Justin Townes Earle - A Playlist [RIP]

Justin Townes Earle died the other day. I was shocked, but not surprised, given his own history and that of his father.  Like his father, he was a very good songwriter. But he sang a lot better than his father.  I won’t do the deep dive on his work like I have on others.  Suffice to say, pick a song, any song, and you’ll like what you hear. “Bro Country” this is not.  This is what country music is supposed to sound like – no frills, no bullshit.  His work reminds me of that of Jason Isbell.  I found a great line about his songwriting – he “turpentined everything down to the essence”.  I can’t write it any better, so I’ll leave it like that.  Like his namesake Townes Van Zandt, he’s gone way too early.  Here’s a playlist I put together today:

Harlem River Blues (Harlem River Blues - 2010)

Lone Pine Hill (The Good Life - 2008)

Rogers Park (Harlem River Blues - 2010)

Yuma (Yuma - 2007)

Mama’s Eyes (Midnight at the Movies - 2009)

Memphis In The Rain (Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now - 2012)

Ahi Esta Mi Nina (The Saint of Lost Causes - 2019)

One More Night In Brooklyn (Harlem River Blues - 2010)

Kids In The Street (Kids in the Street - 2017)

Can’t Hardly Wait (Midnight at the Movies - 2009)

Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now (Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now - 2012)

If I Was The Devil (Kids in the Street - 2017)

White Gardenias (Single Mothers – 2014)

The Saint of Lost Causes (The Saint of Lost Causes - 2019)

Who Am I to Say (The Good Life - 2008)

Won’t Be the Last Time (Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now - 2012)

Someday I’ll Be Forgiven for This (Midnight at the Movies - 2009)

When the One You Love Loses Faith (Absent Fathers – 2015)

Champagne Corolla (Kids in the Street - 2017)

Frightened by the Sound (The Saint of Lost Causes - 2019)

Maybe A Moment (Kids in the Street - 2017)

Graceland (Single – 2017)

Appalachian Nightmare (The Saint of Lost Causes - 2019)

Midnight at the Movies (Midnight at the Movies - 2009)

Look the Other Way (Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now - 2012)

Christchurch Woman (Harlem River Blues – 2010)

Ain’t Waitin’ (Harlem River Blues - 2010)

 

21st Century Dylan

In anticipation of the impending release of Bob Dylan’s new album Rough and Rowdy Ways [June 19^th – today!], Rolling Stone polled their staff to compile their list of what they think are Dylan’s twenty-five best songs from the 21^st century.  Of course, Rolling Stone being Rolling Stone, they got the list only half right.  Several of their picks come from the last three Dylan albums, all the songs of which are covers that are somehow related to Frank Sinatra, and one is a Christmas song.  Sorry, if you’re going to compile a list of songs by Bob Dylan, at least make the effort to make sure they’re written by Bob Dylan.  Here is my “one pinhead’s point of view” list.  I have only two criteria – the songs must have been written by Bob Dylan, and the songs have to be released after Jan 1, 2000 [I know – there is debate whether 2000 is part of the 21^st century, but that’s another argument…]. 

Bob Dylan experienced somewhat of a creative rebirth in 1997 with Time Out of Mind.  Since then, he hasn’t been trying to keep up with the musical Jones’s.  Before then, he released two albums of old songs that inspired him – Good as I Been to You [1992] and World Gone Wrong [1993].  He confessed in his memoir Chronicles that he could no longer relate to his own songs.  He went back in time for inspiration, the folk and blues songs that inspired him as a youth.  Everything after Time Out of Mind has a weird, old-timey feeling that screams “roots”.  He fell back onto the styles of electric blues, folk, jazz, Western swing, rockabilly, rag time music, and 19^th century balladry.  All those musical styles that fall under the ‘Americana’ tag you’ll find on Dylan’s albums from ‘Love & Theft’ onward. I don’t have an order of preference, so I copped out and made my list chronological.

Things Have Changed [The Essential Bob Dylan, 2000] – One of the smartest things Dylan ever did when recording new songs was to dispense with studio musicians and record with his touring band.  He also decided to produce himself under the pseudonym “Jack Frost.”  Instead of laboring for days over a single song, Dylan became more of a Zen artist – he and the band would record two, maybe three takes of a song, with the arrangement of each take being different from the last.  Dylan’s production gives his musicians room to breathe.  The arrangements are uncluttered.  That style of recording began with this song, which was created for the movie Wonder Boys.  The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  Dylan has used his Oscar as a stage prop ever since [I’ve seen it].

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum, Mississippi, Lonesome Day Blues, High Water [for Charley Patton], Honest With Me, Cry A While [‘Love & Theft’, 2001] – Many of Dylan’s good or near-great albums since 1975 have been hailed as “his best since Blood on the Tracks.”  I’ve written elsewhere in these spaces that ‘Love & Theft’ is that album.  Gone are the ambience and atmospherics of the Lanois productions. With ‘Love And Theft’ we get Dylan without any frills. He took his road band into the studio this time. These guys [including Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton on guitar, Tony Garnier on bass, David Kemper on drums] had been touring with Dylan on his “Never Ending Tour” for years, so they instinctively knew what he wanted. What he got was a combination of jazz, swing, hard roadhouse blues [Lonesome Day Blues], country [High Water (for Charley Patton)], rockabilly [Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum], ballads and some of the hardest rock one has heard from Dylan in a long time [Honest With Me].  Mississippi has three different released versions – one on ‘Love & Theft’, the other two on Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006.  I think Dylan got it right when he put out the ‘Love & Theft’ version first.

Down in the Flood & Cold Irons Bound [Masked and Anonymous soundtrack, 2003] – In 2003, Dylan made a film about a “post-apocalyptic, mythological third-world America” that was in the midst of a civil war. Dylan played the character Jack Fate, a rock legend who was released from prison to perform some kind of benefit concert.  It’s a very strange film, but Dylan and his road band were featured.  They played four songs in the movie, but these two songs absolutely smoked.  Cold Irons Bound was from 1997’s Time Out of Mind, while Down in the Flood goes all the way back to The Basement Tapes with The Band.  Yes, they are live versions of older songs, but they are a “must have” for serious Dylan listeners.  They also meet my criteria for inclusion on this list.

Thunder on the Mountain, Rollin’ and Tumblin’, Someday Baby, Ain’t Talkin’ [Modern Times, 2006] - Thunder on the Mountain sees Dylan as full of piss and vinegar as any song from ‘Love & Theft’.  I’m not sure why Alicia Keys was on his mind, but other things are going on here, and it doesn’t sound fun:

Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches

I'll recruit my army from the orphanages

I been to St. Herman's church and I've said my religious vows

I've sucked the milk out of a thousand cows

I got the pork chops, she got the pie

She ain't no angel and neither am I

Shame on your greed, shame on your wicked schemes

I'll say this, I don't give a damn about your dreams

Thunder on the mountain heavy as can be

Mean old twister bearing down on me

All the ladies of Washington scrambling to get out of town

Looks like something bad gonna happen, better roll your airplane down

Everybody's going and I want to go too

Don't wanna take a chance with somebody new

I did all I could and I did it right there and then

I've already confessed, no need to confess again

Rollin’ and Tumblin’ finds Dylan using a musical arrangement that has been used plenty other old blues songs [Howlin’ Wolf’s Meet Me in the Bottom, Muddy Waters’ own version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’, Robert Johnson’s If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day, and so on…], but I’m quite sure Muddy Waters wouldn’t use the phrase “some lazy slut has charmed away my brains…”  At first I thought Someday Baby was a knock-off of Trouble No More.  It uses the same first verse and the chorus, but other than that it’s a different song.  There are two versions – that which was released on Modern Times, and a radically-different version [which I prefer] that came out two years later on Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006.  Ain’t Talkin’ has the same release history as Someday Baby, and like that song I prefer the later version.

Dreamin' of You, Red River Shore, Marchin’ to the City - [Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006, 2008] – Recorded in 1997, these are outtakes from Time Out of Mind, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to them.  Daniel Lanois produced that album, and his production gave that album a hazy, spooky feeling.  That atmosphere isn’t present on these three songs [well, maybe a little].  These songs have the “no frills” feeling of the songs from ‘Love & Theft’.

Beyond Here Lies Nothin’, It’s All Good [Together Through Life, 2009] - Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ is a minor chord blues with mariachi horns and guitar from Mike Campbell.  David Hidalgo’s accordion [and the occasional violin] gives the entire album a bit of a Tex-Mex feel.  Dylan always did like Doug Sahm and the Sir Douglas Quintet. It’s All Good is all chaos and could’ve been written yesterday. Lying politicians [nothing new here], widows and orphans, cold-blooded killers, cop cars in bad neighborhoods [kinda like today!], people “so sick they can hardly stand” [and this ten years before COVID].  It’s a world that gets darker and more scary with each successive verse.  But don’t worry about all this bad stuff, because “it’s all good.” Sarcasm at its very best.

Duquesne Whistle, Narrow Way, Pay in Blood, Scarlet Town, Early Roman Kings [Tempest – 2012]. The video for Duquesne Whistle is pretty violent.  It starts out innocently enough with a guy who sees a girl to whom he’s attracted, steals a rose from a sidewalk flower stand, and gives her the flower.  Soon after, some kidnappers grab him off the street, beat the shit out of him, and then turn him loose.  But at least the video does follow the narrative about this guy wanting to follow this girl anywhere she wanted to go.  Narrow Way is the story of every couple who splits up…Dylan is not happy about it.  This song has another blues-standard riff that I just can’t place, but I know I’ve heard it before somewhere.  Pay in Blood drips with contempt for some woman who had done him wrong. Some unnamed women were similarly skewered in Like a Rolling Stone or Idiot Wind.

“I could stone you to death for the wrongs that you done/Sooner or later you make a mistake,

I'll put you in a chain that you never will break/Legs and arms and body and bone

I pay in blood, but not my own.”

“Another politician pumping out the piss/Another angry beggar blowing you a kiss/You’ve got the same eyes that your mother does/If only you can prove who your father was…”

Scarlet Town – I don’t know where Scarlet Town is, but I know that I don’t want to live there.  This song has a rarity for any Dylan song – a guitar solo.  Early Roman Kings is something I’ve heard before, back when it was called Mannish Boy [or Bo Diddley’s I’m a Man – take your pick].  David Hidalgo’s accordion plays the Mannish Boy start-stop riff where you’d expect to hear a harmonica.  Who are these “early Roman kings” in their sharkskin suits?  Are they the Wall Street bankers who are “too big to fail”?  Whoever they are, Dylan calls them out –

They’re peddlers and they’re meddlers/They buy and they sell/They destroyed your city/They’ll destroy you as well/They’re lecherous and treacherous/Hell-bent for leather/Each of ‘em bigger/Than all of them put together

Goodbye Jimmy Reed, False Prophet [Rough and Rowdy Ways, 2020] - Rough and Rowdy Ways is out today, and all week I’ve been reading rave reviews of the album’s greatness.   Once again critics have reverted to hyperbole when it comes to Bob Dylan.  Over and over I’ve been reading “it’s the greatest thing since…”  I’m not hearing the same album they are.  A good chunk of the album crawls by.  There are two exceptions - Goodbye Jimmy Reed is a blues stomper that’s absolute class.  If you close your eyes, this one will take you back to Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat [1966]. False Prophet is another Dylan blues which borrows [a lot – others would say ‘stolen,’ but that’s the “folk process” for you] from If Lovin' Is Believing by Billy ‘the Kid' Emerson.  Lyrically, this sounds like a continuation of Early Roman Kings, and he sounds equally annoyed.  Here he says he’s "the enemy of the unlived meaningless life" – a comment on reality television, perhaps? 

I was tempted to include Murder Most Foul, but given the praise that’s been heaped upon it, that was too easy of a kill.  I like it, but I don’t want to sit through seventeen minutes of American cultural history very often.  It sounds more like an epic poem than it does a proper song.

Planet P - Pink World

In 1949, the English author Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, published a novel that still resonates today – 1984.  Orwell’s world of the future was one of “thought crimes,” “two minutes of hate,” “doublespeak,” a mass surveillance state, friends and family snitching on each other, and the omnipresent Big Brother.  The fictional Orwellian world of 1984 intersected with the very real fear of nuclear annihilation that was ever-present during the Cold War.  Under the pseudonym Planet P, in the real 1984 Tony Carey released the album Pink World. Pink World is a concept record, the elements of the story which combined both Orwell’s world and the fears of the Cold War.

Tony Carey first appeared on my musical radar when my friend Alan introduced me to the band Rainbow.  Carey was Ritchie Blackmore’s keyboard player,who appeared on the seminal album Rising [1976].  As was Blackmore’s wont, he changed band members until Rainbow became less like Deep Purple and more like Foreigner [yeah, that’s a slam].  With his departure from Rainbow, Tony Carey moved to Germany and began a solo career.  The first record I can remember coming out under his own name was the song I Won't Be Home Tonight [1982].  On the strength of that song, he got a record deal with Geffen Records.  He would release conventional songs under his own name, but he had another creative outlet with the name Planet P.  Planet P was the outlet for his more experimental side.  Call that music “progressive, science-fiction influenced space rock.”  His first [and only] album for Geffen was the first eponymous Planet P album, the hit single from which was Why Me? [1983].

In 1984, Tony Carey had two albums ready to go for Geffen – Some Tough City and Pink World.  Some Tough City was a single conventional album that was a collection of songs, some of whom connected with the others, and some songs which didn’t.  Pink World had the big concept and was a double LP.  Geffen heard both albums, but didn’t hear a hit single between them.  Geffen wouldn’t release either album, but MCA did.  Back in those days before corporations took over radio playlists and DJs could play what they wanted, we soon heard A Fine, Fine Day, A Lonely Life, and The First Day of Summer.  If you’re my age, you’ll recognize them immediately when you hear them.  For songs that weren’t “hits” in the ears of Geffen’s A&R people, those songs got quite a bit of airplay.  Those Geffen A&R guys weren’t too bright.  These are the same guys who sued Neil Young for not sounding like…Neil Young.  When Some Tough City ran its course, then came Pink World, just in time for Ronald Reagan’s re-election.

The Plot

Artimus is a seven-year old boy who, while playing in the woods near his “quiet little village by the sea”, drinks from a polluted stream that’s near a factory that makes “household goods”.  After he drank the water, Artemis began to change.  He could no longer talk, but he still had two more senses than Pete Townshend’s Tommy.  Although he could no longer speak, he could read others’ thoughts, he could see into the future, and he could move objects without touching them. He had unspoken powers about being able to keep his fellow villagers alive.  His visions of the future were not pretty.  He saw nuclear apocalypse.  The government authorities, not exactly of the benevolent sort, take Artimus into their “care.”  They're afraid of Artimus’ powers, but they think they can use them for the purposes of conquest and rule.  After said holocaust, society inside “the barrier” turns Orwellian.  All this time Artimus is confused.  What is he supposed to do?  Then he figures it out – he disappears.  When he disappeared, so did “the barrier” that protected the “true believers.”  There is a bit of a twist at the end where Tony Carey leaves it up to the listener to make his/her own conclusion about what happened.  He’s leaving it up to the listeners to think for themselves, a talent that those in his story did not have.

To Live Forever – The first part of the story of Artimus.  He’s a seven-year old boy.  He plays near a factory, near a river that is polluted.  The river doesn’t have any fish.  Artimus either can’t read, didn’t see, or ignored the signs that said “don’t drink the water.”  Well, he drank the water and things started to change.  He stopped aging. He lost the power to speak, but in return he gained the ability to see into the future, gained the power of mind reading, and gained the power of telekinesis.  For a seven-year old boy, he’s very aware that while he’s going to live forever, it would be better for the rest of society that he hides himself away from everyone else and live in a cave.

Pink World – There’s always someone somewhere who says the end of the world is coming soon, and that same someone always says “repent while there’s still time.”  People have heard this message before but ignored him. He says he has “proof” this time because he read it in the supermarket, like those tabloids one sees while waiting for check-out.

What I See – The story of Artimus continues.  He has the same dream every night, a dream about a red planet, a desolate landscape where everyone is on fire.  He also sees he’s going to be made a figurehead by the authorities.  He wonders if he’s the only one who has these visions.

Power – Artimus and his powers have come to the attention of authority figures.  At first they are skeptical about what he can do, but once he gives them a demonstration, the light bulb goes on in their heads that they can use Artimus to their advantage.  These authority figures also caution whomever is listening “don’t get the boy mad”.  That line reminds me of a character Bill Mumy played on The Twilight Zone.  In this particular episode, Mumy’s character is a six-year old boy who has the power to read minds, and has the power of telekinesis [just like Artimus].  Mumy’s character didn’t like machines or electricity, and using only his mind he made them go away.  If anyone said or even thought about something that isn’t “happy”, he either wished them away or changed them into walking vegetables.  The chorus:

Oh we'll keep you

We'll be watching you

And we'll study you

And Artie

Oh we'll teach you

So you'll use it right

And you'll join the fight

And Artie

Oh, we need you

When your country calls

These hallowed halls are waiting

Oh, this is straight from the top

We'll never stop

We can't be stopped

With your power

We need your power…

At this point, Artimus became what Bob Dylan once called “a pawn in their game.”

A Boy Who Can't Talk – This song is a plea from Artimus’ parents to come home.  They tell Artimus that the authorities are afraid of his power, and that they keep him away from everyone else in order to keep him in line.  They tell Artimus of the thousands who want to walk where he walked.  They warn Artimus that the authorities flatter him in order for him to do what they want.  The parents’ wish is that someone will speak up and say “he’s just a boy who can’t talk.”

The Stranger – “The Stranger” is an unknown leader figure who appears from nowhere and claims to be destined to save their people, whether he be “from a valley in the Rhineland [Hitler], “the deserts of Iran” [Khomeini], or “a village they called Jonestown “ [Jim Jones].  He’s someone who always seems to show up at the right place at the right time [or as the narrator puts it, “who is summoned”.] Is the narrator comparing Artimus to these people?

The Shepherd – Somebody read an article about Artimus and his thousands of followers while waiting in line at the grocery store.  This guy’s followed a few messiahs in his time [cue Life of Brian joke here], so he’ll check out the newest Messiah referred to as The Shepherd [aka Artimus].  He wonders if this “Messiah” is the “flavor of the month,” but he’s sure Artie’s “the one.”  Could he be the same guy who said “there’s a Pink World coming down”?

Behind the Barrier – The nuclear holocaust foreseen by Artimus has happened, launched by the authorities who promote him as the Messiah.  But the “true believers” who launched the cruise missiles at their unseen enemy are safe “in the zone” protected by the dome created by Artimus.  The “true believers” laughed at their victims.  How did Artimus create “the barrier”? Nobody knows, but he has powers to do anything.

This Perfect Place – This song is a great use of irony.  Besides the ever-present surveillance cameras [never mind, you get used to them], Artimus’ face plastered everywhere [“Big Brother is watching you…”], snitches who turn in family members for saying the wrong things in their sleep, it’s a great place to live.  Why is it great?  It’s a comfort to the sheep that Artimus knows what they think.

What Artie Knows – What does Artimus know?  He knows everything.  In Artie we trust, he’s righteous and just… That’s exactly what the authorities want the sheep to think.

In the Zone – Everybody has what they want or need, except a mind to think for themselves.  There are no seasons, it never gets cold, there’s never any bad weather.  There aren’t any birds in the zone.  Nobody is hungry, and nobody is poor.  The sheep always do what they’re told [unless they preach revolution in their sleep].  The perfect place that no one can escape from is a fishbowl existence, but it’s a small price to pay for not being nuked.

March of the Artemites – An instrumental that borrows the main riff from The Hollies’ Bus Stop.

A Letter from the Shelter – The shelter in question is outside of Artimus’ protective zone.  It’s a reminiscence of what life was like before the nuclear holocaust.  How they just live in a hole in the ground.

One Star Falling – This one is also from the perspective of those outside of the protective zone. 

Baby's At the Door – Artimus is gone.  Where Artimus once stood is now “a little pink pool”.  With Artimus gone, so is the barrier protecting “the zone.”  Weather has returned, and left his followers on their own.  They then realize that they no longer needed Artimus.  They also realize they didn’t learn from mistakes of the past, that utopia can’t last forever.  Whatever happened to those who made the nuclear holocaust happen is unknown.  By the way, there’s a basket at an orphanage…

Requiem – At the end of the story, someone is crying out for Artimus to come back.  Where did Artimus go?  This is left for the listener to figure out.  My guess is since Artimus had the power to do anything, he used his power to make himself disappear and reincarnate as the “baby at the door”.  That's one way to "live forever."  He had seen what had been done to others in his name, and wanted no more part of it.

Pink World would be the last thing we’d hear from Planet P for twenty-one years.  In the interim, Tony Carey made music under his own name.  In 2005 Carey would resurrect the Planet P name to record 1931.  But that’s another story…

John Wetton - An Extraordinary Voice

Throughout my life, my “go-to” music has been the Beatles, the Allman Brothers Band, and Pink Floyd.  Sometimes I need a break from them.  As I wrote in my last issue, I had been listening to a lot of John Prine, who passed away last month.  After having done the deep dive on John Prine’s music for the past few weeks, something much different and totally unexpected popped into my head as I awoke the other day.  The song was Let Me Go.  I couldn’t get the sound of John Wetton’s many-layered vocals out of my head [it’s still there as I write this].  In 2005 John Wetton and Geoff Downes renewed their musical partnership for a trio of albums under the moniker Icon.  Let Me Go is the first song from that first Icon album from 2005.  Once heard, that sound is very hard to get out of your head.  That could mean only one thing – it was time to revisit the music of John Wetton – time for another musical deep dive.  Like Asia’s music, the Icon songs have more keyboard influence than guitar – LOTS of keyboards, and JW’s unmistakable vocals.  But there’s also the lonely-sounding cello of ELO’s Hugh McDowell, and the occasional female vocal thrown in. Little did I know, the Icon experience led to the reunion of the original four members of Asia – Wetton, Downes, Steve Howe, and Carl Palmer.  This write-up is fairly Asia-centric.  To devote as much detail to John Wetton’s entire career would need an entire book, not just a blog entry.

I had been a fan of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer for many years.  I had [and still have] all the Yes studio albums between The Yes Album and Drama, the last album they recorded before they broke up in 1981.  Yes had yet to reconfigure and embrace commerciality [doublespeak for “sell out”] with Owner of a Lonely Heart.  I have all the ELP studio work except Love Beach.  I was in the second semester of my freshman year in college when I learned of a new group that featured two members from Yes, one from King Crimson, and one from Emerson, Lake & Palmer.  My initial interest in this then-new band was because of Yes guitarist Steve Howe.  He was, and still is, a fantastic guitarist whose playing I have admired for a long time.  Steve Howe’s playing brought me to Asia, but John Wetton’s singing kept me there.  It was good to hear Steve Howe playing with a vocalist who didn’t sound like he belonged in the Vienna Boys Choir.  Jon Anderson is okay in small doses.  To say that Yes played long songs would be an understatement.  They’re the only rock group I know of that put out a four-sided album that had only four songs [Tales of Topographic Oceans].  Yes was heavy on the musicianship, with Anderson’s vocals and his impenetrable lyrics kept to a minimum [fortunately].

Steve Howe and Geoff Downes from Yes and Carl Palmer from ELP were known quantities to me.  In mathematics, “x” is the most common letter used to represent an “unknown”.  John Wetton was the “X-Factor” for me.  At the time, the only King Crimson albums I owned were In the Court of the Crimson King and In the Wake of Poseidon, both which feature Greg Lake on vocals.  My “gateway” for John Wetton was King Crimson’s Red.  The song Fallen Angel was the hook for me.  The opening is very mellow, as are JW’s vocals.  Then the music turns on a dime and gets very aggressive.  JW’s bass is thunderous and you hear the stacked vocal harmonies that would become his trademark.  The song is like that – mellow, acoustic passages for the verses, thunder for the choruses.  Starless is a gem.  King Crimson released an abridged version with just the vocal section [roughly 4-5 minutes], but the album has the full 12-minute version the instrumental jam.  The vocal section has tranquility, while the instrumental section is pretty wild.  Sadly, Robert Fripp put King Crimson on ice before Red’s release.

U.K. followed King Crimson in 1978.  For me U.K. is the last gasp of classic progressive rock.  The first U.K. album featured a quartet with Bill Bruford, Eddie Jobson and Allan Holdsworth.  I prefer the trio version from their second Danger Money album [Holdsworth gone, Bruford swapped out for Terry Bozzio].  Rendezvous 6:02 is among JW's best ballads.  The vocals sound bittersweet, and the piano melody is wonderful.  This band would last for just two albums, but it did provide some foreshadowing for what came next – Asia.

I was curious – would Asia sound like Yes or King Crimson?  In short, the answer is “not really.” Eschewing long, sprawling instrumentals, Asia opted for shorter songs, mostly in 4/4 time, which could get radio airplay.  What really impressed me other than the musicianship of Asia was the singing.  John Wetton’s first musical experience [by his own admission] was from the church.  This is evident with the layering of JW’s vocals – he’s harmonizing with himself.  The many voices one hears in JW’s recorded work reminds one of chorales beautifully sung in church.  His brother was a church organist.  His first musical instrument was piano.  He picked up a bass later.

From the eponymous debut album from 1982, there was a balance between Steve Howe’s guitars and Geoff Downes’ keyboards. The songs were much shorter than I was accustomed to with Yes, they were usually in 4/4 time, and the vocals were stunning.  About the closest Asia came to Yes’ progressive music were the songs Time Again, One Step Closer, and Here Comes the Feeling.  Each of those songs has the Steve Howe stamp.  They are the perfect balance between old-school progressive rock and new-age radio-friendly sounds.  The remainder of the album is more on the “pop” side, but they are all good pop songs.

As the band’s lyricist, John Wetton’s songs were mostly [but not all] about relationships gone wrong.  Wildest Dreams, though, has an anti-war theme.   The B-side to Heat of the Moment – a Wetton/Howe song titled Ride Easy – is especially poignant.  John Wetton was an alcoholic.  For years I didn’t know this.  I just thought Ride Easy was a neat-sounding song that should have been on the album. When I heard of JW’s troubles with alcohol, the lyrics suddenly made sense and were a bit more autobiographical than I first imagined.  Wetton paints a picture of himself traveling the world, and seeing that world through the bottom of a bottle – a tale of a man “lost along the way”.  I suppose a song written in the first-person should sometimes be taken at face value.

Asia went to #1 for nine weeks in 1982.  But where do you go when you get to the top of the mountain right out of the chute?  That’s right – down. Alpha followed in 1983, but something was conspicuously missing from the songwriting credits – Steve Howe’s name.  It was as if Carl Palmer and Steve Howe had become sidemen for Wetton and Downes.  There are plenty of pop hooks that got the album a good deal of airplay.  Alpha was a good release but it had a few too many “romantic” ballads for my liking.  I’m sure there are many hardcore Asia fans would disagree with me, but that’s ok.  This is just one pinhead’s point-of-view [mine]. The guitar-keyboard balance from the first album was gone.  Alpha was for Asia what Tusk was for Fleetwood Mac – a strong seller that still felt like a bit of a letdown.  The musicianship was still top-notch, and JW’s vocal chops were still strong.  Then the wheels fell off.  The tour to support Alpha never finished [the last few dates cancelled], John Wetton was the record label’s fall guy, and he was fired. 

The music business is fickle and often cruel.  The band had live commitments in Japan – Greg Lake filled in for John Wetton.  After the Japan dates were done, Lake left and Wetton was back.  But when Wetton came back, Steve Howe left.  The guy they got to replace him was a guy from the Swiss metal band Krokus – Mandy Meyer.  How would a metal guitarist fit with a pop/progressive band?  Wetton and Downes wrote their songs on piano, so it stands to reason that both Alpha and the album with Meyer [Astra, 1985] are heavily keyboard-influenced.  Like Alpha, Astra was [in my opinion, anyway] ballad-heavy – more songs about romantic entanglements.  The first song from Astra was a good introduction to Meyer, and it gave John Wetton something other than a ballad to sing.  That song was Go.  This one is a serious rocker where JW gave it his all vocally.  Meyer’s playing was tough and gave the song a hard edge that Howe probably couldn’t provide.  The beginning of the album was very impressive, but…

The problem I have with Astra is that hardness is missing in action for the remainder of the album’s first side, and as a result the album somewhat loses focus.  Meyer’s hard edge reappeared on the album’s second side.  Countdown to Zero and After the War shows JW’s lyrical focus on the Cold War and the prospect of nuclear annihilation.  Too Late and Suspicion are very good.  Between Alpha and Astra, there are enough songs for one very strong album.  Again, others will disagree.  There was no Astra tour, the band was dropped from the label and it went on a long break. My guess was these guys were tired and needed the break. There would be a reunion [minus Howe, with Pat Thrall] in 1990, but it was brief.

After the reunion came John Wetton’s solo career.  That career really started with Caught in the Crossfire in 1980.  I can’t comment on it because I haven’t heard it – really!  The solo career resumed with Battle Lines in 1994.  Not a bad album, but Ron Nevison’s production sounds a bit dated [1980s].  Arkangel [1997] and Sinister [2001] have their moments, but again the production gets in the way of enjoying the music.  I think the finest album that came out under his own name was Rock of Faith [2003]. On this work, the melodies are beautiful, and his vocals more emotive than anything that came before.  One gets the feeling that not all was well in the house of Wetton when this was made. Given that, there’s no filler on Rock of Faith. The influence of church music is strong with this one.  The finale When You Were Young is acapella.  Not many rock vocalists can carry this off, but JW made it look easy. His voice sounded better here than the Asia heyday of the 1980s.

In the midst of the Icon business came the unthinkable. The original Asia band reunited and commemorated the 25th anniversary of the release of their debut with Fantasia: Live In Tokyo [2007].  The highlight for me was Roundabout.  It’s hard enough to remember all of Jon Anderson’s lyrics, but to sing that song in the original key AND play Chris Squire’s bass parts at the same time is remarkable.  The reunited quartet made three albums where the guitar-keyboard balance from the first album was restored.  The songs were better than what came after the debut, the production wasn’t slick like it was in the 1980s.  The chemistry of the original quartet was good.  The “prog” was back.  As if he wasn’t busy enough, JW managed to tour with U.K. and make his last solo album [Raised in Captivity, 2011].  The lyrics from the renewed Asia and JW’s solo work shifted focus from romanticism to other things, like mortality [quadruple-bypass surgery will do that], about making the most of what one has now, not really wallowing in the past, but living for now.  After three studio albums, Steve Howe’s dance card was too full [Yes, Asia, solo career] and he left Asia again in 2013, this time amicably.  Without missing a beat, the band hired guitarist Sam Coulson. They recorded Gravitas in 2014.  Sadly, this would be John Wetton’s final musical statement.  His last words on record were “Think the best of me, till we meet again.”  It sounds cliché, but his voice aged well.  His life really was extraordinary.

This brings me to my iPod playlist – it’s a long one.  How could it not be with so much to choose from?

Pre-Asia

Fallen Angel [Red - King Crimson, 1974]

Starless [Red - King Crimson, 1974]

Rendezvous 6:02 [Danger Money – U.K., 1979]

Asia

Time Again [Asia, 1982]

Wildest Dreams [Asia, 1982]                                   

Sole Survivor [Asia, 1982]                                                               

One Step Closer [Asia, 1982]                                   

Cutting It Fine [Asia, 1982]                                    

Here Comes the Feeling [Asia, 1982]                                 

Ride Easy [B-side, 1982]                                             

Never in a Million Years [Alpha, 1983]                  

The Heat Goes On [Alpha, 1983] -> Go [Astra, 1985]                     (Note: I have to hear these one after the other)                                

Midnight Sun [Alpha, 1983]                                    

Open Your Eyes [Alpha, 1983]                                

Countdown to Zero[Astra,1985]                                                      Suspicion [Astra, 1985]                                            

After the War [Astra, 1985]                                     

Heat of the Moment [Asia, 1982]

Roundabout [Fantasia: Live in Tokyo, 2007]

The Court of the Crimson King [Fantasia: Live in Tokyo, 2007]

Don’t Cry [Fantasia: Live in Tokyo, 2007]

Never Again [Phoenix, 2008]

Through My Veins [Omega, 2010]

Nothing's Forever [Phoenix, 2008]

Face on the Bridge [XXX. 2012]

Light the Way [Omega, 2010]

No Religion [XXX. 2012]

There Was a Time [Omega, 2010]

Tomorrow the World [XXX. 2012]

Bury Me In Willow [XXX. 2012]

Holy War [Omega, 2010]

I Believe [Omega, 2010]

Judas [XXX. 2012]

An Extraordinary Life [Phoenix, 2008]

Till We Meet Again [Gravitas, 2014]                  

Wetton/Downes and/or John Wetton [solo]

Overture: Paradox/Let Me Go [Icon, 2005]

I Stand Alone [Icon, 2005]

The Hanging Tree [Icon II: Rubicon, 2006]

Whirlpool [Icon II: Rubicon, 2006]

Steffi’s Ring [Raised In Captivity, 2011]

Goodbye Elsinore [Raised In Captivity, 2011]

Raised in Captivity [Raised In Captivity, 2011]

Reflections [Of My Life] [Icon II: Rubicon, 2006]

Mondrago –> Rock of Faith [Rock of Faith, 2003]

Battle Lines [Acoustic] [Battle Lines, 1995]

Hold Me Now [Battle Lines, 1995]

Heart of Darkness [Sinister, 2001]

Real World [Sinister, 2001]

The Circle of St. Giles -> The Last Thing On My Mind [Arkangel, 1997]

I’ve Come to Take You Home [Rock of Faith, 2003]

A New Day [Rock of Faith, 2003]

When You Were Young [Rock of Faith, 2003]

John Prine - RIP

Wildly imaginative, witty, humble, hilarious, wry, tender, offbeat, empathetic, insightful, spine-chilling, magnetizing, lighthearted, illuminating, overpowering, honest, simple, timeless, introspective, heartfelt, challenging, influential, underappreciated, under the radar, hard-to-categorize, straightforward, whimsical, fatalistic.

Since John Prine died the first week of April, I’ve been scouring the Internet to find adjectives written by people who write much better than I to describe John Prine’s music.  I found a lot of them.  I’m quite sure the list I’ve compiled is incomplete, but each one applies.  A friend of mine from the old neighborhood said “there’s no such thing as a bad John Prine song” – and she’s right.  If there is one, I haven’t heard it.

As is my wont, whenever a musician I like passes away, I do the deep dive into the songbook and try to create a good playlist.  Keeping in mind my friend’s thoughts about there being no bad John Prine songs, some are more equal than others.  Otherwise, my playlist would be every song John Prine ever recorded.  Not all the songs on my list were written by him.  There’s a Hank Williams song here, and A.P. Carter song there, and a Buck Owens song somewhere else, but I like how he played them.  The entire debut album is here because it was that good.  There is much to enjoy.

Here’s my playlist.  As always, it’s just one pinhead’s point of view [mine].

Illegal Smile [John Prine, 1971]

Spanish Pipedream [John Prine, 1971]

Hello In There [John Prine, 1971]

Sam Stone [John Prine, 1971]

Paradise [John Prine, 1971]

Pretty Good [John Prine, 1971]

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore [John Prine, 1971]

Far From Me [John Prine, 1971]

Angel From Montgomery [John Prine, 1971]

Quiet Man [John Prine, 1971]

Donald and Lydia [John Prine, 1971]

Six O'Clock News [John Prine, 1971]

Flashback Blues [John Prine, 1971]

The Late John Garfield Blues [Diamonds in the Rough, 1972]

Sour Grapes [Diamonds in the Rough, 1972]

Billy the Bum [Diamonds in the Rough, 1972]

The Frying Pan [Diamonds in the Rough, 1972]

Yes I Guess They Oughta Name a Drink After You [Diamonds in the Rough, 1972]

Sweet Revenge [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Please Don't Bury Me [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Christmas In Prison [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Blue Umbrella [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Mexican Home [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Often Is a Word I Seldom Use [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Linda Goes to Mars [German Afternoons, 1986]

Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian [German Afternoons, 1986]

Dear Abby (Live) [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Other Side of Town (Live) [Fair & Square, 2005]

Quit Hollerin' at Me (Live) [Live on Tour, 1997]

Space Monkey (Live) [Live on Tour, 1997]

He Was In Heaven Before He Died [Common Sense, 1975]

The Accident (Things Could Be Worse) [Sweet Revenge, 1973]

Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow) [Bruised Orange, 1978]

That's the Way the World Goes Round [Bruised Orange, 1978]

Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard [Common Sense, 1975]

Jesus, the Missing Years [The Missing Years, 1991]

Lake Marie [Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, 1995]

Everything Is Cool [A John Prine Christmas, 1994]

The Sins of Memphisto [The Missing Years, 1991]

Great Rain [The Missing Years, 1991]

Ain't Hurtin' Nobody [Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, 1995]

In Spite of Ourselves [In Spite of Ourselves, 1999]

Mental Cruelty [For Better, or Worse, 2016]

Just Waitin' [For Better, or Worse, 2016]

Crazy as a Loon [Fair & Square, 2005]

Bear Creek Blues [Fair & Square, 2005]

Lonesome Friends of Science [The Tree of Forgiveness, 2018]

Summer's End [The Tree of Forgiveness, 2018]

When I Get to Heaven [The Tree of Forgiveness, 2018]

RIP John Prine, and thank you.