I love this song by Gillian Welch. The lyrics are awesome. Put on your headphones, turn off the lights, and enjoy.
Believe it or not, this song was recorded on the first take. Here is what Gillian had to say about it in a Country Standard Time Interview about Time The Revelator, the album on which I Dream A Highway is the closing song.
“There’s a tremendous number of first takes on this album,” Welch says, pointing to “Elvis Presley Blues” and “I Dream a Highway” as examples. She refers to “I Dream a Highway,” a slow, twisting musical exploration that runs nearly 15 minutes, as “an extreme first take.
We were almost superstitious about it,” Welch says, because the composition was more “a whole moment in time” than a song. “We didn’t even talk about it until we recorded it,” she says, but adds, “I wouldn’t trade working on that (song) for anything.”
What was your favorite lyric? This is mine:
Which lover are you, Jack of Diamonds?
Now you be Emmylou and I’ll be Gram
I send a letter, don’t know who I am
I dream a highway back to you.
Can’t say that I know what it means but I sure enjoy wondering. Who could ask for more?
In our last post we discussed how sometimes in music 1+1 equals 3. In today’s post, the final one in The California Sound series, we talk about how sometimes 1+1+1 equals 1.
To start our story we need to travel back once more to 1973 and check in on some of the musicians we have been discussing during The Southern California Sound series.
Let’s start with Poco…you might remember that the band went through a lot of personnel changes over time. In 1973 Richie Furay, one of the founding members of Poco, was hanging on but he was frustrated with the band’s lack of success especially given the popularity of that upstart band named the Eagles. Richie was ready for some of the same.
Next up is Manassas, the amazing band that Stephen Stills put together. As we reported in an earlier post, Stephen abandoned the group in 1973 while chasing after another Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young reunion that was doomed to failure. In Stephen’s absence, everyone was scrambling to find their next gig. Chris Hillman took some time for a short Byrds reunion but was soon back on the street.
John David (J. D.) Souther spent a lot of time hanging out with his buddies the Eagles and writing with them. He supposedly was offered a chance to join the band but in his words, “I just wanted to stay home and write.”. J. D. released his first solo album on Asylum Records in 1972.
Around this same time David Geffen, the head of Asylum Records, was looking to score big and thought he had discovered a formula that guaranteed him a California Sound supergroup. Take one part Byrd, one part Buffalo Springfield, mix in another great songwriter, and success is guaranteed along with money….lots of money. OK, maybe he wasn’t the first to discover that formula but did I mention that there was money….lots of money.
Richie wanted success and Geffen was pretty convincing that success was a given. Chris just wanted to play and if Stephen was willing to sacrifice Manassas for CSNY they why not give Geffen’s idea a shot. By the way…Chris brought a hell of a band with him including Paul Harris, Joe Lala, and Al Perkins who were fellow refugees from Manassas. J. D. was a great songwriter and had claimed he just wanted to stay home and write but somehow Geffen convinced him. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that J. D. was already signed to Asylum records, maybe it was something else, but once he signed on the Souther Hillman Furay Band was formed. I bet Geffen thought of the idea of using the last names of the three guys as the band name. That guy was just full of fresh new ideas!
The group’s initial, self titled, album was not a bad piece of work by any measure but it wasn’t magic. What you basically got for your money was three EPs (one each for J. D., Chris, and Richie) each of them playing with the same excellent backing band. Each of the three was a great performer/songwriter in his own right but there was absolutely no group chemistry (Hey David Geffen….MAYBE great music is more complicated than you thought!). To borrow the title of their second, and last album, there was Trouble in Paradise from the start.
Chris Hillman might have summed it up best in a Commercial Appeal newspaper interview from April 25, 2008.
“SHF was an odd experience. I love Richie and J. D. dearly, but i really did find myself in the middle almost holding them apart. J. D. was a very introspective guy and a great songwriter — probably the best out of all of us — and I think secretly he had a desire to be in the Eagles, and they just didn’t have room for him, and so he was frustrated. And Richie was much more a professional person who’d always been in bands and J.D. hadn’t so there was a clash there. That band was never meant to be. That was a group that looked great on on paper. In theory it was good, but it never gelled.”
Richie had similar feelings as expressed in an online interview with John Cody in 2007 when he stated: “With us, we had the best musician’s going. And then Chris was playing bass, and J.D. and I are adding our parts. But what looks good on paper doesn’t always work out.”
J.D. admitted his contributions to the groups problems in a October 1998 interview in Goldmine Magazine, “I’m not a great team player under those circumstances.”
So…the group was doomed before it ever started but let’s talk about their first album.
Richie’s leadoff single “Fallin In Love” was the only real hit from the album but I have to say that Chris and J. D. had the best songs on the album. Chris’ “Heavenly Fire”, a song he wrote about Gram Parsons was incredible and “Safe at Home” and “Rise and Fall” were both great in their own right. J. D.’s “Border Town” was the catchiest song on the album and “Pretty Goodbyes” and “Deep, Dark, And Dreamless” are both classic J. D. songs.
Overall, as I said earlier, it was not a bad album but it didn’t have any amazing group moments. Let’s listen….. As always, let me know what you think.
Fallin In Love (Richie Furay)
Heavenly Fire (Chris Hillman, Len Fagan)
The Heartbreaker (J. D. Souther)
Believe Me (Richie Furay)
Border Town (J. D. Souther)
Safe At Home (Chris Hillman)
Pretty Goodbyes (J. D. Souther)
Rise and Fall (Chris Hillman, Len Fagan)
The Flight Of The Dove (Richie Furay)
Deep, Dark, and Dreamless (J. D. Souther)
So there you have it, the Rise and the Fall of The Southern California Sound told in fifteen parts (may apologies to Chris for adapting his song title for my own purposes). I hope you enjoyed the music and maybe learned something in the process. Here is the final complete picture or our Southern California Sound story.
My degrees are in mathematics so I am well aware that 1+1 always equals 2; however, in music it has been my experience that sometimes 1+1 equals 3. By that I mean that sometimes the collaboration of two or more musicians results in a product that is greater than the sum of it’s parts. This series of posts seeks to highlight great examples of that phenomenon.
First up is a collaboration between Marvin Gaye and Tami Terrel.
Back Story
Marvin had been successfully paired with several female singers early in his career including Mary Wells and Kim Weston. Although these collaborations produced commercially successful singles they were all missing that magical spark that allows some collaborations to exceed expectations. In 1967 Berry Gordy paired Marvin with a new Motown singer named Tammi Terrell. The previously missing spark was evident from their very first collaboration on Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and on their associated first album, United. Unfortunately Tammi collapsed on stage during a performance with Marvin later that year and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She would have eight operations over the next three years before cancer won the fight taking her away from us way too early at the age of 24. Marvin was devastated by Tammi’s illness and subsequent death.
Fortunately for us, during those intervening three years Marvin and Tammi managed to record two more albums, You’re All I Need (1968) and Easy (1969), which included a number of amazing singles including California Soul, the featured song in this post. California Soul would be the last Marvin and Tammi single that was released and, in my opinion, they saved the best for last.
Life is strange in that many tragedies lead to amazing works of art. This was the case with Tammi’s loss. When Marvin emerged from seclusion, a year after Tammi’s death, it was to release his personal masterpiece, What’s Going On. Unfortunately Marvin’s personal life was already on a downhill slide that was triggered, at least in part, by Tammi’s loss. In 1984 Marvin was shot and killed by his father. Another amazing talent taken away too soon.
Coming Attractions: Next up will be our final post in the Southern California Sound series where we explore the start of the decline of the Southern California Sound. The decline was driven by money, I know you are shocked, and by people who believed that music was just a matter of formulas (one Byrd + one Buffalo Springfiled + one other great songwriter = Success & Money).
This was supposed to be my final post in the Canada Music Celebration. I had planned to publish it on the 4th of July but somehow I got busy with my US 4th of July post and forgot to post this one.
My mom used to say: “Waste Not Want Not” so with that in mind, here is the forgotten post (exactly as I had it written for the 4th).
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Welcome to our fourth and final post in our multi-day Canada Day music celebration. Today we will highlight a Canadian group called Five Man Electrical Band.
The Five Man Electrical Band grew out of an Ottawa 60’s group called the Stacattos. As Five Man Electrical Band, the group is mainly known for a single song called Signs but I have to give them credit…it was one damned good song. Let’s listen……..
The group had a few minor hits after Signs but I think I could have safely written about them in my Underachiever series of posts.
In the Spring of 1975 I was getting ready to graduate from college with a Bachelors degree in Math. My career plan was to be a high school Math teacher and my final three months of school were set aside for Student Teaching at a local high school. I had about a 30 minute drive to the local high school each morning and I always had the radio blasting to help me relax.
Fortunately for me, there was wonderful new song called How Long that was on high rotation on our local AM radio station. The song was a great mix of British pop and Philadelphia soul, the lead vocal was incredible, and I managed to catch it on the radio almost every morning. The fact that this song is such a big part of my memories from that time tells you how much I loved it! Let’s listen…….
How Long was by a British pub band called Ace. I bought their first album (named Five A Side) based strictly on my love of How Long. While the album was pleasant, none of the other songs came close to How Long. I was content; however, to wait patiently for their next single which I knew would be at least as good as How Long. Unfortunately I am still waiting. Ace, as a group, made two more albums but never again came close to recording anything that was as good as their first single. Cue the crickets………..
By the way, I never became a high school Math teacher!
I am very happy to report that Paul Carrack, the owner of the voice that I fell in love with on How Long, went on to have an amazing career as a successful singer for a number of bands and as a solo artist. Here is a great song that he did with Mike and the Mechanics. Let’s listen…..
That boy had an amazing voice so I just have to play one more. Here is one of my favorite Squeeze song with Paul sharing lead vocal duties with Glenn Tilbrook.
Back on June 12 we were talking about Linda Ronstadt who in an effort to improve her live show had hired Glenn Frey (from Longbranch Pennywhistle) to put together a new band for touring and for her third album. The band that Glenn put together included Glenn, Don Henley (a drummer from a group called Shiloh) and Randy Meisner (Poco/Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band). Bernie Leadon from the Flying Burrito Brothers was among the contributing players on Linda’ third album and would end up joining the band for at least a portion of the summer tour.
After the album and the tour, it was clear to everyone, including Linda, that this group of guys was something special. It was with Linda’s encouragement that they formed their own band and signed with Asylum Records. The Eagles had landed (my apologies to the Apollo program!) and when they spread their wings, and took off with their self titled first album, the Southern California Sound was headed for new heights.
The first song on the Eagles first album was one of the best lead off songs of all time…Take It Easy. Mostly written by Jackson Browne with a little help from his old downstairs neighbor Glenn Frey, the song was a breath of fresh air. Even today, when I hear that first acoustic strum a big smile appears on my face. Let’s listen…….
While Glenn Frey and Don Henley would soon start to dominate the band (from all perspectives) after their first couple of albums, this first album featured a nice mix of all four original members of the group. One of my favorite songs from the album, Earlybird, was written by Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner with Bernie taking lead on vocals. See what you think….
You have to love those vocal harmonies and I am a sucker for the banjo! The Eagles were well on their way.
The Eagles’ next album, Desperado, was a concept album about the Dalton gang. It is my favorite Eagles album and I think it is an artistic tour de force. In addition to the four Eagles, Jackson Browne and John David (JD) Souther also provided significant input to the album. As an interesting aside, the contributions of Jackson and JD were acknowledged in the photo on the back of the album cover (see below).
That’s Jackson laid out on the far left and JD laid out on the far right with the four Eagles in between 🙂
Since Desperado is such a great album let’s switch things up and listen to the whole thing. See what you think….
With Desperado, The Southern California Sound reached its zenith (in my opinion). It was an awesome group effort by artists who were doing it for the love of music more than financial reward. Sure…the Eagles would go on to become the best selling American band but the magic of the Southern California Sound would would gradually get squeezed out by a Glenn Frey/Don Henley driven move towards a more rock focused sound with its associated increases in popularity and financial rewards. Desperado was the beginning of the end for more than just the Eagles’ Southern California sound……more about that in our final post in The Southern California Sound series.
I can’t leave the Eagles post without sharing a great BBC performance from 1973. This is really great stuff….I hope you enjoy it.
As promised a couple of days ago, today’s Long Song Tuesday post is from The Marshall Tucker Band. It is actually a three for one deal. This 20 minute live video from 1973 features live performances of Take The Highway, Can’t You See, and Ramblin filmed in Macon, Georgia which was where Capricorn Records was based. All of the elements I discussed in my earlier post are evident in this video. I think the performance of Can’t You See is particularly great featuring vocals and guitar from Toy Caldwell. I hope you enjoy it….
RIP – Toy Caldwell (lead guitar/vocals), Tommy Caldwell (bass), and George McCorkle (rhythm guitar)
I was making my weekly visit to my local record store in 1973 and a colorful album cover caught my attention. Here is what I saw….
The back of the album cover was a continuation of the same picture and did not offer up any details about the band or its music. Fortunately for me, the initial run of the albums that were released included a sheet of paper inside the album’s clear plastic wrap which provided some information. I preserved my copy of that paper and have scanned a copy of it so you can read what I did standing in the record store…..
What I read about the group convinced me to buy the album without ever having heard any of their music. Here were the things that got my attention:
The group was from Spartanburg, South Carolina and I was familiar with that part of the country having been born in the mountains of East Tennessee
The group had been signed by Capricorn Records. Capricorn was known as the home for southern rock bands having previously signed southern rock pioneers like the Allman Brothers, Wet Willie, and many others.
As soon as the record hit my turntable I knew I had made a great decision. Their sound was clearly southern but at the same time it had some unique features that made it stand out from the rest of the southern rock bands:
Jerry Eubanks’ flute played a integral role in a significant number of the band’s songs. The flute was not completely unique in rock music at the time, think Jethro Tull, but in my opinion Marshall Tucker did a better job of integrating it than anyone else.
The guitar sound was tasty without being overly showy (thanks to Toy Caldwell)
The songwriting was consistently great and effortlessly spanned country, rock, blues, and gospel genres with a touch of jazz thrown in for good measure (once again thanks to Toy who wrote all of the songs)
They had me with the first song, Take the Highway…….great lyrics about hitting the open road, a great vocal performance by Doug Gray, a nice little jam in the middle, and damn….where did that synth part come from. Absolutely awesome! See for yourself…..
If I was infatuated after the first song, I was in love after the second song, Can’t You See. I was going through some girlfriend issues at the time and this song really spoke to me….
By now I’m sure you’re tired of listening to me babble so I am going to shut up. I have provided each of the remaining songs from the album below and I truly hope you will give them a listen. You won’t be disappointed!
Losing You
Hillbilly Band
See You Later I’m Gone
Ramblin
My Jesus Told Me So
AB’s Song
I was lucky enough to see Marshall Tucker live a couple of times in the mid-1970s and they were great. I will give you a taste of their live sound in our Long Song Tuesday post this coming week.
Killer was a Finish band fronted by an amazing female vocalist named Siiri Nordin. They never really made it here in the States but I alway thought that they had a great sound. In case you are not familiar with them, let me introduce you. Liar is from Killer’s second album, Sure You Know How To Drive This Thing. See what you think….
Did you like it? As alway, I am very interested in hearing your opinion….
I’m sad to report that the band broke up in 2005 without producing any further albums.
So…..while we are on the subject of lying, I would like to dedicate this post to Mitt Romney. If you don’t get the connection watch this video.
To quote Neil Young: “I never knew a man could tell so many lies, he had a different story for every set of eyes. How can he remember who he’s talking to? Cause I know it ain’t me, and I hope it isn’t you.”
No….I haven’t forgotten that we need to finish up the Southern California Sound Series of posts! I have just gotten diverted by other music over the past couple of weeks. That happens a lot with me so you might as well get used to it 🙂
To get us moving back in the right direction, today I am introducing you to Dawes….some more new music that doesn’t suck. Dawes is a modern day embodiment of the Souther California Sound and I really like their music. They released their second album, Nothing is Wrong, about this time last year and I have listened to it frequently since then. Take a listen to my favorite song from the album, If I Wanted Someone, and see what you think…..
Sometimes groups can sound great in a studio but just don’t have the raw talent to pull off their sound in a live setting. To prove that this is not the case with Dawes, I offer you this live acoustic version of If I Wanted Someone that was recorded in a Chicago alley.
Awesome performance, especially the harmonies!
Over the last couple of years Dawes has spent time backing up Robbie Robertson and Jackson Browne. Jackson in particular has had some pretty high praise for the group stating: “It’s a pleasure to play with these guys, who are themselves some of my favorite songwriters.” As a bonus, here is a clip of Jackson and Dawes playing a new Jackson song called Whose Side Are You On at Occupy Wall Street late last year.
So, while we are on the topic,……whose side are you on????
