Queen with Robert Plant Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Robert Plant & Brian May
Crazy Little Thing Called Love

       Good Sunday my friends.  Freddie Mercury left us way to soon but in his wake is a catalog of songs that few other musicians can claim to have matched.  One of those musicians might be singer Robert Plant formerly of Led Zeppelin.  Plant went on to have an incredible post Zep career with charting hits like Rockin' at Midnight & Sea Of Love with the Honeydrippers.  His renditions of these classic hit songs made him the natural choice to sing Crazy Little Thing Called Love at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in April of '92.

Queen during The Game album era

       Freddie's birthday is September fifth and this coming Thursday we will celebrate that day together here at  Off The Charts Daily Dose of Rock & Roll.   In the meantime please enjoy Robert Plant and Queen performing

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Queen with George Michael performing Somebody To Love

       Freddie Mercury died November 24th, 1991 from medical complications brought on by AIDS.  Early in 1992 the remaining members of Queen decided they wanted to do a tribute concert.  Their purpose was to promote awareness of AIDS and to raise money to fight the disease.  It took about 2 months of planning and a little more than 2 hours to sell all 72,000 tickets.  On 20 April 1992 Wembly Stadium in London was filled to capacity and millions around the world watched the televised simulcast.  The show was a huge financial success donating millions to The Mercury Phoenix Trust.  It was a fitting tribute to one of the most respected artists of the entire rock and roll era.
       One of the highlights of the day came near the end of the concert when George Michael, keyboard player Mike Moran and The London Community Gospel Choir joined the three remaining members of Queen (John Deacon, Roger Taylor, and Brian May) on stage.  If you've never seen this video before, you're in for a real treat and for all you Queen fans out there you know how special this is.

                               Please enjoy George Michael and Queen performing

                     Somebody To Love

White Wedding: Billy Idol Live & Unplugged!!!

       In the early 1960's lots of bands from the UK came to the shores of America and became famous.  That era has been remembered in history as The British Invasion.  One of the unique features of those bands is that they were, in fact, bands.  Most of the biggest American rock and roll acts of the day were individuals.  While many of them had regular backing bands, performers like Elvis, Little Richard, & Chuck Berry were all primarily known as individual stars.  On their records most of their music was performed by session musicians and the singers came in later and laid down the vocal tracks.
     The Brits were different. The Beatles, Stones and most of the rest wrote, recorded, and played all of their own music.  Sure Mick Jagger was a front man in a similar fashion to Elvis or James Brown but he was first and foremost a member of the Stones and nobody ever doubted that.  This revolutionized how American teenagers saw rock and roll and how they related it to themselves.  The British Invasion led to a million garage rock bands forming in every city and town in the USA.  Some of those bands reached stardom which spurred the next generation of kids to form bands in their garages and so on.
      Eventually most of the biggest American rock and roll acts were, like their British predecessors, bands instead of stars.  That is pretty much how things stayed until MTV lit up TV screens all over the world.  That spawned a partial devolution from bands back to individual stars.  Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince were, like their late 50's early 60's forebears solo artists whose individual fame eclipsed any band they happened to be standing in front of.  This was also true for many of the British acts that formed what MTV dubbed The Second British Invasion.  Elvis Costello, Paul Young, & Adam Ant were all musicians that fronted bands but became famous as individuals.
      One of the most successful of these artists was a blond punk rocker from the suburbs of London named William Broad.  He changed his name to Billy Idol early in his musical career when he was with the band Generation X.  GX reached UK stardom and enjoyed some spill over onto American AOR radio before disbanding.  That band took their initial inspiration from The Clash, The Sex Pistols and Siouxie & The Banshee's but started moving in the direction of New Wave and Glam.  Eventually creative differences split them apart and Idol went solo.

Idol & Gen X 1977

       With his spiky blond hair and endowed with the best sneer since Elvis Presley, Idol was born to be an MTV star.  His early recordings built upon the music of Gen X including his cover of their song Dancing With Myself which went into heavy rotation on MTV's hit list.  This was quickly followed up on the radio with his cover of Tommy James and the Shondells Mony Mony and then a song he penned called White Wedding.  Idols music was built upon the strength of his husky baritone and growling shrieks as well as distinctive tunes and high quality musicianship.  In those early years, as a rising MTV star, he was accompanied by an excellent guitar player named Steve Stevens who is probably best remembered for the Gammy Award winning Top Gun Anthem from that movie.  The Top Gun video features keyboard player Harold Faltermeyer who was also working with Idol as a session musician.

Steve Stevens

      The song White Wedding has been the subject of much speculation over the years.  At the time of it's writing Idol's sister was pregnant and looking forward to her wedding.  From that perspective the lyrics suggest Idol was angry at the man who impregnated his sister, resentful of the shotgun wedding, and weirdly incestuous.  Another popular interpretation has Idol being jealous that a former girlfriend was marrying another man despite Idol still being in love with her.  Still a third interpretation claims that White Wedding is a reference to cocaine addiction which is something Idol has been rumored to struggle with throughout his life.
      Whatever the true story behind the lyrics, Idols anger and resentment at the world is palpable.  He convey's a deep need to return to a place, probably back home, that is presumably fair, certain, and safe.  That frame of reference definitely suggests a jilted lover finding himself addicted to drugs and love searching for a place of new beginnings.  That explanation would still make the song somewhat autobiographical because Idol was, at that time,
 living through circumstances that loosely parallels that explanation.
      The song combines elements of glam with a revved up Peter Gunn punky rhythm.  The version presented here is taken from the VH1 series called Storytellers which, in the full length version, includes Idol talking about his songs and performing them "unplugged".  Nothing is really unplugged but the music is given an updated and intimate feel by Stevens playing acoustic electric.  Idol's vocals are spot on and, of course, he still looks like a decadent punk rocker.  At times he refers to himself in the third person which could be seen as a conceit  although it seems more likely he's drawing a distinction between himself and the performer/band.  This is an especially good performance of the song featuring a seated Stevens playing solo on what appears to be a Gibson acoustic/electric cutaway guitar and Idol standing at his shoulder singing.  He is wearing Jim Morrison black leather pants and riffs on his own history by slapping his own ass to the beat of the music which was done by 3 under dressed bosomy girls in the 1982 video.

Please enjoy this superlative excerpted recording of

Billy Idol White Wedding
   
   

     
     
   

Sam & Dave: Hold On I'm Coming

       In 1966 there were a number of studio's around the country that were creating unique and exciting music.  Some of the more well known one's were Chess Records in Chicago, Motown in Detroit, 30th St. Studio in New York, and United Western in LA.  All of these studio's had session musicians that loosely made up what was considered The house band.  Some of these bands were quite famous and had names like The Wrecking Crew in LA or the fabulous Funk Brothers in Detroit.

Booker T. & The MG's

 
 In Memphis the Stax house band was called by different names but were primarily known as the Mar-Keys. Their musical abilities were easily as influential and comparable to both The Wrecking Crew or the Funk Brothers.  The band leader was Booker T. Jones who, with is band Booker T. & the MG's, had a huge hit with the song Green Onions.  Aside from being a great band they

The Bar-Kays

were also one of the first racially mixed chart topping bands in rock history.  The Stax puzzle also included a horn section known as the The Memphis Horns and are easily recognizable in today's feature song in the link at the bottom.  Another Stax sub-group calling themselves the Bar-Kays had several hits including Soul Finger.  The collective talents of the Stax House Band can be also be heard in the Mar-Keys hit Last Night.  Unlike Motown, Stax encouraged these projects and they were all recorded in Memphis at the Stax studios.  All of these bands and projects included the musicians that made up the house band in one varying degree or another.  Many of these players came back into the public eye performing in The Blues Brothers movies and concert tours.

The Memphis Horns

       Like most major studio's of that era Stax had the good sense to match the greatest songwriters, record producers, and singers with their incredible house band.  The music they created broke new ground in the Country, Pop, Rock-a-billy, & Gospel genre's.  But they are most well known for advancing R&B and Funk.

       One of the singing acts that benefited from being in Memphis was a duo who had been working the Miami club circuit in the early 60's known as Sam & Dave.  They were signed by Atlantic records in 1964 and assigned to Stax where they were introduced to the brilliant musicians, songwriters, and producers that would eventually help them to become Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee's in 1992.  As singers they were gruff with loose harmonies and a gritty sexuality woven throughout their songs.  Dave Prater provided the low tenor voice and has been compared favorably to the soulful David Ruffin from the Tempations and the intense Levi Stubbs from the Four Tops.  Sam Moore is considered one of the greatest vocalists of the entire rock and roll era.  His high end tenor was as rough and ready as James Brown's and, like Brown,  he is one of the forerunners to the vocal styles later made famous by Steven Tyler and Robert Plant.  

Sam & Dave

      Sam and Dave eventually broke up due to a series of conflicts that are endemic to musical acts.  They had creative differences over the type of music they chose to record, differing opinions about their stage presentation, drug use, and the typical jealousy's that wrack the ego's of almost anyone that lives for applause.  Before they left the stage they gifted us with some of the most brilliant music of the Stax era including the songs Soul Man, & I Thank You.   As usual thanks for reading and please enjoy the great Sam & Dave performing




Hold On I'm Coming by Sam & Dave 

Citizen King: Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)

       In the spring of 1999 the world was introduced to a great new band out of Milwaukee named Citizen King . They first met as high school friends who became bowling buddies.  Calling themselves The Bombast Bowlers, lead singer/bassist Matt Sims once jokingly challenged the rest of the music world to a bowling match saying *"We challenge any band that thinks they can beat us. They will go down."  At some point, after seeing lots of various artists playing in concert around home they gave up their bowling ambitions and put their collective musical talents together. They formed the band Citizen King who would eventually come to the worlds attention.

Sims: "I've got a good job at the Dollar Store"

     CK's lineup was formed from the cream of Milwaukee's musicians' community and included Kristian Riley on guitar, Malcom Michiles doing the hip-hop thing on turntables, DJ Brooks on drums, Matt Sims on bass and singing, and future Hollywood music engineer Dave Cooley playing keyboards. Their first album titled Brown Bag, released in the summer of 1995, was critically acclaimed but received little national attention.  Milwaukee audiences recognized it's originality and flocked to their shows creating the early buzz.  The band played a fusion of jazz, funk & rap finding a nice, uncrowded, niche for themselves.  While this was not a totally original genre, their music was and it still sounds as fresh and interesting today as it did when they recorded it.  The song Beautiful Machine typifies the music on CK's first offering.  While Brown Bag didn't find success through radio airplay, it did show off their talents and versatility which would later bring them fame.  

     While touring as the opener for the band Fishbone they were signed by Warner Brothers and given a chance to capitalize on their burgeoning fame and ample talent.  The album they created is called Mobile Estates and it was released in March of 1999.  It clawed it's way up the charts powered by the single Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out) featured below.  Their new music had a more polished feel because the band had access to the best recording equipment available which they did not have during the Brown Bag sessions.  Aside from the high charting single the album also contained fan favorites Under The Influence, & Safety Pin.  
     Despite the success of the album and the high charting Better Days plus the constant touring the band's popularity eventually dropped off.  They found themselves being compared relatively unfavorably to Beck and it hurt them both critically and with audiences.  In 2002 the band split and that was that.  It's not the first time a larger act destroyed the competition.  35 years earlier The Beatles Sergeant Pepper album was released and it sucked all the air out of the room smothering almost every other popular contemporary recording and artists of the day.  I'm in no way denigrating Sgt. P, but there were many artists at that time who deserved wider popularity and airplay that simply withered away because of The Beatles commercial success.  Like those bands from that earlier time Citizen King became just another victim of the highly competitive and cannibalistic nature of the music industry.
     Better Days tells a semi-autobiographical story about the difficulties succeeding as a young adult.  The video's protagonist (played by Sims) sarcastically refers to his menial position at the Dollar Store as a "good job".  Yet no matter how successful he dreams of becoming, no matter how much luck he has with the opposite sex he can't quite break through the day to day reality of his sucky life. The twist is, that despite everything being stacked against him, he finds that he is happy.  He recognizes that his dreams of a better life are shared by his friends and they too find themselves frozen out (presented quite literally in the video) by age and circumstance.  Collective experience is what makes friends the family we choose and nothing illustrates that like a band working towards a common goal no matter what their level of success.

CK at the height of their popularity (apologies for the poor quality photo)

     The video closes with space aliens coming to earth and discovering there truly is no intelligent life here.  They leave and immediately crash into the moon proving that no matter how smart, or successful you may think you are you are still you and failure may be surprisingly close at hand.  The lesson is that if you know who you are, understand and accept your circumstances and are supported by & support friends who love you you can be happy.  That's a powerful message which the song packages in one of the most attractive and catchy tunes to have reached a worldwide audience at the turn of the millennium.   

Better Days (And The Bottom Drops Out)
 by Citizen King

I've seen better days

*http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608002466/Citizen-King.html & Carrie Bell Billboard Magazine

By Request: Stevie Ray Vaughan performing Lenny

       June 13, 1983 is the day a brand new blues guitar player was formally introduced to the world.  His name was Stevie Ray Vaughan and that is the official release date of his seminal album Texas Flood.  In the seven years and two months he lived after the debut of the album he became a living legend.  Vaughan died in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990 and today is the 23rd anniversary of that sad day.
       I have said in earlier posts that the greatest guitar players can be identified by their unique style of play.  It's as if they lay down a distinctive template and then play within it.  That's not to suggest they are limited in ability or imagination, it's that they are the true masters of that particular form.  As soon as you hear them on the radio you can identify Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, & Chuck Berry.  They only need to play a few notes for you to recognize them.  SRV's template was the Texas blues and his inventiveness within that formula was virtually endless.  Don't get me wrong he didn't invent Texas blues he just took it somewhere that it hadn't gone before.
      On New Years eve 1983 SRV concluded a six and half month world tour that saw him and the band Double Trouble play 107 dates.  Concert number 107 was held at a Norfolk, Virginia venue called The Boathouse.  It was a very small and grimy building that held a few hundred people but for some reason it pulled in some of the major acts of it's era.  It had a very small stage that was maybe 30 inches high which meant if you could get to the front of the crowd you could literally touch the artists.

Layton, Vaughan, & Shannon
Double Trouble

      My girlfriend, soon to be wife, and I were at the back of the crowd.   A few minutes after the band appeared she took me by the hand and led me all the way to the stage.  As the crowd filled in around us we found ourselves pressed against the apron.  Soon the excitement level reached a fevered pitch and the crowd surged forward entrapping her.  Bassist Tommy Shannon saw her being crushed and offered her a hand onto the stage to escape.  Then SRV, seeing her distress, stopped the show and both he and Shannon implored the crowd to move back.  Once they did Stevie nodded to my girl then sat down on his amp and played Lenny.  I've always believed they played that song at that moment to try and calm the crowd down a bit to prevent anyone from getting hurt.  Not many people can say they forced a band to re-arrange their set list on the fly, but my girl did.  Before that moment we both thought Lenny was a great song but after that close call it became a much more personal song and we thought about SRV and Double Trouble's music in more personal terms.

Robert Cray, Eric Clapton,
Stevie Ray, & Jimmy Vaughan

      Vaughan wrote the song for his wife Lenora and it became a staple in his stage show for the remainder of his career.  It's kind of a freestyle thing that strolls softly yet pretty forcefully through blues and jazz riffs changing tempo along the way.  Tempo changes in the middle of songs is one of the hallmarks of SRV's music. A great example of this is the song Mary Had A Little Lamb.  At around the 1:18 mark he enters into a fairly straight forward (for him) blues guitar solo.  Soon after the 1:40 mark, while the Double Trouble rhythm section remains on the steady 4/4 twelve bar blues beat, Stevie downshifts and veers away.  Eventually he and the band meet up again in time for the beginning of the third verse.  Stevie Ray's ability to change tempo and change scales without losing his place is a unique gift that I've never really heard from another guitar player.  Usually tempo changes are executed by the whole band and driven by the rhythm section.  SRV could leave the script and rhythm section behind playing whatever he felt while still keeping the song in the pocket, never getting lost and arriving on time at exactly the right place.
      His loss was a tragedy for his loved ones, fellow artists, and fans.  He left us with an album called The Sky Is Crying and the last thing he committed to album was another very personal solo acoustic piece called Life By The Drop.

'God it's good to be here walkin' together my friend...
                           
By request for my good friend Mark EV:

Lenny by the incomparable Stevie Ray Vaughan 
& Double Trouble featuring Tommy Shannon & Chris Layton

Toad The Wet Sprocket: Walk On The Ocean

       In 1992 a quartet from Santa Monica calling themselves Toad The Wet Sprocket broke through with a charting hit song called All I Want.  It featured a lovely arrangement of drums, bass, and acoustic guitar that gradually blended in an electric guitar and organ.  But the star of the show was the sophisticated harmonies featured mainly in the chorus.  Singer/songwriter Glen Phillips begins in a deep tenor range but cycles up through 2 octaves to a pure and clear falsetto.  The harmony itself has a depth that suggests it was recorded in a cathedral or perhaps a large empty music hall.  It was released off their album entitled Fear and became one of my favorite songs of the early 90's.
       A few months later they released a song that didn't quite chart as well that was even more musically adventurous called Walk On The Ocean.  While it didn't feature the same lush harmonies of All I Want it showed off a blend of voices that easily rivaled their earlier hit.  The orchestration is deceptively simple but included all sorts of interesting details.  I believe the song is played in 6/8 time which makes it unusual for rock and roll.  Although I have been unable to find session notes or credits that define this particular song you can easily pick out the violin, cello, and mandolin. Also, I'm not certain if there is an accordion included or if it's a keyboard but it still is quite striking and beautiful.
      There is a kind of Irish ballad/nautical feel that is somewhat reminiscent of Billy Joel's Down Easter Alexa except here the feel is much warmer, more acoustic, and somehow more accessible.  On the surface the lyrics describe a trip from Homestead Florida through the Keys and back.  Anyone who has ever made friends while on vacation that included promises to remain in touch will understand that oftentimes those promises are unfulfilled leaving you with only memories.  The accompanying music has a somewhat dark and moody tone suggesting sadness and loss.

Toad The Wet Sprocket
Fear

      Apparently the name Toad The Wet Sprocket came from a Monty Python skit and the band adopted the name for a one night stand as kind of a joke and it just stuck.  While I don't exactly understand why any band would call themselves something so esoteric, they aren't the first to do so.  Rock and roll has enough acts called enough odd names that something as obscure as an Eric Idol reference seems quite normal by comparison.  The Fear album is in my opinion the best of Toads career and is well worth listening to.  If you like All I Want and Walk On The Ocean then the rest of the album will be a very satisfying experience.  As usual thanks for reading and please enjoy



Walk On The Ocean by Toad the Wet Sprocket





     

Sunday Mellow Down featuring Joan Jett Celluloid Heroes

         This morning I am very happy to present Joan Jett covering Celluloid Heroes.  Originally written and released by the Kinks on their 1972 album Everyone's in Show-Biz.   While living in Hollywood Ray Davies observed people hurrying down the Hollywood Walk of Fame not paying any attention to the stars memorialized in concrete beneath their feet.  Somewhere between the soaring heights of stardom and ending up as part of the sidewalk those stars were people pretty much just like the rest of us.  Davies saw that irony and asked us to see the human side of the people whose fame soared above us yet we somehow ended up walking on without a second glance.   He must have felt that he would eventually end up the same way.
        Davies singing is, to many, an acquired taste but the Kinks music is incredibly well respected in the music industry and has been covered by too many artists to name.  Jett chose the song for her 1990 album The Hit List at a point in her career where she was hovering somewhere between rock star and movie star/Hollywood composer.  Her reading is deeply sensitive, and very pretty.  She must have seen the irony in the lyrics and felt the same emotional connection and inevitability Davies did.  I strongly recommend taking a couple of minutes now to give it a listen.  Have a great Sunday everyone and thanks for reading...



Joan Jett Celluloid Heroes

Joan Jett AC DC live w/interview by Craig Ferguson

      In 1974 the British band Sweet released an album called Desolation Boulevard which included the punk influenced gender bending song ACDC.  Joan Jett covered the song and included it on her album Sinner in 2006.  Most of the songs on Sinner were previously released in Japan on the album Naked. That album included a great cover of The Replacements song Androgynous and Jett's own controversial song Fetish. Sinner included the new songs Riddle, Change the World , and the studio version of the live recording featured here ACDC. 
       Sometimes the people who decide what we hear on the radio or what records they want to promote believe time has passed an artist by when nothing could be further from the truth.  Jett had every reason to believe that Sinner would introduce her to a brand new audience and excite her older followers as well.  I believe she was 100% correct because if you liked Jett's music in the 80's then this updated more mature and savvy version of her is something you absolutely need to check out.  After the song, be sure to watch the interview segment Joan has with Craig Ferguson.  

Joan Jett AC DC live

Clear Skies Baby!!!

My Boyfriends Back by the Raveonettes

Sune Rose Wagner & Sharin Foo

    The Raveonettes are a Danish rock band fronted by the duo of Sune Rose Wagner & Sharin Foo who have been flying one inch under the radar for far to long.  According to wiki they are like the Everly Brothers and frankly that's bullshit.  While many of their songs do feature a strong 2 part harmony that may be a bit reminiscent of the Everly's that is where the comparison ends.  This is a very talented band with a knack for writing witty and ironic lyrics underscored by very strong and varied musicianship.  They feature raw guitar sensibilities somewhat reminiscent of the mid-60's Rolling Stones but easily match the depth and elegance of the keyboard driven music of Sarah Mclachlan.   If that sounds like hyperbole check out the song Love in a Trashcan or Recharge & Revolt.  

The Angles, Peggy
Santiglia (bottom left)

       Today I'm featuring their cover of the Angles 1963 hit My Boyfriends Back.  The Angles version is 100% teeny-bopper but it is nicely performed with the lead being sung by Peggy Santiglia.   Santiglia's vocals are by turns sweet, sexy, and adolescent.  She only gets to cut loose near the end of Boyfriend which always made me wonder what she could have done if she had better songs.  It might have been interesting to hear her interpret something like I Only Want To Be With You made famous by Dusty Springfield just two months earlier.  The Angles version of Boyfriend is still an extremely popular song and has shown up in movies, TV shows, and has been covered perhaps 20 times both seriously and as parody's.  

Stubbs the Zombie
My boyfriends back?

      The Raveonettes covered it for the 2005 video game Stubbs The Zombie.  Compared to the indignant & kind of bitchy reading by the Angles the Raveonettes version is quite chilly.  Both songs open with the spoken lines "He went away and you hung around and bothered me every night. And when I wouldn't go out with you You said things that weren't very nice."   Santiglia sounds like a 13 year old girl on the verge of tears whereas Foo just sounds pissed off.  

       The sound engineering on the 1963 version was poor but the musicianship was very good.  The song features nice drum work, a double bass reminiscent of the early Four Seasons hits and a horn section that sounds like it's topped by a trumpet but also includes an alto-sax that does a bit of honking throughout the song.  The subtext of the song is the narrator (Santiglia) being a bit uncertain that her boyfriend would mete out the justice she promised.  Which meant she was stuck somewhere between the fear of ostracism and the fear of humiliation.  Perhaps that's what gave the song it's ability to be remembered 50 years later.

       The Raveonettes open with a similar drum pattern except the downbeat is played on a synth pad signalling that this is something new that deserves our attention.  The spoken lines at the opening as interpreted by Foo are not those of a powerless indignant teenybopper.  She is simply telling the guy that wronged her that some shit is coming down on his head that he might want to avoid.  The band picks up on this with an energetic but not overstated garage rock groove.  If I had to compare it to something I would say We've Got The Beat by the Go Go's but without the uptempo rock/punk drive.  This version is played slightly slower and Sharin Foo has a sexy magnetic quality to her voice.  This gives you a clue as to why the guy on the receiving end of the threat would have wanted to be with her to begin with.  At the bridge the back-up waa-oo's are a little deeper and fuller and they harmonize with the bass.  Coupled with Foo's darker more reserved and threatening tone there is a gravitas here the song never had in 1963.  Towards the end, very similar to Santiglia, Sharin Foo shows a strength and versatility that makes you think she could do more.  The difference is that, unlike Santiglia & the Angles, The Raveonettes have done more, a lot more.  

       The Raveonettes are a great band and if you haven't heard them please listen to the songs I've included in this post.  I would be surprised if you didn't come away wanting to hear more from this superlative Danish export.

The Raveonettes covering My Boyfriends Back

       Like the Dollyrots and their song California Beach Boy, the Raveonettes and My Boyfriends Back is a song I learned about while listening to SiriusXM channel 25 which is Little Steven's Underground Garage.  Many of the songs featured here I first heard on that channel.  If you happen to have SiriusXM and are looking for the best in cutting edge rock, the best oldies, and great storytelling provided by people like Steve Van Zandt, Manfred Mann, and Andrew Loog Oldham that is the place to go.

      

Harry Nilsson: Coconut

       Sometimes you have to just do something for fun and that's why I'm featuring Harry Nilsson's 1971 song Coconut.

      The song tells the story of a sister and brother who both have coconuts.  The sister trades hers for a lime then places the lime in the coconut and drinks them both up.  Sometime later that night she gets a belly ache so she calls and wakes the doctor wondering what to do.  After hearing her story the doctor, apparently needs time to ponder this medical conundrum so he stalls for time by repeating the entire story.  Eventually he arrives at the conclusion that the best thing for a lime & coconut bellyache is more lime & coconut.  Seriously, I'm not making this shit up.  You would think that would be the end of the story but at sometime in the near future, perhaps as early as the next morning, her brother retells the whole crazy story to another person. I'm not sure if this a dietary cautionary tale or if Nillson was just tripping but the song is great.

      I've searched high and low for other deeper meanings and the best one's I've found are (1) coconut & lime is apparently a Caribbean cure for belly aches.  I think I need a voodoo witch doctor to corroborate that and as soon as I find one I'll let you know.  Another explanation is (2) that, in Columbia, the growers of Coca  will chew the leaves because it feels pleasant and also makes your mouth go numb.  They chew the leaves with lime to encourage the leaves to release as much of the pleasant feeling numbing ingredient as possible.  The other explanation (3) is that Nillson was on a flight either to or from Hawaii got hammered and then wrote the song.   Reason one sounds to much like an old wives tale to be true.  Number two certainly has an interesting psychedelic thing working for it but you can't always believe everything you read on Wiki.  I feel like I'm on a game show.  Anyways I'll go with answer number three.  I'm sure it happened while Nillson was airborne however I'm not certain if an airplane was involved or not.
       The song is played entirely in C7 on an acoustic guitar with rhythm and some flourishes on a second guitar.  There is some really cool percussion and drum work as well as what sounds to me like a double bass.  The star of the song besides the trippy lyrics is Harry Nillson's voice.  He carefully overdubbed harmonies and countering vocals representing all three characters in the song spread over a 3 octave range that builds as the song moves towards it's climax.  I'm not certain what inspired Nillson to make this song but I am glad he did.  If you've never heard this song before then your in for a treat .  If you have then you know when I tell you it's sort of like Hendrix meeting the Beach Boys in Margaritaville I'm not kidding...
     
Harry Nillson's Lime in the Coconut

Randy Newman: Sail Away

      If I told you there was a guy who is in the Song Writers Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had won 2 Academy Awards, 5 Grammy's, & 3 Emmy's as well as a host of other prestigious awards you'd think his name would just roll off of your tongue right?  You'd probably be surprised if I told you this guy only had two songs in his whole career that he performed enter into the US top ten and only one song that made it all the way to #1 and it was recorded by someone else.  What if I told you he had scored or contributed to the scoring of nearly 30 films would you be able to name him then?  My guess is probably not.
      Randy Newman is just one of those guys that seems to make gold every time he writes or records music.  Yet somehow he's managed to remain mostly out of the spotlight.  It really is superbly ironic that someone can be so successful in the Hollywood music industry and yet so obscure at the same time.  Ironic is also the exact word I'd choose to describe his astounding 1972 song Sail Away.
      Sail Away is a story about the evils of slavery and the nature of freedom in the US and the nature of freedom in general.  It even touches on the ideas of manifest destiny and the assumption of the inevitable spread of American style of democracy, which one would assume, lacking cooperation,  means by force.  Considering that is exactly what was happening in Viet Nam in 1972 only serves to amplify the poignancy of Newman's song.

Climb aboard little wog,
sail away with me

       The lyrics create the image of a ships captain, perhaps in the year 1800, on the dock of a West African coastal town perched on a cask trying to convince his audience to voluntarily board his ship to come to America, specifically Charleston Bay in South Carolina.  The joke is that we know that the white Captain is an evil snake oil salesman playing upon the naivety of his black audience who's real intent is to sell them at the slave auction in the American antebellum South.
     Knowing nobody would willingly place themselves into slavery the Captain promises the "little wog's" there's plenty of food and no dangerous animals.  If you'll just come with me you'll get to "sing about Jesus and drink wine all day" and eat "sweet watermelon and buckwheat cake".  He promises what sounds like unlimited freedom but, as the listener knows, the freedom he's offering is limited to people other than his audience.  The unlimited freedom false promise kind of sounds like my cell phone and cable provider but I digress.
       When you start pulling apart the lyrics, under the irony, you discover all of America's dirty little secrets.  In the first verse he promises them that if they "Sail Away" they'll get food to eat.  To a starving & exploited people competing for scant resources that is an almost impossible offer to resist.  On the other hand standard slave fair wasn't exactly like an evening at Delmonico's and the food offered to the unwilling passengers of a slave ship wasn't even fit for human consumption.  In 1972, as today, there are hungry & politically weak people who have no chance against the aligned conservative forces against them that believe they should not be helped for their own good.  Newman's protagonist uses the enticement of full bellies the same way Herbert Hoover did in 1928 to become President.  He promised "A chicken in every pot" and one year later America learned the truth when the Great Depression started.
      The second verse cleverly plays on the insulting stereotypes of African-Americans by tempting the audience with watermelon and buckwheat cake.  Inviting a people to participate in the exact behavior that is then used by the majority to insult and laugh derisively at the minority is perhaps one of the most cleverly ironic lyrics ever.  Newman subtly inserts the word "wog" as a stand-in for the N word thereby ingeniously allowing the captain to insult his audience without being gauche.  Newman isn't just pointing out that the Captain thinks his audience is inferior, he is pointing out that many people in our modern version of America speak in code that belies their real feelings about people they believe are inferior by nature.  Mitt Romney's 47% comment is exactly what Newman was describing 40 years earlier.
       The chorus promises a great adventure and implores the crowd on the dock to join the captain and sail away with him to cross the mighty ocean. Charleston Bay is made to sound exotic, modern, and wonderful and it is implied that everyone that boards will arrive in this land of milk and honey where the streets are paved in gold (or at least yellow brick) and find unlimited freedom, security, and nourishment for both their stomach & soul.  Newman's narrator could be describing the feeling that Ponce De Leon must have felt on the eve of embarking on his search for the fountain of youth.  How'd that work out for Ponce? In reality it is estimated that nearly 30% of the people forced into the hold of a slave ship died in transport and Charleston Bay is the site of Fort Sumter where the first battle of the civil war was fought.
       In the third verse Newman plays on the fallacy that in America every man is free and equal with a promise that they'll be as "happy as a monkey in a monkey tree".  That isn't even true today let alone for the people being enticed to volunteer for slavery.  Nobody can be truly happy without freedom yet Newman's narrator falsely promises it the same way politicians are still prone to do.  In the first verse the Captain explicitly says there is the assumption that everyone wants to sing about Jesus.  While it's impossible to believe that the African's being stolen for the slave trade could have even know about Jesus, Newman is also commenting on the overbearing nature of puritanical America.  Still today there is a segment of the population that would impose their religious values by peer pressure & law even while admitting they can't Constitutionally create a state religion.
      Underneath the understated yet fiery poem is wonderfully composed orchestration that helps Newman say more with a lot less words that it has taken me to explain the lyrics.  The song opens with melancholy strings that somehow have a hint of hopefulness.  The simple piano is a whispering heartbeat promising patriotic happiness followed by the rising brass imploring you to join the adventure.  Throughout the music paints a hypnotic picture of a beautiful America replete with amber waves of grain rippling in a gentle summer breeze.  Yet it somehow manages to never lose the underlying sadness and hypocrisy's laying just under the surface as long as you are willing to look.  Please treat yourself to

Randy Newman's Sail Away