in so many ways, covering any number of the bases I enjoy covering, even, in this case, if that veneer is of and with a thick, snowy schmalz. It's possible I may have previously mentioned my love of cover versions and this song, almost to my shock and awe, is one I have way more versions of than I ought. Or anyone ought. Who knew so many folk woke up one day and felt that this and only this was the song to cover. But then, Christmas, for all it's peace to the world and joy to all people can be a pretty godawful time of year for many, anticipatedly or contrived, through the foibles of massed family and friends. The main problem with the compulsory good cheer of Christmas is that it emphasizes the family, it expects partnership, it insists on conviviality, with that very pressure often enough to burst asunder through any too great expectation based upon. Been there, done that, and, hells teeth, alone at Xmas is the pits, the more so if you are clutched to the bosom of what loved ones you still have, rendering the essence of gooseberry to it's quintessential. I feel that Billy Hayes and/or Jay W. Johnson, who wrote the song back in the 40s knew this, the lyrics extolling the pain of lost love at Yuletime. (Having added my own existing knowledge to the 37 and counting pages of youtube vids, the repeated hearing of this song can itself render one near suicidal, alone or otherwise, but that's another story.)
Elvis is clearly the template most are aware of, originally appearing on his 1957 LP, Elvis' Christmas Album, later as a 1964 single, each doing well in their own formats, either side of the Atlantic. But it had been well-covered ahead of that, as early as 1948, by Ernest Tubb, a lot less ornately, and hence, to my ears, a lot more attractively. Since then the list has been extensive and extraordinary, largely within the canon of country (+/- western), encasing such disparates as Willie Nelson and Billy Idol, Wynton Marsalis and the Partridge Family and many, many more, sadly more distinguished by their bland similarities than any novel differences. Particularly galling examples I cannot even begin myself to link are by latter day "Great American Songbook" destroyer Rod Stewart and the appalling Mickey Bubbles. And even a live Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, separately (unless you know better) have managed to savage it to an ignoble death. There is also the horror of Lou Reed, together with the unlikely collaboration of, God help us, the McGarrigles, so truly bad I have to offer it, pleading then your forgiveness. But there are a few that can proudly stand above the parapet, if only by the quality of the production or the quirkiness quotient. So let me present odd UK Led Zep reggae tribute band Dread Zeppelin, Scotland's finest, the Proclaimers, credible mainly for their heavily accented diction, and recently deceased reggae legend John Holt.
There are many more. If you seek yet more malaise still, the versions by Jerry Lee Lewis, Leon Redbone, Sheryl Crow, Nicole Atkins, Low, Jimmy Martin (quite good actually), Tammy Wynette, Jewel, the Ventures (likewise), Brian Wilson with the Beach Boys, Fats Domino, Bright Eyes, Johnny Mathis, Robert Gordon, Dean Martin, the Platters and Leann Rimes, they are all but a click away, in all their varieties of awfulness.
I need to leave you with some imagery though, to break up this wall of prose, so here are 2 final personal favourites: Porky Pig.....
This belongs here this week. Comedian Patton Oswalt takes on a Christian holiday song awash in misery. If you are easily offended or surrounded by children, you may want to take a pass. Otherwise, enjoy!
The end of
the year holiday season brings a mix joy and sadness to many folk. It is the
nature of this time of year that leads us to look back at the year behind us
and forward to the year ahead.
Now, you
can look either direction in joy or sadness, and there’s a benefit to each. One
wouldn’t want to be the grasshopper all the time, nor the ant who knows nothing
but work. It’s all in the balance.
Parsley,
Sage, Rosemary & Thyme was one of the first 33 RPM LPs I owned – my music
tastes at that time were as unfocused as they are today: a little of everything.
We are talking 1966. Free Love. The Hippie culture. Major Civil Rights action
was in the works in the US. For
Americans, the economy still seemed to promise a better future. On the other hand,
we had the Vietnam War. Kind of like my music tastes: all over the place. Some
up. Some down.
It's not 12-bar blues, but Silent
Night/7 O’clock News gets right to the heart of the dichotomy, doesn’t it? The
contrast between the ethereal, hopeful Christmas classic that extends the
possibility of a better future and the downright depressing facts on the ground
as presented in the evening news is sheer genius. Simple and effective. A steady, minimal piano backing and prominently sweet vocals - laced with a cuttingly dry newsreader voice-over. I
wonder if there is as much left to the audience’s interpretation of this song as
we generally credit art with, or if it is masterfully directed to provoke a
single given response. It certainly requires me to take a deep breath and push
the images of the song behind me before I can look forward to the new year with
joy and hope. And you don't need to watch any of the other image-laden versions to get the picture.
I don't recall submitting a post for this one and maybe I didn't, but, rather than checking, it seems a whole lot easier to start one. I'm a big fan of World music, a clumsy but useful epithet to cover the musics of the non-anglophone world. This can embrace any number of styles: ethnic folk shuffles, polyglot fusions, genre-busting hybrids , using languages and instrumentation outwith the usual or expected, at least to our ears more familiar with the standard rock/soul/blues/jazz, though it can use all or any of these as well. African music has no one format, having as many as there are nations, as many as there are languages and as many as there are tribes. And many, many more, from the Rai in Algeria to the Chimurenga of Zimbabwe, and all in-between.
Thomas Mapfumo has long been one of the pillars of Zimbabwean music, being the embodiment, if not originator, of Chimurenga: Music of Struggle, one struggle being that with the authorities, pre and post independence. A boy in colonial Rhodesia, his was first attracted to the guitar music, the Beatles, the Stones, of his country's occupying white minority. However, through absorbing the local African pop music and American funk, he put aside these influences, drawing more on the traditions of his own Shona heritage, with political overtones leading to a spell of imprisonment in the late 1970s, being deemed a threat to the government. You would assume, thus, that he would be an eternal hero in the new Zimbabwe of 1980 and beyond, but not so, as his views began to portray his criticism of the Mugabe years, eventually leading to his exile in Oregon, where he remains, it nearly a decade since he last set foot in his native land. I was particularly lucky to see him play live, in less threatened days, in a poky Harare club, mid to late 90s, astonished at that opportunity, thinking he would only play stadiums, such as when he played alongside Bob Marley, at the Zimbabwean independence celebration concert, just over a decade before. The shona language is rich with Zs and so there is an abundance of choice. This song, Zvichapera, is a typical mix of mbira, the thumb piano, and marimbas, with a mix of western and traditional drums, over which Mapfumo drones, strumming electric guitar, female backing singers chanting the melody. There is not a huge amount of his music available on CD, but he is worth the search. Follow the link below for a Greatest Hits(!?) selection, which, whilst it doesn't include this song, does include, track 5, another Z song.
Further north from Zimbabwe is the Republic of Benin, where it is likely that Angelique Kidjo is the most celebrated of its people, at least in the west. Again she is a singer who has openly absorbed tribal styles and influences, but in a far wider mixing pot, embracing samba, reggae, jazz and funk, often undertaking collaborative work with any number of artists, often re-interpreting and deconstructing songs from elsewhere. Carlos Santana, Dave Matthews and Bono have all sung with her, and she has sung songs by Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley and Curtis Mayfield. All things considered, I think it is her more traditional work, in African languages, that I prefer. Perhaps inevitably, given the volatility of West Africa, her base is now Paris, arguably the world centre for the legion dispossessed African musicians. Here is her Z song, Zelie, the opening track from 2010s OYO.
After Thanksgiving, we at Star Maker Machine have typically run a “Leftovers” theme, letting the writers go back and revisit the themes we wrote about in the past year, and either posting something that wasn’t finished in time, or an idea that never even got started.
When I looked at the 42 different posts I wrote in 2014, I realized that I had essentially written twice for each of the year’s themes, except for one—Gravity. I actually suggested this theme, and thought that it would be pretty popular, but it only prompted five posts. We’ve had problems for the past few years getting people to post. I don’t know if it is just the inevitable burnout effect, or that mp3 based blogs are fading out, or we haven’t recruited enough (or the right) writers, recently, the number of posts, and regular writers, has been dropping.
It’s a bit disheartening, because the decrease in new posts has translated into a decrease in the number of page views. Not only that, but I’ve personally written almost a third of all of the posts this year, so far. Four writers have accounted for nearly 85% of the posts on the site. I think that the writing remains strong, and we have at least one new writer who seems to be interested. However, there have been times, many times, in fact, that I’ve thought about quitting entirely, or starting my own blog to write about whatever I want. But I haven’t, and I think that as long as there are other people who want to keep the SMM flame alive, I’ll keep writing. Not just for the tradition, or out of laziness or out of some sort of duty, because SMM was the first place that I broke through my fears and put my writing out to the public.
No—I’m going to keep writing here because I like doing it. I enjoy the idea of having a prompt force me to make a musical connection. Now, when I first started writing here way back in December of 2011, the themes were surprises, and I would wake up on Sunday morning, eager to see what Darius had come up with. Now that I’m a co-moderator, though, I am involved, along with Kkafa, in picking the theme, which has changed the way I react to them, but even when I suggest one, I don’t always know what I’m going to write about. I enjoy contributing to this blog. I enjoy the creative outlet, I enjoy sharing my opinions and telling my stories, and I enjoy the feedback that I sometimes get (mostly on Facebook—and if you aren’t a member of our page, you should be).
The Gravity theme was, as I wrote at the time, inspired by seeing the band Barnaby Bright at a small concert at a local church. I was impressed by them, and their song “Gravity,” and realized that this force of nature was a common subject for songwriters. There is no question in my mind that I considered trying to get a second post in, about the Drive-By Truckers’ song “Gravity’s Gone,” but it never happened.
“Gravity’s Gone” is a Mike Cooley song. Until this year’s English Oceans, Cooley usually only had a few songs on each album, and most of them are gems. This one is no different. Written during a long, exhausting tour, Cooley felt that things were getting a little out of control, and although he has been quoted as saying that the song, “doesn’t really make a lot of sense, and it wasn’t supposed to,” you can hear his contempt for what was going on in the clever wordplay:
Between the champagne hand jobs and the kissing ass by everyone involved Cocaine rich comes quick and that's why the small dicks have it all.
But, ultimately, the heart of the song, where you can hear Cooley’s frustration, is in the chorus—
So I'll meet you at the bottom if there really is one They always told me when you hit it you'll know it But I've been falling so long it's like gravity's gone and I'm just floating
And that’s sort of how I’m feeling about our little blog here. Are we heading down to the bottom? I guess if we get there, I’ll know it. As long as we are still alive, though, I’m going to keep floating along, putting my thoughts out into the interwebs.
Here’s a bonus video of the band, still including Jason Isbell (who left the Truckers after this album), playing a mostly acoustic version of the song at a record store in Nashville (I am compelled to note that my son met Mr. Isbell, his fellow Nashville resident, last week).
Most of the music that I like isn’t popular, and that’s fine. Sometimes, artists that I like become popular, and that’s usually fine, too. But most of the stuff that I listen to is by musicians and bands that have achieved, at best, niche popularity and maybe some degree of critical acclaim. Alejandro Escovedo is a favorite, but probably not in my top 10, if I had a top 10 (this isn’t High Fidelity). And yet, for some reason, I have said about him, probably more times than about anyone, that I wished I lived in a world in which Alejandro Escovedo was a big star.
He deserves it, and not just because of the difficulties he has overcome. His songwriting is brilliant, his musicianship is superb, and his imagination and ambition is broad. He writes rockers, ballads and everything in between. I’ve only seen him twice, as an opening act either solo or with a second guitarist, and at some point I hope to see him with a full band (I was supposed to see a free show in Central Park a few years back, but he cancelled). I’ve previously written about him briefly as part of another piece, which mentioned his large musical family, but I’ve never put him in the spotlight. And it seems appropriate to write about him here, because Escovedo is the son of Mexican immigrants (the group that seems to cause the most concern among the opponents of immigration reform), and he has written a great deal about his family’s experiences.
In fact, Escovedo wrote a play, By The Hand of the Father, about the Mexican-American immigrant experience, inspired by the life of his own father, and including stories by other Mexican-American writers and videos. The play has been performed around the country to positive reviews, usually with Escovedo taking the lead role, but during his battle with hepatitis C, others stepped into the role.
The song “Rosalie” tells the story of the romance between Rosalie and Joe, separated by an “ocean of powder and dust” held together mostly through letters and brief meetings. The version of the song from the By The Hand of the Father album, sounds somewhat traditional, and contains spoken excerpts from the correspondence between the two lovers.
This version, from Escovedo’s A Man Under the Influence album is more of a rocker, but it loses nothing of the power of the theatrical version.
Touring rock bands, short on sleep, are making their own kind of pilgrimage from club to club. Road weary, perhaps they begin to hallucinate. Was that a two headed cow in the field over there? Jefferson I think we're lost.
Not even Michael Stipe can say for certain what "Pilgrimage", one of the many memorable songs off their debut album Murmur, is about.
"'Pilgrimage' still baffles me," he's said. "At one point, right after we recorded it, I heard it and it made perfect sense. I was so exhilarated. I thought I had accomplished what I set out to do. And then I forgot."
Star Maker Machine does not accept music submissions from artists or promoters. However, most of the contributors here do accept submissions for our own blogs, listed below. Please visit our blogs, take the time to listen to what we post, and then feel free to contact us if you feel that your music would be a good fit.
