Ξ November 14th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Music |
I love Gram Parsons. A privileged rich kid from Florida who became an outcast from his family to become a musician. A musician during the long-haired ’60s who had such a passion for country music that he transformed one of the best bands in rock music into a country-rock band for a while, creating Sweethearts of the Rodeo as a testament. He even steered the Rolling Stones toward country music and, I think, given time, would have taken over that group the way he took control of the Byrds.
Most of all, I think Gram saw the beauty and honesty of country music, and the degree to which he felt the heartache and longing in the lyrics was clear in many covers that he recorded with the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Fallen Angels.
Last year, Amoeba Records released a recording of two Flying Burrito Brothers 1969 performances, as they opened for the Grateful Dead at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom. The set lists from the two shows are nearly identical, so you get two versions of FBB choice of covers: Waylon Jennings’ Sweet Mental Revenge, Willie Nelson’s Undo The Right, the Wilburn Brothers’ Somebody’s Back in Town, among them. But the highlight for me is two performances of She Once Lived Here, written by Autry Inman and previously recorded by George Jones.
Any George Jones song is a good place to start a conversation about the appreciation of good country music. (OK, maybe not Love Bug.) But She Once Lived Here, whether it’s the Jones or Parsons version, is a convincer.
She Once Lived Here (performed by George Jones)
Written by Autry Inman
The mayor gave me the keys to the city
the welcome wagon’s already appeared
But again I’ll be packing and leaving
for it’s plain now that she once lived here
I’ll never know what could make me forget her
cause she’s love and love lives everywhere
Could it be that I’ll never stop saying
I’ve got to go now for she once lived here
I see her face in the cool of the evening
I hear her voice in each breeze loud and clear
There must be a town without memories
but not this one for she once lived here
Parsons doesn’t reinvent the song. The George Jones inflections are still there, the stress on the same words in the line, “I see her face in the cool of the evening,” but it sounds like where Jones is portraying pain, Parsons is channeling it. After listening to the song a few dozen times now, I have to believe that Parsons is thinking of a particular woman, in a particular town, and senses that feeling particular to country music lovers — the need to run away, to outrun pain rather than letting it overtake you.
Ξ November 10th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Movies |
1950. Starring Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark. Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz.
Let me be the one-millionth blogger to note that the past week was a transformative week for America. But I think the wisest thing said this week (and said by a wiseass as a wisecrack) was Stephen Colbert’s question to a guest on the Comedy Central election night special: “So, does this mean that racism is over?”
Clearly, when No Way Out was made, racism was not a thing of the past. I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that so bluntly portrays racism, and explains it as a form of dementia. Roy Biddle (the great Richard Widmark) and his brother John are brought into the hospital’s prison ward after a failed robbery. Both are injured, but John is worse off — something that concerns his doctor, Luther Brooks (Sidney Poitier), the hospital’s first black doctor. (”Negro” is the respectful term here, while just about every other less-respectful term is also used.)
Dr. Brooks is concerned enough about John Biddle’s condition that he performs a spinal tap, which has just begun when Biddle suddenly dies. The procedure is done in front of brother Roy, who immediately screams murder. Roy berates the new doctor, and refuses to allow the autopsy that would prove his innocence. Doctors Brooks and Wharton (Stephen McNally) appeal to the dead man’s widow, Edie (Linda Darnell), who is sick of being part of the “human garbage of Beaver Canal,” a Hell’s Kitchen-like section of the city filled with fighting neighbors and ready-to-rumble racists.
Word of the murder-by-scalpel has spread, and as a race riot begins, the doctors scramble to prove that other causes were responsible for the man’s death. Roy Biddle has other plans, and begins manipulating Edie and others in his plan to not only quash the autopsy but exact a revenge as well.
I’ll leave a few loose ends in describing this surprising, topical noir, but I’ll say that it’s unblinking in its portrayal of spitting, swearing racism. Poitier peforms his usual solid role, without much humor or passion — Dr. Wharton’s maid (Amanda Rudolph) shows much more personality in her brief appearance. To be fair, Poitier’s role is supposed to be the boring one, compared with Widmark, with his sneering grin and sweaty face, lashing out at his imagined enemies and howling with the pain from his injured leg. As the doctor who performs the autopsy suggests, “Maybe someday we’ll autopsy you and find out what’s wrong.”
Political campaigns can be exhausting — and the campaign season behind us was especially tough — but at the heart of politics is a mix of people, strategy, emotion and changing circumstances. Newsweek has an amazingly interesting 7-chapter behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential race, including insiders’ views of the Obama and McCain campaign staffs.
Some of the insights have already become post-election arguments (the animosity within the McCain-Palin campaign, the battle over that campaign’s message, and the ever-growing clothing tab), but tells of challenges within the Obama campaign as well. How our President-Elect handled himself — with disciplined restraint and patient deliberation — makes me even more optimistic about how he’ll lead this country.
It’s worth a few hours of reading this weekend:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/167582
A staple of every record collector’s “bachelor pad” section, the works of Yma Sumac were weirdly calming, even when they were at their cacophonic, screeching-infused best. She passed away in Los Angeles on November 1.
Sumac was born as Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo in Peru in 1922, and released her first American album, Voice of the Xtabay, on Capitol in 1950. She claimed to have descended from Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor, and Capitol made every attempt to play up the exotic nature of her voice, her music and her appearance. She famously had a five-octave voice, capable of performing great opera, but thankfully (for us opera-indifferents) performed mostly haunting, orchestrated “exotica” works.
I have a soft spot for “exotica,” including records by Yma Sumac. Along with The Three Suns, Martin Denny, Les Baxter and Esquivel, this is the music you want to play for your cool cocktail party. How many other records do you have that were recorded by Incan princesses?
RIP Ms. Sumac.
Official site: http://yma-sumac.com/index.htm