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)

 

Shuffle #81 (February 6, 2016)

Never Been To Spain – Three Dog Night

Natalia – Van Morrison

And When I Die – Blood, Sweat & Tears

If I Ever Lose This Heaven – Average White Band

You And I Both – Jason Mraz

(You’re More Than A Number In My) Little Red Book – The Drifters

Me And Mia – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

The Little Girl I Once Knew – The Beach Boys

Only A Memory – The Smithereens

Happy Hour – The Housemartins

Richard Thompson – All-Request Show, The Barns at Wolf Trap, 2/4/2016

Row C, Seat 105 – third row back, dead center 

“Awesome” is a greatly-overused adjective, but it certainly describes this show. If Richard Thompson does three consecutive all-request shows at an intimate local venue again, I will be sorely tempted to attend all three.

 

While I’ve seen quite a few of his shows before, both with a band and solo, I’d never had the chance to see one of his all-request performances before, so I was interested to see how the whole thing worked. As we came in and had our tickets scanned, a Wolf Trap volunteer handed out slips of paper (one per customer), on which we could write a request. There were several locations (merch table, bar, stage) where we could put our slips, which eventually all wound up in a big metal bucket on the stage. He’d pull out three at a time – his reactions were among the highlights of the show – and on occasion would hand one or two of them to a young woman so she could look them up on the Internet. The occasional missteps (“Space Oddity” wasn’t exactly note-perfect) only added to the charm. At the beginning, he joked that Tuesday night’s requests had been heavy on Doris Day stuff.

 

He asked for some help on “Yellow Submarine”, so it turned into an enthusiastic audience singalong, complete with the appropriate sound effects on the bridge. When his own “Tear-Stained Letter” was requested, he mentioned that he normally performs that with a band, and divided the audience into sections for saxophone (my side), harmony vocals (“And by ‘harmony’, I mean pleasing to the ear”), and percussion (the balcony).

 

Performance-wise, “Valerie” and “Beeswing” (the final song of the main set) were probably the highlights, but he also nailed the slower numbers, especially “Waltzing’s For Dreamers” and a heartfelt version of Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”. He did a very nice version of “Imagine”, a song that to be honest I’m normally not all that fond of. Other covers included “Goin’ Back” (Goffin-King song done by the Byrds among others) and “Old Time Rock & Roll”.

 

He got two requests from his 1000 Years of Popular Music album. The first was the 16^th-century Italian number “So Ben Mi Ch'a Bon Tempo”, which came up early in the show. Quite a contrast from the final song of the night: Britney’s “Oops!...I Did It Again”.

 

He did pass up one request in the middle of the set, saying he didn’t know it. I will not name it here in order not to offend or upset any of my friends, but it’s the opening track from the breakout album by a certain legendary rocker from New Jersey.

 

And in the interest of full disclosure, I requested “Season Of The Witch”, which was suggested by an RT fanatic I know (who was off cavorting in Argentina with his girlfriend this week). He didn’t get to it.

 

Setlist

Maurice White

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/maurice-white-earth-wind-fire-singer-and-co-founder-dead-at-74-20160204

 

Hope it’s not a bad sign that two of the seven Lifetime Achievement Award winners to be recognized at the Grammies later this month are Jefferson Airplane and Earth, Wind and Fire. (Also a little eerie – EW&F is right next to The Eagles on my CD shelf.)

 

I hadn’t realized that the band was formed in Chicago, a city which is woefully underrated for its contributions to soul music.

 

Favorite songs:

September

Let’s Groove

That’s The Way Of The World

Shining Star

Boogie Wonderland

Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant 50th Anniversary Tour, Strathmore, 2/3/2016

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because this is the second show we caught on the Guthrie “50^th Anniversary” tour. (The first was almost exactly one year ago.) The tour is still going strong – nice crowd at Strathmore, two-sold out shows at the Birchmere coming up this weekend, plus one in Annapolis in May.

 

We had much closer seats this time (Row J, 116-117 – center section on the left aisle). The band continued to rock, especially on the classic “Coming Into Los Angeles”. Arlo’s daughter Sarah Lee Guthrie has recently been opening his shows; she did a 35-minute set leading off with “Catch The Wind” and including two originals plus songs by Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs. She performed with the band, which was a bit of a mixed blessing, as a few of the more gentle tunes (“Catch The Wind” most notably) really aren’t meant for drums.

 

Consequently, Arlo’s section of the show was somewhat shorter than in Frederick. Both times he did two sets (coming on right after his daughter this time), but he dropped four songs from the show (including, unfortunately, “Darkest Hour”), while adding “St. James Infirmary”.

Setlist

Paul Kantner

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/29/paul-kantner-jefferson-airplane-founder-dead-at-74/

 

Here we go again. The Grammy Awards show next month may need to add another half hour to get to all of the memorials.

 

I’ve always had a hard time picking my favorite version of “Wooden Ships,” which Kantner co-wrote with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. I heard the Crosby, Stills and Nash recording first and always liked it, but I finally decided on the Jefferson Airplane’s version. The CSN harmony vocals are top-notch as usual, but somehow the Airplane’s version seems a little rawer and more immediate.

 

Kantner deserves props not only for co-founding the band, but also for getting out in 1984 after the members at that time wanted to go in a strictly commercial direction. He gets bonus points for forcing the remaining members to give up the word “Jefferson”, leaving them as simply “Starship”. And rest assured that he had nothing to do with “We Built This City,” which WXPN listeners voted the worst song of all time a little over a year ago.

 

Favorite songs:

Wooden Ships

Ride The Tiger

Pretty As You Feel

Somebody To Love

Crown Of Creation

White Rabbit

Miracles

Volunteers

Greasy Heart

Lather

Serendipity #54

Coming Of Age – Foster The People

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBqzrj18S2w

Heard 1/21/2016 around 10:00, at Wegman’s (Germantown)

#102 Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl) – Looking Glass (1972)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28GrXgEHMzE

 

Tagged as one-hit wonders after this pop classic hit #1, New Jersey’s Looking Glass in fact put out the equally fine (although less-successful) single “Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne” the following summer. I was seriously tempted to put that one on my list rather than “Brandy”, but finally decided that being willfully obscure wasn’t always the best policy.

 

A long, long time ago, before the Internet, I remember my college roomie sending me a lengthy newspaper profile of the band, who felt that they were unfairly pigeonholed as a “pop” act based on their hit, which really didn’t represent their sound. I couldn’t locate that article, but did find a nice tribute site on the web that provides an interesting look at the band.

Glenn Frey

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/glenn-frey-guitarist-for-the-eagles-dies-at-67/2016/01/18/89aee084-be30-11e5-83d4-42e3bceea902_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/glenn-frey-the-one-who-started-it-all-with-the-eagles/2016/01/18/f1f72f3a-be43-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html

 

Come on, folks. If you want me to mention you in my blog, there are less drastic ways to do it.

 

I was always most partial to the Eagles' early, more country-rock stuff, having purchased Desperado and On the Border on vinyl. I do have to give “Hotel California” props for the sly Steely Dan reference, though. If you don’t already have most or all of the original albums, the two-disc Very Best Of compilation is definitely the way to go.

 

Interesting trivia note – when the band released Long Road Out of Eden in 2007, it was initially available only through Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and the band’s own web site. Until then, such “exclusive” albums were not eligible to appear on Billboard magazine’s sales charts. At the last minute, however, Billboard eliminated this restriction, enabling the album to debut at #1 on the chart with over 700,000 copies sold. This had the side effect of keeping Britney Spears’ brand-new CD, released the same week, from topping the chart. I don’t think Britney has been the same since.

 

Favorite songs:

Tequila Sunrise

Take It Easy

New Kid In Town

Desperado

Lyin’ Eyes

The Best Of My Love

Ol’ 55

Peaceful Easy Feeling

Hotel California

One Of These Nights

(seasonal bonus -- Please Come Home For Christmas)

#101 Tobacco Road – The Nashville Teens (1964)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuZY6NVXqU

 

I used the music I had in iTunes as the starting point for my favorite 100 songs. This one wasn’t there, because at that point I hadn’t been able to find the original version, only some crappy re-recordings. On September 4, 2014, to my great joy, I checked again, found the original in the iTunes store and promptly purchased it. Had it been there earlier, it almost certainly would have made my initial list of favorites.

 

The two versions of this often-recorded composition by John D. Loudermilk that I now have in my music library are both great, but couldn’t be more different. The Lou Rawls recording runs almost 8 minutes; it’s slow and jazzy, with a long spoken introduction similar to that on his hit “Dead End Street”. The Nashville Teens, however, take care of business in a mere 2:29. Despite their name, they were a British band, and this was their only hit in America. (They had slightly more success on their side of the pond.) For sheer kick-ass rock and roll, however, this compares to anything the Who, the Stones or the Kinks ever came up with. Having Jimmy Page on guitar certainly doesn’t hurt.