redchucks52

Gordon Lightfoot died

He was 86. I have two of his albums—The Way I Feel (notable for the Canadian Railroad Trilogy, which said the railroads were bad for the environment and worse for the indigenous Canadians) and Lightfoot, which has many good songs. He did First Time, by Ewan McColl, Changes, by Phil Ochs, Pride of Man, by Hamilton Camp, Early Morning Rain, and That’s What You Get for Lovin’ Me. In Rich Man’s Spiritual, he said a dying rich man figures if he buys a long white robe, golden slippers, a smiling angel, and a poor man’s troubles he’d have checked all the boxes to get to heaven.

Lightfoot got long and positive reviews in his obituaries. I was afraid it would be all The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a six-minute song that was played to death on CKLW (which was always looking for Canadian content). I’d never stopped to realize how many good songs Lightfoot did.

Self Portrait

Bob Dylan

The first question: How can an artist who produced Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits put out this perfectly awful dreck a few years later? I thought the answer was that Columbia was in a dispute with Dylan about his earlier work that ultimately became the Basement Tapes. The record company put it out to embarrass Dylan and get some leverage. That might have been an urban legend at the time to shift the blame from Dylan. The explanation widely available these days on the innertubes is that Dylan was tired of being adored by his fans and put out crap—joke’s on you, record-buying public.

More questions: Why do I remember so little about it? I didn’t even remember it was a double-record set. Could I have left the second disk in the sleeve? Did I cut my losses and stop? It has my sister-in-law’s name on it. My guess is after she played it once, she gave it to her sister. My wife wouldn’t have wanted it either and made sure to mix it into my collection. It could be I never played it.

A Long Time Comin’

Mike Bloomfield founded the Electric Flag after he left the Butterfield Blues Band. The album came out in 1968. It opened with a snip of Lyndon Johnson’s speech of March 15, 1965, announcing he would send the Voting Rights Act to Congress. It was designed to end illegal barriers to the right to vote. The tape of Johnson started, “I speak tonight for the dignity of man,” Bloomfield hit a big chord, the audience laughed, and the band launched into ‘Killing Floor,’ by Howlin’ Wolf. When I first heard the song, I had no idea what it meant. I used the innertubes to figure out the singer is depressed about love gone bad, using ‘killing floor’ as a grisly metaphor. Wolf said he should have followed his first mind and quit his woman a long time ago. Nick Gravenites made it ‘listened to my second mind.’

The album had a version of Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee, a classic about drinking cheap fortified wine and getting into fights. There are many examples; I’ll point them out. Don’t know when wine’s image improved; in Super Freak in 1980 Rick James linked it with incense and candles in a freaky scene.

Don’t follow all the advice you read

An advice columnist in a newspaper said it’s fine to watch TV during the day if you are doing chores. (She implied that it is a good way to strengthen a family.) Bad advice. Watching TV softens your brain. My evidence: This columnist believes in the whole truth–manifestly a terrible idea. I got along fine with my folks after I realized I didn’t have to offer information they didn’t want to know. They didn’t ask. I didn’t lie. There were sizeable parts of my life I didn’t mention. The worst results came from trying to act like the happy families on TV. My kids are smarter than I am–they figured out the many advantages of ‘need to know’ policies when they were young.

At work I rushed to tell the boss when something I’d done went bad–certainly didn’t want her to hear it from someone else. Otherwise the don’t-bother-with-the-whole-truth approach worked well at the office.

An editorial today from an expert made a hash of how to be a smart bettor. People who play slot machines rarely quit when they are ahead, says me, and the multimillion dollar jackpot games are so different from daily and scratch-off games that they shouldn’t be lumped together.

Using Up Matches

My dad had a few hundred matchbooks when he died, saved from restaurants mostly. It is a challenge to use them up at the rate of about 75 matches a year. There are 20 in a book, and many times I misplace the book before using the last match.

These are from the First National Bank of Akron. There’s no way I can see to date them. No phone number for the area code/exchange, no address for a ZIP code, no tire plants in the background. The tower was the tallest building in town, and maybe all the transactions took place there. Still don’t see why they left out the address.

Me, I say the art inside the cover predates The Flintstones–late ’50s probably. It’s the sort of art MAD Magazine parodied in fake ads when I was a young kid. My dad tried a pipe around 1960. I started to look up TV dads to see if there was a pipe-smoking trend I could date, but I’d forgotten how many of shows were sponsored by cigarette companies.

How to keep young: Satchel Paige’s rules

Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.

If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

Keep your juices flowing by jangling gently as you move.

Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.

Avoid running at all times.

Don’t look back. Something may be gaining.

I have loved Satchel Paige’s rules since I read his memoir, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever, in sixth grade. I am writing a song about them—the chorus is Don’t look back, don’t look back, I ain’t just mansplaining, don’t look back, don’t back, something may be gaining. Also good is Satchel’s reference to jangling: Bob Dylan just said that in the jingle jangle morning he’d come following us.

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits

I never planned three of these in a row. I would have guessed I had 10; turns out it is near 40. Greatest hits records are a good value for filling in a collection, but they aren’t really albums; they are like streaming—commerce, really.

Bob Dylan had many great hits. Ten on this record, plus 30 more compilations not including all the boxed sets of bootlegs playing with the Band when Dylan went electric. He has more greatest hits records than most band had hits.

Five on this record are great hits: Rainy Day Women #12 (first hashtag!) & 35, It Ain’t Me Babe, I Want You, Positively 4^th Street, and Just Like a Woman.

Four are immortal: Blowin’ in the Wind, The Times They Are A-Changin’, Like a Rolling Stone, and Subterranean Homesick Blues (proto rap).

And one is perfect, I realized while playing it this time: Mr. Tambourine Man. The other songs on that list are short: The Letter, by The Box Tops, 1:58 and I Got a Line on You, by Spirit, 2:37. Dylan maintained perfection (the way I heard it) for 5:32. I hope I go out with one hand waving free, forgetting about today until tomorrow.

The Best of P G & E

PG&E

I saw the Pacific Gas & Electric Blues Band, as I remember their name then, at a tiny club in Cleveland in 1968. It was a dump in a basement at 107th and Euclid, named La Cave. [I was in on that joke, cave being French for basement.] The club sold beer to high school kids, which made me feel extremely cool; I bet they never got raided because the beer had no alcohol in it at all. I don’t know how bands could afford to play such a small place—it was very close to buying eggs for 3 cents and selling them for 2 cents.

It was an unsophisticated time. I saw one local band open a show by doing all the songs they could play; they looked thrilled that we applauded enough they could do an encore, but all they could do was repeat the number that had got the biggest hand (a good cover of “Down by the River.”)

I loved all the bands I saw in high school—I don’t think I had any critical capacity at all. Many of them will show up in my record collection. I can remember Linn County Blues Band, Taj Mahal, Paul Butterfield Band, B.B. King, Joan Baez, New York Rock and Roll Ensemble. Too bad I missed the MC5 and Velvet Underground. I should get out more now.

These guys were Pacific Gas & Electric on their first record—weren’t there legal departments at record companies? I’m sure there are other examples.

This is not a great record. I have an early record of theirs which is better—it has the best version of “Motor City Is Burning” I’ve heard. The guitar player left, and the lead singer turned the band toward R and B/gospel. They cover “Heat Wave” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” in a workmanlike fashion, but there is no reason in the world to cover those songs unless you nail them. The singer sounds like Taj Mahal doing funk—not bad, but there are better things to listen to. The liner notes say that the band ran out of gas at the end, as do the liner notes. Too bad.

There are some Best of/Greatest/Very Best of/Hits albums that don’t deliver what the title promises. More to come on that.

This version of Staggolee has a .41 caliber gun—I keep track of what size gun gets mentioned in songs. It also mentions a $300 funeral and a $1,000 hearse—that was extravagant in those days (keeping track of inflation for you). Short Dogs and Englishmen calls out Les Paul.

Don’t knock Paul Kantner

One purpose for this blog is to correct big errors other people make on the innertubes. Now that I buy my electrons by the barrel, I can spread myself as thin as I want. Today a blog trashed Paul Kantner. That is very wrong. Disclaimer: I am guilty of having been in high school in 1968. I add that I am not dead yet–two months ago I drove 500 miles to be in Austin on Wednesday night to see James McMurtry and I see Lydia Loveless every chance I get.

The Jefferson Airplane recorded a lot of rock love songs, for which I commend them. Don’t know if it was Kantner or Balin or both, but they never got cynical. Further disclaimer: I have been lucky in love for the last 50+ years. ‘It’s no secret/you’ve got me jumping up and down.’ ‘Even when I close my eyes/all I see is you.’

After Bathing at Baxter’s is an all-time great album. When I was buying new speakers in 1975 (effin’ burglars), I took it along as my test. One employee played it VERY loud with the door open. The aging freaks circled around like moths to a porchlight.

It is fashionable to criticize We Built This City. I heard it once. It was okay. I am sorry if anyone heard it ten thousand times, but it’s not Honey or Me and God Are Watching Scotty Grow. Be serious.

What is a pair of Chuck Taylors?

I looked down at my feet when I was at the eye doctor’s the other day. I was in a chair with a foot rest so the doctor could roll a stool up to look me in the eye. My shoes were closer than usual, and there wasn’t much else to look at. The shoes weren’t a pair!

You might think this is headed toward the joke in Pogo about the farmer who couldn’t tell his two horses apart until he measured them and found that the black one was a foot taller than the white one. (Good material never gets old.) No, they were both red high-top Chuck Taylors, a left and a right. One time when I was rounding up the strays from around the apartment I must have jumbled them up.

You have to look closely to see that the line on the curve on the front of the shoes isn’t the same. I can hear my mother: If you’re so smart, why don’t your shoes match.

I have one pair I think was in the window at the Army surplus store for 20 years before I offered to buy it. The fronts of those look as if they were designed for getting cockroaches in the corners–much longer and skinnier than any others I own. They are also sun-faded into a mellow red. No one has ever noticed those, either. Konrad Lorenz talked about babyness; me, I say there is red-high-top-Chuck-Taylorness, and so long as two shoes seem have it, everyone sees a pair.