For Lawr.
Song of the Week – A Christmas Celebration, BB King
Ignored Obscured Restored
Today’s post was written by repeat guest contributor, Michael Paquette. This is Michael’s third SotW essay this year. Merry Christmas! TM
Before launching his career as a blues artist B.B. King worked as a disc jockey for a radio station in Memphis in the late 1940s under the name Riley B. King. There he became known as the “The Beale Street Blues Boy” which was later shortened to Blues Boy and eventually to B.B.
He recorded more than a dozen hit songs in the 1950s and 1960s before he released “The Thrill Is Gone” in 1969 which became a global sensation and introduced him to a much wider audience. It also earned him a spot as an opening act for The Rolling Stones. In his time his career would last more than 50 years and he would become America’s most famous blues musician. He traveled the world with his trusted guitar Lucille, thrilling audiences with his brilliant solos and his heartfelt vocal treatments.
In 2001 he released his 39th studio recording which was a Christmas album — A Christmas Celebration of Hope — and one of my favorites of this genre. It peaked at 151 on the Billboard Top 200 and it hit number one on the Billboard Blues list. The album earned him two Grammy Awards for the Best Traditional Blues Album and his take on “Auld Lang Syne” earned him the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
The “title cut” is my choice for SOTW.
It showcases King’s distinctive jazz-influenced blues style with a big band arrangement that features a rhythmic piano accompaniment punctuated by short bursts of rhythm and blues brass. This song was originally recorded in 1960 and it harkens back to his earlier big band style.
The lyrics are appropriate for an intimate gathering on Christmas with the singer professing his love and holiday wishes to his sweetheart. As many couples will likely enjoy a more secluded holiday gathering this year this song seems to fit the bill.
The last part of the song says:
We’ll enjoy ourselves together, Christmas dinner and everything
We’ll share every bit of pleasure, every Christmas brings
Here’s to you
May Christmas bring you happiness
I want you to have a good time
Like we did on all the rest.
I wanna be home with you baby when New Year’s rolls around
We’ll make our resolutions before the sun goes down
Here’s to you honey
May Christmas bring you happiness
I want you to have a good time
Like we did on all the rest.
Merry Christmas to all from the King of the Blues.
Enjoy… until next week.
Song of the Week – Kiss and Say Goodbye, Kate & Anna McGarrigle
Ignored Obscured Restored
In the mid-’70s, the McGarrigle sisters – Kate and Anna – put out two outstanding albums. The first, self-titled album (1975) included “Heart Like a Wheel” which was made famous a year earlier by Linda Ronstadt.
Key to that record’s success was the stellar slate of session musicians that played on the album, including on today’s SotW – “Kiss and Say Goodbye.”
Kate wrote the song, played rollicking piano and duets with Anna on vocals. Tony Levin (King Crimson, Bowie, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, and many more) played bass. Steve Gadd (Steely Dan, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Eric Clapton, and many jazz greats) played drums. The cut used four guitarists! David Spinoza, Greg Prestopino, Hugh McCracken, and Lowell George. Anna has disclosed in interviews that only one note by George was left on the recording… but it was an important one. “… it slides up.” And the icing on the cake is the tenor sax solo by the great Bobby Keys.
The melody is a real earworm and uses clever rhymes that lodge in your head. It’s a sweet story about a woman that’s looking forward to a hookup with a lover that’s coming into town.
Call me when you’re coming to town
Just as soon as your plane puts down
Call me on the telephone
But only if you’re traveling alone
Counting down the hours
Through the sunshine and the showers
Today’s the day
You’re finally going to come my way
and
I do believe the die is cast
Let’s try and make the night-time last
And I don’t know where it’s coming from
But I want to kiss you till my mouth gets numb
I want to make love to you
Till the day comes breaking through
And when the sun is high in the sky
We’ll kiss and say goodbye
Sadly, Kate died in 2010 after a long battle with cancer. Her musical legacy lives on through Anna and her two children – Rufus and Martha Wainwright – that she birthed when married to Loudon Wainwright III.
Enjoy… until next week.
Song of the Week Revisited – 1-2-3, Len Barry
I just learned Len Barry died a month ago on November 5, 2020. It reminded me of a post I wrote for the SotW back on July 10, 2010, before Rock and Roll Remnants began. I’m posting it here now in tribute to Barry.
Ignored Obscured Restored
A few year’s ago my brother told me he had just seen a very interesting documentary on PBS about John Lennon’s Jukebox. Since I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable Beatles fan, I was surprised to learn a documentary was made on a subject I didn’t even know existed. I was able to catch the show a few days later on a rebroadcast.
Here’s the skinny. Apparently Lennon found a Swiss made “portable” (33 lbs.) jukebox and bought one around 1965. He stocked it with forty-one 45s and took it on the road when he toured. In 1989, the juke showed up in a Beatles memorabilia auction at Christie’s and some dude (John Midwinter) bought it for about $5 grand.
But the best part is that it still had the forty-one records in it, complete with title strips in Lennon’s own handwriting! The song selection gives a great insight into the music that influenced Lennon’s own early compositions. Here’s a link to the complete list of records:
It’s hard to pick a single song from this list but I’m going with “1-2-3” by Len Barry, partly because I’ve always liked the song and partly because I have a personal connection to it. “1-2-3” was a #2 hit in the U.S. in 1965 when I was a nine year old boy. At the time, my father was dabbling in concert promotion, bringing national acts to upstate New York and using his roller skating rink as the performance venue. When he booked Barry I was excited and asked if it would be possible to get his autograph. Well, being a young boy I fell asleep before the concert was over but my father woke me up at the end of the night to meet Barry and collect the autograph. Barry couldn’t have been nicer, scribbled his autograph and handed it to me. Still in a stupor, I took it from him – and tore it in half!
I really didn’t mean to insult the poor guy. Hopefully the incident didn’t bruise his ego too deeply.
Enjoy… until next week.
Song of the Week – Expressway to Your Heart, Soul Survivors
Ignored Obscured Restored
In 1967 The Soul Survivors had a major hit with “Expressway to Your Heart.” Yesterday their lead singer, Kenny Jeremiah, died from the COVID virus.
The New York/New Jersey-based Soul Survivors were formed by three white guys – Jeremiah and the Ingui brothers, Richie and Charlie – to play the R&B music they loved. They connected with Philadelphia based Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff who wrote “Expressway…”, their first hit. Of course, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Gamble and Huff would go on to write and produce many ‘70s soul classics like “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” (Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes), “Me and Mrs. Jones” (Billy Paul), and the major hits for the O’Jays – “The Backstabbers”, “Love Train”, and “For the Love of Money.”
“Expressway..” began as a regional hit in the NY/Philadelphia corridor. Eventually it expanded nationally and landed at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 but went even higher to #3 on the R&B chart!
Besides the traffic horn sound effects, I always dug how Jeremiah goes into his Elvis Presley voice on the pre-chorus.
I was wrong, baby, I took too long
I got caught in the rush hour
A fellow started to shower
You with love and affection
Come on, look in my direction
“Expressway…” has been covered by other New Jersey rock royalty Bruce Springsteen (in concert during the Working on a Dream tour) and Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes (on the Adventures in Babysitting soundtrack).
Sadly, the original Soul Survivor couldn’t be a COVID survivor. This thing is real. Wear a mask!
Enjoy… until next week.
Song of the Week – All Things Must Pass, George Harrison
Ignored Obscured Restored
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the release of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. The timing of the release ensured that the 3 disc, boxed set would be found under the Christmas tree of Beatles fans all over the world.
ATMP may be the best Beatles’ solo album. OK, John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band (1970) and Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run (1973) may give it a run for that claim. ATMP was the result of compiling a backlog of great songs after many years of being “subtly sat on” by Lennon, McCartney, and George Martin, as Harrison described his situation to Dick Cavett in a 1971 interview that can be seen on YouTube. In a June 1970 interview with Al Aronowitz, of Rolling Stone, Harrison said “I thought after I moved into my new house, I’d take a year off and do nothing, but here I am getting ready to make my own album in two weeks. The point is that we’re all of us writing too much now to put it all onto one Beatle record anyway.”
The album used a who’s who of session musicians including Klaus Voorman, Gary Wright, Billy Preston, Dave Mason, Bobby Keys, Pete Drake, Gary Brooker, Badfinger, Ringo Starr, Derek (Eric Clapton) and his future Dominoes – Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock – coming off tour with Delaney and Bonnie.
Phil Spector co-produced the album with Harrison, so it is predictably drenched in reverb. Cal Poly’s Professor James Cushing said “The album’s blend of an epic Phil Spector orchestral sweep and the intimacy of Harrison’s voice is the key to the album’s paradox, and why the music holds up (mostly) after a half century, because it’s as big as the Beatles ever wanted to be, bigger than Shea Stadium, while it’s also George taking you aside and speaking to you privately about important matters.”
That brings me to today’s SotW – the album’s title song, “All Things Must Pass.”
A Let It Be reject, “All Things Must Pass” contains some very nice guitar work. Harrison said, “I wrote it after [The Band’s 1968] Music From Big Pink album; when I heard that song in my head I always heard Levon Helm singing it!”
It also has some of Harrison’s wisest lyrics.
All things must pass
None of life’s strings can last
So I must be on my way
And face another day
While often interpreted as a statement about the Beatles’ break-up, I think it is much deeper than that. It reflects Harrison’s spirituality and being mindful and present in the “now” because everything is impermanent – even life.
It’s a song that is very meaningful to me today.
Enjoy… until next week.
Note: Several of the quotes above are from an article by Harvey Kubernik that was published in Music Connection.
Mekons, Lawrence of California
When I first heard this song over the weekend I thought of Lawr, whose name was Lawrence and who lived in California (when he wasn’t in the UK seeing the Sex Pistols).
This is an excellent Mekons track, hard to imagine they’ve been doing this for more than 40 years. Play it loud.
https://youtu.be/DFlbDfaBN5Y
Song of the Week – Third World Man, Steely Dan
Ignored Obscured Restored
Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of Steely Dan’s album Gaucho. Gaucho is perhaps my least favorite Dan disc – a little too “yacht rocky” for me – but by the standards of other artists, it’s a damn fine record.
Gaucho was not an easy album to make. Multiple personal issues caused major distractions. Walter Becker was deep into his heroin addiction at the time. Add to that a freak car accident while walking back to his apartment in New York that resulted in a broken foot that laid him up for six months! If that wasn’t enough, his then girlfriend died of an overdose in his home which led to a multi-million-dollar lawsuit by her family that he eventually won.
Then there was the technical snafu. The band worked for weeks on a song called “Second Arrangement” that they felt was one of their best songs ever. That was until an assistant engineer accidentally erased most of the master. (Something similar happened years earlier when the masters for Katy Lied were damaged due to an equipment malfunction.) They tried to recreate it but when the new takes didn’t live up to the standard of the erased mix, they abandoned the song. (It’s no wonder that the band stopped recording for some 20 years after they finished Gaucho.)
The “Second Arrangement” debacle left the album light one track. So, Donald Fagan went back to the vaults from earlier album sessions and found the tapes for a song called “Were You Blind That Day.” The lyrics were changed and the new track, “Third World Man,” was added to the album, and is today’s SotW.
Some Steely Dan fans think “Were You Blind That Day” was an Aja outtake. But Larry Carlton, who played the song’s outstanding guitar solo has been quoted as saying it was a leftover from The Royal Scam sessions. Experts agree that Carlton’s solo is the best of any Steely Dan recording. It is less busy than his typical solos but perfectly complements the feel of the unusually slow Dan song.
As is typical for Steely Dan songs, the lyrics to “Third World Man” are ambiguous and can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Johnny’s playroom
Is a bunker filled with sand
He’s become a third world man
Smoky Sunday
He’s been mobilized since dawn
Now he’s crouching on the lawn
He’s a third world man
Soon you’ll throw down your disguise
We’ll see behind those bright eyes
By and by
When the sidewalks are safe
For the little guy
I saw the fireworks
I believed that I was dreaming
Till the neighbors came out screaming
He’s a third world man
Soon you’ll throw down your disguise
We’ll see behind those bright eyes
By and by
When the sidewalks are safe
For the little guys
When he’s crying out
I just sing that Ghana Rondo
E l’era del terzo mondo
He’s a third world man
Is Johnny a child playing Army? Is he a real soldier that was deployed to a hostile country? Are the fireworks real or the consequence of PTSD?
In 2005, Joni Mitchell released a covers CD album that was only available through Starbucks coffee shops. Artist’s Choice – Music That Matters to Her included “Third World Man.” It should be no surprise that Mitchell is so fond of that song for two reasons. Firstly, since she is such an accomplished writer herself, it is no wonder she would be attracted to “Third World Man’s” sophisticated lyrics. Then there’s her affection for guitarist Carlton’s work. He has played on many of her albums, including Court and Spark, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, and the awesome Hejira.
Happy anniversary, Gaucho! “I just sing that Ghana Rondo e l’era del terzo mondo.”
Enjoy… until next week.
A Whole Lot of Gordon Lightfoot
Robbie Fulks is a songwriter I had heard about a lot more than I’d heard until a few years ago he made an album with the Mekons. A good album.
Fulks is a good songwriter and player, the opposite of a star, but a lifer with a lot to offer if you dig in. I haven’t yet dug in far enough, but this unbelievably long and detailed analysis of Gordon Lightfoot’s life and performance and songwriting is a marvel of storytelling, aesthetic analysis and covering the whole of a subject.
For instance, Fulks listened to every Gordon Lightfoot song at least once. Except maybe not all of that last 2004 album, but many others more than once.
He relates the story of Cathy Smith, a groupie with amazing breadth who went to jail for administering John Belushi’s final fatal dose, with aplomb, because it is Lightfoot’s story too at a few points.
My point is this is well worth a read even though it is way long, and if you start to lose interest skim ahead a few grafs and you’ll be onto another Lightfootian topic that will amuse and astound, ending with an in depth analysis of Lightfoot’s writing, which is exacting and sharp and a lesson in poetry and lyrics.
Song of the Week – Children’s Fantasy, Glass Harp
Ignored Obscured Restored
In late ‘60s Ohio, there were two bands on the circuit with gun-slinger guitarists – Joe Walsh’s James Gang, and Phil Keaggy’s Glass Harp. Yes, Phil Keaggy of Glass Harp.
Keaggy deserved the accolades. Listen to the guitar solo the 19-year-old Keaggy rips off on “Children’s Fantasy” from the band’s debut, self-titled album (1970).
Back in the day, there were rumored quotes of more well-known guitar heroes giving props to Keaggy. The most famous was that Johnny Carson had Jimi Hendrix on the Tonight Show in the late ‘60s and asked him how it felt to be the world’s greatest guitar player. Hendrix purportedly responded “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Phil Keaggy.” A review of the tape of Hendrix’s only Tonight Show appearance (with Flip Wilson sitting in for Carson) proves that never happened. But that doesn’t diminish Keaggy’s talent.
Just before the debut album was recorded, Keaggy’s mother died after a serious car accident. This incident led him to follow his sister into Christianity. In fact, a couple of songs on the debut reflected his newfound faith. “Can You See Me” contained the lyric:
The Son died for you and me
That we may live eternally
Through Him there is a peace we can share
Yes, we can share
Later in his career, Keaggy devoted his music primarily to contemporary Christian rock and earned Grammy nominations for his work.
At age 69, Keaggy is still recording and touring.
Enjoy… until next week.