Homecoming for the Queen of Country Rock

When Emmy Lou Harris comes to town, she brings all the traditional keys to a happy wedding…something old, something new, something borrowed and something bluesy.
On a recent summer night at Wolftrap Farm Park, Emmy Lou and John Prine filled the ampitheatre and lawns with fans who had grown up with the country music they helped define and popularize.

For Harris, the Washington area is a true homecoming as her father was stationed here while in the military and it is where she got her start in clubs and bars.
She told how her break came when some guy was looking for a singer to help him recreate the sound of Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty.

After hearing her sing at Clyde’s in Georgetown, he offered her a bus ticket and a spot playing rhythm guitar. That was how she met, “my dear friend Graham Parsons.”

The evening was a perfect blend of her own songs—both old and new—and country standards. Introducing “Making Believe,” she paid tribute to Kitty Wells who made it a hit two decades before that torch was passed to Harris. And she gave a nod to Billy Joe Shaver for “Old Five and Dimers Like Me.” As she has done before with friends from The Seldom Scene, she brought out John Starling (“my favorite singer in the whole world”) to join her on “If I Could Only Win Your Love.”

What was new and impressive were Harris’ own compositions, from the mournful “Red Dirt Girl” (But one thing they don’t tell you about the blues/ When you got em/ You keep on falling cause there ain’t no bottom) to the moving “Ballad of Emmett Till” (I was just a black boy and never hurt no one) on her latest album, “Hard Bargain.” Unlike some of her contemporaries, Harris’ voice has lost none of its richness and when she soloes a chorus of “Aaaaahhh Aaaahhh Aaaahhh,” the sound in the night air is worth the price of admission.

Unlike the days when she traveled with Buddy Miller or had Daniel Lanois’ pulsating drumbeat sound, this year’s group of musicians is truly a backing band. For most of the evening, the spotlight was on Emmy Lou and her singing. One wonderful exception was when the Red Dirt Boys and the lady in charge put down their instruments and did an acapella version of “My Precious Children.” It gave you goose bumps.

The Queen can still bring it after all these years. Whether it was toasting “Two More Bottles of Wine,” rolling home on “Wheels” or steering “Luxury Liner” at warp speed, she proved she can rock whatever part of the country she’s playing.

Musical Oddities from Naptown to Londontown

Maybe it is the continuing heat wave in the dog days of August but there seem to more than the usual number of musical happenings that strike me as slightly off kiilter.

For starters, the elder statesman of American Rap, M.C. Hammer, is giving a free concert tonight at the Indiana State Fair. One hopes his drawing power will attract some paying customers who might have stayed home for fear of contact with flu-infected barrows and gilts. Still, it’s difficult to imagine young men and women skipping 4-H meetings to watch reruns of “Hammertime” on A&E. While his music has become what many would consider mainstream, my request tonight is “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt Em!”

Then of course there was the second musical spectacle of the summer from England. Last night’s closing ceremony was like an endless of loop of Super Bowl halftime shows that had the last day of the Olympics as an excuse for another orgy of dancers, waltzing extras, light shows, fireworks and even some singing. As a tribute to Britain’s musical heritage, it was a cavalcade of stars. As an Olympic event, it seemed comical every time there was an obligatory cutaway to participants dancing in the dark holding medals up to the camera. The disconnect from sports to spectacle reminded me of Robert Sherill’s great book title: “Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music.”

I suppose it was Britain’s turn to strut its stuff but it sure lacked the restraint and taste of the Queen’s Jubilee concert (where you could actually hear the lyrics) and seemed more like the Disneyfication of England’s Charttoppers. Annie Lennox in a gigantic ghost ship? Giant holograms of Freddie Mercury? The Spice Girls reuniting via London Cabs coated in electronic sequins? Fat Boy Slim spinning discs atop a huge inflatable octopus? Giant truck billboards of super models? What comes after “wretched excess?”

I guess Eric Idle, who can still poke holes in the pomposity by becoming a dud falling out of a cannon and leading a sing-a-long of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
And whenever anyone revived a Beatles song, it gave the set list some class.

I confess I gave up before The Who made it onstage, only to find out today from the internet that NBC delayed them until midnight so they could air a new sitcom and let local stations do the news. What can you expect from a network that missed chunks of live competitions (volleyball and the men’s basketball final) to air commercials?

A happier note was the music used during the equestrian dressage grand prix. One contestant used the music from Elton John’s Lion King. The gold medalists, Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro performed to a wonderful British collection. It began with the theme from the “Great Escape,” followed by “Live and Let Die” and then segued into Edward Elgar’s “Land of Hope and Glory,” which we commoners would recognize as the “Pomp and Circumstance” march from countless commencements. In between Elgar selections, there were bells rung from Big Ben and the fanfare that has become an Olympics theme.

Their winning “dance” may not have rocked you but it was hauntingly beautiful.

A Dream Team's Songwriting Seminar

As someone who can’t sing or play a lick, I have always identified with songwriters because I do like to do the occasional scribble-scribble and can empathize with the difficulties of the process. Thus it was a real treat to come across this mini-seminar on writing following an Austin City Limits acoustic concert from last fall. The performers were a dream team of singer/songwriters that included: Guy Clark, John Hiatt, Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett. Here’s a rough transcript of the group interview in the dressing room.

How do you write? Do you have a method?

Guy Clark: I get a big eraser
Joe Ely: I chain my leg to a tree

Does it take a certain time, does it run in hot and cold spells?
What kind of inspiration do you need? Do you write about yourself? Do you write about anything?

Guy: You don’t believe you’re gonna get up and do it again
John Hiatt: Yeah
GC: It’s never gonna happen
JH: You can’t believe you ever did it before and the next one’s never gonna come.
GC: Yeah. It’s hard work
JH: And you have no…you’ve learned nothing from the last one
GC: All of that
JH: You don’t really know how to do it…

Joe Ely: And then you’re driving you know on Interstate 10 in Houston and this great song comes into your head and you don’t have a pencil or a pen and then by the time you get to the next exit you can’t remember the chorus.

Lyle Lovett: Writing songs is a mysterious, mysterious process and, you know, certainly listening to great songwriters, listening to their songs is …I think you have to have that feeling of wanting to try to say something and listening to great song writers’ songs always gives me that feeling.

GC: Course there’s a real tradiiton of storytelling in Texas, you know, bullshit.
(laughter). Its always been that way.
JH: And even just the guys…the campfire songs and all that rich tradition of cowboy songs and campfire tales and cowboy tales, that’s pretty deep too.

LL: And for me that story telling tradition in Texas music --Guy Clark is the embodiment of that. Listening to Guy Clark and listening to Townes Van Zandt that’s what made me want to write songs. (To Guy) Your sense of imagery and your use of metaphor…your songs are often described as literary but where, I mean your approach where do you get it?

GC: Well my parents were literate to say the least. As a yong person I grew up in a pre- television household and after dinner we would sit around and read poetry out loud or a book, prose, out loud. We’d just pass the book around and just read, the family.
And we were always encouraged in the direction of the arts and good literature.

I guess that’s where Guy came up with lines like these:

Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.

Christmas (Shopping) in July

When in comes to rock and roll legends, the business of making books has overtaken the business of making music. Fan books have been around for years, some of them like Dave Marsh’s Born To Run have more depth and readability than a fanzine. But as the megastars reach the mid-century point in their careers, they feel a need to tell all in their own words. This summer’s crop includes:

Elton John’s Love is the Cure: On Life, Loss and the end of Aids

Greg Allman’s My Cross to Bear

Buddy Guy’s When I Left Home: My Story (with David Ritz)

Rodney Crowell’s Chinaberry Sidewalk ( out in paperback)

Other notables include Patti Smith, who made the list of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in part because of her memoir, Just Kids, about growing up with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Perhaps the most presumptuous title goes to Mitch Ryder, whose book is titled
Devils and Blue Dresses, My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend.

Often these books are released in conjunction with new CD’s (Patti Smith’s "Banga" got some good reviews) or a concert tour. The publicity tours make for good radio and television interviews because there are plenty of tunes to play and then discuss. Elton John talks about how the first lyrics from Bernie Taupin came by mail, then fax and now email.

And they make for some interesting moments on the air. When Bob Edwards asked Mitch Ryder what happened at a live concert in Detroit when he tried to tell Bruce Sprinsteen how to play “Devil with the Blue Dress,” Mitch pleaded, “But it’s my song!” Edwards: “But he’s The Boss!”
Ryder also had a few choice words for the big business establishment that rock and roll has become: “I’m a fan of rebellion that doesn’t need rules, let alone a museum.”

Some might attribute this spate of memoirs to the success of Keith Richards' Life. The rest of the Rolling Stones will try to play catch up with a coffee table book, The Rolling Stones 50. It is not due out until the early Christmas shopping season starts in October but the band announced it with a splash in London on July 12, the 50th anniversary of their first gig.

Neil Young’s memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, also has an October publication date, and is the third leg of a media trifecta that includes, his latest CD, “Americana” (he covers “This Land is Your Land”), and a new concert movie of his 2011 solo tour directed by Jonathan Demme, “Neil Young’s Journeys.”

Even though I seldom do my Christmas shopping until the week before, you’ve been given a chance to beat the rush.

This land is guitar land

How much is that guitar in the window?

Guitars are in the news in a couple of distant but connected ways that seem to shed light on the myth making that keeps music and history so interesting. The Washington Post used a picture of Woody Guthrie playing on the New York Subway to illustrate a review of a new book from Smithsonian Folkways on the 100th anniversary of his birth this week.

The photo captures Woody’s lifelong commitment to social issues with the hand lettered message on his guitar: This machine kills fascists. It also seems to imbue the guitar as a symbol of freedom…freedom to sing what you want to in protest or in celebration.
Woody also demonstrated how the guitar was the means to hit the road…strap it on your back and stick out your thumb…in search of fame and fortune, a personal dream, or changing the world. Anyone who loves music should take a moment this week and say thanks to Woody for his songs (more than 3,000 so far but still being mined in the family archives) and his commitment to the causes of the downtrodden and oppressed.

One of Woody’s musical progeny is also in the news this week for a mystery about which Fender guitar he played during the paradigm shifting concert at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when he went electric. One chapter of the Dylan myth is devoted to what happened that night and this latest round is sure to recharge that episode and prove that the reclusive star now seems to have a Midas touch for publicity (without so much as lifting a finger). Not to worry, the sleuths from the PBS series, History Detectives, are on the case and the full story is part of their season premiere on Tuesday night (check local listings). Here are some details from the Associated Press.

Bob Dylan and historians at PBS are in a dispute over the whereabouts of an electric guitar that the singer plugged in at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, quite possibly the most historic single instrument in rock ‘n’ roll.

The New Jersey daughter of a pilot who flew Dylan to appearances in the 1960s says she has the guitar, which has spent much of the past 47 years in a family attic. But a lawyer for Dylan claims the singer still has the Fender Stratocaster with the sunburst design that he used during one of the most memorable performances of his career.
If the authentic “Dylan goes electric” guitar ever went on the open marketplace, experts say it could fetch as much as a half million dollars.


Reading that this Stratocaster, if authentic, could go for $500,000, revives memories of some recent crazy prices that other guitars have brought at auction and conjures up more images of some famous ones. Willie Nelson has been using the same one for decades so you wonder what that could be possibly be worth…or how it has survived all those years on buses and in honky tonks. I guess they made them to last back then (before it became good hype to smash them on stage). Then there is the question of what Woody do with all that money?

As for the guitar pictured above in a store in Carmel by the Sea, California, it sells for $1200 and I have no idea if it can be played. Then again, it might come in handy if you are traveling across country in hot cars rather than hitch hiking.

Old Guys Rock: Volume 2 (B Side)

I remember when rock was young.
--Crocodile Rock

Recently my friend John the guitar man tipped me to the music specials running during the PBS fund-raising specials under the My Music banner. This one was called the British Invasion. The format invovles video clips from the kinescopes made of live concerts back in the day intercut with recorded performances of the bands current incarnations along with some background interviews.

These were clearly most of the players who came off the bench to fill the gaps between singles from The Beatles and The Stones (who bookended segments with snippets from the Ed Sullivan Show) and, in most cases they paled in comparison to the the superstars.
Back then, we thirsted for anything with a British accent or a Carnaby cut suit. And it’s hard not to like the smooth sounds of Gerry and The Pacemakers, Chad and Jeremy or Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits.


Some have aged pretty well and can still belt out the hits, like the Zombies whose “Time of the Season” and “She’s Not There” still sound authentic after years of radio overplay. Others, like Eric Burdon don’t have much left and the producers were forced to cut back and forth over a forty-year time warp, making the modern version even more painful to watch.

But it’s interesting how many songs have entered our culture in ways we did not expect. Is there anyone who can watch Manfred Mann reprise “Do Wah Diddy” without seeing Bill Murray leading the troops on a drill field?



And “Wild Thing” occupies space in everyone’s head after it sold five million copies in 1966 with what the RS Encyclopedia called “…a seminal garage-punk hit.” Has there ever been a high school dance without it? I did not remember that among its parodies, according to the RSE, was a version done by two actors: one imitating Everett Dirksen and the other Robert Kennedy.

I also did not know that Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde were from upper class backgrounds and attended Eton and the Sorbonne. They performed a forgettable song,
“Yesterday’s Gone” but it reminded me of one my favorite albums, “Of Cabbages and Kings,” their concept album released in 1967.

Denny Laine was there to remind us of what the Moody Blues were before becoming a super group and their hit, “Go Now” seems emblamatic of the British take on blues ballads. As he said, “There’s something about the 60’s music. It’s all coming back, all at once.”

For the most part, that’s a good thing because the music left from the British Invasion has aged better than the performers (with a few exceptions who were on hand to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.)

John had asked me if watching these old rockers made me feel old. In most cases not, because they bring back youthful memories. What did make me feel old was watching the old duffers in the audiences for the made-for-tv concerts. I guess I just don’t’ like to see graybeards (like myself) waving their hands and clapping for other old graybeards.

That feeling was driven home to me as I watched the wonderful mix of today’s Brits dancing and waving tiny Union Jacks as some giants paid their musical respects to Queen Elizabeth. “Isn’t She Beautiful?” from Stevie Wonder, “Momma Told Me Not To Come” from Tom Jones and Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” kept folks of all ages on their feet in a state of nostalgic exuberance.

Was there ever an EP four pack like the one that Paul McCartney delivered? “All My Lovin,’” “Let it Be,” “Live and Let Die” and “Obladi Obladah.” What a desert island disc. Life does go on.

One final note. The Queen didn’t let her hair down during the concert but she did take off her hat (her gloves remained on throughout the evening).

Old Guys Still Rock

Bob Dylan comes to Washington a couple of times a year, once to play a concert and once to pick up an award. This latest trip was for a Medal of Freedom award (the nation’s highest civilian honor) and the picture of the occasion stopped me in my tracks when I saw it on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. An African American President of the United States hanging a medal on the quintessential protest singer of the 1960s for his civil rights songs. SPIN magazine called the shot “amazing.” For me, it’s more like: “Never thought I would live to see the day.”

While the peripatetic troubadour continues his victory laps (Did you see the Life Magazine tribute issue in your grocery? Or see this exhibit in Paris? http://www.citedelamusique.fr/minisites/1203_dylan/index.aspx), he is one of many seniors still going strong. Last year was a good one for Paul Simon, Emmy Lou Harris, and Sir Paul McCartney. This year Bonnie Raitt is back with a new CD, as is Neil Young and even Tom Jones looked stellar performing at the Queen’s Jubilee concert.

Someone else going strong after sixty is Grandpa Elliott Small who is a New Orleans street singer catapulted to international fame when Mark Johnson took his cameras and audio recorders to the French Quarter several years ago. “Stand By Me” was first a hit for Ben E. King, then a popular movie and finally this viral video that put You Tube on the map.



The smash hit launched Playing for Change as a music business (CD’s, DVD’s and a film) a philanthropic foundation (music schools and programs in seven countries) and solo careers and group tours. Opening singer Roger Ridley died in 2005 but Small and others have kept the tradition and the music alive. The latest CD, “PFC #2,” is a blend of young and old voices and classic songs from “Try A Little Tenderness” to “Gimme Shelter” and “Imagine.”




Grandpa Elliott recently toured for PFC, performing along with Clarence Milton Bekker and Jason Tomba. Bekker’s solo album is called “Old Soul” and Grandpa’s is “Sugar Sweet.” One of their songs, called “Music is My Ammunition,“ includes the following lyrics:

Peace and dignity are not very far out of reach
It just comes down (it just comes down) to what I and I choose to teach
Truth and honesty will free our hearts
And free our minds (and free our minds)
So then our children can live together as one
Until the end of time.

Not a bad anthem for a foundation (playingforchange.com) whose motto is “Connecting the world through music.” That is certainly something to which both Bob and Barack can relate. By the way, the original "Stand By Me" video has recorded some 43 million hits and counting.