Gettin’ Ready for Thanksgiving

Editor’s Note: In the interest of preserving the environment this holiday season, we are going to recycle and reuse some old blog posts. Oh, there may be a new one here and there but we want to reduce our footprint on the blogosphere (whatever that means). In other words, we’re just lazy. Don’t worry, we have made sure all our links are working for the most part.  So let the holiday season begin!

With Thanksgiving coming up and all, we are sure you have a lot of things to do and to think about.  Like: wouldn’t it be great if my turkey made the in-laws sick?  So sick they couldn’t come back for Christmas?  Or: Are the Houston Texans (substitute your team name here) going to win any more games?  And: Is somebody gonna give me that Beach Boys box set for Christmas (so I don’t have to drop 100+ bucks on it)?

Ah, we know you have a lot on your mind.  So don’t worry – you take care of the turkey, and we’ll supply the music.   Come back in the next week or so, because we have more Thanksgiving treats in store!

MP3: “Almost Thanksgiving Day” by Graham Parker

MP3: “Thanksgiving Day Parade” by Dan Bern

MP3: “Thanksgiving, Or Pass The Indian” by the Firesign Theatre

MP3: “Thanksgiving Theme” by Vince Guaraldi

MP3: “Roll Plymouth Rock” by Brian Wilson

MP3: “The Thanksgiving Song” by Adam Sandler

MP3: “Trouble For The Turkeys” by Lex & the Hood

MP3: “Turkey Killer” by Louisiana Red

MP3: “(I’m Gonna Eat) On Thanksgiving Day” by Laurie Berkner

MP3: “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” by Becky & the Ivanhoe Dutchmen

MP3: “Pass The Biscuits Please” by Andre Williams

MP3: “Lonely In Potatoland (Mashed Potatoes)” by Spirit

MP3: “I’m A Pilgrim” by the Soul Stirrers

MP3: “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin

MP3: “Thanksgiving” by Loudon Wainwright III

MP3: “Thanksgiving Day” by Brave Combo

MP3: “Thanksgiving Day” by Ray Davies

Let It Rock … But Don’t Spill The Wine!

Editor’s Note:  Our L.A. correspondent Randy Fuller has written a post for his excellent wine blog Now and Zin on wine and rock and roll.  He has graciously allowed us to reprint this post – and we’ve included links to some of the songs referenced in the copy.  And at the end, we have added a few “bonus” songs of our own.)

One of my many joys in life is music.  I love gathering mp3s of songs together in a thematic group and burning them to a CD.  I use these CDs to pass the hour and a half or so each day I spend behind the wheel of the car.

Another of my many joys is wine, so it’s not too much of a stretch for me to assemble a compilation of songs about wine.

It’s difficult to find too many songs about wine that are actually about the wine.   Most wine songs are lyrically concerned with over-imbibing: getting drunk on wine, staying high all the time, etc.   I was certainly no saint in my younger days, but at this point in my life I try to promote only the responsible use of alcoholic beverages.  Besides, I drink wine to enjoy the experience of the wine, not to get blasted.

Wine has a rather seedy image in some of the more well-known wine classics.  The Tom Paxton song, “Bottle Of Wine,” deals with the trials and tribulations of panhandling for spare change in order to buy some fruit of the vine.  Many other songs deal with the soft underbelly of the wine drinking populace, too.  In “Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee,” also known as “Wine, Wine, Wine,” the singer has a nickel and only needs another dime to afford the desired bottle.  You’d be hard-pressed to match that in today’s economy, even at 7-11.

Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Sangria Wine” is all about the camaraderie of wine – which is great – but his delivery gets more liquid as the song progresses. It ends up with a “slumped-in-the-lawn-chair” sort of feeling that isn’t exactly unpleasant, just maybe a little undesirable.

“Red, Red Wine” was penned by Neil Diamond in the 1960s and performed by a wide variety of singers since then. In it, the wine “goes to my head, makes me forget.” That’s touching, but most counselors will tell you it’s a bad idea to try and hide from your troubles in a bottle of wine.  (Included here is the UB40 version of “Red, Red Wine” which was an international hit in 1983.)

In similar fashion, “Two More Bottles of Wine,” “Wine Do Yer Stuff” and a host of others deal with wine as a crutch or escape from reality.

“Spill The Wine,” the great 1970 hit by Eric Burdon and War, is about a dream where wine is involved. To me it always seemed like a dream induced by something harder than wine.

Lee Hazelwood’s “Summer Wine,“ which took him and Nancy Sinatra to the top 40 in the mid-’60s, is the flip side of that dream in “Spill The Wine.” There’s no happy ending, though. Eventually, the summer wine runs empty.

I prefer songs about wine made from grapes, so I’ll toss out “Sweet Cherry Wine,” “Elderberry Wine” and “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine.”  Who needs wine made from old dogs, children and watermelons?

Review: More New Stuff!

It’s not yet the summer, but the new albums are coming pretty hot and heavy now.  Let’s take a listen to a few new sets that have come out recently.

Peter Frampton might have been a bit of a fluke as a platinum-selling superstar in the 1970s, but he’s always been a pretty decent singer/songwriter and an outstanding guitarist.  The veteran rocker’s newest, Thank You Mr. Churchill, is a strong album that showcases the strengths that Frampton always had, even back to his days in Humble Pie.  Anywhere you want to jump in, the music rocks and the 60-year-old rocker sounds as great as he did way back in his teeny-bop-rock days.  If there were any justice in the world – and if such a thing as rock radio still existed – songs like “I’m Due A You” and “Asleep At The Wheel” would rule AM and FM.  This is a pretty good record – if you still like basic rock and roll, this one’s for you.

MP3: “I’m Due A You” by Peter Frampton

I suppose it’s appropriate that the platinum darling Dixie Chicks are going on tour this summer with the Eagles.  They don’t have a new album but Court Yard Hounds, featuring sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison under the name Court Yard Hounds, ought to give the trio a bit of new material to road-test.  Robison takes lead vocal duties on this effort, and for the most part she sounds like a sleepy Sheryl Crow.  Come to think of it, the songs kinda sound like that too.  Oh, this is pleasant enough but nothing really sticks in the ear like those one or two little time bombs that the Chicks plant on each of their records.  Highlights are probably “The Coast,” with a breezy Fleetwood Mac-like lope; “It Didn’t Make A Sound,” with some nice pickin’; and “See You In The Spring,” a welcome duet with Jakob Dylan.

MP3: “The Coast” by Court Yard Hounds

Tears, Lies and Alibis, the eleventh studio album from Shelby Lynne, is a solid affirmation of this singer’s unique talents.  Lynne is a Southern soul gal with a honky-tonk heart, and this album has a relaxed vibe that would perfectly accompany a late-night reverie.  “Alibi” is a breathtaking bit of blue-eyed soul, while “Old #7” sounds like a classic country jukebox weeper.  Very nice!

MP3: “Alibi” by Shelby Lynne

Graham Parker has been around since the punk days, but on Imaginary Television he’s mellow and personal.   Of course, for Parker “mellow” is a highly relative term: “Broken Skin” is tougher than its jangly acoustic setting would lead you to believe.  Like Peter Frampton, Parker always was a solid talent and this new album is a worthy showcase for this great artist.

MP3: “Broken Skin” by Graham Parker

Lost Classics? The Pointer Sisters

The Pointer Sisters had an enviable run at the top of the charts in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Their hits included “Neutron Dance” and the most famous cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire.”  The albums that all of these songs appeared on were produced by 1970s über-producer Richard Perry.   One of the most successful music producers ever, Perry was no stranger to the upper reaches of the charts – he produced the hit albums Ringo (1973) for Ringo Starr, No Secrets (1972) for Carly Simon and many others.

Oddly, one Pointer Sisters album with Perry at the helm made no impression at all – in fact, when Priority was released in 1979, it disappeared virtually without a trace.  The sisters were still riding high off the No. 1 smash “Fire” and its album Energy from the previous year when Perry took them into the studio for this followup.

Lost Classics! McGuinn, Clark & Hillman

In the late 1970s, country rock had pretty much run the course – the Eagles had appropriated the best parts of the genre and their watered down music reigned from the top of the charts.  The true innovators like Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark and Chris Hillman of the Byrds were left to cash in endlessly on their past reputations by playing their old songs as part of ridiculous package tours.

That’s where these boys found themselves in 1977, fronting their respective bands on a European jaunt.  The promoter had visions of people coming out in hopes of seeing a reunion; it didn’t happen for the most part, but the three did get together in London and that show was heavily bootlegged.  Gene Clark, although he had the best voice of the three, was the most unstable – he had legendary bouts of stage fright and an overwhelming inferiority complex that led him to quit the Byrds years before.

30 Days Out (From Christmas): Rockin’ Stocking

Day Three – OK, confession time: I really hate Christmas songs.  But after you start plowing through them and you hear one that doesn’t pop up on the radio about every five minutes, it gets kinda fun listening to some of them.  I said SOME of them.  So, to keep this 30 days thing from growing too tedious, here’s a holiday stocking of some random tunes that caught my ear today.  Thanks to our L.A. correspondent Randy Fuller for compiling these on a mix CD about two or three years ago.

MP3: “Christmas Lullaby” by Shane MacGowan

MP3: “All I Wanna Do Is Shag This Christmas” by the Bellrays

MP3: “Counting The Days (A Christmas Polka)” by Marah

MP3: “Funky Christmas” by James Brown

MP3: “Jungle Bells” by the Blue Hawaiians

MP3: “We Three Kings” by Rev. Horton Heat

MP3: “Christmas Is For Mugs” by Graham Parker

MP3: “Christmas Blues” by Gatemouth Moore

MP3: “Cool Yule” by Louis Armstrong

MP3: “White Christmas” by Guns N’ Roses (Maybe it’s Guns N’ Roses!)