Ignored Obscured Restored
Today’s SotW was written by guest contributor, Michael Paquette. Michael and I have known each other for over 40 years. Our friendship has been based, in large part, over our mutual love of music. When he was in college at Brandeis University, he had a radio show called Excuse Me While I Play The Blues that incorporated music by some of the great artists that inhabited the Austin music scene he experienced and enjoyed when he lived there in the late seventies. He still finds the time to go to shows and favors folk and Americana. That will be clear when you read his post.
David Olney was a Nashville singer-songwriter for nearly five decades. He passed away on January 18th while on stage in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. He was a giant among the musicians in the Nashville scene. “As soon as he moved into a room, he had a charisma that I would liken to Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. Oh, Olney’s here,” said musician/journalist Peter Cooper. He was admired by the brilliant songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Even the Rolling Stones were compelled to attend one of his shows. His songs were covered by many renowned artists including Linda Ronstadt, Steve Earle, Del McCoury, and Slaid Cleaves.
Olney’s songs always make you feel something — sorrow, nostalgia or just the need to smile. This song, “Deeper Well,” that was covered by Emmylou Harris on her transcendent 1995 release Wrecking Ball, is a dark and dirge-like composition performed here with Blair Hogan.
The “deeper well” in this song appears as the young man who seeks love in a deep, dark place. It could also be a metaphor for making a deal with Satan in exchange for the inspiration for his music, much like Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues.”
Well, I did it for
kicks and I did it for faith
I did it for lust and I did it for hate
I did it for need and I did it for love
Addiction stayed on tight like a glove
So I ran with the moon and I ran with the night
And the three of us were a terrible sight
Nipple to the bottle, to the gun, to the cell
To the bottom of a hole of a deeper well
On the night he died, Olney was performing on stage with Amy Rigby. She wrote on her Facebook page that “he stopped, apologized and shut his eyes. He was very still, sitting upright with his guitar on, wearing the coolest hat and a beautiful rust suede jacket…” But he wasn’t sleeping. An attempt was made to revive him, but he just drifted off. Olney was 71. A gentle and well-loved soul, the world has lost a great one whose music still inspires.
Enjoy… until next week.
Ignored Obscured Restored
Today’s SotW is the next installment of the Evolution Series. Let’s start with the most popular version of the garage classic, “A Little Bit O Soul” by the Music Explosion.
The Music Explosion was a band out of Mansfield, Ohio. In 1967 they left Ohio for New York to work with the Kasenetz-Katz production team that became the leading purveyors of “bubblegum music” with groups like The Ohio Express (“Yummy, Yummy”), 1910 Fruitgum Company (“Simon Says”, “1-2-3 Red Light”, “Indian Giver”) and Crazy Elephant (“Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’”).
The Music Explosion’s recording of “A Little Bit O Soul” reached #2 in 1967. I loved it as an 11-year-old and still love it now.
But most have never heard the original by The Little Darlings, from Coventry England.
It was written for them by Ken Lewis and John Carter in 1965. These British songwriters also penned Herman’s Hermits’ “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” (another favorite of mine), and they sang back up on The Who’s “I Can’t Explain” as The Ivy League!
The Little Darlings’ version of “Little Bit O Soul” is rougher and dirtier than the Music Explosions’. It is the type of “nugget” that would later influence the early punk rockers.
So it’s no surprise that The Ramones latched onto it and laid down their own version on 1983’s Subterranean Jungle.
Now when your girl is gone and you’re broke in two
You need a little bit o’ soul to see you through
And when you raise the roof with your rock ‘n’ roll
You’ll get a lot more kicks with a little bit o’ soul
Ain’t that the truth!
Enjoy… until next week.
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When Fiona Apple sings “I’ve been a bad, bad girl,” I believe her. The opening line from her 1997 hit, “Criminal”, is chilling. Then she goes on…
I’ve been careless with a delicate man
And it’s a sad, sad world
When a girl will break a boy
Just because she can
That’s downright scary!!! As is the chorus:
What I need is a good defense
Cause I’m feelin’ like a criminal
And I need to be redeemed
To the one I’ve sinned against
Because he’s all I ever knew of love
The song’s wicked sexy lyrics have a wicked sexy musical vibe to go with it. (The controversial, official video is pretty sexy too.) The opening bass groove sounds like a carnival version of Albert King’s blues classic “Born Under a Bad Sign.”
The jazzy romp builds to a lyrical climax, then continues for almost 2 more minutes with an Egyptian motif on organ and some dissonant chords banged out on the piano. A very cool way to bring it all back down.
“Criminal” won a Grammy in 1998 for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.
Last year Apple announced she would donate the royalties she earns from “Criminal” to While They Wait, a social service agency that helps immigrants and refugees applying for asylum or other legal relief.
Enjoy… until next week.
Ignored Obscured Restored
Today’s SotW was drafted last night after I learned that Neil Peart, of Rush, died earlier this week, on January 7th. Now I have to confess, Rush is NOT one of my favorite bands. But I respect what they contributed to the history of progressive rock music and I especially respect Peart’s mastery of the drums and his knack for writing intellectual lyrics.
Today’s SotW is “Bastille Day,” Peart’s tribute to the event that kicked off the French Revolution.
Some of the song’s lyrics are as relevant today as they were when Peart wrote them in 1975.
There’s no bread, let them eat cake
There’s no end to what they’ll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth
Lessons taught but never learned.
All around us anger burns.
Guide the future by the past.
Long ago the mold was cast.
Peart was known for using an elaborate drum kit. And he used it to its fullest extent.
He died of glioblastoma (brain cancer) at the age of 67, in California.
So, here’s to Neil Peart – drummer, lyricist, novelist and father. May he rest in peace.
Enjoy… until next week.
