Archive for June 2010
June 25, 2010
Song for the Dreams
Performed by Danny and Dusty. Written by Dan Stuart and Steve Wynn.
It’s 1985 and there’s a music scene cooking in Los Angles dubbed the Paisley Underground, their sound ranging from pop to roots rock to psychedelia. The leading bands included the Bangles, Game Theory, The Long Ryders, The Dream Syndicate and Green on Red. On one particular weekend, Dan Stuart (lead sing form Green on Red and Steve Wynne (lead singer from the Dream Syndicate) pulled some band mates and some friends from the Long Ryders into a studio for a weekend. Over the next 36 hours, they consumed combustibles by the bucket load and recorded a complete album put out under the moniker Danny and Dusty with the title, The Lost Weekend.
Thankfully, the recordings were not lost. In many ways, what they laid down in that studio exceeded what any of the bands did on their own. That album features some great songs, including “The Word is Out” and “Miracle Mile,” but nothing beats “Song for the Dreamers.” A rollicking tribute to losers, hustlers, schemers an dreamers, Wynn and Stuart trade vocals as if they’ve been barnstorming roadhouses for twenty years while the band unleash a frenzy behind them that makes like a Thunderbird convertible flying down the highway.
Posted in Danny and Dusty, Green on Red |
Tags: Americana, Dan Stuart, Danny and Dusty, Dream Syndicate, Green on Red, Paisley Underground, Song for the Dreamers, Steve Wynn, The Long Ryders
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June 24, 2010
James Connolly
Performed by Black 47. Written by Larry Kirwan, lead singer of Black 47.
If you don’t know the song or the person, in a brief listen you’ll learn that James Connolly rose to prominence as a union organizer and socialist leader in Ireland and became one of the key figures in the Easter 1916 Uprising that sparked the Irish Revolution and led to independence from England.
It’s almost quaint to hear a rock song about a historical figure who died nearly 100 years ago. It would be akin to a song about Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin. Yet the Black 47 song is no relic and no sentimental ballad about romanticized times. It’s a powerful anthem performed with great fervor and conviction, a tale of a mission and a man’s very personal plight, a tribute to one of the men who gave rise to an Independent Ireland, yet the whole point of the song is that Connolly’s work and dream didn’t die when killed by that firing squad at Kilmainham Jail. With horns, sax, crashing guitars and fist-pumping vocals, “James Connolly” calls to life the memory of the man and his cause and manages to both inspire and challenge.
Posted in Black 47 |
Tags: Black 47, Celtic Music, Easter 1916 Uprising, Irish Music, James Connolly, Larry Kirwan, Naming My Son, Patrick Pearse
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June 22, 2010
Junkman
Performed by Genya Ravan and Ian Hunter and written by Joe Droukas.
It’s 1979 and singer, producer, all-around tough girl, Genya Ravan goes into the studio to cut her second solo album. By then she had evolved through every genre that would have her, beginning with her girl band roots (Goldie and the Gingerbreads). She led the New York-based rock band Ten Wheel Drive, signed with Columbia, who thought she was the next Janis Joplin, discovered and produced the Dead Boys after a night at CBGBs and sang with everyone from Buddy Guy to Ronnie Spector to Dusty Springfield and jazzman Buzzy Linhart.
She entered the studio with a song penned by Joe Droukas that called for a duet, a rock ballad with some possibilities. Van Morrison was supposed to provide the male voice, but a tour kept him from the recording session. Ravan’s manager reached out to Bruce Springsteen cause he may have been tough enough and had the swagger to match Ravan’s fierceness. While Springsteen dawdled, Mick Ronson, lead guitarist for Mott the Hoople wandered into the studio. He had a natural suggestion: Mott’s front man, Ian Hunter. Is there anyone who does the combination of jaded and vulnerable better than Ian Hunter? He’s the ultimate cad who turns out to have a heart. One listen and you know that Hunter and Ravan made the perfect pairing for this song.
Play “Junkman” now and you’ll wonder how this didn’t become a monster hit; why isn’t it a hit now? After a few listens, you’ll have the song floating round your cranium and you’ll be repeating, “Should’ve listened to the junkman.” Forget those lists of run-of-the-mill power ballads (“November Rain” indeed), cause this here’s the real thing: a song that starts small and intimate and grows to a raging wall of sound and emotion, singers who make us believe and performances the that tear the paint off the walls.
Posted in Genya Ravan, Ian Hunter, Power Ballads |
Tags: Genya Ravan, Ian Hunter, Junkman, Music Review, Power Ballad, Ravan and Hunter duet, Song Analysis
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June 19, 2010
Kaatskill Serenade
As performed by Bob Dylan, written by David Bromberg. This article is written by Sean Dolan.
In the late winter of 1992, Bob Dylan and Neil Young (don’t you just love the image?) together attended a performance by David Bromberg, the exceptional multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and singer, later-to-be luthier and collector of vintage American violins, who had been performing roots music and Americana long before the terms were in common use, at the Bottom Line, the fabled, long-since-shuttered music club (capacity: 400) on West 4th Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Dylan was at a creative impasse at the time; though he’d experienced the various musical epiphanies regarding guitar and singing techniques so vividly described in his memoir Chronicles and was utilizing them to revitalize his stage career (the so-called Neverending Tour was already well in progress), he wasn’t writing, and though he put up a bold front about it, one imagines that this fallow period must still have been some kind of torment, especially for one who’d been able for so long to draw on such a prodigious and seemingly indefatigable gift for writing words and music. (The obvious pride he later took, when he began writing again, in the albums Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft, especially, would seem to support this conjecture.) “The world doesn’t need any more songs,” Dylan said at this period. “They’ve got enough. They’ve got way too many. As a matter of fact, if nobody wrote any songs from this day on, the world ain’t gonna suffer for it. Nobody cares. There’s enough songs for people to listen to if they want to listen to songs . . . unless someone’s gonna come along with a pure heart and have something to say. That’s a different story.”
Posted in Bob Dylan, Bootleg Recording, David Bromberg |
Tags: Americana, Bob Dylan, David Bromberg, Dylan Bootleg, Kaatskill Serenade, Music Review, Rip Van Winkle Song, Sean Dolan, Song Analysis
5 Comments »
June 18, 2010
With Father’s Day upon us, I thought to compile a list of songs about fathers. I wanted good songs about fathers or fathers relating to their children or children relating to fathers. This is not a list of gauzy greeting-card songs. The picks run the gamut from the gentle (“Dad’s Yard”) to funny (“A Boy Named Sue”) to proud (“If That Ain’t Country”) to remorseful (“My Old Man”) to angry (plenty of those). To make the list, the songs had to be about a man, so no songs about God or other men (Neil Young’s “Old Man” is about a ranch hand) or songs with the word in the title that has nothing to do with being a father (“Papa’s Got a Band New Bag” or “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line”).
I start with songs that I recommend and then add a list of other songs about fathers or mentioning fathers that you might find interesting. (Thanks to Pat for helping compile the list). I make no claim that this is a definitive list or a comprehensive list. If you see a title highlighted, you can click on it to hear a performance of the song. I welcome additional songs and your comments. Enjoy and Happy Father’s Day.
Posted in Song Lists |
Tags: Best Songs about Dad, My Old Man, Songs about Dad, Songs about Fathers, Songs for Dad, Songs for Father's Day
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June 17, 2010
Smokestack Lightning
Performed and written by Howlin’ Wolf
Imagine sitting in a small dark club on the Southside of Chicago. Gaze upon Howlin’ Wolf in all his raging glory, six foot six and three hundred pounds, eyes wide as hubcaps and shining bright as headlights, mouth like a junkyard dog, smiling like a man about to have his way. A nasty guitar note rings out. Wolf’s voice rises from somewhere deep within, it scrapes, growls, stretches and punches; it’s full of broken stones and smashed metal, heartache and sinew. The voice comes from someone who’s taken beatings and given them out too; someone who’s known love and been betrayed by love, someone who knows raw sex of Biblical proportions. That voice is not alone. It’s backed by the one of the best blues bands ever, drums and bass working together, Hubert Sumlin’s guitar as rough and ready as Wolf’s voice. The music shakes your foundation, rattles your walls and makes you quiver in fearful joy. Women be careful cause the Wolf’s hard to resist. Men be careful cause there’s always the chance for trouble. “Ah, whoo hoo, ooh…”
Like many great songs, “Smokestack Lightning” contains great mystery. One can ask exactly what the song is about even as the grunts and howls of Wolf convey all you need to know.
Posted in Howlin' Wolf |
Tags: Howlin' Wolf, Music Review, Smokestack Lightning, Song Analysis, The Blues
2 Comments »
June 16, 2010
Birches – A Married Couple’s Love Song
Written and performed by Bill Morrissey
In his song, “Casey, Illinois,” Bill Morrissey sings, “Now I’m not young in a young man’s game,” a sad truth; playing and listening to rock music favors the young. The quintessential rock music still flows from Elvis’s braggadocio and broken heart rhythm and blues and Chuck Berry’s car songs. We grow excited about that new young band (Kings of Leon, anyone) and often forget or shake our heads over the Stones in their 60’s still trying to rock and roll. Many of the best artists have continued to produce as they enter their senior years and their audience ages too.
Yet much of the best music comes from older artist dealing with themes of maturity and much of the audience has aged too. Think of Dylan’s recent work – perhaps more resonant that anything he has ever written. Neil Young still thrashes about trying to make sense of the world as he sees it while Van Morrison still seeks his vision, only not as a young man would. Springsteen’s movie song, “The Wrestler,” grapples with finding victory in accepting one’s fate. Dylan’s song “Red River Shore” – arguably one of his best ever – may make no sense for the 20-year-old college student who lacks the experiences to understand, but it resonates with sadness and recognition to the older listener.
Bill Morrissey’s “Birches,” a love song as moving as any you will hear, stands as an example of a song that the young man or woman may not comprehend, but will rivet the middle age man or woman as it captures the small defeats and victories that infuse a marriage. Those familiar with Morrissey know the intricate craftsmanship that goes into his story-songs: concise, rich and telling details. Others have likened him to minimalist short-story writers like Raymond Carver, though the better comparison seems to be Andre Dubus given the New England settings, the deep empathy for their characters and the underlying spiritual dimensions in their work.
Posted in Bill Morrissey, Folk Music |
Tags: Bill Morrissey, Birches, Folk Music, Music Review, Off White, Singer Songwriter, Song Analysis
2 Comments »
June 15, 2010
Corpus Christi Bay
Performed and written by Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen is a master storyteller whose songs show great range from the hilarious (“Merry Christmas from the Family”) to the anthemic (“The Road Goes on Forever”) to the poignant (“Mariano”). Listen to his music and you can tell he learned his craft listening to the Texas masters like Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. This song tells the tale of two hard-living, hard-partying brothers working the oil rigs of Corpus Christi Bay. The mix of country and Tex-Mex music (including a wispy accordion) keeps the song light and Keen’s singing rolls as easy as a convertible cruising along back road Texas highway. The lyrics seem to match the music recounting the escapades of the fun loving boys, though by song’s end we dwell in the darkness of the one brother’s drinking and loneliness. The lightness of Keen’s touch keeps the song from falling into a maudlin puddle of self-pity.
Posted in Country Music |
Tags: Corpus Christi Bay, Country Music, Music Review, Robert Earl Keen, Song Analysis
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June 14, 2010
Gimme Some Truth
Performed and written by John Lennon.
I took a long drive with my eldest son, Patrick, a few weeks ago and along the way, we found ourselves listening to this song and some other of what I call John Lennon’s primal scream music. The raw, angry sound caught Paddy off-guard cause he knew the Beatles music – even at age 20 with a preference for hip-hop, one can’t avoid the Beatles – but he did not know John Lennon’s solo work.
The song and others – “Working Class Hero,” “God,” “I Found Out” – certainly demand that you pay attention. Paddy laughed when I told him about Richard Nixon putting John Lennon on his Enemies List, serious stuff that seems beyond buffoonish now. Lennon crams so many words into his lines and spits them out with a venom that continues to strike a chord. While arising from a specific time and place, the conviction and sentiments remain strong enough that Vin Scelsa took to playing “Gimme Some Truth” on every show during the “Imperial Presidency” as he called George W.’s term. Folks like Travis, Sam Phillips and Pearl Jam have made more recent covers in their effort to respond to the kaleidoscope of world events.
In a funny way, the song shares some unlikely sentiments with so many Tea Baggers who vent their anger at today’s version of “uptight-short sighted- narrow minded hypocritics” and “neurotic-psychotic-pig headed politicians.” Of course, no self-respecting Tea Bagger would align him or herself with a long, haired freak like John Lennon calling Richard Nixon “tricky dick.”
Released on the Imagine album in 1971, the song had its origins back in 1969 while the Beatles recorded what became their Let it Be album. I first came across the song in the summer of 1973, summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, a time when I was ripe for change and a few musical bolts by John Lennon and Bob Dylan did the trick. Picture those reenactments of Earth’s primordial goo that lightening strikes and brings forth the first forms of life.
Posted in Bob Dylan, John Lennon |
Tags: Bob Dylan, GImme Some Truth, John Lennon, Music Review, Pearl Jam, Song Analysis, Tricky Dick, Vin Scelsa
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June 11, 2010
Life is Large
Performed by The Kennedy’s and written by Pete and Maura Kennedy
Friday morning, sun breaking over the trees, the grass glistening, my boy John Lee chipper about heading off to school and the day seems ripe with possibilities. A perfect time for the hippie anthem “Life is Large” by the Kennedy’s.
How do you want to be remembered?
A raging fire or a dying ember
How can you say no to the jingle-jangle urgings of the Kennedy’s? They’re a husband and wife team – part folk duo, part travelling show – based in the East Village who, as their personal legend tells it, celebrated their first date by visiting Buddy Holly’s grave. This song embodies the spirit of Buddy Holly’s bursts of pop magic. Maura takes the lead vocals with vocal harmonies coming from Pete and friends Peter Hosapple (of the dbs), John Gorka and Susan Cowsill (of the Cowsills), all sounding as if they’ve never had so much fun before in their lives. Imagine a movie musical parade carousing down Main Street and their calling everyone to come along. That’s Pete Kennedy leading the throng with his guitar and Maura high-stepping to her own vocals. Hey, that’s Roger McGuinn(of the Byrds) riding in the float playing his 12-string guitar.
Posted in The Kennedys |
Tags: Life is Large, Maura Kennedy, Pete Kennedy, The Kennedys
1 Comment »
Nightly Song 