Tony's Guitarist Picks - Hubert Sumlin

I’ve been thinking of writing blogs about guitarists I like for quite awhile. I just hadn’t made up my mind who to start with.  Sadly, current events made up my mind for me when I heard that blues great Hubert Sumlin passed away.  Born Nov 16, 1931 in Mississippi, he was the youngest of thirteen children.  He started with harp player James Cotton, then joined with Howlin’ Wolf in 1954.  After playing with the Wolf for two years, Muddy Waters hired him away for awhile in 1956.  Muddy paid better but he toured more than Howlin’ Wolf.  After that stint with Muddy Waters he rejoined the Wolf and stayed with him until the Wolf’s death in 1976.  He was a guitar hero’s guitar hero.  His guitar playing has been described as “angular,” “jagged.” After hearing all the songs he did with Howlin’ Wolf, I could hear why these guys were so enamored with Hubert.  Without Killing Floor, Led Zeppelin’s The Lemon Song would exist.  Other songs in Howlin’ Wolf’s repertoire – Smokestack Lightning, Spoonful, The Red Rooster, Commit a Crime, Shake For Me, Down in the Bottom – would be hard to imagine with Hubert’s guitar.  I heard those songs and got hooked on not only Howlin’ Wolf, but Hubert Sumlin as well.

Hubert Sumlin was not a household name.  But for blues enthusiasts, the word “legend” barely scratches the surface when describing Hubert Sumlin.  The music Hubert Sumlin created with Howlin’ Wolf is a landmark (one of several) in the development of electric Chicago blues.  He never achieved the fame that Wolf did, but without Sumlin, Wolf’s greatest, most influential records wouldn’t have been the same.  One look at old Stones and Hendrix concerts and Sumlin’s influence is easily seen. The Rolling Stones imitated the Wolf’s recording of The Red Rooster.  When Hendrix wanted to play the blues in his live shows, his supercharged version of Killing Floor fit the bill.  But don’t take my word for it – check out Hendrix’s BBC Sessions and hear his vicious take on the Howlin’ Wolf classic.  The list of guitar players influenced by Hubert Sumlin is a pantheon of rock guitar gods:  Clapton, Beck, Page, Richards, Hendrix, Vaughan, Zappa.  His importance cannot be overstated.

Bob Margolin:  “When Hubert plays guitar, he takes you to his world of Blues Feeling, from despair to ecstasy, from delicate grace to raw power, from lost to found. His style is original and personal and instantly recognizable. What kind of man can make or break your heart with his guitar?”

Jimmy Page: “I love Hubert. He always played the right thing at the right time.”

Stevie Ray Vaughan:  "Hubert's the heaviest, most original guitar player I've ever heard...and that's the truth!"

Ronnie Earl:  "Hubert's one of the guys who sat down and taught me stuff.”

His preferred axe was a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop.  He was known to play a Fender Stratocaster from time to time though.  Early influences that affected Hubert Sumlin's style of play at a young age, included Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, and of course Howlin’ Wolf.  It was at Howlin’ Wolf’s urging that Hubert stopped playing with a pick and used only his fingers.   Once Hubert found his “sound” he became [or his sound became – he was very unassuming] as iconic as Howlin’ Wolf himself.

When Chess Records wanted Howlin’ Wolf to make a record in England [with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts], they (Chess) originally didn’t want Hubert playing the sessions with them.  Clapton told Chess that if Hubert wasn’t involved then neither was he.  Chess changed their minds, Hubert played on the album.  Such was Clapton’s respect for Hubert Sumlin.

Awhile back I saw a celebration of blues music called Lightning in a Bottle, which was filmed at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 2004.   I wanted to watch it because Gregg Allman and Warren Haynes were going to play [they played The Sky Is Crying].  But before they played, there was Hubert Sumlin with David Johansen.  They played Killing Floor and they smoked!  An amazing thing about Hubert was that not too long before he played RCMH, he had a lung removed due to lung cancer.  Here’s the clip:

He’s done an album with Pinetop Perkins [Legends], A Tribute to Howlin’ Wolf (1998) with other former members of the Wolf’s band,  and he cut a couple of tunes with Muddy Waters guitarist Bob Margolin on his All-Star Blues Jam (1999).  Someday I’ll get his own CD I Know You.  On the last CD of Hubert Sumlin’s that I bought [About Them Shoes, 2004], Hubert is joined by Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Levon Helm, Bob Margolin, and David Johansen to play tributes to Muddy Waters.  Particularly noteworthy are I’m Ready [with Eric Clapton] and Still a Fool [with Keith Richards].  Both are always on my iPod.  If you can find About Them Shoes, get it!

Hubert passed away from heart failure on December 4^th.  He had just celebrated his 80^th birthday two weeks ago.  As Jimmie Vaughan so eloquently put it in song after the passing of his brother Stevie Ray, “Heaven done called … another blues stringer back home.”

Tony's Picks - U2

There weren’t too many bands from the 1980s that I like, but the ones I do like were pretty good – The Police, The Pretenders, and U2.  The Pretenders started out great but after James Honeyman Scott and Pete Farndon died they became Chrissie Hynde and a bunch of guys. The Police left behind a small recorded legacy - too small for my taste.  U2 on the other hand has hung around for over thirty years.  They’ve done some great work, and they’ve had some duds along the way as well.  Here are the songs that I could hear anytime.  I purposely left off some of the more popular songs, namely Pride [In the Name of Love], I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, With Or Without You, and Two Hearts Beat as One, and Beautiful Day to name a few.  Good songs yes, but they’re overplayed.  If I’m stranded on a deserted island, those songs don’t make the cut.  Here are the ones that do:

Sunday Bloody Sunday [War, 1983] – this one is the first U2 song I ever heard on KILO-94, a radio station in Colorado Springs that used to be great.  This song was the hook for me - New Year’s Day sealed the deal.

October [October, 1981] – I bought this album after I bought War.  No guitar, just piano from The Edge.  At the Red Rocks show [yes, that show] this song served as a very effective intro to…

New Year’s Day [War, 1983] – this one’s a song for Poland’s Solidarity [or so I have read].  It has the driest, most angry Fender Stratocaster tone that one will ever hear on a U2 recording.  Truly a great song…my favorite from this band.

Seconds [War, 1983] – The Edge sings!  This is the song that is sandwiched between Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year’s Day.  Getting blown up by atomic weapons was a big worry back then, especially for Europeans caught between Soviet SS-20 and American cruise missiles and Pershings.  It takes a second to say goodbye…

Drowning Man [War, 1983] – U2 goes acoustic, except for an electric violin.  It’s the most haunting song in the U2 catalog courtesy of said electric violin.

A Sort of Homecoming [The Unforgettable Fire, 1984] – The clean guitar tones from War are nowhere to be found here, but that’s ok.  This was my first exposure to Daniel Lanois’ production style where everything kind of smears together.  Larry Mullen Jr’s drums are very different as well – polyrhythmic instead of just keeping time.

The Unforgettable Fire [The Unforgettable Fire, 1984] – Bono’s vision of a nuclear apocalypse.  George Martin used to tell the Beatles to “think symphonically.”  I think U2 does that on this song.

Bad [The Unforgettable Fire, 1984] – Heroin addiction.  This song is almost like a trance.  Maybe that’s what it’s like to be strung out…

The Three Sunrises [The Unforgettable Fire Deluxe Edition] – I have no idea what this one is about.  I just like hearing The Edge abuse his Stratocaster with a slide.

Where the Streets Have No Name [The Joshua Tree, 1987] – I hadn’t heard the song until I saw the video on MTV.  The first time I saw their video was the day I arrived at Officer Training School in 1987, of all places.  When I saw it I thought “Beatles.  Let It Be.  Rooftop.”

Bullet the Blue Sky [The Joshua Tree, 1987] – Bono wanted The Edge to play like there’s a war coming through his amps.  I think he got it right.  Outside it’s America…

Running to Stand Still [The Joshua Tree, 1987] – Bad, Part II.  Bono wrote about Dublin’s heroin problem.  The “seven towers” in the song are high-rises in Dublin where lots of drug addicts live.  The piano and acoustic slide guitar are courtesy of The Edge.  Instead of the haze of Bad, this one is an uncluttered, unplugged number with some very good singing from Bono.

Silver and Gold [The Joshua Tree Deluxe Edition] – There are two versions.  One is an electric, all-band B-side.  The other is a bluesy, all-acoustic thing with Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Steve Jordan done for the anti-apartheid Sun City thing.  I like both versions, but I prefer the unplugged one. 

Mothers of the Disappeared [The Joshua Tree, 1987] – The closing track from The Joshua Tree sounds nothing like anything U2 had done up until this time.  In retrospect, it sounds like the coming direction of what became Achtung Baby.  This song would fit right in on that album.  As for subject matter, it’s for those mothers in Chile whose children disappeared at the hands of the Pinochet regime.  Sting covered the same ground on They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo).

Desire [Rattle and Hum, 1988] – When I first heard this song, my first thought was ‘Bo Diddley.’  This was my first hint that Bono was turning away from matters in his environment to matters of the heart.

When Love Comes to Town [Rattle and Hum, 1988] – BB King.  ‘Nuff said.

All I Want Is You [Rattle and Hum, 1988] – Carol and I saw the movie when it was in theatrical release at the State Theater in Marysville, California.  That was the only time we saw a movie there.  The place is closed now.  This song was at the very end of the movie.  It played over the credits.  We stuck around to hear the whole song.  An extremely moving song, it has stuck with me ever since.  Van Dyke Parks provided the haunting string arrangement.  It’s almost perfect, right behind New Year’s Day.  I never tire of it.

Zoo Station, One, So Cruel, The Fly, Mysterious Ways, Acrobat, Love Is Blindness – I already wrote a blog on the Achtung Baby songs.

The First Time and Dirty Day [Zooropa, 1993] – These both sound like leftovers from Achtung Baby, which is OK with me.

The Wanderer [Zooropa, 1993] – Johnny Cash walking under an atomic sky.  This song is so strange one can’t help but like it.

Discothèque, Do You Feel Loved, and Gone [Pop, 1997] – I just like how they sound.  They might just have that dance-club thing down here.  What about the rest of Pop?  Meh…

Vertigo [How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004] – One, Two, Three, Fourteen?

Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own [How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004] – I think Bono wrote this for his dying father.  It reminds me somewhat of One.

All Because of You [How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2004] - The beginning sounds like a sonar ping, and you’re on the submarine about to get depth-charged.  Good guitar song.

Elevation [All That You Can’t Leave Behind, 2000], Magnificent [No Line on the Horizon, 2009], and Electrical Storm [The Best of 1990-2000, 2002] – these songs just sound cool.

Get On Your Boots [No Line on the Horizon, 2009] – Just like Where the Streets Have No Name, I saw U2 play this on a rooftop before I heard the record.  This time the rooftop was the BBC in London.

Steve Bartman - Catching Hell

At the end of the 2011 regular Major League Baseball season, two teams who had been a cinch to make the playoffs at the beginning of September [the Boston Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves] choked miserably and failed to make the playoffs.  There are two ways to handle such a collapse.  One way is to just own up to your collapse, regroup quietly and wait until next year.  The other is to find scapegoats for your team’s collapse and try to ruin that scapegoat’s reputation.  Atlanta is following the first route.  There’s no bitching, moaning and complaining.  They just owned the fact they choked and didn’t get it done.  Boston is choosing the latter path.  Manager Terry Francona is Boston’s scapegoat.  In the eyes of those who run the Boston Red Sox, their September collapse is his fault.  The players who did the actual choking aren’t being faulted, with the exception of three Boston pitchers [Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and John Lackey].  The other night I watched one of those “30 for 30” documentaries on ESPN.  This documentary was entitled Catching Hell.  This is filmmaker Alex Gibney’s look at the Steve Bartman incident.  Like what is happening today with Terry Francona, this is a case study in the art of scapegoating.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, this occurred during Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins.  They were playing for the right to represent the National League in the 2003 World Series.  The venue: the friendly confines of Wrigley Field.  The situation:  the Cubs had a 3 games to 2 advantage on the Marlins.  The Cubs were leading the game 3-0 in the top of the eighth inning.  There was one out, Florida had a man on second, Cubs ace Mark Prior was pitching, Luis Castillo was batting for Florida.  Chicago was five outs away from advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1945.  Castillo hit a pop foul toward the stands on the left side of the field.  Left fielder Moises Alou ran over to catch the ball.  It was playable, but Alou couldn’t make the catch.  A fan interfered with Alou.  Alou was furious and shouted at the fans.  The Cubs wanted Castillo called out because of the interference.  Umpire Mike Everitt said the ball broke the plane of the wall between the stands and the playing field.  Since the umpire ruled the ball was in the stands there was no fan interference.  Castillo’s at bat continued.  This is where the fun REALLY began.

Castillo continued his at-bat and drew a walk.  Ball four was a wild pitch, so the man on second [Juan Pierre] advanced to third.  Ivan Rodriguez came up next and singled, driving in Pierre to make the score 3-1.  Miguel Cabrera was up next, hit a ball to Cub shortstop Alex Gonzalez.  Normally a sure-handed infielder, Gonzalez booted the ball.  Instead of turning an inning-ending double play, the bases were loaded.  Derek Lee was up next, hit a double and tied the game at 3-3.  This was Mark Prior’s 119^th and final pitch.  Cubs manager Dusty Baker left him in the game while he was running out of gas.  Kyle Farnsworth relieved Prior.  He issued an intentional walk to Mike Lowell, then gave up a sacrifice fly to Jeff Conine, which gave the Marlins a 4-3 lead.  Sammy Sosa missed the cutoff man, and Lowell was able to advance to second.  Farnsworth issued another intentional walk to Todd Hollandsworth, again loading the bases.  Mike Mordecai then hit a double, clearing the bases and breaking the game open 7-3.  Juan Pierre came up for the second time in the inning, hit a single and drove in Mordecai with the Marlins’ eighth run.  Before the Cubs realized what hit them, it was game over, Florida won 8-3.  There was a Game 7 at Wrigley Field the following night.  The Cubs had a 5-3 lead in Game 7, but they blew that one too.  The Marlins won Game 7, won the National League pennant, and won the 2003 World Series beating the New York Yankees 4 games to 2. 

The Cubs’ meltdown in the League Championship Series would be labeled as an “epic failure” today.  Any way you look at it, they choked.  How did such a team of highly-paid professionals unravel so badly and so quickly after one call that didn’t go their way?   Did Cubs fans blame their team for their mental meltdown in Game 6?  Did they blame their team for blowing another lead and not winning Game 7?  Did they blame their pitchers for not being able to get anybody out?  Did they blame Alex Gonzalez for botching a routine ground ball that extended the eighth inning?  Did they blame manager Dusty Baker for leaving Mark Prior in the game too long?  The answer to all those questions is a resounding “NO.”  Instead, they blamed the guy who got in Moises Alou’s way – Steve Bartman.

What happened to Steve Bartman after his collision with destiny?  After the game, one could see a sign outside Wrigley Field.  "Kill that fan! He lost it for us!"  There was an interview clip with Rod Blagojevich – “If someone ever convicts that guy of a crime he'll never get a pardon outta this governor.” [How’s THAT for irony?]   Meanwhile, the Wrigley Field security staff had to figure out how to get Bartman home from the “friendly confines”without him getting killed.  Gibney interviewed Wrigley Field security guard Erika Amundsen, who gave a compassionate account of how she got Bartman out of the neighborhood.  Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser [idiots, both of them] blamed Bartman for the Cubs meltdown on their show ‘Pardon the Interruption.”  The Chicago press didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory.  They found out who Bartman was, where he worked and where he lived – then told everybody.  There was a lynch mob mentality.  Dave Kaplan, host of WGN’s “Sports Central,” was much more rational.  He was on the air after the Cubs lost the pennant, and one fan called in and said “we know where he lives, we’re gonna kill him.”  Kaplan was trying to “talk people away from the edge” and convince his listeners that the Cubs meltdown wasn’t Bartman’s fault.  Fox baseball analyst Steve Lyons knew.  He played back the Bartman incident, froze the replay and circled six other fans who were trying to do the same thing Steve Bartman did. 

Cubs 2003 first baseman Eric Karros had the right idea, He didn’t think about Bartman in the crucial Game 7, just how the Cubs were going to win. Conversely, left fielder Moises Alou says after missing the foul ball, he knew something bad was going to happen — to the extent that he and teammate Aramis Ramirez booked flights home to the Dominican Republic.  Why did Alou book a flight home after Game 6?  And why did he admit doing it?  Alou was a six-time All-Star, won the Silver Slugger award twice, had over 300 career home runs, a lifetime batting average of .303, and won a World Series ring with the Marlins in 1997.  He was not a slug – he was a pretty good player.  So how come a well-paid professional such as Alou just gives up on Game 7 before it’s even played?  The Marlins came back from being down 3 games to 1.  The Cubs had a huge series lead, almost insurmountable.  All they had to do was win one more game.  They didn’t get it done.  Cubs fans wanted to blame someone besides their beloved Cubs for not getting it done.  Steve Bartman was an easy target for them.  Two years later, ESPN.com writer Wayne Drehs had been assigned to interview Steve Bartman.  His boss told him his assignment was two words – “find Bartman.”  Drehs staked out Bartman’s home and followed him to work.  He waited in the parking garage for seven hours.  He surprised Bartman when Drehs seemed to appear from nowhere to ask him for an interview.  Taken aback, Bartman said ‘thank you, I appreciate it.  I’m going to talk to my legal team and we’ll get back to you.”

 

The thing that most interested me was the interview with Ohio minister Kathleen Rolenz.  She worked the Bartman incident into a sermon she delivered to her congregation.  She paralleled Bartman as a scapegoat with the Biblical 16th chapter of Leviticus, where a goat carries the sins of the people.  The way she described the story of the scapegoat fit exactly they way Bartman was treated as he was leaving Wrigley Field.  As people threw trash and other things at the goat as it was leaving the village as depicted in Leviticus, fans threw all kinds of things at Bartman as he was being escorted from Wrigley Field.

Bartman didn’t make a dime off the controversy.  He was offered $25,000 to sign autographs.  He was given offers to appear in commercials.  Bartman refused those offers too.  The guy who did get the infamous ‘Bartman ball’ sold it to Harry Carey’s Restaurant for thousands of dollars.  The guy who sold the ball was interviewed on camera but his identity concealed.  He profited from the ‘Bartman ball,’ yet Bartman, who hasn’t taken a dime from anyone, is the asshole.

Gibney compares the ‘Bartman incident’ to Bill Buckner.  When he played first base for the Boston Red Sox, he allowed a routine ground ball go through his legs during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets.  Many [not all] in Red Sox Nation blamed Buckner for costing the Red Sox the chance to win their first World Series since 1918.  My opinion?  Pitcher Calvin Schiraldi is the goat in that series, not Buckner.  But Gibney allows Bill Buckner to tell his story and how he wouldn’t go near Fenway Park for many years after his brush with infamy.  The Red Sox have won two World Series since Buckner’s error. The Red Sox brought him back to throw out the game ball on Opening Day 2008. The Boston fans greeted Buckner warmly.  In a postgame press conference, Buckner said it was most difficult for him to forgive the media “for what they put me and my family through.” 

Buckner has forgiven his critics.  But will Steve Bartman forgive his?

Why I Like Black Sabbath

In the late 1960s, four lads from the industrial heartland of England, Birmingham, made their entrance onto the music scene.  These gentlemen – Tony Iommi, Terry “Geezer” Butler, John “Ozzy” Osbourne, and Bill Ward created a sound unlike any other.  They were heavier, harder and darker [and probably louder] than anything that preceded them.  First they were the Polka Tuck Blues Band, then they were Earth.  They had to change their name when they found another band named Earth.  A movie theater across the street from where they rehearsed would provide inspiration for a new name.  The movie playing there:  Boris Karloff’s Black Sabbath.  Geezer Butler took note that people would pay money to have the crap scared out of them.  Geezer and Ozzy wrote the words to Black Sabbath.  Tony Iommi stumbled upon the tritone, known in medieval times as “The Devil in Music.”  The music itself isn’t evil, it just sounds that way.  Tony Iommi wasn’t setting out to write Satanic music – he just thought it sounded cool.  Sabbath’s music evolved from the loud heavy blues of the late 1960s.  There wasn’t anything about “wearing flowers in your hair” from this bunch.  If anybody was singing about the occult during that time, they are unknown to me.  These guys weren’t like anything else at the time.  For better or worse [depending on who you talk to], Black Sabbath invented heavy metal.  \m/  What are some of the things that endears me to Black Sabbath?

The Riffs – With all due respect to “the human riff” Keith Richards, he doesn’t have anything on Tony Iommi.  Iommi has a million riffs, and they’re all cool.  Standout riffs:  Symptom of the Universe, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Into the Void, Snowblind, Killing Yourself to Live, Heaven and Hell, War Pigs [of course!].

Doom! – If you want peace and love and hippie shit, you’ve come to the wrong place.  You’ve got death [Behind the Wall of Sleep], drugs [Sweet Leaf, Snowblind, Hand of Doom], nuclear war [Electric Funeral], anti-war [War Pigs], the dangers of messing with the occult [Black Sabbath], hookers [Dirty Women], fleeting fame [Looking For Today], getting ripped off by managers [The Writ], environmental destruction [Into the Void], and even God [After Forever].  So many songs, so many subjects, most of them are unhappy.  There are few love songs, if any.

Tony Iommi – The man had two of his fingertips chopped off [not by choice], detuned his guitars and invented heavy metal.  Black Sabbath has had 37 different people in the band at one time or another [ok, I exaggerate, but only a little bit], but Tony Iommi has been the one constant.  Listen to everything Sabbath has put out and you too will subscribe to the “Iommi = Sabbath Theory.”  Players come and players go, but the records with Tony Iommi still sound like Black Sabbath.  Some lineups have been better than others, but Iommi’s guitar tones from below Hell are always there. 

Geezer Butler – Tony Iommi may have come up with all the riffs, but it was Geezer Butler’s thunderous bass that made Iommi’s riffs the skullcrushers that they are.  Other bassist have played with Sabbath [Dave Spitz, Bob Dailey, Neil Larsen], but none of them had that heaviness that made Black Sabbath what it was.  Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were made for each other.  I wish I could play bass like him, but that isn’t very likely to happen.

Ronnie James Dio – Simply the best heavy metal vocalist that ever walked this Earth.  I discovered him in Black Sabbath after he was without a job when he parted ways with Ritchie Blackmore and Rainbow.  I’ve written at length about RJD in these spaces before, so there’s no need to bore you with a rehash.

Antidote to Crappy Music – Black Sabbath is an antidote to crappy music.  Have you ever been in a dentist office waiting room, and they play this God-awful chick music while you’re waiting?  Have you seen commercials that feature the worst Sheryl Crow song imaginable [and let’s face it, they’re ALL really shitty]?  Or do you just hear a random song anywhere that annoys the crap out of you?  Black Sabbath is your antidote.  I guarantee if you have suffered from crappy music, one play of War Pigs will wipe that crap out of your mind.

Christians – Black Sabbath scares the hell out of hard-core Christians.  These people seem to think that the guys in Black Sabbath are Satanists.  While it’s true that Satan got name-checked every now and then, that doesn’t make them Satan worshippers.  But the mere mention of the word Satan gives these people hissy fits.  It shows how small-minded and clueless they really are, which is fine with me.  There’s one song about Satan – Lord of This World.

Finally, they’re dinosaurs, just like me!

Queen - A Night at the Opera/A Day at the Races

Freddie Mercury would have been 65 years old on September 5^th.  With that in mind I thought it appropriate to look at what many critics dub as Queen’s best album, A Night at the Opera.  There are a lot of different kinds of music to choose from on this album.  There’s hard rock, Vaudeville jazz, acoustic folk, and English pop.  A Night at the Opera is a good album, but not a great album.  I’d put it between “good” and “great” [“near great” perhaps?].  I’m not sure why they chose to use titles from Marx Brothers movies for this and their next album A Day at the Races.  My theory is they wanted to convey to their listening public that they were entertainers who weren’t to be taken too seriously.  Freddie Mercury’s life, from all appearances, was all about fun, and so were the Marx Brothers.  So, what about the songs?

Death on Two Legs (Dedicated To…) – Queen rocks!  An angry Freddie Mercury at his most venomous.  The object of his displeasure was a former manager.  This is reminiscent of John Lennon’s How Do You Sleep in that the object of Freddie’s displeasure is never named, and that the listener is drawn in to share Freddie’s anger.  I like it!

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon – this is a mercifully brief excursion into Vaudeville territory, but after the bile from Death on Two Legs its nice comic relief.  I like how Freddie’s vocals sound like they’re being sung through a megaphone.

I’m in Love With My Car – Roger Taylor sings!  Every car cliché imaginable is here, but I like it anyway because it rocks.

You’re My Best Friend – Bassist John Deacon’s only song on A Night at the Opera.   He wrote it for his wife while he was learning to play the piano.  The Wurlitzer piano carries the tune, and there’s very little guitar.  I’ve always liked it anyway.

’39 – Brian May sings!  This one’s an acoustic gem about space travel that sounds like Led Zeppelin’s Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp from LZ III, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  For all I know Page could have lifted his tune from someone else [like he’s never done THAT before…].

Sweet Lady – Hard-rock Queen the likes of which I will never tire.

Seaside Rendezvous – more Vaudeville, but Roger and Freddie use their voices to mimic woodwind/brass instruments, so that in itself makes this song interesting.

The Prophet’s Song – This is a sprawling 8:21 epic which would probably work better if it was 2 ½ minutes shorter.  Coincidentally there’s a 2 ½ minute a capella section that gets a bit tedious after the first ten seconds.  The rest of the song is ok.  It was inspired by a dream Brian May had about the Great Flood.

Love of My Life – one of Freddie Mercury’s most beloved songs.  This version is a piano ballad with bits of harp, but I prefer the live, acoustic guitar version.  Brian May sings it live now, with much audience participation.

Good Company – A Brian May-sung ditty played on ukulele.  This wouldn’t show up on any “mix CD” I would make, but it isn’t crap either.  It’s just “there.”

Bohemian Rhapsody – THE Freddie Mercury masterpiece.  You’ve all heard it – nothing more needs to be said.

God Save the Queen – the Brian May guitar orchestra.  I always picture Freddie with his regal robe and his crown at the end of a Queen show whenever I hear this.  I remember seeing Brian May play this on the roof of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.  How cool is that?


Queen - God Save the Queen [Live at Wembley '86]


Brian May - God Save the Queen Buckingham Palace 2002

By borrowing another album title from a Marx Brothers movie, and with similar artwork on the cover, one can’t help but think that A Day at the Races is a flip-side to A Night at the Opera.  Perhaps that is intentional, but I can’t confirm that.  A Day at the Races, the merely “good” follow-up to A Night at the Opera, is a bit of a letdown.  A Night at the Opera was a hard act to follow.  There are two standout songs surrounded many ordinary ones. 

Tie Your Mother Down – Hard rock greatness written by Brian May.  Everything you want in a hard rock song, and more.  This one opened many Queen shows and for good reason.

You Take My Breath Away – After the hard rock bombast of Tie Your Mother Down comes this snoozy piano ballad from Freddie Mercury.

Long Away – Brian May sings.  Instead of using his own Red Special he plays a Burns Double Six 12-string electric guitar.  The song is ordinary, but I like the sound.

The Millionaire Waltz – this starts out as a piano/bass between Freddie and John Deacon.  Halfway through it gets heavy very quickly, but after only about twenty seconds it’s back to the waltz, but with some guitar over the top.  This song is a bit strange, but that makes it interesting.

You and I – a John Deacon song that does absolutely nothing for me.  It’s not bad, but it doesn’t dazzle me with brilliance either.

Somebody to Love – one word: brilliant!  It has the same trademark multi-tracked voices of Freddie, Brian and Roger as with Bohemian Rhapsody.  IMHO, George Michael stole the Freddie Mercury tribute in 1992 with his rendition of this song.  Anyone who watched that performance and wasn’t touched isn’t human.  One of Freddie Mercury’s finest moments.

White Man – a rarity for a Queen song – it’s a political song from Brian May about American Indian mistreatment at the hands of white European immigrants.  It starts out quietly, then gets loud and heavy at the one-minute mark and stays that way until the last 40 seconds, where the song ends the same way it begins.

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy – I’m sorry, I never liked this one, never will.

Drowse – Roger Taylor sings here.  While not a hard rocker like I’m in Love With My Car, Brian May plays slide throughout.  It’s a good-sounding track, even if it’s a bit sleepy [hence the title].

Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together) – This one is another piano ballad from Freddie with Japanese lyrics thrown in.  Zzzzzz…

Between A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, I can make a pretty decent mix CD.  Now that I think about it…

Glen Campbell - Meet Glen Campbell/Ghost On The Canvas

I have a confession to make.  When I was a little kid in the 1960s, Glen Campbell and Herb Alpert were my babysitters.  Not in the literal sense though.  They never got a dime for their services and they didn’t even know they were babysitting me.  Whenever my mom wanted to sit and watch her soap operas uninterrupted [there were lots of them, and this was an everyday thing], she’d plop me in front of the stereo, get out the Glen Campbell records, get out the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass records, and left me to my own devices.  The back of my head got somewhat flattened from me banging it on the wall to the beat of the music [I grew out of it – physically anyway, maybe not so much mentally].  I even got to see Glen Campbell in person when I was five years old.  I don’t remember a damn thing about it, except that it was in San Antonio during Hemisfair ’68 and it was Glen Campbell.  Later in life I found out that Bob Newhart was also on the bill that evening.  I don’t remember what Glen Campbell played that night [I was 5, ok?], but in going back and looking at which of his records was popular at the time, I can make a pretty good guess.  Gentle on My Mind, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, and Wichita Lineman were all monster hits at the time.  I’m pretty sure I heard those songs that night.  When I was a teenager and I got first eight-track tape player [now I’m dating myself], my mom bought me the Greatest Hits tape.  It had those songs and it had Rhinestone Cowboy, Houston [I’m Coming to See You] and Country Boy [You ‘Got Your Feet in LA].  I wore the tape out but never got a new one.  My point [and I do have one] is that Glen Campbell’s music is part of my DNA [at least his early famous stuff, anyway].  

I lost track of Glen Campbell after Southern Nights, and I REALLY didn’t care after he had the fling with Tanya Tucker.  Then his cocaine debauchery set in.  It was the early 1980s and it wasn’t cool to like Glen Campbell.  I saw him sing in Clint Eastwood’s movie Any Which Way You Can, but after that, who cared?  Country music was what my dad liked, and I didn’t want anything to do with it especially if my dad liked it, just like any teenager.  This was during the time of Urban Cowboy, and I was discovering other things at the time, namely the Allman Brothers Band, Pink Floyd, and Bob Marley.  During this time Glen found Jesus, and then I REALLY didn’t care.  And so Glen Campbell was out of my musical consciousness until a couple of years ago when I heard he was going to make his first record with Capitol Records in fifteen years.   It was said that it would sound like Glen in his late 60s/early 70s prime.  I heard some samples of this new record on Amazon, liked what I heard and bought the album.  That album was Meet Glen Campbell.  I thought that was an odd title because I’d already known him for forty years.  The point was that Glen Campbell was going to introduce himself to a new, younger audience, and to do that he would sing the songs of contemporary artists.  That didn’t bother me because Glen was never a prolific songwriter to begin with.  He had Jimmy Webb writing songs for him, so why bother writing your own stuff?

Some of the people whose songs Glen covered kind of threw me for a loop.  Green Day, U2, Lou Reed, Foo Fighters.  At first I wondered if Glen was back to snorting coke, but my fears were allayed when I heard the album.  Some of the song choices didn’t work out as well as the others.  One of those that didn’t was Lou Reed’s Jesus.  It wasn’t done badly, but there were others done so much better.  For instance Green Day’s Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) and Foo Fighters’ Times Like These were done so differently from the originals that I think of the originals as inferior to what Glen put down.  It helps that Glen Campbell can sings circles around Dave Grohl and Billy Joe Armstrong.  It’s like what Johnny Cash did with Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt.  You just can’t listen to the originals and can’t help but think of how these old masters have taken new songs and staked their claim to them.  Glen’s treatment of Tom Petty’s Walls and Angel Dream are two more cases of Glen taking ownership of songs written by others.  There a couple of songs that sound pretty close to the originals.  Those would be John Lennon’s Grow Old With Me and U2’s All I Want Is You.  They stuck to the original arrangements.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Again, they aren’t done badly.  They’re done very well in fact, but they didn’t sound radically different like the Green Day, Foo Fighters and Tom Petty songs did.  Glen recorded Jackson Browne's These Days.  It's an excellent version.  The one thing I can ask Glen Campell is this - what took you so long to record this fine song?  On balance, Meet Glen Campbell is a solid piece of work.  I don’t know how many new fans he won with it, but at least it re-ignited my interest in his music.  That’s good enough for me, and hopefully it will be good enough for Glen.  Meet Glen Campbell sounds like his records from the 1960s and early 1970s.  Producer Julian Raymond did that on purpose – he wanted to play to the strengths that made Glen Campbell a star in the first place – a fine interpretive singer and a superior instrumentalist.  Given an exceptional set of songs to work with a sympathetic producer, Meet Glen Campbell works.  Forty-one years after his take on Gentle On My Mind, Glen Campbell still has a fine voice that hasn’t been ravaged by the sands of time.

Last week saw the release of what Glen Campbell calls the final album he intends to make – Ghost On The Canvas.  He executed the same formula he followed on Meet Glen Campbell – same producer, same musicians, good songs from contemporary songwriters.  Paul Westerberg provides two outstanding songs [Ghost On The Canvas, Any Trouble].  He is Glen Campbell’s latter-day Jimmy Webb.  There is one twist – Glen Campbell and producer Julian Raymond wrote about half the songs themselves.  Glen Campbell isn't known for his songwriting, but it's all top-notch here.  Again Glen, what took you so long?  I’ve read in many on-line publications that Ghost On The Canvas was meant to be a companion piece to Meet Glen Campbell.  But instead of it being just a collection of songs like Meet Glen Campbell, Ghost On The Canvas has a narrative that tells the story of Glen Campbell’s life.  The fact that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's lends more poignancy to this song cycle.  From the very first song [A Better Place] Glen sings "Some days I'm so confused, Lord," you know not all is right in Denmark but Glen doesn’t ask for your pity.  He just lays it out matter-of-fact style that his mind isn’t what it was.  In the title track he knows he’s on the “doorstep of eternity.”  In other songs he tells us a little about his past and his upbringing, about his triumphs and his failures, and that on balance he’s been fortunate in life ["The one thing I know/The world's been good to me"].  Jakob Dylan, Paul Westerberg, Robert Pollard, and Teddy Thompson have captured Glen Campbell’s essence perfectly.  The most stark, and perhaps chilling line of the entire album was one he wrote himself for his wife - "This is not the road I want for us/But now that it's here/All I want to be for you is strong."  One thing is perfectly clear – the look back on a life lived, good and bad, is unflinching in its honesty.

There are some instrumental surprises on the album.  Listen closely to In My Arms and you hear Glen tearing it up with surf guitar god Dick Dale.  On the closing There Is No Me...Without You Glen lets his guitar do the talking with other players like Rick Nielsen, Billy Corgan, and Brian Setzer.  Some of the songs have the sweeping orchestral arrangements one expects from Glen Campbell albums, but in other songs the strings add just a little bit of color and lets the musicians carry the tune.  There are some modern production touches to the album, but they still fit in the Glen Campbell framework.  There’s a good balance between the grandiose and the intimate.  Some songs remind me of Wichita Lineman, but Any Trouble reminds me of Everybody’s Talkin’ from Midnight Cowboy [I know, that’s a Harry Nilsson song, but that’s what my ears tell me].  There are some brief instrumental interludes written by Robert Joseph Manning that would not be out of place on Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds.  I think that’s an intentional nod to Glen Campbell’s time spent with the Beach Boys before he became a star in his own right.  The album is sentimental without being syrupy.  For those who purchase the MP3s on Amazon or iTunes, you’re treated to the bonus of a song from Jimmy Webb called Wish You Were Here.  Would a Glen Campbell album be complete without something from Jimmy Webb?  I don’t think so.

Ghost On The Canvas is that rarest of albums in my collection – I like every single song.  I can’t even say that about Abbey Road.  Ghost On The Canvas is an appropriate way for the Rhinestone Cowboy to ride off into the sunset.  Ghost On The Canvas bears no resemblance to the albums Johnny Cash recorded with Rick Rubin.  As those albums progressed, you could hear a man who was dying.  Glen Campbell isn’t dying yet – he’s just slowly fading away.  His voice and his instrumental prowess were captured here as strong as ever.  This album is part of Glen Campbell’s long goodbye to his fans and to the music business.  And he got to do it his way.  Does it get any better than being able to pick and chose when to get off the horse?

Goodbye Glen, and thank you.

Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

Ry Cooder’s most recent works have looked back in the past.  There’s his “California trilogy” – Chávez Ravine [2005], My Name Is Buddy [2007], and I, Flathead [2008].  These albums serve as an alternative history of California one won’t find in the text book.  Chávez Ravine dealt with the Los Angeles Hispanic neighborhood that “disappeared” [it was bulldozed in the name of “progress”] to make way for the construction of Dodger Stadium.  My Name Is Buddy chronicles the travels of a red cat named Buddy and some of his animal friends as they encounter dust bowl refugees, union organizers, union busters, anti-Communists, and a country music singer named Kash Buk.  Kash Buk reappears in I, Flathead, with its tales of drag-racing aliens, hot rods, honky tonks, hot blondes, his dog [his “homeland security”] Spayed Cooley, and 5000 country songs nobody wants to sing.  Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down doesn’t have an underlying them like the aforementioned trilogy.  Here, Ry Cooder channels his inner Woody Guthrie, and boy is he pissed.

Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down finds Ry Cooder commenting on current events.  He has a well-earned reputation of being a renowned Americana musicologist, and he puts that expertise to work on this CD.  Here he mixes blues, folk, ragtime, norteño, rock, and country.  Some of Ry Cooder’s usual suspects appear here – son Joachim [drums], Flaco Jimenez [accordion], Terry Evans, Willie Green and Juliette Commagere [vocals], Rene Camacho [bass].  Ry has the rest of the instruments covered – guitars, banjo, mandola, bajo sexton, bass, marimba.  Like Tom Waits he skewers those bankers who received financial bailouts from the government in 2008 in No Banker Left Behind.  In El Corrido Jesse James the outlaw asks God for his guns back so he can dispense some frontier-style justice on Wall Street.  In Quicksand a Mexican man describes a border crossing during which the guide for his group leaves in the middle of the night, and the man who takes over dies the next day in the sun.  He shows his disgust for Republicans in I Want My Crown [Republicans changed the lock on the heavenly door / keys to the kingdom don’t fit no more…]. Christmas Time This Year is Ry Cooder’s scathing indictment of America’s involvement in wars overseas set to a Mexican polka.  But there’s humor here as well.  John Lee Hooker for President imagines a world where all the Supreme Court justices are “fine looking women,” and if you’re nice you’ll have one bourbon, one scotch and one beer three times a day.  The children get milk, cream and alcohol if they stay in school.  If only…