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global reach

"Forever the King," from the newspaper "Hoy (Today)," Dominican Republic (via Huffington Post)

Global Pop: Finding Michael Jackson in Albania

Here's a small Michael Jackson story to place upon on the pile, one that illustrates the global reach and power of pop music.

Albania existed in totalitarian isolation from the rest of Europe for four decades. It broke with the Soviet Union during Kruschev's de-Stalinization reforms because its dictator, Enver Hoxha, liked Stalinism. Its only ally from that point forward was Maoist China, but even that relationship was severed after the fall of the Gang of Four and the death of Mao. It was illegal to even own a car there.

Like North Korea today, Albani was a closed country that allowed almost no foreigners in and let even fewer citizens out. Even listening to foreign media broadcasts was a crime. I arrived there in 1991 as one of the first wave of outside consultants sent there to help with reforms. People had already made improvised "cars" by welding windows onto the fronts of tractors. Saudi Arabian Wahhabi evangelists had already installed a loudspeaker and a muezzin at the local mosque, which had been unused for forty years. Although the government sent me to help with health care financing, it quickly became clear that they needed food and medical supplies far more urgently than they needed economic restructuring.

My host and translator was a warm and gracious physician who had learned his English by covertly listening to the BBC. He had been turned in once by a neighbor who heard the sound of English-language radio, and had spent a terrified day at secret police headquarters before being set free with a warning. The day I left for home I asked him what I could send him as a gift.

"Connie Francis records," he said. (Connie Francis, for those of you who don't remember, was a star from the pre-Beatles era whose big hits were "Lipstick On Your Collar" and "Where the Boys Are." )

Pop music's traces were faintly discernable elsewhere in the garrison country, too. When we walked into Tirana's only 'restaurant' - a barely-converted garage filled with card tables, folding chairs, and aid workers from everywhere in the world - Garth Brooks' voice was coming out of a boom box. And at a high-level diplomatic meeting some Albanians spoke of their country's best-known folk singer, saying that public use of English was so heavily forbidden that he had been given two years in prison for singing "Let It Be" at a folk festival.

"The last guy I heard singing it back home," I told them, "should have gotten five." They laughed - fortunately.

And when we went to see some remote medical clinics in the Sar Mountains, our car was stopped in remote villages by crowds curious to see a Westerner face-to-face. On one rock-filled road we were waved down by a gang of slightly-scary teenagers with dirty faces and rocks in their hands. When they saw me, the tallest boy - evidently the leader - reached into his pocket, pulled out a single glove, and put it on.   He tossed back the lock of hair that fell across his forehead, in a gesture common to tough kids everywhere.  There was a moment of silence.  Then ...

"Michael Jackson!" they screamed. "Michael Jackson!" The doctor translated for me as they kept talking. "They want to know if you know Michael," he said. I didn't. They let us pass.

I won't claim that Michael Jackson overthrew Albanian Communism. He never met Enver Hoxha in epic battle, although that picture on the cover of the History album made it look as if he had. I was in Prague when Vaclav Havel tried to make Frank Zappa a minister in his government, but I wouldn't say pop music overthrew Communism there, either. I'll say this, though: it didn't hurt.

Was Michael Jackson the first global pop star? Crowds in India mourned the death of country crooner Jim Reeves in 1964. And it took me a while to realize that the singer on an old African record called "Chimiraja," accompanied only by a loosely tuned guitar and someone banging on a Coke bottle, was actually singing about "Jimmie Rodgers," the "Singing Brakeman" of country music.

Jimmie Rodgers died in 1933.

Popular music has always been global. But Michael Jackson became a worldwide star in the first era to have satellite communications. People didn't just hear his music. They saw him. They experienced him - or at least an aspect of him. Michael Jackson broke barriers of race, language, and nationality. His private behavior had a strong impact on some people. But his music reached billions, and it did some good in the world.

In whatever court he may yet face, even if it's only the court of public opinion, surely that counts for something.

Dylan's New Album: It's a Passport Photo

Guess what? Bob Dylan's moved on. His albums aren't transformational events anymore. Nowadays they're celebrations and echoes of the everyday working lives of a dying generation of American roadhouse musicians -- bluesmen and Tex-Mex balladeers, country singers, rockabilly madmen and crooning would-be paramours.

But if you've been listening to his last few albums you already know that. Together Through Life just confirms it.

Nothing on this album is going to burden Dylan with that troublesome "genius" tag. But then, nobody ever called any one of the Five Royales a genius either. Or Freddy Fender. Or Billy the Kid Emerson. But they were greats, and that's the company Dylan's keeping now. In fact, it seems as if Dylan would've been happy being part of the musical generation that came immediately before him -- the ones who had no hope for any but the cheapest, tawdriest, and most fleeting kind of fame. They weren't celebrities, except in their own ghettos or barrios or streetcorners. They were conmen and convicts, idealists and killers, Italian drunks, Jewish pimps, and mestizo gamblers. They were dreamers and addicts and hustlers who did a little performing on the side and turned out to be brilliant at it.

They weren't people Charlie Rose wanted to interview, if you catch my drift.

Like Nashville Skyline, this album feels like another attempted jailbreak from celebrity. It makes you want to wish him good luck with it, too. I wonder what it says under "occupation" on Dylan's passport. Probably not "poet" or "legend" or "voice of a generation." I get the feeling that it says what he wants it to say: "Musician." Or better yet, "working musician." The man tours all the time.

The album's on track to be Number One (if that matters anymore.) And he's on the cover of Rolling Stone (ibid). But mostly, the album's just there. Putting out albums is what working musicians do, and Dylan seems to be most in his element when he's fulfilling those job duties. Dylan's albums haven't changed people since Nashville Skyline made people "go country." What a relief that must be for a musician.

Nowadays Dylan's music doesn't do - it just is. Take it or leave it. The songs can't be laden with unintended meanings. They're not paintings, they're photographs -- like those great black and white pictures by Milt Hinton or Marty Stuart, where one great musician artfully captures another. In fact, "My Wife's Home Town" is so Willie Dixon ("I Just Want to Make Love to You") that the late Willie gets a cowrite credit.

There's no "Ballad of a Thin Man" on this record, so if you're still looking for that after all these years you'll be disappointed. But then, if you go looking for Jackson Pollack and find Robert Frank you'll end up disappointed too. And you'll miss some brilliance.

If you're a Dylan fan you've probably already heard that David Hidalgo's accordion runs through the record. That makes people think "Tex Mex." Some of the record is Tex Mex, too, although there's a lot more blues than anything else (and the accordion on those tunes is more reminiscent of Clifton Chenier accompanying Lightnin' Hopkins than it is of Flaco Jimenez.)

The blues numbers have a Chess Records feel, except for that accordion, even down to the same mambo-style rhythm on "Beyond Here Lies Nothin'" that Chess used when they wanted a catchier and more danceable track. Here, producer Jack Frost (Dylan) goes for a brighter, clearer, punchier aural quality than those old Chess sides.

Dylan's still an archivist, and still a gentleman bandit too. "If You Ever Go To Houston" starts off as a light rewrite of "Midnight Special." That's okay: Working musicians are measured by the quality of the material they steal. But then again, can you steal an public-domain song? Dylan's simply continuing the folk evolutionary process. You can't sue for that. It would be like filing a copyright infringement case against the limbic brain. "Midnight Special"? What's more American than a prisoner's song that finds God's redemption on the headlight of a railroad train?

Speaking of Freddy Fender, it's too bad he's not around to cover "This Dream of You." There would be a sweet circularity in the Mexican Elvis singing this border-style ballad. And the words "nowhere café" echo a fairly obscure (and beautiful) Doc Pomus/Willy De Ville collaboration called "Just to Walk That Little Girl Home." That tune has a little Tex Mex in it, too. Maybe Willy will cut this song in Freddy's place.

"Life Is Hard" is an exception to the overall sound. It's a lovelorn ballad that might've been sung by Mabel Mercer in some long-gone cabaret. But then, "lovelorn" is a redundant adjective for these Dylan tunes. He's so perpetually out of love in this collection that it feels like Purgatory. He's looking at romance through a window, like a kid watching working musicians rehearse in a bar where he can't come in. He holds a woman now and then, but the way a lapsed Catholic holds a rosary.

The catchiest tune, "I Feel a Change Comin' On," kicks off with some swooping Rick Danko-style bass, one of the few echoes of The Band on this record. This one would be the "single," if singles still mattered. It's as close to a car radio song as we're going to get. And people who say Dylan's close-mouthed should take this kind of lyric more literally: "I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver and reading James Joyce." My guess is that's exactly what he was doing. (Hope it inspires more people to check out Billy Joe; he and I had a great talk a year or two ago.)

But what does it mean to say that this music just "is"? That's what all that original roadhouse music did: It just existed -- at least until all those college students started listening to it and writing dissertations about it. It was there to dance to, to get drunk to, to cry to... or to listen to if you really want. It's the kind of music that was once ubiquitous and unremarked upon -- in little record shops playing their hi-fi's on the city street, on transistor radios in the back seat, in the torn-up posters in the mouths of alleyways you don't dare enter, at the end of a barroom sweating under a few hot lights.

Okay -- but "is" it any good? Well, that all depends on what your definition of "is" is. The lyrics are brilliant, but in a sneaky kind of way. And nobody buys albums for the lyrics. There are no striking melodies, either, although Dylan's written far more of those than a lot of people recognize. It's not that kind of groove. It's everyday music, the poetry of the prosaic. If you want that other Dylan you're gonna need a time machine.

But it's a great album if you dig the Dylan of the last few decades, and if you love the music working musicians of his kind love. And else is going to sing "the door has closed forevermore/if indeed there ever was a door"? He's always been an underappreciated vocal genius, too, and now he's got the deconstructionist instrument to go with the stylings. The sound's not for everybody -- but then, neither was Furry Lewis.

The album won't change your life. But personally, my life doesn't need much changing. I didn't have to rush home to learn to play any of the tunes, either. But I know a lot of tunes already. It's like we were saying: These tunes are more like photographs than compositions. But maybe in the end they make up one big picture. And maybe it's not a work of art, but something more functional, like a passport photo of someone who's always on the road to the next gig. Somebody like Willie Dixon. Or Mabel Mercer. Or Bob Dylan.

A working musician.

it's like riding a bicycle. you never forget.

At the RIMS insurance festival ... I mean, conference.  I got off a cross-country flight and went to a corporate party.  A friend of mine had put a bar band together.  And he said they had "a guitar and amp for me."  So we did a set together.

Being in a bar band is a form of ministry, a chaplaincy to downtrodden and corporate-enslaved humanity.  It's a way to relieve human suffering with a few hours of release and enjoyment.  And even if it's not, it's fun.

You never forget how to do a bar band gig -- though if you don't practice your chops'll sure get rusty.   But, as with all symptoms of neurotic perfectionism, nobody else really notices.  And at the high moments you don't even care yourself as long as the feel is right.

Phil Spector and the Death of Madness Chic

(written for the Huffington Post)

Phil Spector was immortalized by Tom Wolfe as the "tycoon of teen" when he was 25. He'll turn 70 this year as a convicted murderer. Time, the great equalizer, has done more than bring Phil Spector down. It has sent him straight to hell.

Mick Brown described meeting Spector, who was wearing a talking wristwatch, in his biography Tearing Down the Wall of Sound:

Now, he said, he was trying to make his life "reasonable."

"I'm not ever going to be happy. Happiness isn't on. Because happiness is temporary. Unhappiness is temporary. Ecstasy is temporary. But being reasonable is an approach. And being with yourself. It's very difficult, very difficult to be reasonable." The wristwatch spoke: "It's six o'clock."

There was a time when that sort of dialog, resonant with undertones of meaning that aren't really there, was considered a mark of brilliance and not of incoherence. We know better now: The watch is making more sense than Phil. But back then insanity was considered dramatic, charismatic, and hip. Jim Morrison reigned, Brian Jones died, and college students in black leather repeated William Blake's line from The Proverbs of Heaven and Hell: "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."

Except that it doesn't usually lead anywhere near the Palace of Wisdom. It leads to Palace of Bloated and Incoherent Rock Stars, or to pointless self-indulgence. Or to death. And the line is from the hell portion of Blake's proverbs. It's time to end the era of Madness Chic.

Show of hands: Who wants to trade places with Amy Winehouse right now?

Phil Spector started his career in 1958 with a song whose title was lifted from a tombstone: "To Know Him Is To Love Him." Somehow he managed to become the leading (and maybe only) exemplar of the auteur theory of pop music production, where he - not the singer or songwriters - was the Artist. Ever alert to the Next Opportunity, he managed to survive the rise of self-contained acts by attaching himself to the biggest one of them all: The Beatles.

He produced some of the great rock records of all time. In response, the world was ready to indulge him in excesses of behavior that in anyone but a Star would have been recognized for what they were: symptoms of severe mental illness and some profoundly dangerous tendencies. But in that warped conflation of madness and hipness, people rolled the juicy stories around on their tongues: He pulled a gun on the Ramones! He attacked John Lennon!

He also produced those artists' worst albums - no surprise, since he was already on the downward slope to Hell. Leonard Cohen's worst album was a Spector production, too, and Spector's assault on Cohen also appears in the Brown biography:

Cohen would later recall how on one occasion in the studio Spector approached him with a bottle of Manischewitz in one hand and a pistol in the other, placed his arm around Cohen's shoulder, shoved the gun in his neck and said "Leonard, I love you." Cohen, with admirable aplomb, simply moved the barrel away, saying "I hope you do, Phil."

Great anecdote, as told by Cohen. But not such a great reality, especially in light of later events. While Cohen enjoys a triumphal return to the stage, his career apparently recovered from Spector collaborations like "Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On," Spector has reached the last stop on the road to excess.

Spector had the money and the fame to resist medical and legal interventions when they might have saved Lana Clarkson and kept him from his unfolding fate. And, since he seemed so glamorously fucked-up, he also had swarms of admirers who appreciated his sickness for the stories it allowed them to repeat and savor. I've been guilty of that myself. We were all, in the language of the day, his enablers.

But maybe we can make an agreement: No more glamorization of mental illness. Brian Wilson was a genius, but he also suffered terribly. Let's not use that for good copy anymore. Pete Doherty? A talented guy, but he's ruining his own life and probably others too. That Byronic thing of yours, Pete? It's been done. Get some help, friend. Warren Zevon turned back from that road when he saw that "it's not that pretty at all." You can, too.

These guys aren't killers in the making, but they ain't exactly well.

Besides, where did Madness Chic ever do for its fashion victims except enslave them to the unstoppable cruelty of time and decay? The jury rendered its verdict some time after 5 pm yesterday. Was Phil Spector wearing that talking watch in court? If so, it spoke some of the first words he would hear as a convicted killer facing his own kind of Hell:

"It's six o'clock."

Leonard Cohen Works For A Living

(Written for The Huffington Post)

Photo of 'the cat in the hat' by Lorca Cohen

Who would have guessed that Leonard Cohen was a contender for James Brown's title as The Hardest Working Man in Show Business? Cohen's Friday night appearance at L.A.'s Nokia Theater was a riveting three-hour music marathon, complete with wit, charm, and snippets of poetry that mesmerized the crowd.

This was no victory lap. At 74, Leonard Cohen works for his living. Cohen, emerging from financial trouble, might have tried a solo acoustic tour. Instead he spared no expense to bring a large group of stellar musicians and his own lighting and sound crew with him. That makes sense. Though he made his name in the sixties folk boom, Cohen's sensibility has always been more Jacques Brel than Jack Elliott. Professionalism, elegance, and discipline marked Friday's performance.

The set list was essentially unchanged from previous tour appearances. "The Future" came early, for example, drawing in the darkness that led Trent Reznor to remix it for "Natural Born Killers." So did "Bird On the Wire" and "Who By Fire." "Democracy" and "First We Take Manhattan" came later, as the crowd relaxed into its satisfaction.

Cohen rehearsed his band for an unusually long three months before taking them on the road. It showed. They seamlessly conveyed his internationalist blend of gypsy music, Strauss, and French cabaret. Even the stage patter's been repeated from town to town, but Cohen admirers want to hear what he has to say whether it's rehearsed or not.

And it still works, months into the tour: "I did my last concerts 14 years ago," Cohen will say. "I was 60 years old. Just a crazy kid with a dream ..." Or he'll mutter gravely: "They say hard times might be coming. (pause) Could be worse than Y2K ..." And he alludes to both his Zen Buddhist monkhood and his history of depression, saying that he tried the great philosophies and religions but "cheerfulness kept breaking through."

What about that voice? He may not have chops by any usual standard, but his deep and unadorned delivery was always impossible to ignore. If a corpse could sing it would sound like that. As the back-country folk might say, "it were a plain voice." But that droning plainness could often hypnotize, carrying a song in ways other voices could not.

And it's not plain anymore. His voice has found added depth and resonance, expanding downward to acquire what it has always lacked in breadth. Perhaps Cohen's years as a Zen monk included some okyo chanting, which calls on the singer to ground his voice in the earth beneath his or her feet. Whatever the source, his basso approached the subtonal on some notes, drawing enthusiastic shouts from the audience (especially the females).

There were no surprises, no covers of R&B obscurities or Webb Pierce hits. In fact there were no covers at all, unless you include Cohen's translation of the French Resistance song "La complainte du partisan." Covers aren't part of what he does.

Hats are, though. Cohen and his band wore hats and suits, and the hat has become part of the act. When a man buys his first good hat he's instructed on how to dent and crease it to make it his. Cohen's fedora was well-battered, as if it had been handed down from Fred Astaire via Rocky Marciano. And he brandished it like a scepter, doffing it to honor a soloing musician while bending on one knee.

"I'll wear an old man's mask for you," he injected in "I'm Your Man." And he did. The aging roué, dapper and at times almost frail in his gray suit and hat, is growing into his years like a character from a silent movie. At times he was almost Chaplinesque, at others like a refugee from a John Le Carré novel or a fifties-era Organization Man taking the commuter train from Greenwich. And sometimes the elegant Mr. Cohen looked like the CEO he is, the graying but increasingly-powerful head of an international music combine.

It's all calculated, of course, but most of us don't object to a seduction if the seducer's working hard enough.

The show was extremely generous by any standards, which may be another reflection of that Buddhist practice. Zen monasteries are austere places where monks are expected to work hard, be meticulous in their attention to detail, and never complain. And like any humble Zen priest, Cohen was careful to thank both the audience and his backstage workers with hat in hand.

Then there was the band: Sharon Robinson, cowriter of some of his best recent songs, chaired the vocal section with emotional texture and inner beauty, especially when she took the lead on "Boogie Street." The Webb Sisters provided choral richness and gave an exquisite rendition of one of Cohen's best tunes, "If It Be Your Will." (Usually it's a disappointment when backup singers do the star's material. Not in this case.)

The instrumentalists, all exceptional, were led by bassist Roscoe Beck. Neil Larsen was on keys, with Bob Metzger on guitar and pedal steel, Dino Soldo on winds, and Rafael Goyol on drums and percussion. Spanish instrumentalist Javier Mas gave the band an added dimension on guitar, bandurria, laud, and archilaud (variants of the oud).

The audience reception bordered on ecstatic, although it was hard to track their responses sometimes. A cheer for the line "I'm the little Jew who wrote the Bible" might be a tribute to Cohen. But there was also applause for "I don't trust my inner feelings/inner feelings come and go." That's L.A. for you. Go figure.

The young poet who wrote "Maria/please find me/I am almost thirty" is now almost seventy-five, still on the job and still delivering. Friday's performance was a triumphal return, and the tour shouldn't be missed. He might not be back for another 14 years.

(Additional tour dates for Leonard Cohen are here.)

'Detroit' Country Song Could Mean Rehab For Republicans

A couple of years ago some of us took Merle Haggard's rejection of the Bush Administration and the Iraq war as a sign that disaster was imminent for the GOP. A new country hit doesn't spell the same kind of doom for Obama and the Democrats - yet - but it reveals a vulnerability that they'd be foolish to ignore.

Country singer John Rich helped change the sound of country music as half of the duo "Big and Rich" ("Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy") and as part of the "Muzik Mafia" production team. He and his partners modernized country's soundwith hip-hop and modern rock textures while staying true to its rural roots. John Rich isn't the icon that Merle is, although he's a huge star in country circles. Nor is he an unpredictable "antipartisan" like the Hag. In fact, Rich is a committed Republican activist. While his "Raising McCain" theme song didn't exactly turn the tide for his candidate last year, he's found his voice now. Democrats should sit up and take notice.

"Shuttin' Detroit Down" is a strong tune with emotional appeal and a blunt message: "While they're livin' it up on Wall Street in that New York City town/here in the real world they're shutting Detroit down." The lyrics evoke images of homeless farmers and retired auto workers whose pensions plans are slashed "while the boss man takes his bonus pay and jets on out of town."

"I see all these big shots whining on my evening news,
About how they're losing billions and it's up to me and you
To come running to the rescue.

Well pardon me if I don't shed a tear.
their selling make believe and we don't buy that here."

Is the song playing on the same "us-vs-them" regional loyalties that Sarah Palin tried to tap in the last election? Absolutely. In the song's world, "DC" and "New York" are places of privilege while Detroit and the rest of the country are "real." But where Gov. Palin sounded strident and unsympathetic, John Rich comes across as warm and empathetic.

Why should the President and Congress take note of a hit country song? Because music can be a glimpse into the national psyche, even in this age of prefabricated pop and country. Because music can reshape the national psyche, by taking powerful emotions and channeling them for or against political parties. And because the Administration has been sounding a series of wrong notes where the bailout and the stimulus plan are concerned.

There are three ways the Administration's economic rescue plan could have been designed and presented, after all: as helping the economy, as aiding major financial institutions, or as helping bankers themselves. While the first would have been ideal, the Administration chose to target institutional bailouts rather than consumer rescue. And their reluctance to fire Wall Street executives, even after giving GM's chief the heave-ho, gives added weight to the perception that DC loves Wall Street fatcats.

It didn't help that agreements with AIG Financial executives were deemed sacrosanct by Geither and Co. even after union workers were forced to amend their contracts. Democrats might be frustrated by the idea that Republicans could benefit from the resulting frustration. After all, many GOP leaders spread anti-union misinformation in order to encourage the "shuttin' down" of Detroit. That led unlikely populist Dick Cheney to warn Republicans against becoming the Herbert Hoover Party.) But it's happened before.

So when John Rich argues that "they're bailing out them bankers," the Administration hasn't made it easy to argue with him. Maybe that's why he was able to recruit Mickey Rourke and notorious country music leftist Kris Kristofferson - bless his soul, that can't be easy - to act in the song's as-yet-unavailable video (there's a "lyrics video" out, which can be seen at the end of this post).

"Shuttin' Detroit Down" winds up sounding like a mash-up of "Okie From Muskogee" and "Roger and Me." Here's a idea for the next bailout song: In our world, the American worker is "too big to fail."

Ladies and gentlemen: In this corner, Mickey Rourke and Kris Kristofferson. In that corner, Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers (with his hundreds of thousands in speaking fees to Wall Street firms). Who do you think is going to win that bout?

Some of us keep waiting for the President and his team to summon their legendary communications skills and do a better job of selling their plan. We're still waiting. Overconfidence would be a grave mistake on their part. Sure, the President's approval numbers are still high - but not dazzlingly so when compared to other Presidents at this point in their terms.

"Shuttin' Detroit Down" gives voice to the growing perception that the Admininstration's plans favor wealthy investors over Mr. and Ms. Main Street America. The song points the way toward what could be called Rehab for Republicans. They've won elections before by posing as the party of the people with "calloused hands" who, per John Rich, "can't afford to die." They could do it again.

Democrats celebrated when President Obama won Indiana last year. "Shuttin' Detroit Down" is the opening shot in the next battle for Indiana, and all the other places just like it. The Democrats needs to show that they can win there again - and that they deserve to win there.

(originally written for The Huffington Post)

Best Concert Ever

When I did that best concerts ever list for Facebook, I forgot and left my BEST concert off: Jerry Lee Lewis at the London Palladium in 1970 (or thereabouts).   There was a riot between the Teddy Boys, who came to hear "Breathless" and "High School Confidential," and the working-class pub-drinking types there to hear his country stuff ("Another Place Another Time," "What Made Milwaukee Famous Made a Loser Out of Me," etc.)

An impossibly tall Ted with towering hair was there with his even more aggressive girlfriend.  They kept heckling Jerry Lee during the country numbers, running down the aisle past me screaming, "Hey, Jerry Lee!  Play 'Milk Shake Mademoiselle'!"  Finally a short, squat longshoreman type stood up, blocked their path, and said "That's Mr. Lewis to you!" while driving his fist straight up vertically into the Ted's chin.

Then it was on.

Chairs were being torn out and people were beating each other with them.  Debris was flying through the air. 200 bobbies came in, billy clubs swinging.   A Teddy Boy hit the girl with me (in his defense, she was screaming at him to sit the f**k down).  That left me honor-bound to take a swing at him.  Which I did, landing an ineffectual glancing blow.

He turned at me, eyes burning with hatred.  As he approached me, my fists raised in front of me in some pale imitation of a fighting stance, I was already picturing myself in the hospital with my jaw wired shut.  Just as he got within three feet of me and raised his arm to strike, two bobbies descended on him from either side.  They grabbed his arms and hauled him away.

At which point I wiped my hands together as if to say, "Took care of that one."

And all the while Jerry Lee kept boogieing on the piano with his left hand, twirling his pinky finger with his right, and muttering things like "wiggle it around just a little bit, honey.   Oooh, you know what I like ..."

Best.  Concert. Ever.

songwriters and scavengers

A great description of the songwriting process, from the Nick Lowe interview in Vanity Fair:

Up to that point, I hadn’t been writing songs very long and, like everybody else who starts out doing anything creative, you start off plundering your heroes’ style and catalogue. When you’ve exhausted that, you move on to somebody else and do the same thing with them, and the day comes when you’re rewriting your latest hero’s works, and you put in a little bit of the first guy’s thing that you ripped off, a middle eight, or a bridge, and as it goes on you include more and more of these bits and pieces that you’ve ripped off, until, suddenly, you haven’t ripped them off at all. They’ve actually become your style. And then all you need is a good idea. And then you really are in business. I remember having this idea—“What’s So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding”—and almost falling over in astonishment that I hadn’t heard this before, that it really was an original notion.

Pretty accurate, I think ... like a pack rat that wakes up one day and discovers that it's made something shiny of its own.

And this rings really true:

The whole songwriting process is very, very mysterious. Most songwriters don’t know how it works, and if they did, they’d do it nonstop. But you just can’t. You can try, but it’s generally not much good. It’s dissatisfying and it hurts, if you just keep doing it.

soul break: pp arnold

And now for something completely different.  Her appearance at the Inaugural Concert gave us an opportunity to honor Bettye LaVette,  who spent too many years in undeserved obscurity after "Let Me Down Easy."  

We now provide the same service for PP Arnold - former Ikette, signed by Jagger and Andrew Loog Oldham to their record label - and, like Bettye, a gem waiting to be rediscovered.  This is her European hit, "If You Think You're Groovy," written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces. (Hence the Britsoul chord progressions and feel ...)

The video of "Groovy" is from a 1967 French TV show.  If you weren't there in '67 (I was a kid, but I was watching) it may look Austin Powers-ish to you - that is, until PP starts to sing:

She's still around. 

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming ...