Doubleshot Tuesday: Stardust/Standards

[Today: Willie and Ray sing the standards...]

It was a crazy idea at the time. Willie Nelson dipping into the Great American Songbook in 1978 was roughly akin to Wu Tang Clan deciding to do an album of show tunes today. But Willie had a ton of leverage with Columbia Records, because his 1975 album Red Headed Stranger – which the label had vigorously opposed and only grudgingly released – had sold gangbusters, and made him a star of the first order. And he used that leverage wisely, pushing through an LP of songs by the likes of Irving Berlin and George Gershwin that sold even more copies that RHS. His distinctive sandpaper croon is put to surpassingly good use here, and songs like ‘Georgia On My Mind’ ‘Moonlight In Vermont’ and ‘Blue Skies’ sound like they were written specifically for him. Stardust is ample evidence of Willie Nelson’s deft touch with even the most delicate tune.

Ray Charles is a titanic figure in music, and his trademark smile should be carved into any musical Mount Rushmore. After his death in 2004, a campaign was mounted to put his face on the ten dollar bill (my ‘signature’ can be found on the online petition) and The New Yorker featured a cover that visualized such currency [see below]. Charles was one of a handful of 20th century singers who could take any song and make it his own through the sheer force of his voice. Thus, Standards is a no-brainer – big songs sung with feeling by an important voice. This Rhino compilation assembles tracks he recorded for a variety of labels between 1959 and 1977, and serves as a towering reminder of the genius of Ray Charles and the power of the standard.

Sadly, the idea of the ‘standard’ song just doesn’t fit with the internet age and feels like a quaint relic from another time. The vast distribution networks that serve increasingly specialized musical tastes ensure that no one song can dominate public consciousness in a way that guarantees it will be immediately recognizable to an entire room full of people. With so much music flooding the open market, it becomes exceedingly difficult to point to any particular songs from the last decade and say with any confidence that they will be sung and enjoyed a hundred years from now. In other words, goodnight Casey Kasem…

Listen: Georgia On My Mind [Willie Nelson]

Listen: It Had To Be You [Ray Charles]

Listen: Moonlight In Vermont [Willie Nelson]

Listen: Moonlight In Vermont [Ray Charles]

Magic Moment: Stevie Wonder In The Studio

This clip finds the great Stevie Wonder in the studio in 1973, working on his #1 hit ‘Superstition’. This in-studio version is notable for its slightly different backbeat and unpolished sound. Watch and see the grooves of a hit single spring to life…

Weekend Playlist

The P and I observed Earth Hour with cocktails on the deck Saturday evening, and took a day trip to the Russian River on Sunday, but we still found time to drop the needle on a few albums. Here are some highlights from the weekend that was…

Brazilian Girls | Brazilian Girls

David Byrne | Rei Momo

John Martyn | Foundations

Van Morrison | Veedon Fleece

Van Morrison | Into The Music

Lil’ Wayne | Tha Carter III

Various Artists | Gilles Peterson In Africa

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings | Naturally

Aretha Franklin | Lady Soul

The Temptations | Greatest Hits II

Raphael Saadiq | The Way I See It

Horace Andy | In The Light

M. Ward | Hold Time

Hank Mobley | The Turnaround

Louis Armstrong | The Louis Armstrong Story, Vol 4: Favorites
[cover not pictured]

Miles Davis | Seven Steps To Heaven

The Byrds | The Notorious Byrd Brothers

Johann Sebastian Bach | The Brandenburg Concertos

Dan Auerbach | Keep It Hid

Don Cavalli | Cryland

Balkan Beat Box | Balkan Beat Box

Little Barrie | We Are Little Barrie

Statuesque Accordion

Most towns have statues of war heroes on horseback – but not Cotati, CA. The statue that stands in the southeast corner of Cotati Plaza honors local accordionist extraordinaire Jim Boggio, who passed away in 1996. Boggio has been described as “one of the happiest and nicest men you could ever hope to meet” and his memory is honored each year at the Cotati Accordion Festival. His statue is a smiling, happy departure from the typical small town memorial.

*****

Here are two accordion-related tunes – one featuring the instrument, and another about it…

Listen: Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam [Nirvana]

Listen: Squeeze Box [The Who]

Buried Treasure: The Keyboard King At Studio One

[Today: Jackie Mittoo writes the songs that make Rasta sing...]

A keyboard prodigy who learned to play at age four, Jackie Mittoo was playing professionally by age 14, a founding member of The Skatelites at age 16, and the musical arranger and producer for Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd‘s legendary Studio One by the time he turned 18 – a position he held from 1965 until 1968. In addition to supervising sessions, Mittoo also played behind a number of reggae heavyweights, including Bob Marley & The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, and The Heptones.

But the music that Mittoo recorded for Studio One under his own name is outstanding in its own right. His mostly-instrumental albums live on the fringe of reggae, in the neighborhood of the funk of Booker T & The MGs or the jazz organ of Jimmy Smith. Mittoo’s music arrived just in time for reggae’s dancehall and toasting revolutions, and many of his songs from the 1960′s were versioned into hits of the 1970′s (such as Frankie Paul’s ‘Pass The Tusheng Peng’ and The Wailers’ ‘Duppy Conqueror’). But due to the arcane Jamaican copyright laws of the day, he didn’t receive a dime for the many thousands of records that his rhythms helped sell.

And what a wealth of rhythms to choose from. The Keyboard King At Studio One compiles Mittoo’s best material from his time with the label, and even though many of these tracks pre-date more conventional reggae, funky workouts like ‘Oboe’ and ‘Get Up And Get It’ are relentlessly catchy and utterly timeless. His cover of Seals & Crofts’ ‘Summer Breeze’ shows that he could recycle as well as be recycled, and ‘Killer Diller’ and ‘Hot Tamale’ set moods as cool as their titles promise. None of this music is structurally complex, but it is sure to please any diehard reggae or funk fan.

Jackie Mittoo succumbed to cancer at age 42 in 1990. For those in the know, his music lives on…

Listen: Oboe

Listen: Get Up And Get It

Listen: Summer Breeze

Masterpiece: Exodus

[Today: Bob Marley and the burning bush...]

Bob Marley is the single most important artist to emerge from the impoverished, but musically rich, island of Jamaica. This charismatic rastaman became reggae’s first international superstar, and almost single-handedly made its riddims a worldwide commodity. While previous Marley albums had chipped away at an international audience, Exodus represented a breakthrough on many fronts – it spent 56 weeks on the UK charts, and the title track found heavy rotation on black radio stations in the US – opening up lucrative new markets for reggae.

The songs here were recorded while Marley was in exile in London, having fled Kingston after a would-be assassin put a bullet in his chest. In December of 1976, gunmen stormed his home and opened fire, wounding Marley, his wife Rita, and manager Don Taylor. Marley was shaken by the attack, and his subsequent music is marked by pensive calm and a simmering, biblical fury. But like many of his previous albums, Exodus is deeply spiritual, fiercely political, and genuinely romantic. Album opener ‘Natural Mystic’ sets the tone with a shuffling rhythm and haunting lyrics about the spirits blowing around in the breeze. ‘So Much Things To Say’ offers encouragement to stand strong in the face of detractors. ‘Jamming’, ‘Waiting In Vain’, ‘Three Little Birds’, ‘One Love/People Get Ready’, and the title track became instant staples of Marley’s live act, and together formed a significant chunk of the posthumous 1984 best-of Legend.

Exodus is not coincidentally the name of the second book of the Old Testament. In it, Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt (“movement of Jah people”) and away from the grip of Pharaoh. The book sees Moses bring forth the ten commandments and speak to the lord through the Burning Bush. Marley’s fans are likely more familiar with a burning bush of another, stinkier variety, but even they understand the sentiment of Exodus 3:5, “…put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” Such uplifting spiritual empowerment is writ into every line of Bob Marley’s music.

Listen: Exodus

Listen: Natural Mystic

Listen: Radio Advertisement for Exodus

Doubleshot Tuesday: Gaucho/The Electric Spanking Of War Babies

[Today: Scraping the bottom of two barrels...]

Legendary few are the musicians who don’t have at least one clunker of an album stinking up their catalogue. Some of these albums (such as Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait and the Rolling Stones’ Dirty Work) deserve their jeers, but others have been unnecessarily saddled with a bad reputation that forever stains some good music. Two cases in point are Steely Dan’s 1980 release Gaucho, and Funkadelic’s 1981 effort The Electric Spanking Of War Babies. Neither will be mistaken for the given artists’ best albums, but both have high points that are well worth hearing, and both were the final output for the original incarnation of these groups – Steely Dan would hang up their irony for 15 years after Gaucho, and George Clinton went solo after Electric Spanking.

Negative reviews of Gaucho (and there are plenty to choose from) tend to focus on a couple of sub-par songs, and completely miss the album’s subject matter. The title track is a weak song – perhaps the worst in the Dan’s oeuvre – but the rest of the album is a delightful slice of late-70′s Los Angeles glamour. The Record Hound calls it “stiff and tired” (and gave it one bone out of five), while Allmusic.com claims that it’s over-rehearsed and lacks emotional resonance (in a four-star review, no less). But this is an album about the seedy, burnt out end of the L.A. coke scene, which is exactly why it sounds alternately shiny and tired. ‘Babylon Sisters’ might be the best song Donald Fagen and Walter Becker ever cobbled together, with the band laying down a cool, almost-calypso rhythm, while Fagen ponders the passing thrill of sex and sultry back-up singers bring the heat. ‘Glamour Profession’ follows the exploits of Hoops McCann, a professional coke dealer and recreational ball player. The song tries too hard, and doesn’t really get anywhere, which makes it – and the rest of Gaucho – the perfect ode to the dark side of illegal fun under the sun.

Electric Spanking… starts slow and finishes strong, and even if it misses a hint of Funkadelic’s usual drive and grit (roughly half the songs use a drum machine), it’s still a weird, fun, funky record. But it has become something of a piñata for reviewers, who have bemoaned the lack of hit singles (correctly) and substantial jams (incorrectly), while alternately praising and panning Sly Stone’s cameo on ‘Funk Gets Stronger’. ‘Icka Prick’ is a nasty for-the-hell-of-it jam that will please any smirking P-Funk fan. ‘Shockwaves’ is faux reggae that appropriates the Jamaican downbeat and “hey mon” patois, and ‘Oh, I’ is an overlooked party starter. George Clinton originally intended this as a double album, but when Warner Bros balked and forced him to cut it to a single LP, he began to prepare for a solo career. And when Warners rejected the group’s 1984 album By Way Of The Drum, Funkadelic was officially history.

Listen: Babylon Sisters [Steely Dan]

Listen: Hey Nineteen [Steely Dan]

[The Electric Spanking Of War Babies is currently unavailable on compact disc or MP3...]

*****

Further reading:
Hidden In Plain Sight: 20 Albums That Don’t Get Their Due
Hidden In Plain Sight Too: 10 More Albums That Don’t Get Their Due

Magic Moment: Dylan Destroys Donovan

Donovan Leitch was one of many 1960′s singer/songwriters to be tagged as “the next Dylan”. One of the most famous scenes from the film Don’t Look Back – which follows Dylan’s 1965 tour of the UK – finds Donovan and Dylan in a hotel room with a number of music industry characters. Donovan plays a slight, vaguely Dylanesque ballad that draws applause from those assembled, before Dylan takes the guitar and proceeds to let loose a withering ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ that sucks the air out of the room and reminds everyone what true genius sounds like…

Masterpiece: Cheech & Chong’s Greatest Hit

[Today: I've got a Basketball Jones...]

March Madness is here, and I’m like a kid at Christmas. I’ve managed to take off the first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for 14 of the last 15 years, and I don’t plan on missing it anytime soon. Over the last half dozen years, this event has grown into a two day party full of good friends, too much food, and the requisite beer and good cheer. And at the center of it all is college basketball played at its highest level, featuring one buzzer-beating Cinderella after another. For my money, these are the best two sports days of the entire year, bar none.

I’ve been a hoops fan my entire life. My mom told me a few years back that the sound of a basketball bouncing on concrete reminded her of me, because I spent so many summer nights dribbling home from neighborhood pickup games. I learned to love the game around the courts and practices of my youth, but I learned to really play it on the playgrounds of San Francisco during my 20′s. Now I’m confined to Saturday morning half-court games in the park, but I still enjoy setting a solid screen, boxing out for a rebound, and playing tough D. I also take pleasure in the kind of behind-the-back, no-look junk that would have driven my high school coach (Mr. Fryback) and grade school coach (Joe Evans) frothing-from-the-mouth mad.

Cheech & Chong are best known for their pot-smoke laced movies of the 1970′s (my personal favorite: Up In Smoke), but 98% of my love for them stems from their song ‘Basketball Jones’. If my entire youth were boiled down to a single tune, this would be it. Please play repeatedly at my funeral, and sing along with feeling:

Yes, I am the victim of a Basketball Jones
Ever since I was a little baby, I always be dribblin’
In fac’, I was de baddest dribbler in the whole neighborhood
Then one day, my mama bought me a basketball
And I loved that basketball
I took that basketball with me everywhere I went
That basketball was like a basketball to me

I even put that basketball underneath my pillow
Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep at night
I need help, ladies and gentlemens
I need someone to stand beside me
I need, I need someone to set a pick for me at the free-throw line of life
Someone I can pass to
Someone to hit the open man on the give-and-go
And not end up in the popcorn machine
So cheerleaders, help me out

Basketball Jones, I got a Basketball Jones
Got a Basketball Jones, oh baby, oo-oo-oo

Listen: Basketball Jones

Buried Treasure: I’m Not Selling Out/I’m Buying In!

[Today: Swamp Dogg outsizzles a cookbook...]

The inveterate crate digger in me gives thanks for the tribulations of artists like Jerry Williams. Under the nom de funk Swamp Dogg, Williams dropped some of the most rollicking, zany funk/soul/rock this side of George Clinton’s ParlaFunkaThang, but hardly anyone has heard of him. Between 1970 and 1981, Dogg released 8 albums of horny, political, muscular music that defied every prevailing trend and left him with no audience to speak of. This run concluded with I’m Not Selling Out/I’m Buying In! – a more rocking affair that found him polishing his sound, meeting the mainstream halfway, and hoping for a breakthrough.

The front of the album features Dogg in top hat and tails, working a room full of bored record executives. The flip side shows one of those executives – now wearing a giant styrofoam cowboy hat – presenting Dogg with a check while his smiling colleagues look on. The seemingly LSD-fueled liner notes sum up Dogg’s state of mind at the time and his reasons for heading in this musical direction: “I love Rock ‘N’ Roll, I disapprove of 90% of the national politics and repudiate the other 10, still think the establishment sucks, and I needed a deal worse than a dead man needs a coffin…”

In spite of a fine batch of songs, I’m Not Selling Out… met the same fate as Dogg’s previous seven releases – which is to say it sold poorly and still can’t be found on CD or MP3. On the 20 second album opener ‘Swamping Salutations’ Dogg promises to rock & roll his ass off for you, and then throws down an unbroken string of great tunes. ‘It’s Just A Little Time Left’ sees him touch on El Salvador, the senseless killing of John Lennon, and the brevity of life, before the tune concludes with a funky sax breakdown and some jazzy piano licks. ‘A Hundred And’ is a funkified love song that sees Dogg pledging a century of love. ‘California Is Drowning And I Live Down By The River’ chronicles the legion of ills facing the Golden State, and is more relevant today than it was in ’81.

But even when Swamp Dogg tried to smooth out his sound, it still held a rough edge that kept him off the radio and out of public consciousness. He anticipated the chilly reception in his liner notes: “In the event you find this bit of musical, lyrical magic offensive, distasteful, repulsive, inane, meritless, dim witted and unsatisfying… stick it way up your ass (polywrap and all), run backwards nine miles on the Hollywood Freeway to my house and your money will be cheerfully refunded.”