MOG - Spike's Posts

I Have to Go, But I’ll Be Back

Spike — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:00:01 GMT

Wifey, kids and I are heading out for almost a week, so my musicological intercourse with all of you will be totally reduced until that’s over with. To placate you, I’ll share a song ivylander passed onto me without comment last year, "Darlin’ Wait for Me" composed and sung by Richard Hawley from his 2005 CD Cole’s Corner. The singing, melody and arrangement are all perfectly fine. Because it’s so simple musically, my attention wandered to the lyrics. On the surface they’re simple, but complications lurk. I transcribed them:

"Darling wait for me by your gate in the evening light. I just can’t wait. For I have to go morning too soon, so honey don’t you cry; I’ll be back here soon. So think of me when you feel that moon. All it calls to me as it calls to you. Darling wait for me. I’ll be home then when the autumn leaves bring me back again. Darling wait for me. Darling please wait till the evening light by a starlit gate. So think of me when you feel that moon. All it calls to me as it calls to you. That’s all I ask of you all, I ask ‘til I hold your hand there’ll be peace at last. Don’t wait up ‘til it’s dark. All the lonely hours that we’re apart. Darling please darling please darling please darling please."

First he tells her to wait, but he can’t wait. Does he then say, "I have to go morning too soon"? Odd syntax but perhaps understandable that he would be upset enough at that moment to have a hard time with syntax. "Feel that moon" must be about understanding symbolism, not about her skin sensing heat from reflected light. Maybe I mis-transcribed "All it calls." Oh well. Next he tells her that the autumn leaves, not she, will be prime movers of his return and its timing. He goes on to say that she has to wait outside until it gets dark. Are we talking hours? What if it’s cold? When he says, "That’s all I ask of you, I ask ‘til I hold your hand there’ll be peace at last." First of all, he’s asked to do lots of different things, not just hold hands and bring peace, and I bet he meant to say that there will be peace after he holds her hand, not until. Finally, after having asked her to wait up ‘til it’s dark, he now tells her not to wait up ‘til it’s dark. The final "darling please"s may indicate that he realizes that she realizes that he’s mentally ill, and that she’s backing away from him, hoping to make a quick getaway.

“Hello L.A., Bye Bye Birmingham” by Larry Henley

Spike — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:44:29 GMT

Delaney Bramlet and Mac Davis wrote the song "Hello L.A., Bye Birmingham" about a struggling musician with little money trying to get across the country, in the genre of Chuck Berry’s "The Promised Land" or Jerry Reed’s "Guitar Man." Nancy Sinatra recorded it in 1967, and Blue Cheer in 1969, the same year as Larry Henley on this Atco single. I haven’t heard of it being reissued, but in my opinion it’s the best version. Juicy Lucy recorded a version heavily influenced by Henley’s in 1970. Larry Henley had been the lead falsetto singer for the Newbeats, probably best known for their wonderful 1965 hit "Run Baby Run" on the Hickory label. He has since had a career as a songwriter; his website doesn’t mention this Atco single.

The Newbeats (Larry Henley, center)

Pure Pleasure for You Elitists

Spike — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:09:49 GMT

Here are my favorite six songs of the 24 on the EMI Classics CD Songs of the Auvergne, with arrangements composed 1923-1930 by Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) from folk songs in the Occitan language that he collected in the Auvergne region of France where he was from. My favorite classical singer, Victoria de los Angeles from Barcelona sings them, and Jean-Pierre Jacquillat conducts the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux. They were recorded in 1969 and 1974. For a long time these six have been important to me not only because of their beauty but also because they’re rare successful examples of simple rural songs transformed into sleek, urbane masterworks. Don't let the slow tempos of five of them prevent you from enjoying them. For me, music doesn't get much better than this.

1. The first song (above) is "Bailero" (Song of the shepherd chosen to tend sheep in the common pastures)

Shepherd, how will you cross?
Over there is the wide stream,
sing bailero, lero!
wait for me, I’m coming to look for you,
bailero lero, bailero lo!

2. "La-haut, sur le rocher" (Up there on the rock)

Up there on the rock, up there on the mountain,
a pretty shepherdess was tending her white sheep
on the grassy sward.

A young man came by, a soldier;
he was a soldier returning from the army,
wanting to get married.

As soon as he saw her, he sat down beside her,
he sat down beside her and asked her:
‘Are you married?’

‘Married, that I am, but not to my fancy,
not to my fancy; I have taken a jealous old man
who does not have my love!’

‘Ah, let him come! I have the means to defend us!
I have a pistol in my pocket and my gun is loaded.
So let him come!’

3. "Brezairola" (Cradle song)

Sleep, sleep, come, come, come;
Sleep, sleep, come, do come!
Sleep, sleep, come, come, come;
Sleep, sleep, come, come down!
Sleep, sleep doesn’t want to come, the wretch!
Sleep, sleep doesn’t want to come;
the child doesn’t want to sleep! Oh!

Sleep, sleep, come, come, come;
Sleep, sleep, come, do come!
Sleep, sleep doesn’t want to come;
the little one doesn’t want to sleep!
Sleep, sleep, come, come, come;
Sleep, sleep, come to the little one! Oh!

Sleep, sleep, come, come, come;
Sleep, sleep, come, do come!
Ah, here he is coming at last, the wretch!
Ah, here he is at last;
the child wants to sleep! Ah!

4. "He ! beyla-z-y dau fe" (Hey! give him some hay!)

Hey! give him some hay, this poor donkey!
Hey! give him some hay, he will eat well!
The poor thing, in order to work, as to live,
must eat well!

I don’t see my sweetheart coming,
I don’t see her coming, from over by Moulins.
With a girl we shall dance!

She’s tapping her feet, the mountain girl!
She’s tapping her feet on the pavement.
Have patience, poor boy,
the girl is right!

5. "Obal, din lo coumbelo" (Away, down there in the valley)

Obal, din lo coumbelo,
tro lo, lo, lo, lo, lo lero lo!
away down there in the valley,
there’s a cherry tree.

The Prince’s three daughters
are there in the shade underneath.
Two of them are singing and laughing,
but the other one never stops crying.

The Prince comes and says to her:
‘Pernette, what’s the matter?’

‘I’m weeping over the souls
of the poor lovers
who have died for each other
to gratify love!’

6. "Uno jionto postouro" (A pretty shepherdess)

A pretty shepherdess,
one morning,
seated on the green sward,
was weeping for her sweetheart!

‘Now’s the very time of day
to see him returning!
To some other shepherdess
he will have given his heart!

Ah, poor little sherpherdess!
Here I am deserted,
like the turtle dove
who has lost her mate!’

"Hello Good Morning" by Sick of Sarah

Spike — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:23:51 GMT

"Hello Good Morning" by the all-women up-and-coming rock group Sick of Sarah is beautiful. The drumming swings tightly; the guitar is just right, and the three (3!) well-sung vocal melodies have just enough tension with the chord progression. Its structure feels right. It's not often i find a new rock piece I love. If Alanis Morissette's "Hand in My Pocket" and Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" can be big hits, why can't this? Maybe because the group is making videos of their other songs instead?

Sick of Sarah ("sickofsarahmusic") has been a Mogger since December, but I didn't know about them until last week when they Trusted me. Isn't getting notified of a new Truster even better than getting notified that someone commented? On the surface, their page looked like the typical self-promotion, but their later posts have praised other acts. Their second post, done the first day they joined Mog, uploaded this song "Hello Good Morning," and no one had commented on it. To present a piece of music you have created rather than found, one that is this good: what more could one ask of a Mogger?

Crescent City Gold---The Ultimate Session

Spike — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 04:59:30 GMT

Here's an Allen Toussaint tune "New York Buzz" which is the highpoint for me of a 1993 album The Ultimate Session by Crescent City Gold, a group of New Orleans R&B all-stars featuring Toussaint on piano, Mac Rebennack [a.k.a. Dr. John] on guitar, and Earl Palmer on drums. Here, for once, is drum soloing worth listening to. Palmer had played drums on such early Little Richard hits as "Tutti Frutti," making him as much as anyone the inventor of rock & roll drumming. There's also Stacy Cole on trumpet, Amadee Castenell on tenor sax and Cindy Mayes on baritone sax.

"Scratch Mouth" Got Them Covered

Spike — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:47:59 GMT

Conway Twitty sometimes can get a wonderfully scratchy tone in his voice, as he does sometimes in his version of Ted Daffan's 1944 hit "Born to Lose" from Twitty's 1973 album You've Never Been This Far Before/Baby's Gone. Nobody has ever called him Scratch Mouth; I thought of the name a few minutes ago to dragoon you into checking out this post. I hope you also enjoy the uncredited melodic pedal steel playing on this. The photo above shows him thirteen years earlier, before his hair later unadvisedly covered his ears. There's another song by him in the first comment.

Amadou et Mariam: "Touba La Kono"

Spike — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:35:25 GMT

"A musical husband and wife duo that got its start in Mali, Amadou & Mariam met in 1975 at Mali's Bamako Institute for the Young Blind," according to allmusic.com. In the last decade they've become popular in Europe as well. I apologise for choosing an act that is not totally obscure. Amadou et Mariam cut me some slack by giving this song a repeating chord progression and a 4/4 time signature, unlike Malian music before the French colonization. This makes it easier for me to "get" musically. It was recorded in 1997. The CD's liner notes about this song are in French, but I think they say something like this: "Isolation. Tradition says that men are born in a community, and it is in that community that they die. TOUBA LA KONO is a song of bravery affiliated with the king of the bush, the 'lion,' to combat isolation. Isolation makes a 'normal' person crazy, and a disabled person even more so."

"Bonaparte's Retreat" From Two Different Angles

Spike — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:46:44 GMT

Here are two rather different approaches on the same tune, "Bonaparte’s Retreat." First is Mike Seeger’s version, featuring him playing solo fiddle from his 1962 Folkways LP Old Time Country Music. Mike Seeger, unlike his more eclectic and musically creative older step-brother Pete Seeger, has an encyclopedic knowledge of pre-WWII country music and an uncanny ability to recreate exact copies of early recordings with a virtuoso command of guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, autoharp and dulcimer.

In the liner notes, as was the custom for all his solo albums and the albums for his group The New Lost City Ramblers, it told what earlier recording the cover version was based on, and in this case it said "A. A. Gray---Okeh 40110." At the time, that rare 78 from the 1920s hadn’t been reissued, as almost none from back then had. As far as I know, it still hasn’t been reissued, but you can hear it streaming by clicking on this URL: http://honkingduck.com/mc/node/51.

Ahaz Augustus Gray, 1881-1939, Tallapoosa, Georgia.

See the first comment for a more recent version of this tune.

Two make an odd number (with their voices)

Spike — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:37:17 GMT

I originally found this, titled simply "Rhythm: Niegpaudo" long ago on a public library LP Anthology of Music of Black Africa (Everest 3254/3), and taped it. It reminded me of what my younger brothers would come up with to amuse each other as little kids. Later I imagined it being on some anthology about the roots of rap. A few years ago I turned our kids' school's music teacher onto it, and he, a big fan of African folk music, figured out that it was on a CD, Voices of the World: An Anthology of Vocal Expression, which he bought. (Last time I tried, I couldn't find that CD on the internet.) Here the track was titled "Two men from Benin recite drum patterns vocally." So it turns out that the two men were just describing how the drums should play.

Three songs covered in one post

Spike — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:52:34 GMT

It’s Sunday, I have two cover versions worth sharing, so to save work, I’ll put them in the same post. The fact that both feature female vocals, and that the composer of the first song influenced the composer of the second give me an excuse of sorts for bundling them here.

OK, the first is Lila Downs singing "Medley: Pastures of Plenty/This Land Is Your Land" from her 2001 CD Border (La Linea). Like other songs on the CD, this one "reflects her continuing fascination with Mexican-American border culture and her own mixed heritage (she is the child of a Mixtec Indian and an American)" (paraphrased from allmusic.com). I love how she created her own original beautiful melodies for these Woody Guthrie lyrics, and made them her own.

See the first comment for the second song.

Some Foreigner Who Actually Sounds Good

Spike — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:50:11 GMT

A while ago my dentist, as is his wont, laid on me some compilation discs he had put together but didn't want because they were rough drafts. One of them had this track on it, Ghulam Ali singing "Hangama Hai Kyon Barba." This is the only south Asian track he's ever foisted on me. I don't follow this kind of music, but Wikipedia said the guy is Pakistani, but popular in India and Nepal as well, and it put this song second from top in a long list of his songs. His perfect voice, the melody, and an actual chord progression make this easy for us yokels to enjoy.

The Soul Brothers from South Africa 1978

Spike — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:02:28 GMT

ivylander did us all a favor today by declaring Tuesday African music day, so late in the day, PST, I’m getting in on the action. Here are two tracks from 1978 by the Soul Brothers, one of the most popular South African acts of the 1980s. They played a style of pop music called mbaqanga. The track above was a big hit of theirs, “Mantombazane,” from their album of the same name, and the one in the first comment is an instrumental called “The Sweet Life,” from their album Ake Niyeke Botsotsi

Some Jazz #3

Spike — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:28:01 GMT

Following Cody B’s lead, I went to muxtape and made a playlist people can listen to all the way through or track by track if they wish. My title for it is "Some Jazz #3: 1954-1964." Check it out; you might really enjoy it. Go to http://spike2.muxtape.com/. It's part of a 3-disc compilation I did for a friend before I joined MOG. Here’s the data:

1. Chet Atkins: A Little Bit of Blues (Jerry Reed) ('64)

2. Baby Face Willette: Stop and Listen ('61) (Baby Face Willette, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Ben Dixon, drums.)

3. Ray Charles: My Melancholy Baby (Ernie Barnett/George A. Norton/Maybelle E. Watson) ('57) (Ray Charles, piano; David Newman, alto sax; Emmott Dennis, baritone sax; Joseph Bridgewater & John Hunt, trumpets; Roosevelt Sheffield, bass; William Peeples, drums; arrangement by Quincy Jones and Ray Charles.)

4. Wayne Newton: I've Got the World on a String (Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler) (’63) (Orchestra arranged and conducted by Richard Behrke.)

5. Ernestine Anderson: Social Call (Gigi Gryce/Jon Hendricks) ('55) (Ernestine Anderson, vocal with the Gigi Gryce Band: Art Farmer, trumpet, Eddie Bert, trombone, Julius Watkins, french horn; Bill Barber, tuba; Gigi Gryce, arrangement & alto sax; Cecil Payne, baritine sax; Horace Silver, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Art Blakey, drums.)

6. Wes Montgomery: Fingerpickin' (Wes Montgomery) ('57) (Wes Montgomery, guitar; Joe Bradley, piano; Monk Montgomery, bass; Paul Parker, drums.)

7. Cannonball Adderly: Dat Dere (Bobby Timmons) ('60) (Cannonball Adderly, alto sax; Nat Adderly, cornet; Bobby Timmons, piano; Sam Jones, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.)

8. Betty Carter: Let's Fall in Love (Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler) ('56) (Betty Carter, vocal; Gigi Gryce, arranger & leader; Sam Marowitz, Al Cohn, Seldon Powell & Danny Bank, saxes; Urbie Green & Jimmy Cleveland, tombones; Bernie Glow, Nick Travis, Conte Condoli & Joe Ferrante, trumpets; Hank Jones, piano; Milt Hinton, bass; Osie Johnson, drums.)

9. Horace Silver: Senor Blues (Horace Silver) ('56) (Horace Silver, piano; Donald Byrd, trumpet; Junior Cook, tenor sax; Doug Watkins, bass; Louis Hayes, drums.)

10. Charlie Mingus & John LaPorta: Thrice Upon a Theme (Charlie Mingus) ('54) (Charlie Mingus, bass; John LaPorta, clarinet; Ted Macero, sax; Thad Jones, trumpet; Clem DeRosa, drums.)

11. Helen Merrill: People Will Say We're in Love (Rogers/Hammerstein) ('56) (Helen Merrill, vocal; Gil Evans, arranger and conductor; Art Farmer & Louis Mucci, trumpets; John LaPorta, clarinet or alto sax; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Barry Galbraith, guitar; Hank Jones, piano; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Joe Morello, drums; others unknown.)

12. Wes Montgomery: Beaux Arts (Buddy Montgomery) ('61) (Wes Montgomery, guitar; Monk Montgomery, bass; Paul Humphries, drums.)

Hawaiian-esque Tuneage

Spike — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:15:31 GMT

First of three instrumentals is “Serenata” (1945) by Felix Mendelssohn & His Hawaiian Serenaders from his 2001 compilation CD Paradise Isle on the wonderful Harlequin label.

Harry Brooker (steel guitar), center

The slight vibrato of Harry Brooker’s steel guitar matches the slight tremolo of the vibraphone, as the two instruments call and respond. Mendelssohn (neither an actual musician nor the 19th century composer) was the founder, m.c. and publicity director of this popular British dance band who recorded 1939-1951. Britons complained that all dance bands sounded alike, so he had the new idea to have a different sound, a Hawaiian sound.

Next is “Cada Noche Un Amor” (Each Night a Love) by Toño Fuentes y su Hawayana from his 1979 LP Cuerdas Que Lloran (Strings That Cry) on the Fuentes label.

Agustin Lara wrote the tune. Like a bebopper trading fours near the end of a tune, Fuentes’ steel guitar trades short solos with an organ, accordion, harp and vibraphone in an unpredictable but egalitarian order. No way Gracenote has heard of this.

Last but not least is “Diamond Head” from the Beach Boys’ 1968 album Friends.

Who knows if any actual Beach Boys were playing the ukelele, steel guitar, and bongos or conga on this. The tune, with composer credits going to A. Vesco, L. Ritz, J. Ackley and a B. Wilson, always struck me as probably an old standard, but brief internet research on my part revealed no earlier version. It’s another example of non-blues musicians being more creative with the twelve-bar form than blues musicians.

I can’t remember which one of my trusteds first came up with the term “tuneage,” but you know who you are and I hope you’ll tell us if you adopted the term or gave birth to it.

The Italian restaurant's dilemma

Spike — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:10:06 GMT

Luciano Tajoli

A few years ago my nucular family and I visited Cabo San Lucas at the bottom of Baja California, and dined one night at the Italian restaurant in our hotel. The food was so-so, and the décor was generic fancy by Mexican standards. At one point I began feeling unrelaxed and realized that it was because of the Italian opera arias coming out of the speakers and because the playlist was now repeating itself. When I asked the waiter in my fumbling Spanish what we were listening to and if we could hear something different and at a lower volume, his face brightened, and he said it was Luciano Pavarotti and that I should fill out a form.

This reminded me of fifteen years earlier when my wife had complained about something to the front desk of a hotel south of Cancun, and they had told her to fill out a form, which had led me to imagine a scenario in which the highest-ups paid attention only to documented evidence about a ne’er-do-well scion mismanaging their hotel.

This memory now helped me realize that that the restaurant staff had no authority to change the music without written customer complaints, and that the waiters were depending on me to finally end their audio torture. This sudden power they thrust at me gave me a blissful intoxication and licence to name-drop what few Italian vocalists I knew of on the form. I remember remembering at least the names Luciano Tajoli, Carlo Buti and a couple of others as guys who could evoke Italy better and more soothingly than Pavarotti doing opera, and could sing popular songs about Naples which are in some ways melodically superior even to famous arias. (Tajoli and Buti’s ilk of course includes countless singers whose oleaginous pipes spout fake emotion.) With opera, you have to give it its full attention and relate it to the storyline and the set, whereas Neopolitan songs make better background music. The line between classical music and traditional popular music is blurrier in Italy than in countries like the United States. Whoever had decided on Pavarotti had probably figured that the most famous of the Three Tenors singing Italian opera would be the classiest way to go, and that should take care of it.

If we ever return to Cabo, my main goal will be to discover if it’s still an all-Pavarotti restaurant.

These two cuts are from a ten-inch LP on the Columbia label from the early 1950s.

Carlo Buti

(Technical glitch: If you come to this post via Mogbrain email or after clicking the "Comments" or "Write comment" button, then the first two comments are missing. Here they are:

mousetrap says: What, no Dean Martin?

Spike says: mousetrap, if you know of a good Dean Martin track that would help the poor restaurant seem more Italian, lay it on us!)

My favorite Tracy Nelson recording

Spike — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:22:30 GMT

As a member of the rock group Mother Earth, Tracy Nelson provided the vocal, the piano playing, the music and (with Earthette Sylvia Caldwell) the lyrics of this song for the group’s first album Living with the Animals in 1968. This song was relegated to second-to-last on side B, more often than not where the worst cut ends up, and was given the unfortunate title “Goodnight Nelda Grebe, the Telephone Company Has Cut Us Off,” some idiot’s idea of whimsy. I hereby rename it “Why Do I Lie Awake Nights and Cry?” Martin Fierro plays the alto solo. The cover doesn’t say who did the arrangements, but this song has a great one, straddled between r & b and jazz.

Mike Nichols and Elaine May: Bach to Bach

Spike — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:52:17 GMT

It's surprising no one has posted something about this Nichols & May comedy skit from 1958 before now. It doesn't need any introduction or explanation. It hasn't dated at all. Enjoy.

Good News and Bad News: Two Story Songs

Spike — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:34:40 GMT

After Mike the Knife’s fine 3/28/08 post about story songs (http://mog.com/Mike_the_Knife/blog_post/152749#comments) had its parade come and go, two other story songs eventually came to mind that you might enjoy. The first song, “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby,” had originally jumped out at me from the speakers as I was listening to dobro player Jerry Douglas’s then-new 1992 mostly-instrumental album Slide Rule, and it introduced me to guest singer Alison Krauss’s unforgettable voice.

Her voice can get soft, so reading the lyrics might help you enjoy them.

I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby

Last night, my dear, the rain was falling. I went to bed, so sad and blue. Then I had a dream of you.

I dreamed I was strolling in the evening Underneath the harvest moon. I was thinking about you.

Then we met out in the moonlight. The stars were shining in your eyes, But another was there too.

“I don’t believe you’ve met my baby.” You looked at her, you looked at me. I wondered who you were talking to.

I shook the hand of your stranger, But I was shaking more inside. I was still wondering who.

Your arm was resting on her shoulder. You smiled at her, she smiled at you. Her eyes were filled with victory.

She said, "My brother wants to marry," And then my heart was filled with ease, I knew that you would marry me.

The dream slowly becomes more and more ominous, in order for the last verse of this performance to be able to flood me with bliss every time. Autrey Inman wrote the song, and I think the Louvin Brothers first recorded it, followed later by the duo Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton. It’s a rare non-blues traditional-type song that has six-bar verses and not 4-, 8-, 16- or 32-bar lengths. Later Krauss included this track on her best-selling 1995 CD Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection.

An earlier song with certain narrative similarities is "A Tragic Romance," written and recorded in the late forties or early fifties on the King label by one of my favorite country singers of that era, Grandpa Jones.

I prefer his regular self, singing love ballads with his guitar, than his white-moustached old-timey banjo persona, singing old folk and novelty songs.

Here are the lyrics:

The Tragic Romance

Nestled in the heart of the Tennessee hills, Midst peaceful pines, midst the rocks and the rills, Stands my old homestead of long, long ago. It brings back fond memories of one I loved so.

I courted a maiden so sweet and so fair With heavenly eyes and with chestnut brown hair. She told me she loved me and said she’d be mine, But I went away leaving her there behind.

I’ll tell you the reason why I left her there To roam this old world with its sorrow and care. I saw her one night in the arms of a man, Hugging and kissing as two lovers can.

I went to my home with a heart full of woe. I packed my belongings, determined to go. For many long years this old world I did roam With thoughts of my sweetheart, my darling, my own.

While dining one day in a little country town, A stranger walked in and he chanced to sit down. While talking of loved ones, I happen to find That his sister was that old sweetheart of mine.

When he heard my story, to me he then said, The one you left there has a long time been dead. She waited so long for the day that you’d return, But why you had left her she never did learn.

Now I am the man whom you saw that fatal night Wrapped in the arms of my sister so tight. She loved you so dearly, but you broke her heart, For stranger from her evermore you must part.

I've Done Nothing Wrong

Spike — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:48:40 GMT

"I've Done Nothing Wrong" is the translation of the title of this Kenyan hit song, "Sina Makosa" (10:41) by the group Les Wanyika, from the 1991 Earthworks (Virgin) album Kenya Dance Mania, a compilation of songs from the 1980's. The album's notes say, "Most members of Les Wanyika are Tanzanians from just across the border. Their second hit "Sina Makosa" is one of Kenya's all-time biggest sellers and has been selling throughout most of the 80s. This astonishing tour-de-force showcases all the best elements of East African rumba: incomparable vocals, a rivetting display of guitar brilliance, deep sensuous bass, and an incredible horn section. The group are still releasing hit records to this day."

His "Tears Are Falling" But She's "Smug."

Spike — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:25:59 GMT

The Youngbloods first three albums had many great tracks, two of which you'll get to hear here, both written by their lead singer Jesse Colin Young. "Tears Are Falling" was the B-side of their first single, in 1966, and on their eponymous first album in 1967.

In 1968 they moved from New York to Marin County just north of San Francisco, and recorded their third album Elephant Mountain, which had, aside from a few piano instrumentals, no filler. It also had this lovely cover art and the song "Smug."

Two Strange Vocal Duets by Girls: Eskimo and Burundi

Spike — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:42:14 GMT

Long ago and far away, girls didn’t have the distractions we have. They made do with what little they had. A few made amazing music.

For example, by Baker Lake, around 100 miles northwest of Hudson Bay in Canada’s Northwest Territories above Manitoba, two Eskimo girls breathed and whispered into a prospector’s large tin pan, and a short recording of it called "Eskimo Girls' Game," from perhaps the 50’s or 60’s, appeared on an LP, Primitive Music of the World on the Ethnic Folkways Library label.

In Burundi in central Africa, two girls sang a short duet of interlocking alternating notes and patterns. My ears can’t disentangle their vocal weave well enough to say for sure whether one of them has what I call a keyboardized voice, reminiscent of the woman from Mali featured in my 5/10/07 “post“:http://mog.com/Spike/blog_post/72677#comments. I don’t know anything more about it except that it came from a source listed as “An Introduction to Africa: Womad V. Two-LP.”

Real Funk Sung by Mandy Moore

Spike — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:05:14 GMT

Reading Mogger Cody B’s 3/20/08 post (http://mog.com/Cody_B/blog_post/150947#write-comment), that had a discussion about, among other things, how hip-hop r&B arrangements are often quite good, made me think of Mandy Moore’s CD. This morsel, "Candy (Wade Robson Remix)” by Mandy Moore, is for those of you who, like me, failed to hear the original inferior 1999 version of this track get played to death on certain radio stations, or heard this superior 2000 version either. I happened to come across its CD I Wanna Be With You a couple of years ago in our bag for the thrift store in our garage, and liberated it. Moore was just another name to me at the time, but her CD, though uneven, had a bunch of great new-style girl group tracks such “I Wanna Be With You,” “The Way to My Heart,” “Walk Me Home,” “I Like It” and “So Real.” It’s unlikely Moore was the creative center of this, but so what?

Carlos Gardel and then some Bach

Spike — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:09:39 GMT

Carlos Gardel’s voice was strong, emotional but perfectly controlled. He was the first tango singer in Argentina, and ruled the tango world decades after dying in an airplane crash in 1935. Here’s one of his early recordings, Milonga Sentimental, with only furiously-plucked guitars accompanying him. Go to the first comment for the second half.

A Link Between Two Realms

Spike — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:07:47 GMT

Let me hide the title of the song and the second artist who adapted it in order to help re-create for you my experience of first noticing a link between two different realms of the music world. After you get past having to hear Ethel Merman sing the 30-second beatless intro (like many pop tunes of yore had) of this stage-broadcast low-fi recording of a 1943 Cole Porter song, you’ll hear the title and probably guess who composed and sang the more famous variant eight years later. Let’s start with Ethel Merman, a singer I never would have dreamed of liking when I was younger. Around twenty years ago in a moment of boredom I pulled my wife’s LP of the soundtrack of Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun off the shelf and noticed that Merman’s voice had a certain brassy something to it, which caused me to later acquire the 1995 CD I Get a Kick Out of You on the Flapper label featuring her 1932-43 versions of various Broadway musical songs including the above. There was nothing in the liner notes about the song’s later incarnation. The song’s title is also the title of a 1996 CD the Avid label released of Cole Porter songs recorded by various artists between 1927 and 1944, and its liner notes failed to mention the song’s later incarnation also. Today in the library I learned that William McBrien’s 1998 book Cole Porter: A Biography also failed to mention the song’s later incarnation.

Bill Evans's finest moment?

Spike — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:13:52 GMT

One of my all-time favorite bossa nova recordings is "Jazz Samba," composed by non-Brazilian Claus Ogerman and played by two non-Brazilians, Bill Evans and Jim Hall from their 1966 album of piano/guitar duets, Intermodulation. Hall consigns himself here to superb samba strumming, while Evans sandwiches a lyrical improvised solo between the opening and ending theme that includes a mesmerizing pattern of off-beat octaves and fifths.

My 3 Additions to the U.S. Military's "Torture Playlist"

Spike — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:05:25 GMT

(Attention: unless you reach this post through my page, the end of the post will not be accessible. I don't know why.)

Recently several Moggers (Sturgell 2/27/08 http://mog.com/Sturgell/blog_post/146943 and someone else I can’t remember) have had posts about a Mother Jones piece (http://motherjones.com/news/featurex/2008/03/torture-playlist.html) titled “The Torture Playlist,” about rock, hip-hop and other musical recordings used by the U.S. military on prisoners “to induce sleep deprivation, prolong capture shock, disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams.” I thought of three recordings to add to the list:

First is Chet Atkins playing “Blackjack,” an instrumental composed by John Loudermilk, who also wrote the song “Tobacco Road” among many others. This is from Atkins’ 1963 album The Guitar Genius.

I chose not to include the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun” (1970).

Next is Nino Tempo & April Stevens singing “I’m Confessin' That I Love You” from 1964.

Last is Son House, the Mississippi Delta bluesman and songster, singing his original song, “American Defense,” recorded on a field trip by Alan Lomax in 1942.

This picture is a recently discovered and recently colorized ad original from 1930. It’s the only pre-1960s photo of him ever found.

After House was re-discovered in the 1960s and his 1941-42 recordings were reissued by Folkways, nobody ever adapted the lyrics of this to be an antiwar song. Sam Charters, who put together the Folkways album, wrote that this song “suggests that Son House, in other circumstances, might have emerged as a folk artist whose range extended into other areas besides the blues. The composition is a rough song in a 3/4 rhythm that responds to the emotionalism of the first months of the Second World War.” Here are the lyrics:

CHORUS: No use to shedding no tears, No use to having no fears, This war may last you for years.

American defense will run you some cents Just had to take care of your boys. You must raise more, produce far more cents than they use Just to save all your worries and toils. (CHORUS) Well, the red, white and blue that represent you You ought to do everything that you can. Buy war saving stamps; young men go to the camps; Be brave and take this stand. (CHORUS) Don’t let troubles sometimes all upset your mind; For you won’t know just what to do. Keep pushing, keep shoving, don’t be angry, keep loving, Be faithful, be honest and true. (CHORUS) You can say yes or no, but we got to win this war Because General McArthur’s not a friend. [?] There won’t be enough Japs to shoot a little game of craps Because the biggest of them all will be dead. (CHORUS) This war sure do bother our mother and father, Our sisters and brothers too. Dear friends and relations, the war’s end creation, Don’t let this worry you. (CHORUS)

Let me finish by repeating something I wrote months ago in a comment buried at the end of a post by ex-Mogger Carolyn O’Brien: These whiny Defeatocrats just don’t get it. Bush shows a lot of courage by risking the loss of Jewish voters’ support when he abandons namby-pamby Israeli prisoner interrogation methods, and forges ahead by adopting Soviet methods to extract the requisite false confessions.

Early Classics IV

Spike — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:51:00 GMT

The late sixties had an endless supply of second-tier groups with remarkable non-hits, and Classics IV's first album, from 1968, has three songs you now get to listen to. The first is a cover of an imagined fictional James Brown cover of a Ray Charles cover of a Gene Autry cover of Jimmy Davis's original version of "You Are My Sunshine." Coincidentally, today is Friday.

Next is a song two members of the group wrote, "Mary, Mary Row Your Boat."

At the 1:14 mark, the beginning of the third verse, the key modulates up a half-step. In pop and country & western this tactic used to show up more than today. I guess arrangers would do it to try to stave off listener boredom, but to my ears it always felt like the rug was being pulled slightly from under me, and signaled that the arranger was desperate and needlessly insecure.

I still love the cut.

You've all heard their hit "Spooky" played endlessly on oldies radio. I mention it because it has my favorite white rock sax solo, only thirty seconds long. Check it out at the 1:18 mark. I learned recently that the Atlantic Rhythm Section, who recorded a major hit version of it in 1979, had two Classics IV members in the group.

A Set of Four Tunes

Spike — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:56:00 GMT

Pretend you’re driving at night alone and there’s only one station you can get on the radio. These four recordings are the ones you’re going to have to listen to, so resign yourself to it. Okay, I’ll make it a little easier on you; there are some text and photos here to help you. Also, there’s a theme: these tunes are not easy to categorize.

Nico: First off is ex-Velvet Undergound member Nico singing “My Funny Valentine” from her 1985 album “Camera Obscura.” James Young is on keyboards, Ian Carr on trumpet and John Cale (also an ex-member of the Velvet Underground) arranging and producing. Can you think of a more poetic set of lyrics than Lorenz Hart’s here? Internal rhymes like they used to have. Melody by Richard Rodgers. The rest of the album was outside my tastes.
Next is Michal Urbaniak on violin and Vladislav Sendecki on piano playing the only duet and the only Sendecki tune on a 1988 album of Urbaniak’s. The rest of the album was outside my tastes. Urbaniak is one of Poland’s leading jazzmen and is featured in a 2/2/08 post by Mogger Reckon. This is the extent of my knowledge of postwar Eastern European jazz. This piece appears here partly because it doesn’t necessarily sound like jazz.
Living Daylights: (clockwise from top) Dale Fanning (drums), Jessica Lurie (alto sax) and Arne Livingston (bass), (The following paragraph is basically a comment I made on a 1/10/08 post http://mog.com/RGM/blog_post/136281#comments by Mogger RGM) Ten or so years ago I saw a trio from Seattle named Living Daylights perform live at a club, and their bassist, Arne Livingston, was the first that I'd ever come across who played so intricately. I hadn't conceived of this kind of playing before, even though I'd heard a Van Halen intro or two that might have started this whole phenomenon but I hadn't paid attention at the time. Livingston's ten fingers seemed capable of anything. He would play a phrase, push a pedal to make it repeat on its own, and then play chords octaves up over it. There must be buttons that double the pitch, right? He was able to use his technique to create beautiful music and not just flash. The drummer Dale Fanning was as awe-inspiring as well, and sax player Jessica Lurie likewise. Almost all their tunes were original, either by Livingston or Lurie, and often quite powerful. I asked Livingston who inspired him, and he mentioned Victor Wooten. A couple of years ago they broke up. This track, “Spaghetti Western,” written by Livingston, is from their 1998 CD “500 Pound Cat.” For a while, the popular NPR show “Fresh Air” used a smidgen of it as a music break.
Last but not least is Astor Piazzolla playing a bandoneon on “Finale (Tango Apasionado)” from his 1987 album “The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night (Tango Apasionado).” Because it doesn’t have a staccato downbeat, it doesn’t sound like a tango to me, but I’m not an expert on tangos. His group includes a pianist, a violinist, an alto sax player, a bassist and an electric guitarist. Most remarkable to me, beyond the beauty of this piece, is how he reached what might be his musical peak here at age 66. So about the theme of the post: these tunes are not easy to categorize. They don’t have the décor of genre; their arrangements are stripped down; they barely qualify as belonging to some category (though I think they’re beautiful enough to tempt various genres to want to include them). Does that make them pure music?

Three Nifty Songs From a Distant Island

Spike — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:21:08 GMT

Listen to these three songs. Each song draws you inside it, starting at its surface and proceeding into its core. If you feel yourself resisting the exotic, pretend that you’re watching your favorite indie-rock group performing a new composition of theirs, live, as an encore surprise, with lyrics in English.

(photo of Irma Ratazanina)

The first is “Zaza Somondrara” by D’Gary playing guitar, Irma Ratazanina singing, and some percussion and male back-up vocals. D’Gary is Madagascar’s most famous guitarist. This song is from his 2001 CD _Akata Meso_. A few years ago I was driving my young teenage daughter and her friends somewhere and played it for them, much to my daughter’s dismay. I told them that it had a rhythm that Usher would die for, and one of the girls in the back seat laughed hard at the idea.

A Link Between Two Recordings, Each Away from a Different Unbeaten Track

Spike — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:15:35 GMT

This song sounds like it’s from India, and it’s a short simple melody repeated, with or without a man singing, for almost five minutes. You don’t have to listen to it all the way through, though I have and haven’t suffered many ill effects. According to the notes of the compilation it’s from, _World Folk Sampler, 78’s_, the song is titled “Pa Da Ba Ma Ga,” and the label of the 78 rpm United lab acetate from the 1940s that it’s from lists the singer as Susan Norhadian. The compiler wisely questioned this by presenting the singer’s name as “Susan Norhadian”?

Three Recordings That Enjoy Hanging Out Together

Spike — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:52:46 GMT

Listen first to Marika Papagika sing “Zmirneikos Balos” (No Hope But You) (1931). Accompanying instruments are violin, cembalo (a hammered dulcimer played by her husband), and cello. I like how her vocal melody resolves into the IV chord at the 1:22 and 2:35 marks. Born on the Greek Island of Kos, she moved to New York and recorded over 225 sides between 1918 and 1933. The 2nd and 3rd recordings are in the comments

To the Knowledge They Call Luck to Him

Spike — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:21:20 GMT

One cold overcast morning soon after I moved to Manhattan in 1977, I set out on an adventure: I would ride a bus up to the South Bronx just to experience a frisson of its famous desolation and danger. When amidst the vacant lots and depressing apartment buildings appeared a shopping area, I alighted and heard the sound of some catchy Hispanic music coming from a speaker on the outside of a store. I went inside, bought the LP which I had just heard outside and returned home by bus, unmugged. The above song comes from that LP. Soon after, I was talking to a man who ran a very good Latin American record store downstairs in the Times Square subway station complex, and he told me that the LP was of the Puerto Rican mountain music category, but the lead singer Jose Ortiz was actually a Mexican mariachi singer. He told me a certain song on it was getting radio play, but it was the one song on it I thought was a dud. I really like the sound of the cuatro, a four-stringed tenor guitar-type instrument, played by a Sor Angel Torres. The two women singing the chorus, who are unnamed in the back cover notes, set this album apart and above other records of this style that I’ve come across. The distributor listed on the back cover, Evas Records, 529 E. 137th St., is the store where I bought it. With unwitting poetry, Dictionary.com translates the LP’s cover title, Alegres Navidades as Glad Christmases; the LP’s different title on the label, Sigue por las Nubes as It Follows by Clouds, and the label’s track title, "Al Saber le Llaman Suerte" as "To the Knowledge They Call Luck to Him." The back cover misprints "le Llaman" as "Lollaman," and the front cover replaces it with "Es."

Murray Does Anka

Spike — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:00:00 GMT

Grievous Angel's 10/14/07 post about Paul Anka's swinging Sinatra-style version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" convinced me to stop dithering and share this recording I've been wanting to share for quite a while, Anne Murray singing a Paul Anka song "Everything's Been Changed" from her 1972 album _Annie_. It doesn't deviate too much from Anka's respectable original, but I prefer her vocal.

Quit Your Moping

Spike — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:58:55 GMT

and learn some pointers on air-bass playing.

Buckingham Nicks

Spike — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:53:14 GMT

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded this 1973 LP before being recruited into Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham and Nicks bought the rights to it from Polydor and have never reissued it. Only a few rare, expensive bootleg CDs, almost all of them with poor sound quality, have fleetingly surfaced in the ensuing years, according to Amazon. Here are my two favorite tracks from the LP, whose existence I was unaware of until I came upon a copy of it in S.F. Amoeba's dollar bin a number of years ago. Amazon's reviewers seem to prefer different tracks from me. Not included in this post are two other tracks that I like almost as much: "Without a Leg to Stand On" and "Lola (My Love)."

Maybe My Favorite Microphone-less Vocalist

Spike — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:43:33 GMT

Victoria de los Angeles worked within a type of music that demands that the singer’s voice be heard without a microphone, over a large orchestra in a large theater. To sing loudly enough, most singers in this situation can’t avoid excessive vibrato (vibrating pitch), which to me this makes the voice sound in some ways less musical. Victoria de los Angeles (1923-2005) is one of the handful of classical singers I can think of who sing with a purer, more musical tone. Brazillian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) conducted the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Francaise and wrote the liner notes for the album that the following two cuts come from.

“_The Bachianas Brasilieras_, comprising nine suites, were written in homage to the great genius of J. S. Bach. They were inspired by the musical atmosphere of Bach in respect to harmony and counterpoint and by the atmosphere of the folk music of Brazil’s northeastern region.”

About _Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for Soprano and Eight Cellos_ he wrote:

“The first movement of this work, _Aria_ (Cantilena) was written in 1938 with lyrics by Ruth V. Correa; the second, _Dansa_ (Martelo) in 1945 with lyrics by the great Brazilian poet Manuel Bandeira.

“The _Aria_, an original melody, is a kind of Brazilian lyric song, with the pizzicati support as in a serenade. _Danza_ represents a persistent and characteristic rhythm much like the emboladas, those strange melodies of the Brazilian hinterland. The melody suggests the birds of Brazil.”

I first heard the _Aria_ on Joan Baez’s fifth LP, and she did a pretty good job with it, eight cellos and all. But Victoria de los Angeles (L.A.’s Victory) takes it to a whole other level. I’ve heard it in the soundtrack of several lesser-known foreign movies decades ago. I guess the film-makers couldn’t create enough poignancy and depth on their own. There is a voice and guitar arrangement that I used to privately hum and pluck decades ago also.

See first comment for the _Danza_

Four great little-known female rock acts from 1984

Spike — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:28:56 GMT

Listen to these four high points from a consistently good, long out-of-print 1984 Rhino LP compilation of little-known then-current female rock acts, compiled by Gary Stewart. Here are photos and descriptions from the back cover. Three of the tracks are in the first comment.

Chris Somma: “Can’t Stop the World” (Kathy Valentine). Carla Olson, guitar; David Provost, bass; Mark Cuff, drums. These instrumental tracks were recorded when the Textones were Carla Olson, Mark Cuff, Kathy Valentine (now of the GO-GO’s) and David Provost (later of the Dream Syndicate, now of the Droogs). The tracks remained unreleased and unfinished until a friend of the band members, Chris Somma, suggested singing some vocal tracks. Chris appeared in the Ramones film Rock ‘n’ Roll High School and was a backup singer with Josie Cotton. She now heads her own group in Los Angeles, Chris & the Fits.

Radio Phnom Penh

Spike — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:11:56 GMT

Alan Bishop, who assembled and edited this great compilation as well as took the photos, wrote in the liner notes:

“At its peak in the late 60’s/early 70’s, the Cambodians were a musical Superpower. Some of the most unique/exciting Pop and Rock songs this planet has ever produced came out of Phnom Penh’s studios during this period. But the Khmer Rouge took power, killed many of the middle/upper class citizens including most of the musicians, and shut down the renaissance. Somehow, perhaps by transport to safe havens overseas, most of the original master tapes survived….This diverse, venerable collection of Radio Programming is a combination of AM/FM samples from the airwaves of Phnom Penh. The older, classic Pop/Rock FM cuts are ALL re-mixed as the newer forms/styles of Cambodian music collected here are not. This is Re-Mix Radio, much of it re-mixed music, created by a re-mixed culture.”

Each of the tracks on this CD from 2004 is a collage of short snippets of music, dj’s talking in Cambodian, French or English, and a complete song. Musicians are not identified, and Bishop may have titled the tracks.

I’ve found a number of other excellent CDs reissuing Cambodian pop music like this (without the dj’s or music snippets) that you might enjoy as well: Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk and Pop Music Vol. 1, featuring selections expertly culled from 150 “ravaged” cassettes found in the Oakland (Calif.) Public Library’s Asian branch by Mark Gergis. They include cassettes from before, during and after the Khmer Rouge period and from outside Cambodia. This and the _Phnom Penh Radio_ CD are from http://www.sublimefrequencies.com. I also recommend their CD Folk and Pop Sounds of Sumatra Vol. 2. I haven’t come across Vol. 1 , but it’s probably available.

_Cambodia Rocks, Vol. I, II, III_ from CambodianRocks.com. Included below in the comments are two tracks from these featuring two major singers, Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea, both killed by the Khmer Rouge. The notes say that Sinn Sisamouth recorded over 2000 songs, more than half of which he wrote himself.

Unlike what I little I’ve heard of other late-60’s-early 70’s rock from the Third World, these singers definitely sound authentically un-American. The performances successfully graft only those elements of Cambodian singing and American accompaniment that go well together, and omit the elements that don’t. The juxtaposition is jarring, fresh, and successful. It’s similar in some ways to the mash-ups fellow Mogger Mike the Knife has come across.

Cairo covers Cuba

Spike — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 05:50:35 GMT

Here is another surprising link between two recordings.

Asmahan, born near the Lebanon-Syria border but raised in Cairo, was a popular singer until she died mysteriously at age 26 in 1944, the year of this recording, which is less purely Arabic-sounding than her others. According to the notes of the 2001 CD it comes from (Buda Musique 82217-2), “Ya Habibi Taala” means “My love, come quickly.”

The other recording is in the first comment.

A Stooges to Stones Influence Flow?

Spike — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 07:05:00 GMT

It’s fun to discover on your own a link between two different recordings. Perhaps the experts have already written about it, who knows? The immense river of literature about music expands as one’s wherewithal to follow it shrinks.

The Rolling Stones, like all creative musicians, started out covering others’ work, and still do occasionally. They’ve covered only a handful of records by white acts: “Not Fade Away” by Buddy Holly, “Suzie Q” by Dale Hawkins, “I Wanna Be Your Man” by the Beatles (seeing Lennon and McCartney go into a room and write it in a half hour for them inspired them to start writing their own songs), and recently “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan. Of the songs that the Rolling Stones have written, here is the only one I’ve found whose vocal melody sounds as if it was copied from another act’s record, in this case a white act. Consciously done? Inadvertent? Pure coincidence?

The Stones song is in the first comment.

Burmese Piano

Spike — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 23:17:36 GMT

This is from a 1953 Folkways LP reissued this year by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and the CD features a variety of musicians, instruments and voices. The long elaborate notes, characteristic of Folkways, here were written uncharacteristically by one of the musicians, in fact Maung Than Myint himself. About the track he writes:

"A piano in the drawing room of a well-to-do Burman is not an uncommon sight. Burmese have learned to play Burmese songs on the piano without changing its chromatic keyboard.

"This is a modern composition in which a girl is compared to a flower, fragile and hard to get. It is played by Maung Than Myint."

Oh Lovin' Babe

Spike — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:15:13 GMT

This 1930 recording is by one of the major country artists of the late twenties and thirties. Sam McGhee accompanied here on guitar.

Danny Gatton, no slouch as a guitarist

Spike — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 05:00:35 GMT

Danny Gatton at Gallagher’s (Proper) (YouTube)

Here is Danny Gatton's Redneck Jazz Explosion performing live at the Cellar Door, Washington, DC 12/31/78, with Buddy Emmons on pedal steel guitar. His performance is mind-boggling as well. The tune was composed and originally recorded by the jazz organist Jack McDuff.

Funk, eh? Try in the Cracks

Spike — Sat, 19 May 2007 01:05:32 GMT

Starting with his 1989 album _Flat Out_, jazz guitarist John Scofield finally figured out how to consistently put together melodic lines that worked, and where each phrase related to the one before it and the one after it, and were not just randomly strung-together jazz phrases like most jazz you hear. He also was a master of advanced cutting-edge jazz harmony, not TOO dissonant, and could play solos consisting only of double-string plucking. His repertoire occasionally included original funk compositions such as this one.

So that puts him in my top category of jazz guitarist, in the company of Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery.

Jeff Schmidt's solo piece for electric bass

Spike — Wed, 16 May 2007 18:59:13 GMT

A friend invited me to hear Jeff Schmidt (above), Michael Manring, Jean Baudin and Dave Grossman, none of whom I've ever heard of, perform at "Solo Bass Night" this Friday at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. I was not enthusiastic until I checked out this clip from the club's website, which seems to me to put Schmidt in the league of Victor Wooten and Arne Livingston (the latter played for Living Daylights).

"Golden Flower" by Applying Herself to Harmony

Spike — Wed, 16 May 2007 01:30:59 GMT

What can I say? Some recordings rise to the surface of one's distant memory more than others. Beyond that, I'm tongue-tied. All I can do is present what I typed in the notes of a reel-to-reel tape onto which I recorded this track maybe 35 years ago, notes from an LP I must have borrowed from a library. "Kembam Mas (Golden Flower) sung by Mardularas (Applying Herself to Harmony) by the gamelan Kangjeng Kjahi Mangunsih (The Most Venerable Sir Practicing Love), Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia. 'The Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music' (Columbia KL-210) Collected and Edited by Alan Lomax" Lomax's collection was curated and repackeged not long ago, but my primitive search skills failed to locate this cut on the internet.

A Natural Keyboardised Voice

Spike — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:16:22 GMT

All I know about this is that a woman from Mali, Bell'ilba, sang this and it appeared on an out-of-print 1996 CD _Voices of the World_ on the Chant du Monde label, which I don't have and which can't be obtained right now on the internet. I'm not even totally sure whether Bell'ilba is her name or the lullaby's name.

A Back-Up Band Who Are All in the Same Gear

Spike — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:15:10 GMT

As the sun sets further and further to the north and the nights get depressingly shorter and shorter, I repair to a key jazz recording. The singer has the chops, and the members of the back-up band, unlike your typical angry renegade jazz players who screech and squawk all over the place trying to find the right note and in doing so set the critics' hearts aflutter, play the right note and are, in a way that would have pleased Joseph Goebbels who once wrote that he wished that all of Germany could be in the same gear, in the same gear.

Some Music to Rip Off Ideas From

Spike — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:44:17 GMT

As a youth, I would occasionally imagine myself actually being skillful at something. Most often it wasn't the typical male fantasy of being a comptroller or an omboudsman, but instead, for some weird reason, playing lead guitar. The trouble with playing lead is that you have to come up with new ideas, or at least ideas, but I could have settled for at least a _new source_ of ideas to copy. The following recording could have been a good source, had I known about it and had it occurred to me, but I didn't, and it wouldn't have. Maybe one of you knuckleheads out there can make use of this. Good luck finding out where to send royalties you want to share.

the unidentified griot (professional musician)

The LP _Music and Dances of Occidental Africa_ (Olympic 6110) describes this track thusly: "The seron is a large harp-luth with 19 strings. The body of the instrument consists of a semicircular calabash with a skin stretched over it. The strings are made of twisted gazelle skin attached to the neck of the instrument by rings of plaited cowhead. After a prelude (variation of an air about Samori, famous Malinke warrior and the last to hold out against the French) the musician starts to hum and then sings the epic of the hero's feats and deeds of valor." The track on this LP doesn't seem to include this singing after the humming. This was recorded in Kankan, "seat of the Grand Cherif, highest Mohammedan personality of French Occidental Africa" (now northern Guinea). Enjoy.

"Black Eyes" by the Tielman Brothers

Spike — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 05:07:01 GMT

The Tielman Brothers play "Black Eyes" live in 1960. They were a Dutch group, and came from Indonesia.

Stone Fox, an anomaly

Spike — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:19:35 GMT

This nifty guitar instrumental was on the B-side of James Brown and the Famous Flames' 1967 single, "Kansas City," and seemed a little bit different from his other work at the time, thus adding to my admiration for the Famous Flames. When the compilation, _James Brown: Soul Pride The Instrumentals 1960-1969_ was released in 1992, I wrote to the Polydor label, asking why "Stone Fox" hadn't been included. They replied that the tune had actually featured not the Famous Flames but Troy Seal and the Daps, a white group that normally accompanied the white singer Lonnie Mack, whose greatest hit had been the instrumental "Memphis." (I highly recommend Mack's classic Fraternity label recordings reissued on three Ace label CDs.)

Superior B Side Without Toots

Spike — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:26:17 GMT

This 70's 45 rpm single on the Hot Shot! label had "WHO KNOWS BETTER" by Toots & the Maytals on the A side, and "BETTER VERSION PT. 2---INST." by HOT SHOT ALL STAR on the B side. In common reggae custom, the B side was the same as the A side but without the vocals. In this case, the B side, in my opinion, was better, even though Toots & the Maytals were great singers. Let me know if this has ever been reissued in any format. It is odd, unusual, and I love it.

Barbwire in His Underpants

Spike — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:02:24 GMT

Even without the minimal lyrics, this reggae song, "Barbwire" by Nora Dean, is one of my musical favorites, and it is odd and unusual.

Great Guinean Guitarist

Spike — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:51:18 GMT

Sekou Diabate was a member of Bembeya, a group from Guinea. This 1985 guitar instrumental is a tour-de-force. In my imagination he is performing this live, and Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia are sitting in the front row with their jaws dropped.

All his other records from this period featured other members of Bembeya singing. I heard a little of one of those records, and the vocals were quite a bit less interesting than his solos. If anybody comes across a better African guitar player, let me know.

When he was a boy.

I split this into two parts because the 11:30 track was a little to long to upload by itself. Go to the first comment for part 2.

A pretty good solo by Jimi Hendrix

Spike — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 01:47:30 GMT

After Sturgell posted TWO items about Hendrix a couple of days ago, I felt the need to follow in his footsteps. This solo, near the end of a so-so one-chord song recorded live at Fillmore East on the last evening of the sixties, hasn't had that many books devoted to it and doesn't have a WTF-meter reading anywhere as high as that of, say, the solo on his hit single "Purple Haze." However, it still has its qualities. It's from a 1972 LP, not the recent two-disk CD.

This black and white photo has nothing to do with the solo.

My Favorite Sixties Girl Group Glockenspiel Solo Ending

Spike — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:58:47 GMT

The last eight seconds of this song's fluffy-tailed glockenspiel solo: other people, somewhere, must have noticed it. Remember _Seinfeld's_ Elaine envying her boyfriend who "had a song," meaning that everytime he heard the Eagles' "Desperado" playing from some store speaker or wherever, he would have to stop listening to her and focus all his attention on "his song"? Don't tell me you're a Mogger and you don't have your moments.

When a musical moment grabs you

Spike — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:09:33 GMT

Basie lovers take note: Ray Noble, a British dance bandleader in the 1930s, had moments like this when his rhythms were impeccably tight. The recordings he made with the amazing singer Al Bowlly were all keepers.

classic rock: my favorite keyboard solo

Spike — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:59:12 GMT

This 1965 piano solo was in the middle of a sweet ballad sung by Van Morrison that had the typical doowop C-Am-F-G chord progression. I wish I knew the keyboardist to thank for playing it; it seems that Them changed its personnel frequently, and many of its recordings featured accompaniment by professional studio musicians who were less loud, crude or direct than their Them counterparts. Like many of the British Invasion bands of the time, they occasionally recorded covers of US R&B tunes that weren't inferior to the originals, and in this case I think Them's version is superior to John Lee Hooker's original 1964 anti-nostalgia stab at doowop, itself a response to Nat King Cole's 1958 pro-nostalgia regret-ridden stab at doowop titled "Looking Back." Remember nostalgia?

Did John Lee Hooker have reason not to look back? "Black Man Blues" (1949) during his musical prime heavy-metal years, has him singing, "Got so mad this morning, broke the wall, I pulled out, grabbed my shotgun, I thought I'd mow that woman down." Or maybe he was just putting on a good act.

The Temptation of Suicide by Flying Upwards

Spike — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:47:42 GMT

I've hardly ever noticed contemporary black gospel mentioned in mainstream press, and wondered if that meant that few if any acts were spellbinding enough to cause non-gospel critics to bring them to our (meaning my) attention. Around twenty years ago I poked around briefly and was was introduced by a Harlem record store clerk to the Winans' LP _Tomorrow_('84), which turned out to have several sprightly classic cuts that sounded not like gospel but like contemporary r & b, with melodies and arrangements that other acts would have died for. One of them, "You Just Don't Want to Be Loved," had lyrics that sounded like a romantic complaint until, near the end, the words "by Jesus" slipped in to clarify things. In "Secret Place" the lead vocalist sings, "I need to go somewhere just to hide away and talk to you all day," but "you" is never specified.

Later I came across their first album, _Introducing the Winans_, ('82) whose highlight for me was "Flying Away." As always for me, music counts for everything and lyrics are just an added extra. (When good music comes with boring lyrics, no problem. When good lyrics come with boring music, why not just read the lyrics on paper and give the music the heave-ho?) After wallowing in the song countless times, I became vaguely aware of the lyrics and wondered if the song was about the Resurrection. It is partly, but the larger subject is the temptation of suicide by flying upward. In the first verse, the lead singer wants to call it quits because his brother betrayed him. In the second verse, King David feels likewise because his friends "beseiged" him. In the third verse, Jesus's followers left him "to bear his cross alone." Each verse ends with "But I know I've got to stay just another day," thus indicating that the respective protagonist pulls back from mortal sin at the last minute.

(Illustration from "Frank N. Stein!" by Will Elder in _Mad #5_, January 1954)

my favorite guitar solo

Spike — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:08:19 GMT

"Manha de Carnaval" is from the 1962 Kapp label LP _The Many Voices of Miriam Makeba_, which unfortunately has never been reissued. Combining a song composed a few years earlier by the Brazilian guitarist Luis Bonfa and already becoming a warhorse, a singer from South Africa, and New York City session musicians mostly associated with Harry Belafonte: this is a case where fusion succeeded. Listen to Makeba coming in after the guitarist Ernie Calabria's solo. Simple though it may be, this my favorite guitar solo.

Check out Socket live in S.F.

Spike — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 01:13:57 GMT

This Saturday night (12/16/06) at the Elbo Room in San Francisco if you want to check out an electrifying up-an-coming up-to-date Hammond-Organ and sax jazz quartet with intricate state-of-the-art r&b rhythms played by a top-notch electric bassist and an equally syncopated drummer, then SOCKET is your group. I have seen them a couple of times in other little clubs when their name was Guru Garage, and their complex compositions cast an ecstatic pall on the tiny audiences. Their perfect rhythms yanked me like a tilt-a-whirl. How could their solos compete with their tighter-than-tight refrains? A+.

http://www.socketband.com

Who was the first musician to...?

Spike — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:41:19 GMT

Musical Firsts? Any ideas? First techno record? My vote goes to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” (1977) The first rap record? My vote goes to James Brown’s “Say It Loud---I’m Black and I’m Proud.” (1968) First songwriter to use difficult personal poetry as lyrics? My vote goes to Bob Dylan. Does anybody know a precursor? First progressive rock album? My vote goes to the Beatles’ “Revolver,” (1966) followed by the Mothers’ “Freak Out.” (1966) First bluegrass recording? My vote goes to Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys’ “Why Did You Wander,” (1946) which wasn’t issued in any format until it appeared on a 1976 Japanese CBS/SONY LP “Bill Monroe Vol. 1.” First blues recording? My vote goes to “Nigger Blues” (1916) sung by George O’Connor (white) and composed by Leroy “Lasses” White (black), reissued on the 1978 LP “Let’s Get Loose: Folk and Popular Blues Styles from the Beginnings to the Early 1940s” on the New World Records label.

Should You Buy That CD?

Spike — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 03:01:01 GMT

Anyone who has moved from one address to another has to have thought about owning so much stuff. Figuring out the line between what stuff you allow to accompany you to the new place and what stuff you give the heave-ho to can force you to think about what stuff you are made of, about what the meaning of life is, and you probably end up napping in the fetal position.

You have keep in mind what is really important. Fulfilling human relationships and constructive acts of generosity are pale, pathetic, neurotic substitutes for the joys of amassing things. By definition, the best things in life are things. As they say, what you are like is less important than what you like. If you are walking past a CD store and are torn between buying a CD or putting the money in the college fund for your kids, you would do them more of a favor to buy the CD. Then, after you eventually die, your kids can toss everything including your CD collection into the debris box on the curb by your home. They can pause every once in a while to examine one of your CDs and get a good laugh at what lame taste in music you had. Giving them a good laugh is an altruistic act on your part.

"Otra Vez...Aviles": was there a better Latin guitar album?

Spike — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 20:28:10 GMT

If you're interested in traditional small-group Latin music, but weary of florid vocals, check out Oscar Aviles and his first album, "Otra vez...Aviles," probably from the early or mid-60s. (It's available via PeruCD.com.) The Lima record store clerk in 1965 told me that Oscar Aviles was Peru's best guitarist as she convinced me to buy a 45 of his. After listening to it and, later, the above album it its LP incarnation, containing only instrumentals, I imagined him as Latin America's best guitarist. His early Odeon-label recordings feature him, thanks to double-tracking, playing nylon-stringed guitar duets with himself, accompanied by a conga player and a bongos player. The musical attack and timing is so tight, and mastery of every element so unassailable. The syncopation is so overwhelming that it hides the fact that many of his pieces are waltzes. The rest are polkas. He who rescues despised genres deserves our praise. Peruvians call this type of music coastal, creole, not the Andean music that norteamericanos usually associate with Peru. Who are his predecessors? In Peru has anything of interest about him been written?

Music shared is an improvement.

Spike — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:11:42 GMT

It's wonderful to discover a recording that makes the top of your back quiver and your eyes water. If it's from an album that looks hopeless on the surface, even better. Never played on the radio, reissued or written about? Even better. I know many hundreds of cuts like this. Is there anyone out in the world who has perceived the beauty in one of these cuts? I would be happy to be their friend. People need to know about these cuts. It's fun to play them in a particular order that enhances their impact. It's fun to have one cut follow another, each from a different genre but musically linked on a deeper level. Enjoy the tension between the forces that bring two cuts together and the forces that push them apart. Playing a cut in a new context can be a revelation.

You find something, create something, a recording, an idea, anything, and you wonder how could anyone not love it? You present it, and you can tell from the other person's face that they're privately thinking, how could anyone like it?

Paul Bley's 1958 version of "I Remember Harlem"

Spike — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:54:14 GMT

The arrangement and Bley's cutting edge solo make this a gem. Despite the fact that Bley was undermiked somewhat, one can hear him coming up with wonderfully zigzagging melodies during his solo. Each phrase relates to the one before and after it. These are the earliest recordings of Bley or his accompanists, which are the Ornette Coleman group, meaning Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Billy Higgins and Charlie Hadden! On only this cut, Bley is the only one who solos, which is OK. It's my favorite cut that any of those guys ever did.

Suzy Hang Around: light rock's rare unsympathetic narrator

Spike — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:15:38 GMT

This song is a neglected gem. (YES!) The melody, the Byrds-like arrangement, the lyrics, all force me to listen to it rather than Abba's hits.

Do any other Abba songs have male lead vocals? Do any other light rock songs by any act have lyrics in the voice of an unsympathetic narrator?