VINYL The Book

One of the best parts of the HBO series “Vinyl” is the opening credits in which the mechanical cutting of grooves and the pressing of wax records are presented in slow motion close-ups worthy of Stanley Kubrick. No matter how often I have watched that or read about the process, I could never quite fathom how sound goes from electronic recording to wax grooves and back to sound waves created by a stylus and a turntable.

Then again I never appreciated how that process had driven the art of making music until I found the coffee table history, VINYL The Art of Making Records by Mike Evans (Sterling  Publishing). It is both a labor of love and a thing of beauty created by Evans, who started in Liverpool’s Cavern Club as a musician and has produced more than sixty books on music, movies and fashion.

If this were only a collection of album covers, it would be illuminating.  David Bowie’s foreshadowing of his sexual persona on Diamond Dogs.  Frank Zappa’s send up of Sgt. Pepper on We’re Only It For The Money.  Alice Cooper’s School’s Out as a wooden school desk (with the disc wrapped in panties). Rolling Stones’s Sticky Fingers (they had to unzip the fly because it was scratching the vinyl during shipment).

Evans starts with Marconi and takes us to the gold plated “Sounds of Earth” attached to the Voyager space craft (Mozart and Chuck Berry on the A-side) and into the current vinyl revival symbolized by Jack White.  The book is organized by decades with sidebars that include eye-popping Turntable Treasures, segments on live albums and features on major music events.

It is fascinating to learn how the push for long playing discs (33 1/3 with some 40 minutes of playing time) was driven by record companies who wanted to release classical performances on something more convenient than a stack of 78s (about four minutes to a side).

The first concept album? In Evans' view it was from 1955: Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours.

The first double album? Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde.  The idea of four different canvases ignited a revolution in cover art while giving the musicians twice as much recording time.

Motown’s first chart topping LP?  The 12-Year-Old Genius, the first of many hits for Stevie Wonder.

Mixed in with the rich history of blues, rock, rap and punk is an endless supply of trivia. LL Cool J is short for Ladies Love Cool James. Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock, which Decca released in 1954, sold an estimated 25 million copies. Sgt. Pepper took 129 days to make and was one of the first albums to print all the song lyrics.

Opening this volume is like uncorking a bottle of Chateau Margaux. You can’t decide whether to devour it all once or savor it sip by sip.

Bonnie Raitt: Gypsy in Me

Bonnie Raitt’s audience is aging but she isn’t. Between songs before a sold out Kennedy Center Concert Hall this weekend, she joked about her past and expressed amazement at still having fun making music.

“When I started doing this at 21, I never thought I would still being doing it at 66. But then I never thought Donald Trump would be running for President.” To that, a fan shouted: “Bonnie for President.” It would have been a landslide.

Raitt’s nearly two-hour concert was a walk down memory lane with side trips to songs from her new album, “Dig In Deep.” Against a Hotel California set, she rocked, crooned, mourned lost loves, played the blues, celebrated gospel music and kept up a running commentary. Recalling she was last at the Kennedy Center for an honors tribute to Buddy Guy, she noted, “Definitely not a juke joint this place.”

Her greatest hits seemed as fresh as the DC Cherry blossoms (which she had toured earlier): Something To Talk About, Working on a Love Letter, Right Down the Line, and a nearly acoustic version of Angel from Montgomery that sent chills down your spine.

After doing a similar lament from her new album, Undone, written by Bonnie Bishop, she quipped, "It was a lot of pain there. But I have learned after all these years I don’t  have to live every lyric.”

Raitt is one of the few performers who can segue smoothly from Sippie Wallace’s, I’m A Mighty Tight Woman to a Zimbabwean spiritual, Help Me Lord I’ m Feeling Low.  Often her transitions are respectful memories of songwriters and performers. Or she has a statement to make: “Money and politics so pissed me off, I had to do this one: Ain’t Gonna Take It. Then Shake it, Shake it, Shakin, carried its anti-nuclear power plant refrain: “Oh it makes me tremble.”

Her bandmates, including George Marinelli on guitars, Mike Finnigan on Hammond B-3 and piano, James Hutchinson on bass and  Ricky Fataar on drums are so good they distract your eyes from the star. That is, until, you hear this rippling riff and you realize: Whoa, that’s coming from Bonnie’s bottleneck guitar, of which she is a master. After all, she explained,“I did learn from John Hammond.”

This area has become a favorite of hers, thanks to the boost she and groups like Little Feat got from progressive radio station WHFS. “In DC people came to see us whether we had a Grammy or not.”

Her encore set captured the conflict of her music and everyone’s emotional roller coaster. I Can’t Make You Love Me (which of course we did) followed by That’s Just Love Sneaking Up On You.  With that the Gypsy Lady was on back on the luxury bus for the summer tour.

Mick Jagger's "Vinyl" Valentine

When I started writing this blog five years ago, I had no idea that listening to music on vinyl was about to be catapulted from a thing of the past to a wave of the future. For me it was chance to wander through my record collection enjoying a few gems that had gathered too much dust while I went from cassettes to CDs. My trips down memory lane were prompted in part by a belief that the sixties and seventies were a golden age for rock and roll and the recent spate of books and movies about musicians and their music would seem to confirm that.

But I never expected that vinyl would become the mega-trend in music that it has. I have a relative who sells albums on the internet from Front Royal, Virginia. My friend John (who lives in Marin County...the Sun City for retired music people) sent me a story this week about the grand opening of a record store in Billings, Montana. The owner figured it was the only way he could clean out his basement with a clear conscience.

http://lastbestnews.com/site/2016/02/old-technology-aging-rockers-gather-at-new-vinyl-store/

Other friends have sent me stories about how the demand for vinyl records has brought the pressing machinery out of mothballs. The New York Times did a story on Luis Vuitton travel bags that included a box built specially for carrying LPs. Its profile of Sir Elton John reports that his vinyl collection has reached 3,000.

The next tidal wave in this trend will break on February 14 when HBO premieres a new series, "Vinyl," co produced by Mick Jagger, who has been working on the concept for more than a decade.

HBO is bringing out the big guns for this one. Martin Scorsese directed the two hour pilot episode and the show runner is Terence Winter who did "Boardwalk Empire" and produced for "The Sopranos." Set in the 1970s in New York City, the show promises, in the best HBO grittiness, to capture all the sex and money and drugs that went into fueling the rock and roll juggernaut.

No doubt there will be extensive analysis about how accurate this portrayal is; but it seems that HBO and its producers have made a major commitment to recreate the music of the era. The Times reports that there is a soundtrack album for each episode.

In other news about those rockers who came up in the '70s, the Indiana General Assembly (not usually known for its good works in recent years) has a bill pending to rename a section of Interstate 65 as "John Cougar Mellencamp Highway." The sixteen miles runs from Austin north to John's hometown of Seymour. The Indianapolis Star is sending a reporter to look for Little Pink Houses along the route.

Dylan, Elvis, Otis & Sam's Stories

If I am finally too old to rock and roll (at least without risking major joint replacement), I can still celebrate the glories of musical yester-years thanks to the printed word. If 2015 is not the year of the book in music, it comes close. It might be easier to list the aging rocker who has not had a biography published than it is to itemize the new ones.

Recent arrivals have come from Tom Jones, Carrie Brownstein, Chrissie Hynde, Carly Simon, Tom Petty, Kim Gordon and Elvis Costello. Patti Smith has three volumes in rotation: Her award-winning memoir, “Just Kids,” a book of collected lyrics and a new personal history, “M Train.”

Dylan gets this year’s prize for the biggest volume. “Bob Dylan: All The Songs” by Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guersdon may be the definitive encyclopedia (the story behind every song) but you will need to build a bigger coffee table to support it.

 It follows others this year, “Dylan goes Electric,” “61 Highways Revisited” (the albums), “Dylan Disc by Disc” and “Time Out of Mind.”

 If you are a fan, there is a book for you that adds some history and certainly extends the brand, if not the musical repertoire. I have a couple on my to-read list for the New Year. One is Mark Ribowsky’s biography of Otis Redding, “Dreams To Remember” with a chewy subtitle: Otis Redding, Stax Records and the Transformation of Southern Soul . Next is a holdover from last year, the strange saga of “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story” by Rick Bragg.

Topping the list is Peter Guarlnick’s latest with what may be the most presumptuous title ever. “Sam Philips: The Man Who Invented Rock and Roll.” But wait, there is more: “And how he discovered Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and how his tiny label, Sun Records of Memphis, revolutionized the world.” Not many besides Guarlnick can make that stick but from what I have heard (NPR’s Fresh Air) and read (The New Yorker), he has the interviews and anecdotes to back it up. What’s even better is the book comes with a companion CD so he’s put his spin on which of these classic songs were lighting the fires of music revolution.

Finally the other eminent historian of this genre, Greil Marcus, issued a two-pack this year: On the 40^th anniversary of the classic “Mystery Train,” he has a new edition. That was followed by the paperback release of “The History of Rock & Roll in Ten Songs.”

It’s nice to have a New Year’s Dilemma: Do I read?  Or listen?

Ricky Skaggs' & Ry Cooder's Master Class

On their current tour these virtuosos have taken on new roles: Master Gardeners charged with preserving and protecting American Roots Music.  All their years of laboring in the  vineyards of country, bluegrass, and gospel have produced a vintage sound that was on display at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA this week.

A set list that began with the Louvin Brothers’ The Family Who Prays  and ended with the Stanley Brothers’ Over in Gloryland might have foreshadowed a fire and brimstone tent revival. And at one point Ricky looked across the stage and asked “Ry, when you were growing up in Santa Monica did you think you’d end up playing bass in a gospel quartet?”  “Yes I did,” Cooder deadpanned.

But there was too much fun to be had on this trip down memory lane for anyone to feel pressured into baptism.  As they played and sang, it became clear that the longing for love and the need for spiritual sustenance are only separated by a few chords and a chorus.

They moved from Merle Travis (Sweet Temptation) to Hank Williams (Mansion on the Hill) to Stanley Brothers (Cold Jordan) effortlessly as changing guitars.

At one point, Cooder picked up what he called “a 100 lb guitar” that he had never played on stage before. The result was a rollicking duet with Skaggs’ mandolin on  Hold Whatcha Got with the audience singing along to the chorus:

Don’t sell the house, don’t wreck the car

Stay there, honey, right where you are

Hold whatcha got, I’m coming home to stay.

Cooder was similarly self-effacing when he strapped on a banjo that he said once belonged to Mike Seger and that he learned how to play it by watching You Tube videos.

Skaggs, his wife Sharon White, and Ry often suggested the audience turn to You Tube to hear the originals of the songwriters they were highlighting.

The legacies of Hank Snow (Now and Then There’s a Fool Such as I) and Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs (Gone Home) are in good hands as these ‘young’ legends add their own lustrous versions to the country-gospel canon.

Rounding out the troupe was Sharon’s sister Cheryl on vocals, her father, 84-year-old Buck, on piano, Mark Fain on bass and Ry’s son, Joaquin Cooder, on drums.

When the road is called up yonder this band will be ready.

As for me, I heard the spirit listening to Ry Cooder’s solo intro to Tennessee Waltz. It is still ringing in my ears.

Beatles, Stones & Dylan in 1965

There are many ways to slice and dice music history. Andrew Grant Jackson does it by zeroing in on one year in his new book, 1965 The Most Revolutionary Year in Music. While some might counter that the Summer of Love or the first wave of Beatlemania were bigger, Brown lays out a convincing case.

The year began with Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, The Temptations’ My Girl and The Beach Boys Pet Sounds. It ended with the Beatles Rubber Soul.  Along the way, The Stones came up with Satisfaction, Otis Redding asked for Respect, James Brown announced Poppa’s Got a Brand New Bag,  and the Mommas and Poppas beguiled us with California Dreaming.  And that’s just for starters.

Throw in The Byrds, The Kinks, The Who, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Animals, The Velvet Underground, Wilson Pickett, Barry McGuire,  Simon and Garfunkel and even a Sinatra comeback.

Fueling the creativity was the roller coaster of politics and violence of 1965: The assassination of Malcom X, Selma, the swelling tide of American troops going to Vietnam, Watts, Medicare and the Voting Rights Act.

Jackson has done his research (he has written two books about the Beatles) and has footnotes for every anecdote in this tapestry of exquisite rock and roll trivia. Here are a few examples.

--Stephen Stills flunked his audition for The Monkees TV show but recommended his friend, Peter Tork.

--Roger McGuinn discovered the Byrds’ signature 12-string sound after seeing George Harrison playing a Rickenbacker in Hard Days Night.

--Animals manager Mickie Most flew to New York to buy Brill Building songs from Don Kirshner, including “We Gotta Get Outta This Place” and “It’s My Life.” He passed on “Kicks,” which went to Paul Revere and The Raiders.

--Dylan road manager Bobby Neuwirth to Carole King: “You’re the chick who writes songs for bubblegum wrappers, right?”

There are also funny scenes such as Dylan turning the Beatles on to pot in a New York Hotel room  and how Johnny Cash started a 500 acre forest fire in California that cost him $82,000 fines for scattering 44 Condors.

Best of all is the way Jackson traces the creative process of the song writers and their times.  He devotes a chapter to how Satisfaction started with Keith Richards’ midnight guitar riff, evolved by a pool in Florida, went from folk song to rock during sessions in Chicago and LA and was completed when a roadie offered a fuzz distortion box to the band.

The result in Jackson’s words was how “…the Stones found their golden formula, mixing the beat of Motown, the lyrics of Dylan and Berry and the novelty of new technology to synthesize their own style of R&B/pop/rock.”

Jackson also documents how the sting of being booed at the Newport Folk Festival and the subsequent harassment drove Dylan into the studio where in three days he created Highway 61 Revisited. That escalated the music competition toward year’s end when Brian Wilson declared (after first hearing Norwegian Wood on his car radio), “We gotta beat the Beatles.”  Many people think he did, with his next album, “Pet Sounds.”

Jackson Browne Quiet Superstar

Jackson Browne cuts a wide swath when he walks into town.  He plants one foot on the neck of today’s politicians and the other firmly in the romantic nostalgia of the 1970’s. He wears his progressive anti-war, eco-progressivism on one sleeve and his St. Augustine introspection on the other. Tying all this together is his timeless gift for melding music and lyrics in ways that beguile and provoke and strike emotional nerves.

Whether it is now (why so many live in poverty and others live as kings ) or then (longing for the legal tender), Browne moved seamlessly from his latest work on Standing In The Breach to his classic The Pretender throughout the evening.

The upscale audience was sitting on their hands until he moved to the piano and went to the first greatest hits segment. He woke them up with These Days and For Everyman  and after a dash back to the present with You Know The Night, it was into the vault with For  A Dancer and Fountain of Sorrow.

At the midpoint of a US tour, Browne’s band was tight as a tick and the lighting cues were faster than I could move my binoculars: Bob Glaub on bass, Mauricio Lewak on Drums. Jeff Young on Hammond organ and piano, Greg Leisz on lap/pedal steels and guitar (a 12-string for a Byrds tribute song) and Val McCallum,whose riffs on any one of his eight guitars would have been worth the price of admission.

This group gave Browne’s songs a distinctly country sound compared to his earlier studio albums and that reinforced the everyman images that his writing evokes.

Browne looks (and sounds) as if he stepped out of the 70s although his voice is deeper.  But he remains unaffected by fame (and 18 million albums sold), chatting with the audience about how he came to write songs like Winslow or how much he liked the venue: ‘This is a very special place to hear music, you can hear a pin drop.” It felt like he dropped into your living room to play a few songs.

His wry new take on life in Long Way Round (from “Breach”) echoed much of his more familiar work:

Now I’m a long way gone

Down this wild road I’m on

It’s going to take me where I’m bound

But it’s the long way around.

The segue to These Days defied the passage of so many decades

These days I sit on corner stones

And count my time in quarter tones to ten, my friend

Don’t confront me with my failures

I have not forgotten them.

The second set was just as strong a mix of the old and the new. The audience was on its feet for The Pretender and then drowning him out on the chorus of Running on Empty.

It is reassuring to see that Jackson Browne still has a tank full of high test emotions and that his songs still hold up a mirror up to our generation.

I’ve been aware of the time going by

They say in the end, it’s the blink of an eye

And when the morning light comes streaming in

You’ll get up and do it again

Amen