Gene’s post of the Brothers Johnson on Facebook led me to this Rufus with Chaka Khan track, which I adored back in the day when it was new. This is all modulation and anticipation, the beat is slowed and crawling, and Chaka revels in the suspense.
I count this as an example of the most serious and amazing sounds released and people got it. Art and the godhead mix.
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
If you’re even a casual music fan (and you’re more than that if you’re reading this) you already heard that Allen Toussaint died last Monday, November 9th.
Toussaint, the legendary New Orleans musician, songwriter and producer, was responsible for many of the most important songs in the canon of rock and soul.
The list goes on and on. Here are a few of the most important and memorable.
Mother-in-Law – Ernie K-Doe
Working on a Coal Mine – Lee Dorsey, Devo
Ooh Poo Pah Doo – Jesse Hill
Southern Nights – Glen Campbell
Java – Al Hirt
Fortune Teller – The Who, The Rolling Stones and many others
What Do You Want the Girl (Boy) To Do – Boz Scaggs, Lowell George, Bonnie Raitt
A Certain Girl – The Yardbirds, Warren Zevon
Yes We Can Can – The Pointer Sisters
… and there are so many more.
Today’s SotW is another one of his great compositions – “Brickyard Blues.” This is another song that’s been recorded by many groups. “Brickyard Blues” was covered by Maria Muldaur, Levon Helm, B.J. Thomas and Three Dog Night (as “Play Something Sweet”). But my favorite is by the Scottish, white soul singer, Frankie Miller.
Maybe I’m partial to Miller’s version because it came from the album High Life (1974) that was produced by Toussaint and included renditions of seven of his songs. My first exposure to it came from the Warner Brothers “Loss Leader” album, Deep Ear. (Remember? You could send a couple bucks into Warner’s marketing department and they’d send you back a two disc sampler.)
Miller was a musician’s musician. His songs were covered from everyone from Etta James to Johnny Cash. Heck, Ray Charles recorded Miller’s “I Can’t Change It!” Otis Redding’s widow Zelma said of Miller “That little ole white boy has the blackest voice since Otis.”
Unfortunately Miller never had the level of success he deserved. In 1994, as he was planning a comeback with Joe Walsh, he suffered a brain aneurysm in New York. He was in a coma for five months, lost his speech and some ability to move, and racked up huge medical expenses (he was uninsured).
But we can still have his work with Toussaint to enjoy.
Enjoy… until next week.
When I first heard of today’s terrible events in Paris, I was struck by reports that the terrorists had attacked a death metal concert hall. That seemed strange.
But not as strange, maybe, as the fact that the terrorists attacked a historic concert hall that happened to be hosting the fine and funny band the Eagles of Death Metal. This is something altogether different.
The Eagles of Death Metal are a rock band, but a funny one. They play with the rock. This is different than playing death metal. Alas, today they lived with death metal.
A guy named Brian Borcherdt has taken recordings by the Chipmunks and played them on a turntable that plays at 16 RPM, about one third the usual speed singles are played (and half the speed of elpees). I read about this at Slate.
Here’s a deeply disquieting (as always) My Sharona, which really kicks it when it gets to the instrumental break. https://soundcloud.com/alvin-thechipmunkson16sp/my-sharona?in=alvin-thechipmunkson16sp/sets/sludgefest
There are more tunes at the end of the Slate story.
I loved this tune when I was 12. I bought the 45. What I didn’t know is that on the album, the American Breed covered Allen Toussaint’s Lipstick Traces, a recording that doesn’t seem to be on YouTube. Bend Me Shape Me has a great drum pattern, but the song is really made up of all sorts of hooky elements, like the hand claps and the inserted horns. I’m not sure without the frippery there’s that much there. But pop songs are frippery. Plus this video is a goof.
This tune has always been one of my favorite early Rolling Stones songs. It only appeared on Got Live If You Want It!, where a studio track was overdubbed with screaming girls, until the More Hot Rocks greatest hits album was released. Turns out it was written by Allen Toussaint.
The song was originally released as a B-side to Benny Spellman’s Lipstick Traces (on a cigarette), both tunes credited to Naomi Neville (Toussaint’s nom de pop–and also his mother’s name).
Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, gave Greil Marcus the name for his brilliant historical exploration of the roots of punk rock. This is Spillman’s version.
Found this clip from the Love for Levon benefit concert. Allen Toussaint with the Levon Helm Band and Jaimo. A tough version of one of my favorite songs from The Band.
When I was in high school I read a story or stories or stories and references to the legendary Allen Toussaint, who was a major figure in the sound of New Orleans. I remember going to the library and finding a couple of his albums, bringing them home and not getting at all what he was up to. The piano playing was accomplished, but the songs weren’t particularly rockin’ or tuneful. I returned the records, I have no idea which ones they were, and filed Toussaint under overrated.
It wasn’t too much later, however, that I came at New Orleans music from a different angle, a compilation album of tunes from the late 50s and early 60s. All of sudden, reading the fine print, I had the pleasure to discover Toussaint in a different context. Mother in Law and Working in the Coal Mine are novelty tunes, but glorious rockin’ ones at that. Here’s Ernie K Doe’s Mother in Law:
Here’s Devo covering Working in the Coal Mine, which was originally a hit for Lee Dorsey.
The fact is that Toussaint had a long career working with a broad swath of musical talent throughout not only New Orleans’ history but rock’s history as a whole. Alas, he died yesterday, from two heart attacks following a performance in Madrid. You can get more details about his life in this obit at Rolling Stone. A more complete obituary by Ben Sisario is in the New York Times.
I want to call attention to his hugely underrated collaboration with Elvis Costello called The River in Reverse, recorded after Hurricane Katrina devastated Toussaint’s home town. This is a live version of Ascension Day with lots of Toussaint on the piano.
I saw Toussaint in the park near my house a few years ago (turns out to be five). He’s a funny, talkative performer, who worked hard to please the crowd with a set of old hits and newer stuff. I must have been sitting right behind the guy with the camera here, by the way. Sit down!
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
I’ve got a confession to make… and it’s very difficult to admit now that I live in the San Francisco Bay area. I’m not much of a Grateful Dead fan. There, I said it.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the band. It’s just that I’m far from a “Dead Head.” I love Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. But they’re so accessible that even people that aren’t music buffs like them. I also like some of the later cuts on albums like Wake of the Flood, Blues for Allah and Terrapin Station. And I must admit I get a kick out of the fact that my current home is just a little over a mile from where The Dead (as The Warlocks) played their first gig — Magoo’s Pizza.
But I’ll cement my status as a non Dead Head with my choice for today’s SotW – “Unbroken Chain” from From the Mars Hotel (1974) – which, according to some sources, was the song that was least played live in concert by the group.
Maybe it wasn’t included in the live repertoire because it was written by Phil Lesh and Robert Peterson rather than by the main songwriters – Garcia/Hunter or Weir. Or maybe it was left out until 1995 because it is so musically complex, an attribute that I find attractive. (Blogs report that they did a bad job performing it and dropped it permanently after about 10 attempts.)
So why do I like this cut? Here a few reasons: The opening with a beautiful guitar figure reminiscent of the intro to “Stairway to Heaven.” Phil Lesh’s vocal and Donna Godchaux’s harmony. Ned Lagin’s use of an Arp Odyssey synthesizer to create that eerie sound that sounds like a plane taking off. And, of course, the awesome, jazzy Garcia solo that starts about 3 minutes in.
The philosophical lyrics are interesting too.
I’m not alone in my fondness for this song. The band Animal Collective chose a sample from “Unbroken Chain” (with unprecedented permission from the Grateful Dead) to use in their song “What Would I Want? Sky.”
Enjoy… until next week.
Dug out Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous for my driving around time today. Toward the end of it, I heard Phil Lynott say something like “Huey Lewis on harmonica.” I was like, “Can’t be.”
It can. This clip isn’t the Live And Dangerous tune, but it proves the fact.
