This song was a hit for the Merseybeats in 1965, and Bowie does a fantastic not Mersey beat version for his Pinups covers album. But the Merseybeats English hit was a cover of a song by the US one-hit-wonder band, the McCoys. That one hit was not Sorrow, though the song had a long and vital subsequent life.
I really don’t talk about The Hydromatics nearly enough on this blog. Listened them on the way to church this morning, which often requires a Hydromatics-like CD so I can manage to arrive only 10 minutes late instead of worse since I live 35 minutes away from the church.
Mighty Hellacopter guitarist/vocalist Nicke Andersson drums in this band and keeps his mouth shut for the most part, which is how Peter would have it. Love the way the verse vocal grinds against the instrumental part, which just keeps chugging along on its own.
Parts Unknown is one of those albums that everyone should know, but no one does. I have a bunch of those.
I and my family was at a party today during which a steady stream of love-rock reggae played out by the pool. Which put me in mind of the best of the genre.
I own the 45 of this song. It is not hard and it is soft, but it is endlessly sweet and romantic. And what’s wrong with that?
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
A few weeks ago I went to New Orleans for their annual Jazz Fest. Although I’ve been to the Crescent City several times before it’s been a good 15 years since my last visit – long overdue.
I must be honest, at the Jazz Fest itself I didn’t get to hear as much local music as I had hoped. I arrived a little late each day and then focused my attention on the major acts on the big (Accura) stage where a couple of my favorites were performing – Springsteen and Arcade Fire. Both did terrific sets.
But the festival ends early (7 PM) each day and that provides ample opportunity to go out to the clubs to hear more good music. One night we went to the Rock ‘n’ Bowl where we saw Kermit Ruffin (a local legend and star on HBO’s hit series Treme) as the opening act.
Next on was another New Orleans band, The Iguanas.
The Iguanas sound like Los Lobos relocated to New Orleans, especially their emphasis on Spanish language folk songs and Latin rhythms… and that ain’t bad.
Another night we had tickets to see the Dr. John Tribute Concert. This one night only performance featured a “who’s who” of New Orleans musician royalty (Dirty Dozen Horns, Chief Monk Boudreaux, Cyril Neville, Irma Thomas) and a long list of other prominent rock & R&B stars (Warren Haynes, John Fogarty, Mavis Staples, Jimmie Vaughn, Chuck Leavell) too. (Gregg Allman and Lucinda Williams were no-shows.) Don Was acted as the musical director.
Springsteen made a surprise appearance and opened the festivities on “Right Place, Wrong Time” – the good Dr. accompanying him on piano. Allen Toussaint performed his own song of “Life”, a version of which Dr. John released on his In the Right Place album.
Here’s Toussaint’s instrumental “Java” made famous by Al Hirt with a Grammy award winning hit (#4, 1963). The Toussaint original recording comes off a very rare album from 1958 that I have a copy of called The Wild Sound of New Orleans (credited simply to Tousan).
Dr. John closed out the set, playing piano and singing on a few of his most well-known songs. My favorite was “I Walk On Gilded Splinters” from his classic Gris Gris album. Sarah Morrow did a trombone solo that was as swampy and spooky as the original Gris Gris recording here.
The concert was filmed and will come out on DVD later this year. When it does, be sure to check it out.
Enjoy… until next week.
The James Gang did not rank that high on my teenaged chart. Much lower than Bachman Turner Overdrive, for instance.
But this song is great, and today I was in a store where Hotel California was playing and–given our recent excursion into Don Henleyland–I was reminded how Joe Walsh turned the Eagles into a real rock band. Before Joe they were revivalists, or soft sellers, pretty much.
I have no idea why the James Gang seemed to my teenaged brain a product of the machine more than all the other products of the machine I embraced. I know now that Joe Walsh is one of the most significant guitarists of our time.
This is a fine song, done by a bunch of boys who know where their hearts are. Seems to me you can’t beat that.
Booker T and the MGs made a record covering all of Abbey Road, all in good fun and presumably economic bounty, just months after the Beatles album came out. McLemore Avenue is the location of the Stax studios in Memphis.
Plus another cover of a song with half the same name, not so surprising, but also from the early 70s. Greetings from Asbury Park.
I’ve decided the Beatles were definitely best off breaking up when they did, lest they did themselves further damage.
What would the Beatles be today? My best guess is that McCartney would’ve found a way to secure all the rights and the other three would’ve quit long ago (Lennon first).
Current Beatles lineup:
Paul McCartney – Bass, vocals
Adam Levine – Guitar, vocals
Slash – Guitar
Phil Collins – Drums, vocals
Give me your best guess at the Beatles in 2014.
No prize, because I’m guessing there will be two more entries max.
I’m moved to defend this one by my Remnant compatriot Gene, who ripped it a new one earlier today.
I think Gene is totally wrong. This is the last song credited to the Beatles to attain No. 1. It is a reminder that celebrity had a lot to do with the band’s dissolution, as did Yoko and Linda.
Whatever. I love this song, an early pop song about how being a pop star isn’t always excellent. That’s meta, but prescient, too. And it bops and hops away.
I guess if you hate Yoko this tune is a challenge, but in the history of the Beatles this is the final stab at collective myth making. And that myth making was from the heart.
Only the world was watching.
Mentioned a post or two ago that my friend got a big box of CDs at a yard sale and I got second dibs. Three of the CDs I got were later Beatles – Past Masters Volume Two, Sgt. Pepper’s and Abbey Road.
Somehow I’ve sheltered myself from the late Beatles all my life, except for the radio stuff, which covers a lot of it. But on my long drive to and from seeing my kids a couple weekends ago, I listened to these albums.
My blasphemous quick take on the late Beatles:
Lennon: Doing all kinds of envelope-pushing stuff. Some works, some doesn’t.
McCartney: Writing either meaningless pop ditties or overly maudlin tales of woe. No wonder Lennon was pulling his hair out trying to exist with this guy at this point.
Harrison – Diddling on the sitar every third song. In between, some quite cool stuff.
Ringo – Belting out sincere-sounding pop ditties in his wonderful so-different-from-the-others voice which truly sound good to me amidst the rest of this.
Then I heard “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” I may have heard this somewhere along the line before, but not often.
It’s awful. And I’m both ignorant and confused. Is this Lennon’s answer to Zeppelin? Both Abbey and the first Zep arrived in 1969, but, even if Abbey was first, that doesn’t mean Lennon didn’t already have the buzz on Zep. Maybe my thought is preposterous and stupid.
Anyway, the Beatles aren’t equipped for heavy. The guitars aren’t heavy. The drums aren’t heavy (and I love Ringo in his element). The song is boring and NEVER WANTS TO END.
Perhaps I’ll follow this up by why I think Sgt. Pepper’s is not only not the best album ever, it isn’t even a real good Beatles album.
Perhaps I’ll push the seven readers we have on this blog to persuade Mike Salfino to come back for a few “Nothing Will Ever Beat The Beatles” articles (which, from what I’ve heard, had as much readership as anything around here ever).
Thank you and good night.
I was walking through the local park on Saturday, and near Lakeside, the new skating rink, there were two bedreaded young guys working on acrobatic dance moves. These involved slow motion tips into hand stands, slowly rotating feet above their muscularly balanced arms, and easy dismounts into cagey ready poses, all with massive dreadlocks working as a counterbalance and a flourish, depending on the move. One of the two men was clearly the teacher, the other clearly the grasshopper, but their confidence together was collaborative, as was the roots reggae that issued from the little boom box they had set up nearby.
I was reminded of the demonstrations of capoeira, the Brazilian martial arts discipline that used to be performed between acts at SOB’s, the great dance club at the corner of Houston and Varick, still today, even as it was in the early 80s.
Which got me to thinking about how I learned of reggae music, which led to this song. The Beatles are given a lot of credit for Obladi-oblahda, which does have a character named Desmond and in retrospect is fairly ska-like. But for those of us who didn’t know Desmond Dekker’s music at the time, the song seemed like more of the British vaudeville era than something exotic and international. I’ve read that Three Dog Night had a hit covering the Maytone’s Black and White in 1972 as well, but I don’t remember that. For me it was I Can See Clearly Now, which with it’s clean sound and intoxicating beat lit up the radio that year.
It was a thing that this tune used the Jamaican sounds and rhythm, and they were glorious.
The next year my friends and I went to the movies in Port Jefferson to see The Harder They Come, the first feature film made in Jamaica, and not long after that Clapton’s cover of Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff grabbed the same sonic space as I Can See Clearly Now. Infectious rhythm and clean open sound, with spare declarative vocals, but by that point, new sounds started to bubble up. Most importantly and immediately Marley, but that was just the start that closed out the days before we knew reggae.
