Out of the blue yesterday my wife asked me, “Do you like Elton John?” Well, I like pop music. I like well-written pop songs of every genre, from folk to blues to soul to country and rock. I thought I would program an hour’s worth of music, I think mostly lesser known, of a few favorites that take me out of myself and send me off looking for more of the same. The premise of this collection is that one or more of these might do the same for you.
Josh White wrote and recorded “Where Were You Baby” for The Story of John Henry (1955). The liner notes on my Elektra compilation say the song “fully captures [White’s] cabaret blues style and sexy, sophisticated sense of humor.” Trigger warning: It is, shall we say, not in tune with the times. I first heard Don McLean give it a loving workout in a live performance at Dartmouth’s Spaulding Auditorium in the spring of 1972 or so. Don raved about Josh White in my interview with him for this 2020 SMCD post.
We are warming up for our annual celebration of Bob Dylan’s birthday next month. Bob hit the mother lode on Highway 61 Revisited in 1965. “It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry” touched me deeply then and touches me deeply now.
Jimi Hendrix had an unspoken side that you can hear in “Little Wing” on Axis: Bold As Love (1967).
James Carr recorded the original version of Dan Penn and Chips Moman’s “Dark End of the Street” (1966). This is the quintessence of soul (and guilty love). Peter Guralnick writes in Sweet Soul Music: “[W]hile it has been covered by countless singers over the years, and spawned a brilliant, near-transcendent version by Aretha Franklin, no one has ever matched the sober dignity, the almost unbearable intensity of James Carr’s original.”
“Long Distance Call” is the first track on the live set of the Muddy Waters Fathers and Sons double album recorded with Otis Spann, Michael Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Sam Lay. Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, and Sam Lay were the fathers; Bloomfield, Butterfield, and Dunn were the sons.
When Stevie Wonder secured the freedom to produce and record his own work as he saw fit, Music Of My Mind was the first in the string of great pop albums he released on Motown. He played every instrument on “Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You),” including the drums, except for the guitar. Buzzy Feiten plays guitar. If you like Buzzy’s work here, check out the Rascals’ Peaceful World.
Tim O’Brien is one of my favorite artists. His “Time To Learn,” with the O’Boys, cuts almost too close to the bone. Oh Boy! O’Boy! (1993), produced by dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas, is full of good stuff. This number in particular stopped me cold. O’Brien wrote the song with Pat Alger. He explains in the liner notes that he lost two of his siblings when he was a child: “Pat Alger and I tried to write about the strange finality of death and how we deal with it.” Mary Chapin Carpenter sings the harmony part.
It’s a short hop from Tim O’Brien to Kathy Mattea. Mattea recorded “Rock Me On the Water” with the songwriter himself for the Red Hot + Country compilation in 1994. We are approaching legitimate Sunday morning territory.
R.E.M.’s “Fall On Me” is the opening number on the self-titled album released by Cry Cry Cry in 1998. Taking their name from the Johnny Cash song, Cry Cry Cry was a folk supergroup including Richard Shindell, Lucy Kaplansky, and Dar Williams. Their one and only disc makes you yearn for more. When we saw them on tour at St. Catherine College the following year this is the number with which they opened the show.
Bob Feldman was the proprietor of St. Paul’s Red House Records. He celebrated Bob Dylan’s 60th birthday with A Nod To Bob in 2001. Maggie and Suzzy Roche covered “Clothes Line Saga” in exquisite fashion.
I bumped into Bob when he took Lucy Kaplansky to lunch just after he released Lucy’s Flesh and Bone on Red House in 1996. I ran to buy a copy at the bookstore adjacent to the restaurant for Lucy to sign. After I apologized for interrupting her lunch, she inscribed it to me: “You’re welcome to interrupt my lunch any time.” Lucy’s cover of “Return of the Grievous Angel” by Gram Parsons fits right in here. Larry Campbell plays all the string instruments except the bass; Zev Katz plays the bass. John Gorka contributes the harmony vocal. This is what Parsons called cosmic American music, or Cosmic American Music.
Do you like Elton John? I love the Indigo Girls’ cover of his “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” on the live recording collected on Rarities (2005). “I thank the Lord for the people I have found.”
Speaking of Sunday morning numbers, I am quite sure that’s what Dolly Parton had in mind when she recorded Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” for Halos & Horns (2002). It is outrageous — as in outrageously beautiful.
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