A historical factoid, a rock and roll moment and usually a song all combine (if not collide) with my individual perspective and opinion at least once a day, sometimes more.
In the tautologically satirical book The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge, we read in the "Drake, Nick" entry: "...was frequently photographed standing dolefully among trees..." The Brit singer-songwriter of whispy, gauzy, phantomesque acoustic mood setters was also plagued by pathological insomnia and depression. Thirty five years ago today at the age of 26, he died from an overdose of the prescription antidepressant amitriptyline. He had pretty much withdrawn from his career as an Island label recording artist two years earlier ('72) moving to his parents home in Warwickshire, England after releasing his third album, Pink Moon. If you've never listened to Drake before and you wonder why it seems like you've already heard the title track to his final album, Volkswagen used it one of their TV ads circa 2000. Don't know how much it helped to move any Volkswagens, but in the wake of the ad, more of Drake's music sold than had in the previous two and a half decades.
Some will love me for it, others will hate me, but I really liked a lot of the tracks on Kid Rock's breakthrough LP Devil Without a Cause (more so than anything he's done since), particularly Bawitdaba which mentions "D.B. Cooper and the money he took." Thirty eight years ago today a man known by the name D.B. Cooper hijacked a 727, successfully received $200,000 in ransom and parachuted from the plane, probably as it flew over an area somewhat north of Portland, Oregon. This remains the FBI's only unsolved domestic hijacking case and it has generated mucho musings and pop references. There's a good chance the guy just didn't survive the jump (an explanation the FBI naturally favors) but no body has ever been recovered. Although in 1980 an eight year old kid found $5,880 of the original ransom money in decaying $20 bills while camping on the banks of the Columbia river near Portland, OR.
One hundred and six years ago today Colorado's governor, James Peabody, sent the state's National Guardsmen into the town of Cripple Creek to break up a miners' strike. The town had boomed at the end of the 19th century after a prospector's discovery of some rich gold ore in the area. A refurbished narrow gauge heritage railroad has operated between Cripple Creek and its sister town Victor, Colorado since 1967 (long after the boom had gone bust). Could this be what the heck Neil Young is singing about in this song from his After the Goldrush album? He is, after all, a train freak.
The Cripple Creek muse also whispered to frequent Your Daily Dose cameo Skip Spence ...
... and, of course, Robbie Robertson was apparently inspired by the alliterative name of the locale when he wrote this gem for the Band.
Happy Birthday Steven Van Zandt who today turns 59. Yes, he was a major player in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band (legend has it the reverby guitar hook in the song Born to Run was mainly his idea) and, yes, he was Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. And he started the syndicated radio show Little Steven's Underground Garage which led to the XM/Sirius channel Underground Garage. But please do not overlook the first album he released in the early '80s as Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul called Men Without Women (after the Ernest Hemingway anthology of short stories by the same name). Jersey meets Motown in a collection of greasy, hand clapping, foot stomping, brass section buoyed back beat tough tunes that are a mountain and half better than the less inspired and relying on formula moments in Bruce's discography. Am I the only one who hears evocations, in a good way, of non-stop rock and roll masterpieces like the Four Tops' Bernadette or the Smokey and Miracles' Tears of a Clown in this song?
Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon it's Energy Content? was published in the journal Annalen der Physik one hundred and four years ago today kicking off Albert Einstein's miracle year and the red hot E = mc² craze that was to follow. Like many of us, myself included, Albert's parents Hermann and Pauline probably never really understood what all the E = mc² stuff was all about, but they knew their boy had talent and that, as Ron wrote and Russell sings, "talent is an asset". You need to start at about 2:16 in to listen and watch what I'm talking about, but enjoy the first song too. After all, it's Saturday.
When Jello Biafra explained that the shockingly tasteless name "Dead Kennedys" was purposeful irony "to bring attention to the end of the American dream," I gave him the benefit of the doubt. When a seminal skate punk band from Arizona decided to call themselves "Jodie Foster's Army" after would-be Reagan assassin John Hinckley Jr's obsession with the actress, I sensed no such higher purpose behind the sick joke. Believe me, I was no Reagan fan, but to quote Joe Strummer "murder is a crime." With apologies and happy birthday wishes to Ms. Foster, who today turns 47.
After writing the above, I wondered if something akin to a maturity that comes from being the same age as Jodie Foster has me preferring shock value satire to have some ultimate moral purpose behind it. Upon reflection though, I remembered being completely turned off by the Crucifucks performance of Hinckley Had a Vision when I saw that Lansing, Michigan hardcore group perform the song at the Rock against Reagan free concert in Washington, D.C. And I was a mere lad of 22 back then.
If she knew what I've seen while I'm watching, would she know where to smile, what to say? When she leaves from her book to be with me,
where's her mind as she stands while I play?
She left behind names in the pages
and the time she took out, they stayed in.
Now she thinks that she maybe should tell them
of my book and the places she's been.
(lovely guitar/cello interplay)
Now she's looking at me while I'm writing.
Does she know where to smile, what to say?
When she leaves from her book to be with me,
What's she thinking about while I play?
Eighty two years ago today, the man who originally wrote the Twist was born. Hank Ballard and his Midnighters never had the same kind of luck with the song and associated dance that Chubby Checker did.
Ballard's version was released as a b-side to the slow and sinuous Teardrops on Your Letter in '59 and failed to reach the top fifth of Billboard's Hot 100. Frankly, I see the logic of the Twist as a flipside, Teardrops is a superior song.
Checker's cover of the Twist, by contrast, topped the charts initially in September of 1960 and then, stepping into the same league as Bing Crosby's White Christmas, hit number one again in a separate release January of '62. Hardly a stretch to say that the song was the spark, if not the mainstay, of Checker's career. He has complained it was a success so big that everyone assumed this was the one and only trick his pony could do. It's tempting to observe that Checkers has ever gained much ground in attempts to disprove that, but all that's another story since today's spotlight is on Ballard.
Hank Ballard had a reputation for lyrics that were too raunchy for airplay in the uptight and repressed '50s, even back when his group was more doo wop than R&B and was called the Royals (they later changed to the Midnighters to avoid confusion with the 5 Royales who had hits such as Think and Dedicated to the One I Love). Take for example Get It where Ballard certainly seems to be evoking love more carnal than romantic when amidst various whoops and hoots he sings, "get it, get it, get it, I wanna see you with it." and the bass man asks "now ease on up here baby, now don't you wanna see a good man with it?" Paper roses, this ain't.
Many radio stations refused to play Get It, which was similar in structure to the better known, but no less ribald, Work with me, Annie ("Annie, please don't cheat/Give me all my meat."). This was followed by the song Annie Had a Baby with Ballard singing, "Annie had a baby, can't work no more." You only have to listen to the song once to understand he was not talking about maternity leave.
It gets better. The Midnighters' third hit was simply called Sexy Ways. Plenty of rock and roll songs circa '54 implied sex and sexuality, but not many had the word in the title. Great piano touches in this song if you listen closely.
And (this'll kill ya') Ballard, who died in '03, has been quoted as saying "If you're looking for youth, you're looking for longevity, just take a dose of rock and roll—it keeps you going."
Cat Stevens wrote it and on his debut LP, Matthew and Son, gives it a treatment that is far too fine china tea set precious compared to the raucous, instant party energy The Tremeloes invest in this song that, for my money, they have not covered so much as usurped and made all their own. Few songs can truly put me in a good mood the instant I hear them (or a better one if I'm already feeling up), but this is one that has never failed to do so. Founding Tremeloes member Brian Poole turns 68 today. Happy Birthday to him.
Happy Birthday to Keith Noel Emerson who today turns 65 and is best known for his keyboard and Moog pyrotechnics when he was the "E" in ELP. But before that he was backing the fantastic (and, here in States, underloved) vocalist P.P. Arnold along with three other gents who would eventually become The Nice, a band that belonged to the first wave of UK Prog Rockers. Their second single was a take on Leonard Bernstein's America, from Westside Story (with some uncredited Dvorak thrown in the mix). The hard to hear words that the little kid speaks at the end are this: "America is present with promises and anticipation, but is murdered by the hand of the inevitable." Unspecific but not inappropriate words that haven't exactly aged beyond application in 41 years time.
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