For forty seconds you get the set up. What’s the deal? This sounds like something from the 60s. That’s right, the drum intro to The Ronettes “Be My Baby.” Well, sort of. Yet, the castanets give it away. Do they dare swim in these deep waters, try a take on such a seminal song?
You can’t help but wonder as the intro coninues. Are these white kids from Philly really going to tackle Phil Spector? Dare they emulate the greatest voice in rock & roll, Veronica Bennett?
Or will they extrapolate the song into something unrecognizable, something white? Like Vanilla Fudge turning “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” into garage band psychedelia.
Then, in a turn as exhilarating as it is unexpected, David Bielanko’s raspy, weary voice reaches out from the jungles of Nam. The memory so strong, even though he’s actually back stateside, the images are strong and true and resonant. You can feel the sweat and grit and fear.
(Note: I couldn’t find the album version anywhere on the www. It’s purer than any of the live versions. So here it is. No visuals. You’ll probably be directed to a page with just a player. After you listen, hit the return button on your browser to come back. There’s a raucous live take on the song at the end of this article.)
Last night I closed my eyes/ And watched the tracers fly/ Through the jungle trees / Like fireflies on a windy night/ Pulled up and onward by the breeze / I can still hear the far off tin-canny sounds / Of their machine guns come unwound / And I was shakin’ like Little Richard/ And I was sweatin’ like ol’ James Brown /
Viet Nam and soul music. It worked for Coppola. It works even better for the Bielanko brothers, who are the magnificent bar band Marah.
Over by my window sill / The moon was still/ On my cigarettes and wine/ Sometimes that’s where I pray to Jesus / Sometimes there’s where I pray to die/ But I could still sense the circling danger / Of those invisible bastards of a piss-hot day/ I was shakin’ with ol’ Proud Mary/ I was sittin’ on the dock of the bay/
The rhythm continues. Yes, it’s Phil Spector, but it’s hard to figure out the connection?
Take the hits boys take the hits/ Don’t smoke your bible and don’t lose your wits/ Because the sky is filled with shrapnel / And your eyes are filled with tears / Hold your breath boys hold your breath / Finger your trigger and welcome death/ Because the chopper’s filled with your gut-shot friends/ Your hearts are filled with fear/
There’s that coda again during a short instrumental break. No flourishes. No castanets this time, just he insistence that adds gravity to this cautionary tale that’s wrapped around an icon of a song.
Fables tell of men who fell / With swords dangling from their chest / The old guys down at the taproom swear / The Japs could kill you best / But late at night I could still hear the cries/ Of three black guys I seen take it in the face/ I think about them sweet Motown girls they left behind / And the assholes that took their place /
Then the chorus again, the lament of lost brothers, the helicopter imagery that is such a part of Viet Nam memories. For those who were there and those who weren’t.
The chorus again.
Your hearts are filled with fear.
Then a lonely horn, forlorn. And, yes, the signature castanets.
So won’t you please/ Be my little baby/ Be my baby now . . .
Let me get the hyperbole out of the way at the start.
Here me now and believe me later. Little Feat is the most unappreciated band of rock’s halcyon days.
Period.
Bill Payne’s piano. Richard Hayward’s and Sam Clayton’s syncopated percussion. A southern sensibility that is both traditional and innovative. And, of course, Lowell George’s intelligent, nuanced, evocative and clever lyrics. Oh yes, there’s his signature slide guitar stylings, which legend says was taught to him by Bonnie Raitt.
When this album was released in ‘73, the band, with a few personnel adjustments, had put out two albums to considerable acclaim, “Little Feat” and “Sailin’ Shoes.” Both are worthy of your attention.
But “Dixie Chicken” put it all together. The sultry funk. The aroma of magnolia and marijuana. The slinky sensuality. Plus it rocks and you can dance to it.
How about a taste of the title tune, with some superstar help:
In case you miss the rock & roll elegance of that cautionary tale, here are the lyrics:
I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis/ And the Commodore Hotel/ And underneath a street lamp, I met a southern belle/ Oh she took me to the river, where she cast her spell/ And in that southern moonlight, she sang this song so well
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland
We made all the hotspots, my money flowed like wine/ Then the low-down southern whiskey, yea, began to fog my mind/ And I don’t remember church bells, or the money I put down/ On the white picket fence and boardwalk/ On the house at the end of town/ Oh but boy do I remember the strain of her refrain/ And the nights we spent together/ And the way she called my name
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken I’ll be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland
Many years since she ran away/ Yes that guitar player sure could play/ She always liked to sing along/ She always handy with a song/ But then one night at the lobby of the Commodore Hotel/ I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well/ And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song/ And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sing along
If you’ll be my Dixie chicken ill be your Tenessee lamb/ And we can walk together down in Dixieland/ Down in Dixieland, Down in Dixieland
Now, that’s a song, kiddies.
My favorite song on the album — truth be told, my favorite Little Feat tune of all — is “Fat Man In The Bathtub.”
Check it out:
Okay, some more over the top praise. Little Feat is the most underrated band of all time. How’s that for devotion.
Anyway, as happens so much, it was too good to last. At least in the group’s best incarnation. George, founder, leader and most aggressive drug advocate, broke the band up in the late 70s, casting aspersions on his bandmates Payne and Paul Barrere. Lowell George died not long thereafter of a heart attack, probably drug induced.
In ‘88, the remaining members, with some additions, reconstituted. The group’s first gig was on the Riverboat President at the New Orleans JazzFest. (Did you have any doubt, we’d end up there?) Bonnie Raitt sat in on slide.
The band has evolved through the years, and still gigs. Various personnel changes on the periphery haven’t changed the essence of the group. They’ve put out any number of albums through the years, including some amazing live shows. Most all deserve a listen.
Phil Rollins has been immersed in the University of Louisville hoops tradition for half a century. His playing days predate Freedom Hall.
As a senior in 1956, he starred on Louisville’s team that ruled Madison Square Garden and has been a fixture at Freedom Hall since 1963 after his pro career ended.
He’s red and black to the core. His business card includes a photo of him in his Cardinal uniform and reads “1956 NIT Champs.”
“What I remember is that a lot of people thought Freedom Hall was going to be a white elephant. It’ll never be what they want.
“I was in the service, but made it back for the first game in Freedom Hall. The place was packed. Charlie (Tyra) broke his record. Tommy Hawkins played a great game for Notre Dame.”
U of L contested its first tilt in Freedom Hall on Dec. 21, 1956. By that time, two other games had already been held there: Ed Diddle’s Western Kentucky State College Hilltoppers (later to become WKU) bested San Francisco, 61-57, several days earlier in the official inaugural. Bellarmine played an “exhibition” versus a squad from Fort Knox.
The Cardinals whipped Notre Dame, 85-75, before 13,756 fans in their first bout at the Hall. It was in that game that Tyra, cover boy on the first-ever Street & Smith College Basketball Yearbook, tallied 40, including a perfect 18 for 18 underhanded free throws. Sophomore guard Harold Andrews scored a dozen in his first start. Bill Darragh scored 17.
Darragh, a season ticket holder to this day, remembers that game as well as the Cards’ other two wins at the fairgrounds that season. U of L moved permanently from the Jefferson County Armory (Louisville Gardens) the following season.
“Freedom Hall was big, new and shiny. We liked the Armory, but the locker room was like a furnace room. It was dirty and dingy. Playing at Freedom Hall was exciting…
“In the Christmas tournament we beat St. Louis. It was payback. They’d beaten us earlier in the season. Against Dayton, I missed a shot that would have won in regulation. But it made a good friend happy. He’d bet on us. We won and we were able to cover the spot in overtime.”
It was an auspicious start to what’s been an amazing run in the Hall, given the school’s 680-plus wins against fewer than 150 losses there. This Saturday, that long, successful run will come to a close when the Cards play their final game in Freedom Hall. Next season, the team will move into a new downtown arena, leaving behind a place they’ve called home for more than five decades.
There are too many reasons and so many ways to talk about this seminal album.
Let’s start with Hugh Jarrett.
In the early sixties, the most important radio station in the land was 50,000 watt clear channel WLAC-AM in Nashville. It had morphed through the decades into an outlet which played blues and R & B to an audience that spanned the eastern half of the northern hemisphere.
In the winter and spring of ‘62-’63, Robbie Robertson listened. Johnny Winter listened. So did my buddies and I, eschewing homework to twist and turn the wireless knobs in our bedrooms to catch every funky beat. Spinning the platters were the legendary quartet of John R (Richbourg), Hoss Allen, Gene Nobles and Herman Grizzard.
Between shilling for White Rose petroleum jelly, Royal Crown pomade and mail order specials from Randy’s Record Shop in Gallatin, Tennessee (7 records, pure vinyl, either 45 rpm or 78, your choice), they exposed a generation to this whole world of black music that would, as John Lee Hooker sang, “rock the nation.” These deejays were white guys — much to many listeners’ surprise — who adopted black southern patois and rode the night train to notoriety.
At some point, Hoss Allen decided to become a rep for the station and gave up his DJ gig, replaced by Jarrett, known to acolytes as Big Hugh Baby. A former member of the Jordanaires, the gospel group that became Elvis Presley’s back up singers, Big Hugh was master of the double entendre. Such that he opened his phone lines during his nighttime double shift to college and high school kids like me in need of an airwaved 55 gallon drum of White Rose or a Big Hugh Baby bird. Which sounded disarmingly like one of Uncle Joe’s beer and sausage farts. (Several years ago, I tracked Jarrett down to a small station in Georgia or Alabama, where he had a weekly gig, playing gospel music. I wrote him an email. He never responded.)
I called in from Florida during spring break in ‘63, and still have some of the White Rose left almost a half century later. 55 gallons is heap o’ petroleum jelly. It helps me get better, but I never get totally well.
How did I come to honor the curiosity that is the grave marker of one hit wonder Ernie K-Doe (Real name: Ernest Kador)? Listen up.
Those into Oldies but Goodies surely know without much brain racking that he sang “Mother In Law” The Top 40 song with the classic call and response. The lyrics in full:
(Mother in Law) Mother in Law/ (Mother in Law) Mother in Law
The worst person I know/ (Mother-in law, mother-in law)/ (Mother-in law, mother-in law)/ She worries me, so/ If she’d leave us alone/ We would have a happy home/ Sent from down below
Mother in Law/ Mother in Law
Satan should be her name/ To me they’re bout the same/ Every time I open my mouth/ She steps in, tries to put me out/ How could she stoop so low
I come home with my pay/ She asks me what I made/ She thinks her advice is the constitution/ But if she would leave that would be the solution/ And don’t come back no more
And I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I’m caught one more time
Up on Cyprus Avenue
And I’m conquered in a car seat
Not a thing that I can do
The CD release of Van Morrison’s first ever performance in its entirety of “Astral Weeks” in November at the Hollywood Bowl is now set for March 24. It was supposed to come out today (when I’m writing this), February 10. But, as those things go in the music biz, the release date was pushed back.
I did score a copy after much cajolery and obsessive pursuit of that goal. After all I’d been to the concert on a honeymoon trip and the time had long since passed to hear whether the show was as magnificent as the Film Babe and I believed it at the time.
Of this now confirmed tour de force performance, there really is only one question to ask.
Am I hallucinating? Did I watch the U of L hoopsters piss away a 7-point lead with 50 seconds to go, then beat UK on a trey right before the buzzer? From 25 feet? From Edgar Sosa?
Is the kid on top of the press table screaming? Are the fans who days ago were blaspheming him now hearing “One Shining Moment?”
It’s a couple hours after that celebration has faded into its own wacky parade. I’m watching the DVR of U of L’s fuhrschlunginer three-point escape. I’m still rubbing my eyes, not hearing that CBS tourney theme or “This is It!” But, wondering if Sosa is now somebody to love, I’m hearing the Airplane: When the truth is found to be lies …
More eloquently than I, sportswriting doyen Charles P. Pierce has riffed on the difference between the Big Game and an important game.
The important game is of note because of an extraneous circumstance, say, a made-for-TV matchup, or perhaps because the winner advances toward some legit championship.
The Big Game is much more, laden with generational consequence. It is ritualistic, fraught with anticipation and conflict. Fans who bleed their team’s colors turn off the phone, don lucky underwear, eschew familial duties and, in the event of a loss, cocoon until the aftershock has passed.
On a lark, an old pal Jan and some friends went to a Lisa Minelli concert in early fall during the election. It was a rather staid crowd, including the well dressed couple sitting next to them.
To introduce a song, Lisa mentioned it was homage to “the greatest woman ever.” At which point the seemingly normal, mild mannered fellow in a suit and tie sitting next to my friend shouted at the top of his lungs, “Sarah Palin.”
Incredulous, Jan looked over and asked, “You’re kidding, right?”
“Absolutely not,” he answered.
In fact, Minelli was referring to Sara Lee. Yeah, the coffee cake gal.
But here’s the point. In a year when our country finally stood up for truth, justice and the American way by electing our first black president, when we finally are able to bid a fond adieu to our worst president in history and his unrepentant, egregious sidekick/ puppeteer, the most compelling personality of this very political annum was an out-of-the-blue previously unknown vice presidential candidate from Alaska.
Because of that unfortunately not-so-stunning phenomenon and what it says about our culture in 2008, Sarah Palin is the Culture Maven’s Person of the Year.
Ned Racine (William Hurt) in “Body Heat,” like Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of Jake Gittes in “Chinatown,” is bright but not as much so as he thinks, and he falls in love with the wrong woman. Racine, an underachieving lawyer in hot hot hot south Florida, is also a bit lazy, single, ever on the prowl and tempestuously immoral.
The audience realizes, but he doesn’t, that he’s a goner from the moment he spies lithe, sensuous and smokey-voiced Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) at a concert one night on the pier.
She smolders. They flirt. She disappears on him. He tracks her down. (As Matty says, “Well, some men, once they get a whiff of it, they trail you like a hound.”) What ensues is the hottest interlude in film. Which I now present for your perusal.
Matty’s hubby Edmund (Richard Crenna), who is conveniently away a lot on business, is not as “small and weak” as Matty says. Even though Ned realizes that after a chance encounter with the couple at a restaurant, his passion leads to you know what conclusion. They desire no impediments to their “love.” As Ned says, “A man is going to die . . . just because we want him to.”
So I’m thinking about the economy. And wondering when it bottoms out and takes a turn for the better, where the jobs are going to come from?
The number of human beings necessary for commerce has been on the decrease for decades.
I remember a comment from the guy in my office in the 70’s charged with hiring and firing. It was the advent of electric typewriters and rudimentary word processors. He was one of those liberal, humanist types, but his words resonated. “I’m not going to allow efficiency get in the way of hiring real people to do our secretarial work.” That’s a paraphrase, but close enough.
Anybody ten years or older who has seen a movie recently knows who Robert Downey Jr. is. He’s one of the great actors of our time, a fellow whose charisma blasts from the screen. A flawed human who has struggled with drugs and their attendant problems, but who hopefully has come out the other side of that darkness.
But I’m here to talk about his father, that would be Robert Downey Sr.. And the flawed but seminal film he made in 1969 titled “Putney Swope.”
The premise is simple but was revolutionary at the time. A New York ad agency has a token black member on the Board of Directors. When the chairman dies during a board meeting — his corpse still on the table — those remaining mistakenly elect Putney Swope the new chairperson. Seems the by-laws prevent anybody from voting for himself. Thus Swope is tabbed, since the others can’t vote for themselves and none think any will ever vote for the black man.
Read sports rants, rumors & innuendo from my alter ego Seedy K. Click to check out Score! at leoweekly.com.
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For forty seconds you get the set up. What’s the deal? This sounds like something from the 60s. That’s right, the drum intro to The Ronettes “Be My Baby.” Well, sort of. Yet, the castanets give it away. Do they dare swim in these deep waters, try a take on such a seminal song?
Phil Rollins has been immersed in the University of Louisville hoops tradition for half a century. His playing days predate Freedom Hall.
