While we go afield, here’s a tune from Saturday Night Live a bit ago.
Chris Stapleton is the biggest rock guy in country music. Think music.
Sturgill Simpson is the songwriter of country life. Think words.
Here the two of them offer awesome guitar solos, and a classic country theme. On Saturday night TV.
I’m glad to have heard it. And won’t ever likely hear it again.
A few years ago I heard about this country songwriter named Sturgill Simpson. In recent years what I’ve heard from him has been clever and smarty, and not that interesting.
But this clip, from 2014, is surely the reason folks have been talking about all his talent. This is good stuff, if you like this stuff.
Clever video. But simple.
Simple song. But maybe clever. The lyrics seem to show a dark murder ballad, though I didn’t get that on first listen.
Whatever. Somehow this cute video and folkish trad song has scored 44 million plays on YouTube. That’s huge, it is real money, and it comes from Canadians into bluegrass, even if the music isn’t bound by genre exactly.
More power to them. This isn’t rock, but if these folks can earn green on this fine but totally uncommercial song, I’d say they’re successful remnants.
Also, good title and band name. Especially for northerners. Maybe not as good as The Band.
From peak indie era rock of the 90s. Sounds like the Replacements. Or the Only Ones. Okay, not that good, especially when the energy goes away for no reason. But there’s some of this that sounds awfully good.
I was in a bar tonight with my friend Herrick. The bar is new, it’s called Bierwax. Bad name, right? Here’s a link to their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BierWax-269076593218456/.
What they do is sell 12 draft beers from local breweries you can’t get anywhere else. That’s the bier part. Plus a couple of handfuls of bottles, cans, and big bottles of craft beers.
They also have thousands of vinyl elpees on the wall behind the bar, and two DJ turntables on the back shelf. That’s the wax part.
No requests, it says plainly on the shelves of vinyl, and you can’t see what they have. So, you could say, Counting Crows please? And they would mock you.
Or rather, they would be as nice as they are, and they wouldn’t play any Counting Crows.
In any case, this tune came on at some point, and we were talking and didn’t hear the intro and the rather signature guitar line. Catching up in the middle, four plus minutes in, it gets wild enough you hope Seals and Crofts never heard it.
A NY Times writer explores Spotify data and finds that classic songs are generally most popular with people who were teenagers when the songs came out. We knew that, generally, but he has the numbers.
I heard these guys and I went (a little) insane.
But I didn’t hear this. (It was 2014.)
Again I sing the praises of 70’s funk. This one is the perfection of Sly’s Family Affair style. Family Affair was the bigger hit but what do they know? Among its many virtues, this is the baddest baseline in history. I open the floor to other contenders.
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
This weekend marks the 10 year anniversary for the SotW. Wow, over 500 postings (almost 700 songs) without ever missing a week. Thank you all for your feedback and encouragement.
It also marks the 50th anniversary of an important milestone in my life as a music lover. You see, 50 years ago this week my parents threw a party for my 12th birthday at the roller skating rink they owned and operated. I invited my entire 6th grade class which was about 40 kids. (Yes, we had large class sizes at the parochial school I attended.)
Many of my classmates gifted me records, supporting my growing interest in music. The records I received were on the Top 40 of New York’s 77 – WABC, the most popular station of the day. The link below is to the survey of what was hot that week:
77 WABC Music Survey, Ferruary 13, 2018
I had almost all of the Top 20 records and I’ll select one for today’s SotW. Coming in at #8 that week was “I Wish it Would Rain” by the Temptations.
“… Rain” features another outstanding, plaintive vocal by the great but flawed David Ruffin. The music, fitting for the sentiment of the song, is supplied by Motown’s house band, The Funk Brothers.
The lyrics were written by Roger Penzabene after discovering that his wife was cheating on him.
Sunshine, blue skies, please go away
A girl has found another and gone away
With her went my future, my life is filled with gloom
So day after day I stay locked up in my room
I know to you, it might sound strange
But I wish it would rain, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
‘Cause so badly I wanna go outside (such a lovely day)
But everyone knows that a man ain’t supposed to cry
Listen, I gotta cry ’cause crying eases the pain, oh yeah
People this hurt I feel inside
Words could never explain,
I just wish it would rain, oh let it rain, rain, rain, rain, ooo baby
Day in day out my tear-stained face
Pressed against the window pane
My eyes search the skies desperately for rain
‘Cause rain drops will hide my tear drops
And no one will ever know that I’m crying
Crying when I go outside
To the world outside my tears
I refuse to explain, ooo I wish it would rain, ooh, baby
Let it rain, let it rain
I need rain to disguise the tears in my eyes
Oh, let it rain
Oh yeah, yeah, listen
I’m a man and I got my pride
‘Til it rains I’m gonna stay inside, let it rain
Can you feel his pain!?! It turns out Penzabene was hurting so bad that he took his own life in desperation on New Year’s Eve 1967, a week after the single was released. Damn!
The song has been covered by many singers, most of them soul artists. To my ear, the most interesting cover was by the Faces with Rod Stewart taking the lead vocal. It’s worth checking out if you’ve never heard it.
Enjoy… until next week.
An old friend of mine and I spent about an hour of the Super Bowl talking about the old AFL, sparked by an impromptu contest of could we name all the original AFL teams as well as a player on each.
Today he sent me this. Quincy Jones doesn’t like it:
