Rolling Stones: "Love is Strong"

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.

Sonic Youth: "Superstar"

I first heard Superstar performed by Rita Coolidge on Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1970), followed by The Carpenters cover, and then Bette Midler's version on her debut album in 1972. Much to my surprise, all these years later, today I received an email from a well-informed friend with a link to Sonic Youth's cover above. Of all the versions I've heard, this is my new favorite.

It's the perfect requiem for Karen Carpenter. Listening to it makes me realize just how much I still miss her.

Townes Van Zandt , "Dead Flowers" (Jagger/Richards)

I've always loved this song. I heard it first on The Stones' 1971 classic Sticky Fingers and learned it on guitar by playing along with the record. I loved the speeded-up version on 1995's Stripped. But then I spent a lot of time only hearing myself play it.

Cut to 2004. Out of nowhere, over a bowling game closing The Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski, I hear iconic songwriter Townes Van Zandt performing Dead Flowers to close the film's superb soundtrack. Though I love the Stones versions, Van Zandt brings a Texas soul authenticity and converts it from an almost-country song into a real one.

But great country songs don't get written by accident. It's a credit to Keith and Mick that Townes put his stamp of approval on this little number. As far as the sparse video above is concerned, just think of yourself listening to the song on a long road trip.

"Instant Karma!": John Lennon and Yoko Ono with The Plastic Ono Band

When I bought this single back in the early 70s, I had no idea what karma was. To define it in its simplest terms, "what goes around, comes around." Now "instant karma" is part of my vocabulary. As in, "instant karma's going to get those fools responsible for the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the death of 11 working men on that rig."

So for those deceased working men, our precious Gulf of Mexico and coast lines all along the Gulf Stream in peril, here's John & Co. with a little prayer from me.

Classic Film This Summer at the Tampa Theatre

Beginning on June 6th with Topper, The Tampa Theatre (pictured above) Summer Classics Series will air a number of films of the "golden age" of Hollywood and one German expressionist silent classic. More information is available at the Tampa Theatre's website.

I'm planning on seeing three or four films in the series, including His Girl Friday, Casablanca, and the newly restored Metropolis (1927) with live musical accompaniment on the theatre's mighty Wurlitzer organ.

From the Bruce Springsteen with Seeger Sessions Band Tour, "When The Saints Go Marching In"

There is one reason New Orleans can never die, no matter how much oil BP spills around it or Army Corp. of Engineers mistakes flood the region: the spirit of its music.

The concert footage above leaves out a verse Bruce wrote for the end of the song when they played it at Jazzfest in New Orleans four years ago -- when the city was still in the early stages of recovery from the post-Katrina disaster:

Some say this world of trouble
Is the only world we'll ever see
But I'm waiting for that morning
When the new world is revealed

Equal Justice in the American South: "Intruder in the Dust" (1949)

Recently I watched TCM's airing of a film I knew absolutely nothing about, an adaptation of William Faulkner's novel Intruder in the Dust. I gave the film a chance because my cable provider has a relatively reliable rating system for films and gave it 4 of 4 stars. As soon as I saw in the opening credits the film was based on a Faulkner novel I was persuaded.

I made a good decision. This 1949 film documents the real life racial conditions in rural Mississippi in the 1940's. I'll make just two minor additions to TCM's own summary of the film: "Only a young [white] boy and an [elderly white] woman stand between an innocent black man and a lynch mob." The film, with a few small flaws, is excellent.

The film was made on location in Faulkner's home town of Oxford, Mississippi, using the local residents as extras. This adds a raw, authentic quality to the townspeople and the sequences shot in the surrounding woodlands. The film weaves an thrilling crime story with a tale of, to paraphrase one of Faulkner's letters, the responsibilities whites owed blacks in the south -- one part of the United States where equal protection of the law for blacks was no where to be found.

While this film does not have the star power or depth of To Kill a Mockingbird, Juano Hernandez turns in a timeless performance as proud black farmer Lucas Beauchamp.

One side note in closing: I spent the entire film and a good bit of time afterward trying to understand the meaning of the film and the novel's title: Intruder in the Dust. For those of you who might have seen or will see the film, I've got a theory: lumber mill sawdust.