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.”
As noted, because of the bigoted nature of Okie from Muskogee, I have always had a tough time with Merle Haggard, no matter who he played with, or what he wrote.
But, this answer to Okie, by the Youngbloods was always strong in my heart and made me think there was at least an artistic “fuck you” pointed back at Merle and the song. Olema is a little town near the Pt. Reyes National Seashore, a beautiful area in Northern California.
My friend Angela found a version of the Modern Lovers’ Old World today which is pretty swell. I mean the video. This is one of rock’s greatest albums, and Warren Loft’s videos, at least the three I’ve seen, capture the music’s kinetics and precision and depth. I’ll be watching the rest of them, but what better way to start than Roadrunner.
Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan first made their name in the music business as the creative force behind The Turtles. They scored a number of Top 40 hits with the likes of “Happy Together,” “Eleanor,” “She’d Rather Be With Me” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”
Their albums, part parody, part serious, generally were well received by critics but didn’t chart so well with the public. (They were largely a singles band.) One, Turtle Soup, was produced by Ray Davies of the Kinks.
By the early 70s Volman and Kaylan had had enough of The Turtles. They assumed the aliases of Flo (the Phosphorescent Leech) and Eddie due to contractual obligations with The Turtles’ recording label (White Whale) and joined forces with Frank Zappa for a series of albums – 200 Motels and Fillmore East – June 1971 (1971), and Just Another Band From L.A. (1972). That ended when Zappa was injured at a London concert in 1971, so the boys made a series of Flo & Eddie albums for themselves.
Today’s song of the week is “Keep It Warm” from their fourth album, Moving Targets (1976).
Musically “Keep It Warm” is a Beach Boys parody (dig the “Good Vibrations” reference about 2:30 in) mixed with grim lyrics that reflect the then current evening news headlines of the mid 70s.
Elect another jerk to the White House
Gracie Slick is losing her door mouse
Take her off the streets and keep her warm
Kill another whale with your power
Or shoot a bunch a kids from a tower
Snipe them in their cars, blood keeps them warm
Starting in the 70s Flo & Eddie began singing harmony/background vocals for other artists. They were regulars on T. Rex albums including Electric Warrior and The Slider. They also sang on songs by Alice Cooper, Blondie, the Ramones, Stephen Stills and Bruce Springsteen (“Hungry Heart”), among many others.
In recent years they’ve been doing summer “shed” package tours. I saw them a couple of times with the “Hippiefest.” This season they’re out with The Cowsills, The Spencer Davis Group (I assume sans Stevie Winwood), Chuck Negron (of Three Dog Night), Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere & the Raiders) and The Gap Band including a couple of stops in New York in June and California in July. They’re still a very funny duo so you might want to check them out if they’re in a town near you.
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.
It is crazy draft season in the Fantasy Baseball world, which I guess my mates and I have been preoccupied with, meaning less rock’n’roll verbiage, I am sorry to say.
I had been thinking about a handful of songs to post about, but this morning I was getting my teeth cleaned and some lovely early 20th Century English classical music–a la Ralph Vaughn-Williams–came on. It was pretty soothing, but was followed by some pretty frantic piano concertos by Chopin.
Julie, who was cleaning my choppers, noted the change was not so gentle, but when I think of classical pianists, my brain goes elsewhere.
I am sure that though my parents did drag me to to the symphony and opera way too early (I was five my first symphony) my first real conscious memory of classical music comes from the great early Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies that often employed great classical pieces when telling a story.
However, the first such images that popped into my aging head were from films, first, out of the great Robert Zemeckis’ film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which somehow manages to merge animation with action, with film noir and said Looney Tunes.
The great late Bob Hoskins plays the shamus Eddie Valliant, who tries to unravel the mystery of cartoon death and conspiracy, and his work takes the detective to the “Ink and Paint Club,” where this fantastic sequence takes place (it features one of the best one-liners ever with Daffy Duck making a definitive statement about working with the disabled).
But, the other piano craw that sticks is always Chico Marx. Groucho and Harpo were much more screen hogs than Chico, but Chico was a wicked punster and straight man, and like Harpo could play the harp, and Groucho the guitar and ukelele, Chico could tinkle the 88’s.
As in check this out. Brilliant. Funny. Wonderful.
Stephen Stills had a pretty good career going by the end of 1968. He’s already scored a hit with “For What It’s Worth” and several critically acclaimed albums with the Buffalo Springfield and recorded the Super Session with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield.
But it wasn’t until he teamed up with David Crosby and Graham Nash that he really broke through to super stardom with the release of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969 and Déjà vu with Neil Young joining in 1970.
By November of ’70, Stills was already trading on his brand with his first solo album, Stephen Stills. It’s a good, but not great album and contained another of his hits – the gospel infused “Love the One You’re With.” The album also holds the distinction of being the only album that both Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix play on (though not together).
Hendrix contributed to today’s SotW, “Old Times Good Times.”
The song’s lyrics trace from Stills’ youthful days in New Orleans through to his time in New York City and later California.
When I was young and needed my time alone
Jump in the pirogue, pole down the Bayou
Bogue Falaya river was dark and cold
Seven years old, I couldn’t find my way home
When I was twelve, I learned how to play the guitar Got myself a job in a jax beer bar Got myself together, went to New Orleans Found myself workin’ for rice and beans And it was good times
New York city was so damned cold I had to get out of that town before I got old California and rock and roll dream Got too high and we blew our whole scene But we had a good time
Old times, good times
Old times, good times
It’s a rocker that follows the template drawn up with songs such as the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man.” It’s a vehicle for an R&B jam session, albeit a very short one. It chugs along with Stills on organ and Hendrix on guitar trading riffs most of the way through.
I don’t know the exact date of recording session for this song, but the album was recorded in June/July 1970. Hendrix died a couple of months later on September 18th, 1970, making this one of his last sessions. (Stills dedicated the album to Hendrix on its back cover.) Too bad, I would have liked to hear them work together again, perhaps with both on guitar another time. Sadly that’s wasn’t to be. But at least we have “Old Times Good Times.”
I’ve pretty much given up on the new Iggy album. Concept – A+, Execution – D+. But in interviews about the new album, Josh Homme goes on and on about the genius of Iggy’s TheIdiot and Lust For Life – two albums I never had nor heard.
So, since they’re real cheapos on Amazon, I bought both. Listened to The Idiot for the first time yesterday and it’s pretty good, initially. Homme talks of the two albums being almost one, with The Idiot as the dark side and Lust For Life the lighter side.
What struck me most about Idiot is Iggy’s China Girl, which, believe it or not, I don’t think I’ve ever heard before.
Don’t know if it’s because I’ve heard the Bowie version a billion-trillion times at this point, but the Iggy version sounds good to me. I always thought Iggy wrote the song and Bowie covered it, but, in actuality, they wrote it together and both recorded it.
