1000 SONGS - DAY 374 SONGS #407

Day 374: A Song About Going Home in a Car at Night

Frederick John Elgersma, better known as Fred Eaglesmith, a guy  from Canada does music that is commonly labelled as "Alternative Country". There are acoustic recordings of him close to Bluegrass (with a band called the Flathat Noodlers) and recordings that sound more like "Country-Rock" or something like that (with, e.g., the Flying Squirrels). In his songs he tells stories about farming (he grew up on a farm, the 9th child to his parents) or people living at the edge, he uses many perspectives, plot-twists a.t.l. In his stage shows he mixes in stories he tells and jokes he makes between the tracks the band plays. He seems to be a great guy. Here is a live version of "Your Sister Cried", and, for the sake of completeness, the studio version of this song (although I do like the live version much more.
This song is like a scene from a movie. When listening to it I remember similar scenes in a car in the night somewhere between lower Austria and Styria. We do not know, why the girl cried, what the conversation on the telephone was about or from where those people drove away when heading "home". Something happened that led to the scene described. Most of us will have been in a situation like this one. And Fred has put it into words, simple, trenchant, and poignant:

Well, I stared out of the windshield into the rain soaked night
I turned on my dims, somebody flashed me their brights
And I reached over and turned the radio way down low
Your sister cried all the way home

Lightening crashed, and the road shone like a mirror
A dog come out of the ditch, then he just disappeared
And I remembered a conversation we once had on the phone
Your sister cried all the way home

I'll never know how you got into such a mess
Why do the bridesmaids all have to wear the same dress?
Everybody said you looked real good
But I think that you just looked stoned

Your sister cried all the way home

As far as I understand, one of the Ginn sisters that are featured here, Tif Ginn, is his partner in life.
And it is Kori Heppner on drums - I really like her drumming.

1000 SONGS - DAY 373 SONGS #404 - 406

DAY 373: Three Songs featuring Melvin Parker

I continue and end my little series on James Brown with 3 songs from the mid 60ies that can be regarded as some of the first steps from soul to funk. Melvin Parker, the brother of the more famous saxophonist Maceo Parker of Horny Horns' fame plays the drums on those. He introduced two new techniques that now belong to the standard repertoire of any drummer (and certainly of soul and funk drummers): (1) a rim click instead of a regular snare-drum note on the backbeat and (2) opening the hi-hat on the 1& and the 3& (closing it on the backbeat). The three records mentioned he played on before leaving the band because he had been drafted (he later rejoined the band and played on the "Sex Machine" album) are "Out of Sight" (on this one he plays the eighth note pulse on the cymbal, but already uses the rim click), "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (introducing opening of the high-hat on 1& and 3&), and "I Got You (I feel Good)".

Here is what he plays on "I got you" essentially - the basic beat - it looks so simple, but it is not that easy to play it "in the pocket" like Melvin Parker does.

And here are the three songs mentioned above:

1000 SONGS - DAY 372 SONG #403

DAY 372: WHEN JAMES BROWN PLAYED THE ORGAN

Everybody knows Soul Power by James Brown, at least for the extensive sampling of it in and beyond hip hop. But who does still know "Soul Food", recorded by James Brown in 1963, when he was still playing the organ in his band. It is a soul classic, and the beat by Nat Kendrick is featured in drum books dealing with soul and funky drumming. Make it groovy with all those buzz notes:

 And here is the song:

1000 SONGS - DAY 371 SONG #402

DAY 402: A Woman's Blues

Ball and Chain is what I would call a female Blues. It was written by Big Mama Thornton (the one who first recorded Hound Dog by Leiber/Stoller) in 1961, but not recorded before 1968. It was made famous by the rendering of Janis Joplin. Another fine version is that of Etta James. Three women singing a song that deals with the miserable situation of a married woman, who loves her husband that treats her bad, as made clear, for example, in this part of the lyrics:

I said Oh, Oh Baby,

Why do you wanna do all these mean things to me?

I said Oh, Oh Baby, why do you wanna do,

Why do you wanna do all these things to me?

Because you know I love you,

And I'm so sick and tired, so sick and tired of being in misery.

Hey Hey, ball and chain

(Most of the lyrics you find on the internet do not match what Big Mama actually sings on the version featured below).

The song picks up a common topic of many blues songs, like "my baby left me this morning", "love in vain" a.s.o., but from a female perspective: the woman is the one who wants to leave this miserable situation, but the love to her husband clinches to her like a ball and chain. She is a prisoner in this relationship. That's what the song is about, and each of those great performers give to it a personal touch.

Here there are the versions of BMT, Etta James and Janis (live version from Monterey).

1000 SONGS - DAY 370 SONG #401

DAY 401: I GOT STRIPES

 "I Got Stripes" is a song featured on "The Heart of Cash", an album released in 1968. There is also a German version of the song, done by Johnny. Officially, the credits for the song go to Johnny Cash and a guy called Charlie Williams (whoever that might be). It is a song about a man being arrested (that's why he got stripes). There are many songs in the history of American music dealing with that topic. For instance, Hudson William Ledbetter - the man they called Leadbelly - recorded a song with the same theme, "On a Monday", way back sometimes. What would the American songbook look like without Leadbelly? Surely, most of the songs he made famous weren't written by him, being traditionals he saved for the future by his rendering of them. 

Johnny Cash didn't steal a song by Leadbelly, he just took up a traditional song recorded by Leadbelly, did his own version and pretended to have written it.

Here is: Leadbelly, On a Monday & Johnny Cash, I got Stripes, English and German version. 

1000 SONGS - DAY 369 SONG #400

DAY 400: Allons Danser, Colinda!

"Colinda" is a relatively well known Cajun-Song, at least for being part of the soundtrack of the movie "The Big Easy" in a more or less Reggae-ized version by Zachary Richard. My favorite version is by the Tail Gators, featured here - I have it at home, on vinyl The song was made popular by the 1962 version of Rod Bernard, with its mix of French (Cajun) and English lyrics. There has been a recording of the song with English lyrics only, by Jimmy Davis, the man who allegedly wrote "You are my Sunshine", two-times Governor of Louisiana.

Originally, this seems to have been a song with French lyrics. The song is about a girl called "Colinda", the best one on the Bayou. Nevertheless, as scholarship has shown, it has formerly been a song about "Calinda", a dance of Afro-Americans in Haiti and elsewhere. So, initially, "Allons danser Colinda" has meant "Let us dance the Calinda" and not "Let us dance, Colinda". It has been "poped" later to the one and only theme of "boy and girl".

If you want to know more about that, read the paper:

Shane Bernard and Julia Girouard,  "Colinda": Mysterious Origins of a Cajun Folksong. In: Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 29, [1992], 37-52.

The truest Cajun version was done by Lawtell Playboys, which unfortunately has been taken from YouTube lately. For the sake of inclusiveness (it doesn't match up to the Lawtell Playboys' or Tail Gaitor's version in any way) I also feature the rendering of the song by Rod Bernard, the "swamp-pop" version, or so…

1000 SONGS DAY 368 - SONG #399

DAY 368: AMERICAN BOHEMIA

In the northern part of Upper and Lower Austria, there is a not too benevolent saying: „a Czech is either a thief or a musician“. The first prejudice being the usual prejudice of people living at the border held on people on the other side of the border, we can (and have to) ignore it.  The later one is not so much a prejudice, but has a sound basis in the abilities of our friends from Moravia and Bohemia. Many of them had to immigrate to the Americas in those harden times, when they were severely challenged by bad labour conditions, draught, economic downfall and Austrian politics. Some of them went to the region now known as Texas. They took their popular music with them and “syncretised” it with other forms of popular music available. Trikont records did a 3 volumes edition of songs from this musical tradition. Here are three tracks from Vol. 1.

First one is Corn Cockle Polka by Vrazels & Majecks & Bobby Jones Czech Band

Next one is: Oh Susanna Schottische by Ray Baca and His Orchestra

Third one: Krasna America by Adolph Hofner

1000 SONGS DAY 367 - SONG # 398

DAY 367: JESUS ON THE MAINLINE

On p. 153 of their book "Spiritual Churches in New Orleans" (Knoxville 1991), Claude F. Jacobs and Andrew J. Kaslow mention that in healing services held in those churches, "popular gospel songs [...] are among the most powerful conveyors" of the idea, that these churches are capable of "solving people's problems". One of the gospel songs they mention in this context is "Jesus on the mainline", a song explaining that whatever trouble one might face, trust in Jesus will solve all the problems - by a simple act of faith. As I read that yesterday evening, some fine versions of this gospel song in a style you could more or less call "blues" came to my mind.
First one featured here is by Mississippi Fred McDowell, from his 1969 album I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll. One version of the song is part of Ry Cooder's 1974 album Paradise and Lunch. As Ry has done a lot of live-versions of that song, here is a very fine one, with Eldridge King, Terry Evans and Bobby King; finally, among all those other versions available, I chose the one by the Staple Singers, as arranged by Pop Staples - it is the one version that took the song out of church and into popular music.

1000 SONGS DAY 366 - SONG # 397

DAY 366: COME ON TAKE ME TO THE MARDI GRAS

Among the interesting things on the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, since the olden times and not just with respect to today's tourists' expectations are those Indian masks - African-Americans that dress up as native Americans for the occasion. 

As Carolyn Morrow Long has it in her book on Marie Laveau (Gainesville 2006, 131f.), there was a similar masquerade at St. John's  Eve ceremonials, so that one could find an "interesting link between the dances performed at St. John's Eve and the practices of today's 'Mardi Gras Indian' gangs. The 'Indians' first appeared during carnival around 1885". There is a lot of music referencing the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, by Professor Longhair, Dr John and others. And there is that wonderful album by The Wild Tchoupitoulas, named after a group of those Mardi Gras Indians, led by George "Big Chief Jolly" Landry. He did that one record with the help of some very fine musicians from the region, among them his nephews as vocalists, who later came to fame as the "Neville Brothers". The rest was mostly done by members of "The Meters". Here are two songs:

Big Chief Got a Golden Crown



Hey Hey (Indians Comin')