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Music Throwback Saturday: The Trouble with Normal

Person in the street shrugs — “Security comes first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

In celebration of the 71st birthday of Bruce Cockburn (pronounced CO-burn) on May 25, I played the one compilation CD of his that I own. To call it a “greatest hits” would be stretching it, since he was not a commercial engine, though a well-regarded singer/songwriter, often covered, who’s been recording at least since 1970.

I DO have three of his LPs, his 9th through 11th, on vinyl, as it turns out, probably a function of hearing the songs on WQBK-FM, Q104 in Albany in the period. Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws (1978) features his one bona fide US hit, Wondering Where the Lions Are, which got up to #21 on the Billboard charts. I did not know this Continue reading “Music Throwback Saturday: The Trouble with Normal”

June rambling #1: love and math

Nation Wishes It Could Just Once Be Reminded Of Preciousness Of Life Without Mass Shooting.

Get Visual: On passing.

Everything Doesn’t Happen For A Reason.

NY Gov. Cuomo signs “unconstitutional, McCarthyite” pro-Israel exec. order punishing BDS boycott movement.

Chuck Miller: The Blackbird: 2006-2016.

John Oliver: Debt Buyers.

Dan Rather on a free press.

Dear Journalists: For the Love of God, Please Stop Calling Your Writing “Content”.

A Progressive Agenda to Cut Poverty and Expand Opportunity.

Meditations of an Anxious Baker.

Christine Baxter: We Are Singing For Our Lives. The sights of her experience at the United Methodist General Conference.

Love and math.

New Yorker: Frog and Toad: an amphibious celebration of same-sex love. “Arnold Lobel… was born in 1933 and raised in Schenectady, New York.”

A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, a topic I wrote about here.

Arctic greening not a good thing; low-income assistance doesn’t make people lazy. And Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is a schmuck.

Having It All Kinda Sucks. “Only women would sign up for this much crap.”

Jaquandor is dee-you-enn with the first draft of another book.

8 Important TV Shows That Were Lost Or Destroyed.

Bruce Dern, at 80, Reflects on His Career, Working With Clint Eastwood and Alfred Hitchcock.

Deconstructing Comics Podcast: #500 – Stephen Bissette: Comics, Movies, and Creator Credits.

Trouble with Comics #40: Party All the Time.

Bats In The Bedroom Can Spread Rabies Without An Obvious Bite, something I learned firsthand.

Your Ramadan beverage.

Period. Full Stop. Point. Whatever It’s Called, It’s Going Out of Style.

Now I Know: Watching What You Say and Decipher This and The Land Down Under in the Land Down Under and How to Take Turns, International Treaty Edition.

Peter Shaffer Dies at 90; Playwright Won Tonys for ‘Equus’ and ‘Amadeus’. Pronounced SHAFF-er. Amadeus: Peter Shaffer’s Enduring Portrait of Genius (and Mediocrity).

Gordie Howe, hockey legend, R.I.P. at 88. Howe played more than 1,700 games in the NHL and scored more than 800 goals. He was widely known as “Mr. Hockey.”

Irv Benson, R.I.P. at 102.

SamuraiFrog answered a bunch of questions from me, including about the Cincinnati Zoo.

Muhammad ALI

Pentagon learned from the epic mistake of making a martyr of the world’s most gifted and famous athlete.

Cassius Clay sings Stand By Me.

Remembering Cleveland’s Muhammad Ali Summit, 1967. Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Lew Alcindor and others.

World Heavyweight Champion of Peace, Justice and Humanity.

Ali Understood the Racist Roots of War and Militarism. And he called them out fearlessly.

The Political Poet.

How Muhammad Ali helped Tavis Smiley heal a father-son rift.

The champ on That’s Incredible.

Man and Superman.

Muhammad Ali’s other big fight.

The 1996 Olympics.

When Muhammad Ali fought at the Washington Avenue Armory.

‘Ali! Ali!’: The Greatest is laid to rest in his hometown.

Pieces by Dustbury and Ken Levine.

A bunch of articles from Slate, including Billy Crystal’s Homage at the Champ’s Memorial. Plus Billy Crystal’s Muhammad Ali tribute – 15 Rounds (1979).

Muhammad Ali documentary ‘When We Were Kings’ to screen at Madison Theatre in Albany 6/23.

MUSIC

Big Daddy’s new video is a mash-up of “New York, New York” with classic Doo-Wop styles of the 1950s…most notably “Blue Moon” by The Marcels.

Marcia Howard: A voice from the past brings the past to The Voice.

Carpool Karaoke with James Corden, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Audra McDonald, Jane Krakowski, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

Lin-Manuel Miranda Freestyles about RAMEN.

Classic guitar riffs.

Bobbie Gentry and other classic music photographs from the BBC archive.

Paul McCartney talks about the early days.

As Dustbury knows, this IS bad: Court Says Remastered Old Songs Get A Brand New Copyright.

Now I Know: Faking Fakin’ It.

Music Throwback Saturday: Right Place Wrong Time

A verse lyric from Right Place Wrong Time was the inspiration for the title of the album Brain Salad Surgery by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

When I saw the new movie The Jungle Book, which I loved, I discerned the voice of Dr. John during the end credits instantly. My friend Jon said, “I’m not familiar with him.”

So I did my best whiskey-soaked vocal impression of his Right Place Wrong Time. It was recognized right away, both then and the next day as I retold this story. Despite him playing the music for well over a half-century, that one song from over four decades ago is still remembered.

Malcolm (Mac) Rebennack, born on 20 November 1940 in New Orleans, and has worked as a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and especially pianist since the late 1950s.

He put out an album in 1968, Gris-Gris, which stiffed at the time, but became well regarded in subsequent years..

His fifth album, Dr. John’s Gumbo, was a collection of covers of New Orleans classics. He had a minor hit, Iko Iko (#71 in 1972).

Then came the album In the Right Place. The singles Right Place Wrong Time (#9 in 1973) and Such A Night (#42 in 1973) marked the high point in his merely commercial side.

“The song ‘Right Place Wrong Time’ was featured in an episode of American Horror Story: Coven and also in the movies Dazed and Confused and Sahara, as well as the trailer for the second season of Fargo. A verse lyric from the song (‘Just need a little brain salad surgery/got to cure my insecurity’) was the inspiration for the title of the album Brain Salad Surgery by the English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.”

But as his 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction notes: “Beyond his vast discography as a recording artist, the list of sessions on which he’s played for others is lengthy and impressive…”

Dr. John was at Alive at Five this week in Albany. Alas, I missed it.

LISTEN to

Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya HERE.

Iko Iko HERE. A description HERE.

Right Place Wrong Time HERE or HERE.

Such A Night HERE.

Bare Necessities HERE.

Music Throwback Saturday: Smile, Darn Ya, Smile

The Smile, Darn You, Smile cartoon was redone, and colorized, in 1995.

For this one, blame fillyjonk. She had a post featuring, among other things, Billy Cotton singing Smile, Darn Ya, Smile from 1931, a song written by Charles O’Flynn, Jack Meskill, and Max Rich.

Also in that post, from that year, a character named Foxy – looking not dissimilar to Mickey Mouse – in an animated feature with the same name as the song. It was a Merrie Melodies cartoon, a producer I recognize as later featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and others.

From Toonzone: This cartoon is very similar to Walt Disney’s Oswald the Rabbit cartoon Trolley Troubles (1927) [where “Oswald is the conductor on a runaway trolley] which [supervising director Rudolf] Ising likely worked on. Disney Swipe: In both Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! and in Disney’s The Opry House (1929), a fat hippo is deflated with a pin.”

The Smile, Darn Ya, Smile cartoon was redone, and colorized, in 1995. “The re-drawn version is never animated at 24 fps (as many scenes in the original are), but only with 12 drawings/second.”

As fillyjonk noted, the song “was used (at least the chorus was) at the very end of ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (when the Toons get their happy ending, after all).” It was also recorded by several others.

LINKS

Read the fillyjonk post

Read IMBD of the 1931 cartoon

Watch the side-by-side comparison of the 1931 and 1995 cartoons

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile by Ben Selvin, which hit #14 on the Billboard charts in 1931 HERE or HERE or HERE

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile – Percival Mackay & His Kit-Kat Band (1931)

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile – Joe Morgan and his Palais D’or Orchestra (1931)

Listen to Smile, Darn Ya, Smile – Sammy Davis, Jr., featuring tap dancing

Watch the end of the Roger Rabbit movie

Listen to soundtrack recording of Smile, Darn Ya, Smile from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The lyrics

Smile, darn ya, smile
You know this great world is a good world after all
Smile, darn ya, smile
And right away watch lady luck pay you a call
Things are never black as they are painted
Time for you and joy to get acquainted
So make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile

Music Throwback Saturday: songs from A Hard Day’s Night

I listened to some early Wilson Pickett , but I’m not hearing the connection at all.

The Beatles, as influential as they were on other musicians, were also influenced by their predecessors and peers. I’m rereading Steve Turner’s “The Beatles: A Hard Day’s Write,” subtitled “the stories behind every song.”

Fairly often, the members of the group are quoted as having been inspired by a piece for their own creations. I thought I’d put some of their songs up against the source material, with links to most.

Actually, the videos I’m having the most difficulty finding recently are those of the Beatles themselves, with several of them banned at least in the United States by some UK entity. The links I’ve used WERE working…

Anytime at All (at 16:52):

[John] later admitted [it] was a rewriting of his earlier song ‘It Won’t Be Long’, using the same chord progression from C to A minor and back, and when it came to recording, employed the same bawling vocal style.

I hear the connection. Yet the latter song is arguably better.

When I Get Home (at 23:39):

Influenced by his love of Motown and American Soul Music. Around the time it was recorded, he was asked what song he wished he had recorded…His first choice would be Marvin Gaye’s ‘Can I Get A Witness‘.

Wouldn’t we all have liked to have written that?

You Can’t Do That (at 26:00): “The musical influence, John later said, was Wilson Pickett…who had only released three singles under his own name, only one of which had been a minor hit.” I listened to some early Pickett – I Found a Love, If You Need Me, It’s Too Late – but I’m not hearing the connection at all.

Beatlesebooks confirms this:

The problem is that Wilson Pickett had not come into his own as of January of 1964 when this song was written. By that time, Wilson had only released four early singles which were 6/8 ballads far unlike anything he’s known for, such as ‘In The Midnight Hour’ and ‘Mustang Sally,’ which were much closer to what Lennon was talking about… John obviously was thinking retrospectively and originally found inspiration elsewhere, such as the R&B classics coming out of Memphis at the time. Confirmation of where the inspiration actually came from may never be known.

Memory is a peculiar thing, I’ve discovered. And John’s recollection of events in the early 1960s was taking place in 1980.

I’ll Be Back (at 28:40):

John found the chords while playing a Del Shannon song. This was probably ‘Runaway‘, which the Beatles had played in their early shows and which also starts with a minor chord and has a descending bass line.

This is so transformative that even though I was well aware of the earlier song, I never made the connection.

***

If I Fell – MonaLisa Twins