Category Archives: Great Songs

Afternoon Snack: Smokey Robinson, “Ooh Baby Baby,” & Captain Beefheart, “I’m Glad”

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Today I brought my Rickenbacker along to my guitar lesson (as opposed to my bass) just because I felt like playing some guitar, and Steve pulled up this wonderful Captain Beefheart cut, I’m Glad from the album  Safe as Milk.

I have that disc, as well as the seminal Trout Mask Replica, though I have not listened to either of them in years, so I sort of forgot about them. We were working on the arpeggios within the cool progression (played here by Ry Cooder) and at one moment, I stopped dead, looked at Steve, and said, “this is Ooh Baby Baby,” and Steve quickly nodded and said, “yeah, I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Both are great, and different in their own way, but the crossover is unmistakable; however, you be the judge.

And now the inimitable Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

Lunch Break: Elvis Costello and George Jones, “Stranger in the House”

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This is an absolutely great song, and this is a killer version (even if the video is crap). Early. George Jones doesn’t look like he’s about to croak off.

Costello does look like he has mumps, which he apparently did have. Which makes his fantastic vocals here even more fantastic.

But Jones is the trick. That guy can sing. And this song is the answer. A great one.

Night Music: Hoagy Carmichael (w/Lauren Bacall), “Am I Blue?”

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Friday night, and as I was making dinner (this time cayenne fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy) this great song from To Have and To Have Not jumped the synapses.

Directed by the equally great Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Red River, and Ball of Fire to name a few), with a screenplay by Ernest Hemmingway, To Have and To Have Not is in fact based upon a Hemmingway short story. But, rumor has it, there is very little in the film that has anything to do with the story.

Which doesn’t mean the film isn’t just great. It was Lauren Bacall’s and Humphrey Bogart’s first film together (in fact this was Bacall’s firgst film, period, and she was 19 at the time) and the chemistry is undeniable.

This is the film where Bacall suggestively tells Bogart he knows how to whistle (“you just put your lips together, and blow”).

The film also features Walter Brennan as a tookothless rummy sidekick named Eddie, and a joke of mixed-up names, for Bogart’s name is Harry Morgan, but Bacall always calls him Steve, while Bacall’s name is Marie Browning, but Bogart calls her Slim.

Anyway, the equally wonderful Hoagy Carmichael (as Cricket) plays throughout (remember, this is a 40’s movie, and music and song were part of the equation), including this cool number where he starts solo, and where Slide m helps him finish up.

Tres cool for a Friday night.

Lunch Break: Devo, “Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy”

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Another nugget that popped up for me while assembling Lindsay’s holiday disc was this absolute gem from Devo.

In fact, it is such a great cut, that I was sure someone (maybe even me?) had written about the band or song before, so I was surprised to see only indirect references to Devo within the Remnants archives.

I think history will prove Devo–particularly Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry (Gerald) Casale, the band’s driving forces–vastly underated, as a band, as songwriters, and as artists. For, what Devo did was much closer to rock and roll (I guess actually New Wave) theater than most bands. But, they were also very tight musically, as you shall see.

I found these two live versions of the ever intense Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy while looking for a good representation of the song, and they are both great, and interesting.

The first is from 1977, when the band was still pretty new on the forefront of Devolution. The film is rugged and jumpy, but the sound is ok, and the opening bass solo from Casale–who adds the great stage look of having a lefty player–is really great.  You can see Mothersbaugh, as a singer/performer/front definitely has some chops.

But, check out how much tighter and polished the whole thing was three years later, after a serious cult following and a couple of discs and big time touring. By then Mothersbaugh was pretty well realized with this really mesmerizing performance.

Killer.

Breakfast Blend: Happy Birthday, January 8 (Elvis and Ziggy)

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“Lindsay With an A” on KTKE noted this morning that today was her birthday.

More important, she shared the date with some pretty good names, like Stephen Hawking, who is an amazing 73 years old today.

Today Elvis would have been 80, so I thought I would drop in a favorite of mine by the King. Though I must say among the work of Presley, the stuff I like the best are the Sun Sessions. Still this one shows I was a rocker at 10 years old.

The fun does not stop there as January 8 is also the nativity commemoration for David Bowie, who is 68 today.

I love Ziggy, and all the stuff Bowie did with Mick Ronson for sure, but I also loved his Man Who Fell to Earth Heroes/Low phase. But, this song, from Diamond Dogs, remains my favorite Bowie cut.

Breakfast Blend: Focus, “Hocus Pocus”

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I was driving around the other day, attempting to complete last minute holiday errands when the “hot lunch” came on the local representation of the hard rock station.

“The Bone” is the local pathway to bands like Black Sabbath and Rush and Def Leppard, who I admit are not my faves on one hand, but on the other do offer the crunch of guitars.

The “hot lunch” is just an hour of said groups with a theme suggested by the DJ, and with listeners then calling in their requests.

This particular edition of the “hot lunch” featured songs that had whistling, and the set kicked off with the great and goofy Hocus Pocus by the Dutch band Focus.

Spearheaded by killer guitar player Jan Akkerman, this was the band’s only real foray onto the American pop/rock scene, but so off beat and silly a song it is, punctuated by blasts of Akkerman’s wizardry, that the whole song is just one great goulash of fun.

Part of the shtick was also provided by keyboard player/flautist/yodeler Thjis van Leer.

Yeah, yodeling, flute, bridges with drums, and even whistling along with, as noted, those searing and interesting Akkerman solos.

It is madness, but damn happy madness, at that.

 

Obit: Joe Cocker (1944-2014)

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Joe Cocker, late of the Grease Band and a great Woodstock performance, died of lung cancer today (making him also now late of life).

I cannot really say I liked Cocker live better than I liked John Belushi riffing on the whole schtick, but there is no question the Cocker’s seminal interpretation of the Beatles With A Little Help From My Friends is a fantastic and riveting performance.

Not much more to add or subtract beyond showing that shining moment in time and space.

Night Music: Warren Zevon, “Accidentally Like a Martyr”

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It’s Hall of Fame time and yesterday I signed up for Facebook group trying to elect Warren Zevon into the RnRHoF.

Which is stupid. It’s stupid to worry about who is in any Hall of Fame, and the RnRHoF is particularly silly.

But I’m in favor of Warren Zevon becoming immortal.

Oh, he’s dead? Well fuck that then.

This is a great song. It may be a perfect song. Even though it definitely qualifies as LA Rock. Woah!

Late Night Music: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, “Bad Reputation”

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I know we had some Bad Reputation chatter here recently, but I’d never seen this video until tonight.

It’s not a great video, but it does take on EMI and Virgin, the way the Sex Pistols did. What’s more important is that this is a fantastic song, burnished in my head from watching Freaks and Geeks (you should!).

Night Music: The Runaways, “Cherry Bomb”

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Controversially voted into the rapidly expanding rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame today, Joan Jett wrote this one with the band’s colorful manager, Kim Fowley. In the movie Fowley is brilliantly played by Michael Shannon. I remember hearing Cherry Bomb the first time, in the music transfer room at the film school I went to. My work study job was to rip songs from vinyl to 16mm film for students to use in their projects. Nothing more need be said.