Before Bob
Seger hit it big nationally in the mid-70s with “Night Moves” and the like, he
had quite a bit of regional success in his native Michigan. This one actually reached
as high as #17 on Billboard’s Hot 100, although it failed to gain any airplay
in central Pennsylvania where I grew up. Nevertheless, it rocks harder than
anything he’s done since (including the songs with “Rock & Roll” in the
title), and for you trivia fans it features a young Glenn Frey on backing
vocals and acoustic guitar. (Seger later returned the favor by co-writing the
Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight”.)
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
#109 Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses – Kathy Mattea (1988)
This list of
the 50 Best Trucking Songs of All Time has “Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses”
at #7. Personally, I’d put it at the top, but of course I’m not actually a
trucker.
I didn’t
hear it until years after it was released; I was driving somewhere on the
eastern shore of Maryland and for some reason had a “classic country” station
on the radio. (AM, of course.) I’m not a fan of most country music, but this is
one that helps to redeem the genre.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
The James Hunter Six w/Jesse Dee -- Rams Head On Stage, Annapolis, 2/25/2016
Table 110,
Seat 3 – table for 4, 3rd row back, a little to the right of center
stage
Another
great couple hours of music in Annapolis. Boston soul
singer-songwriter-guitarist Jesse Dee opened with a nice solo 35-minute set,
almost all originals (I assume), with “A Little Bit Of Soap” thrown in as a
change of pace.
James and
the rest of the band were in their usual fine form, with an 18-song main set
that included 6 tracks from his new Hold
On! album, along with plenty of older Hunter songs and the inevitable cover
of The “5” Royales’ “Baby Don’t Do It”. He introduced one other song as a
tribute to Allen Toussaint, suggesting another cover was on its way, but it
turned out to be Hunter’s “The Gypsy”, which he based on Toussaint’s “Fortune
Teller”. The solos were particularly impressive on “Don’t Do Me No Favours”
near the end; I had figured that for the finale, but they went on to do two
more songs, with Dee coming back out to add some vocal assistance on “Believe
Me Baby” before the band left the stage briefly and then returned with an
extended version of “Talking ‘Bout My Love” for the encore. That song and “No
Smoke Without Fire” were the only two entries from one of my favorite albums of
all time, but I won’t complain.
Monday, February 22, 2016
#108 Silver Lining – Rilo Kiley (2007)
Former child
actress Jenny Lewis has turned into quite a songwriter and singer, both with
Rilo Kiley and currently as a solo artist. I first heard this one in an
Annapolis hotel room (probably on WRNR) during the 2007 Blaise Conference. It
does sound quite a bit like Aimee Mann, but that’s certainly not a bad thing.
#107 A Donut And A Dream – The Mills Brothers (1972)
I first heard this great (if totally
obscure) trucking song almost two years ago on a Carolina Beach Music station
located in Rockingham, NC. The Mills Brothers were a black vocal group that was
huge from the 1930s through the 1950s, but they were still spry enough to have
a Top 40 hit with “Cab Driver” in 1968. C. Carson Parks II wrote that one as
well as “A Donut And A Dream”, not to mention “Somethin’ Stupid”, which Frank
and Nancy Sinatra took to the top of the charts. Trivia note: he’s the older
brother of the somewhat-better-known composer Van Dyke Parks.
Unfortunately neither the album nor the
song ever made it to CD, much less into iTunes or other digital music stores.
You can hear ticks and pops from the vinyl record on the YouTube video.
Friday, February 19, 2016
#106 How Long – Ace (1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo_GMMLULXw
Have voice
will travel.
This may not
be the actual motto of Paul Carrack, who’s probably my favorite English
rock/blue-eyed soul singer, but it should be. Carrack has had relatively modest
success as a solo act, although “Don’t Shed A Tear” did reach #9 in 1988. He’s
much better known for his work in various groups, such as Squeeze (“Tempted”)
and particularly Mike + The Mechanics (“Silent Running”, “The Living Years”).
“How Long”
was Carrack’s first hit, when he was the lead singer and keyboard player for
the band Ace. He also wrote the song, which according to him was actually about
another band trying to “poach” Ace’s bass player. (They were unsuccessful, which
may or may not have been because of the song.) Carrack’s resumé as a songwriter
isn’t as extensive as his work as a performer, but he was the primary
songwriter for Ace, wrote many of the songs he performed as a solo act, and
co-wrote the Eagles’ “Love Will Keep Us Alive”.
#105 I’m On The Outside (Looking In) – Little Anthony & The Imperials (1964)
Little
Anthony & The Imperials do a wonderful job on this aching soul ballad,
but plenty of credit should go to the unjustifiably obscure Teddy Randazzo, who
co-wrote and produced a string of hit singles for the group in 1964-65. This
one was the first (and, for me, the best), although “Goin’ Out Of My Head” and “Hurt
So Bad” were even more successful for the group, and subsequently for other
artists as well. Randazzo also produced and wrote for the Baltimore girl group
The Royalettes, including their great 1965 track “It’s Gonna Take A Miracle” (a
must-hear in its own right), which a few years later became the title song of a
classic Laura Nyro album, and finally became a hit in 1982 for Deniece
Williams.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
#104 Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson f/ Bruno Mars (2015)
Folks, this
is not an imitation of classic funk. This is the real deal, with a great video
to boot.
It’s a good
thing that Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars and company won the Grammy for Record of the
Year. If they hadn’t, we would have needed a full-scale investigation, perhaps
led by a James Brown hologram.
#103 Rainy Day Bells – The Globetrotters (1970)
While just
about everyone is familiar with the legendary Harlem Globetrotters basketball
team, fewer people are aware that an animated version of the team starred in a
TV cartoon series of the same name in the early 1970s. As it happens, music
producer and manager Don Kirshner was the music supervisor on the show. Since he
and songwriter Jeff Barry had converted the Archies cartoon characters into
musical gold – they had a #1 single with “Sugar Sugar” and their first two
albums spent a combined 57 weeks on Billboard’s sales chart – they thought they
might have similar success with the Globetrotters, so they released a
soundtrack album from the show in 1970.
Their
earlier commercial success did not repeat; the album and its two singles missed
the charts entirely. The album, however, did produce one gem, which was a
doo-wop song that sounded as though it should have come out ten years earlier. “Rainy
Day Bells” was written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, who were best
known for co-writing Sedaka’s early 1960s hits as a singer (“Breaking Up Is
Hard To Do” being the biggest), although they also wrote some hits for other
performers (including this gem). The actual singing on “Rainy Day Bells” was
done by R&B veterans, although Meadowlark Lemon contributed some of the
background vocals.
Despite the
odd story, the song has justifiably stood the test of time despite its
obscurity. It’s been featured on numerous Carolina Beach Music compilations and
is considered one of the top songs of all time in that genre.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Richard Thompson – Rams Head On Stage, Annapolis, 2/7/2016
Table 101,
Seat 4 – table for 4, right in front of the stage, on the left
Conspiracy
theory of the day – Donald Trump’s lawyers got after Richard Thompson at some
point. Details below.
First things
first, however. The afternoon (1:00 pm show in deference to the Super Bowl)
didn’t get off to the greatest start when the doors to the performance area
weren’t opened until 25 minutes after the scheduled time of noon, leaving all
of us standing in the small, crowded, and chilly waiting area. Things did
improve when Canadian alt-country singer-songwriter Doug (no relation to Brad)
Paisley took the stage with his acoustic guitar. He did a well-received and
surprisingly strong 25-minute opening set, with some excellent songs that would
have fit nicely on an early Jayhawks album.
Thompson
came out about 15 minutes later, joking with the crowd that he’d have to make a
quick getaway to make it to the Super Bowl for his part in the halftime show.
Only 5 of the 21 songs overlapped with Thursday night’s show: “When The Spell
Is Broken” and “Beeswing” (both by request), “Wall Of Death”, “Matty Groves”,
and “Valerie”, with his stunning guitar work on the latter again being a
highlight. He opened with the relatively obscure “The Sun Never Shines On The
Poor” and also threw in “Dry My Tears And Move On” (great song, new to me), but
made sure to include plenty of more familiar material as well, such as the
mandatory “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” (7 songs in), “Persuasion”, and “Johnny’s
Far Away”, a “modern sea shanty” which sparked an enthusiastic audience sing-along.
Also featured were 3 cuts from his latest album Still (mentioning that he was sure we all had it already but could
buy a copy for a friend after the show). I was especially glad that he went
back quite a few years to pull out “Dimming Of The Day” to start the second
encore set, which I first heard when Bonnie Raitt did a great cover version on Longing In Their Hearts.
Near the end
of the main set, he introduced a song (“Fergus Laing”) that he said was about a
certain real-estate developer, joking that the guy would probably have him
killed if his actual name were used. Thompson’s original motivation for the
song was Trump’s behavior in Scotland, particularly the destruction of
protected sand dunes to enable the building of Trump’s golf course in Aberdeen.
RT did mention that he’d added a few verses in light of recent events. Great
song, with the protagonist being dragged
off to jail amidst shouts of “You’re fired!” in the final “regular” verse.
The song
sounded somewhat familiar, so when I got home I checked my collection and found
it on the bonus disc included with the deluxe edition of Still; I had listened to that 5-song disc a few times but had never
made the Trump connection. As I expected, the lyrics in the CD booklet ended
with the “You’re fired” verse. Looking for a performance of the song on
YouTube, however, I was quite surprised to find that both live performances
lacked that verse. Even more peculiar, the disc itself lacks that verse,
despite what the lyrics booklet says; there’s just a long instrumental at the
end. Although I have absolutely no proof, I have a sneaking suspicion that
lawyers were involved somewhere along the line.
Setlist
(entered by yours truly – my first)
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