Category: Music

Dion’s Tank Full of Blues (CD Review)

Dion Tank Full of Blues

With Tank Full of Blues (2012), Dion completes a trilogy of outstanding blues albums along with Bronx in Blue (2006) and Son of Skip James (2007). While Bronx in Blues focused on covering traditional blues standards from Robert Johnson and others, and Son of Skip James followed that formula with a few more originals, in Tank Full of Blues Dion wrote or co-wrote all but two of the songs, taking his blues to another level. The new album adds more percussion and electric guitar into the mix without overdoing it on these new classics.

Dion worked to build his blues cred with the previous two albums, paying homage to the kings with a little bit of Bronx street swagger thrown in. I have previously written about the two earlier CDs and how when Bronx in Blues came out it was a great discovery for me. On Tank Full of Blues, though, Dion uses his blues credibility to show a little more of his own wings, as Dion’s originals on this album transition smoothly next to ones by Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Just as the album makes you wonder what else Dion can do, he closes with a spoken word rap on “Bronx Poem.” While he is not a hip-hop artist, one might root for him to try a rap album next as he shows here that his rhyming skills and bravado dating back to “Runaround Sue” are still there.

Dion Dimucci is one of the great rock n’ rollers, and these albums have shown he is also a great blues man. These albums are not an artist’s self-absorbed dabbling in another genre, but music that has the great Dion’s heart. As AllMusic wrote about Tank Full of Blues, “it is the album he’s been waiting an entire career to make.” For the artist behind such hits as “I Wonder Why,” “The Wanderer,” “A Teenager in Love,” “Donna the Prima Donna,” and “Abraham, Martin, and John,” that is high praise. Check out this great album by a music legend.

What do you think of Dion’s blues? Should he write a new song called “Runaround Blues”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Davy Jones RIP

    Davy Jones of the Monkees had died from a heart attack. I remember my sister being crazy about The Monkees show when I was a kid, and several of their pop songs were excellent pop songs, like Davy’s work on “Daydream Believer,” which was written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio.  Davy Jones also sang shis 1971 single “Girl” on The Brady Bunch, which he reprised for The Brady Bunch Movie (1995).

    Somewhere, Marcia Brady is heartbroken. RIP Davy.

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    • Leap Year: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

    february calendar leap year If you are wondering why we have the Leap Day of February 29 every four years, it is all about keeping the calendar lined up with the earth and the sun. If Leap Day is your birthday, then unlike every other day where the birthday odds are approximately 1 in 365, the odds of being born on today’s date is 1 in 1,461. If you are curious about the tradition of women proposing to men on this day, then you should thank St. Bridget and Sadie Hawkins, the latter who was from a Li’l Abner cartoon.

    If you are looking for a movie to watch for Leap Day, there is always Leap Year (2010), a light romantic comedy with Amy Adams and Adam Scott that is not terrible. But the critics hated it.

    Finally, if you are looking for an excellent song to go with the day, there is Billy Bragg’s song “Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards” from Workers Playtime (1988).

    Jumble sales are organized and pamphlets have been posted,
    Even after closing time there’s still parties to be hosted;
    You can be active with the activists,
    Or sleep in with the sleepers
    While you’re waiting for the Great Leap Forwards;
    One leap forwards, two leaps back,
    Will politics get me the sack?

    Bragg’s excellent song is about getting involved instead of just waiting or sleeping “with the sleepers.” As such, it might remind one of the connection between Leap Years and U.S. presidential elections, both which happen every four years.

    Occasionally, we have an election year that is also not a Leap Year. But that will not happen again until we make a great leap forwards to 2100. Leap Years skip on years on turns of the century that are not divisible by 400, like 1900.

    So enjoy the extra day this month. And remember, if you are on an annual salary, you are working for free on Leap Day. If you think that is unfair, remember as Bragg reminds us, “The Revolution is just a t-shirt away.”

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    Bruce Springsteen on Jimmy Fallon: Wrecking Ball

    Springsteen Jimmy Fallon Nils Lofgren
    Nils Lofgren Directs the Horns

    Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Wrecking Ball will be released on March 6, and this week Late Night with Jimmy Fallon features a Springsteen theme, with artists covering Springsteen songs as well as the man and his band appearing last night and again on Friday. Last night, Springsteen performed the first single, “We Take Care of Our Own” as well as the title track, which is below.

    The song “Wrecking Ball” may be familiar to Springsteen fans because in 2009 Springsteen debuted the song at the Meadowlands, i.e., Giants Stadium, during his final shows at the stadium before it succombed to the wrecking ball. The song maintains references to the stadium being demolished (“where the blood is spilled, the arena’s filled, and Giants played”), but it holds up on the album because the song connects the stadium’s wrecking ball to more universal themes of aging, hard times, and standing up to both.

    [2020 Update: Unfortunately, the Jimmy Fallon video is no longer available so below is Springsteen performing “Wrecking Ball” at Giants Stadium.]

    While the lyrics on the album are touched by our recent economic troubles, the music of several of the songs are influenced by Springsteen’s uplifting work with the Seeger Sessions Band. This recession-era CD is the first E Street band album without Clarence Clemons, so it seems appropriate that the album is tinged with sorrow while steeped in joyful horns helping us through the rough times.

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    “Bird on a Wire” and the Return of the Bald Eagle

    bald eagle live feed

    Last year, along with John Fullbright’s cover of Steve Earle’s “Me and the Eagle,” we posted a live feed of a bald eagle and its eaglets in a nest in Iowa. Well, those babies have flown off, but the feed now has a bald eagle with some new eggs, so we check in on the new babies while we also listen to a Johnny Cash song on a day that would have been the country legend’s eightieth birthday. Recently there was posted live feed of a mother Bald Eagle from Decorah, Iowa. [2024 Update: Unfortunately, the live stream is no longer available.]

    The nest seems fairly secure for the high winds, but seeing the family so high up reminds me of one of Leonard Cohen’s most covered songs, “Bird on a Wire.” Cohen originally recorded the song in 1968 for the album Songs from a Room (1969). The song has been covered by The Neville Brothers, Willie Nelson, KD Lang, and others. My favorite cover is the one made by Johnny Cash for the 1994 album that marked a comeback for him, American Recordings. The weariness of his voice goes perfectly with the song.

    A version of Cash singing the song with an orchestra appeared on Unearthed (2003), and Cohen has also performed his song with an orchestra. But I like the sparse instrumentation versions.

    bald eagle The song is so beautiful that Kris Kristofferson, who has written many beautiful songs, has stated that he’d like the first three lines of “Bird on a Wire” on his tombstone.

    Like a bird on a wire,
    Like a drunk in a midnight choir,
    I have tried in my way to be free.

    The song has been described as a “bohemian My Way,” and one can sense a more realistic and darker life appraisal in Cohen’s song than the Frank Sinatra classic. While “My Way” is underscored with pride, “Bird on a Wire” is tempered with regret (“I have torn everyone who reached out to me”). There are some reports that the song inspired the title of the Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn movie, Bird on a Wire (1990), but it is hard to see the meaning of the song in the action-comedy film, so I hope that story is not true.

    For today, here is to the Iowa bald eagles who unlike us, live free without regret. And here is to Johnny Cash on his birthday, because his music helped us comprehend freedom as well as sorrow, atonement, and grace.

    What is your favorite version of “Bird on a Wire”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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