History Lesson

There's a joke about rock bands, that when they get too big and fall out of touch with their audience, they start writing songs about the trials and tribulations of being on the road. It's a cliche in 1980's rock videos. You know, being on the bus, looking wistfully out the window as you roll into another town. Whatever.

Here's a group of songs by an array of artists, that look to their band as a subject for their song. This is almost, but not exclusively, the provenance of British bands: the idea of being in a band as being a member of a gang. The Clash perfected this concept. I was hard pressed to pick just one of their songs. "Clash City Rockers" was the obvious first choice, but isn't really on the subject. It's no secret that they modeled themselves after Mott, or at least guitarist Mick Jones did, and that's a good thing. Railroad Jerk tells a tall tale. The Mekons have a sense of humor about it, but the Mekons are "a band that deals in the facts of life." The Minutemen are dewey-eyed romantic punks name-checking their forebears. Felt are jangly, and Them are Irish, slightly menacing, and very intense.

Download:

"History Lesson - Part II" mp3
by The Minutemen, 1984.
available on Double Nickels on the Dime

"The Ballad Of The Band" mp3
by Felt, 1986.
available on Stains on a Decade

"Sympathy For The Mekons" mp3
by The Mekons, 1987.
available on Honky Tonkin'

"The Ballad Of Railroad Jerk" mp3
by Railroad Jerk, 1995.
available on One Track Mind

"The Story of Them Parts 1 & 2" mp3
(THIS TRACK HAS BEEN REMOVED AS REQUESTED)
by Them, 1967.
available on The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison

"The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople" mp3
by Mott The Hoople, 1973.
available on Mott

"All The Young Punks" mp3
by The Clash, 1978.
available on Give 'em Enough Rope

The Journey Is The Destination

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love...

-Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare

This week Sony unfurled the latest in the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series. Volume 8 contains unreleased and little-known tracks from 1989 to the present. In Dylan's sprawling archive of songs, this constitutes the later period, even though some of these tracks are nearly twenty years old. The highlights of the release are the alternate and unused tracks from 1997's Time Out Of Mind, a bitter, dark, and ultimately beautiful record that reflects on loss and alienation. Time Out Of Mind is not a light record. It starts with the following lines:

I'm walking through streets that are dead
Walking, walking with you in my head
My feet are so tired, my brain is so wired
And the clouds are weeping

Did I hear someone tell a lie?
Did I hear someone's distant cry?
I spoke like a child; you destroyed me with a smile
While I was sleeping

I'm sick of love but I'm in the thick of it
This kind of love I'm so sick of it...

For the next hour or so the singer walks us down dirt roads, paces around rooms, lays around one-room country shacks, rides midnight trains, drifts in and out of dreamless sleep, walks through the middle of nowhere, rolls through stormy weather, is lost somewhere and has made a few bad turns. This is a picture of a man shot out of a cannon, alone and drifting though time and space, wandering a bleak landscape. In the one slightly "lighter" track, the sixteen-minute talking blues "Highlands," based around a repeating Charlie Patton guitar riff, Dylan has a playful conversation with a waitress, yet still he explains:

Insanity is smashin' up against my soul
You could say I was on anything but a roll

It's grim out there. I listened to this record on a road trip - start to finish - last summer for the first time in a few years. I made a conscious decision to leave my iPod (which usually operates only in shuffle) at home and to bring only CDs in my rented vehicle. For whatever reason, this is the one Dylan record I brought and I played it multiple times as I whizzed through the landscape.

In "Not Dark Yet" he gets a letter written "so kind," which got me thinking about another song, "Tryin' To Get to You," best known from Elvis Presley's Sun Sessions, which contains my favorite Scotty Moore guitar part. Sam Phillips erased Elvis's piano track which leaves Scotty playing an alternating lead and rhythm part, start to finish. In "Tryin To Get To You," featured here below in multiple versions, including the original by vocal group The Eagles - no, not those Eagles - the singer also gets a loving letter, and sets out on a journey to find his baby. We never really find out if he gets there. He travels over mountains, through valleys, night and day, trying to get there.

So, allow me to go out a limb here, and consider that maybe these songs from Time Out Of Mind, offer the view of the aftermath and the unraveling of the mind and the soul of a man following a fruitless search - that maybe the letter was just a cruel hoax - and the singer has readjusted his expectations from trying to get to her, to "trying to get to heaven, before they close the door".

Download:

"Tryin' To Get To You" mp3
by The Eagles, 1954.
available on We're Gonna Rock - We're Gonna Roll

"Tryin' To Get To You" mp3
by Elvis Presley, 1955.
available on The Sun Sessions

"Tryin' To Get To You" (alternate version) mp3
by Roy Orbison, 1956.
available on Rocker

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

"Tryin' To Get To Heaven" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Time Out of Mind

"Million Miles" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Time Out of Mind

"Standing In The Doorway" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Time Out of Mind

"Not Dark Yet" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Time Out of Mind

"Red River Shore" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8

"Can't Wait" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8

"Marching To The City" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1997.
available on Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8

top photograph © Mark Seliger

Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

September has nearly gotten away from us. Things have been quiet here, I know. I've got a few posts up my sleeve - just no time to do them. So, with a few hours left in the month, a few versions of a simple and perfect pop classic.

Download:

"September Gurls" (Studio Rehearsal) mp3
by Big Star, 1974.
available on Nobody Can Dance

"September Gurls" mp3
by Superdrag, 1996.
available on I Know the Score

"September Gurls" mp3
by Alex Chilton, 1977.
Live at the Ocean Club
available on Beale Street Green

"September Gurls" mp3
by The Bangles, 1986.
available on Different Light

"September Gurls" mp3
by Big Star, 1974.
available on Radio City

Editors note: As pointed out by Will Rigby - Boogie Woogie Flu contributor, and author of our most popular post ever - The dB's did NOT back up Alex Chilton on this live version, as I had originally stated here. Considering that at least two members of the dB's read this blog, I apologize for not checking my facts first. The recording comes from a bootleg, and while they are often less than reputable in their liner notes, song titles, and recording information, I hastily took it for granted.

Here's what Will had to say: "Nope. Not us. No matter what the album says, the dB's did not exist until '78, and never performed that song with or without Alex. It's his 1977 band, Stamey on bass, Lloyd Fonoroff (sp?) on drums (Fran Kowalski was in the band on keys, although I don't think he's on this, sounds like a trio)."

I stand corrected.

Photograph by Garry Winogrand, World's Fair, New York, 1964.
© Estate of Garry Winogrand

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

Download:

"What A Crying Shame" mp3
by The Mavericks, 1994
available on What a Crying Shame

"Maverick" mp3
Theme Song, 1957.
available on Television's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

Jerry Reed 1937-2008

Another one done gone, son.

Jerry Reed, who put the funk into country, died Monday in Nashville. The first time I heard him was on a family road trip in an Oldsmobile station wagon the early-seventies. "When You're Hot, You're Hot" was in heavy rotation on the Delco radio and resulted in instantaneous family sing-a-longs, much to my Mother's dismay.

Flags in Fluville are flying at half mast.

Download:

"If The Good Lord's Willing" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1955.
available on Here I Am

"In My Own Backyard" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1957.
available on Here I Am

"You Make It, They Take It" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1958.
available on Here I Am



"Hully Gully Guitar" mp3
by Jerry Reed and The Hully Girlies, 1962.
out of print

"Guitar Man" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1967.
available on The Essential Jerry Reed

"Amos Moses" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1970.
available on The Essential Jerry Reed

"When You're Hot, You're Hot" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1971
available on The Essential Jerry Reed

"The Uptown Poker Club" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1973.
available on The Essential Jerry Reed

"The Crude Oil Blues" mp3
by Jerry Reed, 1974.
available on The Essential Jerry Reed

Early Bird...

gets the worm.

Charlie Parker would've been 88 today. This is his first session as a featured sideman. Guitarist Tiny Grimes put together this quintet of 52nd Street players for a Savoy date that was to feature him as a singer. Two vocal sides and two instrumentals. Bird had just arrived in New York after jumping ship from Billy Eckstine's Big Band.

Download:



"I'll Always Love You Just The Same" mp3
by Tiny Grimes Quintet, 1944.
Tiny Grimes, Vocals.
available on The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes



"Romance Without Finance" mp3
by Tiny Grimes Quintet, 1944.
Tiny Grimes, Vocals.
available on The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes



"Red Cross" mp3
by Charlie Parker, 1944.
available on The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes



"Tiny's Tempo" mp3
Charlie Parker, 1944.
available on The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes

Yes We Can

In case any of you out there misconstrued my disparaging remarks about the DNC yesterday, I'd like to clarify my position on the matter. This blog supports Barack Obama and is genuinely excited by the Democratic ticket this year. Folks, we have a candidate and tonite's speech was electrifying. Vote.

Download:

"Yes We Can" mp3
by Lee Dorsey, 1970.
available on Holy Cow!: The Very Best of Lee Dorsey