The James Hunter Six w/Jesse Dee -- Rams Head On Stage, Annapolis, 2/25/2016

Table 110, Seat 3 – table for 4, 3^rd 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.

 

Setlist

#108 Silver Lining – Rilo Kiley (2007)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVtSSCzASR0

 

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)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flR-b8lupjc

 

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.

#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)

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

 

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.

#104 Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson f/ Bruno Mars (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0

 

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)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc9NVpCoRQo

 

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.

 

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