Glad It’s Over?

There are most likely many happy people in America this morning, and a lot of disgruntled, disappointed ones. By far, most people seem to be simply relieved it’s over.

It’s been a nasty and brutal year leading up to Election Day, so nasty you’d think the Civil War had started up again. Hell, even the band The Civil Wars broke up. That’s how divided everyone is.

So it’s time to move on. Congratulations to President Obama and Mr. Romney for getting their respective messages out to so many people – let’s hope we can find some ground in the middle from which we can work to solve our problems.

MP3: “Come Together” (live) by John Lennon & Elephant’s Memory

MP3: “Let’s Work Together” by Canned Heat

MP3: “One Time One Night” by Los Lobos

MP3: “Chimes of Freedom” by The Byrds

MP3: “The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

MP3: “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream” by Johnny Cash

MP3: “Find The Cost of Freedom” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

MP3: “Blame It On Obama” by Andre Williams

MP3: “Star Spangled Banner/Purple Haze” (live at Woodstock) by Jimi Hendrix

Radio Daze: Rock Hype on the Airwaves

Back in the day, radio was the only way to get out the word about a new album. Of course, it helped that disc jockeys actually played songs from a new album – but record labels wanted to rack up sales right out of the box. And movies too – what better way to get the word out to the “kids” than through that boss, groovy local radio station?

So they worked up little spots to play on the hip-cool radio station in your town. Nowadays, with traditional terrestrial radio pretty much dead, these old radio spots are fodder for CD re-releases.  Let’s queue up a bunch and spin ’em!

MP3: The Monkees Present radio promo (The Monkees)

MP3: Live Dead radio promo (The Grateful Dead)

MP3: Help movie promo (The Beatles)

MP3: Cahoots radio promo (The Band)

MP3: Sweetheart of the Rodeo radio promo (The Byrds)

MP3: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere radio promo (Neil Young)

MP3: I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! radio promo (Janis Joplin)

MP3: Head movie promos (The Monkees)

MP3: Electric Warrior radio promo (T. Rex)

MP3: Aqualung radio promo (Jethro Tull)

MP3: Ballad of Easy Rider radio promo (The Byrds)

MP3: Easy Rider movie promo

(More Than) 40 Years Out: Tranquility Base Here

Buzz Aldrin on the moon, 1969.

On this day in 1969, man set foot on the moon for the very first time. Looking at the photographs the astronauts shot that day, the moon seems like a fairly peaceful place. In fact, they called the landing site “Tranquility Base.”

Back on Earth, things weren’t so tranquil. Americans marched on Washington, D.C., to protest our involvement in the Vietnam War. The story of the My Lai massacre, where women and children were lined up in a ditch and shot, broke in the news. British troops were deployed to try and calm tensions in Northern Ireland. And so on.

It seemed like, on that one Sunday afternoon and evening, everything and everyone in the world just kind of stopped – if only for a few minutes, while two humans kicked up dust on the lunar surface. Many of us watched the shadowy figures on TV, live and in glorious grainy black and white.

Probably nobody really stopped what they were doing, but a teenager in Texas back then thought it would have been really cool if they did. And if we would have paid attention for a while, maybe we would have stopped fighting and yelling long enough share a little bit of wonder and pride in human accomplishment.

For just a minute or two … then we could get right back to killing each other. Which is what happened anyway.

Maybe one day we’ll go back to the moon, but many people will tell you there are infinitely more important ways to spend our time and money. And I suppose they are right. Still, somebody is going to get back there eventually. Tranquility Base will always be there, ready and waiting for us to start dreaming again.

MP3: “Moonlight” by Bob Dylan

MP3: “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival

MP3: “Yellow Moon” (live) by the Neville Brothers

MP3: “Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins” by The Byrds

MP3: “Silver Moon” by Michael Nesmith & the First National Band

MP3: “Halo ‘Round The Moon” by Steve Earle

MP3: “Moon Dawg” by The Beach Boys

MP3: “Man On The Moon” by R.E.M.

MP3: “Moonlight Drive” (live) by The Doors

MP3: “Armstrong” by John Stewart

MP3: “Blue Moon” by Elvis Presley

MP3: “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” by Los Lobos

MP3: “Bark At The Moon” by Ozzy Osbourne

MP3: “Mountains Of The Moon” (live) by The Grateful Dead

MP3: “Brain Damage/Eclipse” by Pink Floyd

70 Years Out: Bob Dylan

This week (May 24) Bob Dylan will celebrate his 70th birthday. Probably the most important figure in popular music, Dylan has built a body of work that is breathtaking in its scope. On top of that, it would be quite fair to say that when Dylan was at his peak in the 1960s his music helped change the world. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny his powerful influence on rock music. Thanks, Bob.

MP3: “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (live) by Bob Dylan & the Band

MP3: “Like A Rolling Stone” (live) by Jimi Hendrix

MP3: “Watching The River Flow” by Leon Russell

MP3: “One More Cup of Coffee” by Roger McGuinn & Calexico

MP3: “To Ramona” by the Flying Burrito Brothers

MP3: “Thunder On The Mountain” by Wanda Jackson

MP3: “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” by the Grateful Dead

MP3: “Girl From The North Country” by Johnny Cash & Joni Mitchell

MP3: “Si Tu Dois Partir” by Fairport Convention

MP3: “Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar” by Bob Dylan

MP3: “My Back Pages” by the Hollies

MP3: “Masters of War” by Pearl Jam

MP3: “If Not For You” by Olivia Newton John

MP3: “Come Una Pietra Scalciata (Like A Rolling Stone)” by Articolo 31

MP3: “Chimes Of Freedom” (live) by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

MP3: “Wicked Messenger” by the Faces

MP3: “Everything Is Broken” by R. L. Burnside

MP3: “This Wheel’s On Fire” by the Byrds

MP3: “Gotta Serve Somebody” by Mavis Staples

MP3: “Highway 61 Revisited” by Johnny Winter

MP3: “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” by the Traveling Wilburys

MP3: “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” by the Beach Boys

MP3: “All Along The Watchtower” (live) by Neil Young

MP3:  “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (live) by Bob Dylan (w/George Harrison, Leon Russell & Ringo Starr)

MP3:  “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan & the Band

“Watching The River Flow” by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and Ben Waters

Video of the Week: Desert Rose Band & Roger McGuinn

From 1990, a show on the old Nashville Network: former Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn joins the Desert Rose Band, led by another ex-Byrd, Chris Hillman.  McGuinn possesses the weirdest stare and the neatest mullet I’ve seen in years.  They’re doin’ “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” the Bob Dylan gem cut by the Byrds on their classic 1968 album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo.

The song title is dedicated to all our friends up north, who are snowed in and home from work.  If you’re in Austin and looking to get out of the cold tonight, check out Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen, live at the Cactus Cafe on the University of Texas campus.

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Singles, Part 3

Let’s spin some more singles – today, some lesser-known singles from big artists and one really big hit for a band late in its career.

They don’t get any bigger than Bob Dylan, and in 1986 he formed a rock-and-roll summit with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  While they were on tour in Australia, Bob and Co. cut “Band Of The Hand,” to be used on the soundtrack of a movie by the same name.   With Petty producing, Dylan’s song reflected the ruthless attitude of a vigilante gang cut loose in the drug world – “It’s hell time, man,” he sings.  Stevie Nicks is one of the female backing singers, along with Debra Byrd, who worked with Dylan on a number of sessions.  “Band Of The Hand” came out on a 45-rpm single, a 12-inch single and on the movie soundtrack LP – but it’s never been on a Bob Dylan album.

MP3: “Band Of The Hand” by Bob Dylan with “The Heartbreakers”

In the early 1970s, nobody really knew what to do with Joni Mitchell.  An acclaimed singer/songwriter, she put out the critically acclaimed Blue but when she signed with Asylum Records some suit told her she needed a “radio hit.”  So she wrote “You Turn Me On I’m A Radio” sarcastically and it appeared on 1972’s For The Roses.   Guess what – it was a Top 40 hit, Mitchell’s first as a performer.  With her next album, 1974’s Court And Spark, Joni would refine that “radio hit” thing (“Help Me” and “Free Man In Paris”).

MP3: “You Turn Me On I’m A Radio” by Joni Mitchell

Just a few doors down from Joni Mitchell’s Laurel Canyon hangout was Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young), who ruled music in 1972.  But they’d just completed a big tour and record exec David Geffen wanted another big folk-rock smash: why don’t we get the original Byrds together?  So we have the Byrds, trying to get off the ground with Crosby as the pilot.  The Byrds (1973) turned out to be a sorry echo of past glory, but the single “Full Circle,” written and sung by Gene Clark (with soaring harmony from Crosby) was one of the album’s few high points.

MP3: “Full Circle” by the Byrds

Adios, Buddy!

Ranger (2001-2010)

Damn …  it’s time to say goodbye to my back porch beer drinking buddy, ol’ Ranger.  He lived with us for about nine years and yesterday he moved on over to the next life.  Ranger’s heart was bigger than 10 backyards but it gave out too soon.

He wasn’t afraid of anything that crawled, climbed or slithered.  The heat or cold didn’t bother him, although he didn’t mind paying a visit indoors once in a while.  That sonovagun liked to run, but he never ran away.  Adios, big boy – we’ll keep your house in case you ever come this way again.

MP3: “Bugler” by the Byrds

MP3: “40 Dogs (Like Romeo and Juliet)” by Bob Schneider

MP3: “He’s A Good Dog” by Fred Eaglesmith

MP3: “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton

MP3: “Walking The Dog” by Rufus Thomas

MP3: “Old Blue” by Roger McGuinn

MP3: “Salty Dog” by Flogging Molly

MP3: “Red Dog Speaks” by Elvin Bishop

MP3: “Queenie’s Song” by Guy Clark

MP3: “Old Dog” by Shelby Lynne

MP3: “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by the Stooges

MP3: “Goodbye” by Steve Earle

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: An Early 1970s Two-Fer

My sister is spending a lot of time away from home lately.  My mom says it’s that new job of hers, my dad isn’t so sure.  I don’t care – today I was able to snap up two of her records, both by California music dudes who might have been pretty well-known back in the 1970s but are virtually forgotten today.

The first record is Bright Sun Is Shining, by Barry “The Fish” Melton.  This one is from 1970, and it was the first solo album by the guitarist from Country Joe and the Fish.  Melton was only 21 when he cut this album, which consists entirely of covers of blues and soul classics of the era.  He cut the blues covers in Chicago with sidemen including a young Donny Hathaway; Phil Upchurch, who was then the Chess House Band guitarist and was recording with Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters; and Chess regular Gerald Sims, who worked with people like Little Milton, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Mary Wells.  The other half of Bright Sun Is Shining includes soul music covers recorded in New York with members of the Wilson Pickett Band and Joe Newman, the great trumpeter from Count Basie’s band.

You can hear the production (by Sam Charters, who also did the Country Joe & the Fish records) is pretty straightforward, with little of the studio tricks of the era.  That gives Bright Sun a timeless feel, and Melton’s voice is not bad – he is a credible blues/soul grunter as well as a fine guitarist.  The Fish was Barry’s time in the spotlight, apparently; although he kicked around the music business for a while Melton found another career.  He has been a criminal defense lawyer since the 1980s, although he retired last year to devote more time to music.  Melton often plays with Peter Albin and David Getz (both of Big Brother & the Holding Company), remains a key figure in the San Francisco music scene and on his official website, he promises a new album for 2010.

MP3: “Third Degree” by Barry Melton

MP3: “Something You Got” by Barry Melton

MP3: “Wine, Women, Whiskey” by Barry Melton

Sampler Daze: Fill Your Head With Rock

Another rock sampler from CBS/Columbia Records, this 2-LP, 23-track collection appeared in 1970.  By this time Columbia (CBS Records in Europe) had a vast array of rock artists, and they displayed them well in this sampler – from the horn-steeped jazz-rock of Chicago Transit Authority and Blood, Sweat and Tears to the prog-rock of Spirit, Steamhammer and The Flock, Fill Your Head With Rock turned a lot of British kids (it was initially released only in the United Kingdom and later in the Netherlands) to the sounds coming from the American counterculture.  By 1970, of course, corporate America had taken notice of the counterculture and had begun to figure out how to make a buck off it.  No matter that the hippie phase was already beginning to fade – we’d get this “hangover Sixties” stuff for at least three more years into the 1970s.

So: the jazz rock that Columbia seemed to specialize in took center stage.  Blood, Sweat and Tears (minus Al Kooper but now produced by James William Guercio) tackles the Traffic chestnut “Smiling Phases,” and Chicago Transit Authority (Guercio again) with “Listen” from their first album.  The Flock was more interesting – from Chicago, they released only two albums before Columbia label head Clive Davis plucked the band’s violinist Jerry Goodman (pictured on Fill Your Head With Rock‘s cover) to play in the Mahavishnu Orchestra with guitarist John McLaughlin.  Their cover of the Kinks’ “Tired Of Waiting For You” is pretty good.

Sampler Daze: The Rock Machine Turns You On

In the late 1960s Columbia Records tried to be really hip because, after all, they had nothing to lose.  This is the oldest recording label – founded in 1888 to sell Thomas Edison’s new-fangled recording machines – and in the Sixties this label was really suffering from a “credibility gap.”

With one huge exception: Columbia (by this time they were owned by CBS) stumbled onto the burgeoning folk craze in the early 1960s and signed Bob Dylan.  Dylan went on to change popular music virtually singlehandedly (the Beatles helped a little) but even so Columbia had very few rock artists (The Byrds) signed until 1967 or so.  That was the year label head Clive Davis attended the Monterey Pop Festival, and decided to let his freak flag fly by signing up Janis Joplin and Big Brother & the Holding Company after seeing them play the festival.

Anyway, CBS/Columbia was one of the first to issue sampler LPs (budget-priced with one song each by the current artists on the label), but they focused on the European market.  One of the first of these was The Rock Machine Turns You On, from 1968.  The LPs were aimed at listeners in the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany, mainly, who were all beginning to show an interest in the “underground” music coming from the States.

Rock Machine is kind of skimpy compared to subsequent efforts from CBS/Columbia, but it had a stellar lineup: Dylan, the Byrds, Spirit, Leonard Cohen and Blood, Sweat and Tears, among others.  It’s good for a listen to put you in the late-1960s mood and to recall some of the less-remembered artists of the day: Moby Grape, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy and good ol’ Electric Flag, doing their horn-drenched version of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” that was done notably by Hendrix at Monterey.  Did the Flag (Mike Bloomfield, Buddy Miles, et. al.) get some inspiration from Jimi at Monterey?  Hmmm.

MP3: “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife For You” by the United States of America

MP3: “Killing Floor” by Electric Flag

MP3: “Can’t Be So Bad” by Moby Grape

MP3: “Dolphins’ Smile” by the Byrds

MP3: “Turn On A Friend (To The Good Life) by Peanut Butter Conspiracy