Gather No Moss

Between June of 1963 and February of 1964 The Rolling Stones released three singles, one EP, and a couple other tracks on a compilation. All in the UK, and all before the release of their first LP. All but two those songs were covers. The trajectory of their career couldn't yet have been imagined. Firstly, they wanted to be the the best blues band in London (they were), and by the time they started recording, they wanted to share their love of American Blues, Soul, and R&B with a larger audience (which they did). The Stones weren't the only band in London doing this, but they were the best. They eventually wrote songs of their own (as urged by their manager Andrew Loog Oldham) but for the most part, their early records, up until 1966's Aftermath are heavily comprised of covers of black American music.

So, as the story goes, nearly fifty years ago, in late 1961 on the outskirts of London in Dartford, Mick and Keith, old boyhood friends reunite at a train station. Mick is carrying a copy of Chuck Berry's Rockin' at the Hops and The Best of Muddy Waters. BINGO! The alliance is born. in the coming months they start playing, and find Brian Jones, who is masquerading around town as a slide-guitar playing Elmo Lewis. Later they add Stu, Bill and his Amp, and Charlie.

It's no accident that their first single would be a Chuck Berry song on one side and Muddy Waters on the flip, two artists they would re-visit frequently, and soon enough meet at Chess Studios in Chicago. Their second single "I Wanna Be Your Man" is a song they got from Lennon and McCartney, when Oldham invited them to the studio. It was a something that McCartney considered a throwaway, and the Stones took it gladly. I've never been one to choose between the Beatles and the Stones, but if you were comparing the their versions of this particular song, which the Beatles eventually recorded in their next sessions, the Rolling Stones win this one hands down. The b-side, "Stoned" was their first original 'composition,' - basically a blues jam - and was banned in the U.S. for it's suggestive lyrics. Their third single, "Fortune Teller," was shelved and eventually appeared on a UK compilation. Next, an EP of more great American R&B, and a single of a Bo Diddelyized version of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," backed by "Little by Little," a Stones original based on a Jimmy Reed riff - both recorded for the first LP which was soon coming. At that session, were Phil Spector and Gene Pitney, who contributed some maracas and piano respectively, and Spector copped a partial songwriting credit for "Little by Little."

(to be continued)

Download:



"Come On" mp3
by Chuck Berry, 1961.
available on The Great 28



"I Want To Be Loved" mp3
by Muddy Waters, 1955.
available on Anthology: 1947-1972

***********





"I Wanna Be Your Man" mp3
by The Beatles, 1963.
available on With the Beatles (Mono)



"Stoned" mp3
by The Rolling Stones, 1963.
available on Singles Collection: The London Years

***********









"You Better Move On" mp3
by Arthur Alexander, 1961.
available on The Greatest






"Poison Ivy" mp3
by The Coasters, 1959.
available on Baby That Is Rock 'n' Roll



"Bye Bye Johnny" mp3
by Chuck Berry, 1960.
available on The Great 28



"Money (That's What I Want)" mp3
by Barrett Stong, 1959.
available on Collection

***********





"Fortune Teller" mp3
by Benny Spellman, 1962.
available on Fortune Teller



"Poison Ivy" mp3
by The Rolling Stones, 1963.
available on More Hot Rocks: Big Hits & Fazed Cookies

***********







"Not Fade Away" mp3
by The Crickets, 1957.
available on Buddy Holly Gold

"Little by Little" mp3
by The Rolling Stones, 1964.
available on Singles Collection: The London Years

***********



Bonus:

"Andrew's Blues" mp3
by the Rolling Stones (and others), 1964.
unreleased

"Mr. Spector and Mr. Pitney Came Too" mp3
by the Rolling Stones, 1964.
unreleased

Nine

This is the squalid, or moving, part of the story, ... and the scene changes. The people change, too. I'm still around, but from here on in, for reasons I'm not at liberty to disclose, I've disguised myself so cunningly that even the cleverest reader will fail to recognize me.

J.D. Salinger
"For Esmé - with Love and Squalor" 1950.
from Nine Stories Little Brown and Company © 1953.


Download:

"Nine Pound Hammer Is Too Heavy" mp3
by The Monroe Brothers, 1936.
available on Anthology Of American Folk Music Volume 4

"Blue Yodel No. 9" mp3
by Jimmie Rodgers, 1930.
with Louis Armstrong
available on Jimmie Rodgers: Recordings 1927-1933

"Apartment No. 9" mp3
by Keith Richards, 1977.
Out on Bail (and out of print).

"Number Nine Train" mp3
by Tarheel Slim, 1958.
available on Fire/Fury Records Story

"Riot in Cell Block No. 9" mp3
by the Robins, 1954.
available on Smokey Joe's Cafe

"Love Potion Number Nine" mp3
by the Coasters, 1971.
available on Down Home

"Cloud Nine" mp3
by The Temptations, 1969.
available on Cloud Nine

"If 6 Was 9" mp3
by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1967.
available on Axis: Bold as Love

"Revolution 9" mp3
by the Beatles, 1968.
available on The White Album

Hey! Juden

by Ben Greenman

What do you call a fact that you know but constantly forget? There are facts like this. It's almost as though they are covered with a substance that makes it impossible to hold on to them, some kind of epistemological no-stick coating. Each person probably has facts that function this way on an individual basis: maybe it's your mother's birthday or where your niece is going to college or the actual job title your sister has now, after her promotion from whatever her job title used to be. Universal Teflon Facts are rarer, but there is at least one: there are Jewish Beatle kids.

To be more precise, there are four Jewish Beatle kids. Their names are Heather, Mary, Stella, and James. They are Jewish, by Jewish law, because Paul McCartney, the blood father of Mary, Stella, and James – and the adoptive father of Heather – married Linda Louise Eastman. Linda was Jewish. This very short sentence may require repeated applications, not because it is so outlandish, but because Linda's Jewishness seems to have been almost entirely overlooked in most accounts of the Beatles. Linda was not especially religious, but she was especially Jewish. Her father, the entertainment lawyer Lee Eastman, was born Leopold Epstein. Her mother, Louise Sara Lindner Eastman, was an heiress to the Lindner department store fortune. Paul McCartney married a Jewish woman. Paul McCartney's children are Jewish. Read it again. While plenty of members of the Beatles circle were Jewish—Brian Epstein and Sid Bernstein, for starters—none of them was married to a Beatle. The relatively narrow document "Jews and the Beatles" mentions Linda, but only briefly. Stella McCartney, who is now a famous clothing designer, has discussed her religion: "My Mum was Jewish. Maybe I'm a really bad Jew because I'm always so excited to say that I am , but I don't live and breathe the religion." The other McCartneys have not, at least publicly.

Linda was not just a Jewish woman, of course. She was a devoted mother and a loving (and beloved) partner. She was also a recording artist of rare distinction. Her recorded legacy, collected on the 1992 album Wild Prairie, is one of the most powerful monuments of romantic love, right up there with the Taj Mahal. Listen to it for a minute and you'll hear why: without love, there's simply no way these recordings would exist. They would have been erased and then erased again, just to be sure that they were gone. Calling them terrible is an insult to terrible things. Listening to Linda proceed tunelessly through "Endless Days" (she "sings" the "song" the way that Ken Lay "protected employees" or Ryan Leaf "quarterbacked") is an experience to be treasured, if by treasured you mean buried in a chest by pirates. She makes the Shaggs look like Mozart, each and every one of them. She records the Coasters' immortal "Poison Ivy" and, well, let's just say it's not immortal anymore.

This doesn't mean that Linda was a bad person, of course. By all accounts she was a wonderful one. It doesn't even mean she was a cosseted billionaire: the recordings weren't released during her lifetime, and putting them out after her death was hardly the most irrational thing that Paul McCartney did in his attempt to deal with his bottomless grief (cf. marrying Heather Effing Mills). It just means that she was an abysmally bad singer with no real sense of melody and rhythm, no pleasing tone, no nothing. Lots of us are horrendous singers. And yet, on an album full of abysmal songs, one stands out as even more preposterous than the rest. In 1973, Paul and Linda found themselves in Lagos, Nigeria, working on the new Wings new album. The sessions were highly collaborative and communal. James Coburn dropped by! Linda brought a song named "Oriental Nightfish." She sang lead and played piano. Paul added guitar, bass, drums, and Mellotron. The always-helpful Denny Lane pitched in on flute.

"Oriental Nightfish" is not much to speak of. It's a trifle, and a trifle odd, one of those songs that people say is "ahead of its time" because five or six years later better musicians and better singers would attempt better things that sound vaguely similar if you don't pay attention. In fact, it is behind its time, because it--like the rest of this record--would have been better served by a world without recording equipment. The plot involves Linda's glimpsing of a wonderfully strange creature. There are lyrics that she recites more than sings (this is what is known as a small favor) and I have reprinted them below in their entirety:

It was a Thursday night
I was working late
When I first caught sight
Of the Oriental nightfish

The colors were swirling
The room was getting hotter
I couldn't see anything

Emerald, blue, purple, red
I was working late
It was a Thursday night
When I first caught sight
Of the Oriental nightfish fish fish fish fish
Nightfish (fish fish fish fish)

Linda's husband, who was in the Beatles for a time, wrote some pretty senseless lyrics in his time, from "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" to "Spies Like Us" "Biker Like an Icon." Still, it is not possible that he saw any merit in "Oriental Nightfish." Despite that, Paul and Linda, along with the animator Ian Emes, even made a highly trippy short film based on the song in 1978 (it is available on YouTube and has about as much merit as the recording, though with just enough animated nudity to keep viewers awake). Some people have suggested that it's a savage swipe at Yoko Ono. Those people are giving it too much credit. In light of Linda's heritage, in light of Hanukah, I give you, the world, a special gift in the form of permission to retitle this song in your minds. From henceforth it shall be known as "Oriental Whitefish."

Download:

"Oriental Nightfish" mp3
by Linda McCartney, 1973.
available on Wide Prairie

"Poison Ivy" mp3
by Linda McCartney, 1973.
available on Wide Prairie

"Endless Days" mp3
by Linda McCartney, 1973.
available on Wide Prairie

Happy Mama's Day

Download:

"Mama, You Been On My Mind" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1964.
Publishing Demo
available on The Witmark Years
bootleg

"Mama, You Been On My Mind" mp3
by The Beatles, 1969.
George Harrison from Let It Be sessions
available on Thirty Days
bootleg

"Mama, You Been On My Mind" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1970.
w/ George Harrison
available on Almost Went To See Elvis
bootleg

photo: Kit and Lincoln, Siena, Italy, 1999. © Ted Barron

The Guitar Slim Effect

"Pardon My Heart"
- Neil Young

"Did you ever wake up to find, a day that broke up your mind?"
-The Rolling Stones

Yesterday I experienced such a day. It was partially by my own design. Two extremely difficult and heartbreaking situations in my personal life were dealt with, or at least put into motion. One involves my son, Lincoln, who is eight years old, and telling him the news that he and my ex-wife will be moving far away. 1000 miles to be exact, and I won't be able to join them. He didn't take it so well, but I think he's getting used to the idea. I'm not sure how I feel. The other, involves a woman, whom I love very much and have been apart from for a few weeks - or dare I say broken up with - it remains to be seen how this other situation will play out, depending on the depth of my denial and or the luck or cruelty of fate.

When my son was born in 1999 he spent the first few days of his life in the intensive care unit. His mother's labor ended with an emergency C- section about 36 hours after her water had initially broken, thus causing an infection and requiring antibiotics for mother and son. It was during this time, that the customary tests were performed on the baby, and a nurse matter of factly informed us that Lincoln had failed his hearing test, and wouldn't be eligible to take another for three months.
















At the moment of his birth, the doctor exclaimed, "WOW!" at this huge nearly 10 pound, 22 inch child who was in my eyes perfect in every way, mother and son were wheeled away separately to require additional medical care. I retreated to a wall in front of the hospital where I sat and smoked a cigarette while weeping uncontrolled tears of joy.

I found out about the hearing test the following morning, after returning to the hospital on a few hours sleep, I was troubled by this news, but elated by the birth of my son. "We'll just wait and see." I told myself. Now any new parent will tell you, that these first days back home with your child can be racked with anxiety and wonder. "What now?" When you leave the hospital they give you a take home bag filled with a blanket, onesies, and various other items including a CD known as "The Mozart Effect." Scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain pieces of music can increase brain activity in infants, especially in the development of spatial relations. I was troubled by this notion that maybe Lincoln was deaf, and "How would I be able to share all of this music with him?" I tried the the Mozart. No response. I snapped my fingers, whispered into his ears. Non-conclusive. There was always something playing in the background. Popular in our house at this time was Summerteeth, by Wilco and somewhere there is a video I shot of me cradling him in the kitchen while listening to Good As I Been To You by Bob Dylan. I wasn't convinced. Finally, one day in his second month, frustrated and looking for results, I got out the headphones and put them on the boy. I started thumbing through my LPs looking for something of substance to pass on to my progeny. There it was: Guitar Slim, The Atco Sessions. I put it on, quietly, and watched. Slowly I turned up the volume. He cracked a smile or maybe it was just gas. I don't know, but something in my heart told he he was listening. A few days or a week later, I can't remember, he took his hearing test and passed with flying colors.

Today, Lincoln is versed in all kinds of music. His favorite (of course) is The Beatles, but he caught my attention one day, when we were listening to Chuck Berry and he asked me who the piano player was. I was taken aback that he even noticed, since that and most of those records are driven by the guitar, and this particular one featured the great Johnny Johnson. He often goes to bed listening to Monk's Dream, his choice not mine. I took him to see a taping of a Jerry Lee Lewis Special for PBS, and he was appropriately blown away. While making photographs for Steve Earle's Washington Square Serenade CD, I took him along to Electric Lady one day, where I made this top photograph of him in Studio A. This record gets a fair amount of airplay in his bedroom as well. So far he's mastered only the harmonica, and plays with perfect timbre and rhythm. Piano lessons are in store for him, after the move.

So, as for Guitar Slim? Yesterday while doing double duty on my heartaches, I reached for those sad records that make me feel better about feeling bad: Slim sings with more heart than than just about anyone else. He's not technically a great singer, and his guitar playing is sloppy but says exactly what it needs to. A smile crossed my face, or maybe it was just gas.

Download:


















"Down Through The Years" mp3
by Guitar Slim, 1956
available on Atco Sessions




















"It Hurts To Love Someone" (That Don't Love You) mp3
by Guitar Slim, 1956.
available on Atco Sessions


















"Sufferin' Mind" mp3
by Guitar Slim, 1954.
available on Sufferin' Mind



















"Trouble Don't Last" mp3
by Guitar Slim, 1954.
available on Sufferin' Mind

Bonus:























"Pardon My Heart" mp3
by Neil Young, 1975.
available on Zuma

"Sway" mp3
by The Rolling Stones, 1971.
available on Sticky Fingers

"1000 Miles" mp3
by Clare Burson, 2007.
available on Thieves

"I'm Always In Love" mp3
by Wilco, 1999.
available on Summerteeth

"Tomorrow Night" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1992.
available on Good as I Been to You

"Martha My Dear" mp3
by The Beatles, 1968.
available on The Beatles (The White Album)

"Drifting Heart" mp3
by Chuck Berry, 1956.
available on The Chess Box :Chuck Berry

"Before The Night Is Over" mp3
by Jerry Lee Lewis with B.B. King, 2006.
available on Last Man Standing - The Duets

"Day's Aren't Long Enough" mp3
by Steve Earle (with Allison Moorer), 2007.
available on Washington Square Serenade

"Monk's Dream" mp3
by Thelonious Monk Quartet, 1962.
available on Monk's Dream

all photos © Ted Barron

Yes It Is

Another day, another waltz.

Download:

"Yes It Is" mp3
by The Beatles, 1965
available on Past Masters Vol. 1

"Yes It Is" mp3
by The Beatles, 1965
available on Anthology Vol. 2

"Yes It Is" mp3
by Robert Quine and Jody Harris, 1995
available on Come Together: Guitar Tribute to The Beatles Vol. 2

The Paradoxical Waltz

The waltz is magnificently improper -- the art of tone turned lubricious. There is something about a waltz that is irresistible. Try it on the fattest and sedatest or even on the thinnest and most acidulous of women, and she will be ready, in ten minutes, for a stealthy smack behind the door -- nay, she will forthwith impart the embarrassing news that her husband misunderstands her and drinks too much and is going to Cleveland, O. on a business trip tomorrow.

H.L. Mencken, 1919.


Sorry for the lull, but I've been dealing with some complications of the heart here in Fluville, and fearing that perhaps I may be toeing the line toward the maudlin, I've restrained myself from dragging you listeners through my personal life.

However, there's just too much good music to ignore, and for reasons too complicated to explain I got to thinking about waltzes. So, forgive me while I indulge myself here for a bit - and then we shall resume our regularly scheduled programming - whatever that may be.

Today, we'll listen to some sad songs composed in a time signature that exists for an intimate dance. Therein lies the paradox. Not all waltzes are sad, yet 3/4 time or 6/8 - the imperfect waltz - lends itself well to songs of sadness, longing and loss.

The waltz, originated as a peasant folk dance - La Volta meaning "the turn" from Volver "to revolve." Louis XIII found it to be immoral for its sensual movements. The German word for this is waltzen, and it was from Austria where it emerged as a musical form most notably through Johann Strauss.

That's not what we're gonna listen to here.


Download:

"The Old Country Waltz" mp3
by Neil Young, 1977
available on American Stars 'n Bars



















"I'm So Lonesome, I Could Cry" mp3
by Hank Williams, 1951
available on 40 Greatest Hits

"Weary Blues From Waitin'" mp3
by Hank Williams, 1952
available on 40 Greatest Hits

"Alone And Forsaken" mp3
by Hank Williams, 1949
available on The Complete Hank Williams Box Set


















"The Last Waltz" mp3
by Webb Pierce, 1951.
available on More and More



















"Kentucky Waltz" mp3
by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, 1948.
available on Anthology



















"I Wonder If I Care As Much" mp3
by The Everly Brothers, 1958.
available on The Complete Cadence Recordings

"Dancing With Tears in My Eyes" mp3
by X, 1982.
available on Under The Big Black Sun

"Waltz #2 (xo) mp3
by Elliott Smith, 1998
available on XO

"Long, Long, Long" mp3
by The Beatles, 1968
available on The Beatles

*********************************************************
A pair of songs written in 4/4 and covered in the ternary meter.

"Oh, Lonesome Me" mp3
by Neil Young, 1970.
available on After The Gold Rush

"Girl Don't Tell Me" mp3
by Jay Sherman-Godfrey, 2006.
available on Twoscore

*********************************************************

"You Don't Miss Your Water" mp3
by William Bell, 1961.
available on The Soul of a Bell

*********************************************************
And finally, a pair of songs that walk hand in hand down life's lonely highways and an early John Fogerty number that starts in 6/8 and takes off after the break when it switches to 4/4...

"Edge Of Town" mp3
by Clare Burson. 2007.
available on Thieves

"I Found A Reason" mp3
by The Velvet Underground, 1970.
available on Loaded

"You Better Get it Before It Gets You"
by The Golliwogs 1967.
available on Creedence Clearwater Revival Box Set