Turn on the TV here in Britain these days and it’s non stop Election coverage.
Opinion Poll after Opinion Poll contradicting each other.
Who’s up? Who’s down?
Leaders debates (but not including all the leaders)
Interviews, Hustings. Meet The People. Manifestos.
Dreadful, heart sinking phrases :
’We have been very clear about our policy ….’
‘We inherited a terrible situation …’
’We have had to make some very hard choices …’
Every time I hear one of these phrases I take out my trusty Air Horn and give it a long, loud blast.
Somehow it makes me feel better!
A friend said that an Election Campaign heralds an avalanche of Nonsense sure to bury us all.
I disagree.
Election campaigns herald Evasions, Elisions, Diversions, Fantasies, Fakery and outright Lies rather than Nonsense.
I’m in favour of Nonsense :
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
*
Give me plenty of that kind of Nonsense!
I find that the best defence against the political pollution relentlessly assailing me is to combine regular blasts on the Horn with loud declamations of The Jabberwocky swiftly followed by my own take on an all time Nonsense Classic, ‘Surfing Bird’ by The Trashmen.
Turn your volume controls to Max and sing along with gusto!
Roll over Tristan Tzara tell Roland Barthes the news!
Notes :
Surfing Bird was released in November 1963 and surged to No 4 on Billboard.
Clearly it owes much to two tracks by The Rivingtons : Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow and The Bird’s The Word. Hence the songwriting credit to Al Frazier, Carl White, Sonny Harris and Turner Wilson.
However, i salute Trashmen drummer and vocalist Steve Wahrer for taking the raw material of two fine songs and through an act of crazed creativity producing an immortal record.
In addition to Steve Wahrer The Trashmen comprised guitarists Tony Andreason and Dal Winslow and bassist Bob Reed.
A-well-a everybody’s heard about the bird!
Bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, well-a bird is the word
A-well-a bird bird bird, b-bird’s the word
From The Dean of Texas Songwriting, Guy Clark, a masterclass in songwriting.
A story imbued with loving detail bringing to vivid life a vanished time and place which yet lives on in the memory.
Being 6 Years Old …
Six is not Five and Six is not Seven.
Now you’re Six you realise you really ought to look out for your little Sister.
Now you’re Six you realise that your older brother may just not be the fount of all wisdom.
Turns out that being indisputably taller is not the same as being smarter.
Now you’re Six you see all kinds of things about the family and the town and yourself that went by in a blur before.
Late afternoon on a hot Texas day …
Nothing hotter than a hot Texas day.
Least that’s what everybody says as they sit around sipping drinks and settin’ the world to rights – starting right here in town.
The sun is so bright it hurts your eyes just keepin’ them open.
Trick is to do everything real slow.
Real slow.
Mama always says nothin’ improved by rushing around.
And, of course, she’s right.
Slow and easy gets it done.
Plenty of hours in the day and most everything can wait a little while and all the better for the waiting.
Old man Wileman ..
Lots of old men in town.
Not a one as old as old man Wileman.
Someone said he was born before the Civil War.
Some say he lost that arm at Five Forks and that’s why every April 1st he gets real quiet and drinks all day.
Mind you it seems to me he pretty near drinks all day every day.
But, he does tell a good story.
And, there’s nothing I love more than a good story.
Now, when you’re Six it turns out that if you keep real quiet that the old men forget you’re there as they play Dominos and tell story after story your mama wouldn’t want you listenin’ to.
You learn a lot more from old men’s stories than you do at school.
Trains are big and black and smokin’, louder than July 4 …
I love to go to the Depot just to watch the trains roll by.
Trains always been somewhere and they are always going somewhere.
Every train tells a story.
At home, on the radio, there’s different kinds of trains.
Train songs.
Jimmy Rodgers, Frank Hutchinson, Charlie Poole and the new guy, Hank Williams, tell stories in song about trains.
Gonna tell my own story in song one of these days.
One of these days.
Look out here she comes, she’s comin’, look out there she goes she’s gone …
*
Now you’re Six you realise that you can’t stop time you can just hold it in your memory.
*
Maybe that’s the whole point of songs and stories.
*
Always gonna keep that nickel and every time I look at it I’m gonna remember the day a red and silver streamliner barrelled right through the town I grew up in.
Find a combination of melody and rhythm and words which will have the listener turning up the radio, memorising the name of the song and opening their wallet.
But, nobody, nobody, can guarantee they know what the magic combination is.
Every songwriter, every time, has to take on the persona of a safe cracker turning the tumblers hyper alert to the tell tale click that says, ‘That’s it! This is going to be a Billboard Bullseye!’.
Melody, Rhythm, Words.
Now you will almost certainly need to add Style and Attitude and find a distinctive singer with the mysterious power to sell a song if you want the Hit you hear in your head to become a bona fide hit on the radio and on the charts.
Sometimes, as a songwriter, you realise that perhaps you’re not that singer yourself.
Holding a tune is one thing but there are singers out there who take your breath away.
Singers who win and hold your allegiance.
Your own version of this sure fire hit may become an aficionados favourite but it is not the aficionados who’ll pay the mortgage – it’s the great amorphous record buying public.
Now for subject matter.
Can’t ever seem to go wrong with Cars and Girls.
Worked pretty well for Chuck Berry!
And, the bard of New Jersey keeps rolling them out on exactly those themes.
A memorable title sure helps.
And, featuring a Girl’s name.
And, maybe there’s a dance move in there too.
Wrap it all up and what have I got?
Let’s lay down a hot rod rockabilly rhythm.
Let’s call the Girl Rita (lots of Ritas around).
Lets have a car – got to be a Cadillac (everyone wants to drive a Cadillac).
And, come to think of it that Jimmy McCracklin song ‘The Walk’ always seemed to hit the spot for me.
Cadillac Walk.
Cadillac Walk.
Let’s have flowers and tattoos and guns.
And, since my name is now Moon Martin let’s not forget to reference the Moon in the very first line!
Marinate in the Studio and here we go.
Maybe it won’t be a hit for me but I sure as hell ain’t gonna hold back.
When the moon comes up the sun goes down Rita starts to creep around
Gets a flame in her blood fire on her breath
Fourteen names notched on her chest
She gotta rose tattooed on her thigh
Dead men raise and sigh
And it drives my young blood wild
My baby’s got the Cadillac walk
When Rita turns down her bed
Grown men plead and beg
Baby honey baby you’re the one
Carve your name right on my gun
Ain’t she something nice
Bones rattle my dice
I slobber down my side
My baby’s got the Cadillac walk
Lonely tonight honey hear my call
She said boy I won’t make you crawl
Rita pound by pound
Knows how to work it down
Weep and cry to and fro
Leave your heart she’ll steal your gold
No matter what the cost
Ooh…them duel exhaust
Make my motor sigh
Moon Martin never did have a Hit with Cadillac Walk.
But when Moon worked with legendary Priducer/Arranger Jack Nitzsche the latter realised that pair this song with a dynamite singer and a hot band and you most assuredly would have a hit.
The lead singer of Mink Deville, Willy Deville, has pipes good enough to have sung lead for The Drifters.
No style of music he can’t sing the hell out of.
You hear him sing and he wins and holds your allegiance.
Plus, the guy gets straight A’s for Style and Attitude.
Gonna make this a Noir Production.
You want a singer to drive young blood wild?
Step up to the microphone Willy Deville!
And, when a singer like Willy Deville sings a song other singers listen.
Thus an obscure song becomes a treasure.
A treasure that a connoisseur of songs and singers like Boz Scaggs will surely discover and file away for the day when it’s the right time for him to show what he can do with it.
Boz is a class act.
He purrs through the song on cruise control.
Boz gets the blues and rides with the rhythm.
Boz got nothing to prove these days – he’s a master assured of his mastery.
Let’s finish up with Jukebox Hero Willy Deville pulling out all the stops to give Cadillac Walk a blistering live rendition.
Said it before, gonna say it again – a true message always gets through sometimes it just takes a while.
For the Song and the Singers featured and for the warm memories it evokes.
Nothing like music to open the gates of memory!
Music hath charms. Music hath charms.
And, among those charms is its uncanny ability to forge bonds of fellow feeling and friendship between people born in wildly different times, places and cultures.
Take me and Carl.
Carl came from the spice Island of Grenada in the Caribbean.
When we met he was seventy years old and I was a callow twenty two.
I had just emerged, blinking, from the ivory tower of Cambridge University awaiting my inevitable discovery as a great novelist.
Carl had spent decades in the fierce factories of Detroit and the searing cane fields of Florida.
We met in Hospital.
I was working there as a porter dramatically rushing the resuscitation trolley to people on the point of death and more prosaically ferrying patients to the X-Ray department and to the operating theatre for surgery.
Carl, having suffered a heart attack, came into Accident & Emergency by ambulance at 3am when I was on night shift.
I watched with a mixture of horror and fascination the team of doctors and nurses, with whom moments before I had been sharing idle banter, urgently bring all their professional skills to the struggle to to save Carl’s life.
Happily they succeeded and before I left that morning I wheeled Carl to the ward where he would recover.
Normally that would have been the last time I saw him but as I was about to leave Carl said, ‘Will you come and see later?’.
A request I could hardly refuse.
So, that night I made the first of many visits to Carl’s bedside in the three weeks he spent in the hospital.
Walking into the ward I wondered what two such disparate individuals might find to talk about.
Almost without thinking I asked him, having learned of the time he had spent in America, what kind of music he had listened to there.
Given his age, and reading on his chart that he was a Baptist by religion, I anticipated that he might answer Big Band Jazz or Gospel Music.
I was a little taken aback therefore when he answered by singing in a mellow baritone:
‘An old cowpoke went riding out one dark and windy day,
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way,
When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw
Riding through the ragged skies and up a clouded draw …’
Now, my education, at University, might have been airily academic but luckily on those few occasions when I was not bent over some medieval text I could be found, a huge tub of popcorn by my side, obsessively watching every ‘A’, ‘B’ or series Western that ever came to town.
So, without missing a beat, I joined in as we sang:
‘Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel,
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel,
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky,
For he saw the riders coming hard and he heard their mournful cry ..’
And then, to the incredulity of the rest of the ward, we lifted our voices up and sang together lustily:
‘Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Ghost Riders In The Sky’
Then we laughed and laughed until we nearly cried.
And, we sang that song, among many other Western favourites, every time we met until Carl died some two years later.
‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’ was Carl’s favourite song and the version he preferred, ‘Because he don’t mess about with the song’ was the one by Gene Autry from 1949.
This one’s for you Carl:
According to the Western Writers of America, ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’ is the greatest of all Western songs and I whole heartedly agree with that august body.
The song was written in 1948 by Stan Jones and first recorded by him and his marvelously named, ‘Death Valley Rangers’ that same year.
Stan, then a Park Ranger in Death Valley, is reputed to have written the song on his 34th birthday as he recalled a legend told to him when he was 12 by an old cowboy.
Now, all stories told by Stan Jones need to be taken with a fistful of salt as he was a noted fabulist who often valued the effect of a tale above its veracity (as frequently do I!).
The tale of the spectral herd in the skies and the curse of, ‘Stampede Mesa’ probably traces its origins to mythical cautionary stories told around the cowboy campfire in nineteenth century Texas.
Whatever its cultural lineage Stan crafted a certifiable classic which is shot through with haunting images which never leave the mind once heard.
Burning in the mental firelight of my imagination as the song proceeds I feel the hot breath of those red-eyed cows and shudder with fear as their black and shiny horns and steely hooves thunder by.
In my dreams I’m there with the gaunt faced cowboys their shirts soaked with sweat as they endlessly pursue the cursed herd they never, ever, will catch.
Surely that’s my name I hear them calling in the wind at the dead of night!
‘Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Ghost Riders In The Sky’
Stan wrote many more fine Western ballads notably those featuring in the films of the greatest of all Western Film Directors – John Ford.
But, neither he, nor anyone else, ever wrote a better one than, ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’.
The brilliance and mother lode Americana quality of the song has, for seven decades now, attracted hundreds and hundreds of artists to take a shot of rye, strap on their spurs and saddle up with the Ghost Riders to see if that herd can finally be corralled.
And, if anyone, by force of will and character could carry out that miracle it would surely be none other than Johnny Cash – no mean mythic figure himself.
Johnny sings the song with the oracular power an old testament prophet issuing a grave warning to his tribe to prevent them from sleepwalking to doom.
You want fire-snorting horses brought to life?
You want those ghostly riders coming hard right at you?
You want to feel those mournful cries in the pit of your stomach and the marrow of your bones?
Call for The Man in Black!
‘Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Ghost Riders In The Sky’
Stan Jones’ evocative melody has always attracted guitarists and instrumental groups who like to tell an atmospheric story using six resonant strings instead of the vocal chords.
Today I’ve chosen to feature a top 30 Billboard Chart hit from 1961 (and top 10 in the UK) by The Ramrods – who had clearly listened closely to Duane Eddy.
The Ramrods were out of Connecticut and had brother and sister Claire and Rich Litke on drums and sax respectively.
Vinny Lee took the lead guitar role with Gene Moore in support.
They were essentially one hit wonders though I greatly enjoyed listening to their follow up, ‘Loch Lomond Rock’ which, probably uniquely, mashes up twangtastic guitar with a bagpipe solo!
And, now as they say, for something completely, completely different.
I have to say that when I started researching this post I never expected to feature a trance version by Debbie Harry!
‘Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh, Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh’ Indeed!
Debbie’s version comes from Alex Cox’s 1998 film, ‘Three Businessmen’ and in my view is the best thing about it.
The production is by Dan Wool who had worked frequently with Stan Jones’ son who is a music editor – so legal clearances to use the song were easily arranged.
There’s definitely something sexily hypnotic about Debbie’s vocal adding an unexpected dimension to an established standard.
I’m going to conclude with another version out of left field or should I say the firmament.
And, versions of Ghost Riders don’t get more left field than the hipster version by Scatman Crothers!
‘Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Ghost Riders In The Sky’
Everyone has heard Scatman’s distinctive tones through his voice over work for TV and film. That’s Scatman as Hong Kong Phooey and as the hep Jazz playing feline in, ‘The Aristocats’.
Some may remember his appearances on TV in the show, ‘Chico and the Man’ or on film as Dick Halloran in Kubrick’s, ‘The Shining’ (one of four films he shared billing with Jack Nicholson).
Scatman was always a hep cat as evidenced by his drumming with Slim Gaillard. He brings all his vouty hipster presence to this version of Ghost Riders which has me cheering him on while doubled up with laughter.
There will be many more fine versions of Ghost Riders because we all love a good story.
Especially one that’s so incredible it just has to be true.
‘Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Yippie I aye, Yippie I ooh,
Ghost Riders In The Sky’
Notes:
There’s a fine biography of Stan Jones by Michal K Ward published by Rio Neuvo.
The major hit version was by Vaughn Monroe
Basso profundo versions by Lorne Green, Marty Robins, Burl Ives, Frankie Laine
Western versions by Sons of the Pioneers, Riders in the Sky, Chris Ledoux, Jimmy Wakeley, Mary McCaslin
Instrumental versions by The Ventures, The Shadows, The Spotniks, Glen Campbell/Roy Clark, Dick Dale
‘Other’ versions by Spike Jones, Blues Brothers, Brothers Four, Judy Collins, Christopher Lee
Continuing the Celebration of favourite Jukebox Posts here’s a tribute to an authentically great musician who seems to have gone missing in action.
No new record for 7 years and no concerts.
Where have you gone Kelly Joe?
All over the globe fans like me pine for the shivering sound of your guitar.
Where have you gone Kelly Joe?
There have always been precious few musicians with, ‘The Touch’.
There has always been precious few musicians who know the blues and feel the spirit.
Where have you gone Kelly Joe?
There have always been precious few musicians who cut their own visionary path.
Where have you gone Kelly Joe?
When the roll is called of musicians who matter I know your name will be there.
Wherever you have gone Kelly Joe I hope you know how much you are missed and whenever you are ready to play again you will be sure of a welcoming audience.
‘I’ve heard Kelly Joe mention that he’s been inspired by people like Roscoe Holcomb, Robert Pete Williams, Dock Boggs, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and others. He seems to have absorbed all this (and all kinds of other stuff as well) and come back with something all his own.
Sounds like he’s coming from the inside out. The bottom up. He’s not just playing ‘AT’ the music or trying to recreate or imitate something that’s happened in the past. He seems to have tapped into the artery somehow. There’s a lot going on in between and behind the notes. Mystery. He’s been an inspiration to me.’ (Bill Frisell)
Modern music is saturated by the sound of you know what’s coming next, auto tuned, multi-tracked guitars.
Drowning in this aural tide you can forget that, in the right hands, the guitar can be a questing instrument; an instrument which can sound the depths of human emotions in this life of dust and shadows.
When Kelly Joe Phelps plays the guitar whether slide or finger picking what you hear is the sound of a musician who has indeed tapped into the artery.
I first encountered him more than two decades ago now at the tiny 12 Bar Club in London’s equivalent of Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street.
Standing a couple of feet away from him I was able to read, as he tuned up, the scrawled set list at his feet. It included:
‘Goodnight Irene’, ‘The House Carpenter’, ‘Hard Time Killing Floor Blues’, ‘When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder’.
Fueled by my early evening libations I leaned towards him and said, ‘Wow, you’re going to have to be very good indeed to hold us with those songs without someone muttering every two seconds, ‘… Not as good as so and so’s version.’
Sensibly, he answered only with a wry smile before stilling the room in in the next hour with an astonishing display of instrumental virtuosity harnessed to a deep emotional understanding of both the Blues and the Gospel traditions.
Songs that were veritable foundation texts (in some hands museum pieces) came shockingly alive as Kelly Joe fearlessly explored the territory they opened up – voyaging wherever his heart and fertile musical imagination took him.
Listen now to his version of the canonical classic Leadbelly’s, ‘Goodnight Irene’ and marvel at the deliberate beauty and power of deep sea sway he brings to it.
Ever since I heard this take on Irene this is the one that plays in my dreams.
Born in the dwindling days of the 1950s Kelly Joe began his musical career as a bass player in modal and free Jazz combos where the ability to improvise and react to your fellow musicians was paramount.
At the same time, as an alert listener, he was immersing himself in the core deep works of artists like Blind Willie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell and Dock Boggs.
Artists who made singing in the blood music which still casts a profound spell. Taking the slide guitar as his vehicle to explore this universe he began to cast spells of his own.
Kelly Joe’s music is all about reaching, reaching, for the other shore.
Listening to Kelly Joe play James Milton Black’s 19th Century hymn, ‘When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder’ there can be no doubt that we are brought in soul’s sight of that other shore.
Now, if you are a musician of Kelly Joe’s class and intuitive understanding of what makes the songs of the , ‘Old Weird America’ so profound and eternally relevant you will struggle to find such rich material in contemporary songbooks.
Happily, the Keeper of American Song, Bob Dylan, has laid down a storehouse of mystery filled dancing spells which musicians of spirit will always want and need to explore.
Bob once said that he saw himself a song and dance man. Kelly Joe takes him at his word here whirling, ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ round a mystic Maypole.
As his career has progressed Kelly Joe has featured more original material. His own fine songs show how deep he has drunk at the well of the blues and gospel masters.
Kelly Joe’s music is filled with ancient lore and wholly alive in the here and now.
Surrender to his spell.
Come back Kelly Joe.
Come back.
Notes:
There is a handy 2 CD Kelly Joe compilation, ‘Roll Away the Blues’ on the Nascente label which I highly recommend.
My own favourites in his excellent catalogue are:
‘Lead Me On’
‘Roll Away the Stone’
‘Shiny Eyed Mr Zen’
‘Beggar’s Oil’
‘Brother Sinner and the Whale’
Kelly Joe is a transfixing live performer. Seek out You tube for some wonderful clips.
Guitar buffs should seek out his finger picking tutorials.
Continuing the celebration of The Jukebox’s first year a Post that I am especially fond of for the artists featured and the memories it evoked of my own childhood.
I hope it will resonate with you!
Four takes on, ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’
‘… They were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish.’ (Frederick Douglas)
‘And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as there never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone shall be found written in the book.
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to eternal life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.’. (Book of Daniel Chapter 12 King James Version)
‘Jordan River is deep and wide, hallelujah. Meet my mother on the other side, hallelujah Jordan River is chilly and cold, hallelujah, Chills the body but not the soul, Hallelujah!’
I began my journey through primary education in the late 1950s with the good Nuns (and they were good Nuns) of the Convent of St Edwards in Paddington, London; which, though I was unaware of it at the time, was a only a couple of hundred yards from EMI’s Abbey Road Studios soon to be made famous by four lads from Liverpool.
I was a pupil at St Edwards from 1959 until the brutal (by UK standards) Winter of 1962/63 when our family made the move to leafy, suburban Harrow.
I have two particularly vivid memories of my time at St Edwards.
First, the disturbing thrill of reading a children’s version of the great Anglo-Saxon poem, ‘Beowulf’ and somehow realising that there was a magical transformative power in poetry and that this was a doorway to another life – the life of the imagination.
Second, I remember the hush that descended as we carefully placed our pens in our ink wells and settled down to listen to the Schools Music Programme Service of the BBC.
The cloth covered radio speaker sat high on the class wall, out of reach of curious hands and from its cavernous depths there emerged songs and tunes which would lodge deep, deeper than I could ever have imagined, into my consciousness.
I remember listening to such works as: Stephen Foster’s, ‘Camptown Races’, the nursery rhyme, ‘Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly’, the rustic folk songs from the North East of England, ‘Bobby Shafto’ and ‘When The Boat Comes In’, the royally penned English anthem, ‘Green Sleeves’ and the American ballad (indeed a murder ballad!), ‘Tom Dooley’.
These songs emerging from the mysterious ether entered my blood stream and permanently took up residence becoming as familiar as my own hands in front of me.
Above all I recall listening to and singing lustily along to a song I was told was a, ‘Spiritual’ called, ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’.
Something in this song from the Civil War era in America caught and permanently held my attention so that eventually I am now moved to trace its history and present several versions here on the Jukebox.
Spirituals are a marvellous example of American invention blending of several streams of cultural history to create something vivid, vital and new.
They emerged from the black slave community as a thrilling synthesis of religious, physical and political experience.
Frequently they concern a downtrodden peoples journey, in hope and faith, from exile to salvation and deliverance in a promised land where the righteous will be reunited with their stolen families and departed loved ones.
In an act of supreme creativity Christian hymns and biblical texts were yoked to ancient African singing styles and melodic accents to produce something truly new and culturally particular.
Spirituals are the primary artefacts of the enormous African-American contribution to modern American popular culture.
We shall never know when, ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’ was composed or who it’s author was. But, we can say that the first historical record we have of it comes from the 1867, ‘Slave Songs Of The United States’ collection by Charles Pickford Ware, William Francis Allen and Lucy McKim Garrison.
It seems that Ware first heard the song and transcribed a version during his stay on St Helena Island, South Carolina while he oversaw the plantations abandoned by fleeing Confederates in 1862.
‘Michael’ along with other spirituals (many collected from slaves Wallace and Minerva Wills by the Reverend Alexander Reid) such as, ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’, ‘Roll, Jordan, Roll’ and, ‘Steal Away To Jesus’ we’re popularised both in America and Europe from the 1870s by Nashville’s Fisk University Jubilee Singers through highly successful concert tours and a best selling songbook.
Spirituals began to be adopted as folk songs and vehicles of social solidarity and protest from the 1930s onwards by idealistic young white and black singers and musicians as part of what has come to be known as the, ‘Folk Revival’.
For many white artists their initial encounters with the cultures evoked in black Spirituals and blues and the Appalachian instrumental and ballad traditions proved nothing less than a deeply affecting and transformative conversion experience from which they never wished to recover!
Songs that would form the Folk Revival songbook were carried and passed on, transmitted, in many different ways.
In the curled pages of old ballad books, across the smoky campfire, hanging in the air of the chapel and echoing from the store front church.
Some from the blues tradition were half-heard among the din of the honky-tonk, the shebeen and the jazz dive.
Some were learned at the knee from the elders, some from local and travelling ne’er do wells, some overheard from the parlour radio, some blasted out from speeding cars and neon bright Jukeboxes.
A good song will find a way to be heard and sung.
Pete Seeger, whose ‘Plain Folks’ and almost schoolmasterly sing a long version of Michael as featured above was a key figure in the folk revival through his indefatigable worldwide touring and his membership of important groups such as the Almanac Singers and The Weavers.
Pete, who collaborated on the writing and/or popularisation of the folk standards, ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’, ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’, ‘If I Had A Hammer’ and the Civil Rights anthem, ‘We Shall Overcome’ quickly saw the potential in, ‘Michael’ when he learned it from Tony Saletan in the early 1950s.
Everywhere Pete went he sang the song and seeded a thousand folk music careers from his audiences at colleges, camp fire meetings and union rallies.
For Pete, fighting the good fight with every breath in his body, songs were working tools to promote social solidarity and change.
If you want to learn the basic repertoire of the folk revival Pete, with his no frills style and transparent sincerity, generosity and commitment is your only man!
Coming from a privileged academic and religiously rigorous family Pete became for over seven decades a warrior for truth, justice, peace, civil rights and the environment armed only with a long necked banjo and endless faith in the people and the future.
With characteristic eloquence Barrack Obama eulogised him as, ‘America’s tuning fork’ and thanked him for, ‘… Reminding us where we come from and where we need to go’.
I think the Archangel Michael would easily have recognised the lanky, upright figure carrying a banjo who waded across the Jordan at the end of January 2014!
Listening to Pete Seeger in concert and hearing ‘Michael’ on the radio in the early 1960s was an impossibly handsome and talented young black American of Caribbean heritage called Harry Belafonte who would go on to have an extraordinary career as a singer, actor and humanitarian.
Harry’s version has a gospel fervour and burns with political commitment.
Harry was a remarkably fluent and versatile performer who could sell any type of song with beguiling charm.
His breakthrough Calypso and live at Carnegie Hall records were multi million sellers that took up residence in American Hi-Fi cabinets throughout the nation.
Harry loved the limelight and was an authentic show business Prince but behind the scenes he was also a very important and influential figure in the civil rights movement.
He was a friend and confidant of Martin Luther King providing the bail money to get MLK out of Birmingham Jail and the insurance policy that provided for his widow after his death.
In addition he quietly financed the Freedom Riders campaign that sought to increase voter registration from the black community and challenge head on the worst excesses of the bull headed, bull necked, Jim Crow South.
In light of this it is no surprise that Harry’s, ‘Michael’ enjoins its listeners, as they wait for the Archangel to row the boat ashore, to, ‘Hold that line in Arkansas’ and trumpets the message that, like Joshua at Jericho, Alabama will be the next to go.
As for Mississippi, while the buses speed south, it’s time to kneel and pray.
In my estimation, Harry Belafonte is a very fine artist but an even greater man.
Our third take on,’Michael’ is provided by Johnny Rivers: a much underestimated artist who had an unerring ear for a fine song and the ability to perform material from widely differing genres with an attack and flair that saw him rack up 17 top 40 hits from 1964 to 1977 including the gorgeous number 1 ballad, ‘Poor Side of Town’ ( see feature on The Jukebox) and iconic driving rockers like, ‘Memphis’ and, ‘Secret Agent Man’.
Johnny’s residency at the Whisky A Go Go club in Hollywood drew a loyal crowd, including numerous rock luminaries, who recognised that Johnny had a rock and roll heart and a killer band.
On record his band included stellar figures from the LA, ‘Wrecking Crew’ stable including Hal Blaine on the drums, Joe Osborn on bass and Larry Knetchel on keyboards.
A Johnny Rivers record never out stays its welcome and I usually find, as with this storming take on, ‘Michael’ that I’m reaching for the repeat button as soon as the first second of silence hits me when the record finishes.
The final version of, ‘Michael’ I have chosen comes from the very hard working and productive roots music missionary, Eric Bibb.
Eric grew up at the epicentre of the folk revival in the early 1960’s – New York CIty’s Greenwich Village.
He was very well connected in this world with his father Leon being an actor and singer, his uncle John Lewis being a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his Godfather being none other than Paul Robeson!
Eric has a gift for finding the secret heart of a song.
Eric, born in 1951, began to perform in his early teens and was making his recording debut by his middle twenties.
He has proved a very deft artist who is at home in the gospel, folk and blues traditions.
At his best, as on the version of, ‘Michael’ above he achieves a kind of meditative grace that searches out the heart and soul of a song so that a work you have heard a thousand times can suddenly appear fresh and alive with new potential and meaning.
A song, a Spiritual, a folk anthem, a testament to the human spirit, like, ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’ will never run dry.
For we will always hope that we will meet again with our loved ones who have already crossed the Jordan.
Downtrodden peoples will always need to have faith that there is indeed salvation and deliverance ahead even if it often seems so very far away.
Finally, Most of us will hope that when we step gingerly into eternity’s boat that our ferryman will be the Archangel Michael and that he will carry us safely home across the chilly and cold Jordan River.
This post dedicated to Sister Calasanctius, Sister Mary Monica and Sister Mary Mildred who were all extremely kind and indulgent to a quiet boy who seemed forever lost in dreams of poetry and songs when he should have been paying attention to arithmetic and his times tables!
Unsurprisingly given their association with the Folk Revival and the hectic days of the early 1960s all the above artists have connections with Bob Dylan, the Keeper of American Song.
Pete Seeger was an early and passionate advocate for the young Bob’s exploding talents and he helped to open doors and make introductions to key figures in the Big Apple’s folk elites.
Harry Belafonte had a unknown Bob play harmonica on, ‘Midnight Special’ marking Bob’s debut on record. In his wonderfully artful and characteristically enigmatic work of autobiography, ‘Chronicles’ Bob pays a very heartfelt, indeed effusive, tribute to Harry:
‘Harry was the best balladeer in the land and everybody knew it. He was a fantastic artist … He had ideals and made you feel you’re part of the human race. There never was a performer who crossed so many lines as Harry.
‘ … Everything about him was gigantic … With Belafonte I felt like I’d become anointed in some kind of way … Harry was that rare type of character that radiates greatness, and you hope some of it rubs off on you. The man commands respect.’
Johnny Rivers recorded a fine version of Bob’s magisterial put down song, ‘Positively Fourth Street’. Bob called it the favourite of all versions of his songs and said it was obvious that they were from the same side of town and were from the same musical family.
Eric Bibb came across Bob through his Greenwich Village connections. In one of his first bands he played with Bill Lee (father of Film Director Spike) who played on Bob’s Freewheeling’ LP sessions.
Eric also had a direct meeting with Bob when he was only 11.
Apparently Bob advised the precocious Eric that when it came to guitar playing he should, ‘Keep it simple, forget all that fancy stuff’.
