The Sound of the City

I mentioned on Facebook recently that I had started reading “The Sound of the City“, a book about popular music in the last half of the 20th century written by Charlie Gillett, the  UK musicologist/writer/broadcaster.

It really was a pioneering work, at least in its first edition, published in 1970. In it, Gillett maintined that “real” rock’n’roll, ie the American kind that grew out of R’n”B, had expired sometime around 1960. He conveniently manages to ignore such minor details as Sha Na Na’s appearance at Woodstock, an occurence that would seem to suggest that the music wasn’t quite as dead as his neat categorizations would suggest.

However, now reading the 3rd edition (1995, I believe), Mr. Gillett’s work  has some shortcomings that cannot be ignored. First, his undeniable need to lecture.  Comtemporary accounts of the period about which he is writing are haphazard at best. There is darn near a disputable “fact” on every page, but Gillett would have you believe that his work is somehow Divine gospel. For an example off the page I just happen to be currently reading, he misses the now commonly-accepted fact that Ike Turner wrote “Rocket 88”.

Second the style is dry as stale toast.  There is little anecdotal account, almost no quotation, just Mr. Gillett droning on and on. In this respect, I  would contrast it with Michael Lewis‘ “Moneyball“, where Mr. Lewis makes a book about the importance of baseball statistics (!) read like a thriller.

Shake Rattle & Roll

Mark Lamarr has a second show on Radio 2 – a one-hour rock’n’roll only show called “Shake, Rattle & Roll“. Though he plays more vocal groups than I would, there’s a ton  of good rockabilly, jump blues and other stuff that I really dig.

God’s Jukebox

Lamarr enjoys a cigarette and a 45

Looking for something new to listen to? I know I get to the point where I’m sick of all 4200 songs on my iPod every now and again, but where do you turn for fresh stuff? Certainly not over-the-air radio, where paranoia about losing market share has reached such epic proportions that it seems like there’s a format change every 48 hours, trying to chase the blandest, most soul-sucking music available.

While I have found some relief with satellite radio (most notably Little Steven), it’s really, really over-formatted, as well. So where does one turn?

Well, how about the BBC? Noted musicologist (& smartass) Mark Lamarr has a show on Radio 2 called “God’s Jukebox” that airs Saturday night 00:00-03:00 BST. The Beeb calls it “A curiosity box of music to whet your appetite, from gritty country to rousing gospel”, which comes nowhere close to doing it justice. Vast slabs of soul, blues, rock’n’roll, and Mr. Lamarr’s personal favourites, reggae & ska, are interspersed with gobs of relevant information about the artists’ life and times.

In the true BBC tradition of having the artists in, a featured (usuallly newly-minted) artist plays live in studio every week, bringing some of their own fave records to supplement their performance. Very cool.

The best part? Us on the other side of the pond can listen to the archived shows online for a week afterward. Guess what I’m doing this afternoon?

It’s remarkable…

..how you go through phases in your listening habits. Right now, I’m it seems like I’m listening to a lot of female singers – everyone from Bif Naked to Amy Winehouse to Etta James.

I just stumbled across another woman whose music  I really enjoy – Imelda May. She’s Irish, and has a lotta soul. No less a luminary than Jeff Beck  hired her to open his last UK tour, and made several cameo appearances with her and her excellent band.

Here’s a track off her new album – “Big Bad Handsome Man”

  

Hearing with new ears…

It’s funny how some things you’ve listened to your whole life, and yet have never heard them. This has become blindingly apparent to me in any number of cases as I grow older, but in the past year or so, a few things really stand out.

1) Les Paul. I’ve always thought of Les Paul as this sophisticated jazz/country guitarist, who was only peripherally connected with rock’n’roll, mostly through the technology required to record it. However, I was listening to he and Mary Ford on “How High the Moon” last night, and I realized that a lot of his slurs, bends and phrasing really did predate a lot of rock’n’roll playiing. When he wasn’t trying to dazzle everyone with hemidemisemiquavers, or the mystery of multitrack recording, he was probably the most “bluesy” white guitarist of the fifties, with the possible exceptions of Eddie Cochran and Scotty Moore, both of whom were both Paul disciples.

2) Dinah Washington and Otis Rush. Both vocalists I have listened to most of my life, both Ihaven’t heard until recently.

Dinah Washington

Dinah was the antithesis to the current (‘American Idol’) trend of stretching every syllable into “eee-uhhhh-eeeh-yuuhhh-eeeeh”. She had a fine, jazzy delivery, but cut every syllable and every word into precise, concise parts.

Otis Rush, although a noted guitarist,  has possibly the finest, most soulful (and most gospel-driven) delivery of any blues singer I have heard – powerful and dynamic.

3) Slim Gaillard. How perfect was it that Slim was Neal Cassady‘s favourite musician? Of course, we were all very familiar with Slim around the Crossley household, because of “Flat-Foot Floogey” and the “Groove Juice Special”. Dad still has those recordings of him with Bam Brown

Slim Gaillard.

somewhere in that collection of his. Bob Dylan played his version of “How High the Moon” on XM last night, and I almost fell off my chair. Being funny isn’t necessarily entertaining, but being entertaining doesn’t have to be serious(-orooney).

Pluggin’ your friends

 If you’re on Facebook, Rob & Mark, who used to do the old “Rock’n’Roll Connection” show on CFMU-FM, have a Facebook Group called, oddly enough, “Rock’n’Roll Connection“.

I strongly urge anyone who’s into Hamilton rock’n’roll to join. Or anyone who’s into rock’n’roll, period. I just threw up a post on the discussion boards called “Memories of Star Records“- feel free to add on.

XM

I got XM Satellite radio for Christmas (thanks, kid). My first great discovery on XM was last night, when I heard “Theme Time” with Bob Dylan on XM40 (Deep Tracks). Not surprisingly, Mr. D. has quite the extraordinary record collection, and puts together quite the show. When was the last time you heard the Kinks, the Chimes, Billie Holliday and Frank Sinatra on the same radio show? Oh, and Roy Orbison’s demo of “Claudette” (He stops in the middle ‘cos he can’t remember the verse/chorus sequence).

My personal faves were “Safronia B” by Calvin Boze and “Sweet Jennie Lou” by Gene Ammons, but if you know those tracks, and know what a huge Louis Jordan fan I am, you wouldn’t be surprised.