Again, following Joe Neumann’s lead, I have migrated the blog over to Wordpress.com and I see the benefit for this kind of thing. The archive feature is essential. It’s a lot more complicated, but probably worth the trouble. Change your bookmarks!!
I just saw Jessica Lea Mayfield at the Bowery Ballroom. Out of Ohio and just a young lass, there are few greybeards, let alone peers, who can write a weeper like her. 90% of her songs are downers, which is a huge + in my book. Tonight she was with her brother on bass; a solid, understated slide guitar player; and a stylie chick drummer. I still think she was best when she did her solo numbers, but the band is good and she knows what she’s doing. A very promising young artist—the girl got soul.
Thanks to Julie Czeck for this recommendation. Aguaturbia was a popular psychedelic rock band in Chile during the darkest days of the dictatorship. Apparently they caused quite a stir with this album cover in 1970. In 1972, Guitar Man charted at #11 for the soft-rock band Bread and was later, ironically, revived by their fellow baked-good-monikered band, Cake. Despite the trouble in Chile they obviously had access to current American pop music, because they put out this version, which is by far the baddest, in 1973.
Oooo! Right after I did those last postings my mail came in and I finally got one of the highly unavailable Larry Jon Wilson albums! Like half the people I end up posting on here, he is one of the great Nashville poets. And like the ill-fated Blaze Foley, he enjoys special status as a peer favorite who still fails miserably at becoming a commercial success. He wasn’t as self-destructive as Townes, but he matched him in terms of promotional apathy/humility. The liner notes to this 2007 record have him saying
“Many of the people I used to hang out with are famous now, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to say to them ‘I’ve got a song that would work perfect for you.’ When I see them now they have pinchers all around them doing that—people that wouldn’t give them sweat before their fame—and I don’t want to think of myself that way… It’s a soul saving thing for me to know that the people with heart in Nashville care about my music.” And, “You’re looking at a man who’s got a car for the first time in two years.”
God bless him. Now, I’m a huge Rodney Crowell fan—he’s one of the all-time greats—but a guy like this has every bit of the poetry Crowell does, he’s just a shitty businessman and he didn’t marry Johnny Cash’s daughter. I’d encourage everyone who likes theses songs to go and order it from amazon to get poor old LJ some $$$, but since that’s unlikely, he’d probably prefer me to just post the whole album up here so people can hear him.
This album was cut in a hotel room in Perdida Key, a little Island off of Alabama. “Goodbye Eyes,” to me, is one of those songs that just says exactly what it meant to say and says it perfectly. I’m sure I’m not the only one it hits close to home for. Nothing fancy about it, just perfect.
Mabel’s one of those insanely good mid-level soul singers who, if they were around today, would be among the best around. She was groomed early by Barry Gordy and then later sang backup for Ray Charles, signed with Stax, and had a fairly major hit with “Your Good Thing Is About to End.” Failing to get another hit, she unfortunately went on a decades long gospel act. I like these kind of strangely personal soul-song lyrics.
A very special Australian requested more Mickey Newbury songs, so here they go. Not every single one of his songs is a sad love song, but we all know those are my faves and MIckey writes them with the best of’m.
Here is the first offering, an Ed Bruce rendition of the heartbreaker “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.”
Next is another weeping dirge—“I Don’t Think About Her Much No More” aka. “Poison Red Berries”. As a side note, I just read how Willie Nelson chased Newbury off of his land with a gun one time because he came around asking for Willie’s daughter’s hand.
Finally we have the impeccably coiffed Johnny rodriguez singing “I Wonder If I Ever Said Goodbye.”
It’s hard to pick one Blaze Foley song, so I’m putting up one mp3 and this beautiful video of him singing at his buddy’s wedding BBQ. His slow songs are so soft and tender, in sharp contrast to his burly-bear appearance. He’s got a reputation of one of the most likeable and interesting weirdos in a scene full of characters. Running buddies with Townes and that crew, he was sadly murdered trying to protect his buddy in a fight.
Author of eleven #1 hits and dozens of other important songs including “Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine” and “You Show Me Your Heart (And I’ll Show You Mine)”Tom T. Hall is one of the gems of Nashville’s songwriting pantheon. I love this one about a self-destructive alcoholic hero to a young boy.
