May 2024 – converselyspeaking

Vintage Dead, Grateful Dead, Sunflower Records, recorded 1966

There’s a bottle of Ripple wine on the cover, representing the era. It was sweet fortified wine with artificial flavors. A Wall Street Journal article at the time said that young drinkers liked to get stoned and watch the bubbles. Gallo stopped the carbonation at some point to avoid taxes. Wikipedia said it’s been off the market for 40 years. I know I drank a bottle on September 5, 1976, because I can remember the hangover.

This is a legally made recording, not a bootleg, yet not approved by the Dead either. It was an artifact of an agreement for a record of Bay area bands. That record never came out, but whoever had the rights put this out later. It is widely held (in Bill Kreutzmann’s memoirs and a biography of Mike Bloomfield, for example) that the Grateful Dead wasn’t very good in 1966. This record proves it. It’s standard bar-band material: I Know You Rider; It Hurts Me Too; It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue; Dancing in the Street; and a painful 18-minute version of In the Midnight Hour. I say there must have been 1,000 bar bands that could have done it better.

The Grateful Dead were quick learners—their next record (named The Grateful Dead) in 1967 is incomparably better.

Anthem of the Sun, Grateful Dead, Warner Brothers-Seven Artists, 1968

Alligator is a favorite of mine. The rest of this is a struggle for me. The words I noticed in a quick look through this record’s Wikipedia page—60-cycle hum and microphone feedback, erratic, experimental, mixed for hallucinations, psychedelic listening experience, songs were mirrors of infinity. That’s the sound of people trying to be nice. My notes: for a jam band with two guitar players, this has a LOT of kazoo in it.

The band didn’t like being in the studio, it is said, and they spent a lot of time getting comfortable. One Warner Brothers exec said it was the most unreasonable project the company did. Here are some cuts. See what you think.

Aoxomoxoa, Grateful Dead, Warner Bros., 1969

Bill Walton died, as famous now I suppose for being a fan of the Grateful Dead as being a great basketball player. I’ll play my Dead records for a while (man, I don’t know how much more of What’s Become of the Baby I could take).

I have sung Saint Stephen quietly in a church on the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico and in Budapest (aargh! Wrong Saint Stephen. I need to reread the Lives of the Saints). Some stoner Zen: One man gathers what another man spills. The song includes a bucket going to the bottom of the well (without the bottom’s falling out). Dupree’s Diamond Blues is a silly song (though violent and not safe for work) about what a man will do for a woman. I like songs that have conversations with the judge. China Cat Sunflower is a classic; it’s on Live/Dead and Europe ‘72, which I also have. Cosmic Charlie isn’t about me, but it is adjacent. Everything’s movin’ here, but much too slow now—that could be me. Also—the very first word is How you do? The last: go home, your mama’s callin’ you.

Running, Jumping, Standing Still, Spider John Koerner and Willie Murphy, Elektra, 1969

Koerner died May 18. He was 85. An obit said that when people asked him about his helping Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt on their way up while remaining obscure himself, he said it just wasn’t in his character to chase after fame.

When Bob Dylan got to Minneapolis in the early ‘60s, he sought out Koerner, an established performer. They played often as a duo. Koerner then worked with Dave Ray and Tony Glover. They put out Blues, Rags, and Hollers. John Lennon said it was one of his favorites.

This record, with Willie Murphy, was well received. Bonnie Raitt recorded one of these songs on her first album in 1971. Elektra wanted Koerner and Murphy to tour and make another album. Murphy said later that when Koerner thought about riding around the country in a van with band members and equipment, he decided to go to Denmark and make movies. When that didn’t pan out, he came back to the U.S. in time to see folk music crater. He performed, updated Blues, Rags, and Hollers, and put out new music from time to time until 2019.

The advice from this record I took to heart: When in danger/when in doubt/run in circles/scream and shout. And don’t let the bastards wear you down/Don’t get hassled to a frazzle.

Gasoline Alley, Rod Stewart, Mercury, 1970

Country Comfort got some FM radio play when the record was new. I’d never heard of Elton John, but I thought he wrote a decent country song. Cut Across, Shorty was a novelty song that I liked: I was short, and I hoped that the woman I loved would make sure I won her hand. I’ll say all I have about Stewart when I get to Every Picture Tells a Story. Today I’d rather talk about the comic strip Gasoline Alley.

When I was a kid, I read every word of every strip in the Akron Beacon Journal, even Mark Trail and Judge Parker. I liked Gasoline Alley although I didn’t understand much. It’s hard to figure what a gasoline alley is. The origin story I like is that when cars were new, the stores that sold gasoline in cans tended to be in the same area. Someone called it Gasoline Alley. I’d never thought about what life was like before gas stations. Gasoline Alley is the longest-running comic strip. Walt Wallet is the major character, I guess; he is about 124 years old. That’s easier to believe than what goes on in the strip—for example, there was a long story about a bear that could talk getting custody of human children. The story going on now at least was introduced as a dream—a young Wallet is using a giant fountain pen to fight Goliath.

You can choose from many funnies online for free; I recommend trying them if you haven’t. You don’t need to read them all. My life is richer with them.

Soul of a City Boy, Jesse Colin Young, Capitol Records, 1964 (re-issued in 1974)

I fell in love with this record when I was in high school. I heard Rye Whiskey and Four in the Morning when they were played on a very cool underground radio show in 1967. I learned that the album was out of print—no more copies were being made. I always wanted things I couldn’t get. Then I found it in the library. Such a dilemma—I could take it from them and pay $4 ($40 today), a fraction of what collectors sold a copy for. I had no problem with stealing it from the library, it was the taking it from other Soul of a City Boy fans. I didn’t lock the car in those days—property is theft, I knew. Capitol reissued it in 1974.

When I tried drinking whiskey, I started with rye as a tribute to Young. He sang ‘For work I’m too lazy, begging’s too slow/train robbin’ is too dangerous/a-gambling I’ll go.’ That’s the life I wanted. There was only one brand of rye for sale in the city of Chicago. Old Overholt was rough and cheap. Four in the Morning was a song about things going wrong—until David Allan Coe fixed You Never Even Called Me by My Name for Steve Goodman, it was the saddest ol’ song. Four a.m, (and not sleeping), rain pouring down, stove don’t work, my baby left town, nothing to drink, empty bottles and dirty dishes all over, baby lying to him until he murdered her and her boyfriend, a cockroach mocked him successfully. You might think it’s overwrought, me, I’ll say mournful.

The record also has Susanne and Black-Eyed Susan. I love all references to the Jack of Diamonds. (You can ask the guys in my poker game.) Young sang he’d finished 10,000 bottles of whiskey or wine in his time. I have a mashup in my mind—if he roomed with Wilt Chamberlain, every time the Big Dipper went out on a date, Young would open a bottle. When Wilt got back, they could compare notes.

The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw, the Butterfield Blues Band, Elektra, 1967

I’ve found that Pigboy Crabshaw was a nickname for Elvin Bishop. This was the band’s first record after Mike Bloomfield quit, so I guess that’s the ‘resurrection’ part, but nobody’s saying if it was meant to be as insulting as it sounds to me. Dave Sanborn, an excellent alto sax player, died this week, so I thought it would be a good time to haul this one out. At the time I didn’t care for this LP much, thinking it was a sell-out from the Muddy Waters/Little Walter-style Chicago blues of the first two albums. [Of course, Butterfield had the same problem John Mayall had keeping guitar players in the Bluesbreakers.] This is a blues/Stax-Volt-style R&B/jazz hybrid with some early Parliament funk. Butterfield had the nerve to cover Marvin Gaye on One More Heartache—his singing sounded much better than his first two records. Maybe he was intimidated by Bloomfield. Pity the Fool has nothing to do with Mr. T. Born Under a Bad Sign, Double Trouble, and Drivin’ Wheel are strong covers. Horns started infecting pop music in the mid-60s. Everybody thought it was going to be the next big thing, so a lot of bands tried it. This was successful.

Dennis Thompson, drummer for the MC5, dies at 75

Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact, is how Bruce Springsteen put it. It’s still sad in this case because Thompson was the last original member of the band. He played loud. The story was that the band couldn’t afford a microphone for the drums, and since the two guitar players had their amps at 10, Thompson hit the drums as hard as he could. He started playing the drums when he was 4. He dropped out of Wayne State where he was studying engineering when that would have been a draft deferment and a good shot at steady job. Thompson said, I chose fun. I wasn’t doing math at 4 years old, right? I was playing drums.

Wayne Kramer, a guitar player, died in February, and John Sinclair, the manager, died in April, so the stories about how the band was notorious and groundbreaking more than commercially successful have made the rounds. My favorite is that when Detroit’s biggest store didn’t carry the MC5’s record because it used profane lyrics, Sinclair took out a big newspaper ad using profane language directed at Hudson’s. When my cousin Moose was asked to leave a bar because he was drunk, he dropped his trousers on the way out. It was a perfect gesture in the moment, but at a price.

Walt Kelly poem about the Aurora Borealis

I have carried this in my head for 60 years—something about ‘roar a roar’ appealed to me. It was in a collection of Pogo comic strips. Now I have an excuse to share. Hope you saw just as much as you wanted.

O roar a roar for Nora
Nora Alice in the night
For she has seen Aurora Borealis burning bright
A furor for our Nora
And applaud Aurora seen!
Where throughout the summer has our Borealis been?

—Walt Kelly

Diddy Wah Diddy, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, Sundazed Music, Record Store Day, 2012

This is pretty good. Diddy Wah Diddy, Who Do You Think You’re Fooling, Moonchild, and Frying Pan are the songs. Diddy Wah Diddy was written by Willie Dixon and Bo Diddley. It describes life in a mythical town of that name where food abounds, no one has to work, and no one has any cares. Frying Pan is a prediction about social media that, alas, has come true:

Out of the frying pan into the fire
Anything you say, they’re gonna call you a liar
Go downtown, walk around
the man comes up, says he’s gonna put me down
you try to succeed, to fulfill your need
get hit by a car, people watching you bleed
out of the frying pan into the fire
anything you say, they’re gonna call you a liar
watch what you do do now, think what you’re saying
if you get crossed up, you’ll end up paying
ain’t no use, I’m gonna cut it all loose
I made a mistake, I can’t cut no break
Out of the frying pan into the fire