Silly Sundays - John and Ernest - Superfly Meets Shaft

Remember how I was supposed to be doing a month of break-in records, right before my computer broke itself? Well, here's post #2. In 1973, some seventeen years after his first break-in release, Dickie Goodman produced (and presumably helped write and edit) this record by John and Ernest (wiki). It tells the story of Superfly, who's gone missing, and Shaft, who is called in to investigate.

I bought my own copy of this 45 long before I knew it was connected to "The Flying Saucer," on the title alone, and in fact on first listen it sounded like a familiar formula for a comedy record, but I couldn't quite place it. I didn't put two and two together until I got a cheap cheap copy of the now long-OOP Buchanan and Goodman anthology "Politically Correct?" and it was included therein.

Anyway, the samples used here are the obligatory Mayfield and Hayes, along with Billy Paul, Spinners, Four Tops, etc. (The samples are mostly identified, oddly enough, in the YouTube comments here.) Side two was a short loop of the final few seconds, which I won't be posting, but you can find it over at Jukeboxmafia, who apparently did a whole string of break-in posts a while back (at least one of which I don't currently have in my collection).

I've got at least one more post scheduled on this topic, so stay tuned, folks!

John and Ernest - Superfly Meets Shaft
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Multiple Mondays: Christmas In Prison

John Prine recorded "Christmas In Prison" for his third album, in 1973, two years after he recorded "Paradise." In the interest of actually getting something posted today (sorry for the slack over the weekend), I won't tell you all about each individual track, but there's a decent amount of variety here, so be sure to get 'em all. As always, I recommend the zipfile.

Also, there are a lot of covers on YouTube. (1 2 3 4 5 should get you started.)

(Edited to point out that John -- and everyone else -- cusses a tiny bit in this song. If you mind blasphemy in your Christmas music, just move on to the next post. Sorry!)

Come back tomorrow for more Christmas-y prison-y songs!

Zipfile

John Prine 1 2
Emmy The Great and The Lightspeed Champion 1 2
Joshua James 1 2
The Boxmasters 1 2
Billy Button Band (live 12-08-06) 1 2
Rory McLeod 1 2
Honky Tonk Confidential 1 2
Doug Legacy 1 2
Will Kimbrough 1 2
The Conestokers 1 2
John Prine (live) 1 2

Silly Sundays - Rupert Holmes - Psycho Drama

Here's a bit of fun from Rupert Holmes' 1973 album, Widescreen, a collection of songs Holmes conceived of as "movies in sound." This is the fullest exploration of that idea from the album, and is more or less a full-blown radio play.

In the liner notes to the expanded collector's edition (where the buy link goes, natch), Holmes writes:

"Had I But Known (as they used to say on such [old-time radio] programs) that in the nineteen-nineties I'd have the chance to write four years worth of such programs for Remember WENN ... I'd probably have traded in this cut for two more ballads."

But if he'd done that, this album would feel a little less special to me.

Rupert Holmes - Psycho Drama
(Link Removed due to my second DMCA takedown notice)
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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
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Dr. John and Rickie Lee Jones - Makin' Whoopee
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Dr. John - Right Place, Wrong Time
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Dr. John - I Walk On Guilded Splinters
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Dr. John and Terrance Simien - Save Our Wetlands
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Buy Gris Gris. Do it now.

Stagger Lee Saturdays - Dr. John, Part Two

Sorry I crapped out on y'all last week -- it was just too busy for me to get anything done here. Luckily, I've got a lot lined up all this month. (Also, you'll wanna go back to the post of two weeks ago and read the comments -- new stuff has come to light.)

It's been a while since I did a month of double Stag posts, but it's time again, so I can keep the numbers up. Today, we're gonna hear two more takes from Dr. John (learn a little about Dr. John and find his first version here, or on this compilation).

In 1973, the year after his first release of "Stagger Lee," Dr. John recorded a live show on radio, which luckily is in wide circulation. (You can get the whole marvelous thing at Captains Dead -- don't forget to click the link at the bottom for the second half.) This live track is similar lyrically and musically to the version on Dr. John's Gumbo. We're going "tee-na, na-na!"

Thirty-one years later, Dr. John mixed up a new version of the Stag legend for his album N'Awlinz: Dis Dat or D'udda (which album includes guest performances from B. B. King, Randy Newman, Willie Nelson, etc etc). He wrote in the liner notes:

"There was a many a pimp named Stak, and many a card hustler named Stakdollar ... An epic saga of death and char-ack-ters."

As befits the new version, this song has an (apparently) original title spelling. We'll hear more about Stack A Dollar next week, too...

Now, before I give you links, here's what I have planned for the rest of this month. If I can manage it, each Saturday this month will have two versions of Stag for your listening enjoyment. Download 'em, trade 'em, collect 'em all! Each Sunday this month will feature a Silly Sunday track from the same artist -- swing by tomorrow to find out who it'll be! Finally, I got to see Dr. John live last week, and the show blew my ears off. Come by Tuesday or Wednesday, and I'll post a review and some more tracks from Mac. Now, those MP3s:

Dr. John - Stagger Lee (live 1973)
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Dr. John - Stakalee
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John Cale - Antarctica Starts Here

Well folks, you're all lucky. It's ten minutes till bedtime for me, since I'm gonna go and (gulp) see Watchmen on opening day. I haven't seen a movie on opening day since... um... uh... Payback maybe?

I didn't think about putting this file up until five minutes ago, and you're all very lucky to get to hear this, since I imagine the majority of Watchmen fans don't know this song, though they've read a quote from it over and over again. So here you are: John Cale's "Antartica Starts Here," from what might be my favorite of his solo albums.

John Cale - Antarctica Starts Here
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John Cale - A Child's Christmas In Wales

It's a little embarrassing that this will be the first time I've tagged a post here with John Cale's name. The Velvets are my favorite band of all time, and Cale has certainly had the most diverse solo career.

Here's a song that takes its name from a prose poem by Cale's fellow Welshman Dylan Thomas, but not much else. It has the word "Christmas" in the title, and mentions mistletoe in the first line. Other than that, you're on your own.

I've given you the alternate version, as a taste of the lovely deluxe rerelease of Paris 1919, my favorite Cale solo album. The original album had nine tracks; the new edition has 21, with alternate takes, different mixes, and even a previously unknown song. The buy link goes there, of course.

John Cale - Child's Christmas In Wales
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O. B. McClinton - I Wish It Would Rain

"I Wish It Would Rain" has always, always, been one of my favorite hurtin' songs. (Turns out there's a good reason it's so genuinely mournful, as you'll find out if you click that link to Wikipedia there.) The Temptations recorded the original version, along with another favorite hurtin' song of mine, "Just My Imagination." And their recording is so good, a real classic. But until today, I'd never heard this version, or even heard of the singer.

O. B. McClinton was an African-American country singer, one of about two in the whole country at the time (Charley Pride is the much better known one). He grew up in Mississippi, listening to Hank Williams records and longing to be a singer. He wrote songs that were recorded by Otis Redding and Clarence Carter, and those songs got him an audition at Stax Records, where he became their first country musician. Much later, he was one of the pioneers of marketing albums exclusively on TV.

I got this track on a collection of Stax recording artists covering Motown songs, which is mostly good but ranges from the sublime (Isaac Hayes's "Never Can Say Goodbye") to the execrable (Billy Eckstine's demolition of "My Cherie Amour"). If you buy that collection, stay away from Billy Eckstine.

O. B. McClinton - I Wish It Would Rain
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