Music Archives - Page 238 of 246

American Idol & the Curse of “River Deep, Mountain High”

Last week’s American Idol shocked viewers when Pia Toscano went home in ninth place. There are various theories about why the audience did not vote for the excellent singer, who reportedly will come out okay with a new record contract anyway. Perhaps voters felt confident that Toscano would advance and so did not vote for her. Some have argued that this season’s judges — without Simon Cowell — are praising everyone to the same degree, so the judges do not help viewers distinguish the wheat from the chaff. There is another possibility: Maybe Toscano lost because of her divisive song, “River Deep, Mountain High.”

“River Deep, Mountain High,” originally by Ike and Tina Turner with a Phil Spector production, is both loved and hated. Some see it as one of Phil Spector’s last great songs, while others see it as overblown crap. Rolling Stone magazine recently listed it as number 33 on the “500 Greatest Songs of All-Time,” as ranked by people in the music industry and updated last year. But in The Heart of Rock & Soul (1989), critic Dave Marsh did not even list the song among the top 1001 singles every made. He explained that the song is not on his list “because it sounds to me like a muddle, an album’s worth of sounds jammed onto one side of a 45, with a little girl lyric that completely contradicts Tina Turner’s true persona as the Queen of R&B Sleaze.” (p. 545.)

When “River Deep, Mountain High” was released in 1966, critics gave it mixed reviews. The song went to number 5 in the U.K., but on the other side of the pond, it flopped and only went to number 88 in the United States. As one critic later reasoned, “The general consensus in America was that the record was too black for white radio stations to play, and too white for the black stations to play.”

Even the recording of the song was divisive. Tina Turner noted that working on the song was like “carving furniture.” One of the songwriters threw the finished acetate across the room in disgust. In her autobiography, singer Darlene Love described the sessions as “a miserable experience,” adding that only Phil Spector was happy with the results. The now-incarcerated Phil Spector later explained that “River Deep, Mountain High” “was like my farewell. I was just saying goodbye, and just wanted to go crazy, you know, for a few minutes—four minutes on wax, that’s all it was. I loved it, and enjoyed making it, but I didn’t think there was anything for the public.” After the disappointing public reaction to the song, Spector went into early retirement and into his decline with personal demons.

So maybe when Pia Toscano sang the song on American Idol, the haunted song was too much for the public. Or maybe some viewers did not like her singing a song unfortunately associated with men like Phil Spector and Ike Turner. I do not know if the song choice had anything to do with the American Idol elimination. I just know I am in the camp that loves the music. Every time I hear it, it gets stronger in every way.

Bonus “River Deep, Mountain High” Versions: Although Ike Turner is listed with his wife on the original recording, Darlene Love later recounted that he had nothing to do with the sessions for the song. Tina Turner later recorded another version of “River Deep, Mountain High.” In addition to the American Idol Pia Toscano version, there is a recent Glee television show version. Both do a good job, and it is great to see the song still appearing in mainstream performances, but neither rivals the original Tina Turner version. As far as I can tell, the song only appeared on American Idol once before. Amanda Avila sang it when she was in the top 16 during Season 4 (2005). The judges did not love her performance. And, like Pia Toscano, she was eliminated after her performance of the cursed song.

[May 2012 Update: During the 2012 season, Hollie Cavanaugh sang “River Deep, Mountain High” when she was among the five finalists. Perhaps she broke the curse, as Skylar Laine, not Hollie, was sent home after that show. Hollie was in next-to-last place.]

What do you think of “River Deep, Mountain High”? Was Pia Toscano’s elimination the most surprising ever on American Idol? Leave a comment.

Tina Turner: Simply the Best

New Track from Darlene Love: “Forbidden Nights”

How Kiss Wrote the Hit Song “Beth”

Marty Brown’s Son Christian Brown Auditions on “American Idol”

Lou Reed Inducting Dion Into Rock Hall

John Prine New Single: “Summer’s End”

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Best Gospel Songs By Pop Singers (Part 1): Nearer & Pressing

It has been awhile since I spent a Sunday in church, and the last time I visited, the preacher spent more time talking about politics than about faith. But I do love to hear beautiful gospel songs. You do not need to be religious to open yourself up to these songs, which at the heart, are really love songs. In this three-part series, we are discussing the Best Gospel Songs by Pop Singers. We start off with songs by Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan.

Nearer to Thee, Sam Cooke

Yes, I’m cheating. The Soul Stirrers were a gospel group. But this song is featured because their lead singer Sam Cooke, who is one of my favorite singers, went on to popular secular success on his own.

The song builds gradually with the hypnotic background vocals and Cooke’s fantastic voice. On this recording you can hear Cooke gradually working up the crowd, slowly, slowly, building . . . building . . . building . . . toward release and salvation. Beautiful.

Although Cooke recorded many great popular songs as a secular artist, few reached the intensity of “Nearer to Thee.” The one secular song that reaches a similar frenzy is his live version of “Bring It On Home to Me,” available on One Night Stand: Live at the Harlem Square Club 63.

Pressing On, Bob Dylan

I was too young to notice when Bob Dylan first became a phenomenon, but I do remember when everyone was surprised that he became a born-again Christian in the late 1970s. His music from this period includes a number of outstanding original gospel songs, including “Gotta Serve Somebody.”

One song from this period that is less well-known than some others is “Pressing On.” As Sam Cooke did in “Nearer to Thee,” Dylan effectively uses repetition. He repeats “I’m pressing on” throughout the song to provide a hypnotic quality not unlike a moving church service.

Here is the version of “Pressing On” by John Doe that was featured in the very good movie “about” Bob Dylan, I’m Not There (2007). Doe, founder of the punk bank X, does an excellent cover.

In this scene, Christian Bale does a great job of playing the singing Dylan and capturing the hypnotic nature of the song. Critic Greil Marcus wrote that the Doe-Bale combination is the place where the song found its voice. (“Themes from a Summer Place,” New West, July 28, 1980).

Another great gospel song by Bob Dylan, and perhaps his greatest, is “Every Grain of Sand.” For other great gospel songs by popular artists, check out upcoming posts in this series of Best Gospel Songs by Pop Singers. ..

What are your favorite gospel recordings by popular artists? Leave a comment.

Best Gospel Songs by Pop Stars (Part 5): Cash & Byrds

Best Gospel Songs by Pop Singers 4: Morning, Flying & Mystery

Best Gospel Songs by Pop Singers 3: Ready, Walk, Great

Best Gospel Songs by Pop Singers 2: Gold, Blessed & Sweet

Who Sings the Gospel Song “Last Mile of the Way” in the Film “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere”?

One Degree of Separation Between Bob Dylan & Twilight Zone: Bonnie Beecher & “Come Wander With Me”

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MLK Shot This Morning, er. . . Evening

U2’s powerful song “Pride (In the Name of Love)” commemorates this date in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed on a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was in town to support striking sanitation workers, and the day before he had given his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.

U2’s song, which was from The Unforgettable Fire (1984) album, recounts the assassination:

Early ~~morning~~, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

The shooting occurred at around 6:01 p.m. on this date, so why does “Pride (In the Name of Love)” refer to “early morning”? I have seen various explanations.

Some wondered whether at the time of the shooting, the band was in Dublin. In that city, the time is six hours later than Tennessee time, making it just after midnight and “early morning” in Ireland. But then the date for them would have been April 5, and the song still has the correct Tennessee date of April 4.

The time change could have been poetic license, but most likely it was an error. Perhaps the error occurred due to Bono’s memory of when he heard the news.

Sources note that Bono eventually recognized the mistake years later and began singing “early evening” instead of “early morning.” For example, in U2’s performance at the 2009 concert to celebrate the inauguration of Pres. Obama, Bono sang the “early evening” lyrics. Most recently, on U2’s Songs of Surrender release of new recordings of old songs including “Pride (In the Name of Love),” Bono again used the “early evening” line.

This energetic Chicago performance also uses the historically accurate time of day starting at around the 2:15 mark:

John Legend recorded a moving version of “Pride (In the Name of Love)” for King (2008), a series on the History Channel. His version, which also appears on the CD Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement, is less bombastic than the U2 version, but it is still powerful.

Legend replaces the “early morning” line with the words “late afternoon.” Thus, he gives us a third time option in the lyrics to “Pride (In the Name of Love).” Check it out, with the time of day mentioned at around the 2:20 mark.

Unfortunately, I listened repeatedly to the U2 albums The Unforgettable Fire (1984) and Rattle and Hum (1988). So,I always expect to hear “early morning” as in the original music video.

Either way, it is still a great song about a great man. And, the time of day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed is much less important than what he accomplished in his life in the name of love.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and “We Shall Overcome”

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day News: From D.C. to Burma

“There’s No End to Grief, That’s How We Know There’s No End to Love”: The Story of U2’s “One Tree Hill”

Springsteen and Bono Sing “Because the Night” in Dublin

Martin Luther King Jr. on “The Merv Griffin Show”

Martin Luther King Jr.: “The Other America”

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Buy from Amazon

Buddy Miller’s Majestic Silver Strings (CD review)

I love Buddy Miller’s music, and I love Bill Frisell’s jazz guitar playing. So when I heard they were working together, along with guitarists Marc Ribot and Greg Leisz, and singers that included Patty Griffin and Julie Miller, it did not take me long to plop down my money for the CD, Majestic Silver Strings. I own all of Buddy Miller’s eight albums, and I admire his other work too. This new album, released earlier this month, continues his excellence.

In recent years, as Buddy Miller has worked on producing other artists and backing them up, he has not released as much of his own music as he otherwise might. But he continues to make great music, and this new album is no exception. Majestic Silver Strings differs from his other albums by adding a large number of guests and a more atmospheric sound from the excellent guitarists on board, but it is still great music. While some versions of the songs stay close to their country roots, other versions stray further from traditional country, such as the outstanding reworking of Roger Miller’s “Dang Me” by Chocolate Genius that gives the song new force and power over its humorous roots. The album is full of excellent music, no matter how you label it. But you will not hear this album on most commercial music radio stations, which generally ignore the great work done by both Miller and his wife, Julie Miller.

Majestic Silver Strings features covers of a number of classic country songs — such as “Cattle Call” and “Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie” — as well as some originals. While there is an emphasis on the instrumentation, there are also excellent vocals by Buddy Miller along with Patty Griffin, Julie Miller, Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Lee Ann Womack, and Ann McCrary. Because of the number of guest artists, Majestic Silver Strings is in many ways more like a tribute album than a one-artist album. So like most tribute albums, there are a variety of sounds from song-to-song. Sometimes that works on albums and often it does not, but here the excellent musicians throughout make this album more cohesive than many other multi-artist albums. My favorite tracks on the album include Shawn Colvin singing “That’s the Way Love Goes” and Lee Ann Womack singing “Return to Me,” neither of which would sound out of place on the Grand Ole Opry stage or in a smoky jazz nightclub.

Conclusion? If you do not mind variety and a little jazz atmosphere mixed in with your music, you will most likely love Majestic Silver Strings. If you are looking for something that sticks closer to great traditional country sounds consistently throughout an album, you might want to start with one of Buddy Miller’s other albums, like the excellent Cruel Moon. You cannot go wrong either way.

Bonus Bill Frisell Video: If you are not familiar with Bill Frisell’s outstanding guitar work, while his home is in jazz, he often incorporates country music elements into his work. Additionally, he has covered songs by artists that include Bob Dylan and Madonna. Check out his take on the classic song “Shenandoah” from his Good Dog, Happy Man album.

The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris

Colvin & Earle: “Ruby Tuesday”

Remembering Singer-Songwriter Jesse Winchester

Tribute to Guy Clark CD is “Stuff That Works”

Great Song, Bad Name: Hot Burrito #1

Beyoncé and Dolly Parton: “Jolene”

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Limitless Barry Bonds in the Asterisk Nation

The federal trial of Barry Bonds began in March 2022 in San Francisco. Part of the trial focused on Greg Anderson, who started being Bonds’s trainer in 2000 and who allegedly supplied Bonds with steroids and then refused to testify against Bonds. Like Pres. Bill Clinton before him, Bonds had legal troubles that centered not on his actions but on the issue of whether he lied about them. The case examined whether Bonds lied to a grand jury when he said that he thought the substances Anderson gave him were legal. (UPDATE: Following the trial, the jury did not reach a verdict on the perjury accounts but found Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice and he was sentenced to probation.)

Outside the legal debate about perjury, though, an ongoing debate continues about Bonds’s baseball legacy. One of his biggest defenders has been Giants fan and singer-songwriter Dan Bern. In addition to writing some articles about Bonds, Bern has written at least four songs about the slugger: “73,” “Asterisk Nation,” “Rincon,” and “Year By Year Home Run Totals Of The Great Barry Bonds.”

Dan Bern’s Songs About Barry Bonds

My two favorites of these songs are “Rincon” and “Asterisk Nation.” “Rincon” is about a journey to a town to see where Bonds may or may not have a contact for buying steroids, or at least that is how I interpret the beautiful song.

“Rincon” paints the most complicated portrait of Bonds among Bern’s songs. It is a more personal story, more about the narrator than about Bonds, and its ambiguity also makes it one of Bern’s most human and best songs. Like all great songs, it is about something deeper than what you might hear upon the first listen.

“Asterisk Nation” is a much more pointed commentary, where Dan Bern tells us that if we want to point the finger at Bonds, then maybe we should also be pointing it at ourselves. “Asterisk doctors, Asterisk patients, Asterisk erections, Asterisk elections, Asterisk wars. . . Telling Asterisk truths to an Asterisk nation.” Don’t many of us take pills, caffeine, alcohol, medication, etc. to alter the way we exist? And, if so, is it so wrong that Bonds may have used a drug that was not illegal at the time to make him better at his job, like you having that afternoon cup of coffee?

Dan Bern’s song also evokes a new movie released just a few days before the trial of Barry Bonds begins. The movie Limitless (2011), starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, is about a man who is given a drug that lets him use 100% of his mind. If you could take a drug that would give you super-human abilities, would you?

There is not a video for “Asterisk Nation” on YouTube. But you may listen to the song from a Dan Bern live performance from 2006 below.

Dan Bern Asterisk Nation Live 2006-11-09

{ Asterisk Nation – Dan Bern (live 2006-11-09)}

Finally, Dan Bern’s “Year by Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds” is brilliant for how simple it is. The song recounts exactly what the title suggests, listing those home run totals. While the 73 home runs in 2001 does stand out, the list illustrates that Bonds was smashing a lot of home runs even before the era where we suspect he was using performance-enhancing drugs.

In the video below, Bern performs “Year by Year Home Run Totals of Barry Bonds” as a sing-a-long at a school. (His lesson to the kids is how they may use a song to help them remember pieces of information, like a list of numbers.)

Defending Barry Bonds?

I do not completely buy Dan Bern’s defense of Barry Bonds. One must wonder whether or not it is fair for some players to use steroids against the rules when there is a limited number of spots for major league baseball players. If some use steroids, other potential major league players may lose their jobs to cheaters. And is it fair if someone who holds a record does not get credit because someone else did not play by the rules?

Still, Dan Bern does make me see Barry Bonds in a different light. I now see Barry Bonds as a tragic human being. During his run at perhaps the greatest record in baseball, he must have anticipated for years the glory of the moment. Instead, as the time approached and left, he was treated like a pariah, perhaps partly deserved, perhaps partly not.

Then, when he wanted to continue playing after the 2007 season, no team would hire him when he was still playing great baseball. And why is he so hated while Lance Armstrong is so loved? I am sure racial biases are at work, but there are other complex factors too.

Sure Bonds did whatever he did for himself, but we all gained the entertainment, both from his incredible playing and from later having fun debating about steroids. Ever since he was a kid with a professional baseball-playing father, Bonds learned that society would pay him large amounts of money to run around on a field and hit a ball with a stick. If society is set up so we pay millions of dollars to people who play games, while social workers and teachers barely scrape by and other people are homeless, is it such a great sin by comparison that he took some medicine to play better? Is his sin worse than ours for creating such a society?

Barry Bonds was always there for our entertainment, and like the rest of us, he is a flawed human being. His steroids helped entertain you, and I received a topic for a blog post today. And we do not even have to suffer the health consequences from taking the drug.

While I enjoy discussing the morality issues involved because I love baseball and debates about morals, what it ultimately comes down to for me is one question: Who am I to judge him? And perhaps the most interesting part for me is wondering whether he has any regrets and whether or not he would do everything the same if starting all over again. Maybe some day we will get answers to these and other questions from him, but probably not for a long time, if ever.

I am going to try to cleanse my mind of thoughts about tainted baseball records by watching a video from the 1996 Home Run Derby before Barry Bonds allegedly started using steroids, back when we were all much more innocent. Man, he was good against. . . Mark McGuire.