Maverick Philosopher

Saturday Night at the Oldies: A Little Harmless Escapism from the Horrors of the Present

Freddy Fender, Cielito Lindo.  Tex-Mex version of a very old song.

Arizona's own Marty Robbins, La Paloma.  Another old song dating back to 1861. 

Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger, 1963. 1963 was arguably the best of the '60s years for pop compositions. 

Emmylou Harris, Hello Stranger. Same title, different song.  This one goes out to Mary Kay F-D. Remember the Fall of 1980, Mary Kay? 

Get up, rounder/Let a working girl lie down/ You are rounder/And you are all out and down.

Carter Family version from 1939.

Joan Baez, Daddy, You've Been on My Mind. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Bruce  Langhorne's guitar.

Joan Baez, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Langhorne's guitar.

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. 

Carolyn Hester, I'll Fly Away.  Dylan on harp, a little rough and ragged. Langhorne on guitar? Not sure.

Joan Baez and her sister, Mimi Farina, Catch the Wind. Fabulous.

Joan Baez, Boots of Spanish Leather.  Nanci Griffith also does a good job with this Dylan classic. 

Betty Everett, You're No Good, 1963.  More soulful than the 1975 Linda Ronstadt version.

The Ikettes, I'm Blue, 1962. 

Lee Dorsey, Ya Ya, 1961.  Simplicity itself. Three chords. I-IV-V progression. No bridge.

New Year's Eve at the Oldies: 'Last' Songs for the Last Night of the Year

Happy New Year, everybody.  

Last Night, 1961, The Mar-Keys.

Last Date, 1960, Floyd Cramer. It was bliss while it lasted. You were so in love with her you couldn't see straight. But she didn't feel the same. You shuffle home, enter your lonely apartment, pour yourself a stiff one, and put Floyd Cramer on the box.

Save the Last Dance for Me, 1960, The Drifters.

At Last, Etta James.

Last Thing on My Mind, Doc Watson sings the Tom Paxton tune. A very fine version.

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream, Simon and Garfunkel. 

Last Call, Dave van Ronk.  "If I'd been drunk when I was born, I'd be ignorant of sorrow."

(Last night I had) A Wonderful Dream, The Majors. The trick is to find in the flesh one of those dream girls. Some of us got lucky.

This night in 1985 was Rick Nelson's last: the Travelin' Man died in a plane crash.  Wikipedia:

Nelson dreaded flying but refused to travel by bus. In May 1985, he decided he needed a private plane and leased a luxurious, fourteen-seat, 1944 Douglas DC-3 that had once belonged to the DuPont family and later to Jerry Lee Lewis. The plane had been plagued by a history of mechanical problems.^[104] In one incident, the band was forced to push the plane off the runway after an engine blew, and in another incident, a malfunctioning magneto prevented Nelson from participating in the first Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois.

On December 26, 1985, Nelson and the band left for a three-stop tour of the Southern United States. Following shows in Orlando, Florida, and Guntersville, Alabama, Nelson and band members took off from Guntersville for a New Year's Eve extravaganza in Dallas, Texas.^[105] The plane crash-landed northeast of Dallas in De Kalb, Texas, less than two miles from a landing strip, at approximately 5:14 p.m. CST on December 31, 1985, hitting trees as it came to earth. Seven of the nine occupants were killed: Nelson and his companion, Helen Blair; bass guitarist Patrick Woodward, drummer Rick Intveld, keyboardist Andy Chapin, guitarist Bobby Neal, and road manager/soundman Donald Clark Russell. Pilots Ken Ferguson and Brad Rank escaped via cockpit windows, though Ferguson was severely burned.

It's Up to You.

Bonus: Last Chance Harvey.

Last but not least: Auld Lang Syne.

Happy New Year, everybody.  

Last Night, 1961, The Mar-Keys.

Last Date, 1960, Floyd Cramer. It was bliss while it lasted. You were so in love with her you couldn't see straight. But she didn't feel the same. You shuffle home, enter your lonely apartment, pour yourself a stiff one, and put Floyd Cramer on the box.

Save the Last Dance for Me, 1960, The Drifters.

At Last, Etta James.

Last Thing on My Mind, Doc Watson sings the Tom Paxton tune. A very fine version.

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream, Simon and Garfunkel. 

Last Call, Dave van Ronk.  "If I'd been drunk when I was born, I'd be ignorant of sorrow."

(Last night I had) A Wonderful Dream, The Majors. The trick is to find in the flesh one of those dream girls. Some of us got lucky.

This night in 1985 was Rick Nelson's last: the Travelin' Man died in a plane crash.  Wikipedia:

Nelson dreaded flying but refused to travel by bus. In May 1985, he decided he needed a private plane and leased a luxurious, fourteen-seat, 1944 Douglas DC-3 that had once belonged to the DuPont family and later to Jerry Lee Lewis. The plane had been plagued by a history of mechanical problems.^[104] In one incident, the band was forced to push the plane off the runway after an engine blew, and in another incident, a malfunctioning magneto prevented Nelson from participating in the first Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois.

On December 26, 1985, Nelson and the band left for a three-stop tour of the Southern United States. Following shows in Orlando, Florida, and Guntersville, Alabama, Nelson and band members took off from Guntersville for a New Year's Eve extravaganza in Dallas, Texas.^[105] The plane crash-landed northeast of Dallas in De Kalb, Texas, less than two miles from a landing strip, at approximately 5:14 p.m. CST on December 31, 1985, hitting trees as it came to earth. Seven of the nine occupants were killed: Nelson and his companion, Helen Blair; bass guitarist Patrick Woodward, drummer Rick Intveld, keyboardist Andy Chapin, guitarist Bobby Neal, and road manager/soundman Donald Clark Russell. Pilots Ken Ferguson and Brad Rank escaped via cockpit windows, though Ferguson was severely burned.

It's Up to You.

Bonus: Last Chance Harvey.

Last but not least: Auld Lang Syne.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

Marlene Dietrich, Die Fesche Lola. 'Fesche' means something like smart, snazzy.

Ich bin die fesche Lola, der Liebling der Saison!
Ich hab' ein Pianola zu Haus' in mein' Salon
Ich bin die fesche Lola, mich liebt ein jeder Mann
doch an mein Pianola, da laß ich keinen ran!

Kinks, Lola. From the days when 'tranny' meant transmission.  

Marlene Dietrich, Muss I Denn

Elvis Presley, Wooden Heart 

Lotte Lenya, Moon of Alabama

Doors, Roadhouse Blues

Tom Petty, Lost Highway. The old Hank Williams tune. "And now I am lost, too late to pray. Lord, I've paid the cost on the lost highway."  This goes out to all you 'deplorables' out there.

Bette Midler, Mambo Italiano.  Video of Sophia Loren.

Marlene Dietrich, Die Fesche Lola. 'Fesche' means something like smart, snazzy.

Ich bin die fesche Lola, der Liebling der Saison!
Ich hab' ein Pianola zu Haus' in mein' Salon
Ich bin die fesche Lola, mich liebt ein jeder Mann
doch an mein Pianola, da laß ich keinen ran!

Kinks, Lola. From the days when 'tranny' meant transmission.  

Marlene Dietrich, Muss I Denn

Elvis Presley, Wooden Heart 

Lotte Lenya, Moon of Alabama

Doors, Roadhouse Blues

Tom Petty, Lost Highway. The old Hank Williams tune. "And now I am lost, too late to pray. Lord, I've paid the cost on the lost highway."  This goes out to all you 'deplorables' out there.

Bette Midler, Mambo Italiano.  Video of Sophia Loren.

Saturday NIght at the Oldies: The Forgotten and the Underplayed

Betty Everett, You're No Good, 1963.  More soulful than the 1975 Linda Ronstadt version.

The Ikettes, I'm Blue, 1962. 

Lee Dorsey, Ya Ya, 1961.  Simplicity itself. Three chords. I-IV-V progression. No bridge.

Paul Anka, A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine, 1962.

Carole King, Crying in the Rain, 1963.  The earnest girl-feeling of young Carole makes it better than the Everly Bros.' more polished and better executed version.  

Don Gibson, Sea of a Heartbreak.  A crossover hit from 1961.  It's a crime for the oldies stations to ignore this great song. Joe Brown's cover is also good.

Ketty Lester, Love Letters, 1961.  Gets some play, but not enough.

Eric Clapton, Good Night Irene. This one goes out to Ed Buckner.

Betty Everett, You're No Good, 1963.  More soulful than the 1975 Linda Ronstadt version.

The Ikettes, I'm Blue, 1962. 

Lee Dorsey, Ya Ya, 1961.  Simplicity itself. Three chords. I-IV-V progression. No bridge.

Paul Anka, A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine, 1962.

Carole King, Crying in the Rain, 1963.  The earnest girl-feeling of young Carole makes it better than the Everly Bros.' more polished and better executed version.  

Don Gibson, Sea of a Heartbreak.  A crossover hit from 1961.  It's a crime for the oldies stations to ignore this great song. Joe Brown's cover is also good.

Ketty Lester, Love Letters, 1961.  Gets some play, but not enough.

Eric Clapton, Good Night Irene. This one goes out to Ed Buckner.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Wall of Sound

Here are some of my favorite Phil Spector productions.  It wouldn't have been the 'sixties without him. I avert my eyes from his later misadventures and remember him for his contributions to the Boomer soundtrack.

Crystals, Uptown, 1962.

Crystals, He's a Rebel

Ronettes, Be My Baby

Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron

Curtis Lee, Pretty Little Angel Eyes.

Great dance video. Curtis Edwin Lee, one-hit wonder, hailed from Yuma, Arizona.  He died at 75 years of age on 8 January 2015.  Obituary here. His signature number became a hit in 1961, reaching the #7 slot on the Billboard Hot 100. When I discovered that the record was produced by the legendary Phil Spector, I understood why it is so good.  After the limelight, Lee returned to Yuma for a normal life. This tune goes out to wifey, with love.  When I first espied those angel eyes back in '82, I had the thought, "Here she is, man, the one for you. Go for it!" And I did, and its been very good indeed.

Ben E. King, Spanish Harlem, 1960.

Crystals, Then He Kissed Me

Beach Boys, Then I Kissed Her. With a tribute to Marilyn M.

Paris Sisters, I Love How You Love Me, 1961.

Ronettes, Walkin' in the Rain

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sibelius, Symphony No. 1 in E Minor, Opus 39

Leonard Bernstein conducts.

20th century classical music with human meaning.  My favorite part is the Andante movement, starting around 13:00.

Commentary by Robert Reilly: Jean Sibelius' Music of the Logos.

Sibelius said, “There is music in the whole universe.” He believed in the “Music of the Spheres,” the classical Greek view that held that the mathematical relationships among the heavenly bodies are the same as those of music. The heavens are literally harmonious. He said, “I believe that there are musical notes and harmonies on all planets.” This included planet earth. Sibelius’s experience of the world was essentially musical.

[. . .]

Though Sibelius was not religious in a conventional sense, he was a deep believer. “The essence of man’s being,” he said, “is his striving after God.” He saw art as hieratic and composition as a vocation. In words that could hardly go more directly to the heart of the matter, he said, “It [composition] is brought to life by means of the Logos, the divine in art. That is the only thing that really has significance.”

Saturday Night at the Oldies: September Songs

September already.  A transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October, Kerouac month in the MavPhil 'secular liturgy.'

Dinah Washington, September in the Rain

Rod Stewart, Maggie May. "Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you/It's late September and I really should be back at school."

Carole King, It Might as Well Rain Until September

Django Reinhardt, September Song

George Shearing, September in the Rain

Walter Huston, September Song 

Addendum

This from a London reader:

Thanks for linking to the George Shearing ‘September’. I had forgotten he grew up in London (in Battersea, just down the road from me). I love the Bird-like flights on the piano. Indeed I think he wrote ‘Lullaby of Birdland’. Another Londoner is Helen Shapiro who does a great version of ‘It might as well rain until September’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De0_zZ7qQDA. Great alto voice, never made it in the US as far as I know. There is an  account of her conversion to Christianity here.

I was first hipped to Shearing by Kerouac who referred to him in On the Road.  I too love the 'Bird'-like flights on the piano. The allusion is to Charley 'Bird' Parker, also beloved of Kerouac.  Helen Shapiro is new to me, thanks. She does a great job with the Carole King composition.  Believe it or not, King's version is a demo. That's one hell of a demo. A YouTuber points out that Shapiro was not part of the 1964 'British Invasion.'  I wonder why.

Saturday Nght at the Oldies: The Ten Most Violent Democrat-Run Cities

New York, New York. "Start spreading the news . . ."

L. A. Woman

Born in Chicago

Houston

Streets of Philadelphia

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again. "The post office has been stolen and the mail box is locked." Prescient!

Detroit City

Dallas Alice

By the Time I Get to Phoenix

Lady Came from Baltimore

Like crime? Vote Democratic!

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

I have only recently come to appreciate what a great song this Jackson Browne number from 1976 is. After the 'sixties faded, I gave myself an education in classical and jazz and lost touch with the rock scene. The video presents the thoughtful lyrics.   The Gary U. S. Bonds cover from 1981 is also unbelievably good.

The Weight. Robertson sat down one day to write a song and peering into his Martin guitar read, "Martin Guitars, Nazareth, Pennslylvania." This inspired the line, "I pulled into Nazareth, feelin' about half-past dead."

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Nothing hippy-trippy or psychedelic about these '60s musicians. Pure Americana. Rooted, autochthonic.

I Shall Be Released. The synergy benefited both the Bard and the Band. They helped him move farther from the mind and closer to the earth.

I post what I like, and I like what I post. It's a nostalgia trip, and a generational thing. There's no point in disputing taste or sensibility, or much of anything else. It's Saturday night, punch the clock, pour yourself a stiff one, stop thinking, and FEEL!

Traveling Wilburys, End of Line, Extended Version

Who, Won't Get Fooled Again. Lyrics! 

Gary U. S. Bonds, From a Buick Six. Sorry, Bob, but not even you can touch this version.

Bob Dylan, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes  a Train to Cry.  Cutting Edge Bootleg version.

Bob Dylan, Just Like a Woman.  This Cutting Edge take may be the best version, even with the mistakes. I'll say no more, lest I gush.

Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound. The Bard never loses his touch. May he die with his boots on.

Bob Dylan, Corrina, Corrina. And you say he can't sing in a conventional way?

Bob Seger, Old-Time Rock and Roll

But does it really "soothe the soul"? Is it supposed to?  For soul-soothing, I recommend the Adagio movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Adagio molto e cantabile.

The Flying Burrito Brothers, To Ramona.  A beautiful cover of a song from Dylan's fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan.  

YouTuber comment: "I'd hate to think where we would be without Mr. Zimmerman's songwriting. So many covers done by so many great artists." And I say that if it weren't for Zimmi the Great American Boomer Soundtrack would have a huge, gaping hole in it.

John Fogerty and the Blue Ridge Rangers, You're the Reason

The Springfields, Silver Threads and Golden Needles

Dusty Springfield before she was Dusty Springfield.

Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Roving Gambler.  'Ramblin' Charles Adnopoz' lacking the requisite resonance for a follower of Woody Guthrie, this Jewish son of a New York M.D. wisely changed his name. 

Joan Baez, Rock Salt and Nails

Patsy Cline, She's Got You

Marianne Faithfull,  Ruby Tuesday.  Moodier than the Stones' original.  She does a great version of Dylan's Visions of Johanna. But nothing touches the original. It moves me as much as it did back in '66.  YouTuber comment: "An early morning cup of coffee, smoking a fattie, listening to this insane genius . . . does it get any better? And if so, how?"

Tom Waits, The Ghosts of Saturday Night.  One of the best by this latter-day quasi-Kerouac.

Marlene Dietrich, Die Fesche Lola. 'Fesche' means something like smart, snazzy.

Ich bin die fesche Lola, der Liebling der Saison!
Ich hab' ein Pianola zu Haus' in mein' Salon
Ich bin die fesche Lola, mich liebt ein jeder Mann
doch an mein Pianola, da laß ich keinen ran!

Kinks, Lola. From the days when 'tranny' meant transmission.  

Marlene Dietrich, Muss I Denn

Elvis Presley, Wooden Heart 

Lotte Lenya, September Song

Lotte Lenya, Moon of Alabama

Doors, Roadhouse Blues

Bette Midler, Mambo Italiano.  Video of Sophia Loren.

Marlene Dietrich, Die Fesche Lola. 'Fesche' means something like smart, snazzy.

Ich bin die fesche Lola, der Liebling der Saison!
Ich hab' ein Pianola zu Haus' in mein' Salon
Ich bin die fesche Lola, mich liebt ein jeder Mann
doch an mein Pianola, da laß ich keinen ran!

Kinks, Lola. From the days when 'tranny' meant transmission.  

Marlene Dietrich, Muss I Denn

Elvis Presley, Wooden Heart 

Lotte Lenya, September Song

Lotte Lenya, Moon of Alabama

Doors, Roadhouse Blues

Bette Midler, Mambo Italiano.  Video of Sophia Loren.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Carmelita, Juanita, and the Wicked Felina

Warren Zevon, Carmelita.  Stay clear of heroin and Pioneer chicken, both.

Flying Burrito Brothers, Juanita. Lyrics:

'No  affection' were the words that stuck on my mind
When she walked out on me for the very last time.
Oh mama sweet mama can you tell me what to say?
I don't know what I've done to be treated this way.

In a cold dirty room that's where I found myself
With a bottle of wine and some pills off the shelf.
Oh mama sweet mama can you tell me what to say?
I don't know what I've done and I'm feeling so ashamed.

Then an angel appeared she was just 17
In a dirty old gown (town?) with a conscience so clean
Oh mama sweet mama can you tell me what to say?
She's brought back the life that I once threw away.

Delightfully ambiguous:  Is Juanita the girl who walked out or the one who saved him?  Or both?

Marty Robbins, El Paso.  "Cradled by two loving arms that I'll die for/One little kiss and Felina, good-bye."

Bonus cut: Devil Woman

Albert Camus: He's a Rebel!

You'll enjoy it. If you don't,  you are not MavPhil material.

Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, tr. A. Bower, Vintage 1991, p. 15, French original published by Gallimard in 1951:

Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.

Good advice if one can take it without false heroism and existentialist hyperventilation.

Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, tr. A. Bower, Vintage 1991, p. 15, French original published by Gallimard in 1951:

Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.

Good advice if one can take it without false heroism and existentialist hyperventilation.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Celebrating Freedom and Independence

Not to mention resistance and defiance. Hats off to President Trump for last night's magnificent speech in the shadow of Mount Rushmore. And a happy Fourth to all patriots. 

Great minds on "All men are created equal."

Johnny Cash, I Won't Back Down. Tom Petty wrote it, with Jeff Lynne.

Byrds, Chimes of Freedom.  One of Dylan's greatest anthems.

Byrds, I Wasn't Born to Follow

Good YouTuber comment: "I keep searching for that door back into the summer of '69, I lost it somewhere long ago." 

Tim Hardin, A Simple Song of Freedom

Crystals, He's a Rebel

Rascals, People Got to be Free

Bob Dylan, I Shall Be Free. This is the first time I've heard this particular delightful 1962 outtake.  A real period piece in the style of Woody Guthrie with appearances by Marilyn Monroe, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren, John F. Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean's great granddaughter, fallout shelters . . . .

Cream, I Feel Free  

Johnny Horton, The Battle of New Orleans

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Politically Incorrect Tunes

No day without political incorrectness! And no night either.

But I suppose I should issue a TRIGGER WARNING to the 'safe space' girly-girls and pajama boys.  

Do not click on any of these links!  I am not responsible  for your psychic meltdown.

Ray Stevens, Ahab the Arab.  Here is the original from 1962. 

In the lyrics there are references to two hits from the same era, Chubby Checker's The Twist (1960) and Lonnie Donegan's British skiffle number  Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavor?  On second thought, the reference is to Checker's Let's Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer (1960).

Larry Verne, Mr. Custer (1960). "What am I doin' here?"

And now a trio of feminist anthems.

Marcie Blaine, Bobby's Girl.  "And if I was Bobby's girl, what a faithful, thankful girl I'd be." 

Carol Deene, Johnny Get Angry.   Joanie Sommers did it first.  "I want a cave man!"  Nice kazoo work.  k. d. lang's parody. 

Little Peggy March, I Will Follow Him.  "From now until forever."

Meanwhile the guys were bragging of having a girl in every port of call.  Dion, The Wanderer (1961). Ricky Nelson, Travelin' Man. (1961)

Addendum:  I forgot to link to two Ray Stevens numbers that are sure to rankle the sorry sensibilities of  our liberal pals: Come to the USA, God Save Arizona.  If you are a liberal shithead do not click on these links!  But if  if you have any sense you will enjoy them.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Marital Advice

First, make sure you have plenty of Money

Then Shop Around.

Consider who will become your Mother-in-Law. 

If you want to be happy, don't worry too much about physical beauty. 

If she has a cheatin' heart, hit the road, Jack.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Wall of Sound

Here are some of my favorite Phil Spector productions.  It wouldn't have been the 'sixties without him. I avert my eyes from his later misadventures and remember him for his contributions to the Boomer soundtrack.

Crystals, Uptown, 1962.

Crystals, He's a Rebel

In the thinly-populated supermarket this afternoon, I was struck by all the sheep dutifully wearing their ridiculous and useless masks.  So easily manipulated; so easily controlled by 'experts' and power-hungry pols. Masks are what the pandemic pussies have in common with the left-wing fascist Antifa thugs.

Ronettes, Be My Baby

Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron

Curtis Lee, Pretty Little Angel Eyes.

Great dance video. Curtis Edwin Lee, one-hit wonder, hailed from Yuma, Arizona.  He died at 75 years of age on 8 January 2015.  Obituary here. His signature number became a hit in 1961, reaching the #7 slot on the Billboard Hot 100. When I discovered that the record was produced by the legendary Phil Spector, I understood why it is so good.  After the limelight, Lee returned to Yuma for a normal life. This tune goes out to wifey, with love.  When I first espied those angel eyes back in '82, I had the thought, "Here she is, man, the one for you. Go for it!" And I did, and it has been very good indeed.

Ben E. King, Spanish Harlem, 1960.

Crystals, Then He Kissed Me

Beach Boys, Then I Kissed Her. With a tribute to Marilyn M.

Paris Sisters, I Love How You Love Me, 1961.

Ronettes, Walkin' in the Rain

Here are some of my favorite Phil Spector productions.  It wouldn't have been the 'sixties without him. I avert my eyes from his later misadventures and remember him for his contributions to the Boomer soundtrack.

Crystals, Uptown, 1962.

Crystals, He's a Rebel

In the thinly-populated supermarket this afternoon, I was struck by all the sheep dutifully wearing their ridiculous and useless masks.  So easily manipulated; so easily controlled by 'experts' and power-hungry pols. Masks are what the pandemic pussies have in common with the left-wing fascist Antifa thugs.

Ronettes, Be My Baby

Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron

Curtis Lee, Pretty Little Angel Eyes.

Great dance video. Curtis Edwin Lee, one-hit wonder, hailed from Yuma, Arizona.  He died at 75 years of age on 8 January 2015.  Obituary here. His signature number became a hit in 1961, reaching the #7 slot on the Billboard Hot 100. When I discovered that the record was produced by the legendary Phil Spector, I understood why it is so good.  After the limelight, Lee returned to Yuma for a normal life. This tune goes out to wifey, with love.  When I first espied those angel eyes back in '82, I had the thought, "Here she is, man, the one for you. Go for it!" And I did, and it has been very good indeed.

Ben E. King, Spanish Harlem, 1960.

Crystals, Then He Kissed Me

Beach Boys, Then I Kissed Her. With a tribute to Marilyn M.

Paris Sisters, I Love How You Love Me, 1961.

Ronettes, Walkin' in the Rain

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Help

Canned Heat, Help Me.

"Help me consolate my weary mind." I love that 'consolate.' Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson at his best.  I saw him and the boys at the Kaleidoscope in Hollywood in 1968.  Wilson was a tortured soul and ended up a member of the 27 Club. He quit the sublunary sphere on 3 September 1970.

Aficionados of that time and place will want to read Canned Heat: The Twisted Tale of Blind Owl and the Bear.

Johnny Cash, Help Me.

Beach Boys, Help Me, Rhonda

Hank Williams, I Can't Help it If I'm Still in Love with You 

Ringo Starr, With a Little Help from My Friends

Elvis Presley, Can't Help Falling in Love

Andrea Bocelli does a great live job with it.

Highwaymen, Help Me Make it Through the Night

While we have the Highwaymen cued up, let's enjoy Ghost Riders in the Sky

Joni Mitchell, Help Me

Hank Locklin, Please Help Me, I'm Falling

Here is Skeeter Davis' answer to Hank.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs of Freedom and Liberty

Metallica, Don't Tread on Me

Rascals, People Got to Be Free

Tom Petty, I Won't Back Down

Johnny Cash, I Won't Back Down

Merle Haggard, The Fightin' Side of Me

The Who, Going Mobile

Richie Havens, Freedom

Cream, I Feel Free

Joan Baez, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Arlo Guthrie, City of New Orleans

My Country 'tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Lesser-Known Dylan Songs

Can one get tired of Dylan? That would be like getting tired of America. It would be like getting to the point where no passage in Kerouac brings a tingle to the spine or a tear to the eye, to the point where the earthly road ends and forever young must give way to knocking on heaven's door. The Bard's been at it a long, long time, and his body of work is as vast and as variegated as America herself. We old fans from way back who were with him from the beginning are still finding gems unheard as we ourselves enter the twilight where it's not dark yet, but getting there. But it is a beautiful fade-out from a world that cannot last.

Why Bob Dylan Matters

Remember Me. With beautiful shots of Suze Rotolo.  See Suze Rotolo and the Songs She Inspired. 

Farewell. 

High Water. (For Charley Patton)

High water risin', risin' night and day
All the gold and silver are being stolen away
Big Joe Turner lookin' East and West
From the dark room of his mind
He made it to Kansas City Twelfth Street and Vine
Nothing standing there
High water everywhere

High water risin', the shacks are slidin' down
Folks lose their possessions and folks are leaving town
Bertha Mason shook, it broke it
Then she hung it on a wall
Says, "You're dancin' with whom they tell you to Or you don't dance at all"

It's tough out there High water everywhere
I got a cravin' love for blazing speed got a hopped up Mustang Ford
Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard
I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind
I'm no pig without a wig I hope you treat me kind
Things are breakin' up out there
High water everywhere.

High water risin', six inches 'bove my head
Coffins droppin' in the street Like balloons made out of lead
Water pourin' into Vicksburg, don't know what I'm going to do
"Don't reach out for me," she said "Can't you see I'm drownin' too?"
It's rough out there.

High water everywhere
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
"You can't open your mind, boys To every conceivable point of view"
They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway Five
Judge says to the High Sheriff "I want him dead or alive
Either one, I don't care."

High Water everywhere
Well, the cuckoo is a pretty bird, she warbles as she flies
I'm preachin' the word of God I'm puttin' out your eyes
I asked Fat Nancy for something to eat, she said, "Take it off the shelf
As great as you are a man,
You'll never be greater than yourself"
I told her I didn't really care.

High water everywhere
I'm getting' up in the morning I believe I'll dust my broom
Keeping away from the women
I'm givin' 'em lots of room
Thunder rolling over Clarksdale, everything is looking blue
I just can't be happy, love
Unless you're happy too
It's bad out there
High water everywhere.

All I Really Want to Do. 

Eternal Circle

Only a Hobo

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Bob Dylan's Dream

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Marie/Maria/Mary

Beautiful names celebrated in song.

Elvis Presley, Marie's the Name of His Latest Flame

George Harrison and friends, Absolutely Sweet Marie.  By the way, this self-certified Dylanologist can attest that in the first line it is 'railroad GAUGE,' not 'railroad gate.'  'Gauge' is a measure of the width of the track; that's what our boy can't jump.  This one goes out to Marie Benson, from the summer of '65. Where are you tonight, sweet Marie?  

Bachelors, Marie

R. B. Greaves, Take a Letter, Maria

Placido Domingo, Ave Maria (Schubert)

Jimi Hendrix, The Wind Cries 'Mary'

Association, Along Comes Mary.  Back in '66 I didn't appreciate how good the lyrics are. 

And finally Mary takes Marty Robbins back after his tryst with the Devil Woman.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Decoupling Rock and Roll from Sex and Drugs

Five examples:

Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus. This is one powerful song.

Clapton and Winwood, Presence of the Lord. Why is Clapton such a great guitarist? Not because of his technical virtuosity, his 'chops,' but because he has something to say.

George Harrison, My Sweet Lord

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass. Harrison was the Beatle with depth.  Lennon was the radical, McCartney the romantic, and Ringo the regular guy.

Good YouTuber comment: "Immortal song, even if all things must pass . . . " 

Why Typos Don't Matter Much and the Musical Watershed that was the 'Fifties

This is a re-post from 21 September 2011. I dust it off in dedication to my friend Dr. Vito Caiati, historian and old-school scholar who is excessively worried about typographical errors in his missives to me.

Don't get me wrong: love and respect for our alma mater, the English language, our dear mother, mistress and muse, demands that we try to avoid errors typographical and otherwise. But let's not obsess over them.

Transmission of sense is the name of the game, and if that has occurred, then communication has taken place.

................................

An old friend from college, who has a Masters in English, regularly sends me stuff like this which I have no trouble understanding:

I trust that you ahve emelreis of going pacles with your presnts in cars before the days when the shapr devide came and deliniated clearly the music that our presnts like and the stuff that was aethetically unreachabable to many of thier generation. That was a haunting melody, The Waywared Wind, and it spoke of an experiencethat was really more coon to a ahlf generation away from the WWII generation. It was actually a toad bod for its time. Same year bourght us Fale Storms come Donw From YOur Ivorty Towe, the great pretender, and other romantic and innocent songs. But it also brought Hound Dog, which shocked the blazes out of my parents and all of their peers. It was even sexual. It was just animal. And, no it was not specificailly Negrol; it was worse it was p;oor white trash with side burns on a motocycle. It woldn't matterif the B Side of every platter ahd been one of those great gospel tunes those guys did; that stuff was not urban, mainline, Protestant stuff, but anekly backwoods stuff where there are stills and 13-year-olf brides, that the Northern boys had heard about in the WWII barracks and hoped that they would never have hear about again as they went back to either their Main Line P:rotestant or Catholic urban llive, whether they belonged to a country het or not or woudl have to wait a while, say until their GI Bill college educations started enabling them to play golf. But that was still a good summer of rthe last of the sweet songs that memebers of several gneratons could enjoy together

Talk about spontaneous prose! No grammatical or spelling hang-ups here.  My friend is an old Kerouac aficionado too, and this is one of the more entertaining of his missives.   Is it the approach of October that frees and inspires his pen?  My friend's a strange bird, and the above just came straight out of his febrile pate; he didn't compose it that way to prove that typographical errors are compatible with transmission of sense.

A curious watershed era it was in which  the sweet and tender was found cheek-by-jowl with the explicitly referenced raw hydraulics of sexual intercourse.  Take Little Richard, perhaps the chief exponent, worse than old Swivel Hips, of the devil's music.  "Good Golly Miss Molly," he screamed, "she sure likes to ball/When you're rockin' and a rollin' can't you hear yo mama call."  That was actually played on the radio in the '50s.  To ball is to have sex, and 'rock and roll' means the same thing.  And so there were Southern rednecks who wanted the stuff banned claiming that R & R music was "was bringing the white man down to the level of the nigger."

I maintain that the best R & R manages to marry the Dionysian thrust with the tender embrace, the animalic with the sweetly romantic.  The prime example?  Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman.  One thing I love about Orbison is that instead of saying 'Fuck!,' like some crude rap punk, he says, 'Mercy!'  Another little indicator of how right my friend is in his analysis above.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sweetheart of the Rodeo

We may credit Bob Dylan with inventing both folk rock and country rock. A major contribution to latter genre was The Byrd's 1968 Sweetheart of the Rodeo, their sixth album.  Where there's country, there's Christianity.

The Christian Life

I am a Pilgrim

You're Still on My Mind

HIckory Wind

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

Pretty Boy Floyd. The old Woody Guthrie tune.

Life in Prison

Blue Canadian Rockies

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Gambler He Broke Even

As you know, Kenny Rogers has died at the age of 81.  

A few days ago, on my way back from a traipse in the local hills, I encountered a couple the female half of which suffers from Parkinson's. Being the over-clever fellow that I am, I asked her what condition her condition was in, thereby alluding to a curious '60s number. Her husband caught the allusion and hipped me to a fact hitherto unknown to me, namely, that the band in question, The First Edition, was headed by Kenny Rogers before he went country.  He was quite the genre-hopper. Before the acid-rock tune. he sang with the New Christy Minstrels, a 'sanitized' and 'wholesome' collegiate folk outfit. Here is "Green Green" with upbeat Barry Maguire in the lead. This was before Maguire got all topical and protesty and dark with Eve of Destruction in the summer of '65.

I never listened to much Kenny Rogers, but of course I know and like his signature number, now a permanent bit of Americana that taps into the myths that move the red-blooded among us. I mean The Gambler:

And when he finished speakin'
He turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigarette

And faded off to sleep

 

And somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep

 

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

 

You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.

 

Bonus cuts:

 

Clancy Bros., Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie

 

Byrds, Eight Miles High.  Referenced in the 'condition' tune.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fever, Flu, Sickness, Old Age, and Death

Chill out toilet paper hoarders. Pour yourself a sizable shot of tequila and chase it with a Corona. You gotta die some time, WuFlu or no WuFlu.  No day without political incorrectness.  And no day without cultural appropriation, including the transpecies variety:

Peggy Lee, Fever

The Band, Chest Fever

Johnny Rivers, Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

Bobby Blue Bland, St. James Infirmary

Bobby Blue Bland, Goin' Down Slow. This ought to be Joe Biden's theme song.

Hank Williams, Lovesick Blues

Dr. Feelgood, Down at the Doctors

Dire Straits, Industrial Disease

Son House, Death Letter Blues

Blind Willie McTell, You Was Born to Die

Bob Dylan, In My Time of Dying

Bob Dylan, Fixin' to Die

Bob Dylan, See that My Grave is Kept Clean. "Did you ever hear that coughin'/coffin sound? Means another poor boy is under ground."

Bob Dylan with Eric Clapton, Not Dark Yet

Bob Dylan, Knockin' on Heaven's Door

The Pretender

I have only recently come to appreciate what a great song this Jackson Browne number from 1976 is. After the 'sixties faded, I gave myself an education in classical and jazz and lost touch with the rock scene. The video presents the thoughtful lyrics.   The Gary U. S. Bonds cover from 1981 is also unbelievably good.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Robbie Robertson and the Band

True 'sixties veterans will enjoy the Band documentary Once Were Brothers.  And if you don't, then you are not a true 'sixties veteran.  (This is known in the trade as the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.  I prefer to call it the No True Muslim Fallacy.)

New Yorker article about the movie.

The Weight. Robertson sat down one day to write a song and peering into his Martin guitar read, "Martin Guitars, Nazareth, Pennslylvania." This inspired the line, "I pulled into Nazareth, feelin' about half-past dead."

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Nothing hippy-trippy or psychedelic about these '60s musicians. Pure Americana. Rooted, autochthonic.

I Shall Be Released. The synergy benefited both the Bard and the Band. They helped him move farther from the mind and closer to the earth.

Up on Cripple Creek

Chest Fever

Don't Do It

When I Paint My Masterpiece

The Shape I'm In

Forever Young

Lost Distance Operator

Orange Juice Blues

Bonus Cut: Rick Danko and Paul Butterfield, Java Blues

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

I post what I like, and I like what I post. It's a nostalgia trip, and a generational thing. There's no point in disputing taste or sensibility, or much of anything else. It's Saturday night, punch the clock, pour yourself a stiff one, stop thinking, and FEEL!

Traveling Wilburys, End of Line, Extended Version

Who, Won't Get Fooled Again. Lyrics! 

Gary U. S. Bonds, From a Buick Six. Sorry, Bob, but not even you can touch this version.

Bob Dylan, It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes  a Train to Cry.  Cutting Edge Bootleg version.

Bob Dylan, Just Like a Woman.  This Cutting Edge take may be the best version, even with the mistakes. I'll say no more, lest I gush.

Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound. The Bard never loses his touch. May he die with his boots on.

Bob Dylan, Corrina, Corrina. And you say he can't sing in a conventional way?

Moody Blues, Wildest Dreams. Nostalgia City.

Johnny Cash, I've Been Everywhere, Man

Soggy Bottom Boys, Man of Constant Sorrow

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Love and Murder

We'll start with murder.  David Dalton (Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan, Hyperion 2012, pp. 28-29, hyperlinks added!):

Most folk songs had grim, murderous content (and subtext). In Pretty Polly a man lures a young girl from her home with the promise of marriage,and then leads the pregnant girl to an already-dug grave and murders her.  In Love Henry a woman poisons her unfaithful lover, observed by an alarmed parrot that she also tries to kill. So it was a bit bizarre that these songs should become part of the sweetened, homogenized new pop music.

[. . .]

The original folk songs were potent, possessed stuff, but the folk trios had figured out how to make this grisly stuff palatable, which only proved that practically anything could be homogenized. Clean-cut guys and girls in crinolines, dressed as if for prom night, sang ancient curse-and-doom tales.  Their songs had sweet little melodies, but as in nursery rhymes, there was a dark gothic undercurrent to them -- like Ring Around the Rosies, which happens to be a charming little plague song.

The most famous of these folk songs was the 1958 hit Tom Dooley, a track off a Kingston Trio album which set off the second folk revival [the first was in the early '40s with groups like the Weavers] and was Dylan's initial inspiration for getting involved in folk music.  [I prefer Doc Watson's version.] And it was the very success of the syrupy folk trios that inspired Dylan's future manager to assemble one himself: Peter, Paul and Mary.  They would make Dylan, the prophet of the folk protest movement, a star and lead to consequences that even he did not foresee.  Their version of Blowin' in the Wind would become so successful that it would sound the death knell for the folk protest movement.  Ultimately there would be more than sixty versions of it, "all performing the same function," as Michael Gray says, of "anesthetizing Dylan's message."

Be that as it may, it is a great song, one of the anthems of the Civil Rights movement.  Its power in no small measure is due to the allusiveness of its lyrics which deliver the protest message without tying it to particular events.  It's topical without being topical and marks a difference between Dylan, and say, Phil Ochs.

And now for some love songs.

Gloria Lynne, I Wish You Love.  A great version from 1964.  Lynne died at 83 in 2013.  Here's what Marlene Dietrich does with it.

Ketty Lester, Love Letters.  Another great old tune in a 1962 version.  The best to my taste.

Three for my wife.  An old Sam Cooke number, a lovely Shirelles tune, and my favorite from the Seekers.

Addenda:

1. Keith Burgess-Jackson quotes Jamie Glazov on the hatred of Islamists and leftists for St. Valentine's Day.  Another very interesting similarity between these two totalitarian movements.  Recalling past inamorata of a Saturday night while listening to sentimental songs  -- is this not the height of bourgeois self-indulgence when you should be plotting ways to blow up the infidel or bring down capitalism?  But we who defend the private life against totalitarian scum must be careful not to retreat too far into the private life.  A certain amount of activism and engagement is necessary to keep the totalitarians in check.

2. On Thomas Merton: “All the love and all the death in me are at the moment wound up in Joan Baez’s ‘Silver Dagger,’” the man wrote to his lady love in 1966. “I can’t get it out of my head, day or night. I am obsessed with it. My whole being is saturated with it. The song is myself — and yourself for me, in a way.”

Don't sing love songs, you'll wake my mother
She's sleeping here right by my side
And in her right hand a silver dagger,
She says that I can't be your bride.

All men are false, says my mother,
They'll tell you wicked, lovin' lies.
The very next evening, they'll court another,
Leave you alone to pine and sigh.

My daddy is a handsome devil
He's got a chain five miles long,
And on every link a heart does dangle
Of another maid he's loved and wronged.

Go court another tender maiden,
And hope that she will be your wife,
For I've been warned, and I've decided
To sleep alone all of my life.

A Cure for Infatuation?

One of the very best is marriage. 

Infatuation is a form of idolatry that cannot last long in a marriage. Marriage cures it. That's an argument for marriage. There was no cure for Don Quixote's romantic fantasies because their object, the fair Dulcinea del Toboso, existed only in his imagination.*

But while infatuation lasts, it is blissful. One is made silly, often harmlessly so. One walks on air and can think of nothing but the beloved. The moon hits your eye like a bigga pizza pie. The world starts to shine like you've had too much wine. So smitten was I in the early days of my relationship to the woman I married that I sat in my carrel at the university one day and just thought about her for eight hours straight when I was supposed to be finishing an article on Frege. Life is both love and logic. But sometimes hot love trumps cold logic.

The best marriages begin with the romantic transports of infatuation, but a marriage lasts only if the Rousseauian transports are undergirded by good solid reasons of the big head without interference from the heart or the little head. The love then matures. Real love replaces illusory idealization. The big head ought to be the ruling element in a man.

It takes an Italian to capture the aforementioned romantic transports, and Dean Martin (Dino Crocetti) does the job well in the schmaltzy That's Amore. 

Il Mio Mondo is a good expression of the idolatry of infatuation.  Cilla Black's 1964 rendition of the Italian song is You're My World.

But whence the idealization, the infatuation, the idolatry?  And why the perennial popularity of silly love songs? What we really want in the deepest depths of the heart no man or woman can provide.  That is known to all who know their own hearts and have seen through the idols.  What we want is an infinite and eternal love.  This infinite desire may have no object in reality. Arguments from desire are not rationally compelling.

But given the fact of the desire, a fact that does not entail the reality of its object, we have what we need to explain the idealization, the infatuation, and the idolatry of the sexual other. We substitute an immanent object for Transcendence inaccessible.

_____________________________

*The great novel of Miguel Cervantes is a work of fiction. And so both Don Quixote/Quijote and Dulcinea are fictional characters. But the first is posited as real within the fiction while the other is posited as imaginary, as Don Quixote's fiction, even if based upon the posited-in-the-fiction real Aldonza Lorenzo. Herewith a bit of grist for the mill of the philosophy of fiction. The real-imaginary distinction operates within an imaginary construct.

 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Rock and Roll Apologetics

A curious sub-genre of meta-rock devoted to the defense of the devil's music.

The Showmen, It Will Stand, 1961 

Bob Seger, Old-Time Rock and Roll

But does it really "soothe the soul"? Is it supposed to?  For soul-soothing, I recommend the Adagio movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Adagio molto e cantabile.

Rolling Stones, It's Only Rock and Roll (but I Like It)

Electric Light Orchestra, Roll Over, Beethoven.  Amazingly good.  Roll over, Chuck Berry!

Danny and the Juniors, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

Chuck Berry and Friends, Rock and Roll Music

Off-topic bonus cut:  The Chantels, Look in My Eyes, 1961.  YouTuber comment: "Emanating from the Heart Chakra. Something pop songs rarely do anymore. Feel it?" The popular music of this period had human meaning, coming from the heart and speaking to the heart, even when it passed over into schmaltz and sentimentality.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Songs of Self-Satisfaction and Braggadocio

Frank Sinatra, My Way. A little too self-congratulatory, don't you think? 

Bob Wills, I'm a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas.  "Purty lil gurl tried to put me on the bum, had to burn her down with a Thompson gun. I'm a ding dong daddy from Dumas babe, ya ought to see me do my stuff."

Chicago, I'm a Man

Youtuber comment: "I'll be 68 in June, but when I hear this song time rockets back in a heartbeat. 'Our' music was absolutely phenomenal. Today's music can't hold a candle to it. But then again, you'd have to have been there to understand."

Peggy Lee, I'm a Woman

Willie Dixon and Robbie Robertson, Seventh Son

Mississippi Sheiks, Sitting on Top of the World

Joan Baez, Satisfied Mind

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound. When your name is 'Bob Dylan' you have your pick of sidemen. A great band. "The walls of pride, they're high and they're wide. You can't see over, to the other side."

Joe Brown, Sea of  Heartbreak.  Nothing touches Don Gibson's original effort, but this is very satisfying version.

Elvis Presley, Little Sister 

Carole King, You've Got a Friend

Buddy Guy, et al., Sweet Home Chicago. Looks like everyone is playing a Strat except for Johnny Winter.

Ry Cooder, He'll Have to Go.  A fine, if quirky, cover of the old George Reeves hit from 1959.

Marty Robbins, El Paso. Great guitar work.

"Don't Go Out in the Dark," Said I

"It's not dark yet," said she.

"But it's getting there," I replied.

She missed the allusion.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ambulo ergo Sum

Dionne Warwick, Walk On By

Leroy Van Dyke, Walk On By.  Same title, different song.

Patsy Cline, Walkin' After Midnight

Gus Cannon, Walk Right In, 1929.  Is that a kazoo I hear? Rooftop Singers' 1962 version.

Rufus Thomas, Walking the Dog, 1965

Ventures, Walk Don't Run. The boys are aging nicely.  A big hit back in 1960.

Everly Brothers, Walk Right Back

Four Seasons, Walk Like a Man. Sing like a castrato.  Walk or wop?

Bangles, Walk Like an Egyptian.  Cultural appropriation! We need more of it. No day without political incorrectness. Walk like an Egyptian and smoke a cigar.

Johnny Cash, I Walk the Line

Ronnettes, Walkin' in the Rain

Left Banke, Walk Away Renee

Robert Johnson, Walkin' Blues.  

Jimmy Rogers, Walkin' By Myself.  Butterfield and Bloomfield with the latter's solo at 3:42 ff.

James Soriano sends this:

You may have seen this, but there is sonic evidence of the voice of a  late 19th century castrato on YouTube.  Alessandro Moreschi (1858 –1922) sings the Bach/Gounod "Ave Maria" in a 1904 recording.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws

 

Whatever the circumstances of his castration, Moreschi was the soprano at St. John Lateran by the time he was 13 years old.  

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

Leo Kottke, Embryonic Journey.  As good as it is I still prefer

Jefferson Airplane, Embryonic Journey

Punch Brothers, Rye Whisky

Lonely Heartstring Band, Ramblin' Gamblin' Willy

Bonnie Owens, Philadelphia Lawyer

Cowboy Jack Clement, A Girl I Used to Know

Bobby Bare, Lullabies, Legends, and Lies

Brewer and Shipley, One Toke Over the Line

The Flying Burrito Brothers, To Ramona.  A beautiful cover of a song from Dylan's fourth album, Another Side of Bob Dylan.  

YouTuber comment: "I'd hate to think where we would be without Mr. Zimmerman's songwriting. So many covers done by so many great artists." And I say that if it weren't for Zimmi the Great American Boomer Soundtrack would have a huge, gaping hole in it.

John Fogerty and the Blue Ridge Rangers, You're the Reason

The Springfields, Silver Threads and Golden Needles

Dusty Springfield before she was Dusty Springfield.

Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Roving Gambler.  'Ramblin' Charles Adnopoz' lacking the requisite resonance for a follower of Woody Guthrie, this Jewish son of a New York M.D. wisely changed his name. 

Joan Baez, Rock Salt and Nails

Patsy Cline, She's Got You

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Tunes of the Season

Merry Christmas everybody.  Pour yourself a drink, and enjoy.  Me, I'm nursing a Boulevardier.  It's a Negroni with cojones: swap out the gin for bourbon.  One ounce bourbon, one ounce sweet vermouth, one ounce Campari, straight up or on the rocks, with a twist of orange.  A serious libation.  It'll melt a snowflake for sure. The vermouth rosso contests the harshness of the bourbon, but then the Campari joins the fight on the side of the bourbon. 

Or you  can think of it as a Manhattan wherein the Campari substitutes for the angostura bitters.  That there are people who don't like Campari shows that there is no hope for humanity.

Cheech and Chong, Santa Claus and His Old Lady
Canned Heat, Christmas Boogie

Leon Redbone and Dr. John, Frosty the Snowman
Beach Boys, Little St. Nick.  A rarely heard alternate version.

Ronettes, Sleigh Ride
Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas.  This one goes out to Barack and Michelle as their legacy continues to wither away.

Jeff Dunham,  Jingle Bombs by Achmed the Terrorist.  TRIGGER WARNING! Not for the p.c.-whipped. No day without political incorrectness!

Porky Pig, Blue Christmas

Captain Beefheart, There Ain't No Santa Claus on the Evening Stage

Charles Brown, Please Come Home for Christmas

Wanda Jackson and the Continentals, Merry Christmas Baby
Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run

Eric Clapton, Cryin' Christmas Tears
Judy Collins, Silver Bells

Ry Cooder, Christmas in Southgate
Bob Dylan, Must Be Santa

Is this the same guy who sang Desolation Row back in '65? 

Bob Dylan, Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache. Not Christmasy, but a good tune.  Remember Bob Luman? His version. Luman's signature number.

Who could possibly follow Dylan's growl except

Tom Waits, Silent Night.  Give it a chance. 

A surprising number of Christmas songs were written by Jews.  

Cheech and Chong, Santa Claus and His Old Lady
Canned Heat, Christmas Boogie

Leon Redbone and Dr. John, Frosty the Snowman
Beach Boys, Little St. Nick.  A rarely heard alternate version.

Ronettes, Sleigh Ride
Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas.  This one goes out to Barack and Michelle as their legacy continues to wither away.

Jeff Dunham,  Jingle Bombs by Achmed the Terrorist.  TRIGGER WARNING! Not for the p.c.-whipped. No day without political incorrectness!

Porky Pig, Blue Christmas

Captain Beefheart, There Ain't No Santa Claus on the Evening Stage

Charles Brown, Please Come Home for Christmas

Wanda Jackson and the Continentals, Merry Christmas Baby
Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run

Eric Clapton, Cryin' Christmas Tears
Judy Collins, Silver Bells

Ry Cooder, Christmas in Southgate
Bob Dylan, Must Be Santa

Is this the same guy who sang Desolation Row back in '65? 

Bob Dylan, Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache. Not Christmasy, but a good tune.  Remember Bob Luman? His version. Luman's signature number.

Who could possibly follow Dylan's growl except

Tom Waits, Silent Night.  Give it a chance. 

A surprising number of Christmas songs were written by Jews.  

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

Thelonious Monk, I'm Getting Sentimental Over You

Wes Montgomery, 'Round Midnight

Cannonball Adderley, 74 Miles Away. In 7/4 time.

Ry Cooder, I Think It's Going to to Work Out Fine

Jeff Beck, Sleepwalk. The old Santo and Johnny instrumental from 1959.

Danny Gatton, master of the Telecaster. Phenomenally good, practically unknown.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Days of the Week

Melina Mercouri, Never on Sunday

Mamas and Papas, Monday, Monday

Marianne Faithfull,  Ruby Tuesday.  Moodier than the Stones' original.  She does a great version of Dylan's Visions of Johanna. But nothing touches the original. It moves me as much as it did back in '66.  YouTuber comment: "An early morning cup of coffee, smoking a fattie, listening to this insane genius . . . does it get any better? And if so, how?"

Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM

Donovan, Jersey Thursday

Easybeats, Friday on My Mind

Sam Cooke, Another Saturday Night

Saturday night is many a Fool's Paradise.  Take a lesson, muchachos. 

Tom Waits, The Ghosts of Saturday Night.  One of the best by this latter-day quasi-Kerouac.

Bonus cut: Jerry Lee Lewis, Lonely Weekend

Melina Mercouri, Never on Sunday

Mamas and Papas, Monday, Monday

Marianne Faithfull,  Ruby Tuesday.  Moodier than the Stones' original.  She does a great version of Dylan's Visions of Johanna. But nothing touches the original. It moves me as much as it did back in '66.  YouTuber comment: "An early morning cup of coffee, smoking a fattie, listening to this insane genius . . . does it get any better? And if so, how?"

Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM

Donovan, Jersey Thursday

Easybeats, Friday on My Mind

Sam Cooke, Another Saturday Night

Saturday night is many a Fool's Paradise.  Take a lesson, muchachos. 

Tom Waits, The Ghosts of Saturday Night.  One of the best by this latter-day quasi-Kerouac.

Bonus cut: Jerry Lee Lewis, Lonely Weekend

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Route 66

Jack Kerouac in a letter from 17 January 1962: "Everybody is making money off my ideas, like those "Route 66" TV producers, everybody except me . . . ." (Selected Letters 1957-1969, ed. Charters, Viking 1999, p. 326; see also p. 461 and pp. 301-302.) 

Here is the Nelson Riddle theme music from the TV series.  And here is part of an episode from the series which ran from 1960-1964.  George Maharis bears a striking resemblance to Jack, wouldn't you say? And notice Maharis is riding shotgun.  Kerouac wasn't a driver.  Neal Cassady was the driver.

Now dig Bobby Troup.  Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Dr. Feelgood,  and others have covered the tune. The version by Asleep at the Wheel is especially good.

 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Winning and Losing

Hank Williams, You Win Again, 1952.  Jerry Lee Lewis' 1979 interpretation. Flashy, but lacks the authenticity of the original.

Emmy Lou Harris, If I Could Only Win Your Love

Allman Bros., Win, Lose or Draw

Beatles, You're Gonna Lose that Girl

Beatles, I'm a Loser

Hank Williams, Lost Highway

So boys don't you start your ramblin' around/ On this road of sin are you sorrow bound/ Take my  advice or you'll curse the day/ You started rollin' down that lost highway.

Marty Robbins, Born to Lose

Steely Dan, Rikki Don't Lose that Number.   Great guitar solo.  It starts at 2:56.

New Lost City Ramblers, If I Lose, I Don't Care

Brenda Lee, Losing You

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Varia

Marlene Dietrich, Die Fesche Lola. 'Fesche' means something like smart, snazzy.

Ich bin die fesche Lola, der Liebling der Saison!
Ich hab' ein Pianola zu Haus' in mein' Salon
Ich bin die fesche Lola, mich liebt ein jeder Mann
doch an mein Pianola, da laß ich keinen ran!

Kinks, Lola. From the days when 'tranny' meant transmission.  

Marlene Dietrich, Muss I Denn

Elvis Presley, Wooden Heart 

Lotte Lenya, September Song

Lotte Lenya, Moon of Alabama

Doors, Roadhouse Blues

Bette Midler, Mambo Italiano.  Video of Sophia Loren.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Philosophical Justification for a Drink or Two

From time to time  it is perhaps appropriate that we should relax a little the bonds that tether us to the straight and narrow.  A fitting apologia for a bit of indulgence and even overindulgence  is found in Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind, XVII, 8-9, tr. Basore:

At times we ought to reach even the point of intoxication, not drowning ourselves in drink, yet succumbing to it; for it washes away troubles, and stirs the mind from its very depths and heals its sorrow just as it does certain ills of the body; and the inventor of wine is not called the Releaser [Liber, Bacchus] on account of the license it gives to the tongue, but because it frees the mind from bondage to cares and emancipates it and gives it new life and makes it bolder in all that it attempts. But, as in freedom, so in wine there is a wholesome moderation.

Sed ut libertatis ita vini salubris moderatio est.

. . .

Yet we ought not to do this often, for fear that the mind may contract an evil habit; nevertheless there are times when it must be drawn into rejoicing and freedom, and gloomy sobriety must be banished for a while.

Amos Milburn, One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer

The Champs, Tequila.  Arguably unique in that its lyrics consist of exactly one trisyllabic word.

Electric Flag, Wine.  Great video of the late Mike Bloomfield and his Gibson Les Paul in their prime, at the Monterey Pop Festival, 1967.  Definitive proof that a Jew can play the blues. Cultural appropriation at its finest. We all could profit from more cultural appropriation, blacks especially. Think what they could learn from the kike, the chink, and the honkey, not to mention the dago, the guinea, the greaseball, and the wop. 

Canned Heat, Whisky-Headed Woman.

Tommy McClennan, Whisky-Headed Woman, 1939

Doors, Whisky Bar

Buck Owens, Cigarettes, Whisky, and Wild, Wild Women

Cigarettes are a blot on the whole human race
A man is a monkey with one in his face
So gather 'round friends and listen to your brother
A fire on one end, a fool on the other.

Ramblin' Jack Elliot's version

What are you drinking? I'm having me a Whisky Highball, classic, and simplicity itself: ginger ale and your favorite whisky. Mine tonight is Canada Dry ginger ale and Jim Beam bourbon.  

Addendum 9/16

David G. writes,

Back when I was working for Google and making crap loads of money, I started sampling high-end bourbon and scotch. Maybe I'm just not a connoisseur, but in my judgement, although some of the 12-year-old Glen's were marginally better than Jack Daniels, none of the bourbons were, and there were several high-end whiskeys that were noticeably worse than Jack, so now that I'm poor, I really don't mind going back to my old friend Jack.

Also, as I'm sure you are aware, you can't post a list of songs on the internet and not have someone tell you you missed some. One you probably know:

EmmyLou Harris, Two More Bottles of Wine

and one you probably don't, unless you follow local Arizona bands:

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Jack vs. Jose.

Jack is good enough for me, too, and so is Jose Cuervo Gold, and if you are mixing these bad boys, not with each other mind you, but with, say, ginger ale or tonic water respectively, then there is no call to shell out for the top-shelf hooch which is outrageously overpriced. You don't always get what you pay for.  If a snob challlenges your judgment, Dave, arrange a blind taste test.

Fratello Pepito recommends The Four Deuces, White Port Lemon Juice, 1956.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fred Neil

Remember Fred Neil?  One of the  luminaries of the '60s folk scene,  he didn't do much musically thereafter.  Neil is probably best remembered  for having penned 'Everybody's Talkin' which was made famous by Harry Nilsson as the theme of Midnight Cowboy.  Here is Neil's version. Nilsson's rendition.

Another of my Fred Neil favorites is "Other Side of  This Life."  Here is Peter, Paul, and Mary's version.

And it's been a long long time since I last enjoyed That's the Bag I'm In.

I've Got a Secret. YouTuber comment: "Why were the sixties so special and important? Fred Neil, for one." But why were they so special to us and not others? In part because we were raw, open to experience, and full of the painful & passionate intensity of youth.

The reclusive Neil died in 2001 at the age of 64.  Biography here.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: One Hit Wonders, 1963

Some, not all. The ones I like.

The Exciters, Tell Him An incredibly tight and energetic live version.

Vince Guaraldi Trio, Cast Your Fate to the Wind

Cascades, Rhythm of the Rain

Rebels, Wild Weekend. Garage band guitar work. Great period photos. Nostalgia city.

Jan Bradley, Mama Didn't Lie

Johnny Cymbal, Mr. Bassman

Ray Baretto, El Watusi

Kyu Sakamoto, Sukiyaki

Los Indios Tabajares, Maria Elena. A standard dating from 1932. YouTuber comment: intramontabile, magica, fantastica, semplicemente fantastica!

Doris Troy, Just One Look. Great tune, arrangement, and delivery.

Randy and the Rainbows, Denise. Great photos of Jack Kennedy.

Kai Winding, More

Jaynetts, Sally Go Round the Roses. This one goes out to Sally S. I'm thinking about you, Sal.

Barry and the Tamerlanes, I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight.  I know what she's doing tonight. She's in the living room watching TV while I drink Tequila and prowl the vasty deeps of YouTube in search of one-hit wonders from 1963.

Robin Ward, Wonderful Summer

Bill Pursell, Our Winter Love

The Singing Nun, Dominique

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sweet and Wholesome

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 combo. 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.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fathers and Fatherhood

Harry Chapin, Cat's in the Cradle. The best song about fatherhood I am aware of. Bond with your son when he's five. Wait till he's 50 and he won't give you the time of day. Harry Chapin was a major talent who died young.  Here is his great Taxi. We Boomers are damned lucky to have the greatest popular music soundtrack of any generation.

What Happened to Harry Chapin?

Emmylou Harris, To Daddy

Arizona's own Marty Robbins, That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine. The old Gene Autry tune from the '30s. 

Joan Baez, Daddy, You've Been on My Mind. The great Dylan song slightly modified. Not addressed to a literal father, you understand. At :40, the girl depicted is not Joan Baez but Suze Rotolo, Dylan's first New York girlfriend. How do I know that? Because I am a self-certified Dylanologist from way back.

Shep and the Limelites, Daddy's Home, 1961. Anyone who prefers rap crap to this has a hole in his soul.

Rivingtons, Papa Oom Mow Mow. Stretching a bit. 

James Brown, Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, 1965

Horace Silver, Song for My Father, 1964

Hank Williams, I'm a Long Gone Daddy

No, I am not going to link to Alan Sherman, Hello Mudda, Hello Faddah, 1963.

Frank Zappa, Hungry Freaks, Daddy, 1966

Paul Peterson, My Dad. To end on a 'wholesome' if schmaltzy note.  

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Bob Dylan Turned 78 Yesterday

He has been called "rock's greatest songwriter."  A  better description is "America's greatest writer of popular songs." Bar none.  We can discuss the criteria later, and consider counterexamples.     His earliest four or five albums are not in the rock genre.  I'll permit quibbling about #5, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), but Bob Dylan (1962), The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963) , The Time's They Are A'Changin' (1964), and Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) are better classified as folk, not that they sit all that comfortably in this niche.

These early albums are studded with lasting contributions to Americana. This is music with meaning that speaks to the mind and the heart.  No Rat Pack crooner Las Vegas lounge lizard stuff here. Two lesser-known compositions both from The Times They Are a'Changin' (1964):

The Ballad of Hollis Brown   Performed by Stephen Stills.

North Country Blues.  Written from the point of view of a woman and so appropriately sung by the angel-throated Joan Baez.

D. A. Pennebaker on the making of Don't Look Back.  I saw it in '67 when it first came out.  I just had to see it, just as I just had to have all of Dylan's albums, all of his sheet music, and every article and book about him. I was a Dylan fanatic.  No longer a fanatic, I remain a fan.

May he die with his boots on.  It ain't dark yet, but it's gettin' there. When his 30th album Time Out of Mind came out in 1997, over twenty years ago now, I was amazed to discover that Dylan could still tap back into that magic mood he achieved in the mid-60s.

Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

 

I was born here and I'll die here, against my will
I know it looks like I'm movin' but I'm standin' still

Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Sinatra is supposed to have said that a pro is one who can play it the same way twice.  (Where?) Dylan rarely plays it the same way twice. Here is a version of "Just Like a Woman" which is lyrically and in other minor ways different from the Blonde on Blonde version.  

Dave Bagwill recommends this outstanding extended version (Freewheelin' outake 2, 1962) of "The Ballad of Hollis Brown." Move over, Stephen Stills! The harp fills don't quite make it, however, in this minor-keyed tune.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Sounds of the Southwest

Calexico, Alone Again Or

A great cover of Love's version from '67.

Ry Cooder, Paris, Texas

Ry Cooder, He'll Have to Go

A curiously satisfying Tex-Mex re-do of the old Jim Reeves crossover hit

Ry Cooder, Yellow Roses

Spade Cooley, Detour

'Spade Cooley' has got to be one of the most politically incorrect names of all time.  I remember seeing his Western swing show on KTLA, Channel 5, in the late '50s, early '60s' at my Uncle Ray's place.  Cooley was a real piece of work.  

Above, a view of the Arizona open road from the cockpit of my 2013 Jeep Wrangler. 

Old Crow Medicine Show, Sweet Amarillo.  Dylan wrote it.

Marty Robbins messes with the wicked Felina in El Paso and comes to an untimely end.

Dean Martin is down and out in Houston. 

A lonely soldier cleans his gun and dreams of Galveston. 

A slacker standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona spies a girl in a flatbed Ford.

Johnny Rivers heads East via Phoenix and Albuquerque.

From Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah, this sojourner of the American night has driven every kind of rig that's ever been made.

Ed Farrell writes, "The Little Feat version of I'm Willin is a good one.  But my favorite version will probably remain the one done by Seatrain circa 1970--which was the standard road song for Sierra climbing trips in late high school/college.  Seatrain never really took off as a band but their musicianship was quite good though their style was difficult to pigeonhole."

That is a good version, indeed better than Little Feat's.  There were a lot of great bands back in the day that never really made it.  Another is Fever Tree.  I remember hearing them circa '68 live at a club called The Kaleidoscope  in Hollywood or West L. A.  Give a careful listen to The Sun Also Rises.

Ed also recommends Seatrain's version of the Carole King composition, Creepin' Midnight.  Produced by George Martin.

Finally, please take a look at Ed's spectacular photography.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ohio Songs

Today being the 49th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, we kick things off with 

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Ohio This one goes out to my old Ohio friend, Bill Marvin who attended Kent State.

Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, The Banks of the Ohio

Joan Baez with Jerry Garcia, The Banks of the Ohio, 1981

Phil Ochs, Boy in Ohio, 1970.  Underrated and largely forgotten, but not by this '60s veteran. Rest in peace, Phil.

Randy Newman, Dayton, Ohio 1903

Bruce Springsteen, Youngstown

Randy Newman, Burn On. An allusion to the Cuyahoga River catching on fire?

The Band, Look Out Cleveland

Ian Hunter, Cleveland Rocks

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Render unto Caesar . . .

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's . . .

Have you stateside readers settled accounts with the Infernal Revenue Service?  If yes, order up one scotch, one bourbon, and one beer and enjoy this live version of Taxman  featuring Harrison and Clapton.  Stevie Ray Vaughan's blistering version. 

. . . and render unto God the things that are God's.

Herewith, five definite decouplings of rock and roll from sex and drugs.

Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus. This is one powerful song.

Clapton and Winwood, Presence of the Lord. Why is Clapton such a great guitarist? Not because of his technical virtuosity, his 'chops,' but because he has something to say.

George Harrison, My Sweet Lord

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass. Harrison was the Beatle with depth.  Lennon was the radical, McCartney the romantic, and Ringo the regular guy.

Good YouTuber comment: "Immortal song, even if all things must pass . . . "