Needs no introduction or explanation!
The Beach Boys Live in Concert 50th Anniversary
Friday, October 20, 2023
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Turn Turn Turn
Memories...I had just entered Lincoln-Way High School in New Lenox, Illinois. We lived on a small farm, grew our own vegetables and raised chickens. I spent most of my time dodging work and sneaking off fishing.
On October 1, 1965, THE BYRDS released the single TURN! TURN! TURN! (TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON.
Written
by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s and first recorded in 1959, TURN!
TURN! TURN! was built around the first eight verses of the third chapter
of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes.
The song became an international hit in late 1965 when it was adapted in a folk rock arrangement by The Byrds.
The single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on December 4th 1965. "Turn!
Turn! Turn!" had first been arranged by the Byrds' lead guitarist Jim
McGuinn in a chamber-folk style during sessions for Judy Collins' 1963
album, Judy Collins 3.
The
idea of reviving the song came to McGuinn during the Byrds' July 1965
tour of the American Midwest, when his future wife, Dolores, requested
the tune on the Byrds' tour bus.
The
rendering that McGuinn dutifully played came out sounding not like a
folk song but more like a rock/folk hybrid, perfectly in keeping with
the Byrds' status as pioneers of the folk rock genre.
McGuinn
explained, "It was a standard folk song by that time, but I played it
and it came out rock 'n' roll because that's what I was programmed to do
like a computer. I couldn't do it as it was traditionally. It came out
with that samba beat, and we thought it would make a good single."
The song reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in late January 1965.
Monday, September 4, 2023
Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues
Another memory from <God, I can't believe it...> over 50 years ago <sigh> Am I REALLY THAT old? It's amazing what memories a song can bring back. I can't remember what I had for breakfast just a few hours ago, but a song from over 50 years ago can bring back a memory so vivid and clear that it could have just happened.
1969, one hell of a year...Graduated high school, scared stiff over the "draft", gained a "Love", enlisted in the Navy and had no idea of what to expect, went to a high school prom - that dress REALLY accented her bu...bre..."womanly" features, began a career that lasted almost 50 years...and lost a "love".
Nights In White Satin by The Moody Blues, one of the few "popular" songs that made it into my "country music" era. The video above, consists of clips of Paris and the famous monuments there, and the band singing the song from a staircase to in front of what appears to be a statue and a patterned room. The video has over 63 million views since its upload in 2006.
Justin Hayward started writing the song after he was dumped by a girlfriend. Remembering a gift a different girlfriend had given him he eventually wrote a song that became a multi million-selling, era-defining classic.
First released in November 1967, Nights In White Satin was a masterpiece that bridged pop and symphonic music, with a lyric ripped directly from Hayward’s personal life – it finds him caught between ecstasy and despair, between the end of one love affair while embarking on a new one.
“There was a lot of emotion that went into the song,” Hayward affirms. “I was nineteen or twenty at the time, living in a two-room flat in Bayswater with Graeme [Edge, Moody Blues drummer] and our girlfriends. I came back from a gig one night, around four or five in the morning, when the birds were just twittering, I sat on the side of the bed and wrote a couple of verses. The only people writing in the Moodies then were [keyboard player] Mike Pinder and myself. He’d been working on a song called Dawn Is A Feeling, which I’d heard him fiddling around with, and I knew the other guys were expecting something from me at rehearsal the next day.”
Searching for some kind of metaphor for his emotional turmoil, Hayward remembered the recent gift he’d been given. “Another girlfriend, who was neither the one that had just dumped me or the one that I was then going with, had given me some white satin sheets. They just happened to be in my suitcase and I was trying them out in this place that Graeme and I lived in. They were very romantic-looking, but totally impractical.”
Shaped by producer Tony Clarke and arranger/conductor Peter Knight, Nights In White Satin became a sumptuous epic in the studio. It formed the centerpiece of the Moodies’ second album, Days Of Future Passed, a dawn-to-darkness song cycle that made full use of the Mellotron’s ability to simulate an orchestra. Topped off by a spoken-word poem, Late Lament, Hayward’s song clocked in at nearly seven and a half minutes. Nights was duly edited down as a single, although not everyone at Deram, Decca’s new subsidiary label, was convinced of its worth.
The song continues to enjoy a prolonged afterlife. South Carolina’s Hard Rock Park in Myrtle Beach has unveiled the Nights In White Satin: The Trip - theme park, a sensory experience based on Hayward’s tune, with on-board audio, digital effects and psychedelic imagery.
So, what's MY memory of a ROCK song invading my era of country and western music? Like it's writer, I felt as though I had been "dumped" by my then girlfriend. I remember I was in the Navy, just out of bootcamp and just entered Electronic Technician "A" school at Great lakes, Ill. On a weekend liberty I went to my girlfriend's apartment in Chicago. When I left I kinda felt as if I had just gotten dumped. On the train ride back to Great Lakes I remember hearing the song and the "low and slow" "Oh I love you oh how I love you." Kinda had me down for a while.
The down feeling didn't last long, in a few months when I graduated, I was sent to California...I learned what "I wish they all could be California girls" meant (I later married one). The Moody Blues and hometown girls were quickly forgotten. It's good that when you are young you can just "push the past aside" and start over again. When you get older, it's harder to just "push stuff aside" and start over. Our character might say "forget it - move on" but our emotions, that only strengthen over the years, say "not yet, give it one more try, maybe something can be worked out". ... It's those strengthened emotions that let us smile and shake hands with one of those things that didn't go exactly the way we wanted it to. How we handle memories adds to those qualities that define our character.
Now when I hear Nights in White Satan, I get nostalgic and remember home - new Lenox Ill., high school, the draft, a girl. Memories remind me that life changes, instead of being sad over lost loves, things that I did wrong or things I should have done or not done, I'm happy that I had an opportunity to just live and add strength to my emotions and build the qualities distinctive to the Pogi Americano.
The Moody Blues perform "Nights in White Satin" and "Late Lament" at the 2018 Ceremony
City of New Orleans
One of my favorites is a song about a train ride from my hometown of Chicago to New Orleans.
One of the great American songs of the late twentieth century is “City of New Orleans.” The song was originally written and recorded by Steve Goodman but made famous by Arlo Guthrie.
"City of New Orleans" is a country folk song describing in bittersweet and nostalgic terms, a train ride from Chicago to New Orleans on the Illinois Central Railroad's train called "City of New Orleans". Goodman got the idea while traveling on the Illinois Central line for a visit to his wife's family.
While at the Quiet Knight bar in Chicago, Goodman saw Arlo Guthrie, and asked to be allowed to play a song for him. Guthrie grudgingly agreed, on the condition that if Goodman bought him a beer, Guthrie would listen to him play for as long as it took to drink the beer. Goodman played "City of New Orleans", which Guthrie liked enough that he asked to record it. The song was a hit for Guthrie in 1972.
The City of New Orleans was a train that the Illinois Central Railroad began operating in April 1947. The overnight train had the longest daytime regularly scheduled route in the country for a time. The train went between New Orleans, Louisiana and (my hometown) Chicago, Illinois. In May 1971, Amtrak took over the City of New Orleans train. The company converted it to a nighttime route, renaming it the Panama Limited.
After the song “City of New Orleans” became popular in the 1970s, Amtrak, hoping to capitalize on the song’s popularity, brought back the “City of New Orleans” train name in 1981.
Riding on the City of New Orleans
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passin' trains that have no names
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
Dealin' cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score
Won't you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor
And the sons of Pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steam
Mothers with their babes asleep
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they dream
Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
Nighttime on The City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his song again
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues
Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done
The Eagles
They always bring the memories back from a time that as I look back on it now, I really had no "worries" My supervisor or "CO" was responsible for everything. All I had to do was keep my equipment running. ... A time wen we could "Take it to the Limit!" ... And we did.
Eagles Live 2021 "You just can't kill the beat!"
I went through my 20's and started my 30's with the Eagles. They were known in EVERY Liberty port on the Pacific. Every bar, restaurant and whore house played the Eagles. It's amassing, how music can make memories come flooding back.
Listening to this stuff, I remember Mombasa Kenya. We had to anchor out and take a whaleboat in...There was no "port" the boat captain just ran the boat ashore. We had heavy seas coming in so we were all soaked when we made landfall. The taxi drivers saw us coming in and lined up for us.
Eagles Live 2021 "You just can't kill the beat!"
Colosseum: The Complete Reunion Concert 1994 - FULL
Listening to this stuff, I remember Mombasa Kenya. We had to anchor out and take a whaleboat in...There was no "port" the boat captain just ran the boat ashore. We had heavy seas coming in so we were all soaked when we made landfall. The taxi drivers saw us coming in and lined up for us.
After we climbed up from a rocky beach. I was with 4 other guys, we crammed into an old Toyota taxi. The driver didn't know any English so we made an "eating" motion and he shook his head yes. When he stopped, he said "steak" and pointed to the building. We thought GREAT! paid him and went in. I think it was probably water buffalo, you needed a chainsaw to cut it. Well, anyway we ate and got up to settle the bill, we sent one guy outside to flag down a taxi. Just about that time we could hear a radio playing "Hotel California." Kinda appropriate for what came next...A few minutes later our taxi hailer comes running in, said "the taxi driver knows one English word...Whorehouse... Ya want to go?" We learned later that it was a big hotel "downtown" that threw a party for the ship's company. The food was better and the beer flowed. And the Eagles was played.
"You just can't kill the beat!"
And where would we be without...
Hotel California
Or
Or
Baker Street
What a haunting sax...they don't make music like this anymore. It's funny how you can hear a tune and it can transport you over decades to a place you barely recognize anymore.
Most people remember “Baker Street” for its wailing saxophone, and I was for many years no different. But at some point — a few years after I left the Navy — I
began to pay attention to the song’s lyrics. They go like this:
Most people remember “Baker Street” for its wailing saxophone, and I was for many years no different. But at some point — a few years after I left the Navy — I
began to pay attention to the song’s lyrics. They go like this:
Winding your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold
It's got so many people, but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything
It's got so many people, but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything
You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're trying, you're trying now
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're trying, you're trying now
Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're crying, you're crying now
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're crying, you're crying now
Way down the street there's a light in his place
He opens the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been
You tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything
He opens the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been
You tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything
He's got this dream about buying some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he'll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forget about everything
He's gonna give up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he'll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forget about everything
But you know he'll always keep moving
You know he's never gonna stop moving
'Cause he's rolling, he's the rolling stone
And when you wake up, it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
And you're going, you're going home
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
You know he's never gonna stop moving
'Cause he's rolling, he's the rolling stone
And when you wake up, it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
And you're going, you're going home
The first few lines could have been written to describe me.
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
That was me, I was drinking my nights away at a tavern across the street from my apartment. I didn't have a "care in the world" because I just didn't care about anything. Just work, drink, sleep, then repeat.
I was in San Diego, where "it was happening" whatever "it" was. But I didn't see it. It wasn't happening to me nor was "it" any part of my life.
It's got so many people, but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything
When I got out of the Navy I landed a really good job, it payed very well and I had medical benefits. I also had a nice place to live. I thought it would be easy to transition into civilian life. It wasn't. I suffered from PTSD and drank myself to sleep every night to keep from having nightmares. ... I kept telling myself it was easy, and in another year, I'll be happy.
You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're trying, you're trying now
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're trying, you're trying now
Another year and then you'd be happy
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're crying, you're crying now
'Cause he's rolling, he's the rolling stone
And when you wake up, it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
And you're going, you're going home
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're crying, you're crying now
The rest could be about my friend Chris. The "place" was Jimmy's Bar and Grill across the street from my apartment, where I spent most of my nights. Chris was the night bartender.
Way down the street there's a light in his place
He opens the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been
You tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything
He opens the door, he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been
You tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything
He's got this dream about buying some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he'll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forget about everything
He's gonna give up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he'll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forget about everything
you know he'll always keep moving
You know he's never gonna stop moving'Cause he's rolling, he's the rolling stone
And when you wake up, it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
And you're going, you're going home
Happily, my life changed one night when an old friend, Walter happened by and we talked ...Well, he talked and I drank for a couple of hours. Walter made sure I got home that night and as he turned to leave he dropped my keys on my chest, shook his head and said "I knew you when you were good." His last line stuck with me. It made me to want to get better and do something with my life.
Sometimes I think back on those days, mostly when I hear a song from that era or see an old picture. It is kind of haunting, difficult to ignore and forget. Not the best time of my life, a time I wish I could forget, a time I wish never happened. I guess that's why the wailing saxophone effects me so much.
Sometimes I think back on those days, mostly when I hear a song from that era or see an old picture. It is kind of haunting, difficult to ignore and forget. Not the best time of my life, a time I wish I could forget, a time I wish never happened. I guess that's why the wailing saxophone effects me so much.
Sweet Home Chicago! (My Hometown)
It's stuff like this that brings you back to your roots. It brought back memories of visiting my Grand Parents in Chicago. Trips to the Amphitheater once a year for the International Car Show. The big Sears store and "Monkey-Ward". Zales, White Castle, all the "Old Style" tavern signs, the Field Museum and Museum of Science and Industry. Big buildings lots of people and traffic.
Several kinds of "streetcars" and buses and the "L" train through the city. And my weekend train trips from Great Lakes Naval Station through the Northwest train station then a walk through downtown to the LaSalle Street Station for my train to New Lenox.
Probably most of that stuff is gone. It's kind of sad, it's "progress" - I know, but it's still sad that the things that make something unique and stick in your memory are the first things that disappear. But the music lives on forever.
This is what happens when you put the 5 best guitar players in the world together in the same room (Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Robert Cray, Hubert Sumlin). They fight over who plays lead guitar in - "Sweet Home Chicago" Buddy Guy stole this show, Eric was just another guitar player. HA! can you even imagine Eric - just another guitar player?
"Sweet Home Chicago" is a popular blues standard in the twelve bar form. It was first recorded and is credited to have been written by Robert Johnson. Over the years the song has become one of the most popular anthems for the city of Chicago despite ambiguity in Johnson's original lyrics.
Look who came to this party of "Who's Who" of the Blues ...
Buddy Guy gets President Obama to sing a verse of Sweet Home Chicago! ... I think "New Orleans" just dropped off into the gulf of Mexico.
Finale Performance of "Sweet Home Chicago" featuring Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, members of Earth, Wind & Fire, Lovin' Spoonful, Robbie Robertson and Melissa Etheridge at the 2000 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.
Check out some of the "meanings" of the lyrics - Sweet Home Chicago.
Monday, May 8, 2023
Led Zeppelin - Kennedy Center Honors
Led Zeppelin was given tribute at the Kennedy Center Honors on December 2, 2012. It was televised on Dec. 26, 2012. Jack Black introduced the band and the performers include The Foo Fighters, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz, and Heart. ALL amazing performances.
Whoever arranged that version of Stairway to Heaven deserves an award .. absolutely incredible. To bring the great Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to tears with their own song is an amazing feat! Could only have been done by another legend of rock history - Heart - Ann and Nancy Wilson!
In the '70s a day didn't pass aboard ship without hearing "Stairway". ONLY Ann Wilson of Heart could do justice to Stairway to Heaven. No words great enough to describe the phenomenal performance at the Kennedy Center Honors! Her voice is truly a gift from God.
"Stairway to Heaven" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin, released in late 1971. It was composed by the band's guitarist Jimmy Page and lead singer Robert Plant for their untitled fourth studio album (often titled Led Zeppelin IV). The song is widely regarded as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.
The song has three sections, each one progressively increasing in tempo and volume. The song begins in a slow tempo with acoustic instruments (guitar and recorders) before introducing electric instruments. The final section is an uptempo hard rock arrangement, highlighted by Page's guitar solo and Plant's vocals, which ends with the plaintive a cappella line: "And she's buying a stairway to heaven."
"Stairway to Heaven" was voted number three in 2000 by VH1 on its list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs, in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Stairway to Heaven" number 31 on its list of "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It was the most requested song on FM radio stations in the United States at the time, despite never having been commercially released as a single in the US. In November 2007, through download sales promoting Led Zeppelin's Mothership release, "Stairway to Heaven" reached number 37 on the UK Singles Chart.
Sunday, May 7, 2023
A Whiter Shade Of Pale
I don't know why I'm listening to this tonight. It brings back many memories of my time in the Navy and shortly after I got out. There's a lot of controversy over what it means. I don't know if the band - Procol Harum - has ever come out and said what it means. If you go to "Song Meaning and Facts" you might find something you like. Personally, I think it was written by a guy who just got word he was shipping out in the morning. ...
This is one of my favorite renditions of Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum performing A Whiter Shade of Pale with the Danish National Concert Orchestra and choir at Ledreborg Castle, Denmark in August 2006.
As far as hits go, no song could have asked for a bigger success than “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. It came out as part of Procol Harum’s debut album, which itself is entitled Procol Harum. And the track reached number 1 in nearly 15 different countries, including most notably the UK Singles Chart.
After topping the Dutch Top 40 in 1967, it went on to also do the same on the Netherlands’ Single Top 100 in 1972, having also recharted on the UK Singles Chart that year. Additionally it reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, despite receiving limited promotion in the United States.
I never paid much attention to the words until I got out and sober. I just liked the melody. Then I heard it while sitting in my chair one evening, just thinking about stuff and the words started to talk to me.
I remember hearing it on my last night ashore in Alemeda Caifornia, Looking back I realized it’s significance. It was a perfect accompaniment to my last night ashore in the US, on my way to my first WestPac cruse to Vietnam. I was celebrating what could have been my last night in the US.
“We danced the light fandango, did cartwheels ‘cross the floor….”
I was celebrating with my fellow shipmates our newfound definition of Manhood. We were Sailors, going to war.
“I was feeling kind of seasick…”
Then we started thinking about the seriousness of this phase of our life and were beginning to have second thoughts.
“But the crowd called out for more…”
Come ON, MAN! You’re a HERO! The crowd recognizes where you are going as they gaze at your uniform. They cheer you on!
“And the room, it started spinning and the ceiling flew away….”
This is a done deal, and I’m GOING and have absolutely no control over this.
“But they called out for another drink and the Waiter brought the tray…”
It might be our last night on this earth, so drink up and celebrate this night.
“And it wasn’t until later when the Miller told his tale, that her face at once just ghostly turned a Whiter shade of pale…”
It wasn’t until we truly understood where we were going and what we would be doing that the horror of it became clear. And this was long after we’d returned.
“She said there is no reason, and the truth is plain to see….”
We arrived there, and realized the insanity of war and the brutal fact that we were a part of it. We were there, trying to kill them, as they tried to kill us, neither truly understanding why. But we were there. This was happening.
“But I wandered through my playing cards and would not let her be…”
Unfortunately, war becomes normalized, and a deck of cards represents the chances one takes in its execution. Is tonight the night? Is this my last patrol?
”One of sixteen vestal virgins who were headed for the coast…”
Could I have decided to go somewhere else?
“And my eyes were opened wide, though they might as well have been closed….”
Now I’m starting to see the madness in all of this; the destruction and the terror of it all. But it’s too late. I’m here and I have a duty to perform.
“And it wasn’t until later when the Miller told his tale, that her face at once just ghostly, turned a Whiter shade of pale….”
And now I must live with these memories.
As I look back on it, while listening to the music, I realize that I was at that party that so many of us can't get out of our head. You never forget the party beforehand nor the death and destruction afterward. Today I heard that Russia was conscripting all it's men into military service. It's really a sad state for any country to do something like that. We, the US had it in the 60's for Vietnam. The "normal" people rioted in the streets, burned buildings, they beat those who wore the uniform and dumped trash on them.
Today, over 50 years later, the "normal" people think of Whiter Shade of Pale" as a Blues song. It's good, the present generation doesn't have to live through what we did...But, then again, I can hear my Dad a World War 2 Veteran, saying the same thing. Won't we ever learn?
Sometimes I feel like getting a Whiter Shade of Pale, just to numb my mind, heart and soul to war and it's death and destruction.
Tuesday, May 2, 2023
Gordon Lightfoot
Today we have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s. Gordon Lightfoot captured our country’s spirit in his music. Music that is destined to continue inspiring future generations, may his legacy live on forever. He was one of my favorites when I was growing up. “Sometimes I think it's a shame When I get feeling better, when I'm feeling no pain."
What was my favorite? "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald;" a cargo ship made famous by one of Gordon’s songs. As a former sailor myself, this is the most haunting song I've ever listened to. "Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" These lyrics give me chills every time I hear them; in a few words he fully captured human helplessness and awe of facing nature's immense power. He wrote it to honor all those regular men, who suffered a horrific death while they were just doing their everyday job. Let us all pause to remember and give thanks for the everyday working people, those people we never see or think of who make our own lives easier by their labor and sacrifices. Sailors, soldiers, truckers, longshoremen, farmers, pilots, firefighters, nurses, teachers, veterinarians, caregivers... So many people who are on the fronlines of life yet in the background, working hard, just struggling to survive and take care of their families and others while doing good things in this life.
To learn more of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot - "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" - Chicago - 1979
Another one of my Gorden favorites is Sundown. It became a hit while I was in the Navy. I always thought it was about houses of ill repute and what goes on in them.
I can see her lying back in her satin dressIn a room where you do what you don't confess
Sundown, you better take careIf I find you been creeping 'round my back stairsSundown, you better take careIf I find you been creeping 'round my back stairs
She's been looking like a queen in a sailor's dreamAnd she don't always say what she really means
Sometimes I think it's a shameWhen I get feeling better, when I'm feeling no painSometimes I think it's a shameWhen I get feeling better, when I'm feeling no pain
I can picture every move that a man could makeGetting lost in her loving is your first mistake
Sundown, you better take careIf I find you been creeping 'round my back stairsSometimes I think it's a sinWhen I feel like I'm winning, when I'm losing again
I can see her looking fast in her faded jeansShe's a hard-loving woman, got me feeling mean
Sometimes I think it's a shameWhen I get feeling better, when I'm feeling no pain
Sundown, you better take careIf I find you been creeping 'round my back stairs
Sundown, you better take careIf I find you been creeping 'round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it's a sinWhen I feel like I'm winning, when I'm losing again
One of the things I disliked about the Navy was that every port, especially those overseas, were inhabited by folks whose only reason for living was to take a sailor's dollar. It was easy because the sailor was away from home no one knew him; therefore he could get away with doing things he wouldn't do in his home port.
After several months a sea without a break a sailor's thoughts turn to beer and women, not the kind you would find in a Church, more like a queen in a sailor's dream. Those queens are normally found in a room where you do what you don't confess. Even though you know she don't always say what she really means, you know she's a hard-loving woman, that's got you feeling mean. Yet, sometimes you think it's a sin when you feel like you're winning, when you'rs losing again.
It's hard to keep your morals when there's nothing but decadence around you. This is one of the things that civilians don't understand about life at sea. The attitudes, feelings, thoughts and urges a sailor has after many months at sea without a break in the action. I guess that's why there's so much decadence in overseas ports.
Monday, March 6, 2023
Southern Rock at it's Best!
Just three and a half months before the fateful plane crash that killed Skynyrd members Steve Gaines, his sister, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (of the Honkettes), and lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zandt, Lynyrd Skynyrd played this 4th of July weekend program in Oakland.
While this is only a partial recording of the show, two of the three songs are probably the ones you would skip to anyway: "Sweet Home Alabama" and the legendary closing track that has inspired legions of concert-going yokels to make millions of ironic requests over the years, "Free Bird." The first track is an excerpt of a standard Skynyrd live show cover, Jimmie Rodgers' "T for Texas" The guys take six minutes to stretch their legs on this version of "Sweet Home Alabama." The song had been released three years prior as a response song to the Neil Young numbers "Southern Man" and "Alabama," which were both critical of southern politics. Ironically, by some reports, Van Zant was wearing a Neil Young t-shirt at the time of this performance.
The show is closed with "Free Bird," which by many fans' estimations is only rivaled by Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" as the most epic closing song in rock history. Allen Collins handles most of the five-minute solo, while Gary Rossington plays the "bird-chirp" guitar parts, which are not on the original recording, as well as the slide work on the opening riffs. Billy Powell also plays a masterful piano solo that is unique to the live show.
While Lynyrd Skynyrd would release the multi-platinum Street Survivors in October of 1977, the band's structure would be fundamentally devastated by the crash of their private Convair 240 that took the lives of three members, as well as the pilots and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, and terribly injured every other member, except for Honkette, JoJo Billingsley, who was at home with her children and had reportedly begged the band to quit using the plane after dreaming of such a crash.
From the ashes of this Skynyrd incarnation, Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, stepped in and made Lynyrd Skynyrd a popular band once more when they reformed in 1987. Lynyrd Skynyrd is planning to release an unearthed recording of pre-plane crash Skynyrd in 2009.
Friday, May 13, 2022
Sultans Of Swing
Another memory of days long past. I was tending bar in a small beer only bar in Mare Island California. I worked the 6:00pm to midnight shift. From
9:00 - 5:00 I was going to Naval Tactical Data System "C" school. Most
of the locals liked me, I'd toss out a round for the bar a few times. It
was small, had one pool table and an old "juke" box from the 50's. It
was mostly country music with a few blues tunes. We also had a spot for
local talent, guitar players that would come in and pick and sing for
drinks. They were mostly 2nd & 3rd raters played mostly county music
but every once in a while we would get a "rock-band" want-to-be to play
some of their stuff.
I just listened to the Sultans Of Swing, it kinda brought that memory back.
Just after 6pm on July 13, 1985, Dire Straits took to the stage at Wembley Stadium as part of Live Aid, playing to a global TV audience that reached a mind-frying 1.9 billion. In their slot between U2 and Queen, they started with Money For Nothing (joined by Sting), and then came an epic version of the song that made them superstars: Sultans Of Swing.
“It
was a very special feeling to be part of something so unique,” recalls
bassist John Illsley. “Live Aid was a unique privilege for all of us.
It’s become a fabulous memory.”
Dire Straits’ standing as MTV megalords belied the absurdly humble origins of Sultans Of Swing. Singer/guitarist Mark Knopfler had written it in 1977, after ducking into a deserted pub one rainy night and witnessing a lousy jazz band.
Undeterred by the lack of both talent and punters, their lead singer
finished the set with a mildly enthusiastic, “Goodnight and thank you.
We are the Sultans Of Swing.”
Knopfler at least left the pub with the seed of an idea. Returning home to the
Deptford council flat he shared with his younger brother David and
Illsley, he set about writing a song for the new band they’d just
formed.
“We were living on next to nothing and weren’t even able to pay the gas
bill,” Illsley says, adding that they weren’t called Dire Straits for
nothing. “The first time I heard Mark playing a version of Sultans Of Swing was in that flat, but the song was completely different.”
Even Knopfler thought it lacked spark. But the song took on a smouldering
blues groove after he scrabbled enough money together to buy a 1961 Stratocaster.
Illsley recalls: “One day he said to me: ‘Remember that song I was fiddling
about with the other day? I’ve completely redone the chord structure.’
He played it, and it sounded pretty good. The whole thing is incredibly
simple, it’s the playing that makes it intriguing. It’s that rolling
rhythm on the guitar and a very simple bass and drums approach. Then,
of course, it’s a story. And let’s face it, all good songs have a
story.”
Sultans Of Swing sees Knopfler folding the night’s events into the narrative. As the rain beats down outside, the band are blowin’ Dixieland. Harry’s got a day
job, but he’s up there giving it his all. So is Guitar George, who knows
all the chords: ‘But it’s strictly rhythm/He doesn’t want to make
it cry or sing/If any old guitar is all he can afford/When he gets up
under the lights to play his thing.’ Meanwhile, a small group of youths are fooling around in the corner, ‘drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles/They don’t give a damn about any trumpet-playing band/It ain’t what they call rock and roll.’ It’s as damp an evocation of thankless 70s publand as you’re likely to hear.
Still desperately seeking a record deal, in July ’77 Dire Straits booked
time at a tiny eight-track studio. They then took the resulting five-
song demo, which included Sultans Of Swing, to Radio London DJ
Charlie Gillett. “Charlie went absolutely crazy about it,” Illsley
remembers. “On air he said: ‘I’m going to play this until somebody
picks this band up,’ which I thought was quite a bold thing to do. And
thankfully they did. In those days one person at a radio station could
really make a difference.”
Now that Sultans Of Swing was on constant rotation, record companies started to take note of this rumbling blues- rock tune about a rotten jazz band. Within two months Dire Straits had been signed by Phonogram. They were then put into Basing Street Studios to record their debut album, under the auspices of
producer Muff Winwood and engineer Rhett Davies. But, as Illsley
explains, “the problem we had was that we couldn’t get Sultans Of Swing to
sound as good as the demo. There was even a time when the demo was
being considered as the one that was going to go out as a single.”
Eventually, though, they re-recorded it to everyone’s approval.
Released in May ’78, Sultans Of Swing didn’t create much of a stir in Britain. Then things started to move with an almost haphazard momentum. The self-titled album came out in October. Sales ticked very slowly, though it quickly went gold in Holland. “I got this phone call from the record company saying that we’d sold 25,000 albums,” Illsley remembers. “Then it went to the States and took off there. The radio stations started playing Sultans Of Swing like
crazy. And because America picked up on it, it came back to the UK and
got re-released again, which was really peculiar. It started spreading
like wildfire.”
By early ’79, the single had gone Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic,
as had the album, whose unfussy aesthetic and timeless songcraft,
allied to a frontman who sounded like the stop-off point between JJ
Cale and Bob Dylan, led to sales of more than seven million. Suddenly
Knopfler was being toasted as the greatest home-grown guitarist since
Eric Clapton. And even Dylan came calling, enlisting Knopfler and Dire
Straits drummer Pick Withers to play on Slow Train Coming.
Dire Straits, of course, went on to become one of the most successful
British bands of the 80s. By the time they hung up their guitar straps
in 1992, they’d racked up sales of more than 120 million and littered
their mantelpiece with Grammys and Brits.
“I suppose you could say that Sultans Of Swing was the one song that started it all off,” muses Illsley. “It had a huge impact. These are the catalysts that move you onward through life.
People have said we were lucky, but I say: ‘Well, what does luck mean?’
The fact of the matter is that it was a bloody good song, the band was
pretty damn good and we worked bloody hard. And the only way you’re
going to get anywhere is by being committed. So if something like that
happens to you, it’s fantastic. Boy, was it exciting!”
Sometimes I wonder if any of those wana-bees ever made it big.
If you were there, I think you might call them all the Sultans Of Swing.
Dire Straits Greatest Hits Full Playlist 2021 | The Best Songs Of Dire Straits
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