Category Archives: My Back Pages

Americana and Roots Music Videos: RPM 2

An occasional series of Americana and roots music videos. Sharing new discoveries, and revisiting old friends.

Like many of you, I’m always on the hunt for new music that’ll perk up my ears and lighten my soul. In the past I’ve relied on websites such as No Depression; a handful of blogs that I’ve followed through the years; the Americana Music Association weekly radio charts, which are both interesting lists to check out; and Bill Frater’s Americana Boogie, which offers a list of weekly releases. And since crossing over to the dark side and fishing in the deep digital stream, I’m finding that curated playlists have added another fast and easy way to catch a keeper.

It wasn’t all that long ago when your friends would show up at your house with a stack of their favorite new albums under their arms, and you’d each take turns spinning your faves on the turntable for each other. And the neighborhood record stores that were like Cheers, the bar where everybody knew your name. Maybe you’re too young to have experienced that, or too old to remember. But in that spirit, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Here’s a handful of new music (or old music that I’ve recently found) that’s been buzzing inside my ears for the past few months.

Sweet Old Religion – Pharis and Jason Romero

It’s hard not to read a review about this Juno award-winning Canadian duo that doesn’t draw comparisons to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. They each dwell in that same valley of old-time music played with acoustic stringed instruments with exquisite vocal harmonies, and there is similar tone and timbre. Their sixth album will be released in May, and I have been blessed with an advance copy that I can’t stop listening to. Here’s the title track.

The Ledges – Kieran Kane and Rayna Gellert

Gellert, a vocalist and fiddler who was a member of Uncle Earl before releasing solo and duet albums, teams up with her friend Kane, who is a legendary songwriter, performer, producer, and record label owner. Leaving Nashville for upstate New York, where Kane owns a bunkhouse, they bring a bunch of string instruments, stack some microphones on top of cinderblocks, and record one of the prettiest sets of harmonic wonder and simplicity.

The Orphan King – Ed Romanoff

A “late bloomer” who didn’t begin his music career until his forties, Woodstock-based Romanoff releases his second album supported by an interesting cast of players. Produced by Simone Felice, the collaborators include Rachael Yamagata, Kenneth Pattengale of the Milk Carton Kids, guitarist Cindy Cashdollar, The E Street Band’s Cindy Mizelle, and Larry Campbell along with his wife and duo partner, Teresa Williams.

Playing Chess – Elise LeGrow

It’s been nine years since this Canadian singer was signed to a publishing deal. In 2012, a single she released a single titled “No Good Woman” jumped into the top ten of our northern neighbor’s adult contemporary radio chart. Two years ago she recorded her debut album of covers from the Chess Record’s catalog, where she is backed by The Dap-Kings, and which features The Roots’ Questlove and Captain Kirk Douglas. Just released in February, this project is more about reinterpretation of the originals, and all the more interesting.

Love In Wartime – Birds of Chicago

I got a chance to see JT Nero and Allison Russell, who play as the Birds of Chicago, a few months ago and was blown away. Had no idea who they were, what to expect, or why my friend would book them into a 400 seat theater with less than 70 advance tickets sold. But he knew something I didn’t, because not only did they almost fill the space with walk-up customers, the band also presented a staggering showcase in advance of their new album being released on May 5 by Signature Sounds. This is a little taste from last year’s EP with Rhiannon Giddens on harmonies and banjo and Steve Dawson on guitar.

Motel Bouquet – Caitlin Canty

Like dozens of other musicians over the past couple of years, Canty has made the move from New York to Nashville. Not that it matters all that much, since I don’t think there’s anyone who has traveled more miles criss-crossing America with that big Recording King guitar of hers and that devastatingly clear-as-a-bell voice. I’ve seen her perform alone and in various musical configurations, and she sparkles and shimmers on every occasion. When I listen to the new album it makes me just want to stop, lay down, and set cool slices of cucumbers over my eyes. Every note and word draws me deeper. Two songs: the first from her new album, and the second is a few years old and the one that got away.

The Tree of Forgiveness – John Prine

In the evening on the day when the new album is released, Friday, April 13th,2018, I’ll be inside Radio City Music Hall in NYC on my feet and applauding loudly as Prine comes out on the stage. Don’t know what you might call it, but I believe it’s a blessing. (Alas…all the bad things one thinks about surrounding Friday the Thirteenth are true. Struck with pneumonia, I was unable to attend.)

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

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.

Talkin’ Bob Dylan’s First Album Blues

US National Archives

I was crawling around the concrete floor downstairs in the basement of The Strand, the massive indie bookseller just south of Union Square on Broadway in Manhattan, looking for nothing in particular when I came across a worn paperback about Gerde’s Folk City written by Robbie Woliver and published in 1986. The story he weaves goes far beyond Mike Porco’s small nightclub that became one of the top venues for Greenwich Village’s folk music roots scene. Bringing It All Back Home is an oral history told by the people who lived in the neighborhood, listened to rural music in Washington Square, performed for coins in the basket houses, came and went, rose and fell, and witnessed a constantly changing landscape and rotating cast of characters.

While Bob Dylan plays a large role in the eventual popularity and monetization of traditional folk music, he was simply one of hundreds who carried their instruments down the narrow streets in search of an audience. But he was also the one who broke out of the scene first, signing to Columbia Records in late September 1961 during a string of concert dates at Gerde’s, where he opened for the Greenbriar Boys. Music critic Robert Shelton wrote a review for The New York Timesthat was published the day after Dylan signed his contract and, although he knew about it, Shelton kept the deal out of the story at Dylan’s request.

“A bright new face in folk music is appearing at Gerde’s Folk City. Although only twenty years old, Bob Dylan is one of the most distinctive stylists to play in a Manhattan cabaret in months.

Resembling a cross between a choir boy and a Beatnik, Mr. Dylan has a cherubic look and a mop of tousled hair he partly covers with a Huck Finn black corduroy cap. His clothes may need a bit of tailoring, but when he works his guitar, harmonica or piano and composes new songs faster than he can remember them, there is no doubt he is bursting at the seams with talent.” 

 Over three afternoon sessions in November, John Hammond Sr. took Dylan into the studio where he produced his first self-titled album and paid him the union scale wage of $402. In discussing the difficulty of working with Dylan in the studio, Hammond told biographer Clinton Helin “Bobby popped every p, hissed every s, and habitually wandered off mike.”

“Even more frustrating, he refused to learn from his mistakes. It occurred to me at the time that I’d never worked with anyone so undisciplined before.”

Bob Dylan was released 56 years ago this month, on March 19, 1962. Of the 13 songs, only two were original: “Song to Woody” and “Talkin’ New York.” Along with a few folk standards, he included songs written by Jesse Fuller, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bukka White, Curtis Jones, and John Laird. For two traditional tunes he lifted the arrangements from Dave Van Ronk and Eric von Schmidt.

Considered by many as “Hammond’s Folly,” the record wasn’t well received and was Dylan’s only album that never charted in America, although it did rose to number 13 in the UK charts three years later, in 1965. Mitch Miller, Columbia’s head of A&R at the time, said that in the US only 2,500 copies were sold, but Hammond defended Dylan vigorously and was determined that Dylan’s second album should be a success.

Recording for the second album began in April 1962, and continued for over 12 months, with eight separate studio sessions. Dylan was committed to including more of his own songs, and in a July session he recorded a song that he had debuted at Gerde’s Folk City in April, built on the melody of the old spiritual “No More Auction Block.” He called it “Blowin’ in the Wind.”  The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released on May 27, 1963.

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

The Dixie Chicks: Freedom’s Just Another Word

From dixiechicks.com

I don’t even know the Dixie Chicks, but I find it an insult for all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching.

— Merle Haggard, July 25, 2003, CBS News

Truth be told, throughout the 1990s and into the early years of the new millennium, as the Dixie Chicks grew in popularity, they were merely a blip on my musical radar screen. While I indeed liked much of their music that would from time to time reach my ears, my perception was an emphasis on fashion, style, and image that equated to feeling there was too much sparkle and shine for my liking, and it completely overshadowed and obscured the true substance and remarkable talent of these three women. Add in a very strong message of empowerment, a strong bond with a primarily female audience, and their oversaturation on country music radio that seemed to have no relation to what I personally perceived as country music, and it was even easier to ignore and discount them. A classic case of male and musical chauvinism in equal measure.

The Incident on March 10, 2003

With our armed forces poised at the border in preparation of invading Iraq based on the lies and deception that came from our government, in a nonscripted moment Natalie Maines stood on a concert stage in London flanked by fellow bandmates Emily Erwin and Martie Erwin and spoke these words as they were about to introduce a new song called “Travelin’ Soldier”: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.” The audience erupted in cheers, and you need to know that in the weeks leading up to that moment we were in the midst of an international anti-war movement that brought millions of people into the streets to protest America’s intentions.

Fifteen years have passed, and we now have a president who brags about grabbing female genitalia, has been accused of multiple instances of sexual misconduct, is an accepted and expected liar, a serial philanderer who gets a “mulligan” from the blind eyes of the religious alt-right, and on a daily basis sends out hateful insults often based on race, color, creed, gender, physical appearance, and opposing messaging to his own fractured points of view. Meanwhile, looking through the rearview mirror, Maines’ rather mild and justifiable swipe at “W” in 2003 caused an outrageous backlash that got the Dixie Chicks permanently banned from country radio, while enduring insults that mutated into threats of violence and death. It was an irrational and orchestrated far-to-the-right-of-center campaign that betrayed the values and freedoms we enjoy in America.

While they were down, they were hardly out. In 2006, their new album Taking the Long Way debuted at number one on both the country and pop charts, and they swept the Grammy Awards in February 2007 in each of the five categories in which they were nominated, including Album of The Year. But as they were able to hold onto the majority of their fan base, country radio continued to boycott their music, and with anemic ticket sales in much of America, they headed for friendlier venues in Canada and across the ocean. Letting the music speak for itself, all three women held that virtual middle finger high with “Not Ready To Make Nice.”

In a Time magazine article in May 2006, Martie Erwin said, “I’d rather have a smaller following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith. We don’t want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do.” Maines also retracted her earlier apology to President Bush, stating, “I apologized for disrespecting the office of the president, but I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t feel he is owed any respect whatsoever.”

With the 15th anniversary of Maines’ comments weighing on my mind, the other night for the first time I sat and watched the Barbara Kopple documentary Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing. Filmed between 2003 and 2006, it follows Maines and the Erwin sisters from that night in London through troubled times and up to the recording and release of their album Taking the Long Way. It is a candid, raw, and very personal insight into what the band dealt with behind the headlines, and the film skillfully portrays the conflict between rhetorical hate-mongering and the strength, love, and sisterhood of these three women. It left me feeling ashamed not only for the unfair treatment toward fellow Americans exercising their right to free speech, but for my own self-absorption at the time that translated into sitting on the sidelines with my mouth shut.

From 2006 through 2008 the band shared concert dates times with James Taylor, and later did a summer stadium tour with The Eagles. After a hiatus to focus on family, the Erwins recorded as the Court Yard Hounds and Maines released a solo album. But the band remained together as a live performance entity, producing no new studio albums but conducting a worldwide tour in 2016 and subsequently releasing a live album and DVD. In November of that year the band returned to the stage at the Country Music Association’s televised award show.

(The Failing) New York Times, November 3, 2016:

On live television, Beyoncé’s improbable performance with the Dixie Chicks at the 50th annual Country Music Association Awards couldn’t have gone more smoothly. With a giant band and brass section, the pop star blew through an extra twangy version of “Daddy Lessons,” the southern-fried track from her latest album, “Lemonade,” even working in a section of the Dixie Chicks’ own “Long Time Gone” in the middle. The Nashville crowd was on its feet.

But online, the reception was decidedly more mixed, with some country fans arguing that Beyoncé, who has recently leaned harder into activism around police reform and the Black Lives Matter movement, had no place at the ceremony. 

“Why are you showing Beyoncé & Dixie Chicks? One doesn’t believe in America and our police force while the other didn’t support our president and veterans during war,” one commenter wrote on Facebook, alluding to each act’s past political moments. Another added: “Neither are country, and Beyoncé could not be bothered to put some clothes on for the occasion.” Beyoncé, according to one common sentiment, “isn’t even what country represents.” Others were plainly racist.

In the days that followed, a majority of people in America voted for a woman and Democrat to lead our country, but with voting laws and electoral procedures in play that most people still don’t understand, we ended up with the single greatest threat to our democracy and rights. In what I consider to be a fractured fairy tale, three brave women sailed through rough waters with their dignity and values intact, while the rest of us were left holding an empty bag of wind. In my opinion we all owe Natalie, Emily, and Martie a debt of gratitude for keeping the flames of freedom burning. And I’ll keep my fingers crossed for one more album …

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

Russ Never Sleeps: Sharing Memories of Tower Records

Russ Solomon at the original Tower Records store in Sacramento in 1987. Credit: Terrence McCarthy

On Sunday night, March 4, 2018, as he sat in front of his television sipping whiskey and watching the Academy Awards, Russ Solomon passed away at age 92. He will be forever known as the man who opened up a record store in Sacramento, California that through the years expanded to over 200 locations in 15 countries. Forty-six years later, the last store closed its doors. In July 2010 I published an article for No Depressionabout my own connection to Tower Records, and I’m sharing it here again.

Tower Records founder Russ Solomon finally decided to retire at age 84. After the chain he founded in 1960 was liquidated back in late 2006, he’d been running the R5 record shop in Sacramento at one of his former locations. In May 2010 he decided to throw in the towel and sold it off to Dimples Records, whose owners threw Russ a retirement party on July 17. The story of how Tower grew from one store in California’s capital to an international iconic retailer of music and lifestyle products, and then ultimately imploded under the confluence of financial, technological, and cultural change was hardly unique to them.

Almost every music fan of a certain age was touched in some way by Tower Records, either as a consumer, musician, employee, or business partner. I’d venture to say that most of us still long for the opportunity and experience of visiting one of their stores for browsing, listening, learning, people-watching, and knowing that you were in a space surrounded with other people like yourself, who loved, valued, collected, and supported music. Before Tower spread its wings and flew beyond the Golden State, there were few regional stores that also offered their size and selection.

During the ’60s in New York and other eastern cities in the US, we had the original Sam Goody chain (not the latter mall version), which was similar to Tower in that it offered a wide product selection in all categories and knowledgable customer service from mostly male employees wearing white shirts and ties. In the ’70s down in Atlanta, Peaches was a store noted for a more organic feel, with its unpainted wood shelves and crates and a much more laid back staff. And while there were others that were smaller in scale, as time passed Tower Records survived as a stand-alone, privately held company of large magnitude, and it resisted becoming a cookie-cutter, rubber-stamped retailer – simultaneously their greatest asset and ultimate liability.

Russ has often been called a “Music Man,” which implies that he cared more about the music that sat on the shelves, his employees, and his customers than he did about making a buck. But that’s a partial truth that diminishes his incredible business acumen. His strength and legacy will likely be as a visionary who was honest, fair, and passionate. And unlike many other music executives I’ve dealt with, Russ was a patron of all art forms, and given the chance he’d prefer to talk jazz or contemporary art rather than numbers on spreadsheets. Had you found yourself showing up to his office wearing a tie, his signature move would be to get up, take a pair of scissors, and cut the damn thing off. It became a rite of passage to have yours hung up on the wall like a dead carcass along the others.

Most of my memories of Tower were as a business partner. For many years I called on dozens of their stores as a salesperson representing independent labels, and later moved into a corporate position that often took me to their headquarters in Sacramento. More than any other client, the Tower folks were just plain fun to deal with. There were days where I felt blessed to actually get paid for having such a good time. I travelled extensively and visited almost every one of their domestic retail locations, got to hang out with music people who spoke my language and we broke bread, smoked dope, shared laughs, and discovered new music. And I’d almost always come home with a bright yellow bag filled with new tunes.

Today, as a consumer, I’m fortunate to be only 90 minutes from Amoeba Records in Hollywood if I need that non-online experience. [Note: In 2012 I moved to New York.] And when I’m down there it’s great to see so many former Tower employees still in the game, as well as folks who had worked at stores such as Virgin, Aron’s, Rhino, Music Plus, Wherehouse, and all of the other retail dinosaurs. Amoeba, Waterloo in Austin, Music Millennium in Portland, Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, and all the rest of the today’s survivors would agree that they owe a debt of gratitude to that very first Tower store that Russ opened back in 1960 in Sacramento that set it all in motion.

I still miss them. And so it seems like a good time to say “Thanks Russ; enjoy that retirement.”

Postscript: In his New York Times obituary, they detail both the rise and fall of Tower Records. For those who may never have had the opportunity to visit a Tower store, here’s an excerpt:

“With marketing instincts that even rivals and critics called ingenious, Mr. Solomon built megastores, some bigger than football fields, and stocked them with as many as 125,000 titles, virtually all of the popular and classical recordings on the market.

Yet many patrons said there was a clublike intimacy about the stores, where, as Bruce Springsteen once put it, ‘everyone is your friend for 20 minutes.’

Open all year from 9 a.m. to midnight, staffed by hip salespeople who could answer almost any question about recordings, the stores became the haunts of music aficionados scouring endless racks for rock, heavy metal, jazz, blues, standards, classicals, country-westerns and myriad other offerings. Sometimes popular bands and singers performed in the stores.

‘When you walked into the Tower Records store in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood back in the day, you just didn’t go in there to buy an album and then rush off to leave,’ journalist David Chiu wrote in Cuepoint, an online publication, in 2016. ‘To me, going into Tower was like visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art or attending a baseball game — it required a certain investment of time.’

Mr. Solomon sold and closed stores and converted others to franchises. At the same time, the music business went into a slump. Tower declared bankruptcy in 2004, and in 2006 it was forced to liquidate and close.

Mr. Solomon acknowledged that he had underestimated the internet’s threat to store retailing. Pirates downloaded music without paying for it, and paying customers turned to online vendors and price-cutters like Wal-Mart and Best Buy. The owner blamed himself.

A nostalgic documentary, ‘All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records,’ directed by the actor Colin Hanks, was released in 2015. It featured Mr. Solomon and many of his former employees and patrons, including Elton John, who called the shuttering of Tower Records ‘one of the great tragedies of my life.’

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

Bob Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’: An Unintended Eulogy to Murder in Parkland

Daily Mail UK

There are weeks I want to read and write about music, and weeks that I couldn’t care less about who is going on tour or what new albums are being released. Like many of you, I was deeply upset hearing the news of another school shooting, along with the subsequent expected finger-pointing and politicization. We are a divided nation with a serious gun fetish, led predominantly by older white men of wealth and power who are committed to using fear and manipulation to maintain a status quo that not only allows murder but encourages extreme violence by virtue of doing nothing to stop it. While I don’t know if the voices of the young survivors will rise loud enough to make a difference, even if it’s simply a series of incremental hollow victories it is encouraging.

I should note that I wasn’t able to reach Bob to ask if he minded if I used his lyrics. They were originally published in 1973 by Ram’s Horn Music, and have likely been transferred to another company over the years. Written as a lullaby to his baby son Jakob, and covered by dozens of musicians, Time magazine nevertheless called it one of his ten worst songs. I respectfully disagree.

Seventeen people were confirmed dead as the United States endured another horrifying school shooting at the hands of a teenage gunman armed with an AR-15 assault rifle. After initial reports of a shooter, officers surrounded the campus, directing the evacuation of hundreds of students from the scene, while other teens hid inside closets and under desks to stay safe. Students later told reporters that they at first thought alarms in the school were a fire drill, until they heard gunshots in the hallways. (The Guardian)

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you

The heavily armed man arrived at the school in an Uber at 2:19 p.m., shortly before dismissal time. According to authorities he shot people in the hallways and inside five classrooms on the first and second floors. He eventually discarded the rifle, a vest, and ammunition in a stairwell, and blended in with fleeing students to get away. After leaving the school, he walked to a Walmart and bought a drink at a Subway, according to authorities. At 3:41 p.m., he was arrested by the police as he walked down a residential street in Coral Springs, just a few miles from the school. (The New York Times)

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay
Forever young

The suspect in the school shooting was a member of the school’s rifle team and represented it in marksmanship competitions. The 19-year-old was described as “very good shot” by members of the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The JROTC, which receives funding from the NRA gun lobby, used air rifles special-made for target shooting, typically on indoor ranges at targets the size of a coin. Former cadets say they were surprised the awkward teen they remember from a couple years ago now stands accused of slaughtering students and staff. But, in retrospect, there were signs of trouble. The executive officer of the JROTC battalion said Cruz spoke about guns and knives incessantly and liked to wear military-style clothing to school. He was also said to have bragged about shooting animals for fun. (The Telegraph)

Forever young
Forever young
May you stay
Forever young

After each massacre, survivors and witnesses have echoed the words “no more” — yet mass shootings have continued to plague the U.S. In fact, shootings only have continued to increase over the past few years. The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is the third deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history to take place within the past five months. It’s also the 25th fatal shooting at a U.S. elementary, middle or high school since — and including — Columbine in 1999. (Fox News)

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you

The teenagers of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland have emerged as passionate advocates for reform, speaking openly of their anger in the hope of forcing a reckoning on guns. But in certain right-wing corners of the web the students are being portrayed not as grief-ridden survivors but as pawns and conspiracists intent on exploiting a tragedy to undermine the nation’s laws. Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist behind the site Infowars, suggested that the mass shooting was a “false flag” orchestrated by anti-gun groups. Rush Limbaugh, on his radio program, said of the student activists on Monday: “Everything they’re doing is right out of the Democrat Party’s various playbooks. It has the same enemies: the N.R.A. and guns.” (New York Times)

May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay
Forever young

The survivors of the shooting are fighting for change and vowing “never again.” They’ve also been unrestrained, and at times brutally direct, in calling out hypocrisy and challenging their critics. They’ve fought back, often on social media, and doubled down on their message: make the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — their high school — the last. Students have called out the NRA and the politicians who accept funding from the group. On Twitter, Sarah Chawick wrote “We should change the names of AR-15s to ‘Marco Rubio’ because they are so easy to buy.” (Vox)

Forever young
Forever young
May you stay
Forever young

Gabe Glassman: “I’m a sophomore at Douglas. At the time of the shooting, I had to hide in a closet for an hour and 20 minutes and get evacuated by a SWAT team. This is my life now. If I’m not at home, I’m in grief counseling, speaking at a rally or visiting memorials in the park. Then I go on social media to check my posts about gun control.”

Douglas High School senior Ariana Ortega is part of the activism, too — and she can’t believe how fast everything has changed. “Two weeks ago, we were all going prom dress shopping, sending each other pictures. All of those things seem so insignificant now.” Now, Ariana says, “We have many group chats, where we have students speaking about legislative stuff, emotions, plans, everything.” (NPR)

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift

Children have periodically played leading roles in social and political movements. With #NeverAgain, some of the students who survived the shooting this month in Parkland have organized effective social media campaigns in favor of greater gun control. So far the American public is paying attention. Children are effective messengers because they are difficult to convincingly attack. It’s easier to forgive their excesses and their mistakes, and they are not constrained by having full-time jobs. The very fact that children are doing something attracts news coverage. If even a child sees the need to speak out, we all should be listening; they of course have the greatest stake in America’s future. (Bloomberg View)

May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay
Forever young

A slew of companies are ending their ties to the National Rifle Association in the wake of the massacre at a Florida high school that left 17 dead earlier this month. United, Delta, Enterprise Holdings, First National Bank of Omaha, Symantec and MetLife were among the first to call it quits after a #BoycottNRA hashtag started to pick up steam online last week. The gun rights group’s chief executive Wayne LaPierre openly criticized gun-control advocates and the media for its coverage of the shooting. “They don’t care about our schoolchildren. They want to make all of us less free.” (Fox Business)

Forever young
Forever young
May you stay
Forever young

Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of the largest sports retailers in the U.S., has announced it is immediately ending its sales of military-style semi-automatic rifles and is requiring all customers to be older than 21 to buy a firearm at its stores. Additionally, the company no longer will sell high-capacity magazines.

CEO Ed Stack announced the decision on ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday, the same day that survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are returning to class. Stack said the 19-year-old gunman allegedly behind that massacre, which claimed 17 lives and wounded many more in Parkland, Fla., had purchased a firearm from the retailer last November. While that the weapon — a shotgun — was not used in the shooting, the CEO said the revelation deeply affected him and his colleagues at Dick’s.(NPR)

Last week the Stoneman Douglas High School drama club performed “Shine,” a song they wrote in the wake of the shooting at their school. May they remain forever young. #NeverAgain

Doo-Wop Music: Americana Lost and Found

I’m not sure that the twangy contingent of the roots music intelligentsia will agree with me on this one, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the vocal group harmony style that emerged out of African American communities in the late ’40s, and how it fits within the construct of Americana. It came out of cities like New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Detroit, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and my hometown of Philadelphia. I recall first hearing doo-wop from a small radio station with a weak signal across the Delaware River in Camden by one of the greatest disc jockeys of that era, Jerry “Geator With The Heater” Blavat, who was also known as “The Boss With The Hot Sauce.” While he wasn’t as prominent as Alan Freed or Dick Clark, he helped bring doo-wop out of the urban ghettos and into the ears of white suburban kids like me.

Building on the small-group harmony style that was made popular in the ’30s and early ’40s by the Ink Spots, Mills Brothers, The Cats and the Fiddle, and the Delta Rhythm Boys, young black teenagers would get together on street corners, school gyms, and subway stations to sing a cappella, while hoping to come up with a sound that would let them grab at a piece of the American Dream. In his Survey of American Popular Music, author and academic Frank Hoffmann outlines the qualities and elements:

“Group harmony, a wide range of vocal parts, nonsense syllables, a simple beat, light instrumentation, and simple music and lyrics. Above all, the focus is on ensemble singing. In doo-wop vocal harmonies the echo runs underneath the lead vocalist. Generally, the second tenor and baritone blend together as one sound, with the high tenor (or falsetto) running over the lead and the bass reverberating on the bottom end. The group harmony does not usually lead throughout; however, it may occasionally alternate with a tenor in this capacity.”

“Nonsense syllables were derived from bop and jazz styles, traditional West African chants, a cappella street corner singing (in place of the instrumental bass line), and doo-wop-styled R&B songs during the 1950-1951 period. They were commonly used in the bass and harmony parts; their use tends to be more restrained, simple, and somber when employed in ballads.

“Gow gow hoo-oo, gow gow wanna dib-a-doo, chick’n hon-a-chick hole-a-hubba, hell fried cuck-a-lucka wanna jubba, hi-low ‘n-ay wanna dubba hubba, day down sum wanna jigga-wah, dell rown ay wanna lubba hubba, mull an a mound chicka lubba hubba, and fay down ah wanna dip-a-zip-a-dip-a’ are just a few examples.”

Hoffmann breaks down the evolution of doo-wop into these stylistic time periods: Paleo (1952-54), Classical (1955-59), and Neo (1960-1963). While independent labels released the majority of the music, the major labels smelled money and scooped up the most popular tunes to be re-recorded by popular Caucasian singers. But while that may have appealed to an older demographic or particular geography, teenagers bought the originals in such quantities that by 1955 songs from African American groups such as The Moonglows, Flamingos, Penguins, and Platters crossed over to the mainstream charts and helped usher in rock and roll.

Wikipedia offers more of the story:

“1958 saw the rise of Italian American doo-wop groups. Like African-Americans, the Italian Americans generally attended church, where they gained singing experience, and lived in urban neighborhoods, where they would sing on street corners. By the late 1950s, Italian American street corner doo-wop groups were seen in cities such as New York, especially the Bronx and Brooklyn. The contribution of Hispanics is often overlooked. Early, especially in U.S. East Coast cities, Puerto Ricans were lead singers in some groups with black and white members. ‘Racially integrated’ groups with both black and white performers included the Del Vikings, Impalas and Crests.”

Coinciding with The British Invasion, by 1964 doo-wop virtually ceased to exist. Some groups, such the Four Seasons, Drifters, and Little Anthony and The Imperials managed to continue to chart and perform in the mainstream. Some members of other groups found a second wind at labels such as Motown, Stax, Chess, Atlantic, and Philadelphia International. Aside from Sha Na Na at Woodstock, the golden oldies revival shows of the ’70s, and the American Graffitisoundtrack, the doo-wop era was all but forgotten until Jersey Boys — the story of the Four Seasons — came to Broadway in 2005 and played through last year. Beyond the PBS pledge drive shows with reconstituted groups and cheap costumes, I think doo-wop lives on as just another footnote in the great big tent of roots music and Americana … whatever that is.

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

Willard’s Wormhole, Lonesome Lefty’s Scratchy Attic And The Demise of Music Blogging

Between the rapid rise and fall of the popular MP3 file sharing site Napster in 1999 and the launch of Spotify in 2007, a new music distribution platform emerged that was in equal measure criminal, historical, and fanatical. With a cavalier attitude toward intellectual property rights and the often unspoken encouragement from an industry that was blind to the changes that this technology would soon bring, the music blogosphere exploded. Divided into two camps, there were websites that were usually based in countries that stood outside the wall of the international justice system and specialized in hosting new music and popular catalog titles, and the more homegrown pages that often focused on 78 rpm or vinyl rips from out-of-print titles accompanied by long essays about the origin, credits, recording details, release history, and artwork.

It was the latter that attracted and fascinated me, less for the ability to download free music and more for the opportunity of receiving an education of the importance for preservation and archiving. As someone who spent his career working in both independent and major label distribution, I witnessed the loss and destruction of master tapes, the ignorance of both the importance and value of content, and the reckless abandonment of quality for the sake of squeezing a profit that still continues today. From the mishandled transition of analog tapes to digital carriers to the endless regurgitation of “new and improved” collections, it’s no surprise that a confused customer base grew weary.

I keep a folder in my internet bookmarks labeled “music blogs,” and although barely any are still active, sometimes digital dust is hard to sweep under the rug. For example, Lonesome Lefty’s Scratchy Attic hasn’t made any new posts since 2016, but this link will take you the still-hosted site. In some ways it’s like sifting through an archaeological site of old-time music, and you can tell that someone spent a great deal of time researching and resurrecting it. This particular site focused on the old Starday and King Records catalogs, leaning most heavily toward their country titles. It featured original artwork, liner notes, reviews, and pictures of the actual labels. Most of these titles will never ever see the light of day again, and if you hit the “download now” links you’ll be taken to a dead page or, worse, an anti-virus ad.

The closing down of Willard’s Wormholes was a complete and total erasure of one of the most extensive music websites ever created. With a ten-year run that ended last year, another site — BB Chronicles — published its obituary:

The great music-oriented blog Willard’s Wormholes is no more. And for those wondering just what may have happened to it, let me reassure you that it was not closed or shut down by any outside forces. No, ‘Willard’ just decided on his own that 10 years was long enough, and that he wanted to move on. And not wanting to attract undue attention or hoopla to the closure, he just quickly and quietly closed down the site. 

As all who frequented the site know, Willard’s Wormholes was most certainly one of the very best ever, if not THE best ever music blog of its type. Not only did it provide downloads of a wide variety of music types, popular and obscure, from classic blues and jazz to mainstream pop and rock to eclectic under-appreciated artists to obscure soundtracks, demos, and experimental sounds and sessions, but Willard always provided insightful commentary, information, and opinions on the music and artists.

In addition, the musical community that developed around the Wormholes was the best on the internet, providing useful, helpful, and worthwhile comments and background, and the thorough and abundant reader links that developed provided an additional treasure trove of musical goodies for all to enjoy.

In my nine-year tenure of writing here at No Depression, I’ve kept away from covering or exposing this musical underbelly primarily because of the murky legalities, but also because it appeals to such a narrow audience. Wrath of The Grapevine, which shut down in 2013, addresses the former, and it’s similar to notes you’ll see on most of the blogs:

The music on this site is mostly old, hard-to-find, or under-noticed music. Many of the musicians are dead. As for the living musicians, I put their music here because I want to spread and publicize it, not because I want to rip them off. Musicians, like artists, are a hard-working and under-compensated lot, and I highly recommend that if you like the music you find here, you seek out their other recordings. Of course, if any musician finds their music here and wants it removed, contact me and I’ll happily oblige.

Somebody out there probably wants to learn more about Hylo Brown and the Timberliners, Willie Clancy or Bashful Brother Oswald … and there are still a handful of sites out there still actively trying to keep this anarchist-archival aesthetic alive. But to Willard, Lonesome Lefty, Lost in Tyme, Sed De Musica, Time Will Tell You, The Secret Vault, Record Fiend, Jukebox City and the rest of y’all, this is a fond farewell.

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