music Archives - Page 71 of 264 - Ramblin' with Roger

Torturing others with Barry Sadler

1966

I had a grand time after church in late October. And I had S/Sgt. Barry Sadler to thank.

A group of us were talking about music. For some reason, the truly awful song The Men In My Little Girl’s Life came to my mind. Pure treacle. It was sung by Mike Douglas, the TV host. The very title made my companions shriek. I remember it went to #6 in ’66. – sign of the devil. So yeah.

One of my buddies was talking about how they had gone through all of the songs that had reached #1 on the pop charts. The discovery was that some of the ones before the rock and roll era weren’t very good.

I wondered if The Ballad of the Green Berets by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was an outlier, but they didn’t remember it. This surprised me because it’s so different than most of its contemporary tunes. I confidently said it was the #1 tune of 1966, which was true if being #1 for five weeks is the measure. We Can Work It Out, Soul and Inspiration, Monday Monday, Summer In The City, and Winchester Cathedral all topped the charts for three weeks that year.

But they were young and didn’t understand its impact until I asked someone younger than I, I think, but older than them about the song. She immediately launched into “Fighting soldiers from the sky…” This generated a look of utter disbelief, and I had to laugh. You did not need to be a supporter of the Vietnam war to have that song stuck in your head for decades without having heard it again.

A new verse?

The song was so ubiquitous in the day that I could have, but didn’t, recite the lyrics of the last verse.
Back at home, a young wife waits
Her Green Beret has met his fate
He has died for those oppressed.
Leaving her his last request…

I knew the song was controversial at the time, of course. What I didn’t realize until recently is that there is a new, more inclusive version that has this verse:

Delta Force and CIA
SEALs and SOCOM
They clear the way.
Covert missions are now in play
These special ops
like the Green Beret

Some in the military apparently hate the additional words. I think they’re clunky.

I blame Chuck Miller for getting the original song stuck in my head. On his radio show, he played the B-side of Ballad of the Green Berets, a song called Letter from Vietnam, right before that church discussion.

The movie

Oh, yeah, I also saw the movie The Green Berets (1968), starring John Wayne, and fresh off the TV show The Fugitive, David Janssen. It also starred Jim Hutton of Binghamton, NY as Sgt. Petersen, which may have been a factor in me seeing it at the time.

Janssen’s character, George Beckworth, was a newspaper reporter cynical about the war until seeing Col. Mike Kirby (Wayne) and his troops in action. That’s a little oversimplified, but so was the film, which was pilloried by the critics as a WWII film.

What ordinal number is your favorite band’s best album?

Is the first the best?

Bridge over Troubled Water My buddy Greg, whose various blogs I’ve been following only since about 2005, posed the question above. What ordinal number is your favorite band’s best album? He mandated that I do likewise.

So naturally, I misread this as a CARDINAL number and started musing about Led Zeppelin III, 4- Foreigner, and Chicago so many digits I’ve lost track. No.

“I have a theory that bands release their best albums early in their careers. Bands tend to burn brightly but briefly…, and so they crank out great music early and, if they survive, begin to coast later in their careers. This isn’t a hard and fast rule…”

Maybe there is something to be said for this. I know the band Boston had at least four albums, but I must admit that I have just the first one. This doesn’t mean albums #2 and #3, both of which went to #1 on the album charts, aren’t as good…

It seemed, though, that a lot of my favorite albums of a group were their second outing. The Band’s eponymous album with the brown cover, Disraeli Gears by Cream, and Abraxas by Santana are among my favorite albums in my collection.

I have a good friend who is a big fan of Chicago Transit Authority, the band Chicago’s first album before they became very popular. Likewise, he only likes the first Blood, Sweat, and Tears album, Child Is Father to the Man, with Al Kooper, and hates the ones with David Clayton-Thomas on vocals. But I got the eponymous second albums – what is it with these self-titled sophomore albums? – first, and so favor them.

Motown

Conversely, there isn’t a major Motown artist whose first few albums I would peg as their best, except one.

Supremes: Beyond their hits, they were also putting out albums to show how diversified they were; A Bit of Liverpool; Sing Country, Western, and Pop; Sing Rodgers and Hart. My favorite is either The Supremes Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland. (about #11 of 24 with Diana Ross as lead vocalist), or maybe Love Child (#17).

Temptations: With A Lot O’ Soul #6 of 40-some, is a transitional one from being produced by Smokey Robinson to Norman Whitfield. Puzzle People (#14) is their second produced entirely by Whitfield after David Ruffin left the group and Dennis Edwards joined. (These numbers are approximate, counting the crossovers with the Supremes and a live album, but not a greatest hits collection.)

Stevie Wonder: He didn’t come into his own until the 1970s. Songs in the Key Of Life (#15 of 27) is considered the masterpiece, but the three albums before that, Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness’ First Finale are all excellent.

Marvin Gaye: As great as his singles were, he never had a great album before What’s Going On, #13 of 20-something. (Marvin was repackaged posthumously a lot.)

Jackson Five. Those first two albums, Diana Ross Presents and ABC, are arguably their best.

Other stars

Aretha Franklin: Well, not her early Columbia work, but I’d pick any of her early Atlantic albums. I’m partial to Lady Soul (#7 of about 40), but Amazing Grace (#16) is, well, amazing.

Simon and Garfunkel: I’m partial to their last album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, which is their 5th, or 6th, if you count the soundtrack to The Graduate, which I don’t.

The Beatles: somewhere between Rubber Soul (#6) and the white album (#10), unless you’re counting the American albums

I could do others but won’t, for a few reasons. Some albums are universally acclaimed that they’re on EVERYBODY’S list. or should be, e.g., Peter Gabriel’s third album (Melt). Other artists, I just can’t really pick their best; Neil Young is a real peaks and valleys guy. Still, other artists, I didn’t come to chronologically, but rather scattershot: Weird Al Yankovic is a prime example.

Songs of freedom, for MLK

One day when the glory comes
It will be ours, it will be ours

In honor of MLK’s birthday, here are some songs of freedom. All but the last four were sung by participants of the march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965. Of course, they were also shared at other rallies and marches. Many of these songs are from the church tradition.

There are a LOT of tunes that could be labeled civil rights songs. Here is a recent compilation.

God Will Take Care Of You – Aretha Franklin. This is from her great Amazing Grace album. The movie about making that album is also quite worthwhile.
We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder – Bernice Johnson Reagon and Vocal Group. She was a member of the wonderful group Sweet Honey in the Rock, which I saw perform decades ago.
Steal Away – Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole. Mahalia was Martin’s favorite singer, by all accounts. This was on Nat’s short-lived television show on NBC in the mid-1950s, a pioneering effort in its own right.

Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen – Paul Robeson. Actor and activist, as well as a tremendous singer.
We Shall Not Be Moved – The Freedom Singers. Performed at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963
Oh, Freedom – The Golden Gospel Singers
If You Miss Me In The Back Of The Bus – Kim and Reggie Harris, who I saw sing in person twice some years back

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize · Robert Parris Moses
Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around – The Roots. From the soundtrack to the film Soundtrack For a Revolution (2012)
We Shall Overcome – Joan Baez. She performed at the march on Washington and elsewhere. This performance was in London in 1965

Mavis

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free – Nina Simone. An anthem.
When Will We Be Paid – Staple Singers
99 and 1/2 (Won’t Do) – Mavis Staples. I most highly recommend the album We’ll Never Turn Back.
Glory – Common and John Legend from the 2014 movie Selma. This was performed by the youth of our church a few years back.

1902 #1s: 1st college football bowl game

J.W. Myers

The first college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, California on January 3, 1902. The Wolverines, a team that hadn’t yielded a point all season, shellacked the California team 49-0.

Meanwhile, in music that year, at least two very familiar songs.

Arkansaw Traveler – Len Spencer, 11 weeks at #1. This is a comedy record, with a background fiddle. At least one joke, the one about the roof, I’ve heard in some comedy routine a couple of decades ago.

Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home? – Arthur Collins, 8 weeks at #1. This is also considered a comedy. He was “one of the most prolific and beloved of pioneer recording artists, regarded in his day as ‘King of the Ragtime Singers’. Collins was in duos and quartets as well as a solo artist. He specialized in what were then called coon songs, popular African-American dialect numbers associated with vaudeville, and minstrel shows. Collins also utilized an array of vocal effects and caricature voices which gave the impression that there were multiple persons at the horn on his recordings, though it was just Collins.”

In The Good Old Summer Time In The Good Old Summer Time – J. W. Myers, 7 weeks at #1

On A Sunday Afternoon – J.W. Myers, 6 weeks at #1

Way Down In Old Indiana – J. W. Myers, 5 weeks at #1

Williams and Walker

Good Morning Carrie – Bert Williams and George Walker, 5 weeks at #1.
Williams “was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being the first Black man to have the leading role in a film: Darktown Jubilee in 1914. He was by far the best-selling Black recording artist before 1920.

“Williams was a key figure in the development of African-American entertainment. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were commonplace, he became the first Black American to take a lead role on the Broadway stage, and did much to push back racial barriers during his three-decade-long career. Fellow vaudevillian W. C. Fields, who appeared in productions with Williams, described him as “the funniest man I ever saw—and the saddest man I ever knew.”

Walker was an American vaudevillian, actor, and producer. In 1893, in San Francisco, Walker at the age of 20 met Bert Williams, who was a year younger. The two young men became performing partners. Walker and Williams appeared in The Gold Bug (1895), Clorindy (1898), The Policy Player (1899), Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1903), Abyssinia (1906), and Bandanna Land (1907). Walker married dancer Ada Overton, who later also was a choreographer.

“The two men set up an agency, The Williams and Walker Company, to support African-American actors and other performers, create networking, and produce new works.”

More hits

The Mansion Of Aching Hearts – Harry Macdonough, 4 weeks at #1

The Mansion Of Aching Hearts – Byron Harlan, 3 weeks

Under the Bamboo Tree – Arthur Collins., 3 weeks at #1. Listed as a comedy, presumably because of the dialect. Some of the Lyrics by black composer Bob Cole, who you should read about.

Down in the jungles lived a maid
Of royal blood though dusky shade…

If you lak a me, lak I lak a you,
And we lak a both the same,
I lak a say, this very day,
I lak a change your name;
‘Cause I love a you and love a you true

The annual quiz: musical section

Rebecca Jade, Olivia Rodrigo, Jason Isbell, QoS

I usually do that annual quiz that Kelly foisted upon me years ago, on January 1. And I usually do music on Saturday. So I’ve decided to do the musical section today and the rest tomorrow and/or the next day.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

When you have about 2000 albums, it’s entirely possible to rediscover music that you already own. This happens almost every week.

Then there is the music that I did not think that I wouldn’t buy, then purchased in 2021, such as:
Odessey and Oracle – The Zombies. Care of Cell 44
Stop Making Sense (1984 Film) – Talking Heads. Even though I saw the SPAC show of the tour, I never bought the soundtrack. And I STILL haven’t seen the film. Life During Wartime
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You – Aretha Franklin. Drown In My Own Tears
The Allen Toussaiant Collection. Southern Nights.
The Beatles (The White Album) [6 CD] Ob-La-Di, Ob-la-Da (Esher Demo)
Rough and Rowdy Ways – Bob Dylan. I bought this in part because I missed this reference watching some quiz show. I Contain Multitudes
folklore – Taylor Swift. My first Swifty album. Cardigan
Good Souls Better Angels – Lucinda Williams. Good Souls
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition conducted by Ormandy

I also recently bought
Love For Sale – Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. I was so touched by the 60 Minutes interview. Love For Sale
Georgia Blue – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Recorded because Georgia went blue in 2020. Honeysuckle Blue

Of all of the artists my daughter likes, the only one that has actually stuck in the brain in 2021 was Olivia Rodrigo. Part of that is a function that she was the subject of a CBS Sunday Morning segment. It mentioned her participation in the White House’s push for the COVID vaccine.

What kept you sane?

Assuming facts not in evidence, listening to music. Since I wasn’t MAKING music for most of the year – choir finally started rehearsing in October- LISTENING became even more vital. That would include J. Eric Smith’s Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists, which will spread into 2022; of course, Coverville; plus Kelly’s mostly semiweekly pieces.

And the niece. In 2021, I got to see the fabulous Rebecca Jade, remotely.
Homemade: Part 10 and Part 11
Peter Sprague: Wichita Lineman and Are You Going With Me and Spring Ain’t Here and It’s For You and Farmers Trust
Melody League Session with The Sully Band
Music For The Soul
Jas Miller: Toes In The Sand

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year

Frankly, part of it is tied to Congress’s failure to pass an infrastructure bill earlier, which, given the vagaries of politics, threw away whatever advantage Biden had when the troubles – Afghanistan, e.g. inevitably took place. If it’d been up to me, the Democrats would have taken the bipartisan victory in May/June, and then work on the larger bill afterward.

The last verse of Slip Slidin’ Away:

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway
When in fact we’re slip-slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip-slidin’ away

-Paul Simon