Author Archives: Easy Ed

Streaming: A Music Junkie Shifts Gears

As an addict, I’ve been able to kick a lot of bad stuff out the door. Dope, alcohol, and nicotine to name but three, and if I think hard enough there’s probably a couple more things I could add to that list. Living a life unmanageable has been my calling card, and while I never suspected music to be one of those things that would or could cause me irreparable harm, as long as I didn’t inhale it, I have come to realize that the art of collecting music – the actual hunting and gathering – has consumed way too much of my life. So as an act of self-discovery and recovery, I’ve recently chosen to surrender and become baptized in the digital stream. Glory hallelujah.

 

This will not be another wistful look back at how wonderful it was to find some gem back in the ’60s because the cover art was amazing, or the first time I dropped a needle onto the edge of a disc and watched it magically spin around and around as the sweet sounds came floating ethereally out of the speakers. Y’all have done this long enough to know that the joy of finding, acquiring, and sharing new music is one of the greatest highs you can have. And while it sounds like I’m giving that up, I’m not. But I shall no longer be a prisoner of consumerism, where possession and ownership equates to my happiness. I now gladly rent my music.

 

Streaming. In this modern age, it’s access that matters. For under ten bucks a month there are over 30 million songs to fulfill my needs … 62,500 days of unlimited listening, give or take. And outside of some still undigitized and “missing in action” titles, a lot of what I love to listen to is there for the taking. With a couple of keyboard punches and a swipe of my finger, there it is. And with the “if you like this, you might like that” feature of most streaming services, along with tons of curated playlists, exploration and discovery is easier and deeper than when I used to hang out at a record store flipping the stacks. Before some of you shake your heads with disdain, give me a moment.

From the early ’60s through the mid-’80s I was a vinyl junkie, with a little eight-track and cassette chaser on the side. Then I transitioned to CDs for another 15 or 16 years before uploading, downloading, saving, converting, transferring, and backups took over much of my free time. While never a Napster or Pirate Bay dude, a few years ago I started searching for digital files of long out-of-print 78s, getting a shellac rush whenever I found an obscure recording on a Japanese or Finnish blog site. But it’s a solitary and endlessly boring way to collect songs that I only would listen to once, so I began to wonder about the value.

 

The disposal of my physical goods, what little is left of them, will be relatively easy. My eldest has offered to put everything up on the Discogs marketplace, and what won’t sell will go to the local thrift store. My massive digital library that I worked so hard to maintain with a consistent file structure and original artwork, and which is triplicated on hard drives, will likely wind up in a box or on a shelf. There’s nothing pretty to look at there, and if history is any indication, they’ll shortly become as useless as an iPod Classic.

 

 

If you want to know what tipped the scales, look no further to an endless barrage of vinyl reissues that cost 25 bucks at Barnes and Noble or some supermarket, and come from digital masters that sound like crap. And here’s my message to Gillian and Dave, and Jack White and T-Bone, who are doing these custom analog direct-to-disc projects: I don’t care and it doesn’t really sound that much better than the digital versions. Seriously … loved watching American Epic and all, but you’re in the ether of the barely one percent who give a damn. Sorry, and I still love ya.

With the big corporations seeing dollar signs after a self-inflicted devaluation of their content, if I see one more piece of marketing fluff touting the joy and wonder of vinyl, I might jump out the window. From a personal observation, my workplace consists of me – the old dude – and 89 people in their 20s. They are voracious music listeners and concertgoers, are constantly walking about with their earbuds, talk about and share songs and albums with each other at lunch, and every single one of them streams. Nobody buys anything anymore. The revolution was not televised; it just happened and you missed it.

 

Just to add to my overall annoyance, do y’all know about October 14th? That would be Cassette Store Day. Seriously. Did you know that tape sales have increased by 74% in 2016?  I didn’t. Thought they were just something that only experimental musicians still released. Here’s how the website explains this new phenomenon:

CSD began in the United Kingdom in 2013 and quickly grew to become a global event with the participation of the United States, Japan, Germany and France. Through the efforts of CSD and the stores, labels, bands and fans involved worldwide we’ve helped keep what was once perceived as a dead format alive and viable in today’s digital age!

This makes me want to rush out and start hoarding candles, once word gets out that lightbulbs are a thing of the past. Thomas who? Oh yeah, he also invented the phonograph player.

 

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Moby Grape: Americana Lost and Found

God only knows how many ways I’ve tried to avoid using the term “Americana” in describing the music I love. My go-to response has at times been “it’s a radio format, not a genre,” but I’m aware it’s deeper than that. I just don’t like the word, and it’s an itch I can’t seem to scratch. And when even the Americana Music Association can’t exactly understand or articulate it — handing out lifetime achievement awards to folks like Richard Thompson, Robert Plant, and this year’s recipient, Van Morrison — a singular music blogger would be best served by just falling in line. So I have, at least for this moment, chosen to bend in the blowing wind and accept the inevitable. Go pitch your enormous tent, throw it all under the canvas, and call it whatever you want. I surrender.

 

It was actually something that Jason Isbell said while on the Charlie Rose Show that tipped me over. Wish I could remember exactly what he said, and I’m too lazy to hunt it down. But it was much more convincing than AMA’s honcho Jed Hilly’s description: “If you can taste the dirt through your ears, that is Americana. It is music that is derived or inspired by American roots traditions. I think that’s pretty solid.”

I think it’s pretty lame, but Jed’s heart is in the right place so he gets a pass and I get off my horse. Go forth Americana … and to quote No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock from when O Brother, Where Art Thou? broke out into the mainstream, “This is the next medium-sized thing.”

 

Y’all probably remember Moby Grape, but if not let me give you the thumbnail version. Three guitars, a bass, and drums. Everybody sang, everybody wrote. Infinitely talented. They wore cowboy costumes: boots, buckskin fringe jackets, and other similar Western wear. Their incubation occurred 50 years ago in San Francisco during the infamous Summer of Love, and they were victims of poor management, record label ineptness, marketing plans that undermined their music, and at least one member suffering from mental illness. In later years, another ended up homeless.

 

Rolling Stone, prior to it becoming a fashion magazine with occasional music marketing fluff, called the band’s debut album “a stunning artifact of San Francisco rock at its ’67 peak. Jerry Miller, Peter Lewis, Don Stevenson, Bob Mosley, and Skip Spence all sang like demons and wrote crisp pop songs packed with lysergic country-blues excitement. And the band’s three guitarists – Miller, Spence, and Lewis – created a network of lightning that made songs like ‘Omaha,’ ‘Changes’ and ‘Hey Grandma’ shine and sizzle.”

 

While those three songs are probably their best known, I’ve often preferred the more acoustic ballads and straight country blues they offered. And in addition to the debut album, all of their work still stands the test of time, with songs that sparkle and shine and are ripe for rediscovery.

 

I was fortunate to have seen the band several times in the late ’60s, and each set remains etched in my brain. They are a touchstone and tentacle to my youth, and although I often enjoy reminding people of their existence, I imagine that they’ll never get the institutional recognition from the Americana cartel. Without a label to promote them, a new product or tour to promote (Hi Van … hope to see you on the road later this year), a rabid publicist, or tragic demise, they are destined to remain in the dustbin of time. ’Tis a shame.

 

 

Postscript: Skip Spence died of lung cancer two days before his 53rd birthday on April 16,1999. He was survived by his four children, 11 grandchildren, a half-brother, and his sister. Oar was his only solo album, recorded in Nashville over seven days in 1999. Originally meant to be simply a group of demos, his manager convinced Columbia Records to release it and it holds the distinction as being the lowest-selling album in the label’s history.

Ross Bennett from Mojo magazine:

“Combining the ramblings of a man on the brink of mental collapse with some real moments of flippancy and laughter, Oar is a genuinely strange record. Unsurprisingly, the journey from “Little Hands”‘ Grape-esque guitar grooves to “Grey/Afro”‘s terrifying nine minutes of mantric drone isn’t an easy one. Even when Spence builds his songs around a familiar sound (primarily minimalist country-folk), unsettling oddities and ominous modulations creep in.”

More Oar: A Tribute To the Skip Spence Album, an album featuring contributions from Robert Plant, Tom Waits, Jay Farrar, and Beck, among others, was released a few weeks after his death. Prior to its release, the CD was played for Spence at the hospital, in his final stages before death. Spence is interred at Soquel Cemetery in Santa Cruz County, California.

 

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Together Again: A Buck Owens’ Classic With A Bad Hombre Picture

There are probably many people who don’t remember that OJ Simpson was found liable for murder back in 1997. With all the Hollywood weirdness of the earlier criminal trial in which he was declared innocent, there was another civil trial by jury that determined he was liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. One juror claimed after hearing Simpson’s testimony that “he was not credible,” and another said that “finding OJ Simpson liable of the murders and acting with oppression and malice was one of the easiest decisions I have ever had to make.”

When The Juice made headlines recently with the news that he would be released from prison after serving nine years for armed robbery, I pulled up this old photo of him with the man who currently lives in the White House and immediately thought of this song.

 

That there is Tom Brumley playing pedal steel guitar, and he was in the Buckaroos throughout much of the ’60s and then eventually joined Ricky Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. If you know the song “Garden Party,” that also was Tom doing the tasty licks. His dad was Albert E. Brumley, the gospel songwriter who penned “I’ll Fly Away,” and, if you can believe Wikipedia, Tom’s solo in “Together Again” was the inspiration for Jerry Garcia to learn the instrument.

I was originally going to share a personal story regarding OJ, me, and the record store I used to manage back in the ’80s in Santa Monica. Might have mentioned that my first apartment in West LA was less than a football field away from Nicole’s condo, too. And then I planned to discuss my well developed theory about how that infamous televised ride in the white Ford Bronco triggered the death of the music industry and eventual rise of social media. Really. Every damn picture on Instagram, your Uncle Alfred’s cat on Facebook, $250 scalped tickets for a Gillian Welch concert, Bono’s sunglasses, and Jack White … I can trace it all back to OJ.

But the song … it took me away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFm4ZCBheOw

 

The only time I ever saw George Jones was in an empty restaurant at a suburban Nashville  shopping center during the “early bird” special they served on weekdays. Met Tanya Tucker twice, and she was like spit and hellfire. Short, too. Did you like it when she says “Glen … “ at the beginning of the duet? She’s talkin’ to Campbell, of course, who also recorded it for his Burning Bridges album.

Buck Owens had a number one hit with “My Heart Skips a Beat”’in 1966, and the B-side … do I really need to explain that … was “Together Again.” Ray Charles covered it right away, and it reached #19 on the Billboard pop chart. And in 1976 Emmylou Harris released it as a single and was able to take it to the top of the country chart. This is from a Dutch television show called TopPop.

 

After that there was a duet by Kenny Rogers and Dottie West in 1983, Dwight Yoakam covered it (of course) because he covers all of Buck’s songs, there was a Filipino version from Guy and Pip, an electronic dance abomination, Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan, Vince Gill, and one from Swedish singer Jill Johnson.

Most interesting, at least to me, was that in 1981 a Norwegian singer named Elisabeth Andreassen put out an album titled Angel In The Morning, which includes not only “Together Again” but also Kirsty MacColl’s “There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.” And while much of her career is tied to the Eurovision Song Contest, which is a big deal in that part of the world, in 2004 she released A Couple of Days in Larsville, which included a Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman song.

And with OJ and Trump soon to be “together again,” I’m going to let Elisabeth sing us out:

This old town is filled with sin
It’ll swallow you in
If you’ve got some money to burn
Take it home right away
You’ve got three years to pay
And Satan is waiting his turn

 

This article originally was published as Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Eight Songs That Blow Me Away

Photo by Steven Steigman

This photograph from was shot by Steven Steigman in 1978 and was used in a series of advertisements for Maxell cassette tapes, back in an era when people had use for such things. It crossed my mind the other day while I looked at my old stereo system and albums, wondering how long it would be until I was ready to say goodbye. It’s really a rhetorical question since I haven’t turned it on in years. With the exception of going out and seeing live music, virtually all the tunes I listen to these days are delivered digitally through my iPhone and pumped into earbuds.

According to iconicphotos.org, Steigman achieved the wind-blown positioning of the model, a man named Jack, by putting “tonnes of hairspray on his hair” and using fishing line to tie strands of it to the ceiling. “The lampshade, tie, and martini were also likewise tied to the fishing lines. The photo was instantaneously a hit, a powerful statement that music has power and force to move the mind and the soul. It was so popular that it was expended into a TV ad campaign. In the television versions, either Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries or Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was the music responsible for those powerful waves.”

Like the man in the picture, I too am a solitary listener, and although I no longer have the hair, I’m still blown away by music. Many years ago, before No Depression morphed into whatever it is these days, there was a fairly large community of people who contributed on an almost a daily basis what music they were currently listening to. It was a great way to discover things you missed or had forgotten. Some of those folks are still kicking around here, and many are long gone. But in the spirit of the day, I thought I’d share a few things that are on my current playlist.

The Secret Sisters – You Don’t Own Me Anymore

 

Rachel Baiman – Shame

 

Tom Russell – Play One More: The Songs of Ian and Sylvia

 

Zoe and Cloyd – Eyes Brand New

 

James Carr – A Man Needs A Woman 

 

Gene Parsons – Kindling

 

Ana Egge and The Sentimentals – Say That Now

 

The Staple Singers – Uncloudy Day: The Vee Jay Years 1955-1962

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music

They Blew Up the Chicken Man

If I didn’t write one more word past that title, it wouldn’t surprise me if you knew exactly which road I was driving down. Just six short words, part of a longer sentence, from the first verse of the second song on Nebraska. Recorded on a four-track Tascam 144 cassette player and never meant to be released in its stripped down format, at this very moment I believe it could be the greatest song that Bruce Springsteen has ever written. In the past month I’ve listened to dozens of covers, some that I’ll share here. But this song, and the black and white video of “Atlantic City,” still stands.

 

 

Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
And they blew up his house, too.
Down on the boardwalk they’re ready for a fight
Gonna see what them racket boys can do.
Now there’s trouble busin’ in from outta state
And the D.A. can’t get no relief.

Like a lot of kids who were born in the ‘50s and grew up in Philadelphia, I loved Atlantic City in all its splendor and decay. it was just a nickel toll to drive over the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge into Jersey. Down the highway to the second traffic circle, you’d stop at a space-age looking diner for breakfast, smell the salt air as you cruised through Egg Harbor, and park the big Pontiac or Buick sedan as close to the beach that you could possibly get. You had to be there early if you wanted to pay 50 cents to rent a locker, change into your bathing suit and stash your dress-up clothes for the evening stroll. While the kids and mom staked out a spot in the sand near Convention Hall, dad would run down to Captain Starn’s to try and get dinner reservations. If he failed, it would be either Wolfie’s, Tony’s Baltimore Grill, or The White House. It was our Disneyland.

 

After just a couple of hours in the ocean, we’d eat a packed lunch from the cooler and make our way north to Steel Pier for the afternoon shows. Matinees were cheaper. First there were carnival-style games up front, and then you passed the Diving Bell, a small steel capsule that you’d get locked into and they’d drop you to the bottom of the sea. Usually saw nothing but a couple of little fish. And stretching far out over the water there were several music theaters. One day I watched a 13-year-old Little Stevie Wonder perform “Fingertips” while my folks went to see the Count Basie Orchestra. Another time I was surrounded and crushed by female teen pandemonium when Herman’s Hermits came onstage. But the real reason you came was the beautiful women with long hair who would sit on top of horses and dive from a platform from about a hundred feet in the air into a tiny wooden tub. But that was the ’50s and ’60s, and things were about to change.

 

It really was a “tale of two cities.” As kids we just knew about salt water taffy, Mr. Peanut, and the rides on Million Dollar Pier. Barkers with clip-on microphones selling knives that wouldn’t dull, cut crystal glasses from France, and gizmos that chopped your onions up into tiny little pieces. At night everybody got dressed up in their finest summer clothes, and you’d either stroll along the wooden boardwalk or, if you came from the Main Line, you’d pay someone to push you in a wicker basket cart with wheels on it. And when the kids got too tired, you’d walk a block inland and catch a Jitney on Pacific Avenue to your hotel, if you were lucky enough to spend the full weekend.

Close to midnight, when things started to get quiet along the beach, and the kids got tucked into bed, the great jazz clubs and showrooms would fill up with guys and dolls. The white folks had their clubs in the middle of the city like The 500 Club, where you’d see Sinatra or Martin and Lewis, and the black clubs were at the north end: The Harlem Club, Grace’s Little Belmont, and Wonder Gardens. Although Boardwalk Empire was a reality-based fictionalized account of the Roaring ’20s, long after Prohibition ended and probably still to this day Atlantic City was always a mob town. Booze, prostitution, gambling, loan sharking, murders … it was all there. And pretty soon, Donald Trump would take it for a spin.

 

Before they legalized gambling and started to tear down the old great hotels to put up walls of glass and steel, the city became a pre-Jersey Shore teenage wasteland. The families went south to quieter towns and the gangsters got political and started jockeying for position. By the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the boardwalk got ultra tacky and half the kids hung out at High Hat Joe’s while the rest were north at Playland. The common denominator was dope, sex, and music, and there was also a lot of fighting.

Freaks, geeks, and a few clean-cut kids. The greasers from South Philly and K and A, who’d knock you out for just looking at them. I got dragged under the boardwalk one night with a knife to my throat, and damn if I can remember how I got out alive. Living in a boarding house with an old man, six cats, no litter boxes, and five girls from Montreal, I worked odd jobs at probably a half-dozen hotels and was working at the front desk the night Tyrone Davis, who just had a massive hit on the radio with “Turn Back The Hands of Time,” tore up half the rooms. And I mean he outdid Keith Moon, using an axe handle and hammer on the doors and furniture. They hauled him off, leaving his tour bus in the parking lot for a couple days.

 

The only time I went back down to Atlantic City in the ‘80s was to visit Russ Meyer’s Record Shop on Atlantic Avenue. They had a huge collection of oldies and also dealt to the jukebox guys, and I worked for a distributor that owned about 30 percent of the market. It looked like war-torn Beirut: blocks and blocks of housing were bought up by developers and knocked down, left empty for the next casino to be put up. Everywhere you looked they were building these grotesque monoliths and Trump’s damn name was everywhere. The state tried to muscle out the mob, but they were smarter. Who ran the unions, owned the construction companies, supplied the liquor, food, and entertainment? There were more ways to take money off the table.

The first casino opened in 1978. The Press of Atlantic City writes that when Gov. Brendan Byrne stood on the Boardwalk and warned organized crime bosses to “keep [their] filthy hands out of Atlantic City,” two men – Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, the now-former boss of the Philadelphia crime family, and his nephew and second-in-command, Philip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti – were watching the speech live from just a few blocks away. “Doesn’t he know we’re already here?” Scarfo asked his nephew.

In March 1980 the boss of the Philadelphia crime family, Angelo “The Gentle Don” Bruno, was killed by a shotgun blast in the back of the head as he sat in his car in front of his home. It is believed that the killing was ordered by Antonio Caponigro (aka Tony Bananas), Bruno’s consigliere. A few weeks later, Caponigro’s body was found stuffed in a body bag in the trunk of a car in New York City. About $300 in bills were jammed in his mouth and anus (to be interpreted as signs of greed). After Caponigro’s murder, Philip “Chicken Man” Testa led the family for one year until he was killed by a nail bomb at his home. (Wikipedia)

Donald Trump spent 25 years owning a number of properties in Atlantic City, all of which now stand empty. He filed bankruptcy four times. “Early on, I took a lot of money out of the casinos with the financings and the things we do,” he said. “Atlantic City was a very good cash cow for me for a long time.” The town still looks like hell, and maybe there’s a song in that story too.

Everything dies, baby that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies some day comes back.
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.

 

This was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at the No Depression; The Journal of Roots Music website.

Easy Ed’s Broadside Outtakes #10

Photo by Nathan Copely/Pixabay License

Easy Ed’s Broadside column has been a fixture for over ten years at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music’s website. These are odds and ends, random thoughts and fragments never published.

How Many Times Can You Write Isbell In Two Paragraphs?

The 2017 Americana Music Awards‘ nominees announcement ceremony included special performances from the Milk Carton Kids, the Jerry Douglas Band, Caitlin Canty and more — but it also featured one particularly special moment: Jason Isbell and the Drive-By Truckers‘ Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley coming together for an acoustic performance.

Isbell, Hood and Cooley sing “Outfit,” originally from the Truckers’ 2003 album Decoration Day. Written by Isbell alone, the song is one of two songs that the then-24-year-old penned for the album; the other, also written solo, is the record’s title track. Earlier this year, in late January, Isbell — now, of course, a solo artist — reunited with his former bandmates during a Drive-By Truckers show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. (From theboot.com)

https://youtu.be/2aoopYxLlyM

Speaking of the AMA awards, I was taken aback by the announcement of Van Morrison receiving a lifetime achievement award for songwriting. No disrespect: Van is indeed The Man, and we know that the organization loves to recognize those from the UK (Richard Thompson and Robert Plant were past recipients), but I just don’t get it. Although I know this guy probably doesn’t give a damn and wouldn’t show up anyway, I think he might be deserving of anything with the tagline ‘Americana’ in it.

When In Doubt, Turn Your Lovelights On

The folks over at Pitchfork have published a User Guide to The Grateful Dead that focuses not on their studio work but rather the gazillion of live tracks that are out there. Which reminds me…Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter…a songwriting team that deserves acknowledgement from the Americana cabal. You know, since the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame people are often slapped around for missing folks like Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers, the AMA might be moving into their elitist territory. Sad…to quote the POTUS.

Rest In Peace: Jimmy LaFave

By now you’ve heard about the sad passing of Austin singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave. Local radio station KOKE-FM published the statement from his label and family, and you can find it here. And No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock covered LaFave’s Songwriters Rendezvous for the Austin American-Statesman, and I think it’s a beautiful piece of writing. Click here to get there. This video was recorded at SXSW in 2011. Rest in peace.

How Many Ways Can One Love Pete Seeger?

“Every day, every minute, someone in the world is singing a Pete Seeger song. The songs he wrote, including the antiwar tunes, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and those he popularized, including “This Land Is Your Land” and “We Shall Overcome,” have been recorded by hundreds of artists in many languages and have become global anthems for people fighting for freedom.” So begins a story of Pete, and how we keep his spirit alive.

Writer Susanna Reich and illustrator Adam Gustavson have produced a book dedicated to that objective. In 38 pages of text, paintings and drawings, Stand Up and Sing! Pete Seeger, Folk Music, and the Path to Justice provides a wonderful portrait of Seeger, focusing on how his strongly-held beliefs motivated his music and his activism. The book introduces children to the notion that music can be a powerful tool for change. As Reich notes, Seeger saw himself as a link in “a chain in which music and social responsibility are intertwined.”

Read more about Pete and his music in this wonderful article posted at Common Dreams.

Otis Down In Monterey

This year marks 50 years since Otis Redding died. He’d ignited the crowd at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967; later that year, he and his band were en route to a show in Madison, Wisc., when their plane hit rough weather and crashed in an icy lake. Redding was 26 years old. Half a century later, Redding’s influence as a singer and spirit of soul music remains. Author Jonathan Gould, who’s written a new biography called Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life and you can read more about it here.

https://youtu.be/xcOfz21MbMA

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gram Parson’s Hickory Wind: Groundhog Day #1

Warner Brothers/Getty Images

I was thumbing through the recent issue of New York magazine when I saw that they’ve made a Broadway musical from the 1994 film Groundhog Day. You know the story: Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, who goes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to report on the annual de-hibernation of the town’s famed rodent and gets caught in a loop, living each day over and over. As author S.I. Rosenbaum writes, it’s “a film so beloved, idiomized and dissertated about that it’s passed into the English vernacular.”

Got me thinking: Perhaps I could take a song and follow its twists and turns from the original to multiple cover versions, and trace how it has evolved. Could become a new series, and since I have no idea where it’ll take us, it’s sort of like playing Russian roulette with YouTube. Hit or miss, up or down.

“Hickory Wind” is of course a treasured song written by Gram Parsons and Bob Buchanan, who were both former members of the International Submarine Band. It first appeared on The Byrds’ Sweetheart of The Rodeo album, and was recorded on March 9,1968. Lloyd Green is on pedal steel and John Hartford plays fiddle, supporting Parsons, Chris Hillman, Roger McGuinn, and drummer Kevin Kelley.

I should mention that there has been some dispute about authorship, as folksinger Sylvia Sammons has claimed that she wrote and performed it back in Greenville, South Carolina, when Parsons was also there doing gigs with his band, The Shilos. Both Buchanan and Chris Hillman rebut the claim, with the latter saying “As far as I know Gram and Bob Buchanan did indeed write ‘Hickory Wind.’ As unstable as Gram was in my brief time with him on this earth, I sincerely doubt he was a plagiarist in any of his songwriting endeavors unless his co-writer Bob brought him the idea.”

In 2012, Hillman, who was Parsons’ partner in both The Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, expanded his thoughts to Bud Scoppa in Rolling Stone:

“If Gram had never written another song, ‘Hickory Wind’ would’ve put him on the map. If you know the guy’s life story, however he conjured up that scenario, it’s right at home. Gram was shuffled off to prep school, lots of money … that’s a lonely song. He was a lonely kid.”

This one is from Hillman’s 1986 Morning Sky album.

After Parsons left the Burrito Brothers, Hillman introduced him to Emmylou Harris and she appeared on his first solo album, GP, toured with his band the Fallen Angels, and worked together on Grievous Angel. She cut her own version of “Hickory Wind” on her 1979 album Blue Kentucky Girl. I was going to drop that one in here, but opted for the version that she and Gram did that appeared on The Comlete Reprise Sessions. This is a fan video set to a nice slide show.

On July 10, 2010, there was a Gram Parsons tribute in Los Angeles billed as “The Return to Sin City” that featured many musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Norah Jones, John Doe, Dwight Yoakam, Raul Malo, and a backing band that featured the great James Burton and Al Perkins, both members of Parsons’ band. Then there was this guy who stole the night, singing “Hickory Wind” with a little harmony assist from Jim Lauderdale.

Lucinda Williams often performs the song in concert, and while you can find a few versions out there, this audio track with Buddy Miller that appeared on Cayamo Sessions At Sea is my favorite.

After spending a few nights listening to endless versions of this great song (and I haven’t even included Gillian Welch with Dave Rawlings or the great old video featuring the late Keith Whitley singing with J.D. Crowe and he New South), there was one I wasn’t familiar with that took my breath away.

Out in California a music teacher, bass player, and award winning fiddler named Jack Tuttle put together a bluegrass band with his kids Molly, Sullivan, and Michael, and they also added AJ Lee to the mix. Singing and performing since she was only four, AJ joined the Tuttles when she was just twelve. Molly Tuttle, now living in Nashville, is an amazing guitarist who was on the April cover of Acoustic Guitarmagazine. Now at 19 AJ already has two solo releases, and all of the Tuttles seem to pop up and perform together in various configurations, along with working on their own side projects. And the whole lot of them have scooped up numerous awards over the years.

So for me, this is the one. It’s from 2011. AJ is only 13 and takes the lead vocal, with harmony and guitar from a young Molly. Michael finishes it off with a beautiful mandolin run. This is perfection and the winner of my game: Russian Roulette with YouTube, the Groundhog Day Experiment.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’d Broadside column at No Depression: The Roots Music Journal.