Time to Meet With a Special Person

Song 422: This week on the playlist you’ll find Midnight Mary by Joey Powers, written by Artie Wayne and Ben Raleigh, and you can catch a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I heard this hit on the radio at the small diner down the road from my parents house one sunny afternoon when I stopped in briefly, probably to deliver the local newspaper. While I had remembered that interlude as being a summer day, my sources indicate that this 45 made the charts in the fall of 1963, and peaked in early January of 1964, so perhaps I just happened to catch it on a warm autumn day, but regardless of how my memory may have confused the particulars, I fondly recall the lasting musical and lyrical impressions it gave me. I enjoyed it so much that I learned the chorus melody and words just from that initial encounter, and I would, in solitary moments over the next few months, often sing that chorus to myself, just for my own pleasure. Of course, when February rolled around, a quartet from Liverpool rocked my world, and I starting learning a whole new set of melodies and lyrics, but I still never forgot about midnight and Mary.

An Intoxicatingly Risky Way to Move

Song 421: This week’s playlist track is Arrested for Driving While Blind by ZZ Top, written by Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard (the 3 band members), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When Tejas came along in late 1976, I felt like ZZ Top had hit a real peak, fulfilling the music promises of their earlier work. I especially relished the understated humor in the words on this cut, which planted a lyrical seed in the back of my mind that would eventually become Drivin' in My Sleep Again after some addition inspiration from my friend Eddy Lawrence's tune Sleepdriving Again which appeared on his 1994 CD Used Parts. A few months after I added the Texas trio's LP to my collection, I got to see the three perform at the Chicago Stadium on a chilly winter night (2/19/77). They had a truly impressive stage set-up on the tour that included a live bull and tender on a separate platform next to where they performed. I felt like I saw and heard a very good show that night, though, as a musician, I also noticed that the sound coming to the audience included more than just the parts the three musicians on the stage played. The woman who sat next to me that night, also a musician, noticed the same thing, and later confirmed through people she knew who had connections with ZZ Top that yes, they did indeed use a click track when they performed, meaning that they augmented their live sound with prerecorded additions that they controlled from the stage. Still, I felt like they did a very good job of communicating that wonderful feel Of rollin' in an automobile, along with many other special moments.

That Uncontrollable Emotional Attachment

Song 420: This week on the playlist you’ll find I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You) by Hank Williams, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The Ohio relatives' extensive country music collection introduced me to Hank, as well as other classic artists of the 1950s and 1960s, and I found Mr. Williams quite impressive. At some point in the 1960s, I watched a move about Hank on TV, and that film contains a very entertaining story about him writing this song in a record company executive's office during the man's lunch break. It makes for a fun tale, and a memorable movie scene, but I would bet the flick writers spun it out of whole cloth. However mundane the tune's actual genesis might have been, though, in contrast to its theatrical promotion, the piece itself still stands out as one of Hank's best. Whenever I hear it, a picture from the past comes slowly stealing, giving me that old time feeling, and I Can't Help It (If I Still Love this one).

Making Hard Labor Sound Better

Song 419: This week on the playlist you can listen to Finest Worksong by R.E.M., written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I thought R.E.M. sounded pretty good the night my band Victims of Technology opened for them and the Lloyds at The Stone in San Francisco (6/22/83), but when Document came along 4 years later, I thought they have moved up to a whole new level. The album became a regular spinner for me, and it would also find a sweet spot on my iPod not long after that shiny mp3 player arrived, so over the years the record has enlivened many moments, including through ear buds on NYC subway rides and blasting from a portable speaker set while driving along interstate highways. This cut opens the LP with a bang, and sets a very high-energy tone for the ride. Three decades after its release, I would say an even greater share of workers feel that What we want and what we need Has been confused, been confused, but hearing this track can also impart the feeling of being in Your finest hour and believing that Another chance has been engaged.

A Clever Take on an Old Fairy Tale

Song 418: After hearing about Little Things last week, this week's playlist track centers on a specific little one, in a very entertaining way: Li'l Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, written by Ron Blackwell, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During the stretch when this novelty number graced the airwaves in the summer of 1966, my family did our warm-weather visit to the Ohio relatives, which during that decade had changed from the yearly routine it had been in the 1950s to being an even-numbered-year outing. Our stay in 1966 included my cousin treating me to my first motorcycle ride, and also him spinning If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears for me and my brothers in a sparkling bedroom of the uncle's newly-completed house — the family had previously lived in the building's basement for at least ten years. Then one sunny afternoon, a bunch of us played miniature golf at a nearby course that featured background music courtesy of the local Top-40 station, and hearing this hit made the game even more fun. I always savored the word play about the wolf wearing his sheep suit, and the way the singer ends by making a wolf sound followed by a sheep sound. Since he had such a big heart, the better to love her with, perhaps she (Red) really would have seen things his way before they got to grandma's place.

How the Small Stuff Can Add Up

Song 417: This week on the playlist you can hear Little Things by Bush, written by Gavin Rossdale, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title.  Bush first got my attention when Everything Zen (Song 89) made a big noise on the airwaves in the winter of 1995, and soon enough, after hearing a couple of other tracks from the album, I added Sixteen Stone to my collection. This cut from the record vividly portrays, in both music and words, the all-too-common life experience of small annoyances quickly adding up to much greater difficulties and defying attempts at resolution, along with the feeling of being pulled strongly in 2 polar opposite directions. Like songwriter Rossdale, I too can claim a talent that might make me best at forget, but his word play on the lines Here comes a lie/We will always be true never fails to make me smile. I would guess, though, that Gavin is probably not Loaded on wrong when he suggests Going up when coming down/Scratch away - that might actually be good advice.

Someone You Might Not Have Noticed

Song 416: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week the playlist features Laundromat Girl by my good friend and former Berkeley housemate Carol Denney, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had heard her do this cut live at least once, and I didn't really get it the first time around. When I got to hear it as the opening track of The Rich Will Never Be Poor, though, I did get it right away, and I liked it a lot more than I would have expected, given my initial reaction to it. Soon enough, I had The Rich Will Never Be Poor loaded onto my iPod, and over the last decade I have listened to the record a lot, with this opening tune setting the mood for the listening experience. Having lived in the Bay Area for about a decade, it's possible that I might have met the Laundromat Girl sketched here, but since I cannot claim her interest, it may not matter. Similarly, I would not know how to tell if something's wrong with that girl, but whether there is or not, Carol sure makes her sound intriguing. When I got the CD back in 2010, I still lived in Highland Park, NJ, and when I would head over to do laundry, I would hear this chorus in my head while looking at the woman behind the counter, because, even though I knew she was not the original subject of the piece, at that moment, she was the Laundromat Girl in my life.