Category: Music

Goodnight Irene

Lead Belly Goodnight Irene As Chimesfreedom prepares for Hurricane Irene in New York, we wish others in the hurricane’s path to be safe in weathering the storm. Hopefully, we soon will be wishing Irene goodnight, as in the great song. Unlike the hurricane, “Goodnight Irene” is timeless, so that nobody knows where the song originated. Huddie Ledbetter, i.e., Lead Belly, made the first recording of the song while he was in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. His recording is a beautiful, haunting version of the song about the deep sadness of lost love, as the singer tries to warn others to avoid his fate (“Stay home with your wife and family / And stay by the fireside bright”).

Goodnight Irene, Lead Belly

Pete Seeger’s The Weavers helped make the song a national hit in 1950.  And there have been numerous covers through the years, including interesting upbeat versions by Fats Domino and by Brian Wilson (the latter is on the tribute CD, Folkways: A Vision Shared (1988)).

In the version below, Pete Seeger sings with the great Mississippi John Hurt, who tells a story about getting his first guitar. Then, the group, which includes folk-singer Hedy West (“500 Miles“) and banjo player Paul Cadwell, breaks into playing “Goodnight Irene.”

The above performance appeared on Rainbow Quest, a show Pete Seeger started on a local UHF New York television station in the 1960s. At the time, many television stations feared featuring Seeger, who had been blacklisted because he asserted his First Amendment rights before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Fortunately, through YouTube, many more people get the opportunity to see some great performances hidden away at the time. Seeger, who now is a respected sage from a different time, has always been a bit of a hurricane himself.

What is your favorite version of “Goodnight Irene”? Leave a comment. In times of natural disasters, it is always a good reminder to help others by donating to organizations like the Red Cross.

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    Willy DeVille: More Than a Storybook Story

    On August 31, 2011, the B.B. King Blues Club in New York is hosting “Spirit of Mink DeVille”: The 2nd Annual Willy DeVille Memorial Concert. Willy DeVille — who passed away two years ago this month and was born in 1950 this Thursday, August 25 — had a long career as a musician, singer, and songwriter. He formed the band Mink DeVille in 1974, and it lasted until 1986. He recorded in a number of styles, ranging from punk rock to New Orleans R&B to an Academy-Award-nominated ballad. Later in his career, he became interested in Spanish-American music and began exploring his Native American background. At various times he was more popular in Europe than in his home country of the U.S., but he continued to create music throughout his life.

    Willy DeVille Storybook Love

    DeVille struggled for success throughout his career, and he battled a heroin addiction. After getting off heroin in 2000, his second wife, Lisa Leggett, committed suicide in 2001. Then, in 2009, he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, and during treatment, doctors discovered pancreatic cancer. He died three months later in August 2009.

    For those who have never heard of Willy DeVille, you most likely know one of his songs, “Storybook Love.” The song is from The Princess Bride and was nominated for an Academy Award. DeVille wrote the song with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame. It is DeVille’s voice you hear at the end of the movie, and it is a perfect song for a perfect movie. Check out this 2002 live performance of the song (available on his Live in Berlin CD).

    To get a sense of DeVille’s range over the course of his career, compare “Storybook Love” to this Mink DeVille recording of “Spanish Stroll.”

    Overall, it is a pretty impressive career for someone whose name is unfamiliar to many people. Thanks to Mike for introducing me to these compelling performances by DeVille.

    What is your favorite Willy DeVille song? Leave a comment.

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    • Is That All There Is?: Jerry Leiber, Rest in Peace

    Leiber and Stoller Hound Dog On August 22, 2011, Jerry Leiber, part of the great song-writing team with Mike Stoller, passed away at the age of 78 from cardiopulmonary failure.

    Leiber’s impact on your life may be best summarized by this list of songs he co-wrote, mostly writing the lyrics while Stoller handled the music: Big Mama Thornton and Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” Elvis’s “Jailhouse Rock,” Dion’s “Ruby Baby,” The Drifters’ “There Goes My Baby,” The Coasters’ “Yakety Yak,” The Searchers’ “Love Potion No. 9,” Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?,” Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” (written w/ Ben E. King and also recorded by John Lennon), Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem” (Leiber and Phil Spector), George Benson’s “On Broadway,” and Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”

    Take away Leiber’s work and you have to imagine Elvis without “Jailhouse Rock,” or the movie Stand By Me without the song — or Reservoir Dogs without “Stuck in the Middle With You” (not for the faint of heart).

    Although many may not recognize the name, the above songs and others will be there for generations. Rolling Stone has a nice article about Leiber’s career.  A career that included forming a partnership with Stoller that put them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

    Rest in peace Mr. Leiber, and thanks for the songs, including this advice from “Is That All There Is?”:

    For I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you,
    When that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath, I’ll be saying to myself,

    Is that all there is, is that all there is?
    If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing;
    Let’s break out the booze and have a ball,
    If that’s all there is.

    UPDATE (Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011): After the above story was posted, we learned that we lost another great songwriter. Nick Ashford died of cancer at the age of 69. Like Jerry Leiber, Ashford was famous for writing great songs with a partner, Valerie Simpson, who eventually became Ashford’s wife too. Their songs included Diana Ross’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Reach Out and Touch,” Ray Charles’s “Let’s Go Get Stoned” and “I Don’t Need No Doctor” (covered here by John Mayer and John Scofield), Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” (covered by Whitney Houston too), and one of my favorites, the Marvelette’s “Destination Anywhere,” which was featured in the movie The Commitments. Ashford & Simpson had success as performers too, including a hit with a song that has a title that described Ashford’s songwriting talent: “Solid (as a Rock).”

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    Taxi Driver Music: “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33”

    Martin Scorsese made deliberate choices in the music for “Taxi Driver,” including Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.”

    Taxi Driver Music In a recent post, we discussed the link between Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and the movie Taxi Driver (1976). In this post, we consider a musical connection between the movie and another song: Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.”

    In Taxi Driver, perhaps the one moment a viewer might think that there is a slight bit of hope for Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) is when he first courts Betsy (Cybill Shepherd). After he charms her into going to a diner for a bite to eat, she quotes a song: “He’s a prophet, he’s a pusher… partly truth and partly fiction… a walking contradiction.” Bickle focuses on the “pusher part,” saying he has never been a pusher, but she explains she brought it up for the “walking contradiction” part. Bickle is amused, and a later scene shows him at a record store, apparently buying the album, which he later gives to her on their next date.  And then he ruins the date by taking her to see a pornographic film.

    Although we do not hear the song or the name of the song in those scenes, the quote is from Kris Kristofferson’s song “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” which was off of his second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I (1971). The album’s biggest hit was “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again),” and the album also included Kristofferson’s version of “Jody and the Kid.”

    “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” which was not a hit for Kristofferson, has held up well through the years. A number of artists have covered the song, including Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Jerry Lee Lewis (with Kristofferson).

    When a tribute CD was put together for Kristofferson, they took the song for the title of the CD, The Pilgrim: A Celebration Of Kris Kristofferson. On that album, in the introduction to the title track, Kristofferson explains that he wrote that song “for a good friend of mine, Donny Fritts [Kristofferson’s long-time keyboard player], and Dennis Hopper and Johnny Cash. . .” and then he goes on to list a number of people ranging from Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to Mickey Newbury to “maybe me and I guess my father.” As Kristofferson has aged and seeped into musical legend as one of our classic country elders, the song seems to be more and more about him.

    It is a beautiful song, and while like Astral Weeks it is not completely in sync with the story of Travis Bickle, you can see where Martin Scorsese got a little inspiration from the song. Like “Madame George,” the song “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” also contains some of the themes of isolation and loneliness that Martin Scorsese tried to capture in Taxi Driver.

    Kris Kristofferson Silver Tonged Devil He has tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars,
    And he’s traded in tomorrow for today;
    Runnin’ from his devils, Lord, and reachin’ for the stars,
    And losin’ all he’s loved along the way;
    But if this world keeps right on turnin’ for the better or the worse,
    And all he ever gets is older and around,
    From the rockin’ of the cradle to the rollin’ of the hearse,
    The goin’ up was worth the comin’ down.

    Like many of Kristofferson’s songs, it works as pure poetry. His lyrics in “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33,” describe a man of contradictions, leaving much room for interpretation.

    I have never read an explanation for the “Chapter 33” in the title, but I suspect it is a reference to a man being near the end of his life, just as Chapter 33 will fall near the end of a book. Perhaps that is why the song seems to describe so many of the brilliant artists mentioned by Kristofferson in the introduction mentioned above.

    May we all be so lucky that the going up is worth the coming down.

    In another performance, Kristofferson interprets the song with a more upbeat version of the song with a full band.

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    Elvis Presley Death Roundup

    On today’s date in 1977, the 42-year-old Elvis Presley went into hiding to escape the spotlight and live his life in peace. Well, either that or he died. Below is a roundup of some of the stories on the anniversary of his reported “death.”

    – The Washington Post blog reprints an article from 1956 about the young Elvis.

    Elvis Gold Suit

    – Events at Graceland are covered in several articles. Doug Stephan’s Good Day has a piece about the annual pilgrimage to Graceland. The Los Angeles Times also addresses the journey to Graceland (“Elvis…spurs fresh tears”) and notes some other Elvis anniversaries around the corner. Illustrating Elvis’s international appeal, AlJazeera also has a post about Graceland and the anniversary.

    – In the memory category, Boomitude presents a couple of fun podcasts of Billy Bob Thornton discussing his memories of Elvis’s death (“If Elvis could be gone, boy, bad stuff can really happen, can’t it?”) and reviewing his favorite Elvis songs. A memory of a different sort is recalled in in the Orange County Register, where Patricia Bunin uses the anniversary to recount her first kiss, which was from Elvis.

    – The Baltimore Sun uses the anniversary to ponder what books Elvis would be reading today. Taking the idea further, the International Business Times discusses “Five Stocks Elvis Might Have Enjoyed,” using his song titles for guidance. The same publication also has “10 Things You Might Not Have Known About the King.”

    – The Oakland County Daily Tribune has a long feature story on an Elvis-themed party store.

    – Politics seems to creep into everything these days, so here is the Huffington Post writing about Michelle Bachmann mistakenly wishing Elvis happy birthday on the day he died.

    – In the song category, the Christian Science Monitor ranks his five greatest songs with “Hound Dog” and “If I Can Dream” in the top five. Blogness on the Edge of Town, consistent with its Bruce Springsteen focus, features a collection of Elvis Presley songs covered by Springsteen. The website also features an audio clip of Springsteen discussing his Presley memories.

    – Every anniversary of Elvis’s death I try to re-read Lester Bangs’s beautiful essay from the Village Voice in 1977, “Where Were You When Elvis Died?” Check it out if you have never read it. “But I can guarantee you one thing: we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis.”

    Finally, here is an obligatory great Elvis performance. Not long before Elvis died, he played the piano and sang after playing racquetball. The two songs — the last songs he would ever sing — were Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Unchained Melody.” Although Elvis was in bad shape toward the end of his life, we often forget that he could still belt out a song.

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