Category: Music

Saturday Night at the Oldies: September Songs

But first the absolute best version of Dylan’s From a Buick Six just to get your blood up. But now that Gary U. S. Bond is in the house, here is Twist, Twist, Senora with a trio of 1940s dancing girls. New Orleans, live, with Jeff Beck.

…………………..

September ends.  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

George Shearing, September in the Rain

Walter Huston, September Song 

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.’ Great alto voice, never made it in the US as far as I know. 

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.

UPDATE 

Jim Soriano recommends Try to Remember — which I had forgotten.

Mark Anderson introduces me to Big Star, September Gurls. Nice clangy, jangling guitar work reminiscent of the Byrds and some Beatle cuts.  Wikipedia article.  Which Beatle cuts?

Well, Rain is one, And Your Bird Can Sing is another.  Wow! I forgot how good these songs are.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Perils of Pleasure Along the Lost Highway

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis:

The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a FLANEUR, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.

Compare the words Plato puts in the mouth of Socrates in the Phaedo:

. . . every pleasure and pain has a kind of nail, and nails and pins her [the soul] to the body, and gives her a bodily nature, making her think that whatever the body says is true. (tr. F. J. Church St. 83)

Oscar Wilde

From Oscar Wilde to Plato to Hank Williams here channeled hauntingly through Kurt Nilsen and Willie Nelson:

I’m a rollin’ stone all alone and lost
For a life of sin I have paid the cost
When I pass by all the people say
Just another guy on the lost highway

Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine
And a woman’s lies make a life like mine
On the day we met, I went astray
I started rollin’ down that lost highway

I was just a lad, nearly 22
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you
And now I’m lost, too late to pray
Lord I paid the cost, on the lost highway

Now boys don’t start your ramblin’ ’round
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.

Tom Petty version.

The Byrds, Life in Prison

Warren Zevon, Carmelita

Nina Simone, House of the Rising Sun

Doc Watson, Tom Dooley.  The Kingston Trio’s ‘collegiate folk’  version from 1958.

Merle Haggard, The Fugitive

Marty Robbins, Devil Woman

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Solitary, Alone, Lonely, Lonesome

Neil Diamond, Solitary Man.  His first song, his best song. The only one of his I really like. Johnny Cash does it better.  There is nothing better than the sound of an acoustic guitar, well-made, well-played, steel-stringed, with fresh strings. This one goes out to Dave Bagwill, Oregon luthier. 

Calexico, Alone Again Or. 

Original (1967) by Love, an underrated '60s psychedelic band.

Roy Orbison, Only the Lonely

Roy's last recorded tune: You Got It.

Bob Dylan, I am a Lonesome Hobo

Stay free from petty jealousy
Live by no man's code
Save your judgment for yourself
Lest you wind up on this road.

Bob Dylan, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.  Young Bob from his topical days. Whatever happened to William Zantzinger?  Well, he died at 69 in 2009.  NYT obituary here.

A couple of bonus cuts for a NYC friend:

Lovin' Spoonful, Summer in the City. Great song, great video.

Barrett Strong, Money (1959)  There won't be much left there after madman Mandami, the Islamo-Commie, become mayor. New Yorkers have shown themselves stupid enough to vote for the worthless and incompetent. The smart money is already heading south.  Florida has a great governor in Ron DeSantis, unlike the incompetent leftards 'governing' California and New York, Newsom and Hochul.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Seven from the ‘Seventies

I'm a 'sixties guy but I can relate to some of the 'seventies stuff. When the 'seventies rolled around I began tuning out popular music and began giving myself an education in classical music, the original 'long-haired' music.  Classical, however, with its dynamic variations, is no good for the road, leastways not in the Jeeps I drive. So, it's popular music for purposes of  the road and Saturday night nostalgia.

Bellamy Brothers, Let Your Love Flow

Jackson Browne, Running on Empty

Eagles, Hotel California

Abba, Fernando

Gerry Rafferty, Baker Street

Warren Zevon, Carmelita

YouTuber interpretation:

After listening to this song for a while, I think that Carmelita is the heroin itself. Warren talks about being with "her in Ensenada" but he's alone in Echo Park playing "solitaire". Shooting heroin makes him feel like he's on the beach in Mexico with a woman that he loves. The song itself is a great representation of what addiction does. He knows that it's not good for him but he has given up on trying to get better and just looks towards "Carmelita" to hold him tighter.

Billy Joel, Piano Man

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Performers Who Ditched Their Italian Surnames

But before getting on to the greaseball crooners, a bit of R & R history.  The 5th of July, 2025, is the 71st anniversary of the recording of Elvis Presley's That's Alright, Mama, his first commercial record.  It was written and first recorded by Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup in 1946.  Some say that Presley's recording is the first rock and roll record.  Others give the palm to the 1951 Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats.  The associated video features footage (and 'leggage') of Bettie Page, that innocent  and unwitting sex kitten of the '50s. She got religion big time later on, as did Dion DiMucci, but that's another and another Saturday Night at the Oldies . . . .

…………..

Before Bobby Darin became Bobby Darin he rejoiced under the name, Walden Robert Cassotto.  Dream Lover.  18 Yellow Roses. You're the Reason I'm Living.

Bobby Rydell started out Robert Ridarelli.  Forget him.  Volare, 1960. "Letsa fly . . . ." Wild One. We Got Love,

No, his name wasn't Dino Martino, it was Dino Paul Crocetti.  Schmaltzy as it is, That's Amore captures the Nagelian what-it's-like of being in love.  Houston.

Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, better known as Connie Francis. My Darling Clementine. Never on Sunday.    My favorite version is by Melina Mercouri. Now check out the great Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek. Connie Francis died two days ago at 87.

Timoteo Aurro = Timi Yuro.  When I first heard her back in the day, I thought she was black.  What a voice!  What's the Matter, Baby?  Her signature number: Hurt, 1962.

Laura traded in 'Nigro' for 'Nyro.'  Wedding Bell Blues.   And When I Die.  These go out to Monterey Tom, big L.N. fan.  Nyro died young in 1997 of ovarian cancer, 49 years of age.

A Marital Memory from the ‘Nineties

I had dropped her off at Sky Harbor on a Thursday.  She was headed to a conference. I said, "You'll miss Seinfeld." She said, "I'll miss you!" (Seinfeld episodes, the original series, were aired on Thursday nights.) As our 42nd anniversary approaches, I recall the incident with deep love and gratitude.  She has probably forgotten it.

This miner for a heart of gold struck paydirt. The strike was lucky, the pursuit wise. In this life, there's no discounting luck.  For the unlucky.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Brian Wilson and Phil Spector

Luis Sanchez:

The drift of influence between Brian Wilson and Phil Spector was fraught with one-sided expectation and imbalance of respect. It played out to mortifying effect when Brian offered one of his own songs, “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister,” for the wall of sound treatment, pitching it as an arrangement for Darlene Love in the summer of 1964. Spector took the gesture as an opportunity to embarrass his eager admirer. At first he humored Brian by taking the time to record an instrumental backing track for the song, even coolly inviting him to participate in a recording session for it. Brian was somewhat taken aback by Spector’s acknowledgment, but he agreed to play piano for a number of takes, nervously, expectantly, before Spector cut him off abruptly and sent him on his way, thanks very much. Later, he told Brian that his piano playing just maybe wasn’t up to snuff and he had no plans to ever finish the record, so don’t ask. An official American Federation of Musicians paycheck was drawn and sent to Brian for the exact time he put into the session. If such a slight even fazed Brian, he didn’t acknowledge it publicly, and “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” eventually wound up on The Beach Boys’ "Today!" album, sung from the perspective of a protective older brother.

The force of Spector’s studio craft can be heard in the way it subsumes the materials of its process. For all of its magnificent impact, the music he envisioned, committed to tape and put out into the world, is possessed of self-aggrandizement, where a density of sound is dominated by the force of personality. A record like the 1963’s “Be My Baby” is practically impenetrable. The double boom, boom-boom, thwack! drum pattern that bursts the song open sounds like thick slabs of concrete stacking together, setting up a chamber with an opening just big enough for The Ronettes to sing from. Veronica Bennett pleads with such conviction and it seems like it has enough power to devastate Spector’s wall. But the architecture the song erects is too constrictive. As hard as Bennett’s wail pushes, it always echoes back on to itself; and when the music was no longer enough to keep it contained, Spector eventually made the song a grim fact, turning his marriage to Bennett into her real-life prison well into the 1970s.

Of all of Spector’s work, “Be My Baby” etched itself the deepest into Brian’s mind. In its own way, this recording is a gaping enigma in the story of Brian’s journey as an artist. Throughout the years, it comes up again and again in interviews and biographies, variably calling up themes of deep admiration, a source of consolation, and a baleful haunting of the spirit. Author David Dalton tells a particularly evocative story about spending time at Brian and then-wife Marilyn’s Bel Air home in the late ’60s aftermath of "Smile." While the couple is away, he discovers a box of tapes inside their bedroom one day. “I assumed they were studio demos or reference tracks and threw one on the tape machine. It was the strangest thing,” he wrote. “All the tapes were of Brian talking into a tape recorder. Hour after hour of stoned ramblings on the meaning of life, color vibrations, fate, death, vegetarianism and Phil Spector.” Dalton sketches Brian’s preoccupation with “Be My Baby” in terms of a spiritual seeker assiduously attempting to penetrate the mysteries of an occulted object. Brian kept copies of the song available everywhere inside his home, in his car, at the studio, for constant immersive listening. The final result of the story and the variations of it that accumulate from an array of biographies and documentaries is an image of wretchedness: Brian locked in the bedroom of his Bel Air house in the early ’70s, alone, curtains drawn shut, catatonic, listening to “Be My Baby” over and over at aggressive volumes, for hours, as the rest of The Beach Boys record something in the home studio downstairs.

The woeful irony here is that years before Brian retreated impetuously to the safety of a real or manufactured catatonia, he not only mastered the keyed-up instrument combinations and high-stakes Wagnerian sensation of Spector’s sensibility, but he also worked out a way to breach its ferocity. While putting together material for The Beach Boys’ spring 1964 album, the stupidly titled "Shut Down Vol. 2," Brian wrote “Don’t Worry Baby,” a song that he hoped would convince Spector after “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” failed to. For Brian, the allure and power of creative proprietorship never compelled him the way it compelled Spector; the satisfaction of having one of Spector’s girl groups be the voice of one his songs was in itself more than enough of a reason to pursue collaboration. Fortunately or not, Spector never expressed an interest and Brian recorded “Don’t Worry Baby” with The Beach Boys and released it as the B-side on the single for “I Get Around.” Despite the title’s obvious reference to “By My Baby,” the overall effect of The Beach Boys record is radically different from anything Spector could have achieved with it.

The lyrics of the Beach Boy songs were puerile and 'puellile' but the melodies, harmonies, and production job were outstanding.  Brian's "Wave of Sound" (a Mavphil coinage!) stacks up well against Phil's "Wall of Sound." 

Compare Then I Kissed Her with Then He Kissed Me.

Saturday Night at the Obituaries: 2025 So Far

Contributors to the great Boomer soundtrack are dying on all  sides. Here are just some from 2025 so far.

Brian Wilson, June 11th.  Sloop John B.

Sly Stone, June 9th. Everyday People

Rick Derringer, May 26th.  Memphis

Nino Tempo, April 12th. Deep Purple

Lenny Welch, April 8th. Since I Fell for You

Johnny Tillotson, April 1st. Poetry in Motion

Jesse Colin Young, March 16th. Get Together 

Roberta Flack, February 24th. Killing Me Softly with his Song

Marianne Faithfull, January 30th. As Tears Go By

Gary Grier, January 26th, Do You Love Me?

Barry Goldberg, January 22nd. Killing Floor

Garth Hudson, January 21st. Chest Fever

Peter Yarrow, January 7th. Blowin' in the Wind

Schiller contra Schmitt

Freude, Schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuer-trunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Joy! A spark of fire from heaven,
Daughter from Elysium,
Drunk with fire we dare to enter,
Holy One, inside your shrine.
Your magic power binds together,
What we by custom wrench apart,
All men will emerge as brothers,
Where you rest your gentle wings.

Full text of Schiller's Ode to Joy, in German and English, here. 
Relevant portion of the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Bob Dylan Turns 84

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 scrawny Jewish kid from Hibbing Minnesota, son of an appliance salesman, was an unlikely bard, but bard he became. He'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.

Our boy's been covered, and covered some more. Here are some outstanding specimens:

Johnny Rivers, Positively Fourth Street.

Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite. It was obvious that we were from the same side of town, had been read the same citations, came from the same musical family and were cut from the same cloth. When I listened to Johnny’s version of “Positively 4th Street,” I liked his version better than mine. I listened to it over and over again. Most of the cover versions of my songs seemed to take them out into left field somewhere, but Rivers’s version had the mandate down — the attitude and melodic sense to complete and surpass even the feeling that I had put into it. It shouldn’t have surprised me, though. He had done the same thing with “Maybellene” and “Memphis,” two Chuck Berry songs. When I heard Johnny sing my song, it was obvious that life had the same external grip on him as it did on me. Bob Dylan, Chronicles

Mary Travers interviews Bob Dylan. Not a cover but interesting to the true Dylan aficionado.

Joan Baez, Hard Rain

Gary U.S. Bonds, From a Buick Six

Peter, Paul, and Mary, Too Much of Nothing

Arlo Guthrie, Percy's Song

Byrds, Chimes of Freedom

Jimi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower

Stephen Stills, Ballad of Hollis Brown

McGuinn, Harrison, Clapton, Petty et al., My Back Pages 

Marianne Faithful, Visions of Johanna

But nothing touches the original. This is the bard at his incandescent best. Mid-'60s. Blonde on Blonde album.

Finally, Bro Inky from my boyhood sends us to Powerline where Scott Johnson offers some excellent Dylan commentary. If you say it is better than mine, I won't argue with you.

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.

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

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Cowboys of the Open Road

Advanced AI and robotics may push us humans to the margin, and render many of us obsolete. I am alluding to the great Twilight Zone episode, The Obsolete Man. What happens to truckers when trucks drive themselves?  For many of these guys and gals, driving trucks is not a mere job but a way of life. 

It is hard to imagine these cowboys of the open road  sitting in cubicles and writing code. The vices to which they are prone, no longer held in check by hard work and long days, may prove their destruction. The topic is huge and beyond my paygrade. In any case it's Saturday night,  I'm drinking a Jack and Coke, and dreaming of the open road.

Sunday morning addendum: we need to think about the infantilization brought about by our technology.  Laura Trump interviewed Elon Musk last night on her show.  He will be scaling back his work on DOGE to get back to his various projects, including work on self-driving cars. One upside, though, is that the elderly will be able to retain their independence when they are no longer able to drive safely. Musk made  a comment to the effect that it won't be long before seeing a person driving a car will be as unusual as seeing someone traveling via horse and buggy.

Eddy Rabbit, Drivin' My Life Away

Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road

Buck Owens, Truck Drivin' Man

Red Sovine, Phantom 309. Tom Waits' cover. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Truck Drivin' Man

Cody Jinks, Lost Highway

Tony Justice, One Mile at a Time 

Seatrain, I'm Willin'

I've been warped by the rain
Driven by the snow
I'm drunk and dirty, and don't you know
That I'm still, yes I'm still willin'

I ride the highway, late at night
I see my pretty Alice, in every headlight, Alice, Dallas Alice

[Chorus] I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah
I've driven every kind of truck that's ever been made
I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me weed, whites, and wine
 Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin'

. . .

And I've been from Tucson to Mexicali, Tehachapi to Tonopah
I've driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
I've even rode the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed
If you give me weed, whites, and wine
Show me a sign, and I'll be willin' to keep on movin' 

Holy Saturday Night at the Oldies

First off, six definite de-couplings 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. 

Billy Preston, My Sweet Lord

George Harrison, Hear Me Lord

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

Bonus cuts

Stanley Bros., Rank Strangers

Bob Dylan, Gospel Plow

Bob Dylan, See that My Grave is Kept Clean

Bob Dylan, Father of Night

Iris Dement, Will the Circle be Unbroken?

Andrea Bocelli and Alison Krauss, Amazing Grace

Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet

…………………………

JSO sends us to Will You Remember Me? by the Pine Box Boys. The dessicated soul of the secularist is incapable of understanding religion.  He thinks he will eradicate it. But religion, like philosophy, always buries its undertakers.

Finally, The Presidential Message on Holy Week, 2025. Quite a change from that 'good Catholic' Joe Biden's Transgender Visibility Day of last Easter.  And if memory serves, Hillary spouted some equally offensive nonsense the year before that, but what she spouted I have forgotten.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Gambler He Broke Even

Kenny Rogers died in 2020 at the age of 81.  

A few days after he died, 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.