French video series La Blogothèque has released a video of three performers covering tracks off of the upcoming Johnny Cash release, Out Among The Stars. As we previously reported, the new album puts together tracks that Cash recorded in 1981 and 1984, including one song that David Allan Coe had a hit with in 1985. This new video features Brandon Flowers (of the Killers), Father John Misty, and Local Natives each covering one song from the CD, performing isolated in the desert.
First, Flowers performs “I Came to Believe.” Father John Misty plays “Baby Ride Easy,” which is a duet by Cash and June Carter Cash on the album. Finally, Local Natives gives their take on the title song from the album, “Out Among the Stars.” Check it out.
If you want to hear a little more from the actual Johnny Cash album, here is another track that appears on the album. Johnny Cash joins Waylon Jennings singing the Hank Snow song, “I’m Movin’ On.”
Out Among the Stars hits stores Tuesday, April 1. For those excited about the new album from Johnny Cash, there are more unreleased Cash recordings in the vaults.
Will you get the new Johnny Cash album? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In March 1974, John Denver had his first number one song with “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” aided by a number of factors.
On March 30, 1974, John Denver’s song “Sunshine on My Shoulders” became his first number one hit. The song — co-written by Denver, Dick Kniss, and Mike Taylor — first appeared on the album Poems Prayers & Promises in 1971. After originally appearing as a B-side to “I’d Rather Be a Cowboy (Lady’s Chains),” the song was then re-released as an A-side single in 1973.
Denver’s previous single, “Rocky Mountain High” was a hit too, but it only went to number nine in 1973 on the Hot 100 chart. The timing may have had something to do with the popularity of “Sunshine on My Shoulder.” The song about sunshine warming you up might be popular as winter was coming to a close in March.
There is another reason the timing may have helped the song’s popularity. The sad-sounding song might might have received a boost from the fact that the nation was in a melancholy mood as the Watergate scandal dragged on in 1974.
Another reason that “Sunshine on My Shoulders” may have gotten a boost to be Denver’s first number one song is that in 1973 the song had appeared in a TV movie, “Sunshine,” which starred Cliff DeYoung and Cristina Raines. The sad sound of the song perfectly fit the storyline, about a woman who learns she has terminal cancer and then starts to tape record a journal for her musician-husband and their daughter.
In the movie, which later led to a short-lived TV series, Cliff DeYoung sings “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” You may hear the version DeYoung, who was in a band before he began his acting career, on YouTube (around the five-minute mark).
More recently, Carly Rae Jepson covered the song for a new generation. Her version appears on her 2008 album Tug of War.
Despite the sad sound of the original version, the lyrics are more uplifting than depressing. Things cannot be too bad if the singer promises, “If I had a day that I could give you, I’d give to you a day just like today.” Further, the only crying is from sunshine in the eyes. And most of the time sunshine makes the singer high.
Denver, who passed away in October 1997, explained in 1974 that he wrote “Sunshine on My Shoulders” because he was feeling down and “wanted to write a feeling-blue song.” But he realized that the song ended up being more optimistic than he had originally intended. The song “is what came out.”
What is your favorite John Denver song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Bruce Springsteen fans have noted that the singer has been making some interesting song choices on his latest tour. Recently, a friend directed me to Springsteen’s February performance of “Spill the Wine,” originally a 1970 hit for Eric Burdon (the former lead singer of The Animals) and War on their album Eric Burdon Declares “War” (1970). This February 23 opening performance at the Hope Estate Winery in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia was the first public performance of the song by Springsteen and the E Street Band. I am not sure there is a better song to open a show at a winery.
“Spill the Wine” is one of those songs you have heard a million times even if you may not recognize the song’s name. The tune often appears in movies set in the 1970s, like Boogie Nights (1997) and Remember the Titans (2000), because the song sounds like the 1970s. You will recognize it once you hear the opening riff. It’s a cool song too, and Springsteen does it justice (with some lyric changes for the Australian locale), here leading into his own song, “Seeds.” Check it out.
“Seeds” is about a family struggling to survive in the Southwest. As for “Spill the Wind,” you may read the different theories about the song’s meaning around the Internet. AllMusic, which gives its own interpretation of the song, notes that the song is so unique that few folks — like Springsteen and the Isley Brothers — have ever covered it. And, like a number of other one-off songs performed by Springsteen, so far he has only performed it once.
Although Springsteen’s performance is a lot of fun, it is of course impossible to top the original. The first album of two collaborations between Burdon and War created this song that became War’s first major hit and Burdon’s last.
What do you think? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On March 16, 1968, U.S. troops in Vietnam killed approximately 300-500 unarmed civilians in what became known as the My Lai Massacre. But it would not be until November 1969 before the incident became public knowledge in the United States.
Despite various charges being filed, only Second Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, would be convicted of any crimes. After being found guilty of killing a number of people in the village, he was sentenced to life in prison, although he would serve three and a half years.
When Calley’s trial began in late 1970, I was a little kid, absorbing various pieces about the war in Vietnam, as they filtered through various lenses of my childhood. I did not understand much about My Lai, but it became more prominent in my consciousness when after a trip to a local five-and-dime store, I picked up what looked like an interesting 45 RPM record called “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley.”
“The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley”
I did not know anything about the record, so I suppose I selected it because the title looked interesting. I thought it might be one of those funny records, popular at the time, that featured questions with humorous responses using song clips. So, with nothing else I wanted to buy that week with my allowance, I took “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” home.
When I played it on my small record player, I became mesmerized by the song with the recognizable music of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I played it over and over again.
But the version I bought was the original by Terry Nelson and “C” Company. The recording featured Alabama disc jockey Terry Nelson Skinner, who would later write the Air Supply hit “Even the Nights are Better.” Studio musicians provided the music. The group sold over one million copies of the single, and it peaked at number thirty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May 1971.
The flip side to “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” was another song about the horrors of being a soldier in the war called “Routine Patrol.” I repeatedly listened to that song too, although it was more scary, documenting men killed on a “routine patrol,” counting down like “Ten Little Indians.”
The Real Story and Some Real Heroes
As “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley” illustrates, many sided with Calley in debates about what happened at My Lai. They claimed he was doing his duty in a land where one could not easily recognize the enemy.
Because my childhood understanding of the story came from the song, that would be my image for awhile. But as much as I liked the record, something always seemed off to me about the tale. Growing up as a kid during that time, we knew that Vietnam was complicated and an awful mess, whichever side you were on.
Hugh Thompson Jr.
Calley rarely spoke about the My Lai massacre. In 2009, though, he apologized for his part in the killings, although he continued to assert that he was following orders on that day.
Unfortunately, because I learned about My Lai from the song, I only knew the name of Calley. I did not know the names of those innocent people who were killed.
And it would be decades before I would learn that there were real heroes that day, including helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, Jr. and his crew Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta. The three men were flying in the area when they saw the massacre taking place. Backed by Colburn and Andreotta, Thompson intervened at the risk of his own safety to stop the slaughter and save the lives of many civilians. After people learned about what happened at My Lai, some Americans attacked Thompson instead of recognizing him as a hero.
It is a shame that it took so long before I learned about Thompson, Colburn, and Andreotta. Someone should have written a song about them.
“When you’re really good, they call you a ‘crackerjack‘ . . . when you’re doing your best, giving your all,” sings Marty Brown in his new single, “CrackerJack.” With the new song, the 1990s country singing star continues on this new stage of his career after his appearances on America’s Got Talent.
For those who are most familiar with Cracker Jack as candied popcorn bought at baseball games, the term “crackerjack,” means “of excellent quality,” just as Brown defines it in his song. The word probably comes from the combination of “crack,” meaning “first-class,” with “jack,” meaning a “man.” The baseball confection allegedly earned its name when someone tasted it and said, “That’s a crackerjack!” Marty Brown’s song, though, is about the term “crackerjack,” not the popcorn snack, but his song does begin with a baseball reference.
Marty Brown’s “CrackerJack” follows the release of the video for his previous single, “Whatever Makes You Smile.” With the new singles, more people are learning what we already knew: Marty Brown is a crackerjack.
The new song, which was originally designated for a 2002 comeback album that was never officially released, is available to buy online on iTunes and through Amazon. For more on Marty Brown’s early career, check out this post. For tour and other information, check out Marty Brown’s website and Facebook page.
What do you think of the new Marty Brown song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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. For more on Marty Brown’s early career, check out 