...to the Sublime

Smokey, Covered

I'm a sucker for cover tunes. Someday I'll post my "R&B Fable" about how "Land of 1000 Dances" got from Chris Kenner (the song's writer) to Cannibal & the Headhunters to Wilson Pickett to Patti Smith. But for now let's just consider cover versions I recently discovered of two of Smokey Robinson's greatest hits--"Ooh Baby Baby" and "Tracks of My Tears." As I've stated before, oldies radio has killed the oldies by playing the same songs by certain artists over and over again. In fact, I can't bear to listen to these songs by Smokey anymore. I'd rather hear his lesser know gems, like "Save Me" and "A Fork In the Road." But I was intrigued when I learned Marianne Faithfull had covered "Ooh Baby Baby" on her new album. First of all, the album is produced by the prolific and profoundly talented Hal Willner, so I knew it would be a sonic treat. But I wasn't prepared for this. The song is actually a duet between Faithfull and the otherworldly Antony Hegarty. He's an acquired taste--one that I hadn't quite bought into. This version is eight minutes long(!) and it starts with an extended intro that features a lush instrumental passage and Hegarty setting the stage. Love it or hate it--there's nothing quite like Hegarty's voice in pop music today. But his ethereal tenor sounds great with Faithfull's famously husky voice. Mid-way through, though, there's a tempo change. The song suddenly goes into a rock/R&B vamp with Hegarty taking the lead over a searing guitar solo. I wasn't sold on the first few listens, but it's slowly growing on me. But I'm still happier when, after a couple of minutes, the song returns to its original groove, which is even slower than Smokey's version. Faithfull sounds as decadent as ever. Ooh baby baby, indeed.

I'm not sure how I had overlooked Aretha's version of "Tracks of My Tears." (I stumbled upon it during an iTunes search jag.) Probably because it's from an album that didn't yield any big hits for her. Instead it features her doing some typically eclectic covers, including the standard "Crazy He Calls Me," John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind," and Bob Lind's "Elusive Butterfly." I'm not one of those people who think Aretha can sing anything and everything. She's certainly made some questionable choices in her long career. This cover starts promisingly, with a pretty acoustic guitar intro and Aretha easing into Smokey's lyrics: "People say I'm the life of the party/because I tell a joke or two..." But the arrangement starts to build up, and soon there are blaring horns and Aretha turning it up a notch...or four. By the end, it's a full-blown Vegas, big band production. This song calls for a little restraint. In this instance, I'll take Smokey's quiet tears over Aretha's wail. (But dig the lime green dress on that svelte Re-Re! Yeah, baby, yeah!) 

Witty White Boy Rock

It's been 10 years since this album was released by this incongruously named band. Incongruous because the Ben Folds Five was actually a trio, led by piano player extraordinaire Ben Folds. I think I bought this album solely on the strength of having heard one song, the mournful ballad, "Brick." So I was more than pleasantly surprised when the album turned out to be stupendous, beginning to end. It's a grab bag of rockers and ballads, beautiful melodies and witty lyrics, all held together by Folds' astounding piano playing that is alternately pounding and tender. Folds wears his pop influences on his sleeve. There are songs that sound like early Elton John ("One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces"), Wings-era Paul McCartney ("Selfish, Cold and Composed'), Brian Wilson ("Kate"), and Queen ("Missing the War"). The album was my favorite of that year, and I've listened to it regularly over the past decade. Recently I picked up a re-mastered version of the album (with bonus tracks). I bought it for my 13-year-old son, Gabriel, who plays the piano and is an avowed Folds fan. He's even learned to play a song from this album, "Cigarette." Like me, he knows every lyric to every song and it's a gas to hear him singing along in the car. And now Folds has received the ultimate compliment: on Facebook, Gabriel has named this as one of his 5 favorite albums of all time. I second the motion. 

  

This Magic Moment (Al Green)

  

The righteous Reverend returned to form last year with this highly acclaimed album. Today is his 63rd birthday so it gives me an opportunity to weigh in, albeit belatedly. There is one absolutely perfect moment on this album and it comes on the collection's best song, his duet with Corrine Bailey Rae, "Take Your Time." The tune, which is as good as any of his classics from the '70s, has a recurring motif of three descending notes that are essential to the languid groove. The song starts with the two of them singing the chorus, and then she takes the first verse. They sing the chorus again and then the Reverend comes in at about 1:57. His first line is: "When I think about yesterday/everything was easy/everything was OK." But Green, a master of phrasing, pauses between "about" and "yesterday" and in that space the band plays those three notes that remind you where the "blues" in "rhythm & blues" came from. It's amazing how one moment can define a song but that's exactly what happens here. And then Green finishes the verse, having taken possession of the song. But he is a generous partner and the song doesn't call for showmanship. Still, it's clear that on this stack of hotcakes, Rae is just the butter. The Reverend is the syrup. 

Play Ball!

Manny's back in L.A., Junior's back in Seattle, and Barry and Roger are sweatin' legal bullets. In other words, all is as it should be on Opening Day 2009.

My spring training consists of revisiting literature about the sport, including this, by Tom Boswell, from the baseball book with the best title ever: "Why Time Begins On Opening Day." Here's what Boswell had to say about the camera-happy politicians and literary blowhards who make their once-a-season appearance on opening day: 

They're gone soon, off in search of some windy event worthy of their attention. Then, once more, all those long slow months of baseball are left to us. And our time can begin again.

And then there's this from Roger Angell, our greatest living baseball writer, in the essay "Early Innings," from his autobiography, "Let Me Finish":

Sports were different in my youth--a series of events to look forward to and then to turn over in memory, rather than a huge, omnipresent industry, with its own economics and politics and crushing public relations. How it felt to be a young baseball fan in the 1930s can be appreciated only of I can bring back this lighter and fresher atmosphere. Attending a game meant a lot, to adults as well as to a boy, because it was the only way you could encounter athletes and watch what they did. There was no television, no instant replay, no evening highlights. We saw the players' faces in newspaper photographs, or in the pages of Baseball, an engrossing monthly with an invariable red cover, to which I subscribed, and here and there in an advertisement...We never heard athletes' voices or became aware of their "image." Pedro Martinez and Barry Bonds and Michael Jordan were light-years away. Baseball by radio was a rarity, confined for the most part to the World Series; the three New York teams, in fact, banned radio coverage of their regular-season games between 1934 and 1938, on the theory that daily broadcasts would damage attendance. Following baseball always required a visit to the players' place of business, and, once there, you watched them with attention, undistracted by Diamond Vision or blasting rock music or game promotions. Seeing the players in action on the field, always at a little distance, gave them a heroic tinge.

Musicians of various stripes have penned odes to our National Pastime over the years. One of the more entertaining collections is "The Baseball Project" (pictured above), a 13-track CD of songs by a quartet of musician-fans that includes Peter Buck of REM. The songs (available on iTunes) are about various characters from baseball history, including one told in the voice of one of the all-time greats: "Ted Fucking Williams":

And everyone says 'Hey Duke!" like everything I did was some kind of fluke. I gotta give the Duke a hand but there's nothing that he can do better than I can. I'm Ted Fucking Williams! 

But if your taste leans to soul, then check out "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game" by The Intruders. Yes, the same group that hit it big with "Cowboys to Girls."

So now you're all set: got your lit, got your tunes. Now grab a brew and let's play, er, watch two. 

 

The Mighty Leon

Leon Russell was the first piano player I admired. My older brother introduced me to him through the "Mad Dogs & Englishmen" album, which captured the legendary tour in which Russell led the band behind Joe Cocker's first U.S. tour in 1970. I don't recall if I first glimpsed Russell in the "Mad Dogs" concert movie or in George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh," but I do remember being blown away by the slight, mysterious, silver-maned dervish behind the keyboard.

Russell's story is well known. A piano prodigy in his home state of Oklahoma, he came to L.A. at the age of 17 and eventually became part of the all-star session band known as The Wrecking Crew, which played on an astounding number of hits by everyone from the Beach Boys to Elvis Presley to Frank Sinatra (http://www.wreckingcrew.tv/songlist.html).

Following Russell's success with Cocker, he launched his solo career. After a couple of albums recorded with Marc Benno as The Asylum Choir, he released the eponymous "Leon Russell" (above), which showcased his writing skills on tunes such as "A Song For You" and "Delta Lady."  He could write everything from beautiful ballads to honky tonk rockers, and his piano skills were amazing. (On Elvis Costello's Sundance Channel interview series, "Spectacle," Elton John talked about what a huge influence Russell was on him.)

Russell's "This Masquerade" became a huge hit for George Benson, but his biggest songwriting smash may have been "Superstar" (co-written with Bonnie Bramlett), which was made famous by The Carpenters and also memorably done by Luther Vandross. Russell never recorded "Superstar" on any of his own studio albums. (On "Mad Dogs" it was sung by Rita Coolidge.) But I do recall him performing the song in concert when I saw him open for Joe Cocker in the early '70s, and then on his own solo tours. It's a wonderful and lasting memory from some of the first live shows I attended.

Leon Russell turns 67 today. And he'll always be a superstar in my book.