Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2014

Finally found a few hours to watch the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction show on HBO and saw the usual mix of moments we expect from high end awards shows: touching tributes, reminders of history and some controversy. Of course the icing on the cake is a lot of great music.

One of the surprises of the night was the high quality of the presenters. Each of them had insightful and heartfelt remembrances of how the performers had influenced them, the music world and our lives. Glenn Frey on how Linda Ronstadt created “country rock” and gave The Eagles their start.  Tom Morello on how KISS was more than just theatrics. Art Garfunkel on how Cat Stevens’ songs were “a fascinating creation of an evolving identity.”  Quest Love on how if you owned a radio in the 1970s and 80s “you got a full dose of Hall & Oates.” Bruce Springsteen offering chapter and verse about how The E Street Band was created: “The real bands are made from the neighborhoods, from a real time and a real place.” Michael Stipe on how Nirvana captured lightning in a bottle and set off a “howl” of protest for all the outsiders. Each one of these is worth reading or watching.

The music highlights began with the opening tribute for Linda Ronstadt which required a five-female salute to do her justice. As good as Carrie Underwood, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks covering Blue Bayou, It’s So Easy and When Will  I Be Loved, you were reminded that Linda made that magic all by herself.

Cat Stevens had the audience in the palm of his hand as he reprised his sweet ballads and one of the all-time break-up songs, “Wild World.”  At the other end of that love-sick spectrum came the still rocking Daryl Hall and John Oates, whose “She’s Gone” may be the most played song ever to hit top 40 radio.

Bruce, inducted 16 years ago, was pleased to even things up for the E-Streeters, “who told a story that was and is bigger than I ever could have told on my own.” They went  way back to perform Tenth Ave Freeze Out, E Street Shuffle and Kitty’s Back in Town.

David Grohl and Krist Novoselic were joined by Joan Jett for Smells Like Teen Spirit as part of the Nirvana set.

The controversy for the Cleveland-based Hall is over who gets in and who doesn’t (and when it happens). KISS has been the poster child for this unfairness after 40 years, 100 million albums and 28 gold records in the U.S. Linda was long overdue and Daryl Hall asked why they are the first and only Philly musicians to be inducted. “Why not Chubby Checker?” he asked, “The Twist is the biggest selling record of all time.” Novoselic asked why Jett was still not in.

Beside the In Memoriam segment, the sad notes came when family members were there to accept the awards for Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici and Curt Cobain.

The overstuffed telecast had its rewarding moments. Linda Ronstadt on Johnny Carson saying if she weren’t singing she would be milking cows or selling hot dogs because “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Steve Van Zandt’s acceptance speech: “For those of us whose religion is rock and roll, this is the one day a year we get to say Thanks.”

And finally the irony of the line that Cat Stevens wrote back in the early 70’s:
“Look at me. I am old. But I am happy.”

Fresh Breath of Bluegrass: Rebecca Frazier

We started the summer concert season with bit of history. The venue was a Naval Hospital on Capitol Hill built during the Civil War (and now restored as a community arts  facility called The Hill Center). The performer was a southern belle from Richmond who had just arrived from the bluegrass festival at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and the result was an exhilarating afternoon of roots and bluegrass music.

Rebecca Frazier is back on the road to support a CD released last year, When We Fall, which marked a return to performing after a break for child rearing and a personal tragedy, the loss of a son.  While that dark period inspired many of the  new songs including the title track, there is nothing mournful about her live show.

Frazier’s band, Hit & Run Bluegrass had been a fixture on the summer festival circuit, winning awards and fans, and earning her the distinction of being the first woman featured on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine. The current version of Hit & Run dresses like bank tellers but is as tight a bluegrass band as you can find. This is despite the addition of a mandolin player (Jared Walker) who graduated from college a week ago and fiddle player Christian Porter. Bass player Royal Masat and banjo player Kyle Tuttle were with the original band along with John Frazier, her husband, who is now off touring with his own group.

They could bring it with gusto on traditional songs, like “Mule Skinner Blues” or Rebecca’s hot rag, “40 Blues” and they handed the solos back and forth seamlessly. If there was a fault to be found, she often subsumed rather showcased her guitar work.

She can’t hide her song writing gifts behind the band, however, and her lyrics can move from thought provoking to haunting.

In my time I ain’t seen much

Try to walk soft but my feet still touch

God gave gravity to keep me down

Put an apple on the tree to turn my head around

Can you look past your sins

Can you win back your friends

Mirror, mirror on the wall, does it break when we fall

Her poignant ballads about loss and moving on (“I won’t darken your doorway any longer”) were leavened with up beat tunes that would have made Doc Watson and Earl and Bill take notice. Her publicity photos convey a mysterious, almost ghostly look. In person, she was more the friendly girl next door, looking for some folks to jam with.

Jesse Winchester

An old friend and I have been exchanging newspaper articles and notes about the passing of Jesse Winchester, whose career had mostly escaped me but whose songs have been deeply imprinted in my memory for years. Now that he is gone, at such a relatively young age, I regret not having gone looking for his albums and concert dates more assiduously. And it frustrates me that his life was altered, like so many of the Vietnam era generation, because of that tragic misadventure. Although he had said that fleeing to Canada in 1967 was what created him as a musician, it must have been difficult not to be able to return to his native South or perform and record with peers in the United States until President Carter’s pardon in 1977.

Like so many others, I knew his music long before I knew him.  It was Joan Baez who introduced me to "Brand New Tennessee Waltz" on her 1971 double-album classic, Blessed Are. It is hard to believe (as Elvis Costello said on the Sundance channel) that this was his first song.

I’ve a sadness too sad to be true

But I left Tennessee in a hurry dear

The same way that I’m leaving you.

Then it was Ian Matthews who covered "Biloxi" on his 1974 album, Some Days You Eat The Bear, which I heard long before Jimmy Buffet’s hit version.

Stars can see Biloxi

Stars can find their faces in the sea

We are walking down beside the ocean

We are splashing naked in the water

And the sky is red from off toward New Orleans

Four years later, Emmy Lou Harris got me with "Defying Gravity" on Quarter Moon in Ten Cent Town.

I live on a big round ball

I never do dream that I’ll fall

But even the day that I do

I jump off and smile back at you

While it is tempting to think that Jesse was more song writer than singer, how many people would have done this gospel number a capella with Bonnie Raitt and Emmy Lou singing backup? Bonnie posted on it her Facebook page as a tribute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvKEuhcTz6w

I am sure there are more covers to be found in my collection and I am off to the record store in search of Jesse’s albums to hear his take on his songs.  It seems as if he wrote his epitaph at the beginning.

At the brand new Tennessee Waltz

You’re literally waltzing on air;

At the brand new Tennessee Waltz

There ain’t no telling who will be there.

New Takes on Old Songs

I waited to watch the Showtime special Another Time, Another Day until after I had seen the movie that motivated the concert, Inside Llewin Davis so I would not be disappointed (as in reading a book after seeing the movie). I should not have waited. The movie pales compared to the concert put together in New York City to promote the film

and showcase the era.

The concert was fresh and uplifting with energetic performances. The movie was dour and plodding seemed an endless loop of struggling young artists in the early 1960s. The concert showcased the timeless virtue of classic songs like, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” “Midnight Special,” and “Which Side Are You On?” The movie used a cat and couch hopping for a plot. It’s hard to believe both were produced by the Coen brothers.  Maybe the difference was T Bone Burnett who clearly ran the music show.

As in the old stock broker commercial, when T Bone talks, everybody listens (and shows up for the gig). When one of The Milk Carton Kids explains that if Burnett calls, it’s a no-brainer to come quickly, the other pipes up, “Yeah and I am going over to mow his lawn next week.”

The television show was taped over several days in a knotty pine recording studio, before an audience  at New York’s Town Hall and in the basement of the concert hall where the artists warmed up in the tunnels or did on camera interviews. Burnett wandered around the rehearsals like an eminence grise, saying little and carrying what looks like a fat stick of burning incense. Like the Archbishop from Avignon, he occasionally blesses a group’s choice of song or instrument.

The behind the scenes takes offer some fun and insights and evoke the early sixties sense of community.  As Chris Thile of the Punch Brothers put it, “we wanted to create an experience that could be found around a campfire and for the folk movement in the 60s,  downtown New York was America’s campfire.”

Some minor moments are memorable. Jack Ashford doing an all-too-short riff on his tambourine.  Marcus Mumford taping a Kleenex box to a wooden stool, which he played with drum brushes for a song with Joan Baez. (“I had never heard of the song when she asked but she’s f---- Joan Baez).  It seems every group had a member playing upright bass, including a chrome-plated one in Jack White’s group.

Of course there were flaws. Lots of big names did not make the final cut for Showtime, perhaps to give more time to younger, more bankable groups like Mumford & Sons, Punch Brothers and the Avets. And although it was fun to see the songs segue seamlessly from rehearsal to stage, often the rougher practice sessions got more airtime than the polished show.

Still there were plenty of nice suprises...David Rawlings, Willie Watson and Gillian Welch on “Midnight Special.”  A Boston pop group called Lake Street Dive. Oscar Isaac (without the long hair) doing a very sharp solo of “Green, Green Rocky Road.” And the Punch Brothers (with Marcus Mumford) doing some great a capella songs, including a version of “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” that sent me to the basement in search of my Sons of the Pioneers album.

Hear Americana Singing

Just before Beatles fatigue set in, I happened across a PBS special aimed at trying to describe how the latest trends in music are evolving into a style known as “Americana.”  While not a rigorous study in ethnomusicology, Nashville 2.0/ The Rise of Americana is a fun showcase of some old legends, new stars and rising newcomers. No one is sure what Americana is exactly but they know it has traces, influences and sounds from country, blues, folk, rock, roots, Cajun, gospel, bluegrass, rockabilly, etc. In other words, a lot of bands, as one observer says, “have no misplaced loyalty to one genre.”

Regardless of definitions and categories, the idea of a big music tent, pitched on the banks of the Cumberland River makes for interesting musical comparisons. The old guard is represented by Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale, Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash and Billy Bragg who are often talking about new kids they like.  For Buddy it means inviting Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires into his home studio for a recording session.

Some of the bands are already known and honored including The Mavericks, The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, and The Civil Wars. Others were new to me. The Honorable South plays what it calls, “electronic soul rock and roll.” Shovels & Rope are a more traditional folk duo. The Lone Bellow has a wonderful three-part harmony. The Milk Carton Kids are described by Billy Bragg as if “somebody crossed the Louvin Brothers with Simon and Garfunkel.” Two groups demonstrate the melting pot of American music with their personnel alone: The Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Alabama Shakes.

The program pays tribute to Emmylou as the “Godmother” of Americana music, starting with Gram Parsons and tracking her evolution up to her newest collaboration with Rodney Crowell,  on Old Yellow Moon. Richard Thompson gets a similar kudo and his live performance of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is a highlight.

Like any survey course in college, the show is frustrating because it tries to cover so much in an hour. The performances seem too short and the experts seem a little pontifical with their history lessons that are pretty obvious to those who follow popular music. You want an entire hour with more than a dozen of the groups as they perform at the Ryman Auditorium or the SXSW festival in Austin. But a sampler broadens your horizons.

What’s in a name?  On another music show on PBS stations, The Sun Studio Sessions, I ran across a band from New Albany, Indiana called Houndmouth. They were asked about the name and explained that when they were recording at home, the barking dogs next door caused them problems. The audio engineer kept saying, “I think we’ll have to do another take, we got a little hound mouth on that one.”

Check your local TV listings for these shows or stream them on PBS.org

Bob Dylan's Movie History

Oscar season got me thinking about music and the movies and that led to my  favorite atypical Bob Dylan album, the soundtrack for Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, for some easy listening.

When it was first released in 1973, Dylan made news for his debut as an actor along with another singer-songwriter, Kris Kristofferson. Dylan didn’t turn any heads with his performance but Kris was propelled into Hollywood orbit as the reluctant hero/heartthrob. The critics panned the movie as less than stellar Sam Peckinpah.

With one exception, Dylan’s role in writing the unusual soundtrack for the film did not make a lot of waves, although it was nominated for a Grammy and a BAFTA award.

The exception was “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” which became a hit for him, reaching #12 on the Billboard charts. The song took on a classic life of its own when Eric Clapton covered it, Guns & Roses revived it and then gained a special poignance when Warren Zevon recorded it for his final album released just before his death.

What seems overlooked is the seminal role this soundtrack made in moving the film story along with both its music and the lyrics. Until then, movie music (other than musicals) was either background and theme music or, as in the case of American Grafitti used to provide counterpoint to the plot developments.

But Dylan and Peckinpah saw an opportunity to try something different. Use the music to set the tone and lay the ground work for the back story but also to interpret events and drive the action.  It is some of Dylan’s must entertaining music.

How’s this for a setup that captures the story (we all know by heart) and the dilemma of the outlaw:

There’s guns across the river aiming at you

Lawmen on your trail they’d like to catch ya

Bounty hunters too they’d like to get ya

Billy they don’t like you to be so free

And of course, nothing captures the last moments of consciousness like these lyrics: 

Mama put my guns in the ground

I can’t shoot them anymore

That long black cloud is coming down

I feel like I’m knockin on heaven’s door

The movie is the sort of grade B western that I like watch again to see how Peckinpah directs and to enjoy James Coburn along with western actors like Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam and Katy Jurado.

The album sounds great after forty years because Dylan’s voice is young and mellow and he works with the best musicians: Booker T, Russ Kunkel (exquisite bongos on “Cantina Theme”) Jim Keltner and Roger McGuinn.

Today you cannot go to a movie without a soundtrack of rock and pop songs that are used to describe characters' moods or situations while they jog, drive or stare into the distance.

Many of those songs are Dylan’s. IMDB lists 439 audio credits for him and he won an Oscar for "Things Have Changed in 2001 from Wonder Boys. And some movies have created standout albums that capture good musical history (Big Chill, The Blues Brothers, Forest Gump.)  

But as we wade through another awards season, don't forget this turning point in movie music from Dylan.

There’s always one more notch and four more aces

Billy you’re playing all alone

Tributes: From Billy Joel to Phil Everly

One of the pleasures of the holiday season is seeing honors for music legends and going over best of the year lists that open doors to new music and tribute albums. Here’s a brief survey.

HBO’s wonderful tribute to Stephen Sondheim, Six By Sondheim, directed by James Lapine, combines the best of traditional documentary interviews and music clips to take us from “West Side Story” through “Sundays in the Park with George.” The kinescopes from Broadway stage shows contained come vintage performances, like Mandy Patinkin as Georges Seurat. 

The interviews with Sondheim showcased his take on the creative process and his reverence for those who influenced him including personal mentor Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern and Hal Prince. It seemed unusual that such a giant (eight Tonys, eight Grammys, a Pulitzer, an Academy Award) could be so reflective and articulate about music and writing.

At the Kennedy Center (where I first heard “Send in the Clowns”) the musical honors also included some wonderful documentary footage as well as some lushly produced performances by stars paying tribute to legends. On hand to salute Herbie Hancock (“the hippest guy in the room”) was Snoop Dog and his diamond studded mic holder along with combos led by Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter. Harry Belafonte and Buddy Guy were there for Carlos Santana. Tony Bennett set up the biography of Billy Joel and then some big guns weighed in on his classics, including Don Henley, Garth Brooks and Rufus Wainwright. They performed in front of a stage-to-ceiling keyboard and closed the show with “Piano Man” before a standing, singing audience. It’s hard to find a comparable case where a signature song that became a classic anthem also mirrored the life of its creator.

Finally Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone and Bob Edwards of XM radio tipped me to two tribute albums worth purchasing.  The first is Sing Me The Songs: Celebrating the Work of Kate McGarrigle. Performing the songs of the late Canadian artist (“Heart Like A Wheel”) are her children, Martha and Rufus Wainwright, her sister, Anna, Emmy Lou Harris and Norah Jones.

Jones is also one half  of the duo in a cover album of songs by the Everly Brothers with Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong.  Those sibling harmonies that hooked us all as teenagers and influenced a generation of rockers get a much-deserved spotlight on For Everly. It is nice to know Phil got to hear it before he passed away this week.