Shuffle #39 (December 6, 2014)

Shake It – Iain Matthews

Yesterday Girl – The Smithereens

The Real Feeling – Ace

Back To Black – Amy Winehouse

I Wish It Would Rain – Rodney Crowell

Can’t Depend On Love – Gordon Lightfoot

Sunlight – The Youngbloods

Greenback Dollar – The Kingston Trio

Red Rain – Peter Gabriel

#4 Fire On The Bayou -- Neville Brothers (1981)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJpzNfao8X4

I’ve seen the Nevilles a few times, including at least twice at Wolf Trap, but my favorite show by them was at Rockville’s Hometown Holidays (annual Memorial Day weekend celebration) in 2000. I think the guys realized that many in the crowd for the free show on a drizzly Saturday evening didn’t necessarily know any of their stuff, so they stuck to their best material, rather than going off on any tangents (political or otherwise).

This one is the best of their best. If you can listen to it for more than a few seconds without getting an irresistable urge to get up and shake your booty, consider yourself clinically dead.

#5 Slippin' Into Darkness – War (1972)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L-2IQMDwcA

For my money, War is the best funk band this side of James Brown. Calling them a “funk band” really doesn’t do them justice, however, with the way their sound frequently features Latin rhythms and the harmonica work of Lee Oskar (probably the only Dane ever to play in a successful American funk or soul act).

While the group is best-known for top 10 hits such as “Cisco Kid”, “Why Can’t We Be Friends”, and “Low Rider”, “Slippin’ Into Darkness” is their masterpiece. Dave Marsh writes that the lyrics “evoke the dissolution of the civil rights movement into the drug-laced daze of the frustrated early seventies.” I’m not sure how much of that was intentional – the lyrics are certainly opaque in places – but “You’ve been slippin’ into darkness / Pretty soon you’re gonna pay” definitely does hit home.

Shuffle #38 (November 29, 2014)

Looking For An Echo – The Persuasions

Hold Back The Night – Graham Parker

Up The Junction – Squeeze

You Keep Me Hanging On – Joe Simon

Telegraph Road (LIVE) – Dire Straits

They Can’t Take That Away From Me – Patti Austin

Johnny One Time – Brenda Lee

#6 Over The Rainbow -- Eva Cassidy (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGaVQN-en2A

With the possible exception of Sinatra, I’ve never heard anyone approach Eva Cassidy as a singer, in terms of voice quality, phrasing, and the overall ability to interpret a song, whether it be a standard like this one, a blues classic like “Stormy Monday”, a soul number like “People Get Ready”, or a folk tune such as “Who Knows Where The Time Goes.” I first saw her on a side stage at the Wolf Trap Jazz and Blues Festival one year, when she was performing with go-go legend Chuck Brown, and was instantly hooked. I was fortunate enough to see her a few more times before her untimely death from melanoma, once more with Chuck and a couple of times by herself at free summer/fall concerts outside the old Silver Spring Armory and at A Taste of DC downtown.

A few years after her death, BBC Radio 2 and the Top of the Pops British TV show picked up Cassidy’s recording of “Over The Rainbow”, eventually sending her Songbird album to the top of the British charts and bringing Cassidy much more fame and appreciation than she ever had during her lifetime. The posthumous success is richly deserved, not just for her stunning version of this song but for her entire body of work.

Serendipity #27

(I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May – Suzanne Vega

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFs4isCJQEI

Heard 11/25/2014 around 5:30, at Jerry’s Subs (Fallsgrove)

Shuffle #37 (November 23, 2014)

Red Sails In The Sunset – The Spaniels

Sunny Came Home – Shawn Colvin

Do What You Want, Be What You Are – Hall & Oates

Leader Of The Pack – The Shangri-Las

Let’s Say Goodnight – Los Lobos

Caroline No – The Beach Boys

In These Shoes? – Kirsty MacColl

Twilight Zone – Golden Earring

Feel A Whole Lot Better – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Some Enchanted Evening – Jay & The Americans

Shuffle #36 (November 22, 2014)

Come Out And Play – The Offspring

Strength – The Alarm

Born To Run – Emmylou Harris

(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone – The Monkees

Let The Rough Side Drag – Jesse Winchester

Use Me – Bill Withers

Black Coffee In Bed – Squeeze

I’m A Good Woman – Cold Blood

Yakety Yak – The Coasters

Jimmy Ruffin

I wanted to be sure to note the death of soul singer Jimmy Ruffin on Monday. The older brother of Temptations singer David Ruffin certainly wasn’t one of Motown’s biggest songs, but he did record “What Becomes Of The Broken-Hearted”, one of the greatest Motown singles ever.

#7 Canadian Railroad Trilogy -- Gordon Lightfoot (1967)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzo6Otpgj-E

This song is the masterpiece of Lightfoot’s illustrious career, which is certainly not damning with faint praise. The song was actually commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for a special New Year’s Day broadcast kicking off Canada’s centennial year. It’s an extremely ambitious work, with three distinct parts (hence the “Trilogy” in the title), with the initial two reprised at the end. Starting with the opening line – “There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run” – Lightfoot describes the majestic beauty of his native land, the excitement of its growth and development, and the promise that the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad would bring. Many might have stopped there, leaving things in a feel-good, heart-warming bowl of mush. Gordon, however, spends much of the song recognizing and celebrating those who were on the front lines of the operation, and shying away from neither the physical (“Swingin' our hammers in the bright blazin' sun … bendin' our backs till the long days are done”) nor emotional (“Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping beyond the dark oceans in a place far away”) costs. And I don’t think anyone else would have ended a commissioned song for a government agency with the line “Many are the dead men, too silent to be real.”

With apologies to Little Feat, Warren Zevon, Steve Goodman, and many others, this one gets my vote for the best train song of all time.