Independence Day, irony-free. Have a great Fourth of July.
This Land Is Your Land; Woody Guthrie: Forget the millennial irony; this is the truth, and we're allowed to act like it. Never settle.
Good Timing; The Beach Boys: 🎶We're all learning.🎶
Saturday In the Park; Chicago: Here's to a real celebration, and a different kind of jazz fusion.
Philadelphia Freedom; Elton John: By, for, and about immigrants, whose experience should never not be this joyful. It's on us.
Free To Be You and Me; Marlo Thomas and Friends: Organ (Just listen to that intro), banjo, and string orchestra. It doesn't get more American than that.
You Go To Your Church; J.D. Crowe: Bluegrass, that most conservative of genres, is also the most traditional. Accordingly, here's a song about freedom of religion.
Crow Black Chicken; The New Lost City Ramblers: From hunger. The exultations and sorrows of growing your own food, and the fantasies born of food insecurity (🎶If I had a big frame house/Eighteen storeys high/Ev'ry storey in that house/Be packed with chicken pie🎶).
Pretty Saro; Elizabeth LaPrelle: Most of our folk songs are immigrants, too; as is this Gaelic singing style.
Dancing In the Streets; Martha and The Vandellas: A roll call of America's great cities, with an acknowledgement of the struggle. If "It doesn't matter what you wear/Just as long as you are there", then it's okay to be poor and still show up.
Black Coffee; Humble Pie: Because we're inveterate self-promoters, too. Steve Marriott's joyously confident take on the Ike and Tina Turner classic is a terrific example.
Lemony cologne. Picnic blankets. Potato salad. No-bake cookies. Open windows. Ice by the bucketful. Fireworks. Bug bites. Sea and Ski "Suntan Lotion". Those dreams where you feel like you're being tossed by ocean waves whenever you turn over in your sleep. And these songs. Memories of summer. Gotta Travel On; Bill Monroe: Some people never shake that itchy, spring-into-summer feeling. Bill Monroe gives himself away, redeeming a song from the Folk Scare in the process. Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon); The Mamas and The Papas: I see two sides to this one -- the terrible fates that befell so many of the girls, and a repressed narrator experiencing a summer of the spirit, if you will. The Poacher; Ronnie Lane and Slim Chance: Gorgeous orchestration; the notes skip like sunlight on the water. Is this the harsh reality of an otherwise gentle, English summer? City Folks Call Us Poor; Larry Sparks, feat. Cheryl and Sharon White: Ex-Clinch Mountain Boy, Larry Sparks, describes, in loving detail, the kind of summer not everyone can appreciate. Everyone should get off their high horse. Rocky Mountain High; John Denver: Like The Beach Boys, John Denver could make musical instruments sound like summer; how could you place those orchestral guitars anywhere else in time? Add to that the sheer poetry of nature, and you have the quintessential summer song. Roseville Fair; Nanci Griffith: Raise your hand if you ever took in the fair with the love of your life. 🙋 Nanci Griffith and an all-star cast help give this track that old-time country feel. For Your Love; Humble Pie: As hot as the season itself, and just as unconscious of the temporary nature of passion. Because; The Beatles: Puts a period at the end of the sentence that was 1960s psychedelia. Unabashedly influenced by those shamans of summer, The Beach Boys. The Warmth Of The Sun; The Beach Boys: Seriously, you didn't expect a summer playlist without these guys, did you? "I'm sad, but I'm at peace with it"? Saddest song on this list, but it hints at what a rock Brian Wilson really is. Blue; The Jayhawks: Summer's end. If The Beach Boys had been country, they'd have sounded like this.
I apologize to all the artists who'll be mortified to learn that a boomer who is not their parents likes their music.
It all started with a song you'll expect to find on my list. The song, Coldplay's "Clocks", isn't on it, but has a place of honor in the story of how I finally came to terms with the fact that I was an adult.
The year was 2003. We were sitting in the theater, watching the trailer for the live-action adaptation of Peter Pan, scored with "Clocks". Imagine the sense of peace that came over me when I found myself sympathizing with Mr. and Mrs. Darling, over their missing kids. "I. Am. An. Adult," I thought. "And I'm good with that."
Yes, I'm an adult, and a boomer besides. And now, here we are with this list.
Artists I was predisposed to listen to (e.g. Mogwai, Jose González, Magnetic Fields, Neko Case, The New Pornographers) don't count. Ditto obvious song choices like Coldplay's "Clocks", "It's Been Awhile" from Staind, and "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster The People.
Millennials, prepare to be mortified.
Happy; Pharrell Williams: Because who doesn't want more old-school Motown sound? The universality is as infectious as the groove, and Williams' cool jazz style contrasts beautifully with the unfettered joy of the lyrics.
Rumour Has It; Adele: It's got a good beat, and you can dance to it (boomers shall understand), but the beat is supplied by war drums, as befits a song about gossip in the Information Age.
Take A Bow; Rihanna: And, in an age when everybody crafts their personal dramas to be reality-show-ready, Rihanna delivers the ultimate insult: "You look so dumb right now".
Somewhere Only We Know; Keane: A striking moment in millennial culture, this realization that privacy just might save you, and your relationship, too.
Bust Your Windows; Jazmine Sullivan: It was supposed to work -- it was. Jazmine Sullivan, hoping against hope that her target is thinking the same thing.
Mas; Kinky: Polyrythmic grooves for those who missed music in the vein of Santana's early work. I first heard this track in Episode 6 of Kingpin -- the drug family soap opera miniseries, not the Farrelly Brothers flick.
The Man Who Can't Be Moved; The Script: Remarkably sweet-natured for a song that's borderline stalker-ish. Aside from that, Daniel O'Donoghue has one of the lushest voices on this list, and the group harmonies are something I'll never tire of.
99 Problems; Danger Mouse: This version comes from Mouse's The Grey Album, which featured mashups of songs from Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' self-titled record, popularly known as The White Album. I expect this choice can be viewed as misogynistic, and I reckon it is, coming out of some mouths. That said, the titular line has become a catchphrase used by people on all points of the gender spectrum, which feels like nothing so much as empowerment.
The Infanta; The Decemberists: The Decemberists are the sort of band about which you think, "They sound insufferable" when you first read about them. Then, somebody spins their debut album, and you realize that Picaresque will forever be the album that every music/drama/art/dance geek needed in high school, and needs still.
Let's be real: Every music nerd worth the name has had way more than 10 of these. This is just the list I remember today.
"Records" because I hate it when people refer to excerpts from classical works as "songs", which they're generally not unless you're talking Schubert. Or Copland.
Can you dig it? I knew that you could. Here we go. Guinnevere; Crosby, Stills and Nash: Seems to proceed out of Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate To The Wind", which I knew and loved. There's a little bit of Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, and her hapless replacement -- also known and loved -- here too. A song that has lost none of its power to haunt this listener, and inspire hope for the rescue of a woman trapped forever in the wooden memories of an inanimate object madder even than Guinnevere herself. (What A) Wonderful World; Art Garfunkel, feat. Paul Simon and James Taylor: The arrangement was too elevator-friendly by half, but, oh, those voices! Nobody but Crosby, Stills and Nash was singing like this at that time, and that union was always touch and go. Love Is Like Oxygen; Sweet: Could just as easily have been "Addicted To Love", which provoked the same reaction when I first heard it. And then, I saw that video .... So, Sweet takes it. There's just something about riff rock (Green River, Long Cool Woman, Dwight Twilley's I'm On Fire) that puts your whole day right. Bonus: Slightly-delusional lyrics. Also, two great riffs in one -- that synthesized, French Horn opener, and the crunchy guitar. No apologies. Stories We Could Tell; Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: I had seen this tour, and was still marveling that some New Wave cat (that'd be Bobby Valentino of The Fabulous Poodles) had sounded every bit as country on the fiddle as Roy Acuff. Then, they released a live version with Valentino as the B side of ... something, and I was done. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around; Stevie Nicks, feat. Tom Petty: This was smart, it was lean, it was tough, and it boasted a frontwoman. It's impossible to state how different it was from anything that had come before. The Köln Concert; Keith Jarrett: A lot of water under the bridge, and a lot of soulless, brunchy imitators can't rob this record of its beauty or its power. A magnificent achievement that captivates from the first few notes. Like being lost in the storm-tossed ocean without ever drowning. Bury My Lovely; The October Project: Kate Bush without all the silly, rich-girl trappings. Completely, utterly, and appropriately serious, yet just as utterly without pretense.
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry; The Holly Cole Trio: A musical banquet of country, jazz, gospel, and old-style hymn singing. The lonesome streak that runs a mile wide through all those genres makes it work in a way some cheap, exploitative "crossover" hit never could. Tennessee Blues: J.D. Crowe and The New South: From the first, halting notes of the banjo, this George Jones cover announces an unshakable soul sickness of the kind you can only catch when you're forced to act all homey in a place that makes you feel homeless.
Anyway, the list is chronological to the best of my recollection. It begins when I'm 15. It ends in August of 2018. I'm probably forgetting some things. It's been a long time.
Copland: Rodeo/Billy The Kid; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conducting: We were rehearsing selections from Copland's Rodeo in youth symphony. This marked the first time I ever heard a recording of a piece I was rehearsing (God bless my hometown library). The very idea that I was playing music that Leonard Bernstein had conducted was unimaginably powerful. Suddenly, music, which had always been exhilarating was serious business, too.
Thank You, Music Lovers; Spike Jones: I have my dad and, once again, the La Habra Library to thank for this one. A record that, in effect, was the obverse of the Copland, with serious musicians doing unabashedly-silly stuff without ever abandoning classical rigor.
Roses In the Snow; Emmylou Harris: My dad was country. My mother was not. After a 16-year middlebrow reign of terror, during which country music was banned on our stereo and tolerated on the great god, television, this is the record that reminded me I like things twangy af.
Clannad; Self-titled: 1983. On a drive through Mendocino, a friend popped this cassette into the player, and I was instantly smitten. As the reviewer says, I've grown out of this record in favor of stuff that's at once more traditional and more experimental, but this is where my love of Irish folk music began.
Without Clannad, I wouldn't have seen The Chieftains in concert twice, wouldn't have tuned in to Thistle and Shamrock every Saturday night for years. And I wouldn't have understood nearly as much about bluegrass going in.
Sun City; Artists United Against Apartheid: Despite being born into a conservative family, I've been a liberal for as long as I can remember.
My particular brand of liberalism never extended to corrupt charitable efforts, however; the rampant misuse of the monies collected for the No Nukes campaign left me wary of vanity charities. Did they know what they were talking about? Did they care?
A few years later, conservative acquaintances tried to get me to abandon my commitment to Live Aid by sharing stories of foodstuffs left rotting on the docks at Addis Ababa, thanks to self-satisfied rock star incompetence.
It wasn't until years later that those stories were not only proven false, but politically motivated, as well.
When the Sun City record premiered, I hung on to my money, went once again to my local library, and read everything about South Africa I could get my hands on. I satisfied myself that I had a reasonable grasp of the issues, albeit primarily from the perspective of literary and liberal South African whites. You see, apartheid extended to the arts, too.
Armed with this knowledge, I began cautiously to listen to what Artists United Against Apartheid had to say. I devoured every excerpt of this documentary that MTV cared to televise. At last, I satisfied myself that they knew what they were doing, and were fully committed to getting it done. I bought the vinyl and the VHS. I believe my money was well spent.
Whenever some rebel with a cause comes calling, this is, now and forever, how I handle it.
The Peace Album; Paul Horn: I was burned out on music. I would see local bands on stage and go home just-below-boiling jealous. Thank God I had the maturity to ask myself just what I would do up there if I had the chance.
I had no idea.
Then, I heard this record, and got excited about music -- about performing -- again. This kind of choral singing with flutes was what I wanted to do.
So, I tracked down a Conn Multivider just like Paul Horn used -- only to discover that I'd have to drill holes in my flute to connect the thing.
Yeah, no.
i conferred with fellow musicians who were infinitely more tech-savvy than I. Did I really have to risk ruining the flute I'd had since fifth grade to get this sound? They concurred that I did.
Yeah.
No.
I had a funeral in my mind. I'm still not over it.
Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms; Jimmy Martin: This and the next two records hit me like a ton of bricks. They brought me not only to bluegrass, but back to my musical self. This one had the high lonesome sound, and the punishing bluegrass technique, but it had something more: rock 'n' roll energy. You could do that?
Turns out you could. Music that came up in around the same time frame as my dad did, could be dangerous.
Wait A Minute; The Seldom Scene: This bluegrass wasn't dangerous -- unless you were the kind who stole lunch money and beat up younger kids.
Written by banjoist and L.A. session stalwart, Herb Pedersen. "Wait A Minute" was 70s-sensitive and classically precise (Tenor vocalist, John Duffey, had picked up a few vocal tricks from his dad, who sang in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera). Just what I, a die-hard fan of 19th century Russian classical music, needed in order to remember myself in the midst of the vernacular.
Tiny Broken Heart; Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard: In spite of everything, I felt something was missing from bluegrass. I had no idea what it was until I heard this song. Then and now, bluegrass is at its best when it is sharing the stories of forgotten and downtrodden folks.
All Or Nothing; The Small Faces: A record that simultaneously brought me back to rock 'n' roll, and reminded me of the energy and emotional truth I first heard in bluegrass. Just what I needed after 12 years of forsaking all others for the love of Bill, Ralph, Jimmy, and The Scene.
My standards are exacting, but I do best when my palette is big and varied. Since the Small Faces were virtually unheard of in the States, their music satisfied my urge for discovery. And soul.
I should end things here with some kind of summarizing paragraph. Trouble is, it's not over yet. #Sagittarius
As if anybody with any musical knowledge could only choose one! So, I chose 10. Here they are.
Inner City Blues; Marvin Gaye: Funk Brother, Bob Babbitt, borrows rhythms from the classic drum pickups of late, fellow Funkster, Benny Benjamin, to kick things off. As the song progresses, Babbitt works subtle changes on the central melodic figure. His endlessly inventive playing calls to mind the tenuous, slippery, constantly-shifting nature of inner city life. More thoughts on this song here. Roll Over Beethoven; The Beatles: Paul McCartney takes inspiration from James Jamerson -- and his own time in the clubs of Stuttgart's Reeperbahn district. Notice how he switches up the bass line in the last verse, giving a fresh burst of energy to flagging dance floor denizens. Monkey Man; The Rolling Stones: Bill Wyman was part of one of the greatest rock rhythm sections of all time. But, sometimes, you need to shake loose and have fun. This is fun -- perhaps inspired by Jagger's loopy lyrics. Was it magic mushrooms, or just Laffy Taffy?
Tales Of Brave Ulysses; Cream: Jack Bruce's colorful playing here says everything about going on a life-changing journey -- the tentativeness; the over-confidence; the rebellion; and, finally, the wholesale rejection of everything you ever thought you wanted. The most emotionally-truthful work on this list. Linus and Lucy; Vince Guaraldi Trio: This bass track was most likely recorded by Fred Marshall, who doubles Guaraldi's piano so closely that they sound like one instrument. They break away from each other in the sparkling improv section, then reunite when the A theme returns. The buzz of Marshall's bowed bass strings is the last thing you hear as the track fades out. More about the song in this playlist. I Ain't Superstitious; The Jeff Beck Group: Listen to the heavy, heavy syncopation; [bassist Ron Wood spends] so long on the dotted eighths that the sixteenth notes almost come too late. The hard, un-syncopated triplets in the instrumental breaks that follow make for a stunning rhythmic contrast with the slinky groove in the verses. More on his performance here.
Let Him Run Wild; The Beach Boys: Fuzzy, happy bass work from both Jimmy Bond on acoustic bass, and Carol Kaye on electric, guides the rest of the band through some wicked changes said to be inspired by the sounds of Burt Bacharach. Bonus: Steve Douglas, picking up the bass line on tenor sax. More thoughts on the song and the band here. 5:15; The Who: John Entwistle, who was also an accomplished french hornist, doubles his fellow brass players on the song's distinctive, jazzy riff; driving the rest of the proceedings with an almost Baroque countermelody. Yes, Virginia, classical and jazz music can play very well with rock 'n' roll. Going To A Go Go; Smokey Robinson: Silky and snake-hipped, thanks to the mighty James Jamerson -- surely one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. His sinuous bass line evokes the luxurious, low-lit confines of an exclusive club packed with Motown's cool kids, but somehow, open to everyone. Too Much Girl; The Resonars: Rippling bass by Matt Rendon fuses The Who and The Hollies in the greatest power pop act you've never heard.
His Yoke Is Easy from The Messiah by George Friderich Handel, The Academy of St. Martin In the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner: I've posted before about one of my most influential choral conductors, who once told me that, "Handel was a German who wrote Italian operas for the English." He meant far more than English audiences. It is beyond curious that a race of people so determined to avoid awkwardness that they make every moment more awkward, should interpret this portion of The Messiah with such unfettered joy, and defiance. Speaking of awkward, the interwebs wil tell you that the lyric here reads, "His burthen is light". But, what is a "burthen"? Is it some kind of burqa for childbearing women? For newborn babies? Or, is it simply some rotten ingredient in the word salad of some semi-literate gatekeeper? The truth is, if you want any sense of what these lyrics mean, you have to go to the source -- Jesus Himself, as quoted in Matthew 11:28-30. Now that you get it, click the link, and crank it up. For your sweater-knitting auntie, for your bullet-journaling frenemy, for every "25 Things ..." blog post, for the Nazis past and present, play this one loud.
Merry Christmas, Baby, Otis Redding: In a season that's so often about temporary glitz and empty promises, it's good to remember that it's not Christmas unless it's got soul.
Redding doesn't bother to hide his anguish here. He's clearly thinking of other Christmases that weren't so merry, wondering if this one, too, will evaporate before his eyes. For someone like this, you shouldn't say it if you don't mean it.
What Child Is This, Paul Horn: With a choir of soprano, alto, and bass flutes, and a primitive octave splitter called a Multivider, jazz titan, Paul Horn (Chico Hamilton Quintet), created one of the least-known but most enduring holiday albums ever recorded.
The big reverb and parallel fifths would put this right at home on any Game of Thrones soundtrack, while the Scotch snaps in the bass give it a sort of traditional Christmas feel. But, his articulation -- so liquid he could almost be scatting -- puts the stamp of a jazzer all over this piece. The whole album is like this -- a heady brew of musical influences.
Christmas In Hollis, Run-D.M.C.: (above): I'm hardly a connoisseur of this genre. What I do remember is this: While the media threatened us with nightmare images of wilding teens, and super predators, super-strengthened by crack, or angel dust, or ... whatever, Run-D.M.C. presented an almost-suburban story of naughty elves, a Christmas miracle, and as much traditional, Southern food as you could eat.
What followed years later was the discrediting of some doctoral candidate's super-predator theory, the acquittal of the so-called Central Park five, and the international exposure of Donald Trump, whose newspaper fanned the flames, as a liar, a bigot, and full-time attention-seeker.
Meanwhile, Run-D.M.C. are probably home for Christmas, rejoicing because they know exactly what's on the menu.
Drosselmeyer's Gifts from The Nutcracker, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ernest Ansermet: Let's, once and for all, abandon the notion that The Nutcracker is merely bland, holiday fare for the kiddies. Russian culture -- about which Russia's president seems entirely clueless -- won't let you have that. And it shouldn't.
See, sometimes, we expect more than we should from mere human effort. Sometimes, gifts offer us more fear and frustration than uncomplicated joy.
These are probably good things to remember for those who celebrate the birth of someone who promised, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Christmastime Is Here, Vince Guaraldi Trio: Maybe it's that the melody starts on a note that begs to be resolved. Maybe it's the fact that they never quite hit the high notes on the head. In other words, maybe there was a method to Vince Guaraldi's madness.
None of that satisfactorily explains how a genius of cool jazz got a group of kids to deliver a performance suffused with melancholy.
Way back in 1965, The Vince Guaraldi Trio, and a handful of kids figured out how to say, in the language of music, exactly what Christmas means to some of us. I see you, Linus, and this performance gives me chills every time I hear it.
There's a corner of Twitter where people whose gravest concern was having zits for the Homecoming dance, tell themselves scary stories of How Bad It Was back then, assuming that all who read these dystopian fantasies not only Know What Is Meant, but agree wholeheartedly, with an accompanying shiver down their spines.
Personally, I liked it just fine when kids didn't kill other kids for shutting them out of the in crowd, and English folk rockers could sing a carol about Jesus's birth, a capella, in Latin, taking it to Number 1 on the charts, albeit in their home country. Do They Know It's Christmas, Band Aid: When this single was released, I was deeply moved, as were many.
Older, ostensibly wiser friends strove to burst my bubble. They counseled that Band Aid's efforts were useless, that food sat rotting on the docks because the organizers hadn't the brains to do it right. Work harder, they said. Make money and spend it. There is nothing else. Your heroes are hopelessly filthy.
No.
See, we have no right to expect humans and human effort to be perfect. Purity culture was as ugly then as it is now.
There's more to life than getting and spending, and Band Aid proves it. The initial effort served as the springboard for major charitable projects by Bob Geldof, Midge Ure, and Bono -- efforts that continue to this day.
"We let in light, and we banish shade", the song goes. It's not just talking about flipping a switch.
Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem, Dailey and Vincent: (above): Number One with a bullet -- or, maybe, it's a Bible. And why?
Because too many conservatives are dreading any kind of overtly-religious end to this countdown, even as they exploit the religious right in a last-ditch effort to grab more money, more power.
Forget about it.
See, physics may be the reason for the season, but Jesus is the reason Christians call it Christmas. All the ideological squeamishness (read: hypocrisy) on conservatives' part won't change that.
So, Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays -- take your pick. May the coming year give you enough courage to use the holiday greetings your conscience dictates, no matter who else is listening.
