Carolyn Wonderland at Skipper's Smoke House: Texas Burnin', with a Cherry Red Custom Telecaster and a Lone Star Lady Singin' the Blues

Carolyn Wonderland at Skipper's Smoke House (April 8, 2014)

Carolyn blew my socks off. Carolyn was on fire, Texas style. Here's a little recent evidence:

TEXAS BURNING with Carolyn Wonderland: I Live Alone With Someone

Bonnie Riatt & Aretha Franklin: "Since You've Been Gone" (live)

In 1993, at the Nederlander Theatre in New York City, Aretha Franklin did an AIDS benefit featuring some gifted talents of the era, including Smokey Robinson, Bonnie Raitt, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Gloria Estephan and P. M. Dawn. Each spoke of how thrilled they were to perform with Ms. Franklin. When Bonnie stepped up, the two Rhythm and Blues greats combined to give us a unique, moving duet performance. That said, save some attention for Bonnie's soulful slide guitar.

Fats Domino: "Give Me Some" (released 2006)

From the Wikipedia contributors, regarding this post-Katrina Fats release:

.... Domino also released an album in early 2006 to benefit the Tipitina's Foundation, which supports indigent local musicians. The title song was recorded after Katrina, but most of the cuts were from unreleased sessions in the 1990s. ....

The cut below is not only a little taste of the musical gumbo that is New Orleans music but also a tour of New Orleans' famous soul cuisine. Amusez-vous!

Remembering Bobby Bland

Bobby "Blue" Bland, one of the most influential blues, soul and R&B singers of our time, passed away this past Sunday at the age of 83.

I first heard the song Stormy Monday performed by The Allman Brothers Band, only discovering Bland's definitive version years later. I thought this track would make a fitting remembrance of this legend in his own time.

"Payin' the Cost to Be the Boss"

B. B. King's 1997 all-star duet album Deuces Wild released a plethora of genre-stretching collaborations showing blues roots everywhere. The track below lists not only Mick Jagger but The Rolling Stones as well. And yes, it is the whole ’97 line-up of the Stones with Darryl Jones on bass.

Enjoy (that is, dig it.)

Some History of "Time is on My Side"

Irma Thomas (2006)

This song is most often associated with the 1964 cover by The Rolling Stones, due primarily to the fact that the Stones made it an international hit. The song however, as many songs do, has an interesting history prior to the Stones cover. Time is on my Side started out as a jazz composition by Jerry Ragovoy (under the pseudonym Norman Meade), with only a few thoughts for lyrics.

Songwriter Jimmy Norman, fleshing out Ragovoy's lyrical ideas ("time is on my side" and "you'll come running back") completed additional lyrics just prior to the Soul Queen of New Orleans, vocalist Irma Thomas, recording the song before the Stones in 1964. So let's hear Irma performing the song on her home turf with a tremendous backing band including composer Allen Toussaint on paino, among other New Orleans legends.

Laissez le Bon Temps Rouler!

Irma Thomas (live), Time is on my Side

Two Divas for the Ages: Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox

Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox

Here, from The Rock 'a' Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Show, we find a very special collaboration. The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, joins with British '80s rocker Annie Lennox to perform one of Aretha's timeless hits, Chain of Fools (original, 1967). To my mind, Annie's on of the few artists alive who can hold her own on stage with living legend Aretha Franklin.

The more I thought about this live performance, adding Aretha's original became imperative.

Enjoy!

Solomon Burke: "I Gotta Be With You" (2010)

Solomon Burke was preaching in his family church by the time he was seven years old. And all these years later, you can still here the proof in his music. That early preaching was back in the late 1940s, as Burke turns 72 this month. 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Burke.

At Twenty, Little Stevie No More

When, in 1970, Stevie Wonder's self-produced (first-effort) single -- Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours -- hit, the song exploded, not only on the black charts, but on the Top 40 (pop) charts as well. Well named house band at Hitsville, U.S.A, the Funk Brothers -- with Stevie on his best released vocal -- created a  rock solid Detroit soul /funk / R&B single and a with a uniquely raw Stevie vocal. Little Stevie had grown up.

I fell in love with it.

For me, this single, as an artist profile of Wonder at Rolling Stone.com wrote calling it the perfect fusion of pop and soul, rock and funk. I'd call it the ultimate crossover record. 

The Motown magic still has me as a disciple.

Blue-eyed Soul with the Toughest Female Vocalist and Guitar Player in the Crossover R&B Genre: Bonnie Raitt, "Runaway"

Bonnie Raitt (2008)

Bonnie has done this cover on at least two of her studio albums, and I'm sure it's a standard in her set lists. I saw her do Runaway live in Baltimore in the 80s and its still just as fresh as it every was. And there's a good reason for that; she does what I consider the definitive version of this classic. So get up and dance to the remarkable talents of one of R&B's greatest female performers, the blues' best philanthropist, and, on newer tracks, a remarkablely tasteful slide guitar player.

Viva Bonnie. "Long May You Run".

Lyrics you rarely know: CCR's "Green River" (or) A Track Off One of CCR's Three Sequential Releases, that is, Their "Exile on Main St"

These John Forgerty produced, written, performed -- and undecipherable lyrics from a great, great album, are now accessible with the touch of a button from the 'net.

They are well worth knowing.

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Green River (1969)

Well, take me back down where cool water flow, yeh.
Let me remember things I love.
Stoppin' at the log where catfish bite,
walkin' along the river road at night,
barefoot girls dancin' in the moonlight.

I can hear the bull frog callin' me.
Wonder if my rope's still hangin' to the tree.
Love to kick my feet way down the shallow water,
shoe fly, dragon fly, get back t' your mother.

Pick up a flat rock, skip it across Green River.
Well!

Up at Cody's camp I spent my days, oh,
with flat car riders and cross-tie walkers.
Old Cody, Junior took me over,
said, you're gonna find the world is smould'rin'
an' if you get lost come on home to Green River.

Well!
Come on home.

Girls with Guitars: "Leaving Chicago", Cassie Taylor / Dani Wilde / Samantha Fish

Girls with Guitars, Live

From the traditional to the contemporary blues scene, here's a track that would would have every toe tappin' in the blues club, fill the dance floor and get all the men glared at by their ole ladies.

Donna Summer, Gone at 63 -- Workin' Hard No Longer

When it displaced, around 1978, rock music as the dominant dance club music -- one evening in the Quarter (New Orleans) of solid Stones in a club preceded the fall and made it all the harder -- disco became and remains a cultural cancer, turning pop music into lyrical drivel in mind-numbing 4/4 time. One exception: a very hot, exceptional artist, sometimes called the queen of the genre, Donna Summer. Cancer took her Thursday; we lost a great pop star.

From The Washington Post's online cover story on the evening of Thursday the 17th:

... In a 1984 assessment of her career, Times pop music critic Robert Palmer wrote that Ms. Summer “made some of the freshest, most substantial dance records of a period noted for its froth and foolishness." ...

In 1983, I was working hard at learning, for quite Machiavellian reasons, the importance of women in the modern worklplace. And there was Donna, giving us an anthem with She Works Hard for the Money that was all over the radio, in the US and Europe. It was one of the few great R&B songs to pierce the armor of the disco faux-label.

Thanks for everything, Donna. Rest in Peace.

Can a Classic R&B Cover -- by a Townes Van Zant Protege', Steve Earle, Performing "Down in the Hole" -- also ring Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom"?

You betcha! It's been a wild ride as a Christian hospital put the last nail in the coffin of my personal independence by cutting my bipolar meds to way under a therapeutic level, inter alia.

"Peace, Love and Revolution" (Lucinda Willimas).

Sorry for the delay between posts here at Gold Coast Bluenote (GCB). I rationalize the delay due to nature of the last ten days of my life. But I heard Dylan's Chimes of Freedom, ringing for us all: truly, loudy and clearly.

E' Vero.

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

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 ....

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

Dusty Springfield: "Breakfast in Bed" (1969)

Repost from the summer of 2011:

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?

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

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.