Doubleshot Tuesday: Unhalfbricking/Protection

[Today: Siren songs from previously uncharted musical territories...]

Fairport Convention lead singer Sandy Denny is best known in America for her duet with Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin’s ‘Battle Of Evermore’. A shame, because her own group was a groundbreaking outfit that stirred together a hypnotic mixture of jazz, folk, cajun, rock, traditional english and irish music, and Bob Dylan tunes. Fairport reflected an astounding number of musical touch-points, but sounded nothing like their influences. Guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson was the creative spark behind the music, but the magic in their songs is down to Denny’s lilting voice – the very sound of sirens seducing sailors. Unhalfbricking is beautiful music with a razor sharp edge, so devoid of cliches and gimmicks that nearly 40 years after the album’s release, it refuses to age or gather dust.

In the early-90′s Massive Attack perfected an intoxicating blend of hip-hop, dub reggae, electronica, funk and soul. Adding to the group’s eclectic and somewhat mysterious persona was the fact that they featured an ever-rotating cast of singers. Some (Tricky, Horace Andy) were semi-regular, while others (Tracey Thorn, Shara Nelson, and Nicolette) made only the occasional cameo. On the group’s second album, 1994′s Protection, Thorn (on temporary loan from Everything But The Girl) put forth a pair of simmering, shimmering vocal exhibitions. On both the title track and ‘Better Things’ her voice is full of warmth, but she wields it like a dagger – a beautiful woman in a defensive posture with an angry glint in her eye. Her songs set the tone for an album filled with conflicting moods – hot and cold, intimate and remote, soothing and unsettling – that often live together within a single turn of phrase.

Listen: Autopsy [Fairport Convention]

Listen: A Sailor’s Life [Fairport Convention]

Listen: Protection [Massive Attack]

Listen: Better Things [Massive Attack]

Weekend Playlist

The Rolling Stones | Hot Rocks 1964-1971

ZZ Top | Deguello

Mandrill | Composite Truth

Miles Davis | Bitches Brew

Mark Lanegan Band | Bubblegum

Fred Neil | Other Side Of This Life

Willie Colon | El Juicio

Santana | Abraxas

Beck | Mutations

Johnny Winter | Johnny Winter

Moby Grape | 20 Granite Creek

Tom Waits | Nighthawks At The Diner

Howlin’ Wolf | Moanin’ In The Moonlight

Fleetwood Mac | Then Play On

Small Faces | The First Step

The Black Keys | Chulahoma

Various Artists | World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love’s A Real Thing

Lee Morgan | Lee Morgan

Buried Treasure: More A Legend Than A Band

[Today: A group that barely was, and an album that almost wasn't...]

Rarely has an album title so succinctly summed up the fortunes of the group that made it. The tracks that make up More A Legend Than A Band were cut in 1972, and assembled and prepared for LP release. But when lead single ‘Dallas’ tanked, those plans were scrapped. The album was only hastily released on 8-track, and remained in that format alone until 1990, when Rhino finally gave these songs the proper release they had always deserved. In spite of the discouraging misfire, this was the starting point for three members of the band who went on to noteworthy solo careers – Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.

Gilmore has the kind of voice that went out of style during the Great Depression, and sounds like it should be coming out of the horn of an ancient victrola or a dusty honky-tonk jukebox. His vocal stylings are informed by Jimmie Rodgers‘ famous yodel, and perfectly backed by old-time instrumentation – particularly Steve Wesson’s warped musical saw. “Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye” sings Gilmore, while the band does the old-timey thing to perfection. The album is studded with that kind of hard-earned, irrefutable West Texas philosophy. There’s nothing to do but nod along and sip your drink.

The Flatlanders played very traditional country music at a point in time – the early-70′s – when Nashville was eagerly watering down Country with the latest musical trends in a misguided courtship of mainstream radio. The group’s refusal to make a standard, paint-by-numbers Nashville album was their undoing, but it also helped establish the legend mentioned in the album title. Decades before alt-country (a genre that would take many cues from this album) and O’ Brother Where Art Thou, The Flatlanders realized that one sure way for country music to move forward was for it to look way back.

Listen: Dallas

Listen: One Road More

Masterpiece: American Recordings

[Today: Ron Lim and Johnny Cash rearrange my outlook on music...]

I’m here to testify – American Recordings changed my life. That’s a bold proclamation, and it’s not one I make lightly. There are a handful of albums that have changed my life as profoundly as this one – Electric Ladyland, Abbey Road, Raising Hell, Kind Of Blue – but it’s a pretty exclusive club that doesn’t figure to grow much larger.

Johnny Cash was my grandfather’s favorite musician – consequently my mom couldn’t stand his music, and it was never played around the house while I was growing up. Which means that The Man In Black was a blank slate for me when Ron Lim leaned across the aisle at work and offered a listen to his copy of American Recordings. I’d read some favorable reviews, and was intrigued by the fact that Cash had chosen to work with hip-hop/metal producer Rick Rubin. It was fall of 1994, I’d just moved to San Francisco 6 months before, and my head was fairly spinning with the wonders of the city. I was open to new experiences, and what previously would have been sunk by association with “country music” was suddenly worth a shot.

The stark simplicity of Rubin’s production – just Cash, a guitar, and a mic – was brilliant, and it miraculously restored Cash to his rightful place as one of the most powerful singers in music. American Recordings contains a variety of material. Cash re-imagines two songs he’d recorded in the 60′s, including a haunting ‘Delia’s Gone’ that blows the doors off his original. It had a few well-chosen covers, including Nick Lowe’s ‘The Beast In Me’ and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bird On A Wire’. And he nailed a couple of songs written specifically for him – Glenn Danzig’s ‘Thirteen’ and Tom Waits’ ‘Down There By The Train’. Cash was alternately a killer, a cowboy, a drunk, a preacher, a wife-beater, a comedian. Throughout the album he used his granite voice to make each song his own – a spellbinding performance that earned him a new generation of fans.

But as good as American Recordings is – and it’s very good – it’s important for me because it vaporized the musical barriers that had previously guided my listening habits. Genres suddenly seemed much less important, and from there it was a short hop to Fela Kuti, The Peddlers, Bach, The Anthology Of American Folk Music, Nuggets, Hank Williams, John Fahey, The Stooges, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I might not have considered if American Recordings hadn’t rocked my mind.

Thank you Mr. Cash.

*****

Listen: Delia’s Gone

Listen: Drive On

A Dozen Great Johnny Cash Songs

Johnny Cash was more than just a legendary musician – he was an American icon. The pioneering spirit of determination and strength is etched into the lines of his music, with extra helpings of drunkenness and murder thrown in for good measure.

The Man In Black was a man of contradictions. He was a hell-raising pill-popper who sang gospel music and loved his mother and daddy. He was a ne’er do well troublemaker who married into the first family of country music. He was a ruthless beast with a heart of gold. He brought a rock and roll mentality to the staunch confines of Nashville, and in the process created some of the best music on record.

Here are a dozen songs that helped define the legend…

The song: Big River (from the album The Sun Years)

What makes it great: Cash’s larger-than-life presence comes shining through on this classic track. Partly Paul-Bunyanesque braggadocio and partly a stiff upper lip in the face of heartbreak, it’s a defining song on the defining collection of JC’s music.

Key lyrics: “Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry/And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky/And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River”

Listen: Big River

The song: Don’t Take Your Guns To Town (from the album The Fabulous Johnny Cash)

What makes it great: A surprisingly cautionary tale about the mortal price of reckless gun play. Cash empathetically sings from the point of view of a worried mother – this from one of the most hell-raising figures in the history of popular music.

Key lyrics: “Don’t take your guns to town son/Leave your guns at home Bill”

Listen: Don’t Take Your Guns To Town

The song: Five Feet High And Rising (from the album Songs Of Our Soil)

What makes it great: Cash’s music always reflected the concerns and travails of common folk. Even as the flood waters roll in, he sings with a spark in his voice that signifies the indomitable American spirit.

Key lyrics: “How high’s the water, mama?/Five feet high and risin’”

Listen: Five Feet High And Rising

The song: Ring Of Fire (from the album Ring Of Fire: The Best Of Johnny Cash)

What makes it great: Well, those killer mariachi horns, for one thing. Here Cash sings of falling in love as if he were plummeting to certain death – qualifying him as “wise” in my book.

Key lyrics: “Love is a burning thing/And it makes a fiery ring/Bound by wild desire/I fell in to a ring of fire”

Listen: Ring Of Fire

The song: The Ballad Of Ira Hayes (from the album Bitter Tears)

What makes it great: Cash made a string of pseudo-concept albums in the mid-60′s. The best of those is 1964′s Bitter Tears, which found him recounting the struggles of the Native American. Here he tells the tale of Ira Hayes, a veteran who drowned in two inches of water.

Key lyrics: “He died drunk one mornin’/Alone in the land he fought to save/Two inches of water in a lonely ditch/Was a grave for Ira Hayes”

Listen: The Ballad Of Ira Hayes

The song: I Walk The Line (from the album I Walk The Line)

What makes it great: Quite simply the most bad-ass declaration of marital fidelity in the history of cheating husbands.

Key lyrics: “Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you/Because you’re mine, I walk the line”

Listen: I Walk The Line

The song: Orange Blossom Special (from the album Orange Blossom Special)

What makes it great: One of the best of Cash’s railroad/train songs, this little ditty sees JC singing ‘Woo’ and ‘Woo-Hoo’ more times than the rest of his career put together. It also contains a classic spoken word segment regarding Nutrition Vs. New York.

Key lyrics: “Hey, look a-yonder comin’/Comin’ down that railroad track/It’s the Orange Blossom Special/Bringin’ my baby back”

Listen: Orange Blossom Special

The song: Folsom Prison Blues (from the album At Folsom Prison)

What makes it great: Having done a little time in the pokey himself, Cash electrified this captive audience with a string of songs about jail and redemption. His line in ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ about shooting a man in Reno, just to watch him die is one of the most cold-blooded lyrics ever penned – gangsta rappers are still trying to top it.

Key lyrics: “When I was just a baby, my mama told me, ‘Son/Always be a good boy; don’t ever play with guns.’/But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”

Listen: Folsom Prison Blues

The song: Starkville City Jail (from the album At San Quentin)

What makes it great: One of the best examples of Cash’s great sense of humor, this based-on-a-true-story tune sees him getting arrested by Starkville, Mississippi’s finest for wandering around and smelling the flowers at 2am.

Key lyrics: “At 8 a.m. they let me out. I said: ‘Gimme them things of mine!’/They gave me a sneer and a guitar pick, and a yellow dandelion.”

Listen: Starkville City Jail

The song: Thirteen (from the album American Recordings)

What makes it great: It’s songs like this that cemented Cash’s reputation as The Man In Black. This Glenn Danzig-penned tune is beyond evil, and sees JC turn in the most bone-chilling performance in a long career full of them.

Key lyrics: “Got a long line of heartache I carry it well/The list of lives I’ve broken reach from here to hell”

Listen: Thirteen

The song: Rusty Cage (from the album Unchained)

What makes it great: Like much of the material that Rick Rubin selected for Cash to cover on his American albums, this Soundgarden tune feels like it was written by – or for – The Man In Black. At any rate, he takes this grunge classic and makes it his own.

Key lyrics: “When the dogs are looking for their bones/And it’s raining icepicks on your steel shore/I’m gonna break my rusty cage and run”

Listen: Rusty Cage

The song: The Cremation Of Sam McGee (from the album Personal File)

What makes it great: The source tapes for this album were quite literally found in Johnny Cash’s personal files after his death. Recorded at home by himself, these are some of the most intimate and revealing tracks in his catalogue. His spoken word reading of Hank Snow’s ‘The Cremation Of Sam McGee’ is delivered like a spooky campfire ghost story.

Key lyrics: “There are strange things done in the midnight sun/By the men who toil for gold/The Arctic trails have their secret tales/That would make your blood run cold”

Listen: The Cremation Of Sam McGee

Doubleshot Tuesday: Cold Fact/There’s No Place Like America Today

[Today: Down in the streets with Rodriguez and Curtis Mayfield...]

Hard times have been hitting Wall St. over the last couple of weeks, and that means tough times probably aren’t far from Main St. either. While this isn’t the second coming of the Great Depression, as some would have you believe, the mean streets of the 1970′s – when crime hit historic rates in most major US cities, the price of oil rose to record levels, and mean-spirited incompetence ruled the White House – have never seemed closer. Two albums that capture the grim reality of those times, and our times: Cold Fact by Rodriguez and There’s No Place Like America Today by Curtis Mayfield.

With phrases as sharp as switchblades, Rodriguez sings like an angry, latino version of Bob Dylan. “The inner city birthed me/The local pusher nursed me/Cousins make it in the street/Marry every trick they meet” he sings on ‘Hate Street Dialogue’, just one of his songs that cryptically chronicle the burned out Detroit of the early 70′s. Released in 1972, Cold Fact surveys a city where garbage lines the streets, drugged out zombies roam freely, and a meaningless war drags on in the distant background, while politicians line their pockets with loot. The Detroit Symphony added some musical textures to this album, which is equal parts bleak and beautiful.

Meanwhile, Curtis Mayfield sees the hand of Jesus and the power of love throughout the ghetto. Or perhaps he believes that the almighty is the only hope of salvation for a group of people forgotten by their government – hard to say. Album opener ‘Billy Jack’ sets the tone by eulogizing the senseless death of a petty criminal. “Can’t be no fun to be shot/Shot by a handgun” sings Mayfield, like a man who faces that option all too regularly. He was an eternal optimist with a lovely voice, but neither of those qualities really cover up the despair at the heart of these songs. There’s No Place Like America Today has been out of print for many years, but its spirited appeal for social justice makes this an album whose time has once again arrived.

Listen: Billy Jack [Curtis Mayfield]

Listen: Establishment Blues [Rodriguez]

Weekend Playlist

The P and I were treated to some delightful mariachi music that came drifting across the way on Saturday evening. It was a perfect complement to a beautiful night at home. Here is some other music that scored our weekend activities…

Them | Them Featuring Van Morrison Lead Singer

Gandalf | Gandalf

The Staple Singers | Be Altitude: Respect Yourself

INXS | Shabooh Shoobah

The Long Ryders | Native Sons

The Sir Douglas Quintet | The Best Of

Willie Nelson | Stardust

Hot Tuna | Burgers

John Mayall | Blues From Laurel Canyon

Professor Longhair | Crawfish Fiesta

Lee Oskar | Lee Oskar

John Fahey | Requia

Kruder & Dorfmeister | G-Stoned

Wolf Parade | Apologies To The Queen Mary

The Kinks | Muswell Hillbillies

Little Feat | Waiting For Columbus

Eric Clapton | 461 Ocean Boulevard

Ray Charles | A 25th Anniversary In Show Business Salute To Ray Charles: His All-Time Greatest Performances

Buried Treasure: Dub Side Of The Moon

[Today: A classic album, refracted through a reggae prism...]

Call it harmonic convergence of the psychedelic/stoned variety, but the Easy Star All-Stars song-for-song reggae cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon has no business being as good as it is. According to producer Len Oppenheimer, the idea for the album was dreamed up during a stroll through mid-town Manhattan. Oppenheimer brought the concept to life with the reggae collective known as the Easy Star All-Stars, and called in a number of special guests both known (Frankie Paul, The Meditations, and Corey Harris) and unknown (Sluggy Ranks, Dr. Isreal, and in an inspired take on ‘Great Gig In The Sky’, Kirsty Rock).

Dark Side Of The Moon is an album of great technical achievement and minute sonic detail, and Dub Side is a worthy tribute in both respects. Jamaican airport ambience is deftly used in ‘On The Run’ while ‘Time’ features cuckoo clocks and ‘Breathe’ uses the sounds of a rastaman pulling a bong hit and coughing. Throughout the album, different styles of Jamaican music are used to great, yet subtle effect. Oppenheimer’s album liner notes explain that “since guitar solos are less than predominant in traditional reggae, David Gilmour’s leads were replaced by horns (‘Any Colour You Like’), melodica (‘Time Version’), and toasting (‘Time’ and ‘Money’).” In nearly every case, the translation is seamless, making this tribute seem as natural as a lunar eclipse.

The cd version of Dub Side Of The Moon includes four bonus cuts – extended dub versions that are less faithful to the original album tracks, but illustrate how solid the fundamental idea of marrying Floyd and reggae really is. Not to be outdone, the LP release of this album comes in sweet, rasta-themed colored vinyl. And finally, yes, this album is so tight that it too syncs up with Wizard Of Oz – instructions can be found in the cd liner notes.

Listen: Time [featuring Corey Harris and Ranking Joe]

Listen II: On The Run

Masterpiece: Dark Side Of The Moon

[Today: Remembering the first day of my last year of college...]

I pried my eyes open at the crack of noon, thunder and lightning blasting through my skull as the beers from the night before threatened to split my head like an overripe melon. It was the beginning of fall term of my fifth and final year (91/92) at the University of Oregon, and my roommates and I had settled – out of necessity – in a dilapidated dump roughly a quarter mile off the southern edge of campus. Kindly Dr. Rankin, the slum lord of Eugene, was more than happy to rent his four-bedroom armpit to us for the not-so-princely sum of $400 a month – cash only please.

It was the blight of a neighborhood otherwise lined by pleasant middle-class homes with nicely manicured lawns. Our house (the NUT HOUSE, as it had been christened by the previous occupants, who had strategically placed large metal letters on its angled roof) was almost psychedelically lopsided and askew. Walking from one room to the next was like staggering drunkenly through a carnival fun house – nothing was on any kind of square. The place was distressed enough that my roommate Jonesy‘s mom burst into tears when she first saw it, and his stepfather entered into an awkward, one-sided negotiation with him on the front porch, trying to determine how much money it would take to get us to relocate.

But that scene was still to come. In the meantime, I was busy dragging around the 50lb ball & chain of my hangover when I remembered that this was the morning that Timmy T was due to move in – unofficially kicking off fall term. My bedroom was in the very back of the house, and as I approached the living room, I was pleasantly surprised to hear “THE LUNATIC IS ON THE GRASS” vibrating the walls and rattling the windows throughout the front half of the house. Tim was shirtless (not a pretty sight) and heaving around moving boxes full of his stuff while the Floyd achieved Lear-Jet-level decibels. One high-five and two bong hits later, my final year of college was well and truly under way…

Listen: Brain Damage

On The Fence: John Denver’s Greatest Hits

John Denver had three of the 100 best-selling albums of the 1970′s. To put that in context, it’s the same number achieved by The Rolling Stones, and one more than a singer/songwriter by the name of Bob Dylan. John Denver! I’m not sure if this reflects poorly on the taste-makers of that decade, or if it means that Denver is wildly underappreciated and forgotten in an era of irony. Let’s find out…

THUMBS UP: John Denver is such a benign musical character that working up an active dislike for him is sort of like despising the Muppets or someone’s kindly grandparents. Two songs on this collection stand out, and cannot be denied as musical bellweathers of the 1970′s – ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ and ‘Rocky Mountain High’. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, those songs – and much of the rest of this album – represent the authentic sound of their times. It might sound like macrame, bell bottoms, and peaceful easy feelings, but John Denver’s Greatest Hits would be one of the most appropriate albums you could pull out of a time capsule from the 1970′s.

THUMBS DOWN: My wife is visibly annoyed with me for having the audacity to drop John Denver’s Greatest Hits on the turntable. In between grunts, snorts, and rolling of the eyes, she has asked me if I’m feeling ok and if I’m depressed. Next she’ll probably be taking my temperature and calling the doctor. I can hardly blame her. Like anything else, good cheer and sunshine can be administered in lethal doses, and John Denver takes happiness to an extremely uncomfortable level. I can appreciate the spirit behind his music, and one or two songs at a time is OK, but an album side? Well, that’s enough to get you banished to the sofa for the night…

[How does John Denver rate with you? Good times or bad flashback? Enquiring minds want to know...]