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

Stagger Lee Saturdays - Henry Gray

Henry Gray (official wiki AMG) has been playing professionally for almost 70 years -- he's worked for Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Sonny Boy Williamson, Taj Mahal and so on. He was born in Louisiana, like so many of the best performers of Stag, and now lives there again.

This is a great, rockin electric blues version of Stag -- one of the few in my collection which include both fiddle and harmonica, come to think of it. Since Gray is a pianist by trade, the piano is nice and high in the mix -- lots of fun.

This is a live version from 1999, and five years later he'd record the song again; both albums include his cover of "Sweet Home Chicago," among others.

Henry Gray and The Cats - Stagger Lee
mirror 1 -- mirror 2
Buy from the record label

Stagger Lee Saturdays - Bert Garvin, JP Fraley and Danielle Fraley

Here's a nice old-timey version from Bert Garvin, J. P. Fraley (AMG bio), and JP's daughter, Danielle (no links for her, as she seems to only appear backing her father).

This has a nice ringing banjo, and some lovely fiddle work that sounds at least 100 years older than the actual recording date of 1999.

As with so many of the Stagger Lees I present here, this album is currently out of print, and the used copies start at about 25 bucks, so the buy link is wishful thinking.

Bert Garvin, J. P. Fraley and Danielle Fraley - Stackolee
mirror 1 -- mirror 2 (down)
Buy used from Amazon