Favourites : J Mascis - Several Shades of Why

I was a very late comer to Dinosaur Jr and the beauty of J Mascis's guitar playing.  I also arrived there through the back door by buying this album first.  I read several good reviews of Several Shades of Why, comparing Mascis to Neil Young and others and when I saw the LP cheap on line I thought I would give it a go.

Very Glad I did.

This is a stunner of an album, a lo-fi acoustic beauty. Listening to it now as I write this I am yet to find a bad track.  The first three tracks are a great introduction title track, Not Enough and Listen to Me.  An added bonus is that as with Dinosaur Jr albums you get the added bonus of great album cover artwork.

From this I started buying and listening to Dinasaur Jr.  I have some Pearl Jam but it left me cold.  I first bought Farm and I Bet on Sky, two great albums they have released since recently reforming and then I have been lucky enough to find Bug and Where You Been second hand.  I really missed the whole grunge thing as I was busy with a young family  and had only explored the poppier elements of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and listening to them now nothing much grabs me.

However I love Dinosaur Jr.  More Blogs on them to come.

Song of the Day 14 : Emmylou Harris : Boulder to Birmingham

Gram Parson Memorial : Joshua Tree

Boulder to Birmingham was a hit and almost destroyed by the Hollies for me when an awful version was a hit in NZ in the early 70's (and I quite like the Hollies).  Lacking all the emotion of the original's original tribute to Gram Parsons and the bizarre happenings around his death and burial are completely lost.  Emmylou's version is now recognised as the classic it deserves to be. 

There is some dispute as to whether the "canyons are on fire line" is a reference to Gram's unusual cremation at Joshua tree or the fires raging around Los Angeles at the time.  Something that adds to the songs mystery and allure.  

PS - I gave the Hollies version another listen tonight and it is perhaps even worse than I remembered.  For those brave souls willing to give it a go here it is.  urrrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!

"Boulder To Birmingham"

I don't want to hear a love song

I got on this airplane just to fly

And I know there's life below

But all that it can show me

Is the prairie and the sky

And I don't want to hear a sad story

Full of heartbreak and desire

The last time I felt like this

It was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire

And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn

I watched it burn, I watched it burn.

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham

I would hold my life in his saving grace.

I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham

If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

Well you really got me this time

And the hardest part is knowing I'll survive.

I have come to listen for the sound

Of the trucks as they move down

Out on ninety five

And pretend that it's the ocean

coming down to wash me clean, to wash me clean

Baby do you know what I mean

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham

I would hold my life in his saving grace.

I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham

If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

Song of the Day 13 : Horace Silver Song for my Father

Just learnt yesterday that Horace Silver died a month or so back.  Sad but he left us with some great stuff.  This title is probably his best known because Steely Dan pilfered the into for Ricki Don't lose that Number.  This is a slightly sped up live version from 68.  

Journey Through The Past 38 : Wilco : The long and winding road to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

When people my age and older tell me that there are no great bands any more - I always raise bands like The Drive By Truckers, The War on Drugs, Yuck and Wilco.

Wilco rose out of the ashes of the seminal Alternative Country band Uncle Tupelo.  A band that even though it only recorded four albums had a music magazine and whole style of americana music named after one of them - No Depression.

Their first album AM seemed a natural progression from Uncle Tupelo - if anything the album seemed a little bit of a stop gap and certainly it seemed that Jeff Tweedy was feeling his way out of the shadows of Jay Farrar the apparently more dominant personality in Uncle Tupelo.

I started listening when their second album Being There was released in 1996 and have been with them ever since.  Being There is a great double album that explores the sloppy Country Rock that the Stones can be so good at.

The band then started cropping up everywhere - backing different bands here and there and making the remarkable Mermaid Avenue albums witth Billy Bragg where between them they put music to some old Woody Guthrie Lyrics.

Instead of capitalising  after the solid success of that album they veered into a more experimental rock and Beatles style songs on the next album Summerteeth with at the time worse commercial and critical reception.
So Wilco is hardly a new band though and may even have recorded their last album if current rumours are true.  Somehow I think they will rise again.  After all they have been through a lot worse and survived (even if it was not in one piece).

The lot worse occurred when recording their fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (YHF).  It was all captured in the great documentary I am Trying to Break Your Heart.   On YHF the band took some of the ideas on Summerteeth and stretched them further. They took a long time recording it and tempers frayed and fuses were short.

When they delivered the album to the label (Warner's reprise) the label rejected the album and demanded changes as they judged it to be too noncommercial.  Wilco refused to bow to pressure they had nowhere to go and held their ground.

Eventually the label relented and released them from their contractual obligations and in what is a real rarity also gave the band the masters to the new record.  The story then gets interesting as the band then starting leaking songs and the whole album on line and managed to create a real underground internet interest in the album.  Magazines started praising the songs and asking whether this album which many were now beginning to call a masterpiece (it's not but it is bloody good) would ever be released.  So the band started hawking the album to potential labels and eventually signed with Nonesuch Records.  Ironically Nonesuch was also a Warners label so Warners ended up paying twice for the same album.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a reasonable commercial success and cemented Wilco's position as a leader in alternative and at time experimental Americana Music.  The album stands the test of time and it has some great songs on it including Jesus Etc, Kamera, War on War, I'm the Man who loves you and Reservations. Norah Jones' reworked version of Jesus Etc is well worth a listen - perhaps a bit edgier than many people associate with her.

I believe that Wilco has gone on to record better albums - but when I am in the mood this is still the best!

Journey Through the Past 37 : John Hiatt Bring The Family

Prior to Bring the Family John Hiatt had put out a procession of solid albums that had gained a low key cultish following.  Known to some as the US's answer to Elvis Costello (something he played up to on the video of this remake of the Spinners Living a Little Laughing a Little (an actual duet with Costello)).

When he released this in 1987 it was at a low point in his career and personal life.  He had been dropped by three labels after more than half a dozen albums that received great reviews and poor sales.  In that time he had recorded  and played  occasionally with Nick Lowe, Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner.

So with what must have been a fair degree of anxiety he entered a small studio in LA with the three veterans and a great bunch of originals and recorded this classic album.  It was the start of a purple patch for Hiatt when he seemed to be writing songs for everyone from Iggy Pop to Joe Cocker.  Around 1990 when we lived in Taupo the soundtrack to many of our drives was a C90 mix tape of Hiatt songs that never seemed to have a bad song.

However it is this album and its bunch of songs that I probably come back to this most. Kicking off with Memphis in the Meantime the album really never lets up with Alone in the Dark, Lipstick Sunset,  Tip of my Tongue and Your Dad Did.  The latter song had a particular resonance at the time as our kids were at an age when I could really relate to the song.

However it is probably the much covered Have a Little Faith in Me which really stamps the album's raison d'etre solidly.

The band reconvened  a few years later for another album under the name Little Village.  However by that stage democracy seemed to be ruling things and as a result the songs were not as consistently good and the overall vision was not as strong.  Hiatt however has continued to record solid and occassionally great albums which I will cover later.

Song of the day 12 : Ricki Lee Jones Rainbow sleeves

I first heard Rainbow Sleeves by Ricki Lee Jones on the great soundtrack to King of Comedy.  Bette Midler also does a version but to my ears it loses all the song's subtlety.  Perhaps that is because it is rumoured that Tom Waits wrote it for her, potentially as a kind of partner to Ruby's Arms,  his other song supposedly about leaving Rickie Lee.

At any rate - this is just magical!

Ricki Lee eventually released it on her Girl At Her Volcano EP.

RAINBOW SLEEVES

You used to dream yourself away each night

To places that you'd never been

On wings made of wishes

That you whispered to yourself

Back when every night the moon and you

Would sweep away to places

That you knew

Where you would never get the blues

Well now, whiskey gives you wings

To carry

Each one of your dreams

And the moon does not belong to you

But I believe

That your heart keeps young dreams

Well, I've been told

To keep from ever growing old

And a heart that has been broken

Will be stronger when it mends

Don't let the blues stop you singing

Darling, you've only got a broken wing

Hey, you just hang on to my rainbow

Hang on to my rainbow

Hang on to my rainbow sleeves

Song of the Day 11 : Aaron Neville Tell it Like it is

What a tear jerker this is.  Aaron Neville's Hit record Tell it Like it is from 1967 stands the test of  time and in my opinion he never did better as a solo artist.  I got my first copy a bit later on the excellent The Big Easy soundtrack and always thought I new the song from longer ago - I probably did!