Archive for May 2010
May 31, 2010
Absolutely Sweet Marie
Performed by Jason and The Scorchers and written by Bob Dylan.
To live outside the law, you must be honest
A great version of a great song, Jason and the Scorchers demonstrate how to do a cover song. I want to talk about this song first, then riff for a bit on cover songs and list some great covers.
Jason and the Scorchers burn through this song with a frenzy that completely remakes the Dylan original. They do what great cover versions require: They make the song their own with no regard to the original. They re-envision the song so we see it anew again, see it in ways not imaginable before, yet obvious once we hear the new version. Where Dylan’s version played coy and danced around the swirl of images, Jason and the Scorchers roar through the verses, turning gentle references into dangerous shards and making clear the sexual longing and thwarted lust. Whipping guitar, pounding drums and bass and Jason’s snarl remove any doubt about the meaning of the song.
Posted in Bob Dylan, Country Music, Cover Songs, Jason and the Scorchers |
Tags: Absolutely Sweet Marie, All Time Best Cover Songs, Bob Dylan, Country Music, Cover Songs, Cow Punk, Jason and the Scorchers, Speed Country
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May 30, 2010
The Bike
Written and Performed by Amy Correia
At first listen, “The Bike” comes off as a sweet, breezy song about a girl and her bike tooling around New York City, a perfect accompaniment for a brilliant spring day. It’s a great example of well crafted pop music with a swelling chorus bound to lift your spirits. Open the windows, put the tops down, cruise along and blast this song. Perfect.
Hey and I’m riding around riding around on it
Hey just riding around riding around on it
On the second, third and tenth listen, “The Bike” reveals its great depth and mastery in both the song writing and the performance. The sweetness is still there, though you start to sense the mettle that girds it. And the breeziness of the chorus remains irresistible, though you begin to understand how joy seeks to overcome the underlying sadness and death that underlies that story of the bike and the life she confronts. A pop song? Yes, but one bordering a true art.
Posted in Amy Correia |
Tags: Amy Correia, Bicycle Songs, The Bike
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May 29, 2010
Damn Your Eyes
Performed by Bettye LaVette on the album Bettye LaVette in Concert: Let Me Down Easy. Written by Steve Bogard and Barbara Wynick.
This woman can sing, can grab you by the collar, shake you up and make you tremble. A nine minute song with five verses and a chorus, yet it all comes down to the title line, “Damn your eyes.” With Bettye LaVette, one line is enough. With that single, short line she makes us understand that dilemma when the brain knows better, but the heart, the stomach and the groin can’t help themselves. Damn your eyes. She wails, she growls, she stammers, she whispers and she howls. Damn your eyes. How much meaning, how much life she pushes through those three words. Damn your eyes.
Make her the Queen of Soul. Make her the Queen of Heartache. Give her whatever crown she wants. Bettye LaVette climbs into the song and the two – woman and song – are never the same.
Posted in Bettye LaVette, Cover Songs, Soul Music, The Blues |
Tags: Bettye LaVette, Damn Your Eyes, Soul Music
2 Comments »
May 27, 2010
Windfall
Performed by Son Volt and written by Jay Farrar, lead singer of the group.
“May the wind take your troubles away.”
Released in late 1995 on Trace, “Windfall” is the first song on the first album from Son Volt, a band formed by Jay Farrar after the break-up of Uncle Tupelo. The song captures a melancholic urgency, a longing for connection through music. It is one of the most personal songs in my life, in part because of the nature of the song and in part because it ran through my mind so often during a particular crisis that it became part of that formative moment.
Posted in Son Volt |
Tags: A Father's Love, Down Syndrome, Galway Kinnell, Parenting, Son Volt, Windfall
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May 26, 2010
Mama Hated Diesels So Bad by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Performed by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen and written by Blackie Farrell
I’m a sucker for a tear-jerker country song and they don’t come any better or jerk any more than Commander Cody’s “Mama Hated Diesels So Bad.” With the winding of the pedal steel, the irresistible hook of the chorus, the poignancy of the lyrics and Billy C. Farlowe’s singing, the song will pull you in, sit you down and make you listen.
The song opens with Billy C. leaning into the mike and half-talking, half-singing the chorus over the somber strumming of the guitar and the pedal steel:
Mama hated diesel so bad
I guess I knew it was something to do with Dad
The first time I seen her cry
Was after one of them things went by
Mama hated diesel so bad
Posted in Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Country Music, Country Swing, Rockabilly |
Tags: Bill Kirchen, Commander Cody, Commander Cody and his Lost Plaent Airmen, Country Music, Country swing, Mama Hated Diesels, Rockabilly
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May 24, 2010
Grits Ain’t Groceries
Performed by Little Milton and written by Titus Turner.
Sometimes everything comes together on a perfect record and that happened for Little Milton in 1969 with “Grits Ain’t Groceries. “ A song that professes love of outlandish proportions, if a man sung this for you, you would swoon indeed.
Shimmering guitar, hard-punching horns, thumping bass, perfectly paced drums and heartfelt singing mix to create as good an R & B record as you can find. The song combines a near Shakespearean chorus with swaggering and braggadocio verses that match incredible claims with a voice ready to back them up. Do not take Little Milton lightly.
The song opens quickly with a plaintive cry, “if I don’t love you baby,” answered by a thundering horn section and the rest of the chorus:
If I don’t love you baby
Grits ain’t grocery,
Eggs ain’t poultry,
And Mona Lisa was a man
Posted in Little Milton, The Blues |
Tags: Checker Records, Grits Ain't Groceries, Little Milton, The Blues, Titus Turner
1 Comment »
May 21, 2010
Rockaway Beach
Written and performed by the Ramones
The 10th Annual Joey Ramone Memorial Tribute (has it been that long?) takes place this week in New York and that has me thinking Gabba-Gabba-Hey. Better yet, “1-2-3-4” and we’re off:
Rock Rock Rockaway Beach
Rock Rock Rockaway Beach
Rock Rock Rockaway Beach
We can hitch a ride
To Rockaway Beach
Throw in some Beach Boys, a hint of Dick Dale’s guitar, add Phil Spector’s Wall-of-Sound, shake like crazy and out comes the Ramone’s Rockaway Beach: pure city exuberance. It’s not the lyrics; it’s the energy. We all know the “bus ride’s too slow.” Gotta go. Gotta go. Can’t picture these Forest Hills and Staten Island boys at the beach? Spider-limed Joey sunning his late night pale skin? They’d fit right in on Rockaway Beach; everyone does.
Posted in Punk Music, The Ramones |
Tags: Punk Music, Rockaway Beach, The Ramones
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May 20, 2010
You Gotta Sin to Be Saved
Written and performed by Maria McKee
There’s going to be a lot of saving going on cause if you listen to this song, you know there’s a lot of sinning happening. Full of gusto and heart, this raucous song puts forth a clear proposition: someday I may be saved, but before I get there, I’ve got some living to do. Think gospel song only this one marches down a different aisle.
Maria McKee’s voice – full-throated, even full-bodied – makes the case and the carousing band offers the full support with saxes, a Hammond organ, guitars and rousing vocals. No doubting the conviction of McKee’s singing, the song captures the spirit of an amuck Vegas weekend and you want to go along for the sheer fun of it.
The gambit offered is simple enough. McKee turns to her fiancé (“ya been my Romeo ever since we was in school”), reaffirms her love (“”I’ll love you till I die), then lets him know her predicament: “I could never be your bride ‘til I tame my wicked side.” She swaggers, she vamps, but this is no tease; she’s pure lustiness, you can just picture the wicked grin.
Posted in Maria McKee |
Tags: Lone Justice, Maria McKee, Music Review, Song of the Day, You Gotta Sin to be Saved
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May 19, 2010
I Pity the Fool
Performed by Bobby Blue Bland. Written by Deadric Malone.
If you don’t play an instrument and you don’t write songs, you better be able to sing. Bobby Blue Bland is a singer who more than earns his keep with his voice. He recorded “I Pity the Fool” on his seminal album from 1962, Two Steps from the Blues; the song rose to number one on the R&B charts and even made a dent on the pop charts.
What mastery we hear on this song: the production, the musicianship and the singing blend to form a sonic dynamo. The drums set the beat matched by a pulsing bass and masterful guitar work provided by Wayne Bennett who carries a BB King-influenced riff throughout the song. The performance starts quiet and small, as if the singer is curled up within himself, though as he goes on, the voices opens out and the music grows. We get horns (trumpets, tenor and baritone saxes and a slide trombone) and the tinkling of a piano. And that voice, soaked in hurt and maybe bourbon, raised on gospel and the blues, but now it’s something new altogether, call it soul or rhythm and blues, “I pity the fool that falls in love with you.”
Posted in Bobby Blue Bland, The Blues |
Tags: Bobby Blue Bland, I Pity the Fool, Soul Music, The Blues
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May 18, 2010
Beer and Kisses
Written and Performed by Amy Rigby.
Amy Rigby traces the arch of romance in a tightly crafted 3:41 seconds from when “we loved like it was something new” to “It’s sad how we both forget/The thing we had for each other/Way back when we first met.” “Beer and Kisses” is a pop-song for grown-ups, wry and subtly structured lyrics knitted to a winsome melody.
The ex-punk singer living in the East Village turns out this country-tinged duet with John Wesley Harding as if they are the second coming of Tammy Wynette and George Jones. The tale opens in the first glimmers of new love, the couple meeting in the supermarket and though boy-meets girl has reoccurred forever, Rigby knows that for those inside the love, it’s like a new world. Thus the lines:
We loved like it was something new
From day one we could not be parted
You had me and honey I had you
In recording Diary of a Mod Housewife, Rigby says she wanted to “balance being a mother and a wife and still being a rocker at heart.” She hits the target in this song: no subordination here, two equals madly in love.
Posted in Amy Rigby, Country Music |
Tags: "Beer and Kisses", Amy Rigby, Country Music, Music Review, Song of the Day
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Nightly Song 