Category: Music

Saturday Night at the Oldies: An Alternative Dylan Top Ten

As promised last week. 

Baby Let Me Follow You Down, 1962. From Bob's first album. Lord almighty it is good to hear this again. Dylan played better guitar and harmonic in the early days.  The surging, full-throated harp beats the sometimes-annoying tweets and toots of his later harmonic playing.  Dylan opens by telling us that he learned this song from Rick [Eric] von Schmidt when he met him one day in "the green pastures of Harvard University." Was he thinking of Woody Guthrie's Pastures of Plenty, 1944? Dylan's effort  apparently derives from von Schmidt's Baby Let Me Lay it on You. 

Here is a real gem of a find: Bob Dylan Jamming with Eric von Schmidt, May, 1964.  Eric von Schmidt, Envy the Thief. Back to the Dylan top ten.

Blowin' in the Wind. From the Freewheelin' album, Bob's second. His best civil rights anthem. Topical but allusive.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. Also from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.  Said to have been written during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. I remember it like it was yesterday.  Joan Baez's transcendently beautiful cover. Forgive me if I gush a bit. I'm enjoying a Saturday night cocktail: Tequila + Aperol. Straight up.

Positively Fourth Street. The ultimate put-down song.

With God on Our Side. From the third album.

Spanish Harlem Incident. Fourth album, We'll make do with the Byrds' cover. Not that it isn't good.

Its All Over Now, Baby Blue. Fifth album, probably my favorite.  This one goes out to Charaine H., and our bittersweet relationship.

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you
The vagabond who's rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, baby blue.

It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding. Going to a Dylan concert in those days was like going to church. Absolute silence except for the man on stage standing alone singing his own songs and accompanying himself on guitar and harp. We hung on every word.

It Take a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry. From Dylan's 6th album, Highway 61 Revisited.

I Want You. Blonde on Blonde, Dylan's 7th.

All Along the Watchtower, John Wesley Harding.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: My Bob Dylan Top Ten

Hector C. asked me to name my top ten favorite Dylan songs. With pleasure.

Don't Think Twice.  I first heard this in the Peter, Paul, and Mary version circa 1962 or '63. Deeply moved by it, I bought the 45 rpm single and noted that the song was written by one B. Dylan. I pronounced the name to myself as 'Dial in' and had a sense that this songwriter was about to speak to me and my life.  And here he is still speaking to my 'lived experience' 60 years later.

She Belongs to Me

Chimes of Freedom.  With Joan Osborne, NOT Joan Baez!  Byrds' version.  No Dylan, no folk rock.

My Back Pages

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Farewell Angelina. Joanie's version. No Baez, no Dylan. She took the scruffy kid under her wing and introduced him to her well-established audience.  

Visions of Johanna

Just Like a Woman.  Better than the Blonde on Blonde version.  

Tambourine Man

Few songs capture the 'magic' of the '60s like this one. But you had to have been there, of a certain impressionable age, with the right disposition, with an open mind, and an open heart, idealistic, a seeker, and at least a little alienated from the larger society and the quiet desperation and dead usages of parents and relatives . . . .

YouTuber comment:  "This Bob Dylan song brings me to tears and I don't know why. I'm 76 years old and remember when it was new. It still is." Comment on the comment:  "This is a nostalgic feeling for the passing of the time. A saudade of a time whose dreams seem  real. I know about it. I'm 71."

Not Dark Yet. YouTuber comment: "All my life, Dylan has been able to touch my soul. This is undoubtedly one of his best."

An alternative Dylan top ten next week.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: More Musical Duos and Some Duets

Richard and Mimi Farina, Pack Up Your Sorrows

Mimi and Richard Farina, Reno, Nevada

Ian and Sylvia, Early Morning Rain

Ian and Sylvia, You Were on My Mind

Joan Baez and Mimi Farina, Catch the Wind

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Blowin' in the Wind

Dick and Dee Dee, The Mountain High, 1961

Dick and Dee Dee, Tell Me, 1962. Where were you in '62?

Santo and Johnny, Sleep Walk. Every garage band from here to Cucamonga did a version of this tune.

Joe and Eddie, There's a Meeting Here Tonight. I'll bet you don't remember this one, Dave Bagwill.

Les Paul and Mary Ford, Vaya con Dios, 1953

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Musical Duos

Saturday night, time to punch the clock and pour yourself a stiff one. Me, I'm drinking a  Jack and Coke. How about you?

Mickey and Sylvia, Love is Strange, 1956

Nino Tempo and April, Deep Purple, 1963. The lyrics are pure sweet kitsch. But what's wrong with a little kitsch and sentimentality? Up yours, Theodor Adorno.

Everly Brothers, When Will I be Loved?

Righteous Brothers, Little Latin Lupe Lu

Simon and Garfunkel, I am a Rock.  I have my books and my poetry to protect me!

Ike and Tina Turner, It's Gonna Work Out Fine, 1961. I went to see the preacher man.

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

Jan and Dean, Dead Man's Curve, 1963. Walk not back from Dead Man's Curve.

Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, 1949. This one goes out to Hillary Clinton.

Peter and Gordon, I Go to Pieces

Peter and Gordon, Summer Song

Chad and Jeremy, Yesterday's Gone

Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo, Last Tango

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some California Tunes from a Happier Time

Sir Douglas Quartet, Mendocino, 1969. This one goes out to Mendocino Joe.

Eric Burdon and the Animals, Monterey. This one goes out to Monterey Tom. 

Eagles, Hotel California.  Some of finest guitar-slinging of the '70s.

Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lodi

GG Kettel, San Francisco Bay Blues. Ferrara, Italy, 2007

Scott Mackenzie, San Francisco

Johnny Bond, Hot Rod Lincoln. San Pedro, Grapevine Hill. 

Doors, L. A. Woman

Beach Boys, California Girls

Mamas and Papas, California Dreamin'

Dave Bagwill comments (4 July):

Bill, listening to that Beach Boys tune tonight brought back a vivid memory.
 
Back when I lived in the Bay Area, and the Oakland A's were winning lots of ball games – Catfish Hunter, Sal Bando, Reggie Jackson (who made a throw from deep right field, at the fence, on a line to third base -on the base, in fact – catching a runner who had tagged at second base), Rick Monday et. al. – I attended a Saturday afternoon double-header with a friend from the bank.
 
It was a perfect day for baseball, and the stands were sold out; it felt great, until the first music pumped out of that stupendous sound system – and then it felt even better. 'California Girls' started playing, and just the first two or three beats was enough to electrify the crowd into a spontaneous rising and a thunderous roar of happiness.
 
It was just great to be an American, and that song was a huge part of the 'gestalt' = weather, a ball game, hot dogs, friendship, the flag, a sense of security and fellowship. And Sal Bando hit two home runs in the first game.

Bob Dylan at 80: A Sober Assessment

Graham Cunningham:

It pains me a little to say it, given my own past devotion, but some cold perspective is needed here. Bob Dylan was—from 1962 to the early 1980s—an extraordinary singer-songwriter and, in terms of quantity of great material, simply without equal. For the last 40 years, though, he has mostly been trading on the reputation he built in those years. There are exceptions to this judgment, yes, but not many: the 1983 Infidels album, a few tracks on the 1997 Time Out of Mind, and “Things Have Changed” from the soundtrack of the 2000 film Wonder Boys, for example.

Did Dylan deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature that he won in 2016? I’m not sure; he’s probably not sure, either. He was consistently good for about 20 years, an amazingly long time for a rock star. And he can take credit for spawning a whole musical genre. Many other songwriters in the same musical territory, such as Paul Simon or Bruce Springsteen, have, at their best, been as good or almost as good—but not nearly so often, or for so long.

The truth is, Bob Dylan, now 80, will never get “back on form.” Aging rock stars don’t do that; no one does. One of the most quoted lyrics of “Murder Most Foul” informs us that “It’s 36 hours past Judgment Day.” Dylan has been unquestionably the most influential songwriter of his era; no one can take that away from him. But as a long-time fan, I can’t help but wish that he had hung up his songwriting boots decades ago. His musical stature could then have remained closer to that of artists who die young, unsullied by the inevitable failures that must come to all careers—even one as extraordinary as his.

Holy Saturday Night at the Oldies

Herewith, six 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 uses them to say something.

George Harrison, 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.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Torch Songs

"A torch song is a sentimental love song, typically one in which the singer laments an unrequited or lost love, where one party is either oblivious to the existence of the other, or where one party has moved on." (Wikipedia)

Sarah Vaughn, Broken Hearted Melody.   YouTuber comment: "Late 1959. I was in 4th grade, listening to KFWB Los Angeles."  Same here. Same year, same grade, same station, KFWB, Channel 98! Color Radio! My favorite deejay was B. Mitchel Reed.  I learned 'semolian' and 'mishigas' from him. His real surname is 'Goldberg,' which means mountain of gold. I will say no more lest I provoke my alt-Right correspondents.  

Timi Yuro, Hurt. When I first heard this I was sure she was black. I was wrong. She's Italian, and her real name is Rosemarie Timotea Auro. What pipes!

Billie Holliday, The Very Thought of You

Roy Orbison, In Dreams

Peggy Lee, Oh You Crazy Moon 

Ketty Lester, Love Letters 

Etta James, At Last  

Lenny Welch, Since I Fell for You

Sentimental you say? What would life be without sentiment? You say it's overdone? You suffer from an excess of cool. It's Saturday night, punch the clock, pour yourself a stiff one, and feel. Tonight we feel, tomorrow we think.  About sentimentality and everything else under the sun.

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.

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.

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.

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.