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.
Category: Music
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
The Best of Sam Cooke, RCA, 1962
When I realized A Change Is Gonna Come wasn’t on this record, I made sure to buy another Cooke compilation that had it. It very easy to like Sam Cooke’s singing. Wikipedia put it well—his pure tenor voice was big, velvety, and expansive; he was effortlessly soulful; and he had a mellow somberness. For example, Having a Party doesn’t sound as if the party is much fun (unlike, say, Quarter to Three by Gary U.S. Bonds). Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Miss., the same town as John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, and Muddy Waters.
I wish there were a way to know what most adults (and most teens) understood of the language in pop songs. Twistin’ the Night Away says that a fella in blue jeans is dancing with an older queen. The lyrics certainly say it is a same-sex couple, but I guess very few people knew that. Little Richard said that Miss Molly sure likes to ball—the decent folks wouldn’t have allowed that if they knew. Chain Gang is on this record, and I don’t know what anyone thought of it. Was it like 16 Tons, a mostly outdated work song about an unfairly tough job? That convicts in much of the South have it rough? It made it to Number 2 in the charts.
Record Store Day 2013, The Seeds, four songs on two 45-rpm records
If you remember the Seeds at all it is for their top 40 hit ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’ in 1965. It is called psychedelic garage rock by Wikipedia–high praise. Turns out they are still around, touring as Daryl Hooper and the Seeds. The more-or-less original Seeds, already embracing nostalgia by going as Sky Saxon and the Seeds, recorded these four songs in 1970. Turned out it was the last new material for the Seeds on a major label. The singles were never distributed. I think they finally saw the light of day 10 years ago so that Seeds fans and rock and roll historians could find out they weren’t very good. Here’s their hits.
Spirit, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, Epic, 1970
I was mad this morning when I saw that the New York Times called Spirit a psychedelic band. It was in an article about intellectual property. They were too good for that. Psychedelic bands couldn’t play well, so they played trippy, such as the Amboy Dukes and Iron Butterfly. I looked Spirit up in Discogs and saw that’s what they called Spirit. Those folks should have known better, because they must have listened to 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, a wonderful power pop LP. Nothin’ to Hide is a cheery pop confection about heroin addiction. Nature’s Way bops along looking at death—it’s nature’s way of telling you something’s wrong. Mr. Skin is the catchiest tune I’ve heard in a while—I’m Mr.-Mr. Skin, I know where you’ve been. Morning Will Come has the coolest falsetto this side of Richard Manuel. Love Has Found a Way and Animal Zoo are classics. How could folks not get it?
Then I noticed the cover. I have always thought it was ugly and never stopped to look closely. It’s a photo of the band looking like a Bruegel painting copied by Dali. Ugly, at the risk of repeating myself, and very surreal. That’s the psychedelic part. Don’t judge this record by its cover.
The Pirates, Out of Their Skulls, Warner Brothers, 1977
When I linked to the Peter Gunn theme in the Duane Eddy obit, I remembered that the Pirates recorded a version in 1977. In the interests of getting everything to touch, here’s that record. Peter Gunn was a TV show that featured a private detective and a jazzy theme song. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer even recorded a version. Wikipedia said Gunn drove a 1959 Plymouth Fury equipped with a car phone. Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were one of the first English rock bands. Kidd died in a car crash in 1966. The group got back together years later with Mick Green taking over the guitar duties. I loved the album cover, bought the record and liked it too.
It includes Shakin’ All Over (which the Guess Who had made a hit in 1965), Drinkin’ Wine Spo’ De’ O’ D (which the Electric Flag put on their first album because everybody in the band knew it), Lonesome Train, Do the Dog, and a wonderful pun between English and German—Don’t Munchen It (that’s the German version of Munich). They do You Don’t Own Me (not the Leslie Gore song) as a cross between Captain Beefheart and Root Boy Slim.
Paul Robeson, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Columbia Masterworks Records, no date of release
Robeson had many talents. He was a consensus All-American in college football at Rutgers. He then graduated from Columbia Law School while playing in the NFL. Robeson decided artists must take sides on social issues; he chose to support freedom. His continuing support for Stalin/the Soviet Union/Communism was very controversial.
In music he is best known for his singing in Show Boat, especially the song Ol’ Man River. He recorded and released nearly 300 songs. This record is spirituals. It is 10 inches in diameter, smaller than typical 12-inch LPs, and probably predates stereo. My in-laws had wide-ranging tastes.
Michigan Rocks, various Michigan artists, Seeds and Stems, 1977
Detroit and Cleveland, after they stopped being famous for producing cars and steel, wanted to be known for rock and roll. Ian Hunter sang ‘Cleveland Rocks’ and Bob Seger mocked Rolling Stone magazine for being so slow to call Detroit’s audiences the best in the world. Poor Cleveland got the Hall of Fame (Electric Light Orchestra? Donovan? really?) and Detroit got this compilation. The MC5, the Stooges, Bob Seger System, one of Mitch Ryder’s bands, and one of Seger’s guitar player’s bands are great or great-adjacent; there are some lesser bands that are still good. SRC covered Cream covering Skip James pretty well. The Rationals decided to record ‘Respect’ after Aretha Franklin—not a good choice. I bought this for just $3 in 1980 in Philadelphia because they didn’t know how good it was. Something on the innertubes said that Mitch Ryder founded the Seeds and Stems label and that it put out a song by Ryder and Ernie Harwell. Learning things like that keeps me going.
The Specials, Chrysalis Records, 1980
WXRT played a lot of the Specials when this came out, especially A Message to You, Rudy, which I really liked. I got the record and found that the rest of the record was okay. That’s how it goes sometimes. I like ska, I like sticking it to the man, I like unifying the punks, natty dreads, mods, rockers, hippies, and the skinheads. But this didn’t get me going into clubs, much less going into the streets. It was me, not them. The songs do warn of the folks who want to paint the town gray, which is a good line.
Jonas Friddle, The Last Place to Go, self-released, 2019
Hey—a record released this century. When I saw Friddle in 2019, I thought of John Prine. His songs had depth and maturity. ‘There’s at least two ways a body can drown/getting tossed in the ocean and drinking in a dry town.’ My grandmother lived in a dry town, and my cousins talked about sneaking away on backroads to get a drink. It sounded like prohibition—you’d never learn to moderate your drinking. About going smoothly through life—’a man ain’t a swiss watch, all well-oiled and clean/he’s a lopsided pinball on a tilted machine.’ Reacting to the end of touring circuses: ‘How am I supposed to run away/now that they’ve taken the last place to go.’ He’s skeptical of love: ‘Am I a used car for parts/for sale by the owner.’ There’s a song about Samson and one about the South. In the liner notes Friddle apologizes for the lack of banjo on the record. Isn’t it said that a gentleman is someone who can play the banjo yet doesn’t?
I bet COVID set back Friddle’s career. Here’s hoping it gets back on track.
converselyspeaking 