For a Race-Baiter, It’s Always Selma Again

One protestant asks another, "Why is Rome called the Eternal City?'  "Because there is always Rome!"

For a race-hustler like Jesse Jackson, It Is Always Selma Again.

It's a bit of a paradox:  leftist race-baiters fly under the euphemistic flag of 'progressive,' while hopelessly stuck in the past.  The civil wrongs were righted, but they want to turn back the clock.  A pox on their racist house.

Brother Jesse and Co. are stuck inside of Selma with the Oxford blues again.

In case you missed the allusion, it is to Bob Dylan's 1966 Blonde on Blonde track, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: J. J. Cale and Some Songs from the Summer of ’63

J. J. Cale has died at the age of 74.  Better known to musicians than to the general public, Cale was the writer behind such songs as Eric Clapton's After Midnight and Lynyrd Synyrd's Call Me the Breeze.  Here he is on Mama Don't.

The summer of 1963 — 50 years ago! — featured  an amazing number of great tunes in several different genres.  Here is a sample from the Billboard Top 100.

Country Crossover

Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road

Bobby Bare, Detroit City.  I don't reckon Bobby be a pinin' for DEE-troit these days.  Can't get no PO- lice protection.

Lonnie Mack, Memphis.  Mighty fine guitar slingin.' 

Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire

George Hamilton IV, Abilene

Surf Music

Jan and Dean, Surf City

Hot Rods

Beach Boys, Shutdown

Folk/Protest/Social Commentary

Peter, Paul, and Mary, Blowin' in the Wind

Trini Lopez, If I Had a Hammer

New Christy Minstrels, Green, Green

Romantic/Torch

Brenda Lee, Losing You

Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger

Ruby and the Romantics, Our Day Will Come

Bobby Vinton, Blue on Blue

Black Girl Groups

Orlons, Not Me

Shirelles, Foolish Little Girl

Chiffons, One Fine Day

Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron

Solo Black Artists

Doris Troy, Just One Look

Inez Foxx, Mockingbird

Sam Cooke, Another Saturday Night

White Boy Groups

Randy and the Rainbows, Denise

Dovells, You Can't Sit Down

Four Seasons, Candy Girl 

Solo White Artists

Bobby Darin, 18 Yellow Roses

Wayne Newton, Danke Schoen

Elvis Presley, Devil in Disguise

 

Those were just some of the songs from that summer of '63, the summer before the JFK assassination.  It was a hopeful time, race relations were on the mend.  But then everything fell apart and here we are 50 years later in the midst of serious national decline with a incompetent race-baiting leftist occupying the White House.  

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Gene Pitney

Gene Pitney was born 17 February 1940 and died 5 April 2006. Biography here.

Pitney was something of a melodramatic crooner in such hits as Town Without Pity, but he also penned upbeat chartbusters like Hello Mary Lou for Rick Nelson when he was called Ricky and He's a Rebel for the Crystals. The latter, featuring Phil Spector's wall-of-sound production job, has that  oddly stirring quality common to many of Spector's productions.

Bobby Vee's Rubber Ball is a Pitney composition. 

I Wanna Love My Life Away

Only Love Can Break a Heart, 1962.  One of the great torch  songs of the 1960s.

24 Hours From Tulsa, 1963

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Crying.  But the Big O does it best with a little help from K D Lang. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Suicides

Del Shannon (Charles Weedon Westover), December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990, known prmarily for his Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit, Runaway, 1961.  "Suffering from depression, Shannon committed suicide on February 8, 1990, with a .22-caliber rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California, while on a prescription dose of the anti-depressant drug Prozac. Following his death, The Traveling Wilburys honored him by recording a version of "Runaway"." (Wikipedia)

Dalida, O Sole Mio.  I think I'm in love.  "Dalida (17 January 1933 – 3 May 1987), birth name Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was a singer and actress who performed and recorded in more than 10 languages including: French, Arabic, Italian, Greek, German, English, Japanese, Hebrew, Dutch and Spanish." [. . .]On Saturday, 2 May 1987, Dalida committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates.[7][8] She left behind a note which read, "La vie m'est insupportable… Pardonnez-moi." ("Life has become unbearable for me… Forgive me.")" (Wikipedia) 

The Singing Nun, Dominique, 1963.   "Jeanine Deckers (17 October 1933 – 29 March 1985) was a Belgian singer-songwriter and initially a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium (as Sister Luc Gabrielle). She acquired world fame in 1963 as Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile) when she scored a hit with the her French-language song "Dominique". She is sometimes credited as "The Singing Nun". [. . .]

Citing their financial difficulties in a note, she and her companion of ten years[8][9][10], Annie Pécher, both committed suicide by an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol on 29 March 1985.[11][12]
In their suicide note, Decker and Pécher stated they had not given up their faith and wished to be buried together after a church funeral.[7] They were buried together in Cheremont Cemetery in Wavre, Walloon Brabant, the town where they died.[13] The inscription on their tombstone reads "I saw her soul fly across the clouds", a line from Deckers' song "Sister Smile is dead". (Wikipedia)

Phil Ochs, Small Circle of FriendsThere but for Fortune.   "Philip David Ochs (/ˈks/; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and released eight albums in his lifetime." [. . .] "On April 9, 1976, Ochs hanged himself.[110]" (Wikipedia)

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Captain Beefheart and Buck Owens

Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, died of complications of multiple sclerosis at age 69 in December, 2010.  Obituary  here.  Apparently, hanging out in the Mojave desert can do strange things to your head.  Here is a taste of desert strangeness from the 1969 Trout Mask Replica album.  Far out, man.  Here is something rather more accessible from the 1967 debut Safe as Milk album.  And I think I remember hearing  Abba Zabba from that same album back in the day.  (Which reminds of the saying, 'If you remember the '60s, you weren't there.')

From Lancaster-Palmdale to Bakersfield and the 'Bakersfield sound' of Buck Owens and his Buckaroos.   I once had a girlfriend, half Italian, half Irish.  Volatile combo, not recommended.  I had me a Tiger by the Tail.  My wife's half Italian, but the phlegmaticity of her Polish half mitigates, moderates, and modulates her latent Italianate volcanicity, which remains blessedly latent, if it exists at all.

Truck Drivin' Man.  Act Naturally.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Rock and Roll Apologetics

A curious sub-genre of meta-rock devoted to the defense of the devil's music.

The Showmen, It Will Stand, 1961 

Bob Seger, Old-Time Rock and Roll

Rolling Stones, It's Only Rock and Roll (but I Like It)

Electric Light Orchestra, Roll Over, Beethoven.  Amazingly good.  Roll over, Chuck Berry!

Danny and the Juniors, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

Chuck Berry and Friends, Rock and Roll Music

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) Breaks on Through to the Other Side

He peered over the keyboard  bespectacled and thoughtful, playing the  professor to Jim Morrison's wild man, an Apollo of musical order to anchor the drunken Dionysian front man.  Morrison joined the 27 Club in the summer of 1971, expiring of his excesses in a Parisian bath tub, while Manzarek lived on another 40 some years to die on May 20th at age 74.  He seems to have negotiated those calm anticlimactic years well.

Here is a beautiful 'Crystal Ship" solo from 2012. The original 1967 Crystal Ship

Moonlight Drive

Soul Kitchen

Break on Through

NPR Interview with Manzarek

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Dylan on Rick Nelson and James Burton

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 E. P.  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 twenty five 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.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Outstanding Dylan Covers

Steven Stills, The Ballad of Hollis Brown

Jimi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower

Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather

Byrds, Chimes of Freedom

Lucinda Williams, Positively Fourth Street

Joan Baez, Daddy You've Been on My Mind

Judy Collins, Mr. Tambourine Man

Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Peter, Paul and Mary, Don't Think Twice It's Alright

The Band, When I Paint My Masterpiece

Alanis Morissette, Subterranean Homesick Blues/(3:09) Blowin' in the Wind

Peter, Paul and Mary, Too Much of Nothing

The Band, I Shall Be Released

Bloomfield, Kooper, Stills, It Takes a Lot to Laugh. it Take a Train to Cry.  But nothing touches Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited version. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Country to Rock Crossovers

I have been listening this last week to George Jones.  I was pretty much unaware of his work until his dying brought it to my attention.  I linked to a couple of his tunes last week.  Here are a couple more.  A Girl I Used to Know.  Am I That Easy to Forget?  Here is an essay on Jones by Jim Goad. 

In the interests of full disclosure: I am not now, and never have been, a southerner or a redneck.  Worse than the redneck, however, is the librul who mocks him.  Trying mocking him to his face.

As far as I know, Jones never had a crossover hit, but they were the way I learned about country music back in the day.  Here are some of my favorite crossover numbers first heard via KRLA, KHJ, and KFWB, Los Angeles.  My Favorite DJ?  B. Mitchel Reed! (one 'l.')

Jim Reeves, He'll Have to Go, 1959.  Ry Cooder's Tex-Mex version, 1977,  is oddly fetching.

Floyd Cramer, Last Date, 1960

Don Gibson, Sea of a Heartbreak, 1961

Bobby Edwards, You're the Reason, 1961

Patsy Cline, She's Got You, 1962.  A very funny parody.  That such a heart-felt tune invites and receives parody is an illustration of the collision of Nagel's two standpoints.

Bobby Bare, Detroit City, 1963

Roger Miller, Dang Me, 1964

Roger Miller, King of the Road, 1965

Buck Owens, Tiger by the Tail, 1966