Midweek/Weekend Music Break

Midweek Music Break: Rickie Lee Jones, “Chuck E’s in Love”

April 8, 2015 by John 1 Comment

The chameleon named Rickie Lee Jones routinely falls into the cracks between pretty much any two adjacent categories: old and new; musical genres (blues, jazz, rock, pop, soul, R&B); “always been around” to “always new”…

In her early recording career, starting with 1979’s self-titled album (shown at right), I always — and for no reason at all other than the most superficial, i.e., her album photos — associated her with Joni Mitchell.

But really, there’s no mistaking her musically for anyone else.

She may have been “around” for a while before that debut album, but I’d never heard of her until the title track started to be played, well, everywhere. (It eventually got as high as #4 on the Billboard “Hot 100” list.)

Like its songwriter, “Chuck E’s in Love” struck me immediately as sui generis. It’s got a funky sort of rhythm, and Jones’s voice plays with that rhythm and with the instrumentation in all kinds of interesting ways. (Nearly all of one verse, indeed, is more or less simply narrated, with no accompaniment at all.) At the end, the vocalization completely takes off into a soaring scat passage which concludes with a surprising lyrical twist. It sounded like nothing else on the radio back then.

Likewise, the rest of the lyrics offer evidence of an easygoing, witty personality behind them (If this ain’t healthy is it some kinda clean?, indeed). One verse rhymes “the Plantages” (an old Hollywood “movie palace”) with “contagious” — and she even manages to work in an expletive (“Christ!”) which back in the ’70s was probably interpreted (or, ha!, at least excused) as “Cripes!”

The song comes with its own little bit of an interesting back story, even:

Jones and singer-songwriter Tom Waits were lovers, for a good number of years. (Talk about sui generis — what a couple they must have seemed!) They lived in what Wikipedia calls a “musically fertile” neighborhood, with the Stray Cats, Frank Zappa, and others nearby — and shared their own lodgings with another stray musician: a fellow named Chuck E (Weiss) and Rickie Lee Jones, c. 1979 Chuck E. Weiss. The story goes that Weiss mysteriously disappeared one day… “mysteriously,” that is, until he called them shortly thereafter. He told Waits (who answered the phone) that he’d moved to Denver to be with a woman. Waits hung up the phone, turned to Jones, and said — yes — “Chuck E’s in love.”

(That lyrical twist at the end of the song, by the way, is bogus; Jones and the real “Chuck E” never had a romantic relationship — although they clearly got along great, as the photo above (from Jone’s site) shows.)

One other thing I wanted to mention about Rickie Lee Jones: if you do a search for images of her on the Web, you will very, very likely leave the task in a markedly better mood than when you began. Why? She has a great, easy, smile, and — as you can see from the photo at the top — apparently laughs at the drop of a hat. (She does love hats, for what that’s worth.)

[Lyrics]

Midweek Music Break: Lynn Tomlinson, “The Ballad of Holland Island House”

April 1, 2015 by John 1 Comment

Says artist (and lyricist) Lynn Tomlinson at her site:

I came across the haunting image of a house standing alone in the water in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Reading more about this house, I was struck by its story, and its relevance today, when so many communities are facing challenges from sea-level rise. The images I chose and the visual style reflects the artwork of Winslow Homer, Van Gogh, and Kathe Kolwitz, artists working in the late 1800s, the time period when the house on Holland Island was abandoned.

This video’s construction involved much more than that brief paragraph suggests: each frame was hand-painted in clay — not oil, watercolor, gouache, or other traditional medium — on glass. I’ll give you a moment to think about that — especially about the relationship between art and artifice, between real and ideal, between temporary and permanent, natural and man-made, and then and now…

On this page at a site called Sometimes Interesting, you can read many details about the island and its last house, with many photos (including what appear to be the last known photos before the house’s collapse beneath the waves). Wikipedia, of course, offers its own useful summary.

My favorite “fact”: Holland Island is not an island of rocky protrusions; it’s an island of clay and silt. Although Tomlinson does not (to my knowledge) say so explicitly, it’s hard not to draw a dotted line between that geology and the physical media at the heart of the visual one.

(Tomlinson’s film won 1st place in the Greenpeace USA “Postcards from Climate Change” Student Film Contest. And as you can see from the still frame of the Vimeo video about, it’s picked up a good number of other awards as well.)

—

Aside from the work of the animation itself, Lynn Tomlinson wrote the ballad’s lyrics. The music and the performance, though, are courtesy of a roots-music/Americana duo going by the name Anna & Elizabeth (surnames Roberts-Gevalt and LaPrelle, respectively). Their joint mission, says their Web site:

WE HOPE THAT OUR WORK

BRINGS LIGHT to old ballads, tunes, hymns, and the stories of everyday people.

HONORS the lives & creativity of those who have gone before us — ancestors, pioneers, friends, and dear teachers

PASSES THE TRADITION to a younger generation & encourages friendships across generations

INSPIRES people to make art in their own homes.

JOINS conversations with other artists & community makers — in learning how to create art that feeds, that brings people together to sing, dance, and ask the difficult questions.

Which, you might say, is a mighty big chunk of ambition to bite off. Nonetheless, they’re making a pretty sizable dent in it. A couple weeks ago, they released their second album of reimagined “old-timey” music. They are touring over the next several months, performing at venues up and down the east coast of the US, the Midwest, the Northwest; in the UK; in Canada.

Finally, both relevant and not to be sneered at: Anna & Elizabeth are aficionados of an old, old art form called “crankies.” Picture a story or ballad — a story song — told visually, by way of a series of consecutive panels… which are joined together in a looooong roll and hand-cranked through a frame to illustrate or comment on the passing scene and moments.

Not only their sweet-harmony performances and musical tastes, but also this affinity for frame-at-a-time storytelling, make them the perfect accompanists for Lynn Tomlinson’s video.

Midweek Music Break: Angela Easterling, “Un coin à nous”

March 25, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

[Easterling either has a new album out (release date described variously as “Spring 2015” and “Summer 2015”), or it’s on its way: in either case, the title is Common Law Wife. Maybe coincidentally, most of her recent publicity photos feature her standing outside, in profile, wearing a plain white dress, shift, or slip — as though to suggest a wedding. I like the black veil, though.]

This isn’t the first time I’ve featured a song from Angela Easterling’s 2012 French-language album, Mon Secret. (That would have been in a post from a couple-three years ago.)

But I have been listening a lot to this song for the past couple months. The title translates, she says, to “A corner for us,” and there’s indeed something comforting, sheltering, enwrapping — nookish — about the experience of listening to it…

…even when you can’t understand French (as I can’t).

As in that earlier post, I depend wholly on the lyrics Easterling provided with the album. They were co-written by her and a friend, a native of France and university instructor of the French language, and I’m in no position to judge either the translation or Easterling’s pronunciation. I just know it sounds lovely, right, wrong, inappropriately interpreted or otherwise. From the accompanying and soloing string instrument — what is that, anyhow? a mandolin? a dulcimer, or steel guitar? — to the lilt of Easterling’s voice, this song, well, soothes.

[Lyrics]

Edit to add [2015-03-26]: After I posted this piece, I heard (via Twitter) from Angela Easterling herself — who advised me that “Un coin à nous” wasn’t truly original for the Mon Secret album. It had first appeared on her 2011 disc, Beguiler, as a song called “Pocket”… in English.

The lyrics to “Pocket” closely track the English translation of “Un coin à nous,” with one notable exception, right there in the line which provides the title:

Let’s go… The whole world is just us two. Let go.
There’s no one here but me and you…
Our little pocket in the corner of the night…
Where the shadow of the light is blue.

“Pocket’s” music has a bit less of the dreamy Continental feel of “Un coin à nous,” or maybe I’m just imagining I here more of a twang in the original. Either way, the song is a standout.

Here’s “Pocket”:

Midweek Music Break: Mandolin Orange, “Boots of Spanish Leather”

February 18, 2015 by John 2 Comments

You won’t find a lot online about Mandolin Orange at the moment. They’ve got a Facebook page, more or less up to date — ditto a Twitter feed, a YouTube page, and so on — but their Web site appears to be almost 100% under construction. Only their upcoming tour dates are listed there, with a promise of more “coming soon.”

I have found some few features about the duo elsewhere, however. From them, I’ve gleaned that Andrew Marlin (who, yes, started as a mandolinist) and Emily Frantz have so far released three CDs, most recently (2013) This Side Of Jordan, and including a double album — one CD with the two of them and a band, and one CD with just the two of them. For more information, see these sites:

The Bluegrass Situation (November, 2013): “Artist of the Month”
Folk Alley (NPR, also November 2013): little summary, video of their “Waltz About Whiskey”
No Depression (September, 2014): A Potpourri of Musical Styles

For myself, I came upon them entirely by accident, while sort of browsing through recent YouTube music videos. I’m not sure, but believe that this one just showed up at one point in YouTube’s “Up Next” sidebar.

As for the song: “Boots of Spanish Leather” may not have been a bestselling single for Bob Dylan, but — released on his own 1964 The Times They Are A-Changin’ album — it did absolutely nothing to hurt his growing reputation as a songwriter. Wikipedia quotes one reviewer, calling it “a restless, forlorn ballad for the ages and sages — a classic Dylan tale of two lovers, a crossroads, and the open sea.” Its lyrics were even included in the fifth (2005 and still current) edition of the Norton Anthology of Poetry.

Mandolin Orange performs the song in a way which seems utterly natural: as a duet, alternating verses and voices until the woman in the song falls silent. (At this point, Frantz switches from plucking her violin to to bowing it.) Their rendition haunts, right down to the not-quite-bitterly-sarcastic last line.

[Lyrics]

Midweek Music Break: Gary Moore, “Still Got the Blues (For You)”

January 28, 2015 by John 3 Comments

[Lyrics]

Like many — maybe most — Americans with an interest in music (blues or otherwise), I know very little about the Northern Irish singer-songwriter-guitarist Gary Moore. The little I do know about him and his music, I’ve picked up after he died of a heart attack, at age 58, in 2011.

But he apparently was very well-known in Europe, especially among musicians. Wikipedia:

In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore played with musicians including Phil Lynott and Brian Downey during his teens, leading him to memberships with the Irish bands Skid Row and Thin Lizzy, and British Band Colosseum II. Moore shared the stage with such blues and rock musicians as B.B. King, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Albert Collins, George Harrison and Greg Lake, as well as having a successful solo career. He guested on a number of albums recorded by high-profile musicians.

This single, from the 1990 album of the same name, was his best-selling release in the US, at number… [heavy thud] 83 on the Billboard 200 list. In contrast, it went gold or platinum throughout Europe (especially Sweden, where it rated a double-platinum designation).

On the way into work today, The Missus and I were talking about the knack of American Idol (and similar competitions) for unearthing outstanding musical performers — whether we’ll buy their music or not — from non-musical fields. We think about the people we’ve known who work in shops or blue-collar jobs but bring fairly sophisticated listeners to their feet, or to tears of appreciation, in karaoke bars and church choirs. It’s a little sad, in a way, to think about all the hidden talent that doesn’t make it as professional musicians (or artists, writers, and so on, for that matter).

But it’s another sort of sadness — and another level of it — to think of all those who made their way as musicians, whose music we’d love… if we’d only heard it while they were alive.

Gary Moore: now there’s a name I want to hang onto.

Midweek Music Break: The Doobie Brothers, “Black Water”

January 21, 2015 by John 9 Comments

[Image: cover of The Doobie Brothers’ 1973 album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. (Click to enlarge.)]

A few days ago, as I walked through the living room, The Weather Channel was on TV. The Missus asked, “Have you seen the weather? In the Philadelphia area, I mean? Black ice.” Preoccupied, I said, “Jeez,” and shook my head, and kept on going. But the damage had been done: the phrase had set a hook in my head, where — of course! — it immediately triggered a skein of associations.

I know, I know — “black ice” simply describes the appearance of the ice, not the ice per se. I know, okay? Black ice does not come from black water.

But that’s where my mind went. And then the mental needle jumped into this song’s groove, where it has stayed.

And did I mention, this was days ago?

—

When The Doobie Brothers first started to record, I had no idea who they were. In fact, I didn’t pay much attention to them at all until ten years later, when they churned out a string of hit singles with Michael McDonald on vocals.

I did like McDonald’s distinctive voice. Plus, practically every woman I knew thought he was the bee’s knees. It had something to do with the white hair (which, sadly, never earned me any groupies of my own).

All of which said, I did know this song. McDonald wasn’t with them yet, but even allowing for the absence of his voice I’d never have guessed it to be the same band. This piece just sort of choogles loosely along, in a softer Creedence Clearwater Revival vein vs. the later “blue-eyed soul” stuff.

And the suddenly a capella refrain, repeated over and over down towards the end, sticks utterly in the head — days, years, decades later…

The album on which it appeared (pictured above) — the Doobies’ third — seems these days to be widely dismissed: not particularly interesting. But “Black Water” was the band’s first #1 hit, and I’ve never heard or read anything to suggest it shouldn’t have been.

Songwriter Patrick Simmons, says Wikipedia, was inspired by New Orleans to write the song:

A lifelong aficionado of Delta blues, Simmons would state: “When I got down there [to New Orleans] it was everything I had hoped it would be… The way of life and vibe really connected with me and the roots of my music.” Having earlier constructed the song’s basic guitar lick, he completed “Black Water” on the basis of the experience of his introduction to New Orleans: the lyrics Well if it rains, I don’t care — Don’t make no difference to me/Just take that street car that’s goin’ uptown specifically reference a streetcar journey Simmons made on a rainy day to the Garden District in Uptown New Orleans to do his laundry.

An alternate theory batted about on the theory-rich Internet asserts that the song pays tribute specifically to Mark Twain, specifically to Huckleberry Finn — sometimes adding that the novel is one of Simmons’s favorites. Romantic, hmm? And convenient. Thanks, Internet, but I’m stickin’ with the rainy-day laundry version. (See the note below for more about Simmons.)

Interestingly, “Black Water” was not at first released as a single, but as the “B” side of a song called “Another Park, Another Sunday.” According to one of the original Doobies, Tom Johnston, airplay of “Another Park” suffered because of a line which said, “Radio brings me down” — leading DJs, out of loyalty to their medium, to simply flip the record over and play the B side instead. This strikes me as (again) convenient, marginally believable 20/20 hindsight, as folklore, almost. I don’t think the song needs any external excuses for its popularity; once played, it almost demands replay. All the ingredients are right there, stuffed inside: a lyric which, while not particularly complex, fits with precision into the melody and the complex, shuffling rhythm; that a capella touch, apparently improvised in the studio; and a couple of kicking solos, especially on the violin.

[Below, click Play button to begin Black Water. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 4:15 long.]

[audio:blackwater_doobiebrothers.mp3|titles=’Black Water’|artists=Doobie Brothers]

[Lyrics]

________________________

Note: “Black Water’s” lyrics were used as a sort of pegboard wall on which those of another band’s other, later, and very different song were hung: 2009’s “I Got You,” by Train:

[Lyrics]

The Doobies’ Patrick Simmons thus received partial songwriting credit for “I Got You,” too.

[back]

Midweek Music Break: “Jingle Bells?,” by Barbra Streisand

December 24, 2014 by John Leave a Comment

For some reason, this rendition of the classic song — from La Streisand’s 1967 Christmas album — has ended up on a number of “worst [or least favorite] Christmas songs” lists (e.g.). Maybe just because it’s a family favorite, though, I’ve never minded it at all. True, it’s not a song I’d want to hear over and over; few songs are. But a few times? No problem.

If you’re not familiar with it, the question mark in the title is mandatory. While it’s the same old song, melodically and lyrically, it actually resembles the same old song only in the way that, oh… in the way that Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man role) resembles an endearing old vicar tallying up the weekly church offerings. For this reason, unlike probably 90% of the covers I’ve encountered, it doesn’t have James Lord Pierpont or “Traditional” alone credited as its author. To his name are added two new ones, those of producer Jack Gold and arranger Marty Paich.

Pierpont’s probably not exactly rolling over in his grave, although he may be scratching his head.

For what it’s worth, I’ve belatedly added Streisand’s recording to this year’s ~~Quirky~~ Eclectic Christmas Mix, at position #68 overall (#8 for the year). This actually seems to have been a mistake: a couple days ago, I “realized” that I’d repeated one song from an earlier year — and inserted “Jingle Bells?” as its replacement. As it turns out, the mistake was not in this year’s Christmas mix, but in my burning of the earlier year’s CD, for offline listening. Ha!

[Below, click Play button to begin Jingle Bells?. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 1:52 long.]

[audio:68_jinglebells_barbrastreisand.mp3|titles=’Jingle Bells?’|artists=Barbra Streisand]

Midweek Music Break: The Hello Strangers

October 29, 2014 by John 3 Comments

[The Hello Strangers, looking like they stepped out of a 1950s kitchen almost anywhere in America. I believe that’s Brechyn on the left, and Larissa on the right.]

As you might guess from the above photo, The Hello Strangers make no bones about their affinity for the past. (Unsurprising for an Americana band, maybe, but refreshingly unmixed with anything even approaching the noise of other genres.) The sisters, Larissa Chace Smith and Brechyn Chace, hail from a small but disproportionately influential* town in south-central Pennsylvania, and seem about as rooted — grounded — as that fact might lead you to expect.

(Scrolling through the gallery of promotional photos at their site — and being surprised by their retro eccentricity — made me laugh several times.)

The Strangers’ first, self-titled album has actually been out for a few months, but I learned about it via NoiseTrade’s weekly newsletter and site, where it’s highlighted as one of this week’s featured titles: “For fans of Kathleen Edwards, Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams, Johnny Cash, [and] Emmylou Harris,” says NoiseTrade, and I’m in no position to argue. The harmonizing voices and instrumentation weave in and out with each other, forming a haunting mesh of sound which sticks in the mind long after the last note fades.

I offer two songs from the album here today, “Runaway” and “Conococheague.” If you like those two as much as I do, head on over to NoiseTrade and give a listen.

[Lyrics: Runaway, Conococheague]

_________

* Why “disproportionately influential”? Per Wikipedia, the town’s small boarding school, Mercersburg Academy, has “produced several Rhodes Scholars, three Medal of Honor recipients, a Nobel laureate, two Academy Award winners, and 54 Olympians (including 12 gold medalists).” Among those who’ve roamed its halls have been actors Jimmy Stewart and Benicio del Toro, as well as they guy who played Perry White on the Superman TV series and Vanessa Branch, the original “Orbit gum girl” (“Fabulous!”).

Midweek Music Break: Tony Bennett, “The Way You Look Tonight”

August 27, 2014 by John 3 Comments

Tony Bennett with Elvis Costello

[Photo: Tony Bennett with Elvis Costello. Don’t worry, today’s song is a solo.]

Tony Bennett was 82 years old when he appeared, in 2008, on Elvis Costello’s talk-and-music program, Spectacle. His performance of this old standard, at close to the beginning of the episode, greatly moved me.

I’ve had a Frank Sinatra cover for years. But his version “swings,” flirting (I guess) with the object of the song’s affection. Here, Bennett takes his time with it, even free-form vocalizing softly — and a very little — down towards the end.

In this recording of the performance, you’ll hear two distinct bursts of applause at the beginning. The first occurs when Bennett agreed to Costello’s request to sing something by Jerome Kern. Bennett didn’t announce which Kern he’d choose, though, just began singing — the second round of applause greets the specific selection. At the piano is Bill Charlap, whom Bennett had introduced as “the finest jazz pianist today,” but I’d never heard of him before. Charlap certainly did nothing during this performance (including a sweet and tender solo of his own) to make me question Bennett’s wisdom.

About the song: Kern composed the music, but the lyrics were by Dorothy Field. It was introduced in Fred Astaire’s Swing Time of 1936, where Astaire croons it to Ginger Rogers. Wikipedia quotes Field: “The first time Jerry played that melody for me I went out and started to cry. The release absolutely killed me. I couldn’t stop, it was so beautiful.”

[Below, click Play button to begin The Way You Look Tonight. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 5:00 long.]

[audio:thewayyoulooktonight_tonybennett.mp3|titles=’The Way You Look Tonight’|artists=Tony Bennett]

[Lyrics]

Midweek Music Break: Sinéad O’Connor, “Take Me to Church”

August 13, 2014 by John 2 Comments

[Image: promotional photo for Sinéad O’Connor’s 2014 album,
I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss. Click to enlarge.]

You’ve gotta hand it to Sinéad O’Connor: she will not be categorized.

Much of her identity — which seems to be the same identity privately and publicly — centers around gender. She takes her womanness about as seriously as it’s possible to take such a thing. But it’s a seriousness on her terms: yes, she likes sex; no, she does not like to be thought of as (un)sexy; she doesn’t play head games which might confirm your expectations; she likes playing with those expectations; she counts on your understanding; she resists being understood…

All of this is laid out in her new album (just a day old!), I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss. As numerous reviews have pointed out, right up front she challenges you: the album cover shows her in a skintight black-latex outfit, standing hipshot with an electric guitar in her arms, and her mouth drooping open, well, provocatively.

None of that is what really grabs attention, though — it all “means” something in the context of the songs. No, what really grabs attention is the wig: a sleek, black shingle-bob hairstyle (à la Louise Brooks) at that. She looks, as many guys would say (as I myself am about to say) smokin’.

It grabs attention because O’Connor never appears in public (well, as far as anyone knows) other than with her shaved head. It’s identified her as much as her gender has.

Here’s how a recent interview with NPR went, in part:

Linda Wertheimer: Tell me about the cover of the new album. I wondered why you chose to wear a long black wig and a tight latex dress, because you’ve always made a point about the sexualization of the music industry.

Sinéad O’Connor: Well, I don’t necessarily think that donning some hair and wearing a dress equates to being sexual. I think the fact that I have never looked particularly like a female — I’ve always dressed very male — is what I really had in mind. It wasn’t supposed to be the album cover; it was supposed to be a couple of publicity shots, which I wanted to do because I knew that it would draw attention. People would run the shots and go, “Oh my God, look at the sight of her with hair,” and they’d have to mention the album. Then the record company asked could they use it for the album cover, but originally it wasn’t meant to be.

I thought maybe it was a shout out to Cher.

No, it was really just a publicity stunt, if I’m 100 percent honest. I know what you’re saying, but at the end of the day, I’m clothed from neck to knee. It was more based on, “Guess what Sinéad O’Connor looks like when she makes an effort?”

The album cover photo doesn’t look feature a “long black wig,” if you ask me. However, the cover of the single — which seems to have been taken at about the same time as the black-and-white photo atop this post — does feature her in a long red wig.

Anyway, did you get that? She didn’t dress that way for the album cover because “that way” is sexual. She didn’t dress that way to make guys’ pulses race, or women’s for that matter. She dressed that way, at bottom, because she didn’t — doesn’t — want people to have any expectations satisfied except, maybe, their expectations of her music.

Well, whatever. It is great music — and the only Sinéad O’Connor album I’ve bought since the very first, back in the ’90s.

Despite what you may think from the title, the song featured below has little (nothing?) to do with her “complicated” past with Roman Catholicism… and everything to do with the evolution of the song’s protagonist (who may or may not be O’Connor herself). Expectations, right?

[Lyrics]