Author Archives: peter

Carlene Carter, Every Little Thing

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I’ve been listening to the new Brandy Clark album this week. Brandy is a country songwriter who has been trying to break as a performing artist. Her album 12 Songs I wrote about here a while back. The song Stripes is the kick ass fun number, but there’s lots of other good stuff on that album.

The new album has equally clever and direct songwriting, but it has some extra production patina and maybe some compressed audio to make it more contemporary radio friendly. Hard to argue with that. I’ll probably post about the song The Girl Next Door soon, since I’ve been playing it a ton.

But the funny thing about listening to Clark is that after a few songs play in the mix I get distracted and I start thinking about Carlene Carter.

Carter is the daughter of June Carter and her first husband Carl Smith. I’ve written about her here before. She has a big strong voice, and a terrific other voice as a songwriter. She was married to Nick Lowe for about ten years, and they made some terrific records together and others looking at each other. But the record that Brandy Clark pushed me toward is Little Love Letters, the 1993 record she made after Carter’s Lowe adventure was over.

It’s a terrific record, country in flavor and sentiment with a solid foundation of rock beat on the fast ones. Her constant collaborators here are Howie Epstein and Benmont Tench (both of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), but she also writes a song with Bernie Taupin, and this one, Every Little Thing, with Al Anderson of NRBQ.

Is this a song of love, lust, or maybe something more unhinged?

Which reminds me of some other Every Little Thing songs.

The Police had this tune that kind of exposed them (or at least Gordon Sumner) as cheese balls. But the dysfunction of the narrator and the crazy calypso feel are for me irresistible. Yes, dismiss it as fodder, the video suggests the Police are just cranking out what they can, but at the same time it’s about a strong and creepy emotion that hasn’t been as well expressed since Every Breath You Take. Hmm. Or Don’t Stand So Close to Me. The Police were good at perversity, weren’t they?

And, of course, the Beatles have their own Every Little Thing.

The YouTube versions are all chopped up bootlegs, so not much pleasure in the listen, but there’s enough here to suggest that the Beatles too found in the expression Every Little Thing a bit of unhealthy obsession.

Maybe it’s the word Every that does it.

 

The Dark End: Chip Moman has died.

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Chip Moman was a guitarist who got his start at Stax, then founded his own studio (American Sound Studio), and wrote, produced and/or played on an impressive body of work. You can read the NY Times obit here.

Moman wrote The Dark End of the Street with Dan Penn, and produced James Carr’s recording of it.

It’s one of my favorite songs.

Henry McCullough Has Passed.

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An English guitarist of great taste, who spent a lot of time around Paul McCartney and Wings, but also played the guitar solos at Woodstock for Joe Cocker when he turned With A Little Help From My Friends into a monster smash.

McCullough’s solo in this bit of MOR elevates it. I’m a fan of McCartney’s stuff, and I’m always happy to hear this, but less happy today that McCullough is gone.

Red Hot Chili Peppers In A Car With James Cordon.

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I’ve not ever watched one of these Carpool Karaoke before.

There is one great moment in this, but lots of little funniness in this sketch. I’d call it warmhearted, if I didn’t know that would stop you from watching it.

 

 

 

Kansas, Dust in the Wind

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My daughter is writing a research paper about the Dust Bowl. She was looking for a title, and I glibly suggested Dust In The Wind. She liked it. I hope she gets an A.

But that moment was a reason to listen to the tune, which I probably haven’t done in a really long time. But in all these years, I could sing the song, and certainly have.

Checking out the video tonight. It is cheesy, but the melody and starkness of the tune are unforgettable. Is abjectness a vibe? Apparently.

Does that make it a great song? The video tells me this is some sort of midwestern crazy fundamental evangelical nonsense. All these pictures are like those on the internet that promise me pictures that changed weddings, history, Woodstock.

But the tune is straightforward, and was a hit everywhere. Maybe it’s the great melody, with an idea that everyone finds inevitable. Hell yeah!

What I don’t hear is careerism. I hear Remnants who went big and hit one out. Cool!

Johnny Cash, Hurt

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A Time Of Unreason, the story of the fake Zombies.

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Screenshot 2016-06-04 13.46.10This is a terrific story about fake bands in the late 60s, touring the states as bands like the Zombies (pictured, wearing cowboy hats) and the Animals, and one particular band that went on to make it’s own music after the jig was up.

Ali Boom-a-ye!

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818px-Muhammad_Ali_NYWTSThere was no greater rock star than Muhammad Ali.

I once (a long time ago, in the 70s) worked as the sound guy on a film shoot at the Apollo Theater, yes, that Apollo Theater (James Brown!), for a benefit for a Harlem-based bicycle-racing club trying to make the Olympic team.

I was positioned in the aisle, crouched on the floor, doing my work on the Nagra, about 30 feet from the stage. When Ali, a supporter of the club, a sponsor/supporter of the event, was announced, he strode down the aisle right by me. Within inches. Fortunately he didn’t spill over my cables.

When I think about charisma and magic, I think of that moment. I didn’t meet Ali, I didn’t shake his hand, but his charisma filled the (big) room. It washed over me and all of us. His passing by me rained magic down on me. He was a hero, to me already, but his presence in that room was something else. It was the Greatest.

Tonight, he left the room, but he will surely endure.

Maren Morris, My Church

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Lots and lots of music sounds derivative of some other music. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, evoking the thought, Why bother? But other times the song is so right it feels absolutely fresh and absolutely classic at the same, which is the case with this new country song.

What’s extra-funny about this tune is that it is paean to listening to FM radio in the car, which is not the religious experience it once was (unless one finds one of those rare stations practicing the free form format).

Form meets function in My Church. I can’t stop playing this.

Guy Clark Has Moved On.

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Guy Clark is in the Country Music Songwriters Hall of Fame and was a beloved artist during his long career. At the same time, he was a big star. His talent was big, but his shadow was small and intense.

I saw him at Joe’s Pub in NYC a ways back, before he got sick. It was a terrific show, full of gee whiz moments when songs you knew took you by surprise, and songs you didn’t know made themselves feel familiar and important.

Like this one.