Night Music: Keith Richards and Norah Jones, “Love Hurts”

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Okay, I got onto Love Hurts tonight because John Mahoney was in the movie of that name, which comes from a song the Everly Brothers made famous that was written by Boudleaux Bryant. I know the Everly’s version, which is iconic, but the one I know most is Gram Parson’s version.

Ten years ago there was a tribute concert to Gram Parsons. I don’t know where or why, at that time, but what I found tonight was this clip of Keef and Norah. She has a lovely voice and Keef seems to enjoy holding her close, but the impressive thing is his vocals, which aren’t particularly powerful but are nuanced and adept and show that he’s a good singer and having a gas, despite sporting a rather odd look.

Breakfast Blend: Say Anything

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Watched this modern classic last night with the family. The parents were touched by the way the movie makes romantic teen cliches feel a little new. The teen felt the movie worked like all movies, predictably.

What struck this parent most was the way John Mahoney did an almost perfect imitation of Remnant Gene’s vocal inflection and, perhaps, parenting approach. Mahoney has just one kid to work with, but I get the sense Gene was half of a team (hi Vickie) that got them out the door and on the way, and then the rest of the way there. I couldn’t find a Mahoney clip from the movie worthy of Gene, the trailer uses Mahoney as a foil, not the much more interesting character he plays, but the connection is striking, if dubious.

This being a Cameron Crowe movie, there is music. Crowe’s wife, Nancy Wilson, is the musical director. Two songs that are awfully nice to wake up to. First an excellent Cheap Trick tune:

And a Replacements tune that presages Paul Westerberg’s solo career, but has a very quirky arrangement that is a quieter moodier Replacements.

 

Night Music: Ten Years After, “I’d Love to Change the World”

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I’ve always liked this song. It’s earnest lyrics are best when when awkward and offensive (freaks and hairies, dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity), and otherwise awful (world pollution, that’s no solution, execution by electrocution), but the harmonies are Beatles-esque and when it really gets going it chugs like, um, Pink Floyd? That’s not right.

Digging through the Alvin Lee ouvre tonight it was striking just how bad his later covers of Hey Joe and Good Morning Little School Girl were. Not a bad guitarist, but not a good blues guitarist, he peaked at good enough, which was good enough to headline the show that made Peter Frampton a star. I don’t know what to do.

The Lunch Quiz

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What happened here?

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Just to be clear, I learned to ice skate here (professionally), I saw many Long Island Duck hockey games, and this is where my friends and I came to see the NY Nets play with red white and blue balls, long before the arrival of Rick Barry, Dr. J. and Larry Kenon.

But something Rock happened here besides your everyday run of the mill conerts, those happened too, and it surprised me when I heard about it today.

Answers in the comments please. If you’re not registered it will take a while to approve you, but the earliest answer will win.

What? You get to make your own Breakfast Blend post. Retail value? Almost $4,000.

Good luck.

Mungo Jerry Flashback!

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In the comments about Mungo Jerry’s In the Summertime the other day, I told a story about riding down the road to go to Long Beach (in my hometown of Smithtown NY) riding in my buddy Bobby’s brother Gary’s convertible, in the summertime, while hearing Mungo Jerry’s In the Summertime for what may have been the first time.

Then, this morning, I found on Facebook, a videopost by a woman named Amy Raulli that was a drive down that same road! Now, her video was shot in the winter, so there are no leaves on the trees, and when she arrives in the  parking lot there are no cars, only puddles. And I don’t get she has the same keen excitement that we 14 year olds had back then of embarking on an adventure involving girls and small bathing suits. Plus candy and ice cream. But otherwise it is exactly the same thing!

Oh, and playing on the radio as she made the drive to the beach was Boston’s More Than A Feeling, which I have scrubbed, because there is nothing right about that.

To get the full experience, click to start the Mungo Jerry clip below, then click to start the drive to the beach video and scroll down to watch it alone. Better than Imax! Almost like being 14!

Now scroll down and hit play!

Breakfast Blend: Me And The Boys

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This tune is from the soundtrack of the movie, Spring Break, which had a cameo by the lithe young tennis player and beer scion Carling Bassett. I remember going to see the teen sex comedy in Times Square and being somewhat disappointed. The poster appears in the video. Bassett shortly thereafter dropped off the tennis tour. The song endures.

Thin Lizzy have a different song with the same name, that features Gary Moore killing it with an epic solo in a live show in Sydney in the 70s.

Bonnie Raitt did a fine version of the NRBQ song. As best as I can tell nobody has been foolish enough to try and top Thin Lizzy and theirs.

 

Night Music: NRBQ, “Ida Lupino”

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Tom reminded me of NRBQ today, covering Sun Ra. I only saw them once, at the Bottom Line, opening for Carla Bley, the jazz pianist. It was a great show, with lots of interaction between these young and dynamic and eclectic musicians. It seemed like a great gift at the time, a synthesis that seemed completely musicianly and spontaneous and fun. Which it was, at least that last one.

I went to see Carla Bley a few years ago and she is still a masterful presence and a great composer and a fine piano player, but what was young and vital and improvised and alive had grown old and brittle. Still beautiful, but more like a museum than a garden. That’s how it happens for all of us.

Browsing through YouTube just now I found this cover, by NRBQ on their first album, of a Carla Bley song called “Ida Lupino,” about the actress who starred with Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra and the great truckdriving drama They Drive by Night. Lupino had a slight acting career, playing hard luck gals, and then became a television writer and director, an unusual career change for a starlet.

Carla Bley’s version, with the great Paul Motian on drums, sounds quite a bit different.

Happy 100th Birthday, Sun Ra!

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sunra-headThe bandleader Sun Ra would have been 100 years old yesterday. His Arkestra was a touring powerhouse and Sun Ra a huge composer and personality in the world of modern jazz. Of course, Sun Ra was his own person and had his own way of looking at things, so the idea of this or that may have had no currency to him. He did things his way, with a devotion and concentration and no thought of compromise.  Which is what makes him a legend to this day.

His attitude, his belief that he came from a place beyond Earth, and that the music he made had no limits, made him a favorite of progressive rock fans back in his day, as well as jazz fans, and the Arkestra’s live shows around the world were historic and popular beyond jazz’s usual audiences. These were musical shows, but also spiritual, celebrating the passing from the leaden quotidian to the exultant and rapturous.

“Play with some fire on it,” Sun Ra would tell his musicians. “If you’re not mad at the world, you don’t have what it takes.”