Lonnie Mack and Co.
Mack has been around a long time. I first picked up a guitar around the time this tune climbed the charts. "If I could only play like that!" Never got close. But I played in bands that got paid. If you get paid for doing something, then someone must think it's worth paying for. That's not saying much, but it's saying something.
Jackson Browne, The Pretender. This great song goes out to Darci M who introduced me to Jackson Browne. Darci was Lithuanian. Her mother told her, "Never bring an Italian home." So I never did meet the old lady. I never met any anti-Italian prejudice on the West coast whence I hail; the East is a different story.
Abba, Fernando. I first heard this in Ben's Gasthaus, Zaehringen, Freiburg im Breisgau,' 76-'77. This one goes out to Rudolf, Helmut, Martin, Hans, und Herrmann, working class Germans who loved to drink the Ami under the table.
Electric Flag, Groovin' is Easy
A contender for the greatest, tightest band of the '60s, featuring Mike Bloomfield on guitar, my second guitar hero. I saw him play at the Monterey Pop Festival in '67. The Jewish kid from an affluent Chicago suburb exemplifies cultural appropriation at its finest. His riffs derive from B. B. King but he outplays the King of the Blues. Is that a racist thing to say? It can't be racist if it's true.
Commander Cody, Truck Drivin' Man. This one goes out to Sally and Jean and Mary in memory of our California road trip nine years ago. "Pour me another cup of coffee/For it is the best in the land/I'll put a nickel in the jukebox/And play that 'Truck Drivin' Man.'"
Joan Baez, A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Langhorne's guitar. The incredible mood of this version, especially the intro, is made by Langhorne and the bass of Russ Savakus, another well-known session player from those days. I've been listening to this song since '65 and it gives me chills every time.
And now the fifteen-year-old is an old man of 73, and tears stream from his eyes for the nth time as he listens to this and we are once again on the brink of nuclear war as we were back in October of '62. It'll be a hard rain indeed, should it fall.
I once asked a guy what he wanted in a woman. He replied, "A whore in bed, Simone de Beauvoir in the parlor, and the Virgin Mary on a pedestal." An impossible trinity. Some just want the girl next door.
Bobby Darin, Dream Lover. With pix of Sandra Dee.
Audrey Hepburn, Moon River
Gogi Grant, The Wayward Wind, 1956. I'll take Lady Gogi over Lady Gaga any day.
Doris Day, Que Sera, Sera, 1956. What did she mean? The tautological, Necessarily, what will be, will be? Or the non-tautologically fatalistic, What will be, necessarily will be? Either way, she died in May.
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