Monthly Archives: May 2022

Song of the Week – Sweet Black Angel & All Down the Line, The Rolling Stones

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Ignored           Obscured            Restored

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones’ classic double album, Exile on Main Street.  I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to verify the exact date of release.  I recently read a review by Robert Greenfield that was in Rolling Stone magazine dated April 27, 1972.  In the article, he says that the album will be out on May 7th.  But it’s very plausible that the release was delayed after he wrote that.

An article in the WSJ claimed the release date was May 12, 1972.  Wikipedia says it was May 22nd.  I think part of the confusion may be related to the US versus UK releases.  It could have been the 12th in the US and the 26th in the UK.  I guess it doesn’t really matter!

The backstory of the making of Exile is well known so I won’t be pedantic in telling it.  The short version is that the Stones were living in France in 1971-72 as tax exiles from England.  Unable to find an acceptable recording facility in France, the band decided to record from the basement of Keith Richards southern France villa (Nellcôte) using their mobile studio.

Describing this arrangement, Keith said “It was nice for me making this album.  At the end it got a little hectic in the house what with playin’ all night in the blazin’ heat… but with the 16 track truck always outside and ready, we’d go downstairs whenever we felt like it and work on a riff.”

My choices for SotW are the b-sides to the two singles released from Exile.  “Sweet Black Angel” was the flip to “Tumbling Dice” and “All Down the Line” was on the other side of “Happy.”

“Sweet Black Angel” was written in support of Black activist Angel Davis.  At the time, Davis was on trial for murder because she had purchased the gun used in the courtroom killing of a judge and the three black defendants (The Soledad Brothers) on trial for killing a prison guard.

But the gal in danger
Yeah, de gal in chains
But she keep on pushin’
Would ya take her place?

She countin’ up de minutes
She countin’ up de days
She’s a sweet black angel, woh
Not a sweet black slave

For a judge they murdered
And a judge they stole
Now de judge he gonna judge her
For all dat he’s worth

I skipped one verse that makes me cringe and probably makes the song unplayable in concert for the same reason “Brown Sugar” is avoided.  It just ain’t politically correct.

Ten little niggers
Sittin’ on de wall
Her brothers been a fallin’
Fallin’ one by one

“All Down the Line” is an R&B influenced rocker.

It features some smokin’ horns and a bluesy, rockin’ slide guitar solo by Mick Taylor.  It was originally recorded in an acoustic version during the Sticky Fingers sessions and is available on bootlegs.  I’ll include it here because I can.

Clearly, the Stones made the right decision to table it until they could record a version worthy of release!

Exile has survived the test of time. Upon its 1972 release the messy, beautiful album was met with mixed reviews.  Rock journalist Nick Kent summarized his review with this:

On Exile the Stones have picked up on the old idea of ‘when in doubt, get back to your roots’ – there is no spirit of adventure or any real variety and for a double album that’s bad.  But by concentrating on what they’ve always been good at, they’ve proved once and for all their capabilities as rockers.  For that alone, Exile on Main Street should not be ignored.

Exile is often in the top 10 of lists of the greatest albums of all time. In Rolling Stone’s most recent list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (October 2020) Exile earned the #14 slot.  Not bad!

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Wine, Wine, Wine

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Ignored           Obscured            Restored

Later today I’ll be enjoying a wine tasting at the fabulous Hafner Winery in the Alexander Valley region of Sonoma County.  I thought it would be fun to make a “wine music” playlist to listen to on the drive up.  So why not share it with you?

The selection here isn’t my complete playlist, but it has a few of the highlights.  It covers a broad range of genres; from R&B to reggae, blues, rock, and even jazz.

I’ll pass on making my usual commentary and analysis.  This is just for fun!

If you’re interested in hearing the complete playlist, you can check it out here on Spotify:

“Wine” Spotify playlist

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Gold Coast Sinkin’, Blake Mills & Rack of His, Fiona Apple

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Ignored           Obscured            Restored

Today’s SotW was written by my buddy, guest contributor Steve Studebaker.  His band, Blind to Reason, gigs regularly in San Francisco’s East Bay.  He’s also fun to be with when exploring the music and food scene in New Orleans.

Electric guitar players are tone seekers and gear junkies, always searching for that next piece of kit that will transform their thin, plinky sound into the psychedelic roar of Hendrix or the down and dirty funky blues of Billy Gibbons.  There are many Youtube channels dedicated to this quest.  One of my favorites is ‘That Pedal Show’ hosted by Mick Taylor and Dan Steinhardt.  They do deep dives into pedals, amps, and how to combine them to find that magic tone.  They also will shout out guitar players that have sounds that move them.

I was watching a show from 2019 where they were hosting the guys from Walrus Audio, a boutique pedal company.  Mick started blasting fuzz and delay and harmonic tremolo and some other cool stuff mixed together.  He then said he was getting all ‘Blake Mills’, and the Walrus guys mentioned Blake and the ‘Heigh Ho’ album.  I said, “Hmm, maybe I should check this out.”  Which started a deep dive into all things Blake.

According to Wikipedia:

Blake Mills was born in Santa Monica, California, and grew up in Malibu, where he attended Malibu High School with Taylor Goldsmith.  Mills and Goldsmith began their musical careers in a band they co-founded called Simon Dawes.  After the band broke up in 2007, Goldsmith and his younger brother, Griffin, formed the band Dawes with Simon Dawes bassist Wylie Gelber, and Mills went on to serve as a touring guitarist for Jenny Lewis.  He went on to tour with Band of Horses, Cass McCombs, Julian Casablancas and Lucinda Williams.  As a session musician, Mills has collaborated with Conor Oberst, Kid Rock, Weezer, The Avett Brothers, Paulo Nutini, Norah Jones, Carlene Carter, Jesca Hoop, Dixie Chicks, Zucchero, Pink, Lana Del Rey, Dangermouse, Vulfpeck, and more.  He has been nominated for two Grammys for producing, including the sophomore release from Alabama Shakes. He also famously produced Fiona Apple, who he has also toured with, and who legendarily recorded the not-so-happy song A Rack of His about him.

From time to time, Mills hosts invite-only musical performances at Mollusk Surf Shop, in Venice, California.  Previous shows have seen Mills accompanied by musicians such as Jackson Browne, Billy Gibbons, Jenny Lewis, Charlie Sexton, Benmont Tench, and Tal Wilkenfeld.

This SotW is focused on his 2014 album Heigh Ho.  Guests include Fiona Apple, Jim Keltner, Don Was, Benmont Tench, Jon Brion, and Mike Elizondo.  Mills recorded Heigh Ho at the legendary Ocean Way Recording studios in a room built for Frank Sinatra.  Every song on the album is good, ranging from indie ballads to fuzz-drenched roots music.  It’s hard to pick one, but the track I keep coming back to is “Gold Coast Sinkin”. It’s got a cool, mid-tempo groove, some fuzzy guitars, and a feel that somehow makes me think of one of my favorite Beach Boys songs and a former SotW, “Feel Flows.”

For me, a song is usually 80-20 music to lyrics, so I didn’t know what the song was about until I sat down to write this.  With Blake being a California surfer, it’s not a stretch to figure out why he would be on the Gold Coast of Australia:


Ain’t no better way to spend our time
Warm my bones with your steady breathing
Put a worm out on a line
Make a home that we’re never leaving
A door wide open all the time

Go to Spotify and check out the rest of Heigh Ho. It’s a lost gem full of good writing and cool guitar sounds with superstar drummer Jim Kelter’s drunken grooves throughout.

If you like what you hear, go deeper and check out the Tiny Desk Show with Blake and superstar bassist Pino Palladino.  Freeform jazz from outer space?  Maybe, but very cool nonetheless.

An interesting read is the 2020 Washington Post article “How Blake Mills became good at everything.”

WaPo – How Blake Mills Became Good at Everything

I hope you dig this record as much as I do.  If not, there will be another SOTW next week.

Link: The White House Record Collection

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In 1973 Johnny Mercer selected 1,800 pieces of vinyl for the White House with as much Pat Boone as the Beatles. Six years later John Hammond with John Lewis, Kit Rachlis, and Bob Blumenthal created a second set that included the Ramones and Parliament Funkadelic among others.

Jimmy Carter’s grandson became a little obsessed about what happened to all these disks, and tracked them down, eventually having a bit of a listening party in a White House conference room, playing I’m So Bored with the USA while President Obama governed upstairs.

This story is that story and it’s kind of neat. Read it here.

Song of the Week – Thumbs, Lucy Dacus

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Ignored             Obscured              Restored

Lucy Dacus is a talented singer/songwriter that released her first album, No Burden, in 2016 when she was just 21 years old.  It received significant critical acclaim as have her other works, including albums Historian (2018), Home Video (2021), and EP Boygenius (2018), her collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker.

One of the best songs on Home Video has a particularly interesting backstory.  “Thumbs” was written about a night when Dacus went out to a bar with a friend to a meeting with the friend’s ne’er-do-well, mostly absent father.  By the end of the get-together, she was fantasizing about killing the man.

I would kill him
If you let me
I would kill him
Quick and easy
Your nails are digging
Into my knee
I don’t know
How you keep smiling

Then she tries to give agency back to her friend by reassuring her:

I wanna take your face between my hands and say
“You two are connected by a pure coincidence
Bound to him by blood, but baby, it’s all relative
You’ve been in his fist ever since you were a kid
But you don’t owe him shit even if he said you did
You don’t owe him shit even if he said you did”

The minimalist musical accompaniment adds to the drama of the scene.  The tone of it reminds me of Suzanne Vega’s a cappella “Tom’s Diner.”

In an interview with MOJO’s Victoria Segal, Dacus was asked “Your songs (on Home Video) are so personal and specific, do you worry about the subjects coming to find you?”  Dacus replied:

“That’s one of my biggest sources of anxiety right now because there’s a lot of songs that are on the record that are about people I haven’t spoken to for a really long time,  I think in my previous records I’ve been really careful about not writing about people that I wouldn’t want to hear from, but that cut me off from a lot of material.  If people reach out to me, I am prepared to talk to them – it just makes my stomach hurt to think about it.”

But it doesn’t necessarily turn out bad.  For  “Thumbs”, Dacus was quoted in Rolling Stone saying:

“… my friend that it’s about told me, ‘The song is about the fact that you were there for me on that day.  And that’s not sad at all.’”

Enjoy… until next week.