Steve Earle Covers His Mentor's Best: "Townes" : "Pancho and Lefty" (2009)

Backstage before going on at a gig with Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan explains why Townes Van Zandt's song Pancho and Lefty is a national treasure:

He's (Townes) is like a philosopher-poet. He gets to the heart of it in a quick way; gets it out. It's over, and just leaves the listener to -- think about it. 

Here Steve Earle covers this superb, truly American song.

"I Feel Alright Tonight"

Steve Earle (1996)

"I feel alright tonight!"

Townes Van Zandt , "Dead Flowers" (Jagger, Richards; 1971) (live)

As Keith might say, 'I think you may know some of this one.' Iconic Texas singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt tackles the Stones country classic. Townes' cover ends up closing out, brilliantly, the Coen Brothers The Big Lebowski (1998).

Townes' demons got the better of him and he's passed on. His influence most certainly has not.

'Believe It or Not, He Remembers It All': "Life": A Memoir by Keith Richards

Keith Richards

Keith, Mick and Brian and Co. in 

Achmed's Hash Shop, Tangier, Morocco

"I think I can talk for the Stones most of the time, and we didn't care 

what they wanted out there. That was on of the charms of the Stones. 

And the rock-and-roll that we did come out with on Beggars Banquet was enough. 

You can't say apart from "Sympathy" and "Street Fighting Man" that there's 

rock and roll on Beggars Banquet at all .... This is music." 

-- pp. 238- 239, Life (paperback, 2010) by Keith Richards

_____________________________________________________
....

Well his world is torn and frayed

It's seen much better days

Just as long as the guitar plays

He'll steal your hear away

Steal your heart away 
....

- chorus of Torn and Frayed (Jagger / Richards),
Exile on Main St (1972), The Rolling Stones

There is clearly no ghost writer here. Keith Richards, principal guitarist and co-songwriter for The Rolling Stones, let's his personality come shining through on every page of his memoir, Life. (Keith did, by his own admission, need an editor, his trusted colleage journalist James Fox.)

Livin' as hard as Kieth has, it's incredible all that he remembers. We read an unvarnished tale of this working class kid from the London projects (aka Estates) making good with the Stones, the band that fueled with his enormous talent. This memoir also gives us a window into how his music reflected his hard livin', on and off the road. Keith shares tales of sometimes dubious adventures, family lives, loves, and heartbreaks. We also hear of the battles Keith had with his partner and friend, Mick Jagger, with press distortions wiped away.

In a recent interview, actor Malcolm McDowell said he thought everybody should read this book. My goal here is less ambitious; I just want to share some pleasant surprises I founding reading the book. Wanna know how bands work: why some stick together and some blow apart? Interested in the evolution during the 1960s of the modern LP? And for hard core fans, there are details more specific to the Stones. I was fascinated reading that the original studio version of Jumpin' Jack Flash was done all on acoustic guitars, played through over-loaded 1st generation cassette players. Stones album back stories come alive with Richards' pen, just as his guitar brought brought a wealth of popular music to life. If you want to know more about why the music of late '60s and early '70s  is so important to a lot of folks like me, read this book.

Keith, a surprisingly charming man, tells his story with unexpected candor. He traces the path of a great British blues rock band making musical history over the last 50 years as well as his life inside and out of that band. I cherish what I learned from this detailed account of Keith on Keith.

Here's a little taste of Keith slowing things down, fronting his other great band, The X-Pensive Winos.

Keith Richards and The X-pensive Winos

"Too Good for the Basement" Series (No. 2): Great Rock Vocalists: Peter Wolf & Co., "Nothin' But the Wheel" (2002)

[reworked and reposted; from early 2011]

Peter Wolf live at Wolftrap (2010)

____________________________________

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 cutting 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. But that's the way it goes when you're rollin' down 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 ..."

I love this song more each time I hear it. So give her a spin; eh, what do you have to lose?

Happy Birthday, Bob!

Yesterday America's greatest living poet, Bob Dylan, turned 71. For all he's given me, for all he's helped our generation give the world, here's a little birthday wish: from The Band's Last Waltz (Concert, 1976; Scorsese's film, 1978), here Bob, Robbie & Co. performing Forever Young.

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

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

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

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

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

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!"

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

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.

Tracing Roots: "Cowboy Junkies" do Patsy Cline

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.

Peter Wolf: "Nothing but the Wheel"

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.)

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

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)

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Crazy Heart

Don't miss this one when it eventually comes out on DVD. Seriously, Jeff Bridges and T-Bone Burnett score major successes.

Addendum (22 Jan 10): Since I put up this tiny post, Jeff Bridges won a Best Actor Golden Globe, prompting the films distributors to put up a little cash for advertising and a wider initial release.

Go Crazy Heart go!

Bonnie Raitt & Norah Jones: Tennessee Waltz

*****

*****

Everyone from Patti Page to Otis Redding has covered this tune, one I first discovered as a deep album cut on Emmylou Harris' Cimarron (1981). Here Bonnie Raitt, giving us a taste of her patented slide guitar style, and Norah Jones, playing superb electric piano, turn in a timeless duet performance of the Tennessee Waltz.

Ray Charles: In Tribute

I saw the late Ray Charles live twice -- sequential gigs on a tour in the late seventies. Both show were great, but they couldn't have been more different. The first show was in Mobile, Alabama and Ray was playing to -- what can I call it -- his "commercial" audience. This show was designed to entertain anybody with even the smallest appreciation for his talent. He was playing to a mostly white audience, and entertain he did. He blew me away.

But I didn't know what was to come. The next show was at the New Orleans Performing Arts Center. Here he played a completely different set, this time to take serious jazz fans and blow their socks off. Striped down, improvisational, personal; I was awestruck by both his polished talent as an artist and also charisma as a showman.

I hear the recent film Ray is a good one, but I intentionally haven't seen it. I'm still savoring my memories of those two live show more than a generation ago. Ray, your genius will always live on in my heart and my soul.

Hayes Carll - It's A Shame (live)

'I have seen the future of old time country music; his name is Hayes Carll.'