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.
Again the cosmic forces have struck the pop music world with the passing of guitar great Lonnie Mack.
To the casual listener, Mack might only be known for his iconic instrumental rendition of Chuck Berry’s Memphis in 1963.
But, the blues player who favored a Gibson Flying V axe fitted with a Bigsby whammy bar played sessions and influenced a generation of players including Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Jeff Beck, and Bootsy Collins, among others, who all noted Mack’s style and attack were pivotal learnings in their own relative development as guitar gods.
Mack also collaborated, recording with Janis Joplin in a duet of George Jones’ Things Have Gone to Pieces, that featured Jerry Garcia on lap steel and Jimi Hendrix on guitar. Mack, who was the Elektra records guitar guru during the 60’s and 70’s also played bass on the first two Doors albums, in addition to his own recordings and performing over the decades.
Lesser known perhaps than his admirers, Mack was considered a “guitarist’s guitarist” and a pioneer within the music industry for his single string phrases accented by the infamous Bigsby.
Ciao Lonnie. Let’s leave you with the killer.
When A Man Loves a Woman is such a giant song, it dwarfs everything else. But Percy Sledge was a working singer and musician and was no one hit wonder.
The song I thought of when I heard tonight that Percy Sledge died was this one, a simmering ballad with a heart felt and gorgeously emotional (and nakedly emotional) refrain.
I saw the band Dump, which is Yo La Tengo’s bassist James McNew’s side project, in 1998 opening for the Future Bible Heroes in the fun club that once existed under the now defunct Time Cafe. If I’m remembering correctly McNew started the show by saying that he’d seen Prince the night before in the city and they were going to play some covers. And they did.
What I didn’t know is that at some point later the band put out a record of Prince covers. Very much 90s rock, kind of a nice sound.
Prince didn’t want his music available digitally in any form, so it’s natural to turn to his songs as recorded by others for a reminder of his broad influence and excellence.
Details are still spilling in and vague, but the iconic artist known as Prince has passed away at age 57.
To say this is shocking does not do the story justice, but Prince belongs up there with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, and the Stones in my view as a brilliant artist who had vision and who dared us to join him on his musical/artistic/spiritual journey.
As in, Prince could probably have just redone his brilliant Purple Rain soundtrack/album over and over in variations of funky rock’n’soul over the past 30 years, but he didn’t. Rather Prince challenged and reinvented himself over and over and though the results might not have been as tuneful or accessible as Purple Rain, the results were those of an artist and performer who would not be compromised, and that is the essence of art in my view.
Since I don’t know much more at this point, not sure what else can be said? I was looking for a YouTube of Little Red Corvette, my favorite song by the artist which features great and clever lyrics, a fantastic melody, and a great production, but I could not find one.
So, off to the ether with an equally wonderful tune, Purple Rain.
Cannot believe you are gone Prince. As usual, earth will miss the void you left.
As a young aspiring hippie it was easy to disdain Haggard’s epic “Okie From Muskogee,” but at the same time have the Grateful Dead’s version of Mama Tried on replay on the phonograph. I actually listened to a lot of Haggard back then, he was one of the great country songwriters who escaped categorization. And Mama Tried is just a fantastic song.
This tune was Haggard’s last Top 10 country chart song, one of 71 he had in his career, from back in 1987.
This one is classic Haggard.
There have already been a gazillion words written about Sir George Martin, musical guru and director who shaped the Beatles sound as well as what it would become.
Martin passed away this morning, at age 90, and since there will now be a gazillion more words, I will simply give you Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End, but, there is a slight caveat.
At LABR last weekend, while talking about the Beatles I learned my more than musical savvy mates Steve Gardner and Brian Walton had never noticed the three guitar wielding members of the Fab 4 trade licks at the end of The End.
Check it out. They trade fours, in the order of Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon.
Peace out Sir George.
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.
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks made four records back in the late 60s and early 70s that I wore out. Dan was a jazz guy, he liked novelty songs and the sounds of the 30s, though he started out as the drummer in the somewhat psychedelic Charlatans, a forerunner of the SF bands of the second half of the 60s. One Charlatan ended up in the Flamin’ Groovies, even.
Hicks didn’t play drums in his band, he played guitar, and he played with terrific fiddle players and acoustic bass and, of course, the Lickettes. They always sound a little crazed, mad with joy or fear or whatever bit of gut and smile they’ve got going in one of Dan’s terrific songs. All of them sound like they’re going to spin out of control, but they never do, at least not unless it’s on purpose, and the reward is a collection of great songs that are made even greater because of Hicks’ thoroughly delightful commitment to them.
This first clip is a promotional film featuring the first Hot Licks band in 1969, lip synching to their recording of the the Jukies Ball.
Here’s a silly party song with the Lickette’s out front from the Flip Wilson show.
His greatest song has all the same elements, yet isn’t silly at all.
Back in those crazy early 70s I listened a lot to Dan Hicks and Commander Cody, another funny band playing old music not for nostalgia’s sake, but because the songs are catchy and great, especially when played straight, as if the sound of before was a perfect fit for today. There were plenty of other bands mining this same vein of ore, not rock, but for me the others felt false and lacked the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. They were playing old peoples music, while Dan and the Commander were delighting in their eternal youth.
Until this week.
