I Can't Hold Myself In Line
As promised, Townsman Hank Fan has shared a .zip file compilation covering the “Golden Age of Country Music” (1965–1975) with us, I Can’t Hold Myself In Line. I encourage fellow Countryphobes to do what I’ve done—click here—and download and listen to this generous gift. Thanks, Hank Fan!
Hey man, you can take your country rock and leave the best parts of The Flying Burrito Brothers to me! I love the band’s first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin, for its heavy bass, fuzz guitars, and reedy vocals. No offense, but I could give a damn about the whole “country” thing. My favorite country music usually sounds like rock ‘n roll anyhow.
As much as I love the band’s debut, it’s all a little hokey and dated, the way many “psychedelic” albums are bound to be. Better yet is the band’s 1970 follow-up album—and the last one with St. Graham Parsons—Burrito Deluxe. It’s actually way more country rock, with future Eagles member Bernie Leadon joining the band on lead guitar and vocals. As much as I hate Eagles (not The Eagles, as we recently learned), Burrito Deluxe explains why anybody else may have cared to make such music. (Thank god some of the pub rockers, like Brinsley Schwarz, actually had the spirit and playfulness to nail this approach!) Maybe some fans like the more traditionally country songs, but for me the album centers around a few pinky-rock classics: “Lazy Days,” a breakneck cover of Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now,” and the song with this super-hokey video that I just found, “Older Days.” (The album also featurs a nice version of “Wild Horses,” but I’m afraid to tell you that for fear that your mind will run to a series of glorified Stones cliches.)
There are few musical styles that more readily hit my soul than chooglin’ pinky rock. When done by The Flying Burrito Brothers on Burrito Deluxe I get the perfect mix of the best parts of the intersection of The Grateful Dead’s occasional pinky-rock workouts and The Velvet Underground‘s Loaded. And that Bernie Leadon was something else! I remember seeing an old Eagles performance of one of the few songs by them that doesn’t make me throw up, and Leadon was on fire. How’d that guy get lost in the rock ‘n roll shuffle?
I’ve long sought videos of the band from this period with no luck. Tonight, after a pretty trying day that, unfortunately, looks to be headed for an equally trying tomorrow, I hit paydirt! Here’s an actual live clip of “Lazy Days,” from the time shortly after Parsons left the band.
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I’ve been greatly enjoying this performance since discovering it a few days ago. I like it better than the version on Harvest. Hot shit band here, especially that fiddle player, Rufus Thibodeaux. Do you know anything about him, BigSteve? It’s been a while since I’ve read Shakey, so I don’t remember reading if the Old Ways tour was particularly musical memorable. But now I kinda want to hear more.
This next clip features “Field of Opportunity” and a very entertaining interview with Neil.
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Once more, let me reiterate: Mr. Moderator, Hrrundi, BigSteve, Jungleland2, mwall, yes, you, Alexmagic, and everyone else: Are You Ready for the Country?
Drummers,
Although we often make fun of you, I hope you know you hold a pretty glamorous, enviable spot in a band. Despite your anxieties over the clarity of your snare, you are always heard. You get to burn off more physical energy than anyone else. Although it’s sometimes tough to see you bashing away behind a drum kit, a singer, and a few other musicians, your equipment is cool and what goes into your playing is worth the effort necessary to watch you at work.
Even when you’re playing a mellow, jazzy number, it’s cool to watch you work the brushes around the snare and coax a pulse out of the ride cymbal. However, there’s one part of your job that doesn’t jibe with our expectations: watching you accompany a country artist or Bob Dylan. That can’t be a lot of fun, can it? Name the greatest drum fill or drum part in a country song. You can’t really distinguish one country beat from another, can you? There are about three options for you and your equally bored bassist. At least the bassist gets some accompanying Bob Dylan, but for as much as I love Dylan’s best music, I never say to myself, That’s a great drum part! That must have been a blast to play!
I feel like, with a little practice, I could play drums for a country artist or Bob Dylan. As a hard-working drummer, who might have spent a year taking lessons on nothing but a practice pad until you mastered your paradiddles, what goes through your mind when playing a country number or a Dylan tune? Do you “lie back and think of England,” focusing on the content of the song itself, the lyrics, the performance of the singer? Do you ever feel like you’re “getting yours?”
If I’ve got it all wrong, let me know. That’s the point of the Is there a drummer in the house? series. I love drummers, everybody loves drummers, and we know we’re putting your through a lot of heavy stuff that you hold in for the good of the band. Lean on me. I care about what you’re going through.
I should note that partial credit – or blame – for this thread goes to Townsman jungleland2, I believe, who made mention of the difficulty in getting his drummer to cover Dylan songs.
Multi-untalented singer-songwriter-actor Jerry Reed, best known for pickin’ and grinnin’ his way through some kitschy country-rock singles and trucker movies of the 1970s–frequently riding shotgun with Burt Reynolds–of died of complications from emphysema at age 71.
Among the things I’ll remember most about Reed are his awesome jawline (damn, that guy could grin) and the way his crumpled cowboy hat was always perched on his head just so.
Has anyone in movie history ever ridden shotgun with as much aplomb as Jerry Reed? To avoid confusion and give the man the respect his work was due, let’s be clear that in American Graffiti it’s not Reed who befriends/terrorizes Richard Dreyfus’ character as a member of the Pharoahs but Bo Hopkins, a one-dimensionally limited character actor who looked a bit like Reed and probably battled him for grinnin’ good ole boy roles.
A typical Reed novelty number.
On Scooby Doo.
With recent RTH hero Glen Campbell–perhaps there’s hope for restoring Jerry’s legacy.
Along with Dionne Warwick, the late-60s hits by Glen Campbell represent, in my memory, the best of the failed aspirations of middle-class America. I still see those albums sitting in front of the huge, wooden stereo consoles in our neighborhood, resting on plush, burnt-orange carpeting. Some elongated sculpture of a conquistador on a horse decorates one end of the console. A reproduction of some painting by one of the Dutch Masters is centered over the stereo; it matches the colors of the heavy velour drapes and couch. “Gavleston”, “Witcheta Lineman”, and “By the Time I Get to Pheonix” made vaguely country music safe for those of us on the more urban coasts–East Coast city dwellers and California dreamers alike. Campbell was pretty cool and sophisticated for a guy playing twangy guitar tunes. As some of us grew into rock nerds, leaving behind the fractured dreams of middle America circa 1968, there were unexpected depths of Campbell to plunder, such as his work as a session man for The Beach Boys and his role as mouthpiece to the surprising cult of Jimmy Webb, Songwriter. It was these after-the-fact revelations that kept the increasingly irrelevant Campbell on the right side of “cool,” despite the cheesy career apex of “Rhinestone Cowboy”, the rough-and-tumble Tanya Tucker years, the coke slide, and the more-recent Jesus-friendly infomercials. When I first heard of this album – a good 24 hours before it showed up in my mailbox – I thought, “Oh man, another Rick Rubin reclamation project! What’s he going to do next, produce a ‘cool’ comeback album for Vicki Lawrence?” (Turns out it’s not a Rick Rubin production, but the brainchild of Julian Raymond, who’s produced Roseanne Cash and The Wallflowers, among others.) After a few minutes I thought, this is Glen Campbell, we have a history together. So I pushed Play and got down to the business of sharing my thoughts, feelings, and other observations.
“Sing”: Campbell’s tenor rises above the alt-adult contemporary fare of this modern-day wall of sound, complete with a skipping drum beat, orchestration, and the insistent plucking of a banjo. Turns out this is a song by Travis, a band I’ve heard of but have never passed judgement on. Do they do, like, iPod ads or something?
Glen Campbell, “Walls”
“Walls”: I know this song. Is it by someone I don’t typically like? Campbell’s delivery has a way of making me drop my defenses. His performances carry no baggage, have no agenda. He expresses nothing but love and joy for his material, and it’s contagious. OK, I peeked: this is a Tom Petty song. I haven’t been “duped” into digging, like, an REO Speedwagon song.
“Angel Dream”: Here’s another loping Tom Petty cover. This is what we call a nice cover: nothing earth-shattering but completely professional, befitting the studio cat that a young Campbell once was. If this is where this album’s heading, it’s a dignified comeback album we’ve got cooking.
“Times Like These”: Man, this song’s familiar and well constructed! There was always something refreshingly straightforward and good natured in the delivery of Campbell’s classic hits, which mixed the pride of country music with the optimism and hope of Southern California pop. This song has that combination in spades. Whaddaya know? It’s a Foo Fighters song! A lot of older dudes have been telling me there’s something to Grohl’s songs. It’s funny, this is the most like what I would have expected in an album presenting some producer’s version of a comebacking Campbell, as if Elvis Costello had been commissioned to write a song in the Jimmy Webb style. There may have been more to the singer than the song than revisionist hipsters would like to believe.
Glen Campbell, “These Days”
“These Days”: This song’s off to a lovely start. I’m afraid I’m falling in love with a song by an artist I’ve never much liked…Oh man, I’ve got to take a minute to let some tears flow. This is beautiful…I KNOW THIS SONG: it’s friggin’ Jackson Browne! Truth be told, this is one of the only songs by that guy that ever made the slightest impression on me, but hearing this preternaturally wise song through the voice of a guy who’s royally screwed up his life and lived to tell about it makes it really moving. I’m taken back to that huge, wooden stereo console; the burnt-orange carpet; and the aspirations represented by those conquistadore sculptures.
“Sadly Beautiful”: A Replacements cover. Much better, to my ears, than hearing it on a flagging Replacements album. Like the first few tracks, a “professional” cover.
“All I Want Is You”: Is this a U2 song or that horrible Rod Stewart song, “Forever Young”? It’s U2. As is often the case when I can get past the band’s stock digitally mystical production I’m impressed by how simple and direct the band’s music can be. I MUCH prefer hearing this song in Campbell’s plaintive voice than through the emotive Christ-worthy self-love of Bono.
“Jesus”: JESUS!!! Continue reading »
Dana Carvey's is still better.
more evidence that Nesmith was an untapped force in The Monkees
Indeed.
But he wasn’t completely untapped and in fact wrote many of my favorite Monkees tunes. Including:
Mary, Mary
The Girl I Knew Somewhere
You Told Me
Sunny Girlfriend
And of course the excellent:
Continue reading »
