Category: Music

Where would we be without them? Languishing in the sphere of the merely possible. On the other hand, "Pretty girls make graves." (Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums)

Roy Orbison, Pretty Woman. Mercy! See how many of the sidemen you can identify. A great song that blends the the tender & romantic with the thrustingly Dionysian.

Bob Dylan, Just Like a Woman. I won't say anything, lest I gush, my romanticism loosened by a delicious blend of tequila and Campari.  The polished Blonde on Blonde version. Van Morrison pays tribute here.

Bob Dylan, Girl from the North Country

Van Morrison, Brown Eyed Girl. This one goes out to Kathy H.

Aretha Franklin, Natural Woman. Written by Carole King. Her version.

Rolling Stone, Honky Tonk Woman

Santana, Black Magic Woman

Eric Clapton, Have You Ever Loved a Woman?

Ray Charles, I Got a Woman, 1954

Peter and Gordon, Woman 

Elvis Presley, Santa Lucia

Andrea Bocelli, Ave Maria (Franz Schubert)

And many more . . . .

I'm a serious man, as serious as cancer some would say. But it's Saturday night, a night on which I allow myself a drink or two and some nostalgic indulgence.  Tonight, the unseriousness of nonsense titles and lyrics.

The Rivingtons, Papa Oom Mow Mow

The Trashmen, The Bird is the Word. It is not about Bird's Opening. A partial rip-off of the Rivingtons. Cultural appropriation?

Shirley Ellis, The Nitty Gritty Is 'nitty gritty' a racist dog whistle?

Shirley Ellis, The Name Game, long version. You didn't know there was a long version? Another reason you need my blog.

The Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron 

Captain Beefheart, Abba Zaba. I'd like to see a transcription of these lyrics. California's Mojave desert can do some strange things to your head.

Manfred Mann, Doo Wah Diddy Diddy

Arthur "Blind" Blake, Diddy Wah Diddy, 1929.  Very nice guitar work. "I wish someone would tell me what 'Diddy Wah Diddy' means."

Little Richard, Tutti Frutti

The Chips, Rubber Biscuit, 1956

Beatles, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

Eric Clapton, Hootchie Kootchie Man. This one goes out to Ed Buckner.  Solo starts at 2:45. Cultural appropriation at its finest.

With half-apologies to overly sensitive feministas. Look, real men love and respect women and they use these words as terms  of endearment. Take a powder!

Sonny and Cher, I Got You Babe, 1965. Don't let them say your hair's too long!

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, It Ain't Me Babe, 1964. Note how Joan mothers the young Bob. Turtles' 1965 cover. Baez solo version.

Bob Dylan, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, 1965. This one goes out to Charaine H.

Beatles, Baby's in Black

Ronettes, Be My Baby, 1963.

Bob Dylan, Baby Let Me Follow You Down, 1962. The surging harmonica near the beginning does it for me every time. 

Traveling Wilburys, She's My Baby, 2007.

Charles Brown, Merry Christmas, Baby

Dion Dimucci with John Hammond, My Baby Loves to Boogie, 2020.

Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby, 1964.

Bob Dylan, I'll Be Your Baby Tonight, 1968.

Them, Baby Please Don't Go.  Muddy Waters, 1953.

Bruce Channel, Hey Baby! Date? Early '60s.

Ronettes, Baby, I Love You. 

Drifters, There Goes My Baby, 1959.

Shirelles, Baby it's You, 1961.

Turtles, You Baby, 1966.

Dino Paul Crocetti, better known as Dean Martin, Melancholy Baby. From Steubenville, Ohio, if memory serves, as it usually does.

Dave Bagwill, my favorite Oregon luthier, recommends:

Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One (Simon and Shuster, 2004), p. 13:
 
He was different from  the rest of the teen idols, had a great guitarist who played like a cross    between a honky-tonk  hero and a barn-dance fiddler. Nelson had never been a bold innovator like the early singers who sang like they were navigating burning ships. He didn't sing desperately, do a lot of damage, and you'd never mistake him for a shaman. 

Nosiree, Bob, no shaman was he. There is more interesting material on Nelson in the vicinity of this excerpt. Dylan discusses Ricky Nelson in connection with his 1961 hit, Travelin' Man. But the great guitar work of James Burton to which Dylan alludes was much more in evidence in Hello Mary Lou. The Dylan Chronicles look like they will hold the interest of this old 60's Dylan fanatic.

Here is a better taste of James Burton and his Fender Telecaster with Elvis Presley.  And here he is with the Big O dueling with Springsteen.  Here he jams with Nelson's sons.  Orbison on Nelson.

It has been over thirty years now since Nelson died in a plane crash while touring. The plane, purchased from Jerry Lee Lewis, went down on New Year's Eve 1985. That travelin' man died with his boots on — as I suspect he would have wanted to. In an interview in 1977 he said that he could not see himself growing old.

Be careful what you wish for.

The Man Who Wasn't There is one of my favorite movies, and the best of Ludwig van Beethoven is as good as classical music gets.  So enjoy the First Movement of the Moonlight Sonata to the masterful cinematography of the Coen Brothers.

Here is the final scene of the movie.  Ed Crane's last words:

I don't know where I'm being taken.  I don't know what I'll find beyond the earth and sky.  But I am not afraid to go.  Maybe the things I don't understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away.  Maybe Doris will be there. And maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here.

That is the way I see death, as an adventure into a dimension, into "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns," in which we might come to understand what we cannot understand here, a movement from night and fog into the clear light of day.  It is a strange idea, I admit, the idea that only by dying can one come into possession of essential knowledge.  But no more strange  than the idea that  death leaves the apparent absurdity of our existence unredeemed, a sentiment expressed in Peggy Lee's 1970 Is That All There is?

Earl Scruggs and Friends, Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Ella Fitzgerald, Misty. Beats the Johnny Mathis version. A standard from the Great American Songbook.

Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze. Not from the Great American Songbook. And presumably not about weather conditions.  'Scuse me while I kiss the sky? Or: 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy?

Cream, Sunshine of Your Love

Tom Waits, Emotional Weather Report

Art Garfunkel and James Taylor, Crying in the Rain. Written by Carole King and popularized by the Everly Bros.

Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Written by Fred Rose and performed by Roy Acuff in the '40s.

Now my hair is turned to silver
All my life I've loved in vain
I can see her star in heaven
Blue eyes cryin' in the rain.

Someday when we meet up yonder
We'll stroll hand in hand again
In a land that knows no parting
Blue eyes crying in the rain.

Allman Bros., Blue Sky

Kansas, Dust in the Wind

Eric Clapton, Let It Rain

Dave van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters, Clouds ("Both Sides Now").  This beautiful version by "The Mayor of MacDougal Street" goes out to Oregon  luthier Dave Bagwill who I know will appreciate it. Judy Collins made a hit of it. And you still doubt that the '60s was the greatest decade for American popular music?  Speaking of the greatest decade, it was when the greatest writer of American popular songs, bar none, Bob Dylan, made his mark. Some generational chauvinism is justified! 

Joan Baez, A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall Could Johnny Mercer write a song like this?

Eva Cassidy, Over the Rainbow. Another old standard from the Great American Songbook.

Tom Waits, On a Foggy Night

Rolling Stones, She's a Rainbow

Dan Fogelberg, Rhythm of the Rain

Cascades, Rhythm of the Rain. The original.

Dee Clark, Raindrops. Manny Mora:

"Raindrops" is a 1961 song by the American R&B singer Dee Clark. Released in April of that same year, this ballad peaked at position 2 on the Hot 100 and at position 3 on the R&B chart.  [. . .]

Clark's biggest hit was also his last. [. . .]

Clark had a brief revival in 1975 when his song "Ride a Wild Horse" became a surprise Top 30 hit in the UK Singles Chart, becoming his first chart hit in the UK since "Just Keep It Up." Afterwards, Clark performed mostly on the oldies circuit. By the late 1980s, he was in dire straits financially, living in a welfare hotel in Toccoa, Georgia. Despite suffering a stroke in 1987 that left him partially paralyzed and with a mild speech impediment, he continued to perform until his death on December 7th 1990, in Smyrna, Georgia, from a heart attack at the age of 52. His last concert was with the Jimmy Gilstrap Band at the Portman Lounge in Anderson, South Carolina.

Dave Bagwill sends us to a clip in which Dave van Ronk talks a bit about the days of the "Great American Folk Scare" and then sings his signature number, "Green, Green, Rocky Road."

B. B. King, Nobody Knows You when You're Down and Out

John Fogerty, When Will I Be Loved?  This cover of the old Everly Bros. tune is now my favorite.

Beach Boys, When I Grow Up (to be a Man)

Bob Dylan, When the Ship Comes In

Clancy Bros., When the Ship Comes In

Laura Nyro, And When I Die

Percy Sledge, When a Man Loves a Woman

Bob Dylan, When I Paint My Masterpiece

The Band, When I Paint My Masterpiece

Bob Dylan, When the Deal Goes Down

Are you 'in' with the 'in crowd'?

Ramsey Lewis Trio, The 'In' Crowd

Dobie Gray, The 'In' Crowd

Glenn Miller, In the Mood

Beach Boys, In My Room

Beatles, In My Life

Suzi Quatro, Stumblin' In 

Bob Dylan, Blowin' in the Wind 

Kansas, Dust in the Wind

Bob Dylan, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

Bob Dylan, In My Time of Dyin'

Bob Dylan, Tangled Up in Blue

Five Satins, In the Still of the Night

Mungo Jerry, In the Summertime. That fabulous and far-off summer of 1970. I was unloading mail trucks at Terminal Annex, Los Angeles. 

Van Morrison, Into the Mystic

Marvelettes, Please Mr. Postman. 

Elvis Presley, Return to Sender

Joan Baez, Rock Salt and Nails. "The letters you wrote me were written in shame/And I know that your conscience still echoes my name."

Son House, Death Letter Blues

Elvis Presley, The U. S. Male

Larry Finnegan, Dear One. If you remember this one, I'll buy you a beer.

Hank Williams, Dear John. "That's all she wrote. I sent your saddle home."

Ricky Nelson, That's All She Wrote

Joe Cocker, The Letter

 

Bob Dylan,  Take a Message to Mary. I prefer it to the Everly Bros. effort. 

Boxtops, The Letter

R. B. Greaves, Take a Letter, Maria

Beatles, Paperback Writer

Dinah Washington, I Could Write a Book

Donovan, Epistle to Dippy

10,000 Maniacs, Hey Jack Kerouac

Simon and Garfunkel, I am a Rock. "I have my books and my poetry to protect me." 1960's teenage alienation at its finest.

Ketty Lester, Love Letters

Paul McCartney, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter. Original by Fats Waller.

How could I fail to include . . .

Monotones, The Book of Love.  I never did find out who wrote it.

A mixed bag for your enjoyment, but mainly mine.  I post what I like and I like what I post. And I post what I've posted before. Links go bad, and even when they don't I never get tired of the old tunes I like. It's Saturday night, friends, pour yourself a stiff one and relax a little the bonds that tether us to the straight and narrow.  I am drinking the fermented juice of the agave cactus mixed with a little orange juice and ginger ale. What's your libation? Forget for a time the swine who have taken over our great country, and enjoy the moment.

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.

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 Brown's is a 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.

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

The 'sixties forever! We were young, raw, open, impressionable, experience-hungry; we lived intensely and sometimes foolishly.  We felt deeply, and suffered deeply. Youth has its truth. And our popular music put to shame the crap that came before and after. Or so we thought. Would I want to live though the 'sixties again? Hell no, I am having too good a time enjoying it memorially at a safe distance.  Youth has its truth, but if you can make it into old age with health and intellect intact, and a modicum of the lean green, you are winning the game. 

Django Reinhardt, September Song

George Shearing, September in the Rain

Walter Huston, September Song 

Van Morrison, September Night

Brothers Four, Try to Remember. I do remember when I was "a tender and callow fellow." 

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.’  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.