Monthly Archives: June 2017

Song of the Week – California Soul, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

One of the greatest and most tragic musical collaborations was the series of duets recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Their glorious list of hits include “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Precious Love” (my favorite), “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You,” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” and “You’re All I Need to Get By.”

But as you well know by now, the SotW is all about providing exposure to the overlooked gems, so today’s feature is “California Soul.”

“California Soul” was written by Ashford & Simpson and recorded by numerous (mostly Motown) acts before Gaye and Terrell took a crack at it. They managed to take it to #56 as the B-side to “The Onion Song.” It was the last single released by the duo (March 1970) and was included on the album Easy.

On October 14, 1967, Terrell collapsed into Gaye’s arms onstage at a concert in Virginia. She was soon diagnosed with brain cancer and was unable to fully continue her career. She received treatments and operations through early 1970 when she finally succumbed to her disease and died about 6 weeks before her 25th birthday.

Controversy has surrounded whether Terrell truly sang on Easy or if her parts were actually sung by Simpson. But I choose to believe Terrell sang, especially since Simpson has continually denied that it was her. (She claims to have provided guide vocals for the weakened Terrell who had to sing while seated in a wheelchair.)

We can only imagine what more great music Gaye and Terrell were destined to make together.

Enjoy… until next week.

Fanboy

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Hey, here’s that pic of me and the Marty Stuart gang I talked about a couple weeks ago. It was buried on my phone and I stumbled into it today.

Print up a poster and be the hit of your 4th of July shindig!

The Biters Forge Ahead

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Things to know:

1) I feel guilty for liking this Bolan forgery so much.

2) It’s the “soco, soco, soco. . .” part.

3) They’re not even from Sweden! Atlanta, actually.

4) The singer is prettier and probably half as masculine as Joan Jett, whose look he forged. (Joan Jett did plenty of Bolan forging herself so it all comes full circle.)

The Beatles Get Worst to First Treatment

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Note first, Bill Wyman wrote this.

He’s a rock critic, not the Rolling Stones bassist. But does that matter?

I immediately check out the end and find Good Morning in last place. Geez. I like that tune, not in a rock sense, but in a music and attitude sense, it’s pretty powerful. So, I disagree.

And then it gets worse and better and worse, and there’s not reason to think about the ranking. This is an internet click bait thing, Wyman is a pretty decent critic, and does a good job of navigating through the ranks.

Which are totally wrong. Discuss.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/all-213-beatles-songs-ranked-from-worst-to-best.html

The Dahmers

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Discovered two new-to-me bands recently and I’ll give you these guys first.

Cool song. Excellent cinematography.

I’ll give you one guess as to where they’re from?

Of course, the mecca of consistently great music. Sweden is like musical heaven these days.

Hank III: Dick in Dixie

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Hank III and his Damn Band are great. No doubt about it. But not perfect.

You have to decide where to draw the line. Have fun.

Song-Ending Solo

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Here’s my nominee.

Anyone not completely blown away the first time you heard this as a kid? Made me wanna jump out of my pants.

It’s a really odd rock song (if this copies something else I’m not aware of, please do tell) and one of the oddities is there’s no solo until the very end. The guitar is all riff and thump up to that point.

And what a solo it is – herky-jerky as hell and packed full of what has become cliche Page solo material. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Song of the Week – Living in the City, Hurray for the Riff Raff

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IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED

This past week marked the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album considered by many to be among the first “concept” albums of the Rock era. The album was intended to be seen as a performance by the fictional band that bore the name of the album.

Today it is often lamented by baby boomers that due to the most popular, current music consumption vehicles – streaming and to a lesser degree iTunes libraries – the industry has become a hits only market. Conventional wisdom says that musicians don’t record “statements” and consumers aren’t interested in listening to a whole album by a single artist.

While that may be true in general, it is not without exception. One of my favorite albums of the “aughts” is Separation Sunday (2005) by The Hold Steady. It is a concept album that explored themes of conflict between Christianity and pimps, prostitutes, skinheads and drug addicts.

In March, Hurray for the Riff Raff released their 6th album called The Navigator, itself a concept album. HFTRR is a band led by Alynda Segarra, a woman with a very interesting backstory. (More about that in a bit.)

The Navigator unfolds in two acts and follows Segarra’s alter ego, Navita, who feels the need to escape the city. She visits a bruja (witch) who she asks to put her under a spell for 40 years. Act two begins when she wakes from the spell and discovers the city she once knew is now gone. (It has been gentrified.)

Somewhat autobiographical, it explores the urban territory that has long been the playground for Lou Reed, Patti Smith and Jim Carroll. (This is a departure from earlier HFTRR albums that leaned more toward the Americana of Dylan and The Band.)

Segarra was raised in a Puerto Rican neighborhood of New York. By the age of 17 she was steeped in the writings of the Beat generation and left home see America riding the rails. Caught illegally freight hopping in Ashville, NC, she was facing a month in jail when she was bailed out by friends. She moved on to New Orleans in 2004, found a connection to that city, and stayed there for 10 years. It was there that she started to write songs and sing. In 2014 she moved to Nashville but felt out of place being a city born Puerto Rican – not a southerner. Feeling like an outsider, Segarra began to reconnect to her ethnic roots and returned to New York.

Today’s SotW is “Living in the City” from The Navigator.

“Living in the City” tells the story of the young Navi (Segarra), living in the projects and observing the characters (Big Danny, Mariposa, Gypsy) and behaviors that led her to want to escape. Lyrically “Living in the City” reminds me of Born to Run era Springsteen — like “Meeting Across the River” and “Jungleland.”

Musically the song harkens back to Reed’s “Sweet Jane.”

Overall, The Navigator is a terrific record and proves the concept album is not dead. I strongly recommend you check it out on Spotify or YouTube.

Enjoy… until next week.

The Cure, Object

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How I was reminded about the Cure.

I was out shopping in a thrift store with my daughter, who was looking for a prom dress, when this came on. It sounds really good out in the wild.

Clearly this strokes the same strings that the Only Ones do. Nothing wrong with that!

The first two Cure albums

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The career arcs of bands are not always controlled by the players. Or they spin out beyond local expectations.

The Cure became an international pop sensation, and in many ways deservedly so. I have no idea if that is what they aspired to, but they got it.

But all we ever listened to were their first two elpees, which are wonderfully clear and direct and poetic. Not unpopular, but pure art in a way.

If you’re at all studious about life in our modern world, you should read Albert Camus’s The Stranger, and listen to this song by the Cure. Obviously not the whole story, but a bit of perspective.

Part of the brilliance is you don’t need to know the book to love this song, and wonder about it.