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

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.)

Data on Gold Coast Bluenote: An Apparently Popular Post on the Film "To Kill a Mockingkingbird"

The post that, far and away gets the most hits here at Gold Coast Bluenote (GCB), is a discussion of the film made from Horton Foote's screenplay -- based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel -- for the 1962 film starring Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird. My hypothesis is that a substantial number of students assigned to read the book or see the film may find my 2007 GCB post, 'It's a Sin to Kill a Mockingbird', because the post's title is a line directly from the film. Image and article searches, therefore, using primarily but not exclusively Google search engines, hit home here.

I find it a good time, to repost this modest effort up front for those who might otherwise miss it.

Now, 'to play it again, Sam' so to speak, let's revisit my discussion of director Robert Mullingan's inspirational film:

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The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.
(- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 23, spoken by the character Atticus)

Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird inspired many a young social activist and prospective lawyer to follow Atticus' example and seek social justice, whatever the personal cost. These young idealists would drop like flies as the realities of the real world closed around them. But a few survived to carry the torch for the equality of all men and women under the law.

And the film's impact stretches even further.

The Story of Movies Foundation uses the film To Kill A Mockingbird in the The Story of Movies as a way to provide middle school children a ".... guide to [the] students in learning how to read moving images. Although teachers frequently use films in the classroom, film as language and as historical and cultural documents is not widely taught. ...."

Lovers of great books -- me, I plead guilty -- are becoming fewer and farther between as the electronic media age progresses and instant visual and audio gratification becomes the status quo. But Harper Lee's novel survives as assigned classroom reading and Robert Mulligan's 1962 film adaptation still inspires idealists young and old to this day.

A large part of the credit goes to Gregory Peck for his performance in the role of Atticus Finch. Peck brings a sense of moral certainty, legal ethics and talent, as well as compassionate single-parent wisdom to the role that is truly astonishing.

Thanks Ms. Lee, Mr. Peck, and everyone who contributed to the creation of this film; I am re-inspired and given hope for humanity every time I see this film masterwork.

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Duane Allman Wednesdays at The Florida Cracker

Wednesday October 21st's Duane Pic Florida-Cracker.org

Come join the merry band of Duane fans who gather `round on Wednesdays to check out a new, sublime photo of the legendary guitarist and band leader. One can learn a lot from webmistress Donnah and this diverse group, brought together by a continuing appreciation of one of our era's greatest slide guitarists.

Stop on by and shout out a "Wail on Skydog!" some time.

"Abscessed Tooth Ache Blues"

I never did find out which one of the usual suspects, most likely Southern Woman on the Web Donnah in her Owen McQueen outfit, wrote this number. I do know Little Starla queen of my hearta sent me da 12 bar blues below.

And deadlines, dear readers, are deadlines.

This post goes to press today, for you, and for all the merry blues crew on the Wednesday morning Skydog beat at Florida Cracker:

Abscessed Tooth Ache Blues
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Actress, Chantuese, Song-Weilder Eszter Balint, Redux

[Updated March 2011]

Eszter Balint

On French TV in 1999

Invasion of Cosmic American Music into the Golden Age of Hollywood

See:

Paco's Juke Box, Starting Today: An Instant Classic Covering Four Genres Featured

Our New Jukebox - Front and Center for a Few Days

A good deal of this music is here because dear friends have helped me rebuild my collection. I cannot thank them enough. Underlying software platform and server space provided courtesy of Kevin and all the fine folks at Golden Age of Hollywood. Moreover, the members at GAOH have built jukeboxes of their own that cover everything you could want in an eclectic on demand collection. It will blow your mind.

Thanks to all you swingin' cats!

Good Morning, Internet!

Legendary Disk Jockey Wolfman Jack

{Different station, a digital world now; 12:11 am, any night you're listening:}

Yes, dudes and dudettes, this is the Sandman here introducing the new Gold Coast Bluenote jukebox. Tired of reading that Paco dude go on and on as he learns to write? Just check out our new expanded left column: there you will find the greatest little jukebox in the world. To get your mojo workin' this morning let's start with a blast from the past -- the ever sensual Miss Dusty Springfield leading you right down the path to solace and destruction, with "Breakfast in Bed," from her Ultimate Collection.

"Hoo-wah!"

Note: This jukebox is made possible by the software engineer and fine folks over at The Golden Age of Hollywood.

(A belated) Happy Birthday, Katharine Hepburn

(photo via The Profane Angel)

Happy Birthday to an eternal American icon.

Cary Grant and Aretha Franklin?

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Created by Ilsa Lund, contributor to The Golden Age of Hollywood
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The Aretha Franklin song backing the clips of Cary Grant in action is I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) from 1967. It was The Queen of Soul's first major hit single. To my mind, it makes a great soundtrack to these well-edited clips of Grant at his charming and roguish best.

Robert Christgau on Lucinda Williams' "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road"

Lucinda Williams (photo by Zorin Orlic)

Right about the time Rolling Stone magazine went from newspaper stock to glossy paper, I quit reading it. I was fed up with the arrogance of critics trashing records from some of the great artists producing lasting music in the early '70's. Some would argue that this traditional role of the artistic critic is essential. But things have changed.

Now, with this blog, I get to write about music I think is important, or sometimes, just fun to listen to. There are plenty of albums and or popular music trends I could trash, but I will leave that to the traditional critics. I feel no need to grind my axes here.

My readers tell me I get better at this all the time, but I'm in no way the peer of masters like Robert Christgau, the best rock critic I ever read. So here, in praise of Lucinda Williams' Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998), I'm gonna move over and let Mr. Christgau take over. Car Wheels is so good, and Christgau is so eloquent in his review, I repost it here, from his website, in its entirety. One of our best rock critics, at his finest writing a positive review of an essential album:

LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
[by Robert Cristgau]

Sometimes it seems Lucinda Williams is too good for this world. Since cutting her teeth on an acoustic blues collection for the Folkways label in 1979, she has released just four albums of originals in 18 years, each for a different company. The first--1980's Happy Woman Blues, also for Folkways--is merely wonderful. The other three--Lucinda Williams (1988, Rough Trade, then Chameleon, then Koch), Sweet Old World (1992, Chameleon), and now Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Mercury)--are perfect. Immersed in time-weathered musical materials, demonstrating near absolute mastery of the pop songcraft that has been crystallizing at the conjunction of blues and country for half a century, Williams's writing is excellent only when it isn't superlative. Her lyrics are easeful, trenchant, imaginative, concrete, and waste-free, her tunes always right there and often inescapable. There isn't a duff song on the three records.

Yet beyond print media, where she's lionized whenever she sticks her head out of her lair, Lucinda Williams can hardly catch a break. She gets covered in Nashville, even won a songwriting Grammy after Mary-Chapin Carpenter cut the tongue out of "Passionate Kisses," and if Lucinda Williams maintains its steady sales pace, it will go gold around 2038. Smitten bizzers keep giving her advances, too. But she's never charted, and her labels have a terrible way of vaporizing. Say a little prayer that Mercury rides out the latest upheavals at PolyGram.

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the album Mercury bought from American Recordings' Rick Rubin (who mixed all but one track), was a legendary six years in the making. Williams is such a perfectionist that she recorded it from scratch twice, and then folded in more guest solos and recut vocals than even long-suffering coproducer Roy Bittan could fully digest--always with the perverse goal of making it sound less produced. And astoundingly, that's what's happened. Not only is Car Wheels on a Gravel Road more perfect than the two albums that preceded it, which English grammar declares an impossibility. It achieves its perfection by being more imperfect.

Dubious instrumental add-ons are crucial to this strategy--Gurf Morlix's acoustic slide guitar on "Jackson," Bittan's wisps of accordion on "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten," Greg Leisz's blues mandolin on "Concrete and Barbed Wire." But the illusion of casualness is most palpable in the singing. Williams's big voice has always thrived on contained emotion--soul strengthened by its refusal of overkill. But not since the open-hearted Happy Woman Blues has she gotten so much feeling on tape. This she accomplishes without belting--although the music rocks like guitar-bass-drums-plus should, she's never as loud or fast as someone dumber might be. She skillfully deploys the usual roughness tricks, from sandpaper shadings to full-scale cracks, but her main techniques are the drawl, emphasized to camouflage or escape her own sophistication, and the sigh, a breathy song-speech that lets her moan or croon or muse or coo or yearn or just feel pretty as the lyric permits and the mood of the moment demands.

The moods that prevail are defiance, regret, and what has to be called nostalgia, although the reminiscences are so clear-eyed they deserve a stronger word. There's no single song here that makes as indelible a statement as "Passionate Kisses," and probably no hits, not even for Mary-Chapin Carpenter. But from the album's very first lines--in which the flat "Not a day goes by I don't think about you" sets up the ambush of "You left your mark on me, it's permanent [pause, we need a rhyme fast] a tattoo [gotcha!]," which is instantly trumped by "Pierce the skin, the blood runs through" and then swoons into a forlorn, unutterably simple "Oh my baby"--Williams's every picked-over word and effect has something to say.

Whether it's the interrupted childhood memories of the title track, the imagistic shifts of "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten," the one-chord rant-chant "Joy," or the re-recorded old song "I Lost It," Williams's cris de coeur and evocations of rural rootlessness--about juke joints, macho guitarists, alcoholic poets, loved ones locked away in prison, loved ones locked away even more irreparably in the past--are always engaging in themselves. And they mean even more as a whole, demonstrating not that old ways are best, although that meaningless idea may well appeal to her, but that they're very much with us. The emotional dissociation and electronic noise pop fans have learned to love feel natural to them, as they should. But we all subsist on a bedrock of human contact craved, achieved, and too often denied. This truth we repress at everyone's peril, and without melodrama or sentimentality, Lucinda Williams is one of the rare contemporary artists who can make it real. If that makes her too good for this world, then too bad for the world.

Rolling Stone, July 23, 1998

Note: In print, this was a four-and-a-half star review. Initially I awarded the record five, but I was importuned to control my enthusiasm by my editors, who told me what turned out to be inaccurate things about what records had and hadn't gotten five stars in the past. Both editors involved have since admitted they made a mistake, and Car Wheels is now regarded as a touchstone by almost everyone--except Greil Marcus, of course.--R.C.
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Entering Lucinda's world is like slipping into a warm sea of love, with all the tranquility and all the storms. I learned this listening repeatedly to Lucinda Williams' Live at the Fillmore (2003); Car Wheels made this theory an axiom.

The Allman Brothers Band: "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"

The above YouTube clip of The Allman Brothers Band playing In Memory of Elizabeth Reed -- from the Fillmore East 23 September 1970. One note from me: watch Dickie Betts as he plays, using the volume control on his guitar to get certain notes to fade out in this blues /jazz fusion composition of his.

The following information comes from the comment archives of the Florida Cracker, December 13, 2006 -- all in response to my question "Who was Elizabeth Reed?":

Allmans guitarist Dickey Betts wrote this. Elizabeth Reed Napier is buried at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia, where Betts would often write. He used the name from her headstone as the title because he did not want to reveal who the song was really about. If you are really interested, you can visit "Elizabeth" while paying homage to Duane and [Berry Oakley] who are nearby.
(Posted by wilmarwil)

Elizabeth Reed Napier's grave was probably a very nice place for writing. It's shaded with cedars ... and has a little bench for sitting. I suspect the use of the first and middle/maiden name came from the way the headstone is arranged. As was common at the time, the family name, Napier, was displayed prominently, and the individual members were listed by first and middle names only. ...
(Posted by Juan Paxety)

I was there ! On our way to the D.C. mall (for the 1976 celebration on July 4) my brother and I (both [Air Force] vets) decided to take the long way...we left [Jacksonville, FL] on the Sunday week before, and wound our way up A1A as much as we could...stopping to replenish the cooler along the way.
MY primary 'special' stop was to visit Rose Hill. It overlooks a river, and within sight of DA and BO's graves is the Otis Redding bridge. When we went, you could actually drink beer and stand right beside the grave(s) littered with joints, pills, and various empties...foregoing a few roaches and somehow magically abandoned fifths of Jack.
Now I understand it has been fenced [...] off from close observation... We listened to Highway Call almost exclusively..except for an occasional Dylan tune or two. [...] By the way, the Napier family(s) were one of the first to settle in Georgia..
(Posted by csason)

The fencing of the graves was a very contentious time. It was initiated by Candy Oakley Johnson, Berry's sister and [Jai Johanny "Jaimo" Johanson's] ex-wife. She said she was tired of the trash, litter and carryings on at the grave site and, as I understand it, put up a tall fence. The historical folks had a fit - none of the other famous graves in the cemetery are fenced off. They finally compromised on a lower, less intrusive fence. ... BTW, Berry's fatal wreck happened on Napier Avenue, named for the same family.
(Posted by Juan Paxety)

Enjoy!

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The Evolution of A Rock Band: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

When I was young, I had to piece together my knowledge of a rock band bit by bit, story by story, picture by picture, concert by concert. Now I've discovered Wikipedia, among other great things: an online encyclopedia of the history of rock and roll. But while the Wiki folks are still getting there, they can't provide me (yet) with clips of Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty sitting with their guitars in a studio working out a song. They don't have interview footage of how Tom Petty got his drummer to show up for a charity gig by telling him (truthfully) that Ringo would play it if he didn't. And most importantly, Wikipedia does not provide me with concert footage of songs as great as The Last DJ. But Runnin' Down A Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers does. And more.

This Peter Bogdanovich documentary gives us something I've never seen before: the credible, mesmerizing behind-the-scenes story of a real rock and roll band, fighting not only the record companies, but also their own personal demons, and creating great music all the time.

Two of my top 10 producers, Jimmy Iovine and Rick Rubin, come to life in the interview and recording session clips. The Heartbreakers are all lookin' like bad asses in the picture above, but in the film the gentleness, the musical tenacity, and on occasion the moodiness of these vulnerable men comes through.

Petty and Stevie Nicks recount the tale of Nicks' desire to leave Fleetwood Mac and join the Heartbeakers. "But there aren't any girls in the Heartbreakers" Petty tells her again and again. The result: one of several musical collaborations documented here that are now what I call music of the 80's that mattered.

I could go on and on, but I'd only be spoiling Bogdanovich's show. At the heart of this stellar documentary is the evolution of two things: a working rock band keepin' it all together over thirty years of turmoil, and the increasingly mature work of a songwriter/poet that will speak truth to power at any cost.

Of speaking truth to power, let me give you just one example, regarding my personal favorite in the Tom Petty songbook:

Well you can’t turn him into a company man
You can’t turn him into a whore
And the boys upstairs just don’t understand anymore
Well the top brass don’t like him talking so much
And he won’t play what they say to play
And he don’t want to change what don’t need to change

And there goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
There goes the last DJ

Well some folks say they’re gonna hang him so high
Because you just can’t do what he did
There’s some things you just can’t put in the minds of those kids
As we celebrate mediocrity, all the boys upstairs want to see
How much you’ll pay for what you used to get for free

And there goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
And there goes the last DJ

Well he got him a station down in Mexico
And sometimes it will kinda come in
And I’ll bust a move and remember how it was back then

There goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say
Hey, hey, hey
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
And there goes the last DJ.

(The Last DJ by Tom Petty)

Corporate takeover of the music industry got the last free DJ. And I now have to pay for what I used to get for free. But the suits haven't cut down the fighters like Dylan, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Bruce, Tom Petty, and community radio. And I've got hope.
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As Blanche Dubois did not say, 'I've Always Depended on the Kindness of Non-Strangers.'

Photo Credit: Anonymous (Summer, 2005) ((from right to left): Father father (double entendre air-guitar), George Zimmerman (lead vocal -- pro-quality live mike to PA), Paco Malo (2nd vocal -- leaning in): Song: Born to Run)

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Letter From The Publisher

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Never kept a dollar past sunset,
Always burn a hole in my pants ...

(-- Keith Richards)

"With a little help from my great] friends", Gold Coast Bluenote is starting it's expansion into films and book coverage.

Very soon, we expand in two ways. The Paullinator, my esteemed colleague currently residing in the Mid-Atlantic region, is completing his research on a Pixies post, that could include a little 411 on The Breeders (if a few comment/requests roll his way). Scorcese's The Departed is in the kettle. A post on Carl Hiaasen's Native Tongue is also in the works; and a 53rd anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster surprise!

As the Publisher here makes the coffee and every job in between, this chair may startin' to need cleanin' once a week. Irish need not apply.

"Peace, Love, and Revolution",

Paco

Yo, Cobain, Hendrix, Van Zandt, and Patsy fans -- so you think you don't like classical music?

One of the reasons why Carnal Reason blog taking a sabbatical is a necessary but, for us, nasty medicine -- rest assured, the editor deserves the time off -- is the guiding vision it provides, agree or not.

Case in point:

Bachbusters

Are you a fan of any of the music in the categories on the right sidebar? If you think you don't care for, or indeed dislike, classical music -- think again, dude. The Editor-on-Sabbatical of Carnal Reason turned me on to J. S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor on 3rd generation Moog synthesizers. Trust me, it rocks!

Rest in Peace, Robert Moog.

See you soon, Ciceronian blogger.

May the rain fall softy on your fields.
(-- an Irish toast)

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Wail on Skydog!

The following is from the Florida Cracker: A Southern Woman on the 'Net. Webmaster Donnah does this every Wednesday. My reposting it here is just one way of saying thank you to Donnah:

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Wednesday's Duane Allman Pic

A slicked-up Duane in Central Park, 1971.
Wail on, Skydog!

Here's a short video interview of Roger Hawkins and David Hood talking about what it was like to work with Duane at FAME studios.

Also, below the jump, an MSNBC article written on the 35th anniversary of Duane's passing.

Continue reading "Wednesday's Duane Allman Pic"

Posted by floridacracker at 05:53 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

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The Blogosphere, Dream Covers, and Rock Celluloid

(Simul-post)

I've been looking for an excuse to rave about this film for a while, one of only two DVDs I own; now I've got it.

Every Wednesday, the floridacracker posts a new photo of Duane Allman. And every Wednesday a crew of Duane's ultra-fans comments on both a fine new photo and also a broad range of topics that flow from the comment interchange.

Yesterday, regular commenter/guitar player csason wrote, in part "... I've always wondered how 'The Weight' would have sounded with Janis on vocals instead of 'Retha. ..."

I hadn't had my coffee yet. I read and wrote my response comment so fast I suppressed my knowledge that Aretha Frankin had indeed done this song with Duane on guitar (from his Muscle Shoals studio musician era. (So shoot me if I don't let facts get in my way.) Csason's comment inspired this, corrected-here, response from me:

If your unhappy with 'Retha on vocals singin' "The Weight", here's an alternative to check out. In Martin Scorcese's film The Last Waltz -- The Band's last concert in 1978 at Winterland, Scorcese adds a few studio tracks to enhance what has been called the greatest concert movie ever (more on that below). On one of those filmed studio tracks, The Staple Singers and Emmylou Harris are aboard with Robbie and the boys to cover "The Weight". All the right people on stage take a verse. Mavis Staples' verse is as close to [the perfect way to sing this classic] as we may ever get. FYI.

Bottom Line: The Last Waltz CD set and DVD are both essentials. The Last Waltz link above explains more about this once-in-a-lifetime concert celebration. Further, on the DVD, Martin Scorsese and Robbie Robertson overdub a commentary on the film in the "bonus material." What you can learn about the craft of film-making from Scorcese and how great a human being Robbie is alone make this DVD a sound investment for any serious collector. And I haven't even discussed performances by Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, and Joni Mitchell, among others.

Finally, my top three rock films:

1. Albert and David Maysles' Gimme Shelter

2. Woodstock (The Director's Cut)

3. The Last Waltz

Honorable Mention: The Concert for Bangladesh