Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Next week it will be exactly 30 years since I met a new group of friends; it was an encounter that by the ways of domino effect changed my life in almost every way. It”s impossible to know what directions my life”s GPS might have taken me on. I might be richer or poorer, single or married or divorced; perhaps in another profession, maybe in another country. I don”t know.

But what I do know is that I am the person today because 30 years ago I unwittingly took a random road at one of life”s many seemingly inconspicuous crossroads, and not a person I might have been had I taken another way. I”m pleased I met these people, and grateful for all that happened because of it. It was through the series of events that followed that chance encounter 30 years ago “” caused by a snap decision to go somewhere “” that I met my future wife, who is now my best friend.

I”m grateful for all friends I have had over my life. Some of them have gone their own ways; a few are out of my life forever; others live elsewhere; others yet I see every few years. Others I see regularly on Facebook and less in real life. And a couple are still present in my life. But all have a place in my heart, as people I love and/or as people who accompanied me in great or difficult times.

There are also friends one makes on the Internet. In fact, some of my most reliable friends are people I have met on Internet forums (a couple of them have become good family friends); others I had met before good friendships developed through the medium of social media.

And many childhood friends I have rediscovered on Facebook, or they found me. Since I live on a different continent now, it is a joy to reconnect with them.

As the song says, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes”, and so it is with friendships. Some you keep, most you lose. And you keep making new friends. Where once there was a group of friends that always stuck together, one”s circles of friends and acquaintances become increasingly dispersed. Lucky are those cliques that grow old together.

And all that doesn”t even consider the question what exactly a “friend” is. I won”t even attempt to define “friendship”. We”ll all have our own definitions, based on our particular experience of friendship. I hope all of us have at least a few friends.

And if we do, perhaps this mix of songs about friendship serves to express that relationship. Some of the tracks here are declarations of friendship, with the offer of steadfast solidarity (two separate numbers here offer to “lean on me”). Others recall with some nostalgia high jinx from ages past, or speak about reconnecting. Though one imagines that the narrative of Michelle Shocked”s Anchorage might be moot in the age of Facebook, when people I’ve not seen in years know more about my life than old friends who eschew social media.

I have deliberately excluded tracks which I could devote to my very best friend: my wife. No romantic stuff here (other than the Hello Saferide song, which is a bit When Harry Met Sally in mid-movie), so you can happily dedicate the whole mix to your best platonic friend. And to your favourite toy, in the case of the closing song.

So, here’s to all my friends on a mix that is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-palled covers.

1. Gary Portnoy – Where Everybody Knows Your Name (1983)
2. Garth Brooks – Friends In Low Places (1990)
3. Rolling Stones – Waiting On A Friend (1981)
4. The Jam – Thick As Thieves (1979)
5. Thin Lizzy – The Boys Are Back In Town (1976)
6. The Beatles – Two Of Us (1970)
7. Bill Withers – Lean On Me (live) (1973)
8. The Undisputed Truth – With a Little Help From My Friends (1973)
9. The Housemartins – Lean On Me (1986)
10. Johnny Cash – Bridge Over Troubled Waters (2002)
11. Natalie Merchant – Kind & Generous (1998)
12. Tim McGraw – My Old Friend (2004)
13. Bob Evans – Me & My Friend (2006)
14. Hello Saferide – My Best Friend (2005)
15. Michelle Shocked – Anchorage (1988)
16. Minnie Riperton – It”s So Nice (To See Old Friends) (1974)
17. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway – You”ve Got A Friend (1972)
18. Simon & Garfunkel – Old Friends (1968)
19. Randy Travis – Heroes And Friends (1990)
20. Kim Richey – Hello Old Friend (1999)
21. Pat Lundy – Friend Of Mine (I Wanna Thank You So Much) (1973)
22. Ernie – Rubber Duckie (1970)

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More Mix CD-Rs

Here’s a collection of lesser-known originals of stone-cold pop classics, and quite a bit of background information to most of them. In fact, I suggest you make yourself a good cup of coffee, settle back and be engrossed in the stories of some of the most famous songs in pop history.

Hey Joe

We kick off with a track whose genesis is disputed, with some claiming Hey Joe is an old traditional folk song. There seems to be wide consensus, however, that it was written in the early 1960s by a folk singer called Billy Roberts, who may well have borrowed from a 1950s country song by the same title written by Boudleaux Bryant. Something of a cult classic on LA’s live scene and reportedly propagated by David Crosby, Roberts’ song was eventually recorded by The Leaves (though some claim that the Surfaris recorded their version first, but released it after the Leaves” version came out).

Where The Leaves rock out in a psychedelic fashion, Jimi Hendrix”s version’s, recorded in December 1966, is said to have been based on the slower folk-rock treatment by Tim Rose (who once was part of a folk trio including someone called Jim Hendricks, with Mama Cass Elliott), though Arthur Lee insisted it was the Love recording of September 1966 that inspired Hendrix. Whatever the case: the version here is the first to be released on record.

Wild Horses

A number of tracks here were originally released before the actual writers had hits with them. One of those is the Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses, which was first released by The Flying Burrito Brothers. The Stones recorded it before the Flying Burrito Brothers did, but released it only after Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons’ band released it on their 1970 album, Burrito Deluxe. Wild Horses was written in 1969 (Keef says about his new-born son; Jagger denies that its re-written lyrics were about Marianne Faithfull) and recorded in December 1969 at the Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, the day after the group laid down Brown Sugar. Jamming in a country mood, Mick asked Keith to present a number in that genre, spurring his country-loving friend on by saying: “Come on, you must have hundreds”. Keith disappeared for a bit, and returned with a melody and words for the chorus. Mick filled in the lyrics for the verses, and the song was recorded (with Jim Dickinson standing it for Ian Stewart, who did not like playing minor chords) before the Stones packed up and left Memphis.

Earlier that year, the Stones had collaborated on the Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace Of Sin album; and as the curtain fell on the 1960s, the Burritos opened for the Stones at the notorious Altamont concert (according to some reports, it was during their performance that the Hells’ Angels started the first fight). Parsons was especially friendly with Keith Richard, whom he introduced to the treasury of country music. It is even said that the song was intended for Gram — probably a false rumour, yet it sounds more like a Parsons than a Stones song. Whether or not it was intended for Parsons, the Burritos were allowed to record Wild Horses, and release it before the Stones were able to (a delay forced by contractual reasons involving their “divorce” from Allen Klein) on 1971″s Sticky Fingers album.

My Sweet Lord

Billy Preston recorded and released My Sweet Lord before George Harrison did. Preston had at one point come to be regarded as the “Fifth Beatle”, thanks to his keyboard work which earned him a co-credit on the Get Back single. He had actually known the band since 1962, when he toured Britain with Little Richard, for whom the Beatles opened in Liverpool. Post-Beatles, Preston continued working with Harrison, who had brought him into the Let It Be sessions. Written in December 1969 in Copenhagen, My Sweet Lord song first appeared on Preston’s Encouraging Words album, a star-studded affair which included not only Harrison, but also Eric Clapton on guitar, Keith Richard on bass and Ginger Baker on drums.

The album also included Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (a song which the Beatles had considered of recording); almost a year later that song would provide the title of the triple-LP set. The All Things Must Pass album, produced by Phil Spector, also included George’s cover of his own My Sweet Lord. Preston’s version is much closer to Harrison’s original concept than the composer’s own take. In his defence during the My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine plagiarism case, Harrison said that he had been inspired not by early-’60s girlband pop, but by the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ 1969 hit Oh Happy Day. That influence is acutely apparent on Preston’s recording, but less so on Harrison’s chart-topper. Indeed, had Preston scored the big hit with it, not Harrison, it might have been Ed Hawkins initiating the plagiarism litigation.

California Dreamin’

John and Michelle Phillips wrote California Dreamin’ in 1963, suitably while living in New York, before forming The Mamas and The Papas and while John was still with a group called The New Journeymen. Fellow folkie Barry McGuire helped John and Michelle land a recording contract. In gratitude, they gave McGuire a song for his next album: California Dreamin’, which was recorded (with the now formed Mamas & Papas on backing vocals) in 1965, but was released only in 1966. It was supposed to be McGuire’s follow-up to Eve Of Destruction, but The Mamas and The Papas recorded the song themselves and released it as a single in 1965, initially to widespread indifference. Only when it started getting airplay on a Boston radio station did the song become a hit in early 1966. McGuire insists that the Mamas & Papas didn’t so much re-record the song as replace his voice with Denny Doherty’s and the harmonica solo with the flute. Listen to the two versions and judge for yourself.

Suzanne

Several of Leonard Cohen”s most famous songs were first recorded by folk warbless Judy Collins: Sisters Of Mercy; Bird On A Wire; Since You”ve Asked; Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye — and Suzanne. The song was born in Montreal, landmarks of which are described at length in the song. Cohen already had a chord pattern in place which he then married to a poem he had written about Suzanne Verdal — the beautiful wife of the sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, a friend of Cohen’s — whom he fancied but, as the lyrics have it, touched only in his mind. One night in 1966 Read more…

This is Volume 2 of the New York mixes, though it is really the third, after the first mix and the New York in Black & White collection.

The photo on the cover comes from a beautiful series of colour photos of New York in the 1940s from the Charles W Cushman collection.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and, as mentioned above, includes home-bronxed covers. PW in comments, where you are invited to say hello.

1. Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Jules Munchin – New York, New York (excerpt) (1949)
NYC hook: It’s our three sailor friends’ first time in New York, and having just arrived on shore leave (happily in New York, not in LA where they might have gone on to beat up Mexicans), they already presume it to be “a helluva town” because “the Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down”. Additionally, “the people ride in a hole in the ground” (as they do in many other cities, so big deal, chums).

2. Frank Sinatra & Tony Bennett – New York New York (1994)
NYC hook: Let’s face it, our boy from Hoboken was a promiscuous man when it came to American cities. Chicago? His kind of town! L.A.? It’s a lady he can’t say goodbye to. Las Vegas? He made it! And New York? Well, more of a challenge than a love affair; it seems. By the way, the song needs no high-kicks, party goers.

3. Theme – Seinfeld (1989)
NYC hook: Would Seinfeld have worked had it been set anywhere else? Nah!

4. Klaatu – Sub-Rosa Subway (1976)
NYC hook: The song that caused speculation about a clandestine Beatles reunion. Alas, it was just a bunch of Canadians with a funny name singing about Alfred Beach, the man who built America’s first subway in New York, based on the London Underground. (More on Beach)

5. NRBQ – Boys In The City (1972)
NYC hook: You might leave New York for the country, but you’ll still sing about “the trees in the Park”.

6. Harry Nilsson – I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City (1969)
NYC hook: New York as the new Jerusalem instead of its usual role as a fetid Babylon. So Harry makes his pilgrimage to the city permanent, leaving all his sorrows behind. Same year, he soundtracked Hoffman and Voight’s exit from bad, bad NYC.

7. John Lennon – New York City (1972)
NYC hook: The Statue of Liberty told Lennon to come. Come to the city where he would be murdered…

8. Kevin Devine – Brooklyn Boy (2006)
NYC hook: The eponymous lad is doing coke on his birthday, prompting Kev – rarely a herald of rampant cheer – to launch into an apocalypso.

9. Ian Hunter – Central Park N West (1981)
NYC hook: Hunter obviously hates living in stinky, crime-ridden, burning New York City. Except he doesn”t: “You’ve got to be crazy to live in the city, and New York city’s the best.”

10. Donavan Frankenreiter – Spanish Harlem Incident (2007)
NYC hook: A rather decent cover of Dylan’s 1964 song about having steamy, casual interracial sex.

11. Bobby Womack – Across 110th Street (1972)
NYC hook: 110th Street is the street that divides Harlem and Manhattan. Bob is not painting a pretty picture of what lies at the other side of Manhattan: pimps and hookers, pushers and junkies jostling on the streets of “the capital of every ghetto town”.

12. Billy Joel – New York State Of Mind (1976)
NYC hook: The New Yorker might leave the city for Miami Beach or for Hollywood, but if they are anything like Bronx-born, Long Island-raised Billiam, they’ll miss the New York Times and Daily News (but not the Post, it seems) so much, they’ll feel compelled to return.

13. Ella Fitzgerald – Manhattan (1956)
NYC hook: On his wonderful radio show, Bob Dylan described the Rodgers & Hart song as a love letter to New York City. Who knew that Zimmerman had a way with words? Ella is full of giddy tenderness as she provides us with a partial road map of the city. Are pushcarts still gliding gently on Mott Street?

14. Hem – Great Houses Of New York (live) (2006)
NYC hook: Native New Yorkers Hem don’t need to mention the city in a song that incorporates its name in the title to prove that it’s set there. It suffices to refer to NYC’s winter climate as a metaphor for a dying relationship, a recurring theme in Hem’s beautiful songs.

15. The Mamas & The Papas – Twelve-Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon) (1968)
NYC hook: The Mamas and the Papas lived in New York before moving to Hawaii and then to California. It seems fair to say that they didn’t dig New York – “every thing there was dark and dirty ” – and this is their fuck-you note to the city. Most likely, the Daily News won’t be enough to lure them back.

16. Odyssey – Native New Yorker (1977)
NYC hook: Two decades before Carrie Bradshaw in Sex And The City made her, erm, acute observations about the politics of sex, Odyssey had it already figured out: “No one opens the door for a native New Yorker.” So, like, take charge of your life yourself, girl!

17. Elkow Bones & The Racketeers – A Night In New York (1983)
NYC hook: A sadly ignored club gem whose horns sounds like New York traffic to me. Delicious.

18. Nicole with Timmy Thomas – New York Eyes (1985)
NYC hook: What in the name of all that’s ophthalmological are these New York Eyes that have short-lived soul starlet Nicole attracted to ’70s soulster Timmy Thomas (who I presume provides the groovy keyboard here)? Whatever they are, reciprocally gazing at Nicole’s NY eyes, they make Timmy feel good inside.

19. Beastie Boys – An Open Letter To NYC (2005)
NYC hook: And it’s another love letter: “Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten, from the Battery to the top of Manhattan. Asian, Middle-Eastern and Latin, black, white – New York you make it happen.”

20. LL Cool J feat. Leshaun Williams – Doin’ It (1995)
NYC hook: Six people are credited with writing this droll ode to physical intimacy. None of them have sought to distance themselves from this lyrical gem which surely provides all the required evidence to support the notion that ladies really can’t help themselves but love NCIS agent Cool James. Mr Todd  rattles off the specials on today’s hum menu: “It’s the first time together and I’m feeling kinda horny, conventional methods of makin’ love kinda bore me. I wanna knock your block off, get my rocks off, blow your socks off, make sure your G-spot’s soft” (you get hard G-spots? And, more importantly, how do you get away rhyming “off” with “soft”?). With Cool James, sex is a matter of territorial chauvinism, not unlike the so-called World Series. He points out that he represents Queens, whose residents may well jostle for prime bedside seats, the better to cheer on their local stud muffin. Cool James’ hopefully softly G-spotted friend was raised “out Brooklyn”, where she learnt to yearn for a “Big Daddy” who might “pull my hair and spank me from the back” and finish off with some “candy rain”. Just as the contender from Queens might, if his dick is as big as his braggadocio. Yuk!

21. Jay-Z feat Alicia Keys – Empire State Of Mind (2009)
NYC hook: The national anthem of NYC for the millennial generation.

22. Ben Folds – Rock This Bitch (NYC version) (2004)
NYC hook: Some “motherfucker in Chicago” once shouted out “rock this bitch” at a Ben Folds gig, giving rise to a tradition whereby Folds (evidently reluctantly) improvises a new “Rock This Bitch” version on the spot. As he did in this recording from the 2004 Summerstage concert. “R.O.C.K. with your C.O.C.K. out, in N.Y.C.”

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More New York songs

This was one of those months: two or three obviously notable deaths, and a bunch of others that deserve our attention “” including one that was made public only after five months! Spare a thought for the antipodean alt-rock band Beasts of Bourbon, who lost their second member this year.

The soul legend

By now nothing more needs to be said about Aretha Franklin. Other than to note that her screen husband in The Blues Brothers, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, died just two months before Aretha. Think about that! This corner of the Internets marked her death with a mix of cover versions recorded by Aretha. And, to give you your money”s worth, and because I”m a man who makes lists for fun, I”ll undertake the impossible task of compiling a Top 5 of Aretha Franklin songs: 1. I Say A Little Prayer   2. Rock Steady    3.  Baby, I Love You   4. Something He Can Feel   5. Daydreaming. What”s your Top 5?

The Funky Brother

We had to cut by one the list of the few surviving Funk Brothers, the legendary collective of session musicians on all those great Motown classics, with the death of guitarist Eddie “Chank” Willis. It”s not always easy knowing exactly on which Funk Brother played on which record, but we know that Willis played on tracks like You Keep Me Hanging On, Where Did Our Love Go, You”ve Really Got A Hold On Me, I Second That Emotion, My Guy, Please Mr. Postman, Shotgun, Roadrunner, and many hits by Marvin Gaye (from Can I Get A Witness to I Heard It Through The Grapevine and Let”s Get It On) and The Temptations. For all he did to build up Motown, he said the label didn”t take care of him and his colleagues when they encountered poverty. Read more…