Stagger Lee Saturdays -- Jerry Lee Lewis and Dion

To round out a month of double Stag posts, here are two versions by early gods of rock and roll. Dion and Jerry Lee Lewis both exuded the rock and roll attitude early, about as early as anyone did. And they both really power through this song.

Dion (free of The Belmonts here) barks like a dog, and changes lyrics like crazy. ("It was the end!") Jerry Lee can't remember Lloyd Price's name, but he pounds the song out all the same, with classic "Killer" boogie-woogie piano.

Dion - Stagger Lee
Jerry Lee Lewis - Stagger Lee
Buy Dion -- Buy Jerry Lee Lewis

Cat Power

I've had a crush on Cat Power for a few years now. Last week, when I finally got to see her live (at the mostly-restored Tabernacle), that crush became full-blown love. I know this seems a little weird, and if Chan ever reads this I hope she understands, but her performance style is so open, so emotional and moving, I couldn't help but fall in love.

The show was dominated by songs recorded for her latest album, Jukebox. (By my count, 12 songs were from these sessions, though one, "Fortunate Son," has yet to see release -- I can't wait.) And so is this post:

"Aretha, Sing One For Me" is a cover of George Jackson's 1972 paean to the Queen of Soul, and expresses a lot of the emotion listeners can get out of, and put back into, music. Similarly, "Song to Bobby" (the only Cat Power original in this post, one of two on the album) expresses Chan's love and admiration for Robert Allen Zimmerman, and tells a story about the two. "She's Got You" is a Patsy Cline cover, a song which isn't on the album proper (but the deluxe edition is only $2 more, and the buy link goes there anyway). Finally, my favorite song on the album, "Silver Stallion," is about freedom and horses and hope and the future (a cover of Lee Clayton, though the song might be better known as by The Highwaymen).

Chan roamed the stage all night, and as there was only one row of people between me and her, I got a great view of the show. She sang directly to the audience all night, dancing, grooving on the band (who, incidentally, are great) and working off her nerves. She even sang directly to me for about a minute, and that's when I fell in love. After the concert was over, Chan came out, sans band, and tossed us all flowers, one by one, and made a point of pulling the setlists off the stage and throwing them into the audience too. The crowd was appreciative and loving (even before getting the flowers) and we were paid back tenfold with a great, heartfelt show.

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Buy from record label

Hayden

I saw Hayden (No. Nope. Uh-uh. That's the one!) live in Atlanta about ten days ago, and I haven't written about it yet. So here we go.

The opening band, Everest, were absolutely wonderful. I'm not giving you any of their songs, but this link to their MySpace page will let you stream six of their best. A few songs in, I was trying to think how to describe them, and came up with Wilco-influenced-by-Sweetheart-of-the-Rodeo. Then, their very next song was a note-perfect Byrdsian rendition of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere." (Sadly, I can't find a recording of this online anywhere.) The older gentleman at our table said seeing them was like being in California in 1969 -- in reference to their Neil Young influence. Atlanta LOVES Everest -- expect them to headline at a nice-sized venue on their next trip through.

And speaking of people Atlanta loves, there was a good crowd to see Hayden, over a hundred people. I was amazed, since he's not exactly well-known around here, and also darlings of the blogosphere Vampire Weekend were playing not 500 yards down the street.

(This picture isn't from the Atlanta show, but it gives you a good idea of the stage setup, and the enormous backdrop, which is a drawing of the room the new album was recorded in. Click to embiggen.)

Here are a few of the songs he played live for us, all of which I'm very fond of. I'm happy to say that he played "Lonely Security Guard", the tale of a security guard fond of origami, and I'm not too proud to admit that in my excitement, I went "whoo" a little. (It's not a song that gets a lot of "whoo"s, I'll bet.) He sang "Trees Lounge" pretty early on, early enough that I hoped (in vain) he might also sing "Bad As They Seem," the other song related to that film. Both outline the plot of the film, and the dilemma of its protagonist. "Hollywood Ending," with its singalong chorus, got a nice cheer from the audience (and my concert companion, who before the show was not a Hayden fan but was converted.) Some guy in the back requested "Woody" (a song about Hayden's cat -- the spoken intro is from his live album) which seemed to surprise Hayden no end, but he sang and played it anyway.

The show was incredible, and I could literally give you six more songs I loved his performance of, but I'll stop here for now. Tuesday, come back and you can read about how my crush on Cat Power turned into full-blown love at The Tabernacle.

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Stagger Lee Saturdays - Neil Diamond and Pat Boone

Well, it had to happen sometime. There are only so many versions of Stag out there, and some of them are bound to be bad. Today, we're listening to two of the worst.

First, Neil Diamond. I don't have much to say about this one, not even anything bad. This record just lies there, inert, with its "funky" organ licks DOA.

Now, let's discuss Pat Boone. Pat, have you heard Lloyd Price's record? (It's obvious your band has, but how about you?) Did you notice that it's about a cold-blooded killer? Why oh why did you beg Stag "don't be mean!"? I mean, seriously, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!? Asking Stagger Lee not to be mean is like asking the sun not to be hot, or the wind not to blow, or a river not to drown your sweetheart, when she waded in to commit suicide. And we all know how well that last one worked out for you. The reviewer at All Music Guide seems to think this particular recording is Pat Boone "at his rockin' and rollin' best." For shame. (The buy link today goes to used versions of this record. If you buy a new one, Pat Boone gets a little money, and "great googa mooga", I just can't have that. Not on my watch. )

Point your browser this way next Saturday for June's final Stagger Lee double post, with two GOOD versions.

Neil Diamond - Stagger Lee
Pat Boone - Stagger Lee
Buy via musicstack.com

Still around

I'm still here, folks, though I don't have a Multiple Monday post for you this week. I've attended two concerts in the last week, and I swear I'll post on them soon. Watch this space

Stagger Lee Saturdays: Ike and Tina Turner

Hi, folks. I saw Hayden live on Wednesday, but just haven't gotten around to posting anything about it. Stay tuned for that report.

This week's Stagger Lee post is also two songs, though they're both from Ike and Tina Turner.

In 1965, Ike and Tina released "Stagger Lee and Billy" as a single, though it didn't come out on any album I can find till a greatest hits collection. This version of Stag is... well, it's not really a version of Stag. It has virtually nothing to do with the song or the story or the tradition. With that said, I love the hell out of it. Here, Stag isn't a particularly bad man, and there are no guns fired. There are some chairs thrown, and Stag gets such a bad whuppin' his head "look[s] like a watermelon's overcoat."

It's virtually impossible to consider the lyrics of this song without considering Ike and Tina's disastrous marriage -- think of the rowdy bar as a metaphor for it, Tina trying frantically to hide and escape...

Ike and Tina also recorded a more traditional version of Stag, which as far as I can tell went unreleased until 1976, on a DIFFERENT greatest hits album. It's okay, I guess, but the 1965 recording is so far superior I don't listen to this one much at all. Just to keep us on our toes, Ike and Tina also released at least one live version, which I don't have and therefore am not uploading. (There's no one collection of their work which includes both versions, so the buy link goes to one with the far superior "...and Billy" song.)

Ike and Tina Turner - Stagger Lee and Billy
Ike and Tina Turner - Stagger Lee
Buy from Deep Discount -- Buy from Amazon

Multiple Mondays: I Put A Spell On You Volume Two

Volume One is here.

This is Volume Two of our Multiple Mondays collection of ever-so-many versions of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' voodoo classic. (I'll only post Volume Three if someone specifically requests it.) Volume Two focuses on rockin' garage band covers (except for the Joe Cocker version), almost all from the 1960s. I haven't made any effort to arrange these in chronological order, since most of them were recorded within about five years of each other, and I can't hear any evidence that any of them inspired any of the others in any significant way.

The Animals' version is from 1966, after Alan Price had left the group to follow his solo muse -- one of his hit singles was his version of this song, also released in 1966. This entry marks two Mondays in a row with a CCR recording -- I don't think there'll be one next week, though. (Again this week I've passed up the opportunity for dueling live covers from Fogerty and his ex-bandmates, though both of them are good.)

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Stagger Lee Saturdays - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Elvis!

Here's a combination of what may be my favorite rendition of Stag ever, with what is certainly one of my least favorites. They contain the same themes -- sex, cursing, and violence (which, granted, go well with singing about Stag) -- but the execution is quite different.

Nick Cave takes most of his lyrics from a 1967 transcription of Stag found in The Life: The Lore and Poetry of The Black Hustler. Elvis pulls his lyrics out of his, by this time, drug-addled brain. Cave's version is violent, and tough, and perverse. Elvis's is scatological and ... well, immature.

But what else do they have in common? Well, right now I'm reading Gershon Legman's Rationale of the Dirty Joke, and in the introduction, he mentions this style of humor (and even attribution to true-life people):

"[War comics and spy novels, like violent Italian pulp novels and folk-ballads]... do not present their materials as jokes or made-up stories at all, but as factual relations concerning the violent and insensate actions of real persons, generally named, and implied to be historical, such as Blackbeard and Rasputin.
What is suggested here is not that all these stories are necessarily true ... What is meant is that these stories and individuals do personify what the tellers and singers well know to be real but inexplicable peculiarities of human behavior, which they are attempting somehow to fit into a rational view of the world, whether as horror or as humor. [This process of making horror innocuous] represents an effective and time-tested folk method of dealing with the unbearable abnormalities of human conduct..."

In other words, when Stag tells a bartender to kiss his ass, and eludes the police through sheer badness, he helps us ameliorate our own fears and demons. (I'm not comfortable with what this means about Elvis's personal demons being exorcised in this performance, really, but I've always thought of him as a big goofy kid anyway.)

Next week, we hear the textually unrelated version by Ike and Tina Turner, another favorite version of mine.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Stagger Lee
Elvis Presley - Stagger Lee (live 6-29-74)
Buy from Amazon -- Buy from Deep Discount

Hayden - Lonely Security Guard

I've been listening to Canada's folk-pop singer Hayden for years now, ever since I first bought the soundtrack to Steve Buscemi's masterpiece of depressing, funny cinema, Trees Lounge. And I'll be seeing him live in Atlanta next week!

This is a track from his latest album, In Field & Town. It tells the story of a gentle, origami-folding security guard, and the narrator who -- punk that he is -- doesn't have much respect for the security guard. This is a simple song, tiny and intricate, much like a good work of origami, "so real it breathes." It doesn't deal with any bigger issues (except by inference) -- all it does is tell this tiny, sweet, wry story.

I don't shout out requests at live shows, for various reasons. But I'm considering shouting out "Lonely Security Guard!" next week.

Hayden - Lonely Security Guard is now part of the zip file here.
Buy from Hayden's preferred store, Maple Music

Multiple Mondays: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Gladys Knight and The Pips weren't the first people to record this song, but they were the first to release it. Their release was soon eclipsed by Marvin Gaye's recording (actually completed before the Knight recording), but both versions have inspired a lot of love... and a lot of covers. Here are some of the best.

Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers (who toured with Gladys & The Pips) do a cover, and then The Rustix (the first white band signed to Motown) does a cover. Then Creedence Clearwater Revival present their extended, eleven-minute workout of the song. (There also exist dueling live versions I haven't included here -- to keep it under ten versions -- from John Fogerty and from Creedence Clearwater Revisited, the band with the other two surviving members in it.)
We have a bluegrass cover (from the best ripoff bargain-bin album I ever bought, Pickin' on Creedence Clearwater Revival), and then Barrett Strong, the song's co-writer, tells us what it was like to write songs at Motown, and sings a great, stripped-down version.
Finally, we close with a remix of the Pips' version.

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Mashup: Eddie Cochran vs. Snoop Dogg

Eddie Cochran was a rockabilly singer and guitarist of the 1950s. Snoop is one of the preeminent rappers of the 90s and whatever it is we call this decade right now. What do they have in common? This here mashup.

This is an edit of Eddie Cochran's song "C'mon Everybody" with Snoop Dogg's song "Drop It Like It's Hot," as mixed by Norway's DJ Prince.