« January 2011 | Main | March 2011 »
George Harrison would've turned 68 today. (This November will mark the 10th anniversary of his death!) One of the many gifts he brought to The Beatles was Billy Preston, whose contributions to the band's late work and Harrison's solo albums were invaluable. Here's Preston's cover of Harrison's "Give Me Love."
We're in for a few days of storms in L.A. so a rain-themed song seems in order. "The Rains Came" has always been one of my favorite Doug Sahm songs, but I recently learned he wasn't the first to record the tune. Big Sambo and the House Wreckers was a band from the Texas Gulf Coast fronted by a sax player/singer named James Young. He hooked up with the legendary, notorious manager/producer Huey P. Meaux, aka The Crazy Cajun. (Note the songwriter credit above. Uh-huh.) Anyway, Young had a minor regional hit with "The Rains Came" in 1961. But his career never took off and he died in 1983 at the age of 45. I came across this bittersweet obit on the 30DaysOut website. Here's an excerpt:
On June 19, 1981, the Port Arthur Civic Center jumped and throbbed to the sound of rock and roll. Dancers choked the aisles as more than 2,000 concertgoers embraced the second annual Jaycees’ Fifties rock revival show.
Probably the biggest hit of the night was a soft-spoken, unassuming musician whose saxophone and voice mesmerized the crowd. For James “Big Sambo” Young, it was a big night; playing before his hometown, it was the proudest moment of his life.
Young had worked for the City of Port Arthur since 1972. He was a crew chief for the Solid Waste services, supervising crews as they picked up litter. His love of music and entertaining drew Young to the Port Arthur Civic Center when it opened in 1979.
Civic Center director Carroll Albrittion recalls: “We need crews to clean up after each show. Big Sambo came up and offered to work, because he said he knew entertainers and he wanted to see the shows.
When the crowds filed out of the Civic Center that June evening in 1981, their ears were filled with the sound of Big Sambo’s sax and voice. There were no parties, just a few pats on the back for him afterwards. Because after the concert, Big Sambo, the hero of the night, helped clean up the hall.
And here's another tidbit, this one from a blog called "The A Side":
["The Rains Came"] was well on its way to breaking nationwide when it was killed by the NAACP, who thought that Young's stage name was a little over the top. Meaux says he pleaded with James to change it, but that he wanted to stick with the name that got him there. Young is the man who brought Barbara Lynn to Huey's barber shop, and set all of that in motion.
Feb. 10th is the 10th anniversary of my dad's death. Willie Garza was born on a South Texas farm in 1919. Like a lot of Mexican-Americans of his generation, the Army gave him a way off the farm, but he paid a price. He served for 27 months in the Pacific and was awarded the Silver Star for valor, but he didn't speak much of his horrific experiences in the jungles. All I know is that he was haunted by those nightmares all his life.
His general quietness extended to life in general. Again, like a lot of Mexicanos his age, he mostly kept his feelings to himself. That reticence is what inspired this song, which I co-wrote with Alejandro Escovedo for "By the Hand of the Father"--the stage production whose other writers were my wife, Theresa Chavez, Rose Portillo and Eric Gutierrez.
No, my dad didn't say much, and there were times I wish he had. But I knew that he loved me, my two brothers and our mother. Looking back, that was enough.
(The spoken word introduction was written and performed by Rose and it's about her dad; the song lyrics are about all our fathers.)
Watched a documentary last night about the late, great L.A. saxophonist Teddy Edwards and it reminded me of this album that features Tom Waits singing a couple of Edwards songs. They had met when Edwards performed on Waits' soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's "One From the Heart." Edwards subsequently toured with Waits some, and then when the saxophonist recorded this album in 1991, Waits performed a couple of tunes. One of them, "Little Man," was included on his "Orphans" collection. But this bluesy number, "I'm Not Your Fool," is somewhat of a rarity.
Download 06 I'm Not Your Fool Anymore