Gold Coast Bluenote

Storyteller: "Thunder Road", Bruce Springsteen (live, 1987, Passaic, NJ)

2012-01-26T10:25:00.005-04:00

Thunder Road (music and lyrics by Bruce Springsteen)

The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me

You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar
And I learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win.

Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

Here's some vintage Bruce from the first tour I saw, 1978 -- all redemption and sacred fire in the Darkness on the Edge of Town. Springsteen often sets up a song performed live by telling the audience the story behind the song. Here's a little taste.

Filmed at the Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ (1978)

Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys: "Kern River" (written by Merle Haggard, 1985)

2012-01-20T04:01:00.013-04:00

Emmylou Harris, 2008

With Kern River, appearing on her mostly self-penned studio album All I Intended to Be (2008), Emmylou gives us a mountain tale written by Merle Haggard at the height of his songwriting powers.

Here's a live version of Haggard's ballad, interpreted by Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys:

Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (U.S.): U2, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" (1984)

2012-01-16T10:20:00.021-04:00

U2 at the Garden, 2005

In the Arizona struggle over recognition of this federal holiday, U2 stepped right into the depths of that coflict. The Irish rockers performed concerts and supported, in word, song, and deed, the

recognition of the new holiday; in return came death threats against band frontman Bono. U2 went on with the concerts anyway, performing Pride (In the Name of Love) -- a song about the late Rev. Dr. King, Jr., and every man, woman or child who ever showed pride in the face of injustice, all in the name of love.

The internet sheriff won't let me embbed the video here, so please check it out at this link:

U2, Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984)

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Merry Clayton: "After All This Time" (1972)

2012-01-14T01:09:00.007-04:00

The most powerful vocal performance on the Stones' signature anti-war song is Merry Clayton's duet vocal with Mick Jagger on Gimme Shelter (studio version, first released as the opening track on the band's 1969 Let it Bleed album.)

That said, now I'll move over and let Merry take over.

whiteray at Echoes in the Wind inspired and contributed to this post. See his post: One Chart Dig: January 3, 1972.

"Too Good for the Basement" Series (No. 2): One of the Great Rock Voices: Peter Wolf, "Nothin' But the Wheel" (2002)

2012-01-09T13:09:00.019-04:00

[reposted and reworked; from early 2011]

Peter Wolf live at Wolftrap (2010)

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This is one of the best crossover tracks by a great rock singer/songwriter giving us a modern country classic. Peter Wolf, former front man for The J. Geils Band -- here with another of the great rock vocalists and a first class team of studio musicians -- cutting the perfect road song for his 2002 solo album Sleepless.

One more a thing about "another of the great rock vocalists": Jagger may not have stuck around for more of the sessions for the Sleepless album than just to cut the harmonies for Nothin' but the Wheel, but Mick certainly left his influence all over Peter's vocals on the other album cuts I've heard for this record. But that the way it goes I guess, when your rollin' doing the interstate, looking for a back road to unwind.

And yes, the Highway 41 in Nothin' but the Wheel is the same road Dickie Betts was, in the song, 'born rollin' down -- "in the backseat of a Greyhound bus". And yes, I love this song more each time I hear it.

So give her a spin; eh, what do you have to lose?

Complementary Presentations of "Lord Jim": Conrad's Book and Brooks' Film

2012-01-03T00:30:00.001-04:00

Redux

Jim (Peter O'Toole): .... I've been a so-called coward and a so-called hero and there's not the thickness of a sheet of paper between them. Maybe cowards and heroes are just ordinary men who, for a split second, do something out of the ordinary. That's all.

Though truly divergent works of art, with more than a few threads of a central theme, Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim (written 1899-1900) and Richard Brooks' 1965 film of the same name are both adventures worth taking. Each work stands on it own merits, Conrad's accomplishment standing as one of the great books in modern English.

I read the book first and highly recommend starting with it. Then the film may serve as, not an equal, but a fine supplementary work of art. Supplementary in the most important sense in that it is an action adventure film with its serious themes stripped down, but still looming. While Conrad's novel is a meticulous examination of the diverse elements of the human character and and "simple twists of fate", the novel brings the characters into sharp focus. The film's outstanding cast truly bring the characters to life.

So take a South Seas adventure from the late 19th century and learn a little about what heroes and courage are really all about.

Guitar Slide Right in Your Pocket: Mance Lipscomb - "Jack of Spades"

2011-12-29T08:40:00.004-04:00

Son of an ex-slave born in 1898 in Navasota, Texas and relatively little known outside serious blues circles, Mance Lipscomb is the blues pioneers' pioneer.

I've seen a lot of make-shift slides over the years, but a folding knife used as a guitar slide is a new one on me.

Enjoy this "transition" blues -- from the music of the 19th century to that of the churning 20th.

Just too Good for the Basement (from 2008 post, reworked): "The River 's Gonna Run" (2006)

2011-12-24T10:11:00.005-04:00

Four years ago last Thursday, four years after Vol. No. 1 of Gold Coast Bluenote, this was the post of the day. I ran across the two weeks ago, and it blew me away, again.

Sam Bush on mandolin and lead vocal, Emmylou Harris covering duet and harmony -- with Emmylou reminding us she can play sultry chanteuse with the best of them. (As to her real life, she made it clear at a gig I saw that dressing up was nice but she likes the comforts of home: dog poop scoopin' for her private, back yard, stray dog refuge / home placement facility.)

Ms. Harris is quite a spiritual and kind woman -- I meet her once briefly but semi-privately (so we could talk) after her first gig at Tampa's most historic, restored and quite unique roaring 20s-era movie palace.

Another artist I recognize on this track and video is master guitarist Buddy Miller -- the only other musician on stage with Emmylou that magical night that I saw her at the Tampa Theatre. Oh, and Buddy Miller wrote this song.

This track gets my mojo workin'; how about giving her a spin?

Sam Bush's video for The River's Gonna Run

"All I Want for Christmas is a Rock n' Roll Electric Guitar": Chuck Berry, "Run Run Rudolph" (1958)

2011-12-16T11:46:00.003-04:00

Though covered by more than one of my favorite artists, Chuck Berry's original still stands head and shoulders above the rest. So, for the playlist at your Christmas party this year, let's all help our counting-the-days little ones: Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down. A one, two -- one, two, three, four ....

Dion, Live and in the Groove: "Nadine" (2007)

2011-12-12T09:34:00.004-04:00

"We sang on the beaches, or on the rooftops, or in hallways of tenement buildings. We must have been sensitive artists. Even back then, because we always looked for the hallway that had the best sound." -- Dion DiMucci

Dion covering Chuck Berry's Nadine, live

Dion, a signature voice of early 1960's rock n' roll (Runaround Sue, The Wanderer), is still making the scene and sharing his magic. I heard his 2007 studio version of Nadine recently and it grabbed my attention. He tore it up. This live clip, featuring Jools Holland, isn't quite as hot, but it's clear evidence that he is not residing in the dustbin of rock history. He's out there doing first rate rock n' roll.

I missed him the first go round 'cause I was just a youngin', but I know quality when I hear it. So, my friends, dig this.

The Occupy Movement's Soundtrack, Part II: Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"

2011-12-07T09:32:00.006-04:00

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Confront NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Before Planned Eviction from Zuccotti Park (December 5, 2011;

photo credit: J.B. Nicholas, Splash News)

Here's another cut from back in the day that plugs in right here -- history with a soundtrack:

Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth (1967)

The Birth of Blues/Rock: Robert Johnson, "Terraplane Blues"

2011-12-02T14:12:00.016-04:00

Don't get wrapped up in the lyrics just yet; that will take some time. Just dig Johnson's guitar and vocal art. It doesn't get any more important, or any better, than this obscure masterpiece.

This is embryonic acoustic blues/rock from 1936, my friends. Rock wasn't even invented until the 50s -- the 40s if you count Louis Jordan. It's no wonder Robert Johnson's legend and musical legacy have lasted.

"I'm Back in The Saddle Again" - Gene Autry

2011-11-28T09:22:00.007-04:00

Home from a long trip through the Carolinas searching for imspiration and respite. Now, dear readers, I'm back in the saddle, again.

See you very soon with a brand new post.

For now pards, "Happy Trails!"

An Essential Album: Bruce Springsteen, and any guy with the guts to fall in love, need to be "Tougher than the Rest"

2011-11-19T14:09:00.009-04:00

Editor's Note: My computer crashed; my warranty uncrashed it. My bad; sorry, mates; nuff said. We Are Back!

In the "official video", below, Mr. Springsteen (hereinafter "Bruce") sticks to his trademark visual simplicity. For with Bruce, as with a long tradition reaching back to Lao Tsu, less is more. The songwriter lures us back to a time -- a time in the 1950s and early 60s -- when carnival rides capture the part of our love lives now filled by the automobile back seat.

So let's take the ride with Bruce, see how the transition, for him, from supermodel wife to soul and band member Patti Scalfia (duet and harmony vocals here).

Tunnel of Love (1987) is Bruce's advice diary on the sublime finding a partner and losing a wife. In other words, life.

Tougher than the Rest is a how-to win-the-girl-with-your-blue-collar-cool track that teaches us everything we need to know about if you are gonna win that girl of your dreams across the bar:

.... Well it aint no secret Ive been around a time or two
Well I dont know baby maybe youve been around too
Well theres another dance all you gotta do is say yes
And if youre rough and ready for love honey Im tougher than the rest ...

Another Note: Personally I'm not crazy about the plodding arrangement of the studio version of the song on Tunnel of Love. Not only is this live video better, but Emmylou Harris and Everything Thing But the Girl have also done essenially definitive covers.

This song, my friend, is gonna last. And gives you a taste of why this album is essential.

Lou Ann Barton Brings Back a Classic: "Hip Shake" (1982)

2011-11-03T09:44:00.013-04:00

"With a Texas drawl as thick as the August humidity,
Lou Ann Barton stepped into the role of chanteuse and never looked back. ...."
-- Margaret Moser, The Austin Chronicle (2011)

A founding member of SRV's band Double Trouble, Lou Ann Barton's Hip Shake on her solo debut is a Texas roadhouse blues masterwork.

Lou Ann's Hip Shake is a cover of seminal Slim Harpo song I discovered on The Oxford American Southern Sampler (1999). (I spent a year listening to the tune thinking Barton was black. Nope. This is blue-eyed soul here, through and through.) The song was re-popularized by the Stones with its release in 1972 on Exile on Main St.

With Hip Shake, Lou Ann brings new life to this deep album cut from Exile, and it's still alive and shakin' 20 years after Lou Ann cut her version and 40 years after the Stones version.

I've been meaning to get Lou Ann's album Old Enough (1982; album cover shown above) ever since I discovered it. I may just break down and get that album soon. I can eat noodles and Halloween candy for a few days.

Now, just stand still, "don't move your hands" and "Just Shake Your Hips!"

Hip Shake, Lou Ann Barton (1982)

Occupy and Stay! -- "The Revolution Starts Now!"

2011-10-27T12:27:00.026-04:00

This one goes out to my brothers and sisters on the front lines of the Occupy Movement.

The Revolution Starts Now! (2004) -- Steve Earle

Addendum: One reader reported having a problem with the track player above. You can find a lower fidelity but fine copy of Steve's protest anthem on YouTube at: Steve Earle, "The Revolution Starts Now!"

Hot Tuna: "Highway Song" -- An "Echoes in the Wind"

2011-10-22T15:15:00.004-04:00

I'm gonna borrow a moment in time, peace, and "a little help from my friends". Re-channelling a recent "Saturday Single" at Echoes in the Wind -- from the 1969 Jefferson Airplane / San Francisco stew pot -- comes a side project that turned out to be ambrosia: Hot Tuna. Thanks for the roadmap whiteray.

Hot Tuna, Highway Song, from the album Burgers (1972)

Talent Rising (R&B/Soul): Johnny Rawls' "I'm a Bluesman" (2009)

2011-10-14T01:20:00.020-04:00

Johnny Rawls, Ace of Spades (album, 2009)

I first heard Johnny Rawls' 2009 song I'm A Bluesman on cable radio (Music Choice blues channel) last week. It took a while to track a copy down, but success came "with a little help from me friends." I had immediately fallen in love with the track the first time I heard it, so scoring a copy was a major coup. Gotta watch the pennies without letting it hurt the music.

So, to help get the word out on this mature, rising, classic R&B talent, here's Johnny Rawls' album cut of I'm a Bluesman (2009).

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Johnny Rawls' I'm a Bluesman (2009)

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"Rawls is a true soul-blues renaissance man..." Allmusic Guide (online). Damn right!

Caught in the Dark Fires of Love: "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning" -- Gram Parsons (with Emmylou Harris, 1973)

2011-10-09T09:38:00.033-04:00

While wrestling yesterday with both my new post research and also, invariably, my powerlessness over the sublime but often uncontrollable darker side of love, I found a shining glimmer of insight in my music collection yesterday. From Gram Parson's first solo album, GP (1973), here's We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning (written by Joyce Allsup; harmony vocal by Emmylou Harris).

This song makes me feel a little less alone, a little less like I'm the only guy who ever traveled this burning highway. Gram, Emmylou & Co. surely helped yesterday, as Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Lou Reed, Dylan, and Johnny Cash (with June) have helped me steer through this "Ring of Fire" before.

We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning (Gram Parsons, GP, 1973)

Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli: "Minor Swing"

2011-10-04T09:56:00.001-04:00

Here a hot little tune that made the mix during a recent online discussion of films with jazz performances. I was discussing the tribulations of being the second best guitar player in the world -- always behind Django -- as lovingly illustrated by Woody Allen in his fine film Sweet and Lowdown (1999). This isn't a song from the film, but rather a great Django & Stéphane recording that easily qualifies as "sweet and lowdown".

Minor Swing - Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli

R.E.M.: Requiem for a Heavyweight Band

2011-09-28T11:42:00.006-04:00

I was listening to Lucinda Williams from her 1993 Live at the Filmore (West) yesterday morning early, watching the birds out my back door. I was on one of my reveries, this one about lyrics, Lucinda's Reason to Cry and Fruits of My Labor.

And then the news I'd caught by accident a few days earlier hit home: R.E.M. was gone.

The band announced via its website that as of September 21, 2011, the band would "calling it a day as a band". (Hilton, Robin (September 21, 2011). "R.E.M. Calls It A Day, Announces Breakup" NPR.org.)

A year ago. The end of carrying on since Bill left for his farm in 1997. And all this time I thought they might be hunkered down in a studio. The obits pile up too quickly these days

Think of it this way. We were shiny, happy people in our glory days.

R.E.M. & Kate Pierson rehearse Shiny Happy People - 1991 (for SNL)

And some of us are angry:

Orange Crush (live in Germany, 2003)

And often reflective, as I was sitting yesterday morning, having my coffee and watching the birds in the early morning light.

Nightswimming (Michel Stipe vocals, Mike Mills piano;
Undated, Live in Jool, Netherlands)

Yeah, reflective, like the mood I'm in now. Michael, Peter, Mike and Bill -- to your band R.E.M., Requiescat in Pace.

Rory Block "Burns It Up" Covering Robert Johnson's 1925 Recording of "Crossroad Blues"

2011-09-21T09:27:00.010-04:00

Acoustic Bottleneck Slide Blues Master Rory Block

Wow! Check this out. Somebody's been down to The Crossroads on a "Bad Moon Rising" night.

Rory's an acoustic bottle neck slide wonder -- some very special mojo.

A lot of blues and rock era guitarists can tear down the house with an electric guitar. In the blues / rock world, only a select few can do that with an acoustic guitar (e.g. Son House, T-Bone Walker, Muddy, Django, Jimi, Eric, Duane, Buddy Guy, SRV, The Edge -- and their spiritual brothers and sisters.)

But Rory Block could be the first white Son House.

"I Wanna Love You but I'm Getting Blown Away": Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" (1977)

2011-09-15T13:33:00.010-04:00

It's hurricane season down here in Florida. As politically incorrect as this is, I can't help but let my mind wander back to the early 60s and all the fun we had teasing women about storms that they shared a first name with. You see, back then feminism hadn't gotten more than a little start progress that that kicked in during the early 70s. Hurricanes not only had women's names but also were referred to, even by TV meteorologists, as "she".

I remember one wicked storm back around '62 named Hurricane Carla -- a storm that shared her name with my dad's best friend's wife. Carla and her ole man got no end to the teasing they had to endure from close friends as that storm battered the Florida west coast. I even fictionalized all this once, shifting both the characters and also the time frame around. Here's an excerpt from my unpublished short story Wrist Shake (in press):

.... Preparing for the [fly rod fishing for tarpon] trip, four of us sat in the living room working on tackle: me, my dad, his comedian/fishing partner Jerry, and my brother Henry.

Jerry was on a roll, teasing as always. My girl Carla and I were fighting, so Jerry had plenty of fresh material. ...

Jerry started in on me. “So what’s the matter, lover boy, Hurricane Carla blow you ashore this evening?”

“Cut me some slack, Jer,” I half pleaded and half barked.

“Lay off him,” Henry said, “he can’t make tackle and weather Carla’s swirling gusts all at the same time.”

Now Jerry starts to croon, “When you’re down, and troubled, and you need a helping hand …”

“Please,” now I was pleading, “leave Carole King’s insights out of this.” I struggled to recover, “Don’t you have some shopping to do? That fine new white sport coat in your closet just cries out for a pink plastic carnation for the lapel.”

Dad decided it was time to move things along. We all reacted to the authority in his eyes and his voice: “If you gentlemen can wrap this up, we can still catch the 10:30 [pm] high tide.” We were immediately back on task. ....

Flash forward to the late 70s. Sexism had begun it's slow death and the iconoclastic Neil Young had come up with a worthy follow-up to his power ballad Cortez the Killer (1975), Like a Hurricane (1977) -- a song whose lyrics compared lovin' a woman to enduring a hurricane. Moreover, Neil's trademark power chords and lead riffs between verses do a fine job, metaphorically turning electric guitar solos and chord crashes into what it's like to be in a hurricane. And almost every live album Neil did after '77 contains a version of this song. (The acoustic live versions were even done on a giant antique pump-style pipe organ.)

'Nuff said. Here's Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing the original album cut of Like a Hurricane from Neil's 1977 American Stars 'n Bars album.

Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra: "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You" (1931)

2011-09-09T10:27:00.002-04:00

I first heard this song in 1983, during the "Big Band and Nostalgia" show on Tampa's community radio station, WMNF. I never forgot one of my favorite lyric verses from this recording: "I'll be standin' on the corner high, when they bring your body by, I'll be glad when you're dead you rascal you."

I lost track of what song that was from until I heard another version by Satchmo, without my beloved verse, in a 1932 Betty Boop cartoon of the same name that a friend had in her collection.

Now, all these years later, my understanding of Louis Armstrong's music and influence vastly deeper, I love everything about this song. I hope you dig it, too.

(Editor's Note: Don't bother with the visuals in the clip, other than to check out the 78's record label -- the loop-editing may get annoying. On a more important matter, noted by DRC in the first comment below, is the fine sound quality in the clip. My bet is that, while the clip shows a 78 playing, the audio actually comes from one of the CD reissues of the compilation album Louis Armstrong (1928-1931) (1991), on which this cut appears.)

The Ronettes: "Paradise" (recorded 1965) -- A Magnificient Rare Master from Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" Era

2011-09-04T10:14:00.005-04:00

I discovered the song Paradise many years ago on a box set -- Phil Spector's Back to Mono (1958-1969) (1991) -- that belonged to a now-departed friend. Dear Dana, thanks again!

The Wikipedia contributors, at The Ronettes discography, tell the back story to Paradise concisely:

The Ronettes recorded many songs for producer Phil Spector which were not released until after the group disbanded in 1967. Today, some of their originally unreleased songs are just as critically applauded as their biggest hits. Paradise was not released until after the group broke up [-- on an earlier Spector collection, Phil Spector Wall of Sound, Vol. 5: Rare Masters Vol. 1 (1976)] ....

And let me share just one anecdote, again from the Wikipedia contributors, about when Ronnie met Keith Richards for the first time on The Ronettes first tour of the U.K. in 1964:

On their first night in England, The Ronettes were brought to a party at Tony Hall's house where they were introduced to The Beatles. ... But for Ronnie, one of the biggest thrills was meeting Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, who were the opening act for The Ronettes opening act on their UK tour. ... Richards, who wrote of his relationship with Ronnie: "The first time I ever went to heaven was when I awoke with Ronnie (later Spector!) Bennett asleep with a smile on her face. We were kids. It doesn't get any better than that."

There is no better way to learn more about Phil Spector's groundbreaking "Wall of Sound" than to listen to the original recordings. So give this clip a few virtual spins and you will get a little taste of Paradise -- you may never want to come back.

Jimmy Cliff: "Many Rivers To Cross" (1972)

2011-08-29T16:41:00.003-04:00

Here's the incomparable Jimmy Cliff performing a definitive studio version of his classic Many Rivers to Cross, from the soundtrack album of the reggae break-out film The Harder They Come (1972).

The soundtrack album changed my life in more ways than one. When I dragged my first wife to see the film, I loved it and she hated it. You can't changed your taste, but wives, well, let's just say I still love the album and she's long gone.

So here's Many Rivers to Cross, a heavily gospel influenced song Cliff wrote in 1969.

"Get Low" (2009): A New Classic Film from Robert Duvall and Company

2011-08-24T08:44:00.003-04:00

You want to see a contemporary film masterpiece you haven't seen: check out "A True Tall Tale" of a real American in 1938, Get Low (2009), starring Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek -- a new addition to the canon of great American films.

A colleague, the Paullinator, recommended the film to me for the music by The Steeldrivers, Alison Krauss, and Jerry Douglas -- as well as the film itself. Robert Duvall was one of the producers, working with Dean Zanuck, the third generation of the Zanuck family film production dynasty. Bill Murray and Lucas Black co-star in fine supporting roles.

The story is loosely based on the real life tale of Appalachian eccentric Felix Breazeale --"Felix Bush" as played by Robert Duvall -- who wants to have his funeral "party" before he dies, for a very special reason. The film left me entertained and spiritually moved to tears. A female friend of mine was was equally moved, identifying strongly with Sissy Spacek's character Mattie -- a strong woman who in maturity must recalibrate her life's compass because of past events and a lost love surging to the surface of her life.

Indeed, I've talked to 4 people about this film and all were deeply moved. As the Paullinator put it, "What I think is refreshing about the film is that it deals so frankly with the human condition – with humility." Another couple was not only spiritually moved but also mystified as to why this film had never made it big at the box office. In my view, Get Low will certainly find its audience with it's good word-of-mouth and stirring, heartfelt themes.

This film is everything a classic should be -- entertaining, rich is detail right down to the visuals, excellent writing and acting, incredible music, and it's stirring, understated themes. In short, a new essential with a moving story that will move most anyone with a heart.

"Ordinary Man" - Christy Moore Live at The Point (2006)

2011-08-19T10:53:00.007-04:00

Here is Christy Moore with a very talented friend performing Ordinary Man -- a song originally written in the mid-80s by Peter Hames. This clip is from 2006, live at The Point, an Irish concert venue in the Docklands section of Dublin; this venue ran from 1988 to 2007.

My old running buddy the Big Gallute sent me this while touring Irish pubs working on his guitar playing and beer drinking skills. This Chicago native noted that the song was "accented by heavy nihilism." I respectfully disagree. This isn't nihilistic, it's the modern employment world for the "ordinary man." Christy tells us what he thinks as he introduces the song in the clip below. But what do you think?

One Mo' Time

2011-08-15T20:03:00.007-04:00

Back in the day, we used to listen to 45s constantly, with 10 or so in heavy rotation. These are the songs I can still remember the lyrics to 40 years later. I've fallen into that kind of pattern with the Gina Sicilia clip of her song Before the Night is Through below. I already have a good bit of it memorized.

I'm gonna exercise a little editorial discretion and leave that clip up for a short while. It deserves to be in a heavy rotation playlist for 40 weeks, at a real rock n' roll station, but that kind of radio died 25 years ago.

So here's Gina, from her 2011 album Can't Control Myself. I'm giving her some more top-of-the page exposure here. You've got to give artistic greatness a chance for, in this case, her audience to find her.
Grazie, mille -- Gina Sicilia, buona fortuna.

Talent Rising: Gina Sicilia, "Before the Night is Through" (2011)

2011-08-11T00:59:00.007-04:00

First time I heard Before the Night is Through, I was sure it was a cover of an old '60s pop song. And I was wrong. Singer / songwriter Gina Sicilia, a brand new voice on the American blues / crossover scene, wrote this song herself for her 2011 album Can't Control Myself. But this young artist is certainly paying attention to the roots of her music -- blues and otherwise.

My ear tells me Gina's song owes a lot, lyrically and musically, to Save the Last Dance for Me (Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman), originally recorded by The Drifters (with Ben E. King) in 1960. (I put a couple of the many covers of this classic up on the red jukebox in the left column.) Gina, however, creates her own song here, first with her variation on the Save the Last Dance lyrical theme and melody, and then with her personal vocal style, the early New Wave variation on a ska rhythm, and the Mediterranean elements that lace the tune. If she can keep writing like this, we may have a modern day Brill Building songwriter on our hands.

That's what first caught my ear, anyway. I posed this question to a knowledgeable colleague of mine. Before the Night is Through reminded him of a mid-'60s Drifters hit, Under the Boardwalk. Your thoughts on the roots of Gina's song would be greatly appreciated.

I have reached one personal conclusion about Gina's Before the Night is Through: no respectable jukebox should be without this song.

Addendum 12 August 2011: One of the commenters, Shannon Eric Peevey, notes that the solo guitar work at the instrumental break and the end is very much in the style of Django Reinhardt. Damn right, and fine Django style work it is. Thanks Shannon Eric.

Great Dylan Cover: Guy Davis, "Sweetheart Like You" (2009)

2011-08-05T00:05:00.001-04:00

Ever since I discovered it back in the mid-'80s, Bob Dylan's Infidels (1983) album has been a favorite of mine. The songs are nearly all gems. There's one verse I even stole -- not my first offense here -- modified, and added to my flirting repertoire: 'Honey, I'd crawl across cut glass to see you again.' Shameful I know, but there it is. That's a variation of a line from Dylan's Sweetheart Like You from Infidels. The other day I heard what some folks call the definitive cover of this song -- and I'm not gonna argue -- by Guy Davis from his 2009 album Sweetheart Like You. To my ear, Davis captures all the poignancy of Dylan's delivery and a little something extra. First time I heard it, I loved this cover. I hope you do too.

"Bullets Over Broadway" (1994): One of Woody Allen's Best

2011-07-30T09:48:00.004-04:00

I try to keep up with every new Woody Allen film that comes out. It all started when friends who knew my taste started telling me I would love Annie Hall (1977), Allen's watershed romantic comedy where he began exploring more serious themes without missing a step on the comedy.

I do still love Annie Hall to this day; for me, it never gets old. If I had to pick a handful of Allen's best films of the three decades since Annie Hall, one would certainly be his 1994 comic drama Bullets Over Broadway. Set in 1928, a heyday for Broadway, the mob, and Greenwich Village cafe' intellectuals, Allen and co-writer Douglas McGrath blend these three worlds seamlessly. And as with Annie Hall, Woody's trademark wit and charm make this film one fun ride. So take the dive and see this witty exploration art, love and life in Roaring Twenties New York -- you'll want to break out the good bathtub gin. (For a peak inside the film, check out the trailer below.)

Tracing Roots: "Cowboy Junkies" do Patsy Cline

2011-07-24T10:49:00.003-04:00

Banyan Street, Boca Grande, Florida

I'm back from a South Florida beach vacation high that just won't let go. Boca Grande is simply full of memories that go back generations. Every time I visit I come back with more stories about family, friends, storms, fishing and fisherman.

Just running on instinct, when I got back I put on the first thing that popped into my head: The Cowboy Junkies 1988 album The Trinity Session. So, sticking with my half-developed theme of rediscovering roots, here's a cover of Margo and the boys doing a beautiful blues arrangement of the Patsy Cline classic Walking after Midnight (1957), released 54 years ago this year.

"In Love and Art and Rock n' Roll, the Whole Had Better Equal Much More Than the Sum of the Parts"

2011-07-14T10:24:00.003-04:00

(Repost from 2008 for while I'm away. Catch you next week.)

In 2005, U2 was inducted into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. I remember hearing the induction speech by Bruce Springsteen during a broadcast of the ceremonies to this day. It's one of the best essays on the meaning of rock n' roll I've ever heard, succinctly covering the essence of both U2 and also rock n' roll generally as an artistic force.

The speech captured just how cosmic the reach of great rock n' roll can, should, and arguably must, be. The speech is also brilliant, as my brother noted, in its simplicity. Further, Springsteen makes it personal. And I'm sure every reflective rock fan can tell you how they relate on a personal level to their favorite artists -- how this music touches their lives.

My mid-Atlantic correspondent, the Paullinator, recently found a transcript of the speech on The U2 Station News Blog. Though I here break my rule about the maximum length of a post, judge for yourself whether or not I made a good call. (For clarity, I've added a several links on one song and a few of the record industry folks referred to.)

Bruce Springsteen Inducts U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

(text by Bruce Springsteen)

Uno, dos, tres, catorce. That translates as one, two, three, fourteen. That is the correct math for a rock and roll band. For in art and love and rock and roll, the whole had better equal much more than the sum of its parts, or else you're just rubbing two sticks together searching for fire. A great rock band searches for the same kind of combustible force that fueled the expansion of the universe after the big bang. You want the earth to shake and spit fire. You want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out.

It's embarrassing to want so much, and to expect so much from music, except sometimes it happens -- the Sun Sessions, Highway 61, Sgt. Peppers, the Band, Robert Johnson, Exile on Main Street, Born to Run -- whoops, I meant to leave that one out (laughter) -- the Sex Pistols, Aretha Franklin, the Clash, James Brown...the proud and public enemies it takes a nation of millions to hold back. This is music meant to take on not only the powers that be, but on a good day, the universe and God himself -- if He was listening. It's man's accountability, and U2 belongs on this list.

It was the early '80s. I went with Pete Townshend, who always wanted to catch the first whiff of those about to unseat us, to a club in London. There they were: A young Bono -- single-handedly pioneering the Irish mullet; (laughter) the Edge -- what kind of name was that?; Adam and Larry. I was listening to the last band of whom I would be able to name all of its members. They had an exciting show and a big, beautiful sound. They lifted the roof.

We met afterwards and they were nice young men. They were Irish. Irish! Now, this would play an enormous part in their success in the States. For what the English occasionally have the refined sensibilities to overcome, we Irish and Italians have no such problem. We come through the door fists and hearts first. U2, with the dark, chiming sound of heaven at their command -- which, of course, is the sound of unrequited love and longing, their greatest theme -- their search for God intact. This was a band that wanted to lay claim to not only this world but had their eyes on the next one, too.

Now, they're a real band; each member plays a vital part. I believe they actually practice some form of democracy -- toxic poison in a band's head. In Iraq, maybe. In rock, no! Yet they survive. They have harnessed the time bomb that exists in the heart of every great rock and roll band that usually explodes, as we see regularly from this stage. But they seemed to have innately understood the primary rule of rock band job security: "Hey, asshole, the other guy is more important than you think he is!" They are both a step forward and direct descendants of the great bands who believed rock music could shake things up in the world, who dared to have faith in their audience, who believed if they played their best it would bring out the best in you. They believed in pop stardom and the big time. Now this requires foolishness and a calculating mind. It also requires a deeply held faith in the work you're doing and in its powers to transform. U2 hungered for it all, and built a sound, and they wrote the songs that demanded it. They're keepers of some of the most beautiful sonic architecture in rock and roll.

The Edge. The Edge. The Edge. The Edge. (applause) He is a rare and true guitar original and one of the subtlest guitar heroes of all time. He's dedicated to ensemble playing and he subsumes his guitar ego in the group. But do not be fooled. Take Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Pete Townshend -- guitarists who defined the sound of their band and their times. If you play like them, you sound like them. If you are playing those rhythmic two-note sustained fourths, drenched in echo, you are going to sound like the Edge, my son. Go back to the drawing board and chances are you won't have much luck. There are only a handful of guitar stylists who can create a world with their instruments, and he's one of them. The Edge's guitar playing creates enormous space and vast landscapes. It is a thrilling and a heartbreaking sound that hangs over you like the unsettled sky. In the turf it stakes out, it is inherently spiritual. It is grace and it is a gift.

Now, all of this has to be held down by something. The deep sureness of Adam Clayton's bass and the rhythms of Larry Mullen's elegant drumming hold the band down while propelling it forward. It's in U2's great rhythm section that the band finds its sexuality and its dangerousness. Listen to "Desire," "She Moves in Mysterious Ways," [sic] the pulse of "With or Without You." Together Larry and Adam create the element that suggests the ecstatic possibilities of that other kingdom -- the one below the earth and below the belt -- that no great rock band can lay claim to the title without.

Now Adam always strikes me as the professorial one, the sophisticated member. He creates not only the musical but physical stability on his side of the stage. The tone and depth of his bass playing has allowed the band to move from rock to dance music and beyond. One of the first things I noticed about U2 was that underneath the guitar and the bass, they have these very modern rhythms going on. Rather than a straight 2 and 4, Larry often plays with a lot of syncopation, and that connects the band to modern dance textures. The drums often sounded high and tight and he was swinging down there, and this gave the band a unique profile and allowed their rock textures to soar above on a bed of his rhythm.

Now Larry, of course, besides being an incredible drummer, bears the burden of being the band's requisite "good-looking member," (laughter) something we somehow overlooked in the E Street Band. (laughter) We have to settle for "charismatic." Girls love on Larry Mullen! I have a female assistant that would like to sit on Larry's drum stool. A male one, too. We all have our crosses to bear.

Bono...where do I begin? Jeans designer, soon-to-be World Bank operator, just plain operator, seller of the Brooklyn Bridge -- oh hold up, he played under the Brooklyn Bridge, that's right. Soon-to-be mastermind operator of the Bono burger franchise, where more than one million stories will be told by a crazy Irishman. Now I realize that it's a dirty job and somebody has to do it, but don't quit your day job yet, my friend. You're pretty good at it, and a sound this big needs somebody to ride herd over it.

And ride herd over it he does. His voice, big-hearted and open, thoroughly decent no matter how hard he tries. Now he's a great frontman. Against the odds, he is not your mom's standard skinny, ex-junkie archetype. He has the physique of a rugby player...well, an ex-rugby player. Shaman, shyster, one of the greatest and most endearingly naked messianic complexes in rock and roll. (laughter) God bless you, man! It takes one to know one, of course.

You see, every good Irish and Italian-Irish front man knows that before James Brown there was Jesus. So hold the McDonald arches on the stage set, boys, we are not ironists. We are creations of the heart and of the earth and of the stations of the cross -- there's no getting out of it. He is gifted with an operatic voice and a beautiful falsetto rare among strong rock singers. But most important, his is a voice shot through with self-doubt. That's what makes that big sound work. It is this element of Bono's talent -- along with his beautiful lyric writing -- that gives the often-celestial music of U2 its fragility and its realness. It is the questioning, the constant questioning in Bono's voice, where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us.

Now Bono's voice often sounds like it's shouting not over top of the band but from deep within it. "Here we are, Lord, this mess, in your image." He delivers all of this with great drama and an occasional smirk that says, "Kiss me, I'm Irish." He's one of the great front men of the past twenty years. He is also one of the only musicians to devote his personal faith and the ideals of his band into the real world in a way that remains true to rock's earliest implications of freedom and connection and the possibility of something better.

Now the band's beautiful songwriting -- "Pride (In The Name of Love)," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "One," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Beautiful Day" -- reminds us of the stakes that the band always plays for. It's an incredible songbook. In their music you hear the spirituality as home and as quest. How do you find God unless he's in your heart? In your desire? In your feet? I believe this is a big part of what's kept their band together all of these years.

See, bands get formed by accident, but they don't survive by accident. It takes will, intent, a sense of shared purpose, and a tolerance for your friends' fallibilities...and they of yours. And that only evens the odds. U2 has not only evened the odds but they've beaten them by continuing to do their finest work and remaining at the top of their game and the charts for 25 years. I feel a great affinity for these guys as people as well as musicians.

Well...there I was sitting down on the couch in my pajamas with my eldest son. He was watching TV. I was doing one of my favorite things -- I was tallying up all the money I passed up in endorsements over the years (laughter) and thinking of all the fun I could have had with it. Suddenly I hear "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" I look up. But instead of the silhouettes of the hippie wannabes bouncing around in the iPod commercial, I see my boys!

Oh, my God! They sold out!

Now...what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily. Smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But I also have a ludicrous image of myself that keeps me from truly cashing in. (laughter) You can see my problem. Woe is me.

So the next morning, I call up Jon Landau -- or as I refer to him, "the American Paul McGuinness" -- and I say, "Did you see that iPod thing?" And he says, "Yes." And he says, "And I hear they didn't take any money." And I said, "They didn't take any money?!" And he says, "No." I said, "Smart, wily Irish guys." (laughter) Anybody...anybody...can do an ad and take the money. But to do the ad and not take the money...that's smart. That's wily. I say, "Jon, I want you to call up Bill Gates or whoever is behind this thing and float this: A red, white, and blue iPod signed by Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen. Now remember, no matter how much money he offers, don't take it!" (laughter)

At any rate...at any rate, after that evening, for the next month or so, I hear emanating from my lovely 14-year-old son's room, day after day, down the hall calling out in a voice that has recently dropped very low: Uno, dos, tres, catorce. The correct math for rock and roll. Thank you, boys.

(applause)

This band...this band has carried their faith in the great inspirational and resurrective power of rock and roll. It never faltered, only a little bit. They believed in themselves, but more importantly, they believed in "you, too." Thank you Bono, the Edge, Adam, and Larry. Please welcome U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

© Bruce Springsteen, 2005
*****

Dusty Springfield: "Breakfast in Bed" (1969)

2011-07-09T11:04:00.007-04:00

Think back, it's 1969 and the R&B wizards at Atlantic Records are wrapping the Memphis sound around an extraordinarily talented British pop singer, Dusty Springfield. And the product couldn't fit in less with the times in America. So the tracks must age and then resurface.

They don't write 'em and record 'em like this anymore. Damn shame, too. This one gets more soulful and just plain gutsier the more you think about all the rules the lyrics break. But the sound, that Memphis sound wrapped around Dusty's blue-eyed soul voice -- it's still not politically correct, but that's not what's important here. Listen and you will find out what I mean.

Addendum: By coincidence, a song of Dusty's related to this one came up at Echoes in the Wind today. Here's the relevant part of what I wrote as a comment:

A sidebar regarding Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”, in that No. 5 slot [on the US pop singles chart this week in 1966]. A few years later, Muscle Shoals songwriters Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts used that song line in the chorus of a new song for Dusty’s 1969 album “Dusty in Memphis”. My lead post this week at Gold Coast Bluenote, by coincidence, is about that song, “Breakfast in Bed”.

Groovy coincidence, eh?

"U2": "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" ("Rattle and Hum" film, 1988)

2011-07-03T09:56:00.002-04:00

In my heart I always knew this was a gospel song. Here's the proof, but Edge tells it better than I ever could. This recording is only used in the film Rattle and Hum (1988) -- a different live version is used on the companion album. That version doesn't touch this one.

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: "So Excited" (1985)

2011-06-26T16:23:00.002-04:00

The Sky is Crying is a posthumously released (1991) compilation studio album containing songs spanning most of SRV's career. This record is one I discovered on a jukebox in a little bar and grill I used to frequent. I wasn't drinking so the little money I had went into the jukebox and tip jar rather than to pay a beer tab. I used to take requests and one of the best I even got was from a hard working cook in the kitchen. It was for a SRV song I didn't know at the time, So Excited (recorded, 1985), but came to love so much I'd play it anytime he was working. My friend the cook would turn my grouper sandwiches into platters and he'd get all the music I thought he'd like.

To my mind, Texas blues rock instrumentals just don't get any better than this. It's only competition I know of is another SRV classic, Stevie Ray's cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing, first released on The Sky is Crying album. But enough back story -- I'm gonna let Stevie Ray and his Statocaster do the rest of the talkin'.

The E Street Band's "Big Man" Passes On

2011-06-21T08:41:00.001-04:00

(top to bottom) Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen

Clarence Clemons, or "Big Man" as Bruce Springsteen used to call across the stage to cue Clarence for one of his trademark sax solos, died last Saturday at 69 due to complications from a stroke. I'm still a bit stunned, so I'm gonna let Clarence tell the story of how he became part of both American cultural and also rock 'n' roll history. While on stage, Bruce often told the story of how he and Clarence met in 1971. Here's the story, retold in various interviews, by Clarence himself:

One night we were playing in Asbury Park. I'd heard The Bruce Springsteen Band was nearby at a club called The Student Prince and on a break between sets I walked over there. On-stage, Bruce used to tell different versions of this story but I'm a Baptist, remember, so this is the truth. A rainy, windy night it was, and when I opened the door the whole thing flew off its hinges and blew away down the street. The band were on-stage, but staring at me framed in the doorway. And maybe that did make Bruce a little nervous because I just said, "I want to play with your band," and he said, "Sure, you do anything you want." The first song we did was an early version of "Spirit In The Night". Bruce and I looked at each other and didn't say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other's lives. He was what I'd been searching for. In one way he was just a scrawny little kid. But he was a visionary. He wanted to follow his dream. So from then on I was part of history.

Rest in Peace, Clarence. You touched more lives than you could have ever known.

Mattie, Rooster and LaBoeuf Have Got "True Grit" (2010)

2011-06-15T11:41:00.001-04:00

U. S. Marshall "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) on the Trail

There's a theory that while primarily men settled the American west, it was women that civilized the new territories. If films are any evidence at all for this theory -- which most classic westerns aren't -- the Coen Brothers' remake of True Grit (2010) certainly is.

A discussion of this film broke out recently among the Classic Westerns group members at The Golden Age of Hollywood networking site, comparing this new version to the 1969 original starring John Wayne, here's part of my contribution to the discussion.

Maybe it's a generational thing, but The Coen Brothers' 2010 True Grit is the one for me. The dialog is so crisp, the locations so real -- even the soundtrack built out of old English church hymns -- and "Leaning" as Mattie's theme -- are great. I love this movie. And I think Jeff Bridges does a fine job. But never let it be said that the Duke (John Wayne) doesn't deserve the respect that [another commenter] shows him. I think we can agree, it's one great story.

And here's another commenter, a little younger than I, who knows both films and also the book.

It was a fun film to see in the theater, the crowd just loved it, they were eatin' it up and it's a WESTERN by golly! I thought the dialog crackled along pretty good and you could sense people's recognition of repeated lines from the book and earlier film...The 3 leads on the trail played off each other really well -- the girl was the best thing. ... The locations were better this time. I travel the very same area of Oklahoma and Arkansas where the story is set twice a year so I know. [Another commenter noted that the film was shot in New Mexico and parts of Texas.]

Let me close by giving the film my strongest recommendation and, to paraphrase my colleague above, it's a classic modern western by golly -- a rare thing indeed.

Here's the trailer with one note: the great Johnny Cash song used in the trailer is not in the film.

MusiCares 2010 Person of the Year: Neil Young

2011-06-09T16:48:00.001-04:00

I caught the MusiCares broadcast of exerpts from it's 2010 award gala on VH1-Classic last week -- a show honoring Neil Young for his career as a performer, songwriter and philanthropist. Before I get to a one of the gala's highlights below, here's the MusiCares mission statement.

MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares' services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly impact the health and welfare of the music community.

I want to do my part by showing you this clip and encouraging you, if you can, to make a donation here.

Now to a highlight -- my favorite was John Fogerty, Booker T., and Keith Urban covering Neil's Rockin' in the Free World ...

Let me mention two other performances I loved and can't find clips of: Dave Matthews doing Needle and the Damage Done and Elvis Costello beautifully reinventing The Losing End.

Congratulations Neil, you earned it, man.

Nobody Can Sit Still When "Oye Como Va" is Playing

2011-06-04T13:12:00.007-04:00

Great Youtube mining by a friend gave me a little more "evidence" for my theory that nobody can sit still when I'd play Oye Como Va by Santana -- or the original by Tito Puente -- at parties. See what you think when "Laurel and Hardy Meet Santana".

(Note: For anyone who wants to avoid the years that I spent finding a translation of the lyrics to English, see here.)

Memorial Day 2011: " .... What if what you do to survive, Kills the things you love ..."

2011-05-29T11:38:00.010-04:00

Moral ambiguity is the price modern combat soldiers pay to serve our country. I never heard this captured better in a song than Bruce Springsteen's Devils & Dust (2005).

Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan

2011-05-24T13:27:00.010-04:00

Bob Dylan turns 70 today so I thought I send him, indirectly, a small remembrance. Here's one I hope he will like: Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris performing In My Hour of Darkness from Gram's last album, Grievous Angel (1974).

Happy Birthday Bob -- many happy returns of the day!

"Can't Forget the Motor City", Part II: "Nowhere to Run" in a Ford Plant

2011-05-19T17:53:00.002-04:00

When I used to substitute teach, I used to keep an emergency kit in my shoulder bag. The kit consisted of one video tape: a collection of promotional films -- what would come to be know as videos -- made in the early 60s for primarily Motown songs. The emergency they treated was an out-of-control classroom. I used the music to calm them down and then try again to get some teaching done. It pretty much worked too. I got one class of troubled young girls singing along with Chapel of Love. I guess their moms taught them that one.

One gem I found on that tape was the short film for Nowhere to Run (1965) by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. In the first clip below, Martha Reeves and two of her Motown colleagues describe the making of one of what would become one of the first videos ever. As this classic single plays, the ladies are filmed jumping in and out of a Ford assembly line in Detroit. As many of you already know, the '65 Mustangs on that line would became the iconic car of the era. The song is vintage Motown that has me dancing in my chair as I write this.

Here's the full promotional film discussed above.

"... Can't Forget the Motor City ...": Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, "Dancing in the Streets" (1964)

2011-05-12T14:52:00.001-04:00

For my money, there are two rock 'n' roll performances by women that go straight straight to my heart just thinking about them. One is Merry Clayton's duet vocals with Mick Jagger on the Stones' Gimme Shelter (1969, album version), but that's another story for another time. The other is Martha Reeves and the Vandellas 1964 international hit and signature song Dancing in the Street.

I'd encourage anyone interested in early Motown history to check out some of the background information on this song's development at Wikipedia or the Songfacts website. Here's one little tidbit. One of the mega-talents at Berry Gordy's "Hitsville, U.S.A." studios in Detroit, Marvin Gaye, was a co-writer and drummer on this track. Co-writer Ivory Joe Hunter -- well, let me quote Songfacts on this one:

Ivory Joe Hunter had a few hits of his own but felt more at home producing records. Hunter liked everything about the song except the drum track - it needed more "bump and grind." An idea hit him and he excused himself, went to his car, and brought back a crow bar. He sat on a concrete floor and said: "Roll tape." They went through the song one more time while Ivory Joe Hunter slammed the tire tool against the concrete floor on the downbeat ...

And there you have it: one of the most danceable percussion tracks in '60s rock 'n' roll gets its "bump and grind" from a crowbar.

Let me close by giving Martha Reeves herself -- still recording and performing all these years later -- the last word, "I’m going to sing as long as I’m able; I’m going to dance as long as I can. And age 69 feels real good." You go girl!

Aretha: "R.E.S.P.E.C.T., Find Out What It Means to Me."

2011-05-06T10:24:00.006-04:00

Written and released originally by Otis Redding in 1965, Aretha Franklin flipped the genders and produced a timely feminist statement, her signature song, and one of the greatest R&B crossover songs ever with her 1967 cover version.

One note on the lyrics: the chorus of Aretha's version has some '60s black-culture slang that Wikipedia helped me decode. The chorus goes:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care ... TCB

"TCB" means "Taking Care (of) Business." Now check out one of the great songs of the last half-century.

Don't Sell My Culture!

2011-04-30T10:40:00.014-04:00

One of the things that drives me crazy is important rock songs showing up in TV commercials. I went through the roof in '87 when the classic Beatles song Revolution turned up in a Nike commercial. I have not and will not buy another Nike product, ever. And it's not just me; George Harrison spoke on this issue in October of '87 with more authority than I ever could:

If it's allowed to happen, every Beatles song ever recorded is going to be advertising women's underwear and sausages. We've got to put a stop to it in order to set a precedent. Otherwise it's going to be a free-for-all. It's one thing when you're dead, but we're still around! They don't have any respect for the fact that we wrote and recorded those songs, and it was our lives. (George Harrison, as quoted in J. Doyle, 2009)

And the free-for-all George predicted is upon us. I've been gritting my teeth for years as the practice of using classic popular songs in commercials has somehow become acceptable. Well, it's not acceptable to me. So before you stumble across a new commercial that has me cursing at the TV screen now and again, here's a chance to listen to another classic, from another era, that is being transformed into a lame product endorsement. This is the single that lead me to buy the monumental first Pretenders album. Here's their break-out single (with its old-school video), Brass in Pocket (1979). Revolution survived, but it's a truly timeless song. The jury is still out on whether Brass in Pocket can survive.

Following Threads: Little Walter, "Mean Old World" (1952)

2011-04-24T09:16:00.005-04:00

A short while back I made a big fuss here about a classic blues track covered during the 1970 Layla sessions but left off the original 1970 double album, Mean Old World. Originally recorded by T-Bone Walker in 1942, the version of Mean Old World recorded by Eric Clapton and Duane Allman during the Layla sessions is a based on blues harmonica virtuoso Little Walter's Chicago blues style version recorded in 1952. One of the reasons blues rockers looked to Little Walter for inspiration is that he was arguably "the first musician of any kind to purposely use electronic distortion."

Well, enough out of me -- check out the incomparable Little Walter in the clip above performing Mean Old World.

My First Record: "Evil Ways" (1969), The Original Santana Band

2011-04-17T17:51:00.007-04:00

Evil Ways by was my first single, first favorite song, and Santana my first favorite band back when I got my first stereo for Christmas back when I was 13. And the firsts keep coming. Santana, on their first national tour in support of their above pictured first album was my first concert. They tore the house down that night and I was hooked.

And one side note: I got my first chance to see the Woodstock documentary the following summer of 1970 -- at a drive-in. The film was rated R and with me being 13, that presented a logistical problem. Just picture the front seat of my mother's car, her in the driver's set, my girlfriend in the middle and me riding shotgun simply glued to the screen and the music coming out of that tiny metal speaker hanging on the car window. I am blessed to have a great mom.

Peter Wolf: "Nothing but the Wheel"

2011-04-10T13:10:00.011-04:00

This is one of the best crossover tracks by a great rock singer/songwriter giving us a modern country classic. Peter Wolf of J. Geils Band fame in the studio with an all-star line up cutting the perfect road song for his 2002 solo album Sleepless. (And yes, the highway 41 in this song is the same road Dickie Betts was 'born rollin' down in the backseat of a Greyhound bus.' Or so the song goes.)

Inside an Artist's Overwrought Soul: "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" (1991)

2011-04-04T11:43:00.004-04:00

Francis Ford Coppola in the Philippine Jungle Shooting
Apocalypse Now (circa 1976)

Francis' wife Eleanor Coppola co-directed and narrated this examination of the literally maddening process of her husband Francis making his modern adaption of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), the Viet Nam war epic Apocalypse Now (1979). The result is this excellent complementary documentary to the film, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991).

A unique, gripping look at a film director as artist working under the most extreme conditions imaginable -- conditions that drive him to the edge of insanity. The project: film, in the Philippines, the definitive Viet Nam war film -- using Conrad's classic novella for the structure and certain themes of the story. (Filming Heart of Darkness is a project Orson Welles attempted on a smaller scale but could not get made. Welles then went on to make Citizen Kane instead.)

The documentary also gives us an look behind the scenes at more than one member of the production being pushed beyond their limits. Just one example of the challenges Francis Coppola met to get this film made was directing a troubled Dennis Hopper (see clip below). Such challenges came by the dozens and pushed Coppola to the brink -- and to new heights of creativity.

It's been my belief for a long time that the better we understand our (i.e. the U.S.) role in Viet Nam, the better we understand ourselves. Both the film and also this complimentary documentary help. As a little something extra, Francis and Eleanor add a fine commentary on the documentary.

I can't wait to see Apocalypse Now Redux (2001) again soon.

Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" (1964)

2011-03-29T18:40:00.005-04:00

After a shower at the "I'm here" end of my move this weekend, here's the mood I'm in -- and all I did was move across town.

Chuck Berry, Promised Land (1964)

Emmylou Harris: "Born to Run" (1988)

2011-03-21T19:38:00.009-04:00

This Paul Kennerley song originally appears on Emmylou's 1981 studio album Cimarron. She re-recorded it with Buddy Miller, Darryl Jones, and company on her 1988 live album Spyboy. Here she is giving Dave a treat while touring to promote that record.

I picked this tune because I'm moving this week. I needed the inspiration.

"You Can't Scare Me, I'm Sticking with the Union"

2011-03-15T15:53:00.002-04:00

Woody Guthrie, Union Maid, Hard Travelin': The Asch Recordings, Vol 3

I can't stand it no more. I try and I try to stay away from politics here but sometimes you just gotta speak up. To all those folks at all those rallies in the harse winter in Madison, Wisconsin, this one goes out to you -- a slice of Woody Guthrie singing Union Maid -- sounds to me like Pete Seeger on the chorus.

Actress, Chantuese, Song-Weilder Eszter Balint

2011-03-09T17:39:00.009-04:00

[reworked from 2008 post]

Eszter Balint

On French TV in 1999

I expect big things from this multi-talented, always evolving artist. Check out her home page here.

[Update: 7 August 2011: I saw Eszter in Jim Jarmusch's 1984 film Stranger than Paradise tonight. Eszter and her Scream' Jay Hawkins cassette tape are highlights of this influential independent film.]

Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams Shine in "The Fisher King" (1991)

2011-03-04T12:08:00.005-04:00

I've always been a Jeff Bridges fan; add co-star Robin Williams that makes this a must-see film for me. Bridges goes from Shock Jock to real human very believably; Williams portrays his psychotic character flawlessly -- it's as if he had been through it himself. With Terry Gilliam directing -- and Mercedes Ruehl's Oscar-winning supporting performance -- you have an almost perfect film. I can't tell you the flaw (that I see) without spoiling the ending. So check out the trailer above; if it looks like your cup of tea, then definitely check this one out. Its themes: redemption, grace and forgiveness -- set in a serious yet often very funny context -- make it a film that warrants ongoing attention.

Tina Turner Back in the Day

2011-02-28T20:09:00.005-04:00

I just found this photo -- one that takes me back to some fond memories. I had no idea what was going on in her private life at the time, I just knew she was producing rocket-fueled rock and R&B in 1970. She was one of my favorite singers right into her lean years in the late seventies. And then, boom, she was a solo mega-star.

Love ya' Tina.

Otis Redding's "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay"

2011-02-24T16:21:00.002-04:00

As the Allmusic Guide puts it so well, "It was never supposed to be like this: '(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay' was supposed to mark a beginning of a new phase in Otis Redding's career, not an ending." Posthumously released in January of 1968 after Otis' death in a plane crash in December of 1967, this radio-friendly change of pace for Redding was immediately added to R&B radio station playlists.

Redding co-wrote the song with guitarist/producer/songwriter Steve Cropper. It's easy to fall under the spell of Otis' vocal so don't miss Cropper's subtle guitar work.

Dock of the Bay was the first posthumous number one single in U.S. chart history. The tune shot to number one on the Billboard R&B charts and number four on the magazine's pop charts. Moreover, the song has lasted. BMI named it the 6th most performed song of the 20th century. I saw evidence of this just recently, when a great cover of the tune got a big round of applause from a seemingly disinterested audience at a bar happy hour. It's part of the culture now, and I can't see it going anywhere. Otis and Steve, thanks for this classic.

[This post also contains information from Wikipedia's page on the song.]

"This One Goes Out to the One I Love"

2011-02-18T18:26:00.005-04:00

R.E.M. The One I Love, from Document (1987)

I've always liked this one, and the minute I put it one while preparing this post, the one I love over there on the sofa started singing along. That makes this one a keeper for sure.

Bill Withers: "Ain't No Sunshine" (live, 1972)

2011-02-13T11:22:00.002-04:00

Bill Withers, Ain't No Sunshine (live, 1972)

The guitar player at the bar last Thursday played a cover of this song, then said, "When was the last time you heard that one?"

Me, in response, "It never leaves my head."

Here is Withers performing his Grammy-winning 1971 hit.

"Wait a Minute! That's the Same Song": Derek and the Dominoes, Buddy Holly and the Crickets

2011-02-07T23:10:00.004-04:00

Back Cover of the Layla LPs (1970)
(not pictured: Eric Clapton, Carl Radle, Duane Allman, Bobby Witlock, Jim Gordon)

Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1957)

As I started my adventure into rock 'n' roll in 1970, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970) was one of the first important albums I owned. And I had completely missed Buddy Holly, a fading 50s memory to the newcomers like me. Gradually though, I learned more about Derek and the Dominoes as well as picking up little bits of information on Buddy Holly and his band The Crickets.

But it wasn't until I purchased a comprehensive Buddy Holly anthology last year that a connection clicked between the Layla album and Buddy Holly.

The experts out there will know this often covered Chuck Willis tune, but maybe I can make what was a startling connection me for a few folks out there.

On side four of the Layla double LP, there's a cover of the song It's Too Late. Derek and Co. cover the song in straight-ahead Clapton blues rock arrangement. I always liked the cut but had no idea of its history.

I was quite surprised as I listened to the Buddy Holly anthology Gold and I started to recognize the lyrics of one song but couldn't place them. Then it hit me. Buddy Holly had covered the very same song but in his pioneering Texas style of 50s rock. It's Too Late appeared on Holly's 1958 EP Rave On.

Below you can listen to the two covers in the order I was exposed to them: 1970 then 1958.

It's Too Late Derek and the Dominoes (1970)

It's Too Late Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1958)

Alison Krauss and Yo Yo Ma: "Slumber My Darling" (Stephen Foster)

2011-02-01T17:17:00.008-04:00

Here is a beautiful "old school" folk song reinterpreted by folk's best modern vocalist with a world class string ensemble.

Beautiful Dreamer, a 2005 compilation album of Stephen Foster's work, won the Grammy that year for Best Traditional Folk Album. Here are Alison Krauss and Yo Yo Ma performing Slumber My Darling -- their track appearing on this all-star collection.

Joni Mitchell: "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire"

2011-01-26T22:17:00.002-04:00

Inspired by some wicked cold weather (-26 degrees F) in Minnesota, whiteray at Echoes in the Wind did a cold theme column for his Saturday Single post last weekend. And the clip he used inspired me: Joni Mitchell's Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire.

This song is from the album For the Roses, her follow-up to her most lasting imprint on the music of her generation, Blue. For the Roses, though, is the only album of hers, from her five decades of recording, that the Library of Congress has chosen for the National Recording Registry. For the Roses is diverse, experimental, and, at times, perfectly in her well-honed groove. And its a groove all her own; her timing is hers and hers alone. There's no better example than Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire.

I found this album when I dedicated myself to completing my Joni education. When I put it on, this track grabbed me by the throat and has never let go. Lou Reed’s haunting Heroin on The Velvet Underground & Nico and Cold Blue Steel are the best two heroin/major addiction songs I know.

As for Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire's lyrics, I will let them speak for themselves -- here's the second half of the song:

....Red water in the bathroom sink
Fever and the scum brown bowl
Blue Steel still begging
But it’s indistinct
Someone’s Hi-Fi drumming Jelly Roll
Concrete concentration camp
Bashing in veins for peace
Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire
Fall into Lady Release
“Come with me I know the way,” she says
"It’s down, down, down the dark ladder
Do you want to contact somebody first"
I mean "What does it really matter?"
"You’re going to come now
Or you’re going to come later"

The topic is raw and gritty, but Joni's performance kills the pain -- it's beautiful, seductive, yearning, just like the drug you're needin’. As for me, there were more than a few commutes to work where Joni's Cold Blue Steel was the medicine I needed.

The Original Santana Band: "Incident At Neshabur"

2011-01-19T13:52:00.002-04:00

For those of us who became fanatics at the beginning, that original line-up, for a while, meant something special. They were hot off a mesmerizing performance at Woodstock. And as fate would have it I had just gotten my first record player. Santana's single Evil Ways was my first favorite song.

Touring on their first self-titled album, still riding high on the Woodstock film excitement about their performance, Santana was also the first concert I ever saw. The show was to me indescribably great. It was the night as a teenager I had my rock 'n' roll revelation. I was hooked and this music -- Afro-Cuban, latin, rock, jazz, San Francisco street music, with a full Latin rhythm section -- was the drug.

Then, in the fall of 1970, Santana released their quite astounding second album, Abraxas. Great as that album was -- some songs such as Black Magic Woman and Oye Come Va are still out there in the mix today -- the first musical fissures that would soon split the band were beginning to show. On Abraxas we begin to see guitarist Carlos Santana head in his musical direction (Latin-infused jazz) and keyboard player/vocalist Gregg Rolie in his (hard rock --that is, what was considered hard rock in the early 70s.)

Those fissures, apparent in tracks such as Incident At Neshabur featuring song co-writer and pianist Alberto Gianquinto, are some of the best music the original line-up created. As Rolie noted about this track (in an interview for the 1998 reissue liner notes), "We did time changes, colors, and things that were very sophisticated."

The best recorded performance of Incident At Neshabur was live in Japan in 1973, with long searing guitar solos tempered by jazz keyboards, on Lotus (1974). This version comes in at almost 16 minutes. The studio version below is much shorter, but more importantly, Rolie is still in the line-up, adding a rock sensibility that's an essential part of the mix.

The Original Santana Band will always be special -- no matter what Carlos achieved in his jazz fusion period. That original band had a distinctive magic. See what you think -- check out the track below.

The Original Santana Band: Incident At Neshabur (Abraxas version)

Louis Jordan: "Saturday Night Fish Fry"

2011-01-12T18:16:00.007-04:00

The first time I heard this cut it brought a big smile to my face. I recognized a phrase, a part of a phrase actually, that Chuck Berry had borrowed for his 1958 single Around and Around. Of course Jordon's influence on rock runs deeper. Popular with both black and white audiences, known as "The King of the Jukebox," Jordon made the music that rockers of the 50s grew up on. His brand of 40s New Orleans jazz would be one of the essential sources of the rock 'n' roll flood to come. So enjoy a little taste of what they're playin' at the Rampart Street Saturday Night Fish Fry.

Don't Rewrite Mark Twain

2011-01-05T13:43:00.016-04:00

Special Comment: An Associated Press (AP) article carried today by The Washington Post reports on a new combined edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer where the word "nigger" will be removed and replaced with "slave".

This would be a crime against literature. Twain scholar Steven Railton of The University of Virginia is quoted as calling this "a terrible idea." According to the article,

The language depicts America's past, Railton said, and the revised book was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing. Railton has an unaltered version of 'Huck Finn' coming out later this year that includes context for schools to explore racism and slavery in the book. 'If we can't do that in the classroom, we can't do that anywhere,' he said.

As one might expect, a quotation from Twain himself says it best. Back to the AP: "Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the right word and the almost right one was 'the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.'"

Censoring the word "nigger" from Mark Twain's books robs our culture of the knowledge of a part of the word's historical context. How can students understand the meaning and impact this word has had if we pretend it never existed? In every work Mark Twain published he worked to use "just the right word". We don't get to change them.

New York Times Critic's Pick: "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)

2011-01-01T17:00:00.002-04:00

I posted a YouTube clip of Streetcar a while back and briefly discussed this classic. But I just don't have the chops to discuss the film as well as ace critic A. O. Scott does here. So I'm turning this post over to Scott and this New York Times video clip. A Streetcar Named Desire is simply too good a film for anything less than a well done review.

Dylan's Rolling Thunder on "Black Diamond Bay"

2010-12-27T19:59:00.001-04:00

Bob Dylan's follow-up studio album to Blood on the Tracks, 1976's Desire, was written and recorded in New York city in 1975. It has always been a favorite of mine, in part because the songs are just flat out great and also because it came during a time when Dylan was organizing -- and reorganizing -- the Rolling Thunder Revue. I saw two great shows on that tour (New Orleans and Houston), but that's a story for another time.

Most of Desire was co-written with Jacques Levy. And there is one song in particular that gets very little attention, Black Diamond Bay. I do remember one smart alack reviewer saying that Dylan must have been reading too much Joseph Conrad when he co-wrote this one. Other than that, silence. For me, this is a great little adventure story song built on a fine guitar riff -- thoroughly enjoyable for me because I love this outing as Dylan does Conrad.

But judge for yourself; here's the story of Black Diamond Bay.

Bob Dylan, Black Diamond Bay (1976, album version)

"Run Rudolph Run": 'Tell [Santa] He Can Take the Freeway Down'

2010-12-20T12:06:00.001-04:00

Chuck Berry

As I noted in the preceding post, I've got two favorite Christmas songs. My last post discussed the first runner-up, but my all time favorite is Chuck Berry's 1958 recording of Run Rudolph Run. I first discovered the song when Keith Richards covered it on his first solo single in 1978. But once I found Chuck Berry's version, I was hooked. It's a rockin' little song with great 50s Christmas lyrics and trademark Chuck Berry vocals and guitar. So "Merry Christmas, baby."

[Editor's Note: Keith Richards re-released his '78 cover of Run Rudolph Run on Itunes this December.]

Chuck Berry Run Rudolph Run (1958)

Favorite Christmas Songs: Darlene Love on Letterman, "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)" (1995)

2010-12-15T18:51:00.018-04:00

An annual tradition on Late Night with David Letterman since 1986, Darlene Love performing Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) is a holiday ritual both rock and R & B fans can look forward to, especially given the world of often tepid Christmas songs thrust at us in December. Above is a particularly hot version of this tune from 1995 -- back when Paul Shaffer still had hair.

Back before The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I used to catch Letterman only intermittently. I only caught one of these Darlene Love Christmas appearances, but the year I did, she, Paul and the band rocked my evening. Shaffer creates a Phil Spector style "wall of sound" -- one very like the mono production style Spector gave Darlene when she flourished in the 60s. I was overjoyed; now I had two favorite Christmas songs, Chuck Berry's Run Rudolph Run and Darlene Love with the CBS Orchestra doing Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home).
_________
Editor's Note: I found out from Echoes in the Wind today that Darlene will be on Letterman this year on Thursday, December 23rd.

John Lennon, 1940 - 1980

2010-12-08T11:40:00.005-04:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon near his home in New York City. I still recall quite vividly Yoko's call for 10 minutes of silent prayer the following Sunday. As many did, I spent that Sunday with close friends quietly reflecting on what John had meant both to me and to a world that mourned the tragedy.

John, I hope you've found the peace now that you worked so hard for in life.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (2010 DVD release): "Tumbling Dice"

2010-12-04T16:44:00.007-04:00

Though I've been an ardent Stones fan since the 70s, I've never had the chance to see any concert footage from what many would argue is the best tour the band ever did -- their 1972 tour in support of Exile on Main St. This is Mick Taylor's last tour as a Stone and the band is in peak form.

Can't think of a holiday gift for that Stones fan you know? Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones was re-released in October 2010 on DVD for the first time, and this Stones fan will act very surprised (and pleased) if he gets a copy in his stocking. 'Til then, I've got a wonderful bootleg of one of the tour concerts to keep me warm.

Folks, enjoy this little taste above, the Stones live in '72 performing a favorite of mine, Tumbling Dice.

My Search for Patsy Cline: "She's Got You"

2010-11-27T18:55:00.001-04:00

Mine has been a long climb out of the "country ain't cool" cave I wallowed in as a teenager. Here's one of paths out I found.

More than a decade after I started on my rock adventure in 1970, a friend gave me a cassette tape containing Elvis Costello's first two albums. I was crazy for his music. Then, in 1981, he began a long run of surprising his fans with each new release. Almost Blue (1981), recorded in Nashville with Nashville musicians and a Nashville producer, was filled with country standards that were all new to me. But I really liked the album.

There was one song in particular that I learned had been a hit by someone named Patsy Cline, the achingly beautiful Sweet Dreams. I told myself, "I'll have to check her out." And when I did, she knocked me off my feet. But I pulled myself up and dusted off my self-respect -- for missing her all those years -- and dove into her small but nearly flawless catalog. To this day, I still haven't heard a voice like hers.

As biographer Ellis Nassour put it when asked to comment on Cline's continuing popularity "Her voice really delivered the full intent of what the songwriters wrote, and [it was enhanced] by the quality and innovation lavished on her sessions by the real genius behind her sessions, Owen Bradley. No one sings a torch song like Patsy. It's like she's living her own story."

It wasn't hard to pick a personal favorite of Patsy's singles to feature here. Sweet Dreams, the song I discovered Patsy by, was an good possibility. Walkin' after Midnight was easily the song I'd poured the most money into jukeboxes for. But the wistful ballad below, Hank Cochran's She's Got You, is easily my favorite. It shows perfectly why a lot of folks, me included, think there is nobody that matches Patsy Cline.

So thanks Mr. MacManus. I would have been stuck a long while in my "country ain't cool" cave without your help way back in '81.

Patsy Cline, She's Got You (1962)

An Album of (Mostly) Film Images

2010-11-21T21:11:00.003-04:00

Here are a few film-related photos and movie posters -- with several music and miscellaneous wild cards included -- in my album at Golden Age of Hollywood. Click on any image for more information.

The Dixie Chicks: Still "Not Ready To Make Nice"

2010-11-16T18:05:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine put on an album the other night, one I hadn't written about since it took home five Grammys and tore up the charts in 2006. The Dixie Chicks' Taking the Long Way still sounds great these five years later. (Judge for yourself with the video above; as always, my apologies for the ad across the bottom.)

As an aging hippie, the idea that a band would stir up so much controversy by exercising an artist's right to criticize American foreign policy from overseas is more than a little disconcerting. I grew up at the height of the era where protest music and musicians speaking their minds were badges of honor. But judging on the first decade of this century, a band now puts its future on the line by stepping out of line. As I think about it, I guess its always been risky to oppose those in authority.

The Dixie Chicks are still thriving with a smaller fan base, having lost many of their more conservative, mainstream country fans. But they are still going strong, and their cathartic album Taking the Long Way stands as one of the decade's most important protest records.

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."

2010-11-10T21:38:00.004-04:00

In 1968, when Stanley Kubrick's masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey was released, I was 11 and my grandfather was 55. The pre-release hype on the film had been so big that he took me to the Tampa premiere of the film. He and I had never been to a film together before, but he thought this would be a culturally significant event and he didn't want me to miss it.

When we emerged from the theater after viewing the film, I distinctly remember the two of us looking at each other with expressions of "What the hell was that?" I'm sure it was the last Kubrick film he ever saw, but for me it was the beginning of a journey of exploration.

I'm 53 now and I'd guess I've seen the film 20 times since its release, each time comprehending a little bit more of what Kubrick was saying. It's been a slow, hard road, but well worth the investment of time and mental energy. Now, as I've, somewhat, come to piece the puzzle of the film together, one of the things I love most about it is that 2001 leaves so many questions unanswered.

It's been a mind blower for 40 years and I see no reason it will stop being a mind blower anytime soon.

So thanks, Granddad. I know you didn't have much fun that summer afternoon back in 1968, but you achieved your primary goal: getting me started early on exploring this historic film.

Readers who recognized the reference in this post's title will know this little taste I'm throwin' in above. But realistically, this is a film you have to study as a whole to get what it has to give. And it has plenty to give.

Cyndi Lauper: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (1983)

2010-11-05T14:03:00.007-04:00

Jeez, can't a boy have a little fun too without suffering through an advertisement embedded with wonderful video? And why is Wikipedia -- usually a fine source on popular music -- trying to convince me this song is an important feminist statement?

It's a fun song. It's danceable. It's a great video featuring Cyndi's real mom. At most, it's a girl's statement of how things are. But the point of the song just what Cyndi's plea is for, fun.

With my sincere apologies for the embedded ad, here's a little light pop that fueled a lot fun worldwide back in the eighties. And it still holds up. Enjoy.

Billy Preston at the Concert for Bangladesh: "That's The Way God Planned It"

2010-10-30T18:14:00.005-04:00

Three performances that most shaped where my musical tastes would wander are all from one concert film and album -- the first rock superstar benefit concert of its kind -- The Concert for Bangladesh (1972). Those performances were from Bob Dylan, Leon Russell and Billy Preston. Here's a little taste, Preston's song for the two Madison Square Garden shows in the summer of 1971.

Preston, the keyboard power behind the Beatles (at the very end) and the early seventies Stones, shows his gospel roots on this one, with all the hip rockers thinking they are in heaven. For me, when the movie finally did hit town, I was in heaven too.

Pretenders - "Stop Your Sobbing"

2010-10-25T10:51:00.005-04:00

While the Pretenders are obviously lip syncing in this clip, I include it because it's their first single, Stop You're Sobbing, and the line up is the original band: Chrissie Hynde, James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers. Stop Your Sobbing (a Kinks cover) was produced by Nick Lowe and released as a single in January of 1979. Musically, it is not a direction the band would take on their acclaimed first album released a year later, but it shows the Pretenders search for their sound.

By 1983, both Honeymon-Scott and Farndon would suffer drug-related deaths. To my mind, though there was great music to come from reformed line-ups, nothing the Pretenders would subsequently do approached what the original band did on their self-titled debut album Pretenders (1980).

Delta Moon, "Goin' Down South" (2004)

2010-10-19T17:09:00.018-04:00

If you've ever sweated into your bramble cuts in the South Carolina summer sun and passed a kudzu-covered fence on your way, Delta Moon's biography (see the link at their name just above) is right up your alley. Delta Moon frontman and songwriter Tom Gray wrote Money Changes Everything, a favorite of mine made a hit by Cyndi Lauper from her first (and best) album, She's So Unusual (1983).

Delta Moon is a serious roots blues band. I haven't heard a guitar and dobro slide breakdown like Goin' Down South (above) since Lucinda Williams' Can't Let Go from Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998).

Definitely check this act out live if you get the chance. For a review of Delta Moon's 2004 album Goin' Down South see here. This eclectic record definitely deserves attention.

And I can't sneak out without comment on the photo array that accompanies the song. There's nothing hill-county-blues-breakdown about it, but for me, it works.

Two Dylan Master Takes of "Tangled Up in Blue"

2010-10-12T11:23:00.005-04:00

Bob Dylan, 1975

In September of 1974, Bob Dylan, recording in New York City, laid down the tracks that were intended to be released as his album Blood on the Tracks. But over that Christmas spent in Minnesota, Dylan became dissatisfied with the September version of the album: "I thought the songs could have sounded differently, better." (Liner notes: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3, p. 35). Dylan re-recorded some key tracks while in Minnesota in December. The album, with these re-recorded tracks, was released in January 1975.

Blood on the Tracks eventually came to be regarded as one of Dylan's best records. The rejected masters released later are excellent in their own right while also giving us insight into the evolution of this essential album. The two master takes of Tangled Up in Blue are a case in point.

Below are both the September '74 and December '74 alternate master takes of Tangled Up in Blue -- the December take is the one that was released on Blood on the Tracks.

Personally, this song played a huge part in the soundtrack to my life. First, it was the key breakthrough song in me coming to appreciate Dylan. I also look back fondly now on the hundreds of times I sang along with the song, scream/singing "Tangled up with you, Wendy" over the decade it took me to get over one of my college sweethearts.

But enough prelude, here are the two tracks side by side. I treasure them both and enjoy comparing them. I hope you do too. (Note: On the alternate master that didn't make Blood on the Tracks, you will hear a clicking sound near the beginning of the track; that's the buttons on Dylan's coat sleeve hitting the soundboard of his guitar.)

Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue, Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue (alternate master), The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3 (Rare and Unreleased, 1961-1991) (1991)

Treasure Worth Waiting For: The Layla Sessions, "Mean Old World"

2010-10-05T12:16:00.008-04:00

Eric Clapton, Carl Radle and Duane Allman (circa 1970)

As much as I loved the vinyl era I grew up in, the space limitations of an LP left a lot of excellent music unreleased. Great artists were quite often recording more songs than would fit on an album. Double albums were often risky propositions, and triple albums simply were not considered marketable.

I can't think of a better example of a superlative track that didn't make the original double album is Derek and the Dominoes' Mean Old World, an acoustic slide duet recorded by Eric Clapton and Duane Allman during The Layla Sessions in 1970, but not released until almost twenty years later.

A little blues rock history: Clapton and Allman cover Little Walter's version of Mean Old World. Mean Old World was first recorded by T-Bone Walker in 1942. Little Walter recorded his substantially reinterpreted version in 1957. (The liner notes to The Layla Sessions indicate that the Clapton/Allman cover is of Little Walter's version.)

This is a song that reached out and grabbed me the first time I heard it and every time since. I still remember the first time I heard it; I asked myself "Damn, how did this not make it onto the original Layla album?" I'd rank it as my favorite modern acoustic blues recording.

Thank goodness for box sets, eh? The two listed below give me the chance to let you hear this classic.

Mean Old World

Derek and the Dominoes, The Layla Sessions (1990)
Eric Clapton, Crossroads (1988)

Cab Calloway and The Nicholas Brothers: "Jumpin' Jive" (from "Stormy Weather")

2010-09-30T19:29:00.016-04:00

My fellow member Joe over at Golden Age of Hollywood posted this clip there recently and I can't get it off my mind. I'd seen it once long ago and then more recently at a friend's house in the film Stormy Weather (1943).

Cab Calloway, his band and the Nicholas Brothers dance team put on an incomparable performance. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a good deed and check it out. Music and dance in film doesn't get any better than this.

And that goes for Stormy Weather in general. As Wikipedia put it, the film is "a time capsule showcasing some of the top African-American performers of the time, [a time] when black actors and singers rarely appeared in lead roles in mainstream Hollywood productions, particularly of the musical genre."

I can't put it better than that.

Tennessee Williams' "A Street Car Named Desire" (the 1951 film)

2010-09-25T19:20:00.012-04:00

They won't let me show you a scene from this Hollywood masterpiece, though a great many are posted on YouTube, some listed at the end of the re-release trailer above. But A Streetcar Named Desire is playing in a few minutes on TCM and I couldn't think of a better topic to cover here.

This is the film that made Marlon Brando a star. This is the film where Vivien Leigh somehow embraces her own mental instability and channels it into her Oscar-winning performance. This film is one of the very best adaptations of a Tennessee Williams play brought to the screen.

So by all means, check it out on TCM tonight or see it at your first opportunity. Or if you're like me, see it again, just because you've got the chance. Elia Kazan's 1951 film is timeless; it just doesn't wear out.

Gotta go, it's almost showtime.

Solomon Burke Covering Van Morrison's "Fast Train"

2010-09-19T14:41:00.008-04:00

When I wrote recently about the HBO series The Wire, after seeing season one on DVD, I had no idea my enthusiasm for the show was going to turn into addiction. I just finished watching season three and I'm thoroughly hooked. But rather than throw superlatives at you about just how good, just how innovative this series is, here's the tune the show's creative team uses as the soundtrack -- a very rare thing for this show, soundtrack music being very sparse -- of the season three closing montage.

I heard this Solomon Burke track for the first time yesterday. I hope you dig it as much as I do. Now I've got to finish watching some additional material that comes with the final disc for season three. Then I can get it back in the mail to Netflix and feed this monkey on my back; the first disc for season four should be here by Wednesday.

Noel Murphy: "Paddy and the Barrel/The Bricklayer's Lament"

2010-09-11T16:27:00.008-04:00

Paddy and the Barrel/The Bricklayer's Lament performed by Noel Murphy

I racked my brain last week trying to think of a good song to post for Labor Day last Monday, but no inspiration came. Until yesterday that is. A friend turned me on to this fine little tune performed by Irish folk musician Noel Murphy. Though I'm almost a week late, I can't imagine a finer song to play (and sing along) while tossing back a few beers with your friends in a pub. So for all you working men and women out there, a belated Happy Labor Day.

Belgrade Blues: Ana Popovic Performing "Navaho Moon"

2010-09-05T19:11:00.011-04:00

Ana Popovic: Navajo Moon

Young women who are on the path to becoming true blues masters are out there, but they are few and far between. Even rarer is a woman blues guitar player from eastern Europe who plays a masterful electric blues slide guitar (think Bonnie Raitt). I've been hoping to feature a young woman blues player for a while and found one on my cable radio yesterday. Ana Popovic, hailing from what was once Yugoslavia (Belgrade, Serbia now), performed a slow burn slide blues solo that made me sit up and listen. It was a track from her 2007 album Still Making History entitled How'd You Learn to Shake it Like That?

I learned from Wikipedia that she had relocated to the Netherlands and on France's Daily Motion i found another gem of a cut: Ana performing Navaho Moon. This cut reminded me immediately of Stevie Ray Vaughan's cover of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing. But Ana builds on the foundation Stevie Ray and Jimi laid.

Sippie Wallace, Bonnie Raitt and Lou Ann Barton, you've got some younger company.

Creedence Clearwater Revival: "Who'll Stop The Rain "

2010-08-31T16:21:00.007-04:00

With this classic, now 40 years old and aging well, songwriter John Fogerty pulls off what great songwriters do: he writes a song that's a bit of a downer if you think of it that way, but I don't know anyone who does. Part of the magic is in the uplifting, we're gonna keep-on-keepin'-on music, in essence denying the sober realities of the lyrics.

One of three double-sided singles off CCR's 1970 album Cosmo's Factory, the folk rock groove the band establishes becomes an anthem for the post-flower power generation -- an anthem fully aware that movements and governments aren't going to "stop the rain from fallin' down".

Punch it up on the jukebox next chance you get. I always do.

Johnny Cash at San Quentin: The Song "San Quentin"

2010-08-26T11:46:00.006-04:00

Johnny Cash Playing San Quentin Prison, 1969

When the double album Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969) was released, a good bit of the show had to be edited out for space. The DVD special edition released in 2000, featuring almost the entire show, includes performances by supporting players Carl Perkins and June Carter Cash.

One little nugget Cash wrote just for this show, the song San Quentin, was the highlight of the evening for the inmates, but sadly left off the initial release. Here it is below. Even if you are not a country music fan, check it out -- it's an unparalleled musical commentary on prisons.

Scorsese's "Shutter Island": "Someone is Missing"

2010-08-21T16:41:00.003-04:00

In Martin Scorsese's latest film, Shutter Island (2010), we find the great director tackling yet another film genre, the psychological thriller. I saw it on DVD a few months ago, twice, and have been struggling to find a way to write about it since. The film is based on Dennis Lehane's excellent 2003 novel of the same name which I read about around the time of the book's release. My first reaction when I heard Scorsese was tackling this book was twofold: first, what is Scorsese doing working in this genre, and second, how is he going to make a film of that book.

That's not to say I had any doubts that Scorsese could pull it off, but I knew the master had his work cut out for him. As usual, he didn't let me down. This film more than anything makes me think of Hitchcock in his prime, but with a little something extra that represents, to my mind, a renaissance of the genre.

One thing I can tell you without playing spoiler is that Shutter Island does a fine job drawing you into the protagonist's perspective on the mystery. This is a film mentor of mine's observation. She, however, was disappointed in the simplicity of the solution to the mystery. As I note above, I wasn't. Though not a perfect film, I would recommend it highly.

That said, my recommendation is don't see Shutter Island with any knowledge of the plot or expectations about the world this film will take you to. I also recommend seeing the film twice in order to sort out the mysteries you're left with after your first viewing.

Rickie Lee Jones: "Flying Cowboys"

2010-08-12T17:25:00.005-04:00

Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker only did one really important thing musically while he and Donald Fagen were taking their long hiatus (1981-1993). Becker produced this superb album, released in 1989. Becker creates an ideal sonic format for Jones' poetry lyrics: smooth, almost jazzy arrangements that stay in Rickie Lee's trademark groove. There's even a soulful lesson delivered in a cover of Gerry and the Pacemakers' Don't Let the Sun Catch You Cryin'.

I try to avoid quoting Rolling Stone here, but this time they nailed it:

While it explores a wealth of themes and musical styles, the album unfolds with the ongoing grace of one long song. What provides unity to the album's varied elements is its seductive rhythmic flow, the down-home surrealism of Jones's lyrics, the clarity and intelligence of Walter Becker's production and, of course, the sensual elasticity of Jones's extraordinary singing (Rolling Stone, Nov.2, 1989 (4/5)).

This is by far my favorite Rickie Lee record, though I can't pretend to have heard them all. Let's just say that "rhythmic flow" of this album will draw you in and never let you go.

Joni Mitchell: "A Case of You"

2010-08-07T10:51:00.003-04:00

A Young Joni Mitchell

My buddy whiteray up at Echoes in the Wind just turned me on to a new tool that will allow me to place a song I'm discussing right into a post. Instead of being limited to what I can find on YouTube, where sound quality is hit or miss at best, I've now got my entire music library to work with, with high quality audio.

So let's try it out. All you have to do is click the play button below. Before you know it you will be wrapped in the arms of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You from her 1971 album Blue, arguably one of the best albums of our era -- it's listed at number 30 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

With A Case of You Joni stripped the record down to the essentials: in this case her hammer dulcimer, her voice and her songwriting, in this song examining the ebbs and flows of a love affair. (This record is from when Joni was in her late twenties; in a more recent interview, a mature Joni says of love, 'Yea, I got that all figured out'.)

I hope you enjoy this favorite of mine as much as I enjoy having a way to let you listen to it. Just hit the play button below and sit back.

*****

Los Lobos Has Still Got It

2010-08-02T19:01:00.001-04:00

I've written about Los Lobos here before. I followed them in their early years -- their first major label release was in the mid-80s -- but I lost track of them in the late 90s while the members pursued side projects. Until last Friday night. The band played a gig in St. Petersburg (Florida) and I got a chance to see them live for the for the first time. The show was all I could have hoped for: rock/latin/jazz fusion with an East LA spin that is unsurpassed.

Los Lobos often close their sets with their 1987 cover of La Bamba (clip above), recorded for the film about the late Richie Valens, the first artist to infuse this Mexican folk song with a rock rock beat (back in '58). Los Lobos had an international with their '87 cover and theirs remains the definitive version of the song.

The Making of "Exile on Main St.": "Stones in Exile" (2010)

2010-07-28T18:33:00.003-04:00

My ex-wife is a very opinionated lady. Back when we were together, she was never afraid to take a stand on some issue that was her view and often hers alone. And so it was when we got down to discussing Rolling Stones albums. Her view was that everything after Let it Bleed was a formula album. I never agreed. Exile on Main St. is by far my favorite Stones album, but until the release earlier this year of Stephen Kijak's documentary Stones in Exile, I had no retort other than "I don't agree!" Now, with this documentary, I do.

Stones in Exile, filled with recent interviews, rare photographs and excerpts from the notorious, unreleased documentary of the Stones' 1972 tour, lays to rest any notion that there was anything formulaic about the recording of Exile on Main St. The controlled chaos of the core recording sessions at Keith's villa Nellcôte in the the south of France is well documented here. Marathon 12 hour jam sessions extending over months with songs evolving as the sessions progressed is no recipe for "formula album". Quoted in the October 1997 issue of Guitar magazine, Jagger put it this way:

Just winging it. Staying up all night ... It was this communal thing where you don't know whether you're recording or living or having dinner; you don't when you're going to play, when you're gonna sing -- very difficult. Too many hangers-on. I went with the flow and the album got made. These things have a certain energy, and there's a certain flow to it, and it got impossible. Everyone was so out of it.

Jagger may not have been having much fun, but the result is an unparalleled rock/blues/country/soul document. So check out Stones in Exile and get a taste of how Exile on Main St. got made. It might even convince my ex-wife that this was no formula album.

A Landmark in TV Crime Drama: HBO's "The Wire" (Season One)

2010-07-21T17:30:00.004-04:00

I've discussed music, film and books here, but never television. Though I watch my share, this blog is simply not about TV. But HBO's The Wire is not television as we know it. Just Season One alone, of the 5 season series, with it's long story arcs and "visual novel" style creates a 13 hour film that reinvents the television crime series.

Former Baltimore crime reporter David Simon created, produced, and wrote much of the series. It vividly portrays the Baltimore City police department and the drug gangsters ruling the city's high and low rise housing projects in the 1980s. We also see the people in the middle, the pawns caught in "the game" as these rival institutions work to control the ghetto streets of a decayed urban world.

Though I lived in Baltimore in the 80s, The Wire showed me worlds the outsider never sees: the inner workings of both the police and the gangs. One of the many great aspects of the show is its portrayal of the dysfunctional nature of these institutions. The institution I worked in, the state attorney general's office, was dysfunctional in many of the same ways. The show is giving me a chance to work through many of the frustrations I had trying to make my little piece of the system work better. It's good to know I wasn't the only one dealing with this frustration.

The Wire demands of the viewer a commitment of time, concentration and emotional involvement, but that commitment is well rewarded. Season 1 is 13 hours of riveting television that, at the end of episode 10 yesterday, had me crying.

This is not feel good drama, but rather a hard look at real life in a modern American city. There's a lot to learn here, not the least of which is just how good television can be. In terms of realistic crime drama and innovative television, The Wire ranks with the best there is.

"Memo from Turner"

2010-07-14T17:54:00.005-04:00

This clip from the 1970 film Performance foreshadows the music video format to come years later. And the music here is raw rock 'n' roll at its finest.

In the clip Mick Jagger acts out the second of the two dramatic personae of his film character Turner. Earlier in the film he establishes Turner as a petulant, reclusive but seemingly harmless rock star. Here we see Turner shifting identities, now a rock-star-as-psychedelic-gangster personifying corruption and decadence.

The song would have disappeared into the void of Stones-related cult material but for Martin Scorsese placing a slice of Memo from Turner right in the heart of a cocaine binge sequence in his acclaimed film Goodfellas (1990). While very few people will ever see Performance, Scorsese brings Ry Cooder's searing slide guitar work on Memo to a wider audience. My hat's off to Mick, Ry, and Marty.

(A version of Memo from Turner with better audio quality is near the top of the red jukebox at left.)

Pretenders Back on Track, "Night in My Veins"

2010-07-07T21:34:00.015-04:00

In 1994, with drummer Martin Chambers back in the fold, The Pretenders' Last of the Independents album really takes me back to what made the band great in the first place -- Chrissie Hynde all guts and glory rockin' right up in your face. Here's a taste, my favorite single from the album, Night in My Veins.

Emmylou Harris - "You Never Can Tell (C'est La Vie)"

2010-06-30T00:06:00.001-04:00

Here the Acadian/country crossover possibilities of a 1964 Chuck Berry classic -- built from Louisiana culture in the first place -- are explored live by Emmylou Harris and one of her succession of red hot bands. So follow along on the 1950s journey of young lovers Pierre and the lovely "Mademoiselle." It's a good story.

Robert Palmer: "Addicted to Love"

2010-06-22T17:18:00.002-04:00

"... Whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh Yeah
It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough,
You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love...."

I started quoting that chorus to a friend the other day and she'd never heard it. That of course meant she'd never seen Addicted to Love's iconic 1986 video. In my head, I was sure I'd posted it here, but alas, no.

That oversight now stands corrected. Enjoy Robert and the ladies having a little fun with a damn great rock song.

Rolling Stones: "Love is Strong"

2010-06-16T14:10:00.003-04:00

I've always loved this opening track to 1994's Voodoo Lounge. It was the first single off an album that marked the end of a 5 year hiatus for the band while Jagger and Richards recorded a number of albums separately. It also marked the first album after bassist Bill Wyman's retirement and Darryl Jones took over as the Stones' regular bass player.

This track successfully reproduces the "archetypal 'Rolling Stones' sound". And the video is a perfect footnote to Martin Scorsese's remark in Shine a Light that the Stones are, in essence, 'a New York band'.

Voodoo Lounge is not a perfect album, but it's well worth exploring. Keith's track Thru and Thru, standing alone, is worth the price of the record. And very few Stones albums lead off as well as this one does with Love is Strong.