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Willie Nelson turns 78 today. I bet this song takes on added resonance every time he sings it now. Here are two duet versions of "Funny How Time Slips Away," the first by Willie and his longtime pal, smooth county crooner Ray Price; the second a funkified version by the Reverend Al Green and Lyle Lovett.
I distinctly remember hearing Phoebe Snow's voice for the first time. I was in a record store (natch) and out of the speakers came that voice, and I recall wondering: Who in the hell is that?
Such a fantastic voice, such great tunes. She wrote seven of the nine songs on that 1974 debut album (on Shelter, Leon Russell's label), which featured guest artists such as The Persuasions, David Bromberg and Dave Mason. The band included jazz stalwarts Zoot Sims and Hugh McDonald. She made the cover of Rolling Stone and seemed destined for a long and fruitful career.
But a year later she gave birth to a daughter who was brain-damaged. Snow (born Phoebe Laub) vowed to not institutionalize her daughter, and she cared for her alone as her husband soon left the marriage. Snow managed to put out a few more good albums. Her follow-up, "Second Childhood," had a brassy version of the Gershwins' "There's a Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York," and the band had even more jazz luminaries, including Ron Carter. Her fourth album, "Never Letting Go," featured a heartbreaking version of Stephen Bishop's title song.
She recorded five albums between 1974-78, but as her daughter got older, Snow said it became increasingly difficult for her to make records. She released "Rock Away" in 1981 and then wasn't heard from again until 1989. She put out a few more albums, and then her daughter died in 2007 at the age of 31. Snow released a live album in 2008 and resumed performing, but she had a brain hemorrhage in early 2010 and died Tuesday from related complications. She was 60.
Here she is from "The New York Rock and Soul Revue," recorded live at the Beacon Theater in 1991.
Huey P. Meaux, aka The Crazy Cajun, died today at the age of 82, and so ends one of the most colorful and sordid stories in rock history.
Meaux, a producer, manager and record label owner, was best known for taking Doug Sahm and his band out of San Antonio and turning them into the Sir Douglas Quintet. But he also released Barbara Lynn's "You'll Lose a Good Thing" and he revived Freddy Fender's career with "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights." He was truly the King of Swamp Pop. As Joe Nick Patoski wrote in Texas Monthly in 1996:
The names came and went—Roy Head, Chuck Jackson, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley, Lowell Fulson, Joey Long, Doug Kershaw, Clifton Chenier, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Copeland, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Archie Bell and the Drells, Tommy McLain, Cosimo Matassa, and Jerry Wexler—all of them made records or worked with Meaux at one time or another. For two generations of Gulf Coast rock and rollers—or any musicians from Baton Rouge to San Antonio—he was the pipeline to the big time.
Meaux also worked with Sunny Ozuna (the photo caption has his surname misspelled) of San Antonio, who hit the big time in 1963 with a cover of Little WIllie John's "Talk to Me" and, thanks to Meaux, became the first Mexican-American artist to appear on "American Bandstand."
But Meaux also had a dark side. In 1996, a police raid of his office turned up turned up thousands of Polaroids and videos of girls, mostly underage, in sexual situations. An investigator said Meaux was a “classic example of a child molester.” Meaux pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault of a child, a drug possession charge, a child pornography charge and another for jumping bail. (He skipped the country but was arrested in Juarez.)
According to the Beaumont Enterprise: He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but that was before the criminal code changed to make the kind of crime for which he was convicted an "aggravated" felony, which would have kept him in prison until 2002. He was released after two years.
Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, indeed. Here's Doug Sahm covering Sunny Ozuna covering Little Willie John.
National Record Store Day was mostly a bust for me this year. The line to enter Mecca (aka Amoeba Records) was too long to deal with so I visited a couple of my neighborhood stores instead. My best find was on a sampler from the Seattle-based indie label Light In the Attic Records. I dropped it in the CD player and my ears perked up when I heard this fantastic song that made me check the cover to find out who the artist was.
Turns out it was a singer-songwriter named Lou Bond who recorded his only album in 1974, released on We Produce, an imprint of Stax Records. The funky R&B geniuses at the legendary label must've been thrown by Bond, a troubadour who sounded nothing like anyone else at Stax. So the album and his career didn't get very far. But the folks at Light In the Attic reissued the album last year. (It's also available on iTunes.) Beautiful tune. Soulful voice. What more can you ask for?
From the Los Angeles Times:
Juan Uribe returned to the Bay Area amid some controversy, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported that he was being sued by his former landlord.
Uribe had a late-night fish fry that resulted in a grease fire that set off the sprinkler system, flooding his condominium and sending water to two condominiums below, according to the landlord. Damage totaled $145,000.
"I don't want to talk about that," Uribe said. "I'm here to play."
Juan, this Louis Jordan classic is for you:
Download 2-10 Saturday Night Fish Fry, Pts. 1 & 2 (Single)
I hadn't heard this song in forever, but it was included in "The Wrecking Crew" documentary. It's a simple but catchy middle-of-the-road, country-lite tune from 1966 written by Lee Hazlewood. (Also sung by Zooey Deschanel in "500 Days of Summer.") Try getting it out of your head.
I've been obsessing about the Wrecking Crew ever since recently seeing a documentary about the legendary '60s L.A. studio band. (See earlier post.) Among the many groups that benefitted from the talents of these outrageously versatile musicians was The Monkees. The Wrecking Crew played on all their records until at some point Michael Nesmith, et.al., insisted on accompanying themselves.
Many Monkees hits were written by pop tunesmiths such as Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart ("Last Train to Clarksville"), and Gerry Goffin & Carole King ("Pleasant Valley Sunday"), but one of their songs that always intrigued me was "Goin' Down." It was pulled at the last minute from the 1967 album "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd." and later appeared on a 45 as the B-side to "Daydream Believer." (It was included on later Rhino Records reissues of "Pisces")
"Goin' Down" was credited to the Monkees and an L.A. pop-folk songwriter named Diane Hilderbrand. But it doesn't sound like anything else they ever wrote or recorded. The song, with Mickey Dolenz singing lead, actually swings like a MF and sounds like something Bobby Darin or Sammy Davis Jr. would have performed. And, sure enough, the liner notes to the "Pisces" reissue reveals that the studio band included saxophonist Plas Johnson, who was a Wrecking Crew mainstay. (That's his solo on "The Pink Panther" theme.) Also playing sax was the late L.A. jazz legend Buddy Collette, who did a lot of session work.
And one more bit of trivia: The Monkees performed "Goin' Down" on "The Tonight Show," backed by their occasional touring band, Sam & the Goodtimers, who for a time were Ike Turner's band. (Extra: a video tip from my homeboy and compañero, John Phillip Santos.)
I'm about a week late acknowledging the start of the baseball season, but I'll make it up to you with a doubleheader of sorts. The photo of '70s star Oscar Gamble is apropos of nothing---he just rocked the greatest 'fro in the history of the game. The funky-as-hell song, "Knock It Out the Park" (1970), is by Sam & Dave, notable for having been recorded at Atlantic Records' Criteria Studio in Miami, with backing from the Dixie Flyers--the house band that included guitarist Jim Dickinson and former Jerry Lee Lewis saxophonist Charlie Freeman. And after the song you'll find a cool animated short that writer Donnell Alexander helped make happen. It's the true story of the day that Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter while tripping on LSD. Ah, the '70s...
Download 45 Knock It Out the Park