Old Timey Music for Howard and DC

[DC47]

I am struck dumb that your dad knew the extremely unheralded Charlie Rouse, and amazed that he played with the highly heralded Dexter Gordon. Though you did not become a jazz guy (yet), I now see the roots of your cool.

I see the parallel you are making there between the combo leaders Curry and Monk. Yes, both are unpredictable and unprecedented artists. Casually innovating while still making their compositions work in the end. You are fortunate to be able to experience their parallel forms of brilliance in one evening.

[DC47]

I just finished watching The Jazz Baroness. Fascinating.

I knew only the outline of this woman's life. Among other things, I had no idea her relationship with Monk was so strong. This story is so improbable that it would never fly if someone tried to sell it as fiction.

What a personality this woman was. Equal in adventurousness and independence, in her own way, to Monks.

There's an infinitely small chance our paths crossed in the 70s and 80s. I never saw Monk play. He stopped performing in public around the time I began to hang out around metro NYC. But I went to a few jazz clubs, sometimes with an expensive handshake to get in as I was under-age and looked it.

Was that her sitting across the way at Sweet Basil the night that the pianist Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim -- deeply influenced by Monk -- was playing? And who was that big black guy with the pointy beard sitting next to her? Sadly, I didn't sit next to their table. Note: I was there that night, but the rest is strictly my imagination.

[DC47]

This is a nice introduction to the Jazz Baroness movie, via an interview with the director, Nica's great-niece.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/11/showbiz/h ... -baroness/

[howard]

I am struck dumb that your dad knew the extremely unheralded Charlie Rouse, and amazed that he played with the highly heralded Dexter Gordon. Though you did not become a jazz guy (yet), I now see the roots of your cool.

My dad way highly unheralded. I think Gordon was not that big a deal at the time (late 40s), before his Paris years (which the wiki sez started in 1960.) Dad was a working musician while in high school, graduated '39; after ww2 he was a full time musician for a few years before he went to college and joined the straight world. He was a workman, nowhere near the level of virtuosity of the famous guys. He prided himself by playing multiple instruments (piano, violin, clarinet, and his main instrument, tenor sax) and any kind of music (big band, dance band, Broadway orchestra, classical, and the emerging bebop.) Like so many, he would work his gig, then after hours jam or catch the masters playing uptown.

Mom had her cool too. She was a clerk for the state department, and was stationed at the embassy in Paris for two years after the war. She hung with Josephine Baker, James Baldwin and less famous members of the black expat community. They didn't meet and marry until their mid-30s (mom was transferred to Monrovia, Liberia, and dad got a job working for the local government, building sewers and highways.) (That is why I get all the Jeopardy questions about Liberia.)

My dad did not play many records in the house, and my mom's taste ran to pop music (lots of Sinatra, Ink Spots, Nat Cole). My dad preferred to bang on the piano. So I did not hear lots of great jazz at home growing up. First couple years of college I listened to jazz and started learning, mostly bebop. The wave of cool rock and roll around '77 ended that brief phase.

[DC47]

My dad way highly unheralded. I think Gordon was not that big a deal at the time (late 40s), before his Paris years (which the wiki sez started in 1960.) Dad was a working musician while in high school, graduated '39; after ww2 he was a full time musician for a few years before he went to college and joined the straight world. He was a workman, nowhere near the level of virtuosity of the famous guys. He prided himself by playing multiple instruments (piano, violin, clarinet, and his main instrument, tenor sax) and any kind of music (big band, dance band, Broadway orchestra, classical, and the emerging bebop.) Like so many, he would work his gig, then after hours jam or catch the masters playing uptown.

Was this NYC in the late 40s? That was a very exciting time for jazz musicians to be there. The threads that got tied together to become bebop were all there, and beginning to entwine.

I think Gordon began to become a name in the jazz world in the 50s, though obviously he exploded late in his life with the movie 'Round Midnight (yes, a Monk tune) All his work was rediscovered then. He struggled very early in his career with 'finding his own sound.' He was too much like Lester Young, and was compared, as they all were, unfavorably to Bird. Listening to the early 50s recordings, I think he's already very good. So to play with him just a bit before this, when he was no doubt a very popular club player if not a recording star, must have been pretty big time.

Mom had her cool too. She was a clerk for the state department, and was stationed at the embassy in Paris for two years after the war. She hung with Josephine Baker, James Baldwin and less famous members of the black expat community. They didn't meet and marry until their mid-30s (mom was transferred to Monrovia, Liberia, and dad got a job working for the local government, building sewers and highways.) (That is why I get all the Jeopardy questions about Liberia.)

Baker, Baldwin et al? The youngsters may not get this, but it's like your dad was jamming with Jack White and Questlove while your mom was hanging with Rihanna and August Wilson. So, like, awesome bro. You were the inevitable product of hip X cool. Could you have been square if you tried?

My dad did not play many records in the house, and my mom's taste ran to pop music (lots of Sinatra, Ink Spots, Nat Cole). My dad preferred to bang on the piano. So I did not hear lots of great jazz at home growing up.

Jazz was pretty much dead by the mid 60s. So who really did hear a lot of it growing up besides perhaps the sons of guys like Dave Brubeck? I crossed paths with Chris Brubeck some, and shockingly he had no problems getting (all of my rightful) gigs as a trombonist despite my presence on the scene.

Not to get too technical here, but Frank and Nat had pretty deep roots in the jazz world. Between his boy-idol and ganged-up crooner phases, Frank was a serious jazz singer. He was very good technically. Certainly good enough for guys like Basie, who made great records with him. Nat was of course the pianist in a fine jazz trio before one of his rare vocals became a hit and sent him on his violin-drenched, crooning way. But he was even then a jazz musician. So maybe you had some jazz influence on the home front after all. Just on the subtle side.

My parents listened to as much Jim Nabors as Frank Sinatra. More Tennessee Ernie Ford, hymns and classical music than anything. They did once bring home a dixieland jazz record that I liked from a club they went to on a rare trip to Chicago where that band was playing. That was an anomaly -- so they weren't much of a jazz influence on me.

But my Kentucky-born, moderately-racist Baptist father certainly liked Nat King Cole. He actually would sing -- very rare for him -- lines from Nat's songs. Some of Nat's lyrics became my father's signature catchphrases. Twenty years after his death, my siblings still quote them without knowing that they weren't original.

The first that comes to mind is the frequently-heard parental admonition in this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fVaP6dM1fs. Corny lyrics, yes. But there is jazz all over this otherwise hip recording.

First couple years of college I listened to jazz and started learning, mostly bebop. The wave of cool rock and roll around '77 ended that brief phase.

Of course all young men have to find 'their thing.' And god forbid it should remotely resemble our parents' thing. I had the advantage here in finding jazz in that my parents didn't have any association with this genre, and it was unpopular among my peers. So I could freely identify with this jazz while still being an astonishingly iconoclastic teen who discovered everything for himself. Or so I wanted to believe.

[howard]

Oh man, my mom sung that song to me all the time. She said I would dance to it when I was about 3 or 4yo. That tune is imprinted-I'm sure I heard it plenty in the womb. Cool down Papa, don't you blow your top!

I was drawn to jazz in large part because of my dad, it wasn't a rebellion thing at all (I did that in other ways, like becoming a Giants fan.) He grew up in Brooklyn (huge Dodger fan, as I was until we moved north and I rebelled, professing my love for Willie Mays), and he lived in Harlem and in the Bronx during the late 40s. He just didn't lug his old records with him to Cali after they got married, so the records I heard as a kid most belonged to my mom and were mostly pop music (much of which, as you point out, was awesome.) He did bring his sax, which I still have and occasionally play very badly. But, sure I was influenced by those Sinatra and other records.

(By the time I got my shot at my dad's records, in the 70s, in the family home in Brooklyn, his cousin had sold them off.)

When I was 'discovering on my own' artists like Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Modern Jazz Quartet, my dad was gently indulgent of my enthusiasm at my discoveries.

The way my dad told it, he saw he buddies in the jazz world succumb to drink, drugs and fast women. So he consciously moved away from it, playing more classical gigs and working his career in that direction. Until he noticed a lot of his new friends in the classical world were falling to drink, drugs and fast women; not much difference from Uptown. And he re-figured maybe go to college and leave music behind (got a civil engineering degree, just in time to get drafted a second time, for Korea.)

The moving from South Central LA to Davis when I was ten did a lot to dampen down my cool. All those semi-rural white kids in the valley, with their pickup trucks and country music.

My folks were older by standards of the day, 35yo when I was born. They really settled down into middle age, suburban routines and were very conventional, bearing little resemblance to their cool young adulthood. Kids and mortgage.

[DC47]

Oh man, my mom sung that song to me all the time. She said I would dance to it when I was about 3 or 4yo. That tune is imprinted-I'm sure I heard it plenty in the womb. Cool down Papa, don't you blow your top!

Straightening up in order to enhance flying appropriately was more my father's theme. But never stated so eloquently as when quoting Nat.

I was drawn to jazz in large part because of my dad, it wasn't a rebellion thing at all (I did that in other ways, like becoming a Giants fan.) He grew up in Brooklyn (huge Dodger fan, as I was until we moved north and I rebelled, professing my love for Willie Mays), and he lived in Harlem and in the Bronx during the late 40s.

Who needs to justify loving Willie Mays in the 60s? I naturally worshiped Kaline, the DiMaggio of Detroit. But there was no better or more charismatic player than Mays. Good lord, that's not rebellion -- it's common sense. As they say today, Willie Mays >>>> Willie Davis. That's true even if you throw in Tommy too. So rebellion was lined up the right way for you.

Good thing you weren't rebelling into being a Giants fan in the mid to late 70s. I recall that time, as I adopted them as my National League team when I moved out there. They led the league only in hitters named Gary/Garry. Though I was a big fan of Maddox, who could catch it almost like Mays.

(By the time I got my shot at my dad's records, in the 70s, in the family home in Brooklyn, his cousin had sold them off.)

People did that. They saw records as dollar bills that had been abandoned in boxes, by people who wouldn't miss them.

I left my bulky crates at home when I moved west. On a surprise visit to the east coast in the late 70s I went up to drive my younger brother home from Cornell at the end of his school term. When I got to his placed, his roommate told me he was down at the record store. Where I found him, in the process of selling my records. Today, many are collector's items. Fortunately I just cared about the music, and I had cassettes of my favorites that I took west with me.

When I was 'discovering on my own' artists like Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Modern Jazz Quartet, my dad was gently indulgent of my enthusiasm at my discoveries.

The way my dad told it, he saw he buddies in the jazz world succumb to drink, drugs and fast women. So he consciously moved away from it, playing more classical gigs and working his career in that direction. Until he noticed a lot of his new friends in the classical world were falling to drink, drugs and fast women; not much difference from Uptown. And he re-figured maybe go to college and leave music behind (got a civil engineering degree, just in time to get drafted a second time, for Korea.)

That's a funny story. My classical musician acquaintances are pretty straight arrow. But who knows what was brewing in NYC in the 40s and 50s? That's a special kind of place.

The moving from South Central LA to Davis when I was ten did a lot to dampen down my cool. All those semi-rural white kids in the valley, with their pickup trucks and country music.

My folks were older by standards of the day, 35yo when I was born. They really settled down into middle age, suburban routines and were very conventional, bearing little resemblance to their cool young adulthood. Kids and mortgage.

I must assume that Davis was far less cool then than now. I believe it's a bit of a cultural hot spot these days.

So too, Davis must have been a far greater culture shock to your parents than even to you. NYC, Paris, Liberia, Davis. Which of these things doesn't belong? But of course, probably a better place to raise a family and all, unless you want them to be troubled bohemians. I think it's hard for kids to recognize that their parents might have lived a different way before they came along. And certainly hard to recognize that they made sacrifices for their family.

[Rush2112]

[DC47]

Buddy Miles is kind of like the Josh Smith of soul and rock music to me. Not much of a drummer, and typically an annoying singer. Back in the day, it always amazed me to see him considered a major league musician, much less someone who could front a band. There were even groups in which he played guitar (very badly). So his presence here with Hendrix kind of impairs this clip, as Josh Smith showing up in a Pistons' uniform would do.

But when Hendrix is soloing, it's like the time that Josh Smith was on the bench, and great things could occur. Except it was the Pistons. So to make this work you have to imagine that they had drafted Steph Curry and Kawhi Leonard. Okay, I suppose the whole analogy thing breaks down right there. But you will get my drift.

Hendrix is always interesting. He is here. But what a shame that he spent so much of his short career leading his own band with musicians who weren't in his class. Drummer Mitch Mitchell was the only one I found even adequate or better. Noel Redding was barely okay on bass, and Billy Cox was worse but typically mixed down (as he was here). Buddy Miles was atrocious, as above.

Watching Band of Gypsys play highlights one large question about Jimi Hendrix. How is it that he played with such bad musicians? Is it that Hendrix didn't have his choice of great sidemen who would make sacrifices in order to be in his band? This is a great mystery to me. I'm sure Hendrix found his old friend Cox at least comfortable, but taken as a whole, this is not a strong group of rock musicians. I suppose that ultimately this is really all on him for not getting better musical companions. It's not easy to do this. But the contrast between Hendrix and his bands of losers with Clapton and his bands of winners (Mayall, Cream, Blind Faith, Domnos), at least in his early career, is quite stark.

[Rush2112]

Is amazing that some British bloke that's ok at guitar gets great players around him, while the actual god of guitar has to play with half wits.

I do enjoy the rawness of the Band of Gypsies. The funkiness and the power of Jimi are what are enjoyable to me. Would I put it on to listen closely? No, but to listen while hammering down some beers with friends or while tripping on mushrooms on a porch in ABQ? (where I first heard it.) Hells yes.

[DC47]

I'd listen closely, even without the chemical aids, because it's Hendrix and that's a great riff. But not as much as if Josh -- er, Buddy -- had been cut and was playing with the Rockets. I'd have greater interest if that was Karen Carpenter on drums and vocals, with Peter Tork on bass.

[Rush2112]

Continuing on my trip around great live recordings.

[DC47]

Now 'yer talkin'.

This captures a great Ellington band in fine form. It's far from one of Duke's best compositions, but it's not bad. The obvious high point is Paul Gonsalves' lengthy solo between sections of the composition. This is one of the great solos in recorded jazz history. I like the music, though it is far from innovative. But what made the solo legendary was the public response.

The Newport record sold very well, which was not typical for Duke in this era, largely due to the Paul Gonsalves solo. The early 50s was actually a bad time for Duke Ellington. Many saw him as a has-been, far out of touch with the cutting edge of jazz: bebop.

But as a result of the Newport album sales, the Ellington band had a resurgence in popularity. Duke got better gigs and a big record deal, allowing him to keep a big group together for several years after they might have otherwise floundered. So this is more than just a 'nice solo.' These 25 bars or so changed jazz history -- but from an economic rather than an artistic angle. Improved economics then furthered the artistry of the final period of Duke Ellington's long career.

One of the things that 'sold' the Gonsalves solo to the general public and casual jazz fans was that it seemed so exciting, out of control, and spontaneous. But this was not the real story. You can hear Duke urging Gonsalves to keep going, far longer than the usual solo taken by an Ellington band member (and he was not one of the star soloists). And it was a passionate, brilliant outpouring of jazz. And there was an elegant woman dancing in front who was revving up the crowd, as legend records. And yes, the crowd went nuts. I think that's the authentic crowd noise on the recording, though I also believe this record has one song that was re-recorded in the studio with crowd noise added (that was par for the course until the 80s at least).

But this version of the song was not a particularly unique event. The song itself dated back 20 years or so. And Gonsalves had played a similar solo on this song, of similar 'amazing' length, for many years in advance of the Newport date. So this was pretty much a set piece, with Duke's encouragement of Gonsalves to apparently extend his usual solo slot a bit of stage showmanship that played on a standard jazz trope (the solo that was so good that everyone stood back and let the cat blow). There was no one who was more of a showman than Duke Ellington.

He loved us all, madly.

[EdRomero]

Is knowing that "Respect" is originally an Otis Redding Song something I should have known? Anyway, the song sung by Redding has more of a "respect me woman before I beat you" vibe to it.

[howard]

Is knowing that "Respect" is originally an Otis Redding Song something I should have known?

Not really, Otis' record was not a hit, (charted at #35), while for 'retha it was a #1, won a Grammy, and was her signature tune. Plus, no spelling on Otis'.

The 'before I beat you' had never occurred to me. While it is clear Aretha is ready to issue a beat-down as the coda of Think!

[DC47]

Depends critically on your age and your rating on the Soul Scale.

This is actually a challenging matter. Redding's version was musically brilliant, and many heard it. But Aretha covered the original fairly quickly -- within a year or two -- and sang the heck out of it. By then, Redding had died in a plane crash, so he wasn't around to do his version any more. Redding's version had been a hit, but largely with the urban R&B audience. Aretha's version was big there, but then crossed over in a big way into pop radio. So in many ways, the Aretha version overtook the original, even though that was tremendous music that would stand up over time.

It's interesting to me that Aretha's version of the song wasn't really just a straight cover.

First, it's obvious that changing the gender of the singer mattered tremendously. Just by being sung by a woman, her version matched the burgeoning feminist tone of the times. Redding's song was a tired working-man's mundane request for some consideration (or sex, I was never sure). Aretha's was an iconic, revolutionary demand for equality.

But the song was changed in substantive musical ways as well. The whole spelling out of R-E-S-P-E-C-T thing was new. That is a very clever device. Further, consider the horns. While the original had the great "massed" Memphis horn sound, in the Aretha version there is more sophisticated King Curtis sax solo that drives song into higher musical ground. His work here is amazing. Few could play so tastefully and concisely.

There is a clear stylistic difference in the backing tracks. These were two of the great studio bands in recorded human history. Right up there with the Wrecking Crew and Motown's Funk Brothers. They each put their stamp on the songs. Both takes worked amazingly well, as you learn quickly when you hear this song covered by bar or lounge bands and suddenly "it doesn't sound good." Personally, I prefer the Muscle Shoals band (backing Aretha). But both bring many subtle elements to the recording that help make it work. The two versions are most definitely not just about contrasts between the two legendary singers.

It's fascinating to play these songs back to back. Taken as a whole, they are quite different and quite brilliant. I wonder if, in the entire rock canon, there have ever been two recordings of the same song that were this good? All that comes to mind as competition is "All Along the Watchtower."

[howard]

The dichotomy of Muscle Shoals vs The Memphis group is wonderful in considering these two records. But, as much as I love the Muscle Shoals fellas (even if you throw in Duane Allman), I am too heavily biased toward Cropper and Dunn in all matters.

A lot of slang emerged from/was reflected by Aretha's version: 'give me my props'; 'TCB' (Taking Care of Business), 'sock it to me'.

[Rush2112]

[DC47]

I couldn't be more divided in any choice between the sounds of Muscle Shoals (actually two studios) and Memphis (Stax and American Studios, but elsewhere too). In general, whichever one I heard last.

The interesting thing to me is that it took so long for even serious fans of the music that came from these places to actually identify their session musicians as having a distinctive 'sound' that was as important as the lead singers on the records. So too with the Funk Brothers, who were not credited on Motown records as far as I know, and the Wrecking Crew.

It's also interesting to note that Muscle Shoals and Memphis are in different states, they are actually just a bit down the road from each other. As close as Boston is to NYC. Many musicians played in both places -- typically migrating from Muscle Shoals towards Memphis.

And many musicians recorded in both. An early Wilson Pickett album had songs produced in both places. Who could argue with him when it comes to where the groove was deepest?

I have a hard time keeping this all straight, but I'm sure that Mustang Sally was done at Muscle Shoals and I think Land of 1,000 Dances was too. But the astonishingly funky In the Midnight Hour was co-authored by Steve Cropper, and I'm pretty sure it was cut in Memphis. Fun fact: Steve Cropper played on at least one Velvet Underground record. Talk about range.

[Rush2112]

Fun fact: Steve Cropper played on at least one Velvet Underground record. Talk about range.

Rick James was in a band with Neil Young.

ETA and he was introduced to that band when jumped on stage and sang with them after going to a bar after a fight. He was rescued from that fight by Levon Helm and Garth Hudson.

[howard]

Lynyrd Skynyrd did their part to raise awareness of one. And Dan Aykroyd the other.

[DC47]

I believe that Skynyrd a bunch of tracks produced by Jimmy Johnson in Muscle Shoals that would have been their first release. But the record label rejected that material and had it re-recorded elsewhere. I think the songs included Free Bird. The Muscle Shoals material was released years later, after the plane crash that killed several band members, including the lead singer and primary composer. It's ironic to see Muscle Shoals associated with this band, as it was one of Jimmy Johnson's great disasters as a producer. He helped this raw group of rockers to develop the sound that would make them famous -- and then lost control of the project.

The whole Blues Brothers thing left me cold. I know that the publicity they generated helped a lot of musicians economically. That is unequivocally good. Those who think Belushi and Ackroyd were ripping off their sources never talked to those musicians. I took it as a tribute, that also put money in the pockets of the people who were being honored. I just didn't like the music or the movies they produced. I didn't want to listen to boring, second-rate clowns (the front-men, not the killer backing band) when the real thing was readily available.

[rass]

You take that back DC. There is only one Blues Brothers movie!

[DC47]

In my mind there are none. I have only a vague memory of a slow-motion train wreck involving suits and sunglasses that I did my best to erase immediately by spending the next 248 hours drinking black coffee and playing Green Onions on repeat. It was like psychic cauterization.

[howard]

I don't mind admitting that The Blues Brothers opened a door for me to start listening to the real thing. I don't remember if I had seen the initial SNL appearance, but I went to a Steve Martin performance at the Universal Ampitheater (when it was outdoors) in LA, and unannounced, the Blues Brothers were the opening act. I recognized Cropper and Dunn, but that was about it, and I only knew their half dozen radio hits. The whole thing seemed like a goof, Belushi jumping around playing a character, but the music was cool and led me to seeking out the original artists. At the time, I was very narrow in the (rock) music I listened to, and that stuff was not part of my growing up. The Blues Brothers Band helped me broaden my tastes, beyond that of a suburban white punk/r+r hipster that I pretty much was at that time. Remember, dc, at any given time in the 70's I was significantly less cool and less musically savvy than you.

my singular favorite booker t tune

otis doing 'Cant Turn You Loose'

ETA: sometimes, youtube does a solid. Searching for one of the above links, it recommended this, which I have not thought about in a decade. I regret not catching one of these shows:

Neil Young with Booker T & the MG's 7/03/1993 Torhout, Belgium

[Pruitt]

I am blessed to have seen Neil Young on that tour. It was phenomenal.

But now for something completely different - Wayne Cochran.

[Steve of phpBB]

This thread is amazing reading.

[howard]

This thread is amazing reading.

Yeah, try arguing with my views here, bitch.

ETA: what the hell was in the water in Macon, Georgia? Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, Wayne Cochrane, and early in their career The Allman Bros.

[DC47]

I don't mind admitting that The Blues Brothers opened a door for me to start listening to the real thing. I don't remember if I had seen the initial SNL appearance, but I went to a Steve Martin performance at the Universal Ampitheater (when it was outdoors) in LA, and unannounced, the Blues Brothers were the opening act. I recognized Cropper and Dunn, but that was about it, and I only knew their half dozen radio hits. The whole thing seemed like a goof, Belushi jumping around playing a character, but the music was cool and led me to seeking out the original artists. At the time, I was very narrow in the (rock) music I listened to, and that stuff was not part of my growing up. The Blues Brothers Band helped me broaden my tastes, beyond that of a suburban white punk/r+r hipster that I pretty much was at that time. Remember, dc, at any given time in the 70's I was significantly less cool and less musically savvy than you.

Interesting story. That's a good example of the positive value that the Blues Brothers thing brought to both listeners and the musicians they based their act on. Not being deeply into the originals would also make the Blues Brothers more listenable. Otherwise they tended to sound like a karaoke band -- perfect backing track (of course, who was playing behind them?) with some clowns dancing around in front, mangling the vocals.

Regarding musical savvy, people find musical niches -- or not -- on an almost random basis. But certainly you have to 'have ears' for a particular thing. What you've heard in the past affects how you can appreciate things in the future. That's as true for those just listening as it is for musicians. If you dig deep, you find that their roots show.

For example, Thelonious Monk is not obviously a blues and gospel musician. But if you listen closely to a lot of his work, you can hear this influence. No surprise, as he grew up in rural North Carolina in the years before WWII. He wasn't listening to a lot of Beethoven or even traditional jazz forms when his musical soul was being shaped. He was a brilliant musician, not a jukebox. So he didn't simply play what he heard as a kid. But neither was his creativity simply based on what randomly 'came to him' as an adult.

Regarding being less cool, you were deeply into the second British invasion in the 70s and 80s. Something was happening there that I was pretty much ignoring. Costello, Clash, Lowe, Parker, all the guys with thin ties who couldn't play solos -- they meant nothing to me. There wasn't much distance between them and Bryan Adams and Boy George in my sadly misinformed mind. I missed a lot of music, and am only playing catch up now in the 20teens.

my singular favorite booker t tune

That, of course, is great stuff. I'll stick with Green Onions as the ultimate, but it is fun to find material that is less known but almost as perfect. One of my favorites:

Neil Young with Booker T & the MG's 7/03/1993 Torhout, Belgium

I completely forgot about the Young-MGs combination. Pretty cool. It's an interesting combination of styles, matching the locked-in tight MGs with the notoriously loose Young. By analogy, it's Earl The Pearl playing with the Knicks. I was sure that would fail -- until it worked brilliantly.

[DC47]

[deleted double post]

[DC47]

This thread is amazing reading.

Yeah, try arguing with my views here, bitch.

I wonder if you might moderate your claim just a bit if you were aware that the last name of "Steve" is actually Cropper? On behalf of the rest of us, thanks for creating all that amazing music, Steve. It's always nice to see you posting here.

ETA: what the hell was in the water in Macon, Georgia? Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, Wayne Cochrane, and early in their career The Allman Bros.

There are magic places in certain times where musical influences that go well together just happen to be prominent. Macon, Muscle Shoals, Memphis -- that area in the early sixties was a musical melting pot. But not just of any music. The strength of the church in the south meant that Gospel was a big part of just about everyone's background. The plantations meant that many varieties of the blues were everywhere. It was also a rural area, so traditional country was big. Then rock and roll -- itself an amalgam of styles -- swept over everywhere, including the deep south, becoming the dominant 'pop' music of the time.

The young guys who were growing up in this region had all these influences to work with. The most musically creative did amazing things with it. They naturally gathered in cities and small towns, where they influenced each other. Others from the edges of the region migrated towards the action.

That was true of the Allmans, who were primarily from Florida even into their 20s. They ended up in Macon because Capricorn Records was set up there, and Phil Walden was paying their bills while they tried to get it together to become a successful recording band. Walden had managed Al Green, Percy Sledge, and Otis Redding, so he was a player, despite being brand new to the record label biz. Why was he in Macon? He went to college there, where he put on his first shows; one was a very early Redding gig at a frat house. I presume this led to his managerial career. There's chance in all things human.

Put it all together and -- BANG -- a golden era.

Historically, artistic hotspots tend to be bigger cities, for a variety of reasons (many economic). But these relatively small towns in the deep south weren't really all that far off the beaten path. Muscle Shoals, which seems like it must be an infinitely hick town if you are a bi-coastal person, was part of a cluster of small towns on the big road between Atlanta and Memphis, and not that far from the musical hotbed of Nashville. Macon was a medium-sized town, not that far from Atlanta.

With air travel coming on strong in the 60s, there was less physical isolation than might be apparent. Witness the Stones moving to a nearby hotel to cut tracks at Muscle Shoals (e.g., Wild Horse, Brown Sugar). Keith said they would have come back to record their next album (to become 'Exile on Main Street') if drug-related passport issues hadn't ruled this out; they ended up in a basement in the South of France, and did okay regardless. Lennon (a huge MG's fan) and the Beatles were said to be arranging a recording session at Stax until it was ruled out for security reasons by their manager. It you had "IT", by the 60s the world had become such a small place that people would come to you from all over the world.

[DC47]

Mike Cooper song

Thanks for posting this Rush. I don't recall ever hearing his name, and certainly didn't know his place in rock history. I like what he's doing here, and have clicked on a few other tunes. You are the master of uncovering the music that was around the edges, forgotten. A few different rolls of the dice, and we might all know this guy.

[howard]

I completely forgot about the Young-MGs combination…(b)y analogy, it's Earl The Pearl playing with the Knicks.

That is just perfect.

I wonder if you might moderate your claim just a bit if you were aware that the last name of "Steve" is actually Cropper?

If that is the case, I will vote for fucking Hillary.

[DC47]

I wonder if you might moderate your claim just a bit if you were aware that the last name of "Steve" is actually Cropper?

If that is the case, I will vote for fucking Hillary.

If you find her attractive, and as long as this is between consenting adults whose judgment is not impaired, I, for one, will also vote for you doing this.

[Rush2112]

Mike Cooper song

Thanks for posting this Rush. I don't recall ever hearing his name, and certainly didn't know his place in rock history. I like what he's doing here, and have clicked on a few other tunes. You are the master of uncovering the music that was around the edges, forgotten. A few different rolls of the dice, and we might all know this guy.

(Not THAT Ian Anderson)



He was invited to join the Stones at one time!

[sancarlos]

I know most of you guys aren't really into country music, and, for the record, I detest what gets played on "country" radio. But, I do enjoy what is generally called "outlaw country" or "alternative country" or "no depression country". Guy Clark is an old dude who was one of the spiritual godfathers of at least one aspect of the alternative group of artists (I'd include others such as Townes Van Zant, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle and Uncle Tupelo, too). Guy is best known for writing the song, L.A. Freeway, (which was also a minor hit for Jerry Jeff Walker), but he's written and recorded a lot of good stuff over the years. One of my favorite concerts I've attended was when Guy was joined by Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, and John Hiatt, and the four of them took turns playing their own songs, backed by the others.

Anyway, somebody has now made a documentary movie about Guy Clark. Here is a good article about it.

[DC47]

I was out last night with my teenage daughters. Later at home I ran across this. Carole King wrote the song long ago. She married young and had her children in the early 60s; the song clearly came from the heart. But Emmylou Harris has clearly lived it too. I have a feeling I'll be humming this tune quietly to myself for as long as I live.

[howard]

Emmylou is so great. She would play The Palms in Davis about once a year through the 80s, I caught her at least a half dozen times over the years. Like an angel.

[sancarlos]

Yes, yes. I, too, love Emmylou. And, music aside, she has aged beautifully.

[P.D.X.]

Found a Greg Allman ticket stub last night from a show 14 years ago that I have absolutely no recollection of. Guess I'm in the club now.