The real history of Leon Redbone Part 1
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In another day and age, Leon Redbone would be a wandering troubadour carrying the songs of a distant age to new and wanting ears. And I would be a hard-drinking Ring Lardner-esque humorist looking at the world with a jaundiced eye (before they had drops to cure that malady). Together, we would travel the countryside having all sorts of adventures and using our super powers to fight crime. Actress Thora Birch would be a saucy, tart-tongued Vassar undergrad-turned-cheesecake model traveling with us in search of the man who gave her father a tragic pink belly one fateful night in Poughkeepsie. And at the end of every episode, we would learn an important lesson about friendship and the power of music to salve the human condition.
Two paragraphs in, and I've yet to get to the damned point.
If there has been a more unique performer in the past fifty years than Leon Redbone, then this is not about them. Redbone's unmistakable voice has resonated across the purview of American culture like some dusky echo of the past, culling in our unconscious a memory of forgotten songs from an era half-remembered even by those still living who experienced it. His gentle, genuine appreciation for both the material and the listener resonates with an authenticity lacking in even the best-costumed revivalists. It is that validity that has both allowed him to build a long and successful career as a recording and touring artist, and hawk both good? beer (Budweiser', which currently comprises a significant portion of my bodily fluids) and decent laundry detergent (All™, which I use to launder all of my parakeet's pirate outfits).
Comments (6)
I love this guy's songs... and the vocal usage!
That's quite the first paragraph! Very fitting, all considered. Fun tune. Who is that he is bantering with at the beginning of the song?
"**If there has been a more unique performer in the past fifty years than Leon Redbone, then this is not about them.**"
You, my friend, are a hot shit!
What a great version. The original by Hank Williams is just so spectacular that I can't ahake it off of my recurring playlists after all these months of owning. it. Now I'm doubly blessed.
dermahrk, check out Sony's reissue of Emmett Miller, the guy Hank Williams was covering. He yodeled before Jimmie Rodgers.
inrumford, your commentary is up to its usual standard. Let me foist on you another Emmett Miller cover you may have heard, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys doing "I Ain't Got Nobody" (1935) featuring Tommy Duncan out-yodelling Miller.
Thanks Spike!