Multiple Mondays: Season of the Witch Volume Two

Here's a second helping of Donovan's atmospheric classic (click here to see Volume One).

In chronological order, here are ten versions. As always, I recommend the zip, but you can cherry pick. (I have many more versions, but they are mostly either terrible, or jambands, which -- sorry! -- tend to run together to me. If you wanna hear more, comment down below.)

Zipfile

Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger (1967) 1 2
Vanilla Fudge (1968) 1 2
Terry Reid (1968) 1 2
Pesky Gee! (1969) 1 2
Suck (1970) 1 2
Coupla Prog (1970) 1 2
Richard Thompson (2003) 1 2
David Gans and Bob Weir (live 2004) 1 2
The Strangelings (2007) 1 2
Blue Matter (2007) 1 2

Multiple Mondays: Season of the Witch

It's October, so here's another ten spooky recordings for ya. Donovan Leitch (official myspace wiki AMG) wrote and recorded "Season of the Witch" in 1966. It's a perfect, almost obligatory garage jam -- only two chords, with incredible atmosphere and a perfect skeleton to hang your own improvisations and musical ideas on. (I spent some time at archive.org this week, and downloaded 21 live versions from 21 different artists, which should give you an idea of the popularity among jam bands.)

The covers of this song started right away -- here we have The Little Boy Blues' take from 1967, and Sam Gopal's magnificently fuzzy, amped-up version from 1968 (via). The Dedikation (via) were a New Zealand group, and their 1969 cover has the tastiest organ licks this side of Al Kooper. Speaking of Mr. Kooper, we're also hearing his version with Steven Stills and Mike Bloomfield, from their 1968 Super Session album (featuring Donovan's drummer "Fast" Eddie Hoh).

G. Love and Special Sauce want to play you a representative jamband version, Lou Rawls adds his distinctive jazzy soul touch to the song, and Jenny DeVivo turns the song into a techie dance groove, complete with obscure audio samples.

Finally, we're going to hear two of my ten favorite covers of all time. Luna's take on this song has one of the five best openings of any pop song ever (someday I'll write a post with the entire list) -- this is one of the peppiest records ever, and my favorite version of this song.

Then, my final mention of Dr. John (previously 1 2 3) for a while: his dirty, funky, greasy voodoo take on the song is not only the best thing about Blues Brothers 2000, it's quite possibly the best thing any human being did in the entirety of 1998.

I have about 30 more versions of this song, almost all of them good, so if I get any requests I'd be more than happy to put up a second volume of this song. As usual, I recommend the zipfile, but you can cherrypick if you feel like it.

Zip file

Donovan 1 2
The Little Boy Blues 1 2
Sam Gopal 1 2
The Dedikation 1 2
Steven Stills, Mike Bloomfield, and Al Kooper 1 2
G. Love and Special Sauce 1 2
Lou Rawls 1 2
Jenny DeVivo 1 2
Luna 1 2
Dr. John and The Blues Brothers Band 1 2

Aye, Pirate Week: Thurl Ravenscroft's POTC LP

Ye come seekin' adventure and salty old pirates, eh? Sure, ye've come to the proper place. Aye, har be the final post o' Pirate Week. Forty-some years ago, the Disneyland ride Pirates O' The Caribbean opened. Soon after they called on our patron saint, Thurl Ra'enscroft, t' narrate a record tellin' the story o' the attraction. I posted that record on Thurl's birthday this year, and ye may find it har.

The flipside o' the record war a bunch o' sea shanties, performed by Thurl, which I done uploaded today. (Ye can see the back co'er o' the disc har.) If ye can only lis'en to one o' these, I heartily suggest "Asleep In The Deep," which be the deepest Thurl has e'er sung. This disc be long out o' print, so the buy link'll send ye to a used copy.

I hope t' do Pirate Week again next year, but until then, mark well my words, mateys: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

...Dead Men Tell No Tales...

1) A Life On The Ocean Waves m1 m2
2) Asleep In The Deep m1 m2
3) A Capital Ship m1 m2
4) Shenadoah m1 m2
5) Tarpaulin Jacket m1 m2

Buy from GEMM

Dr. John

Dr. John (previously here and here) is a N'awlins legend, who started his career as a voodoo hypnotist, turned mainstream funker, then a MOR standard jazz singer, and is currently a more political singer, whose albums include ties to all his previously visited styles.

I saw him in Atlanta two weeks ago, and he was desitively fan-tastic. Sadly, he held the opening slot, so I only got to see him play for a little over an hour (and also, no version of Stag), but he rocked my little world. (My concert companion, as is her wont, went in knowing little about him, but came out converted to fandom.)

Here are five of the songs I loved the most that night. Dr. John's version of "Saint James Infirmary" (like his version of "Goodnight Irene," which I haven't included here) is dirty and funky and swaggeringly rock-and-roll. His solo version (the studio cut includes Rickie Lee Jones) of "Makin' Whoopee" is outstandingly clean and crisp. Though, as it was played with his rock backup band, The Lower 911, it had a hefty backbeat to it as well.

Dr. John's only hit was "Right Place, Wrong Time," a funky 1973 confection that owes as much to its legendary NOLA producer, Allen Touissant, as it does to Mac himself. The live performance was an awful lot of fun -- we were all invited to stand up and dance, but the people waving their arms in the air at every "Whooo"? That was spontaneous.

My favorite Dr. John song is "I Walk On Guilded Splinters," from his first (and IMHO best) solo album, Gris Gris. Live, the rock band had to perform the backing vocals, and time has passed, so the live version didn't sound just like the record, but it was an excellent 8 minutes that also included an extended percussion-only break, along with a quick quote from "Danse Kalinda Da Boom," which pleased me no end.

After his scheduled onstage time was up, the audience refused to let Dr. John leave -- he played an encore of a song from his latest -- and angriest -- album, entitled The City That Care Forgot. "Save Our Wetlands," though it has an overtly enviro-political message, is as far from issue rock as you can get.

Sadly, I had to leave after the set, as I had to work. Dr. John's friends The Neville Brothers were the headliners (he's been working with them a lot lately). I haven't been able to find a review online anywhere, but if they had him return to the stage for a joint song, I'll kick myself all year.

I hadn't been to a live show in a long time (just click the "live shows" tag to see how long), and I'd forgotten how much fun live music is, how the bass kicks me in the belly and the crowd buoys me up. I need to get back in that habit. Thanks to Chris "CD" for prodding me to comb through concert listings for this show!

Dr. John - Saint James Infirmary
mirror 1 -- mirror 2

Dr. John and Rickie Lee Jones - Makin' Whoopee
mirror 1 -- mirror 2

Dr. John - Right Place, Wrong Time
mirror 1 -- mirror 2

Dr. John - I Walk On Guilded Splinters
mirror 1 -- mirror 2

Dr. John and Terrance Simien - Save Our Wetlands
mirror 1 -- mirror 2

Buy Gris Gris. Do it now.

Happy Birthday Thurl Ravenscroft!

Today is February 6, which would've been Thurl Ravenscroft's 95th birthday. Around here, we call it Saint Thurl's Day. (You'll recall, I'm sure, that Thurl is the patron saint of She'll Grow Back.)

You can find a LOT of Thurl's stuff here and here, thanks to WFMU and Bob Purse, but this post contains a few of the other things in my collection.

In keeping with the theme of covering Etta James and Janis Joplin, Thurl does one of each, sort of. (By the way, I was hoping this story would've been reported earlier, so I could link it from one of those two posts, but sometimes the AP just won't cooperate!)

First, he helps out whitebread pop singer Georgia Gibbs (who was no stranger to "whiting-out" R & B records, then getting big hits with them) cover Etta's "Roll With Me Henry (The Wallflower)". Next, he joins in with the Modern Barbershop Quartet to give us the tale of "Me and Bobby McGee." (I know, it's really a Kris Kristofferson song, and one Monday soon I've got about a dozen versions for you all.)

Finally, I've featured a lot of Thurl from The Haunted Mansion, but here he is, narrating the story of Pirates of the Caribbean, and singing on "Yo Ho A Pirate's Life For Me." He also plays more than half the voices here. (For some reason, the folks at Disneyland Records decided to rerecord almost all the vocal tracks from the ride, rather than just use the ones they already had in the can. Bonus: more Thurl per minute, or TPM as I call it.)

Happy birthday, Thurl!

Georgia Gibbs - Dance With Me Henry
The Modern Barbershop Quartet - Me and Bobby McGee
Thurl Ravenscroft - Pirates of the Caribbean LP

Multiple Mondays: Ball N' Chain

I usually tend to stay away from blues songs on Mondays: I spend so much time with "Stagger Lee", and so many blues songs have been recorded by literally hundreds of people. But apparently people loved the post with Janis covering Etta James, so I thought I'd let Etta return the favor, and while we're at it you can all learn about Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (Wiki).

Those of you who are rock geeks will already know that she recorded "Hound Dog" three years before Elvis, and you may even know that she helped write it (though she got no credit, and one royalty check for $500 in total). There is an excellent biography here though, sadly, I can't find a decent discography anywhere. (Even the usually-reliable AMG doesn't have any of her singles listed, not even "Hound Dog.") This wouldn't matter much, except there's a dearth of info online about how many times she recorded "Ball and Chain." Most places agree she wrote it in 1961 or so, but a few sites also claim she first recorded it then. The best discography I could find, with the most complete-appearing info, says she didn't record it till 1968. So until I get my hands on better info, I'm going to assume this version I'm giving you is the first studio recording she did. (The album this appeared on is mostly rerecordings of her earlier hits for another label. Boo hiss for rerecordings.)

Then, we'll hear from Ms. Janis Joplin (with Big Brother...), who heard Big Mama perform the song live in California in the mid-to-late 60's. (I chose the Cheap Thrills version solely for my own convenience, as I already have it here on the computer in digital form.)

Next, Etta James covers Janis's version, from an excellent 1997 blues tribute album to Janis. (This whole series, with collections of songs by Dylan, The Stones, etc, is extraordinarily good.)

Finally, we have Big Mama Thornton's final live performance of "Ball and Chain," recorded about three months before her death. (I ripped this MP3 from the video here.)

Big Mama Thornton
Big Brother and The Holding Company
Etta James
Big Mama Thornton (live)
Buy Thornton's 1968 recording from Amazon -- Buy from Deep Discount

Stagger Lee Saturdays: Wilson Pickett

Howdy, folks. I bet you thought I forgot about this blog. I'd almost decided to abandon it for good, but that didn't happen. (I've had a really busy month, but I've got a lot of great stuff stacked up here, just waiting to be posted, so hopefully I'll be back within a day or two.)

Anyway, here's Wilson Pickett's take on Stag. It's almost certainly the musical template for Ike and Tina's version. This is from his 1968 album I'm In Love and was recorded the same year as his killer cover of "Hey Jude." This recording features Bobby Womack on guitar and King Curtis on saxophone.

More soon, I swear.

Wilson Pickett - Stagger Lee
Buy from Amazon -- Buy from Deep Discount

Disney Day 4: A Trip To Yesterland

Howdy, folks. Here's some early Disneyland audio to round out our week of Disneyana MP3s.

First, you get to hear "Your Trip To Disneyland," a 1955 promotional record with a talking Tinkerbell, and some wrong-sounding Disney characters. You get to hear about some of the early attractions, and then presumably beg your parents nonstop till they take you there.

Then, our patron saint, the hallowed Thurl Ravenscroft, narrates a trip on The Jungle Cruise. This 1968 recording was paired with the audio from the then-new Enchanted Tiki Room attraction. Annnnnnd it contains the original, un-PC narration. Listen... if you dare. (Sadly, my favorite Jungle Cruise joke, "Schweitzer Falls, named of course after the famous Dr. Albert Falls," had apparently not been integrated into the script yet.)

Back tomorrow with the return of non-Disney music. (Why oh why haven't they had someone record Stagger Lee?!?)

Your Trip To Disneyland
Thurl Ravenscroft - The Jungle Cruise

Whoot! Bill Cosby - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

So here's my first blogpost inspired by a news story. That story being that Bill Cosby is finally releasing another musical album. (This new one will be his fifth by my count, and the first in over twenty years.)

Let's get something straight. I love Bill Cosby, as a standup. When I was a child, our family owned two of his albums, and my brother and I practically memorized them. (That's nutrition!)

And from what I can tell, the man has excellent musical taste, with an eclectic love for funk and soul and jazz and blues. But he can't sing worth a damn.

Exhibit number one: this travesty of a Beatles cover. (By no means even among the ten or twenty worst Beatles covers, either. But one of the funniest, certainly.)

Bill Cosby - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Buy from GEMM -- Buy from eBay