Photographers mourn Kodak bankruptcy http://t.co/zVuiUdNp

Julie Bradlow

Here is my top 5 list, namely Julie’s Top 5 Roadtrips of 2011:

1. Phoenix and Tucson, AZ 2. Pioneertown and Redlands, CA 3. Crockett and Corte Madera, CA 4. Hilton Head Island, SC 5. Jekyll Island, GA

Honorable mention:

1. New York, NY (So nice, I went there twice!) 2. San Diego, CA (Ditto; [...]]]>

Julie Bradlow

FIVE BOOKS I Need to Return to Smiley Library (before I am tossed in the pokey)

http://christmas.soundopinions.org/

Essential jazz drummer Paul Motian was a big reason I found my way back to rock music with a sense of purpose, all via the beautiful and driving music of the Keith Jarrett Trio, and then in free fall to the earlier even more seminal work of the Bill Evan Trio.

Tired of rock by the [...]]]>

Essential jazz drummer Paul Motian was a big reason I found my way back to rock music with a sense of purpose, all via the beautiful and driving music of the Keith Jarrett Trio, and then in free fall to the earlier even more seminal work of the Bill Evan Trio.

Tired of rock by the mid-70’s and just beginning to explore jazz, I bought Jarrett’s El Juicio and marveled at how a music could ride its own wave. That was Motian moving the leviathan. He continued to provide that motion up to his death a couple days ago. Right now I am listening to his I Have The Room Above Her featuring his moody parse compositions with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano. I am celebrating to his rhythmic gift, his real voice, the one that told me long ago ‘Listen to your heart, forget categories, find your own music.’

-CL

What think you?  CL

FROM JOHNNY—From two years ago….. On to my other reason for blogging: I want to thank Chris and Maria for the wonderful podcast regarding the history of my song “Harvest Queen”. A big thank you to Morst too. Well done! I feel compelled to fill in a few blanks though…..the music for the [...]]]>

FROM JOHNNY—From two years ago…..
On to my other reason for blogging: I want to thank Chris and Maria for the wonderful podcast regarding the history of my song “Harvest Queen”. A big thank you to Morst too. Well done! I feel compelled to fill in a few blanks though…..the music for the song goes back years…all the way to “Big Dirty Yellow” (The house David and I shared when we first moved to Richmond together pre Cracker). I awoke one morning with the guitar riff and melodies in my head and worked them out right then and there. I showed it to David at one point and he called my then instrumental “Harvest Queen”. It felt like a great title but we were in the middle of working on many, many other songs and I put it on the back burner. Cut to 1999, around the time I moved back to Redlands and rekindled my friendship with Chris LeRoy.

We showed each other what we had been working on and instantly began collaborating again which always feels natural to us. He came up with a new title and lyrics for the song (Haunted) which I felt where great, but I still liked David’s original title idea. We recorded the track with Chris on an old, beat up, upside down bass , Chad Villareal on drums and Maria at the board and it was just spontaneously magical on the first take. It’s true as Maria says, I showed it to several session players and they never matched that original track!

One night I fell asleep thinking about David’s title idea “Harvest Queen”. As Chris says in the podcast he had burned me a CD of several scary old songs by other people. One night I dreamt I was one of 3 or 4 young migrant farm workers in a vast green field in California somewhere. In the dream there was a beautiful, naked witch flying over us. She was slowly changing from a woman to a raven, a ball of fire and back into this temptress / goddess …then she vanished. She appeared again after dark and was trying to coax these young men into an old 1940s looking car for something…sex? comfort? protection? To steal our souls? I didn’t know but I saw it all…the monkey’s paw, the straw…all of it. Scared the hell out of me.

I woke with a start and wrote the whole thing down before I could forget it. The dream became the final version of the song after that. Strange story huh? Even though I wrote the lyrics and music, the song would never have gotten finished without the input of Chris and David. I had played a rough sketch for David Immerglück one night (in the back of a car) and he actually DEMANDED that he play on the track with me. How could I refuse the amazing Immy?

I was honored. One night he came down to Lo-Fi from Los Angeles and had brought along Cracker’s original bassist Davey Farragher. They sang those great “AAAAAA” backing vocals and Immy and I did this sword fight of guitar solos at the end of the song which completed the long journey. I recently had the opportunity to play the song live at Roger Clyne’s Mexico festival a few weeks ago. It was their suggestion. Roger and the Peacemakers just said “Hey let’s do Harvest Queen…yeah we know it”. They did and played the hell out of it with me. Yet another of those wonderful “Man I have a cool job” moments. Johnny….over and out.

FROM CHRIS: Three years ago…..

Halloween SongBook Podcast Up Now
The SongBook Series Podcast covers the wide musical spectrum of Johnny Hickman and Chris LeRoy (& Friends)

SongBook Series Podcast 2 compares HARVEST QUEEN with its original demo, HAUNTED. MORST taped the interview with studio engineer Maria Baglien at Lo-Fi Studios 9/9/07 one day after the Cracker/ Camper Campout III in Pioneertown CA. Chris LeRoy discusses both songs.

This Halloween special will be of interest to those Cracker fans who want to see a bit behind the songwriting and song morphing of Johnny Hickman and Chris LeRoy. In fact, to this point, Harvest Queen is the only song co-written by LeRoy, Hickman and David Lowery.

The Legend of Harvest Queen REVISITED
http://www.archive.org/details/TheSongbookSeriesPodcastEpisode2TheLegendOfHarvestQueen

Why Do We Bob for Apples on Halloween? Halloween History & Customs By David Emery, About.com Guide http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/halloween/a/Bobbing-For-Apples-On-Halloween.htm SOME SAY the custom of bobbing for apples dates all the way back to pre-Christian Ireland and the festival of Samhain, though there’s little documentary evidence to support this. Apple bobbing also been popularly associated with Pomona, the ancient Roman goddess of fruits, trees, and [...]]]>

Why Do We Bob for Apples on Halloween?
Halloween History & Customs
By David Emery, About.com Guide
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/halloween/a/Bobbing-For-Apples-On-Halloween.htm
SOME SAY the custom of bobbing for apples dates all the way back to pre-Christian Ireland and the festival of Samhain, though there’s little documentary evidence to support this. Apple bobbing also been popularly associated with Pomona, the ancient Roman goddess of fruits, trees, and gardens in whose honor a festival was supposedly held each year on November first. But that, too, stands on shaky historical ground, apparently, as some question whether such a festival ever actually existed.

We can say with more certainty that the game of apple bobbing goes back at least a few hundred years, that it originated in the British Isles (Ireland and Scotland in particular), and that it originally had something to do with fortune telling. British author W. H. Davenport Adams, who attributed belief in the prognosticative power of apples to “old Celtic fairy lore,” described the game as follows in his 1902 book, Curiosities of Superstition:
[The apples] are thrown into a tub of water, and you endeavour to catch one in your mouth as they bob round and round in provoking fashion. When you have caught one, you peel it carefully, and pass the long strip of peel thrice, sunwise, round your head; after which you throw it over your shoulder, and it falls to the ground in the shape of the initial letter of your true love’s name.

Other Halloween divination games traditionally played in various parts of Great Britain included “snap apple” — similar to bobbing for apples except the fruit is hung from the ceiling on strings — and naming nutshells after prospective love interests and placing them near a fire to see which would burn steadily — indicating true love — and which would crack or pop and fly off the hearth — revealing a passing fancy. Accordingly, Halloween used to be known as “Snap-Apple Night” or “Nutcrack Night” in places where these customs were observed.

from GLEN CAMPBELL L.A. NOKIA Review

“The magic was in the way Campbell, his family, and the crowd, many of whom had grown up with the singer, respected the muse despite its decaying state. How they defiantly, beautifully kept that conduit to the sublime open wide enough to deliver a clear, honest message about both the [...]]]>

from GLEN CAMPBELL L.A. NOKIA Review

“The magic was in the way Campbell, his family, and the crowd, many of whom had grown up with the singer, respected the muse despite its decaying state. How they defiantly, beautifully kept that conduit to the sublime open wide enough to deliver a clear, honest message about both the important and unimportant things, about how one becomes another as time passes.”
—Randall Roberts

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2011/10/live-glen-campbell-at-club-nokia.html

Penned by Ian Hunter, Mott’s version portrays the stone [...]]]> ROLL AWAY THE STONE: LEON and MOTT
Of all the biblical imagery that dots our pop tones, “roll away the stone” has rock flair. Two masterful rock songs, Leon Russell’s and Mott The Hoople’s ROLL AWAY THE STONE, both live up to the solid promise the iconography provides.

Penned by Ian Hunter, Mott’s version portrays the stone as his obstacle to love. He announces from the get go:
Baby if you just say you still care
Follow you most anywhere
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone.
The partner in question need only roll away the cold shoulder, say she cares,  and let Mr. Hunter offer the chance to fall in love once again.  Of course, we don’t trust him for a second. Ian is always the cad, but also a chum, someone to sing along with at the dancehall. So you can’t get too offended.  It is that same lowbrow charm that gives ALL THE YOUNG DUDES its emotional core. You always dig hanging with dudes like this.
Once this idea is established he can let down his guard:
There’s a rockabilly party on Saturday night
Are you gonna be there
(Well I got my invite)
Gonna bring your records
(Oh, will do)

Mission accomplished. He’s got the “bird” and the records too. He calls out in triumph…
Made it!

Leon Russell is also looking for a connection but this classic track from his classic debut album clings more desperately. He is the jilted lover in the tale:

Well it’s such a strange world that I’m living in
She was my woman and he was my friend
But I was wrong again

Great lyric economy here, but the point is that Leon understands he has lost, that he just couldn’t see the strange changes she put him through. It is a song from the other side. Still, what I really like about this song is his image of redemption. He asks her to..

Roll away the stone
Don’t leave me here alone
Resurrect me and protect me
Don’t leave me laying here
What will they do in 2000 years?

He hopeless and hapless, pining for her brief return, and figures it will take a couple millennia. This twisted sentiment lays over one of the best rocking tracks ever put down with both Eric Clapton and George Harrison riffing it home. The Stones would do well to reference it if they attempt that last album.

Both tracks are essential rock. I appreciate how Hunter and Russell found ways to incorporate the same religious image, and move it into the profane with no qualms.  In Ian Hunter’s case religion is not the point.  After the party and the girl and the records he will be found out and the stone rolled back.  But what about old Leon?

What can this poor boy do?

His is a bit of a mystery, which is why I favor it. The stone remains. Makes me want to roll my own…

Listen and enjoy the masters!!!! ~ Chris LeRoy

ROLL AWAY THE STONE
(Ian Hunter)

Baby if you just say you still care
Follow you most anywhere
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone.

And, in the darkest night,
I’ll keep you safe and all right
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone

Won’t you roll away the stone
Why be cold and so alone?
Won’t you roll away the stone
Don’t you let it die

No matter if fools say we can’t win
I know I’ll fall in love again
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone
So sing, we still got a chance
Baby in love and sweet romance
Roll away the stone, roll away the stone

Won’t you roll away the stone
Why be cold and so alone?
Won’t you roll away the stone
Don’t you let it lie

There’s a rockabilly party on Saturday night
Are you gonna be there
(Well I got my invite)
Gonna bring your records
(Oh, will do)
Made it!

Won’t you roll away the stone
Why be cold and so alone?
Won’t you roll away the stone
Don’t you let it die
Come on roll
Come on roll, yeah
Come on roll
I want you to roll
Come on, yeah
Come on roll

ROLL AWAY THE STONE

(L. Russell and G. Dempsey)

Well it’s such a strange world that I’m living in

She was my woman and he was my friend

But I was wrong again

Strange changes that you put me through

But like a fool I’m still in love with you

What can this poor boy do?

Roll away the stone

Don’t leave me here alone

Resurrect me and protect me

Don’t leave me laying here

What will they do in 2000 years?

It’s such a strange time that we’re passing thru

I thought you’d tell me when your time was due

I guess you thought I knew

CHORUS