Hell City Songs Blog

Just Another Singer

Take a look at this video of Ike & Tina Turner performing River Deep Mountain High in the mid-sixties. Yup, Tina singing a great song, nothing better than this. But take a look at the middle Ikette.

River Deep Mountain High 

It's PP Arnold. You probably don't know who PP Arnold is, but she has an interesting career as an unknown singer. Because when the Ike & Tina Turner Revue hit London, she quit, and stayed, and met some famous people - and had a couple of hit singles. The biggest was The First Cut Is The Deepest.

The First Cut Is The Deepest

You may notice the voice. It's nice.

Now here she is with some of her new friends, The Small Faces, who wrote the song, played the music, and appeared in the video.

If You Think You're Groovy

Now here's the jackpot. PP Arnold sang on the Small Faces' astonishing Tin Soldier, a record that sits firmly in my Top Ten Best Rock And Roll Records of All Time. Here's a video of them performing it - miming, unfortunately. 

Tin Soldier 

Notice that despite the fact that she is miming, PP tends to joyfully yell her head off whenever she feels like it. Notice that she has no problem being second fiddle to Steve Marriott. And notice the look on her face at the end of that amazing coda, as she sings the line "... because I love you" - just for a moment I can see in her face everything that music has ever meant to me.

Just another singer. You probably never heard of her.

Wilhelm Furtwangler in a Vanished World

I've been listening to a set of Beethoven symphonies conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler, who died in 1954. I don't consider myself qualified to judge performances of classical music - I don't have the training or the experience. Still, after listening to it casually for many years, I notice that some performers don't leave me with much, while others - Martha Argerich and Maria Callas, for example - do things to me emotionally that cannot be ignored. I'm starting to realize that Furtwangler is one of those artists.

Here is a fascinating film of Furtwangler conducting the Beethoven 9th Symphony in Berlin in 1942 (don't worry, it's only the last 5 minutes). The performance is ecstatic.

But you're probably going to have to watch it twice. Your first impressions may be dominated by the environment of the performance - the "room full of criminals and monsters", as one commenter puts it, the visiting generals with their eye patches and bandages (starting to wonder, one suspects, if the war is going as well as it should), the monumental hall with enormous orchestra and chorus, the musicians playing fervently in hopes of not being sent to the front (many of them having taken the places of murdered Jews), and finally, in the last shot, the conductor wiping his hand with his handkerchief after shaking hands with Joseph Goebbels.

But watch it a second time, ignoring the visuals and concentrating on the music. The power and beauty and control displayed here are breathtaking, two hundred people being almost perfectly controlled by the will of one man, a man whose physical movements remind me of Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein - Wilhelm Furtwangler, in a tie with Toscanini for the title of best conductor of the 20th century.

I don't believe that this music can be played with its full meaning any more. This film may represent the last decade in human history in which this music made sense - by  1945 the civilization that produced it had committed suicide, leaving Europe a vast bombed-out ruin. That may be why modern performances seem like shadows of something we can't put our finger on, and why these old imperfect films and recordings may sound more alive than any classical music recorded in the last 50 years.

You may not want to hear this music - not many people do these days. But this is arguably the supreme work from arguably the finest composer in history, conducted by arguably the best conductor of the last 100 years. This is possibly the best music you will ever hear.

You know this to be true.

Furtwangler conducts the finale of Beethoven's 9th Symphony

4 Reasons why Alison Goldfrapp is better than Madonna

1. She can sing.

2. She can write songs.

3. She is attractive.

4. She's not kind of repulsive.

And a bonus fifth reason, she is able to work with others over a long period - she works with the other half of Goldfrapp, Will Gregory, arranger and synth master.

Goldfrapp started out with a bit of a snoozer called Felt Mountain. It didn't go far, so they apparently decided to forget about art and go commercial - which they did with 2 CD's, which blend 70's synth sounds, glam, Madonna, and sex, and which sold fairly well and which contain hints of something interesting (the song Black Cherry is a standout).

At that point they apparently decided they had become famous enough, and art was back on the table. The latest CD, Seventh Tree, is a real surprise. Every song is good, nothing is overstated or strident, the overall tone is that of a relaxed day sitting around the house playing beautiful songs on synthesizers, if such a thing is possible.

Seventh Tree, on my short list of best CD's of 2009. Check it out.

Little Bird live

Black Cherry live

Clowns

What The Hell Happened?

More ruminations after the Bellrays show last night, downtown Tempe, Arizona.

This was a show featuring 4 local bands and the headliner, the Bellrays. The constant theme of the night was "Let's bring live music back to Tempe." What the hell happened? Yeah, I've been out of the loop for a while. Well, I'm old. But I remember a time, not so long ago, when there was a band playing on every corner on Mill Avenue. For a while there was even a nationally-known Tempe scene that produced bands like the Gin Blossoms and Dead Hot Workshop. Sometimes I was playing on Mill myself, and I wasn't unusual to hear the sound of another band playing across the street when we were between songs. Tempe used to have a vibrant musical culture. Is it completely gone?

It's not like there's no good local music any more - the Sugar Thieves played a set last night that blew me away.

I can rant all I want about what music has come to in this new millennium, about the the way musical knowledge and performance quality has declined, about how nobody knows what a song is any more. Like any old fart. But apparently something worse has happened - people just aren't very interested in listening any more.

I was struck last night by the indifference of most of the crowd last night. During an absolutely killer, world-class set by the Bellrays, I looked back at the audience (I was about 5 feet from the stage). I saw maybe two dozen people giving the music the attention it deserved, while the rest of the bar was filled with people doing their level best to ignore the band so they could carry on their conversations.

It couldn't have been easy.

Bellrays Live

I finally got a chance to see the Bellrays live, playing a weird gig in a sports bar in Tempe, AZ. I went expecting to see a real good band, and I saw a great one. The Bellrays are everything I want in a rock and roll band. You've all heard the story of a band that shows up and the the gig is an embarrassment, the audience small and the sound terrible, and the band plays like mad dogs anyway fot the dozen or two people who look like they care? That's what we got last night.

Musically the band was superb - energetic, well-rehearsed and yet spontaneous, despite a new drummer who looks like he's about 15.

And Lisa Kekaula is the best singer I've heard in a long time. She has a physical presence that I don't think I've seen since... aw hell, I'll say it. Muddy Waters. I haven't seen anyone who radiated this sense of conviction, calm self-assurance, and authority since Muddy Waters. She's a force of nature.

http://www.myspace.com/thebellrays

Bob's Last Stand

Here's a story I read somewhere years ago. Hopefully it's true.

Bob Marley was out running one morning in the middle of a US tour. He had a stroke and fell down. They flew him to Pittsburgh, the next city on the tour, and he went to see a doctor, who diagnosed advanced brain cancer and said he had two weeks or so to live. That night he went ahead and played his last show.

A recording of the last song (before encores) of that show is the last song on the Songs of Freedom box set. It's a version of Redemption Song that must be heard - the vitality and exuberance of this performance is off the scale. I wouldn't want to be without that recording.

Marley lived beyond his allotted two weeks, but he never played another show.

Possibly The Worst Piece of Crap I've Ever Heard In My Entire Life

Here It Is Folks

Here's what we'll do, see - we'll take a sample from this great record, the part where the horns and strings are just absolutely screaming, the part at the very top of the crescendo, where the tension in the music is screwed up to its most intense and the listener is ready for the musical release. And we will throw everything else out, including the release, and we'll create a whole song using just the crescendo, repeated over and over. It'll be great!

Well, not so much. I ran into this remarkable recording while cruising YouTube for Dusty Springfield performances last night. The sample referred to is from the intro to You Don't Have To Say You Love Me

This isn't bad like, say the Shaggs record is bad. You can play Philosophy Of The World and delight in the brashness and naivete, the invention displayed by a group of young girls flying through territory that they have never seen before simply because their outlook and experience is so limited. But the joy of discovery is there.

But this record is different. There's no joy of discovery here. There are no good ideas here. There is no musicality here - this is the musical equivalent of being about to fall over the edge of the cliff, stuck there forever, flailing your arms about in an effort to get back to solid land, until finally you wish you could just go on over - only you can't do that, either.

And how many times are these guys going to repeat these stale cliches? I've been hearing these sentiments for over 30 years and they don't make any more sense than when I first heard them. I love music by guys who are in the gutter, looking up at the stars. I have no use for music by guys who are in the gutter because they like it there.

Ray & Merle & Willy

Saw an interesting video of a recent live show by Ray Price, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson the other night. OK I'll admit it, my mom wanted me to watch it because she's a big Ray Price fan.

So. Ray Price. I'm afraid I just don't get it. He can still sing well despite being about 180 years old (most singers lose their voice by then), but as far as I could tell the musical style owed a lot more to the elevator than to anything resembling country music, and the syrupy string trio didn't help matters any. I was told that Ray belonged in the company of these other members of the country outlaw fraternity due to extensive drug and alcohol abuse, but there was no hint of anything dangerous in his performance.

Next up, Merle Haggard. I've always discounted him as a person to be taken seriously due to the reaction of the ordinary person of my age group to his huge hit, Okie From Muskogee, which started, of course, with the famous line "We don't smoke marijuana on Main Street." I only realized the depth of his hypocrisy decades later, when I read this quote: "Main Street was about the only place we DIDN'T smoke it." Still, in recent years I have started to wonder if I was missing something.

I was pretty surprised to see a man completely engaged in the music, singing beautifully, smiling ecstatically whenever one of the backup musicians did something interesting, playing well-conceived guitar solos that always sounded great (even if he did miss a lot of notes) with the prettiest Telecaster tone I think I've ever heard, and singing only exceptional songs, most of which I think he wrote himself. He meant evey note he sang and played, and that means everything to me. Time to reevaluate!

Last up, Willie Nelson. Willie sang a few good new songs with energy, feeling, and commitment. Unfortunately, he sang a bunch of (superb) old songs without much emotion at all. It's pretty obvious that he can no longer muster any enthusiasm for material he's performed thousands of times before. So what we get is a superb musician and songwriter going through the motions. Well, this happens to a lot of performers - when you're so famous that your fans are ecstatic just to be in your presence, it's hard to stay motivated. Note that that didn't seem to be a problem for Merle Haggard.

Oh yeah, the backup band was Ray Benson and Asleep At The Wheel. Great musicians. Not much passion or spontaniety, especially in their short solo spot. Snooze.

And just a cultural note. How this country has changed! This bunch of potheads, ex-convicts, longhairs and reprobates are now cultural icons, and the crowd behaved accordingly. Thirty years ago it would have been different. And the country music fans would have been the ones calling the cops.

I Had a Dream Last Night

I was talking to Melanie in this dream. You know (or maybe you don't), Melanie - Candles In The Rain, Brand New Key, What Have They Done To My Song Ma. And I was telling her how much I enjoyed her music back in the day, and went on to specifically mention several of her better songs and what it was that I liked about them - Poor Cow, Teen Angel, Lord of the Reedy River. She was very nice at first, but as I went on she became more and more reserved and less enthusiastic. Until finally she seemed pretty annoyed.

Then I woke up and realized that all those songs were Donovan songs.

Waltzing Matilda

I've been keeping my eye out for a good live version of Tom Traubert's Blues by Tom Waits. Here it is.