I’m not sure we’ll get too far before there’s a last man standing, but you’ve surprised me in the past. By “aboriginal” touches I’m referring to overdubs or musical themes that are direct references to a country’s “native” culture. The “native” culture does not necessarily need to be in any way connected to the culture of the artist. I’ll start with a probably sincere-yet-silly example, a rock song centered around Native American-style chanting: Redbone, “Come and Get Your Love”
Go!
I take it that most of you watch tv now and then and have seen this ad. Beyond obligatory “Who Sell Out!” beefs, what are your thoughts on it? For as many things that bug me about the ad, there are probably just as many things I find impressive. Here’s our chance to share our mixed feelings.
Townsman 2000 Man, have you seen this guy?
I’m sure you all know about Fleetwood Mac‘s roots as a blues band, led by the ax-work of the talented, troubled Peter Green. I’ve got a box set of early Fleetwood Mac that is loaded with da blooz, and from what I can tell, it’s actually well done. Bluestoneologists like HVB will sure have a better read on early Mac’s value, but the band could jam. My box set even includes two albums worth of them jamming with Chicago blues greats, but not being the world’s greatest appreciator of Chicago blues, I’ve chosed this long jam for our JAMuary celebration instead. It’s got one of those funny blues song titles that always appeal to me.
Fleetwood Mac, “Rattlesnake Shake”
I hope you dig this, and I hope this jam opens up some discussion on what constitutes a kicking blues jam, what the Brits brought to the blues that may have actually been helpful to keeping the spirit alive, and so forth.
They’re only human. Great musicians can fall back on signature sounds, or a motif, as readily as any hack whose run out of ideas while jamming in the basement. As a “now playing” example got me thinking, whether by design or default, Ornette Coleman, on “The Ark,” from from his excellent Town Hall, 1962 can’t help but play the 4-note theme that’s best known from his electric free-jazz breakthrough “Dancing in Your Head.” Go back to the earliest Coleman recordings and you’ll hear him play that 4-or-so-note run. That’s the essence of Ornette Coleman, his Colemanessence, if you will. All the other millions of free notes he and his bandmates have played for the last 50-plus years might be meaningless to all but hardcore jazz explorers like our very own “Boom Boom” Buskirk if not for our ability to trace – and cling onto – the development and recurrence of that 4-note motif.
Then I got to thinking, Pete Townshend was the first rock musician that came to mind who had such a distinctive motif. For him I’d say it’s the suspended fourth he uses with his chords. It’s something he must have picked up from Phil Spector arrangements, which often hinge on the suspended fourth note (eg, “Then He Kissed Me”), and it’s there in early Who songs like “I’m a Boy,” eventually serving as the driving force in the entire Tommy album and, with a twist, Quadrophenia. As much as his windmill power chording, Townshend’s reliance on the suspended fourth chord is his signature sound.
Can you identify signature sounds that best define the works of other musicians? I don’t mean something as broad and obvious and Bo Diddley and his beat but something more subtle that is prevalent and even expected in the sounds this musician creates. Without actual sound samples to post, just point to a part of a well-known song that represents that artist’s signature sound.
np – Ornette Coleman, “The Ark”
Today’s JAMuary entry comes courtesy of Townsman “Boom Boom” dbuskirk. I’ll let him tell you about it. As a special treat, he’s spread jam on both sides of the toast: JAMuary’s second double shot in as many days! (Don’t get spoiled!)
Don “Sugarcane” Harris, “Where’s My Sunshine”
Don “Sugarcane” Harris has been on my front burner in recent years, particularly the eight records he recorded for the MPS label back in the 1970s. Sugarcane Harris, who died in 1999 at the age of 61, had an odd career trajectory. He started in the 1950s as half of the duo Don & Dewey, who recorded gritty doo-wop styled tunes for the Specialty label. Together they wrote and recorded the garage rock classic “Farmer John” and “Leaving It All Up To You,” which I first knew as the 1974 Donnie & Marie remake. During the ’60s, L.A.- based Don was in bandleader Johnny Otis‘ stable, singing and playing in Otis’ Revue on what became his trademark axe, the electric violin. However Sugarcane is probably best remembered by rock fans when he guested on some of the Zappa‘s post-Mothers records, 1969’s Hots Rats and 1970’s Chunga’s Revenge (that’s his violin solo on “Willie The Pimp”).
Anyway, without the Zappa connection I doubt Sugarcane would have ended up in the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1971, playing a set featuring European prog and jazz musicians, including Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt on drums, Volker Kriegel on guitar (from vibist Dave Pike’s group), experimentalist Wolfgang Dauner on keyboards, and bassist Neville Whitehead, like Wyatt also out of the Canterbury prog scene.
“Every word of it is true” Sugarcane swears in the introduction of the 12-minute “Where’s My Sunshine,” from Sugarcane’s Got The Blues. Actually there are only seven words in the song (maybe nine if you count “Oh yeah”), but there’s a conviction in everything Sugarcane sings and plays in the song that makes it all seem kinda profound. By dragging this progressive crew back into the blues (and a pretty unusual one too, I’ll leave the more schooled folks here to figure out exactly what time the song is in) Sugarcane stirs this mixture of rock, jazz, soul, and blues into one of those cross-cultural exchanges that gave rock and roll its initial kick.
Then again, for a sizable percentage of rock fans the sound of the electric violin is akin to listening to a cat being skinned, bringing up bad flashbacks of Kansas and Jean Luc Ponty. But for me there is something captivating about this recording, perhaps Sugarcane’s most cohesive, that has made this propulsive track a go-to record when I’m driving by myself. If only Phish sounded more like this.
BONUS JAM! Don & Dewey, “Farmer John”
I think this song is fitting both to celebrate MLK Day and Tuesday’s coming historic Presidential Inauguration.
The Staples Singers, “Long Walk to D.C.”
What’s on your I Have a Dream playlist? What’s your parting song for W?
