Category: Music

Caitlin Cary After Whiskeytown

Caitlin Cary

Singer and musician Caitlin Cary was born on October 28, 1968, growing up in Ohio but eventually ending up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Most folks have probably heard her voice through her association with Ryan Adams, which began in 1993 while she was in graduate school at North Carolina State. The two formed the legendary alt-country group Whiskeytown.

In the performance below of Whiskeytown’s “Houses on the Hill” on Austin City Limits in 1998, Cary plays the fiddle and backs up Ryan Adams on vocals. The song about a woman whose lover goes off to war first appeared on Whiskeytown’s album 1997 Strangers Almanac. Check it out.

Although Cary has not had quite the career that Ryan Adams has had after Whiskeytown, she has continued to make great music. I am a big fan of her debut full-length album as a solo artist, While You Weren’t Looking (2002). Below is Cary’s song “Pony” from the album.

Since While You Weren’t Looking, Cary has continued to make music as both a solo artist and in collaboration with other artists. Following her 2003 solo album I’m Staying Out, she recorded a 2004 album Sweetwater and a 2006 album Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl with Tonya Lamm and Lynn Blakey as the group Tres Chicas.

In between the Tres Chicas albums, she recorded Begonias (2005) with Thad Cockrell. Below is the Cary-Cockrell collaboration on “Two Different Things.”

More recently, she has recorded as part of the group she created with Matt Douglas, The Small Ponds. In 2010, the group released Caitlin Cary & Matt Douglas Are The Small Ponds.

Even more recently, she co-founded NC Music Love Army, a music group focusing on promoting progressive politics in North Carolina, as discussed earlier on Chimesfreedom. NC Music Love Army released We Are Not For Sale: Songs Of Protest in 2013.

Every year or two, there has been talk of Cary and Ryan Adams getting back together for a Whiskeytown reunion.  But for now, I am satisfied that Cary continues to make interesting music. Happy birthday Caitlin Cary!

What is your favorite song with Caitlin Cary? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Buy from Amazon

  • NC Music Love Army Continues Music’s History of Protest
  • Who is Ryan Adams?
  • Song of the Day: “The Weekend” by David Rawlings Machine
  • Ryan Adams Covers Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These”
  • Runner of the Woods Debut Album: “Thirsty Valley”
  • Ryan Adams, not Bryan, Sings “Run to You”!

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog

    Cory Wells

    One of the highlights of my childhood was when my family would get to go shopping at the hometown G.C. Murphy variety store in Ohio. It was there that I bought my first records, 45-rpm singles that I would play on a small portable record player over and over again. One of the early records I bought was “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night. So, I was saddened to learn when Cory Wells passed away in October 2015 at the age of 74 in Dunkirk, New York.

    I would later discover and love other Three Dog Night songs, but I suppose it is not surprising that a kid would first be attracted to a song with the opening line, “Jeremiah was a bullfrog.”

    According to Wikipedia, some band members felt that the song written by Hoyt Axton was a silly kid’s song.  But either way the song topped the charts when it was released in 1971. Although Wells sang backing vocals on “Joy to the World” while Chuck Negron sang lead, the voices of the whole band rose to make the song memorable.

    Cory Wells did sing lead on other songs for the band, like another song written by Hoyt Axton, “Never Been to Spain.” When Wells hits the high notes, it sends shivers down your spine.

    Cory Wells also hits the big notes in Three Dog Night’s version of “Try a Little Tenderness,” which was made famous by Otis Redding. This performance is from a local Philadelphia show in the band’s earlier years.

    Finally, in the video below, Cory Wells answers questions from audience members.  One question leads to an explanation about how Three Dog Night got its name. The video is taken from a Continuing Education program entitled “Woodstock: The Music of the First Amendment” hosted by the Robert H. Jackson Center on April 26, 2011.

    Cory Wells and Three Dog Night will long be remembered for great songs like Randy Newman’s “Mama Told Me (Not to Come),” “Shambala,” “Eli’s Coming,” and “Never Been to Spain.” But for me, it all began with a 45 rpm on a portable record player, listening to a song about a bullfrog who had some mighty fine wine.

    What is your favorite Three Dog Night song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • RIP: A Brief Encounter with Glen Hansard
  • David Allan Coe: “Don’t You Cry”
  • Joe Ely’s “She Never Spoke Spanish to Me” (Song of the Day)
  • Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
  • New Song from Randy Newman: “Putin”
  • Ned Miller: The Shy Man Behind “From a Jack to a King”

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    The Story Behind the Album Cover: Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”

    Dylan Album Cover

    In advance of the release of Bob Dylan’s The Best Of The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12, rock scholar Bob Egan of PopSpots has been telling the stories behind the covers of the Bob Dylan albums of that mid-1960s era. In the latest mini-documentary, Egan explains how the cover of Highway 61 Revisited (1965) came to be.

    In the video, Egan walks the path taken by Dylan and photographer Daniel Kramer before they ended up outside an apartment owned by Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. Egan also explains how Dylan’s friend Bob Neuwirth ended up standing behind Dylan in the photo. For the most part, it seems, there was little planning that went into the iconic album cover photo.

    [Update: Unfortunately, the video is no longer available, but you may read an interview about the photo session for the cover here.]

    The Best Of The Cutting Edge 1965 – 1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 will be released on November 6, 2015 in three different versions. The new album focuses on the period when Dylan first went electric, featuring outtakes from the albums Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), and Blonde on Blonde (1966).

    What is your favorite Bob Dylan album cover? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • The Story Behind the Album Cover: Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde”
  • They’re Selling Postcards of the Hanging: The Real Lynching in Dylan’s “Desolation Row”
  • Peter Paul & Mary’s First Contract . . . and Puff
  • Bob Dylan and the Fine Line Between Love and Hate
  • One Degree of Separation Between Bob Dylan & Twilight Zone: Bonnie Beecher & “Come Wander With Me”
  • Sheila Atim Peforming “Tight Connection to My Heart” (Great Bob Dylan Covers)

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Wanda Jackson, The Queen of Rockabilly and Rock

    Queen of Rock

    On October 20, 1937, Wanda Jackson was born in Maud, Oklahoma. In the 1950s and 1960s, she was a pioneering female rockabilly singer, earning herself the nicknames “The Queen of Rockabilly” and “The Queen of Rock.”

    Jackson is still around and touring. Most recently, Jackson released her thirty-first studio album Unfinished Business in 2012.

    So for something recent, here is the video for “Tore Down,” which is from 2012’s Unfinished Business.

    Finally, here is Wanda Jackson on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2011 singing “Shakin’ All Over.” She is backed by Jack White on guitar.

    [Update Oct. 2017]  Finally, Jackson is releasing a new memoir about her amazing career entitled, Every Night Is Saturday Night: A Country Girl’s Journey To The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

    Happy birthday Ms. Jackson.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • The First Song Loretta Lynn Ever Wrote
  • Bob Dylan Sends Off Letterman With “The Night We Called It a Day”
  • Norm Macdonald’s Touching (and Funny) Tribute to Letterman
  • John Fogerty Rocks One More Time for Letterman
  • Darlene Love’s Final Letterman Performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
  • Bob Seger on Letterman: “All the Roads”

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Buy from Amazon

    “New” Springsteen Track: “Meet Me In the City”

    The River Box Set

    The long-awaited special edition of Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 classic double-album The River will hit stores on December 4. The Ties That Bind: The River Collection will include the original album, outtakes, a documentary, a never-before seen concert, and more. The project sets out to document an important era in Springsteen’s career with 52 tracks on four CDs and four hours of never-before-seen video on three DVDs.

    In advance of the box set, Springsteen has released one of the songs, “Meet Me In The City.” Check it out.

    One of the CDs in the set will be The River: Single Album, which is is the ten-track album that Springsteen recorded in 1979 but never released. At the time, Springsteen believed that the album lacked “unity and conceptual intensity,” so he took the band back into the recording studio. Seven of the tracks did end up on the official release of The River, some in alternate versions. But it will be cool to hear the album first conceptualized as the follow-up to Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978).

    Will you purchase the new box set? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Bruce Springsteen: Always Roaming With a Hungry Heart
  • Local News Coverage of Bruce Springsteen in 1978
  • Springsteen and Bono Sing “Because the Night” in Dublin
  • Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen “Shout” In Their Third Performance Together
  • “The River” Had a Happy Ending After All
  • Passover: Moses and the Price You Pay

    • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)