Category Archives: Great Songs

Everything is “Beautiful”

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The last couple of years Diane and I have vacationed in New York, we have hit a couple of plays. Last year, The Book of Mormon and Larry David’s Fish in the Dark were it, and this year, I grabbed tickets to The Humans which had just moved to Broadway a month before our trip, and perfectly, the play won four Tonys including best play, actor, and actress, two nights before the tix I copped.

But, for the second show, I opted for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. There is no question how much I loved King’s songwriting, then with her (now late) husband Gerry Goffin. The Locomotion, Up on the Roof, Chains, and especially Will You Still Love Me, Tomorrow?–which is among my favorite songs ever–are all such great and timeless cuts.  In fact, I wrote this obit when Goffin passed away a couple of years back.

But, last year, when Di and I were in NYC for the FSTA, as we walked up Broadway to Central Park, I noticed the Brill Building for the first time, so I stopped, and looked and took a photo of the front.

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Somewhere, that shot was lost, but this year when we walked by I got another snap, and though I knew the bulk of the Brill Building story, the show brought out so much and so many great songs and just what amazing and productive songwriters like Lieber and Stoller, and Neil Sedaka, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in addition to Goffin and King, and all of this orchestrated by Don Krischner.

One of the things that plagued Goffin and Mann, in particular, with the British invasion and new propensity for bands to write their own materiel was writing songs that were relevant, rather than just pop tunes that appealed to the generally superficial life of teenagers.

Goffin. who wrote the words, and King banged out this really great tune immortalized:

 

Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Friend: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

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While trashing Deep Purple earlier, I stumbled into this video (which I guess a lot of folks have seen, but it eluded me) made when George Harrison was inducted as a solo artist into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.

It is very good, but, if you ever doubted Prince’s mastery of the axe, watch this cos he KILLS (what happens to his guitar after the solo?).

Additionally, this great little piece about how it all came about and went down, by Finn Cohen, from the New York Times, is way interesting and fun and cool.

Finally, it might be easy to say Prince was grandstanding grabbing the spotlight on a song meant to be an homage to a late and great artist, but, Harrison was inducted the same year as the Purple One and I think that gives him some license to kick out some jams.

 

 

Today is National Lineman Appreciation Day!

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I posted about Jimmy Webb’s song Wichita Lineman, or rather Freedy Johnson’s version of it, a few years ago here. But today is the day for appreciating linemen (actually it was yesterday, but close enough), this seems like a good time to take a look at the Glen Campbell version, which was a No. 3 hit in 1968 (No. 1 on the country charts).

Campbell is backed on the record by the Wrecking Crew, of which he was a member.

Reading about the Campbell version, I learned about the many other covers of the tune. Most surprisingly? Kool and the Gang.

Jazzy instrumental, hard to not think of the lyrics though it goes to a totally different place.

The inspiration for the song, according to the Wikipedia entry, was a lineman working atop a telephone pole who Webb saw while driving across Oklahoma and brooding about a failed romantic relationship. Webb imagined himself on the pole, talking to his gal, his heart breaking. Webb called the image “the picture of loneliness.”

Afternoon Snack: The Yardbirds, “Shapes of Things”

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The Biletones are gearing up for summer with a new cluster of songs. Summer means a gig back at The Bistro in Hayward end of June, two dates in Madison, Wisconsin and then back to Frankie’s Blue Room in Naperville, Illinois late July/early August, and then a gig in at Raymond’s, in Cazadero, on the California Russian River.

One of the tunes to make the potential set list is the Yardbirds Heart Full of Soul which is great as my rhythm-playing lead singer mate Tom Nelson and I have been lobbying to do something by the band for at least five years.

It should not be necessary to acknowledge that the Yardbirds were the greatest guitar band ever: Just the fact that Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page each held the main axe slot confirms this maxim.

I was sort of shocked when I ran a search on the site here and did not see any entries for the band, so I figured that needed to be corrected.

As it was, I made a Spotify playlist of the songs the band is working on, and after Heart Full of Soul finished, I decided to add The Yardbirds to my artist’s list, and started streaming them as I drove home from golf this morning.

On the way, I had to stop and run an errand, so I stuffed my IPhone–which was doing the streaming–into my pocket, and as I walked to the shop in the little circus, I could hear Still I’m Sad, ostensibly piping through the muzak system. “Such an odd coincidence,” I thought, and then when Shapes of Things came on, I decided whoever controlled the mall streaming was a fan and having a go at it.

Until I realized the music was emanating from my IPhone, which managed to get to “play” in my butt pocket.

So, ok, maybe there is no god, but no denying what a great band The Yardbirds were, and what a great cut Shapes of Things is.

Check it out and try to argue, but you will lose. Every time

 

 

Afternoon Snack: Eagles of Death Metal, “San Berdoo Sunburn”

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I cannot remember how long ago my mate Steve Gibson burned a disc of the Eagles of Death Metal for me. I know I played it, but the disc got lost in a pile, and the band never really made my playlist, though they were always hanging around the periphery of my listening and consciousness.

There was “Them Crooked Vultures,” which featured Josh Homme whom Steve  Moyer discovered several years back, and from then, it seemed everywhere I looked, Homme, the guitar player, was featured.

Still, though I thought of them kind of like James Joyce’s Ulysses, a book I know I should read someday, but a book I am keeping on my to do list so I always will have something to fall back on should I run out of things to do, you know?

Of course, over the past months, the band has had sad interactions with first the shootout in the Bacalat in Paris, and then oddly, the San Bernardino connection because of the song below, San Berdoo Bunburn.

Which is kind of extra sad as the more I get to know the band, the less they would want to be associated with much of anything aside from their irreverant–and funny–rock’n’roll chops and words.

This song came to me by way of my Biletones mate Bill Alberti, as we are now looking to put the tune on our setlist. (One thing is for sure: I now follow the Eagles on Spotify.)

I did look through several versions of the song, and though I prefer live, it is really hard to hear the words on the recordings on YouTube. So, I went with this video which peppers the screen with the occasional lyric.

Enjoy.

Here Comes the Weekend: Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”

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As I have been driving around in my car the last week I have been streaming Spotify, so far in a primitive fashion, by just selecting the artist I want to hear, and hitting shuffle.

Though you can scrounge through the Spotify archives and pick up just about anything imaginable (still looking for a copy of Voodoo, by Quicksilver Messenger Service, though) I do find that the shuffle is largely from a handful of albums. Some might be greatest hits, and some re-issues with added stuff, but the spectrum is not always as random as I would imagine.

Still, while streaming Richard Thompson, I got I Wanna See the Bright Lights in 1974 and then the lovely Beeswing from Mock Tudor two decades later.

Thompson is a tremendous wordsmith and song writer, but similarly, he is such a ridiculously imaginative and tasty guitar player that it is often hard to take it all in. Not that he is inaccessible, for Thompson is as fun a stage presence as there is.

So, Beeswing did coarse through my IPhone and into my car stereo and all the words really got me for the first time, and well, whew. So, saying the guitar playing is almost secondary, well, you judge and figure it out.

 

But, just in case you don’t know Thompson that well, here he is like, cranking it out on his Revering, on Elvis Costello’s late TV show with Elvis struggling to play rhythm guitar (maybe they even turned the volume off cos he looked so lost?).

I did search for Thompson doing this with bay area axe-man Henry Kaiser, whom I have twice seem play the song with the songwriter, but nada. So, let’s go with this.  Tell me you have seen a more relaxed or competent guy (let alone confident) jacking with his tuner as part of the solo in the middle of the song?

 

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, from Striking It Rich

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I didn’t mean to dwell on this, but I happened to put the Hot Licks’ great album Striking It Rich—which came as a die cut fold out, that opened like a matchbook—on tonight and was reminded of more great Dan Hicks songs.

Here are two, tracks one and three, that I feel compelled to share.  Great songs, clever arrangements, ace (but not showy) solos, all the homely appeal of a ukulele  band, with all the jazz chords and standout performances.

OBIT: Dan Hicks, 1941-2016

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Dan Hicks might not be as well known as some of the rock mainstays who have left us the past few months, but never-the-less, Hicks, leader of the seminal Bay Area Gypsy Jazz/Rock-a-Billy/Jug Band/Folk troupe, “Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks,” passed away February 6 from Cancer.

Hicks’ band involved a country swing core (violins) along with guitar, bass, and three vocals–Hicks and two women singers–but he certainly was a wordsmith, as well as a man who carried his bay area sensibilities to heart.

I remember in 1973, seeing the Kinks at Winterland, with Hicks and Licks playing second on the bill. His band turned in a great set, but Hicks spent a few moments sort of happily sneering at the crowd that he knew the audience really couldn’t wait to “see the motherfucking Kinks” (who were on tour supporting Everybody’s In Showbiz). Still, the band (both in fact) were great.

I Scare Myself, might well be Hicks best known tune, and this great clip features Hicks on his 60th birthday, playing the Warfield in The City, with virtually all the musicians who had graced his band at one time or another.

But, my favorite was the uber-clever, How Can I Miss You (When You Won’t Go Away).

One less funny irreverent musician on the planet.