Sunday, March 17, 2024

Artists Who Produced Their Idols: Get A Leg Up!

Jonder wrote a few weeks ago: "This is a concept that Stinky and I have been kicking back and forth for quite awhile. There are musicians (like T Bone Burnett, Don Was and Joe Henry) who are probably better known as producers, and not everyone they produced would be considered an idol or influence." 

Then he came up with an impressive list of artists who had produced other artists, and invited me and Stinky to come up with our lists! And so another Jokonky project was born…

First artist that came to mind was Tom Waits, due to my Chuck E. Weiss collection, but he also produced John Hammond’s Wicked Grin, a collection of great Waits covers.

J.J. Cale is pretty well known, but I guess not many people were aware of his production work… Surprise, surprise, he was responsible for (again!) John Hammond’s blues album Got Love If You Want It.

My first post here was about Robert Palmer, who had a big hit with Moon Martin’s Bad Case Of Loving You. He produced Moon’s Mystery Ticket, trying to update his sound with mixed results.  Palmer apparently was a fan of The Comsat Angels, even helped them get on Island Records and produced their Chasing Shadows album.

Scottish indie rock band The Bluebells were close to a much more famous artist. B-side track All I Ever Said was (according to the liner notes) "a song full of words and chords produced by our old bonhomie, Elvis ‘King’ Costello".

Dave Edmunds liked Del Shannon and was responsible for the gorgeous And The Music Plays On, a 1974 single.  Shakin’ Stevens started as the lead singer of The Sunsets and their first album A Legend was another Edmunds production. The final Edmunds track here is a classic: Flamin' Groovies’ Slow Death.

Joan Osborne was (& is) a big fan of The Holmes Brothers and in her liner notes of their Speaking in Tongues (produced by Osborne), she explains how she first met them in a New York Bar where they were playing.

Steely Dan’s Walter Becker did a great production job on Rickie Lee JonesFlying Cowboys. It even gave her a minor hit song, Satellites.

David Byrne tried his best with The B-52's Mesopotamia, but unfortunately the band members weren’t that impressed with the results…

John Cale got quite a name as a producer with Nico and The Stooges, but I selected The Modern LoversRoadrunner.

David Baerwald (from David + David as well as solo) produced a few tracks from Susanna Hoffs' 1996 self-titled album.

I’ve posted about Bennie Wallace here before and like his first album, the follow-up Bordertown was produced by Dr. John as well.

Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) did a good roots production job on Tish Hinojosa’s Homeland.

Don Dixon is probably best known for his work with R.E.M., but this Guadalcanal Diary track is excellent too.

[Thanks, Koen!  Stinky came up with the title of this series, Get A Leg Up!  His set of songs produced by famous artists for their musical heroes is coming soon.]

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

House Is Falling

 

illustration by Luigi Pericle Giovannetti 
When Koen suggested this theme, I knew I had to include The Fall and NRBQ. Both bands had several "house" songs to choose from. I wanted to include "Kids Of The Black Hole" ("House of the filthy, house not a home...") but that might have bent the rules.

You might recognize "House Of Ecstasy" if you watched MTV in the late 80's.  The Cherry Bombz were a short lived group formed by Andy McCoy, Dave Tregunna, and Terry Chimes with vocalist Anita Chellama from Toto Coelo!  

If you've seen The Embarrassment documentary (now on Amazon Prime), you know why "Ron Klaus Wrecked His House".  "Fun House" is from The Stooges' legendary 1970 Goose Lake concert (an extraordinary archival find and an incendiary performance).  


Found another great live track on The dB's Repercussion blog (the blog is dormant, but the links live on).  The dB's performed "A Spy In The House Of Love" on a French TV show in 1988.  Will Rigby and bassist Jeff Beninato lock into the groove, and Peter Holsapple trades guitar lines with Eric Peterson (currently with Sarah Shook & The Disarmers).

I won't write about every song, but I want to mention Atlanta blues band Mudcat, with singer/guitarist Danny Dudeck, drummer Eskil Wetterqvist, and the late Lil' Joe Burton (who played trombone with blues legends BB King and Junior Wells, among others). Mudcat gigs were always joyful. "Rest in joy" Lil' Joe and Dexter Romweber.  Dex and Crow tear it up on Roy Orbinson's "Rock House".

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Stinky House Music

 

Welcome to the second part of our House Music trilogy.  Sorry for the delay! Stinky's collection includes country music royalty (Tammy, George, Buck, Wanda, Willie) and some of their offbeat offspring (Junior Brown, Ben Vaughn, SCOTS, and The Knitters).  

Stinky recently hepped me to the Americana forerunners Hege V, whose House Of Tears is a highlight here.  And that's what we're all here for, innit?  Discovering (or rediscovering) great music!  Stuff your algorithms, I wanna hear something that a real music lover is passionate about.  

Stinky's also dishing out soul and blues (Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon, George Thorogood, J. Geils, Ry Cooder, The Bar-Kays and more).  There's classic rock from The Kinks and Love, garage rock, indie rock and power pop from Robin Lane, The Smithereens, The Incredible Casuals, TMBG, The Breakaways (Paul Collins and Peter Case), and more! 

There are road houses, play houses, rock houses, bird houses, and fish houses.  There are houses in the country, on the hill, and down the block.  Lonely houses, empty houses, houses without love, and houses of strangers.  House parties, house cleaning, and house shoes.  

Some great selections, and we hope you enjoy them! I'm road-testing my part of the trilogy, hoping to live up to the high standard set by Koen and Stinky. Remember, folks: at Jokonky Enterprises, the name goes on before the quality goes in!

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Houses In Motion: A Collection of House Songs

Stinky, Koen and I were tossing back and forth ideas for a collaboration among the three of us.  Koen had the excellent suggestion of a multimedia theme, with photographs posted at his digital art blog AND a compilation of songs posted here!  

This is the debut release from Jokonky Enterprises, the successor to JonKy Records.  Stinky created the logo, and each of us will share a compilation of "House music".  Be sure to visit the Houses In Motion post at Koen's site to see his photographs of Thai homes in a range of bright and lovely colors.  Here's Koen with the story that inspired his photographs and its soundtrack:


Last month I had my sister visiting and although she had been here three times before, Thailand looks still pretty exotic to her. One of the things that astonished her was the colors of the houses… Yes, by Dutch standards these can be pretty outrageous I guess. Houses and apartment buildings here are usually painted colorfully, to say the least. Whereas those Dutch counterparts from the 60's had to be either just bricks or white, here they go for the full rainbow! After 35 years here I consider those ‘normal’, but thanks to my sister I started looking at them with ‘open’ eyes…

Besides wild colors house owners happily add rooms, change their yards, put potted plants everywhere, etc., and the results might be garish and/or kitschy, but at least is not mind-numbingly boring!

Since then I’ve been paying more attention and when I saw another pinkish(!) building I suddenly had to think of John Cougar Mellencamp’s hit song… Finding more ‘house’ songs was dead-easy, whether abstract (Houses In Motion), romance (House For Sale), ghosts (Haunted House), or Crime (Jail House), but I decided to make it a little more challenging, in case of well-known songs by going wherever possible for either a cover or alt. take… Have a look at the results:

The House of Blue Lights - The original from 1946, it was first recorded by Freddie Slack with singer Ella Mae Morse

Haunted House - Probably better known by Gene Simmons, but here is the original version by Johnny Fuller

Burning Down The House - originally by Talking Heads, but here by Bonnie Raitt

House For Sale - Lucifer (1975 hit in the Netherlands for this Dutch band)

Houses In Motion - originally by Talking Heads, but here reggaefied(!) by Mystic Bowie's Talking Dreads

This Is The House - Eurythmics

The House of the Rising Sun - originally by The Animals / Nina Simone / countless others, but here by Minoru Muraoka

Our House - originally by Madness, but here by The Bad Shepherds

Red House - originally by Jimi Hendrix, but here by John Lee Hooker

The House That Jack Built - Aretha Franklin

No Thugs In Our House - XTC

House For Sale - Nick Lowe, different song from The Old Magic

Everyone’s Playing House - Elvis Costello & The Imposters

The Big House - Howlin' Wolf (Live!)

Jail House - The Mighty Diamonds

Hyacinth House - originally by The Doors, but here by Cheval Sombre

Enjoy the sounds and images, and stay tuned for Stinky and Jonder's selections...

Saturday, February 24, 2024

The Comprehensive Cub Koda Volume 2

Response was so positive to Volume 1 of The Comprehensive Cub Koda that Volume 2 was almost mandatory [Stinky writes]. Forget about leftovers— there were still big meaty chunks left over, and lots of good suggestions in the comments. After Volume 1 was on its way to the pressing plant (okay, we rubbed it against a ficus) I discovered a hard-to-find self-released rockabilly collection on Cub’s website, so here we are.

We spare no expense to pamper our patrons here at Jonderblog, so I reached out to Cub’s wife (Lady J), the webmaster, and even snail mailed Her Ladyship at the address on the site trying to buy a copy, to no avail. My usual resources didn’t even list it. But a friend at From The Vaults (who sometimes helps me find rare recordings) pointed out that five of the ten tracks were available as bonus tracks on a reissue of one of Cub’s albums. Problem solved!

One can’t make a “best of” without having all of the great man’s recordings to choose from— which isn’t to say all his records are represented here. While Koda seemed to have an instinctive understanding of all roots music, there’s nothing from one of his albums, Cub Digs Bo, on either volume. Not that it isn’t good, there’s just so much material that’s better. Cub was remarkably consistent & had GREAT musical taste. So much so that in his later years he was mainly known for his record reviews and his radio show— of which there are snippets included on Volume 2.

Like Peter Wolf “The Woofa Goofa” before him, Cub was from the snappy-patter, jovial jive school of DJ’s, and he had his famous friends record intros for him: “What time is it, Cub?” “It’s ROCKABILLY time!” I’ve spliced short segments onto the tracks so that Cub occasionally introduces his own records. It’s exactly the kind of cutesy crap I dislike— but with Cub’s palpable personality & atomic energy level, I think it works. He even introduces the pseudo-group he created & led (and with whom Cub may have invented “prank rock”), King Uszniewicz & The Uszniewicztones. “Whoever told these guys that they were a rock band was yankin’ their ankle!” Or as Down Home Music wrote: “You could blackmail people with tapes twice this good.”

After years of searching for obscure artist’s self-released 45’s in thrift stores, Cub got the idea to perpetrate a hoax and “create” a forgotten group: King Uszniewicz & The Uszniewicztones. He recorded the songs, came up with a backstory, used old photos of his dad for images of King Uszniewicz, & pressed some 45’s that he then slipped into the stacks of wax in thrift stores. Eventually there were three LPs of material released on Norton Records (most outlets list them under comedy), as well as a shared “battle of the bands” album with The South Bay Surfers.

Of course there are tracks with Brownsville Station— two that were suggested by George Glass — and a third, My Buddy Jack, which was clearly the inspiration for George Thorogood’s I Drink Alone. On the first installment, I used a live version of Brownville’s biggest hit Smokin’ In The Boys Room to highlight some of his onstage rap, so the original’s included here, along with another live track with an intro from Cub Koda & The Points, Double Mirror Wraparound Shades.

Also represented are his live raw bone blues records with The Houserockers, solo tracks with Cub playing all the instruments, and his scorching version of The Fred Wolff Combo’s instrumental Scratchin’ & Whammin’. Which, while I was writing these liner notes, I discovered was ALSO Cub Koda. He got me again!

As always, this compilation was designed in Stinky Laboratories to be listened to from soup to nuts— in hopes it will transport you somewhere without you leaving the house. But if you do take it on the road, please do as Cub might suggest, and “Keep the greasy side down.”

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Drive To 1981, He Said

You might recall a story on this blog about a singer and a guitarist whose collaboration was shelved for several years by the singer's record label.  This past year they performed together on the singer's web series, and revisited some of the songs they recorded back in 1977.

You can read all about the guitarist's "Drive to 1981" here. He moved to NYC and collaborated with a range of performers.  He envisioned himself as "a small intelligent mobile unit" -- a title somehow distinct from the role of a session musician. 

The invention of a looping device (which allowed the guitarist to play with himself) opened the door to new creative possibilities. He used it in live performance, in session work and on a solo album that he began recording in 1977.


In 1980, he formed what he considered a dance band.  And in 1981, he reformed the group that made him famous, which had disbanded in 1974.

Today's share features many of the mobile intelligent session musician's guest appearances on record and on stage (as "Dusty Rhodes" on Peter Gabriel's 1977 US tour, as part of a Hugh Cornwell benefit in 1980, and with Blondie).  It includes some of his work as a producer (for The Roches and others). And it ends not in 1981 but in 1982.


Saturday, February 10, 2024

Get In Loser, We're Going Rockabilly (Volume 1)!

We've featured a good bit of rockabilly here lately, including Nigel Dixon, Pearl Harbour, Charlie Feathers, and Chuck E. Weiss (!). So let's keep rollin' with Stinky's latest compilation!  He had the idea awhile back: rockabilly songs performed by artists better known for other musical genres.  "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is a perfect example.  Neil Young's album with the Shocking Pinks is another.

I made a couple suggestions ("Thumbelina" and Alan Vega's solo albums), but Stinky already had a great list of songs, with enough for another volume.  

I had asked Stinky if he knew of Robert Johnson -- not the blues legend, but the guy who looks like Moon Martin on the cover of his 1978 Close Personal Friend LP.  We found out that he's an accomplished Memphis guitarist who played with John Entwistle's Ox and auditioned to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones!   

A lot of the folks on this comp either grew up listening to rockabilly or (in the case of Conway Twitty and George "Thumper" Jones) started as rockabilly singers. Dolly Parton's duet with Ronnie McDowell appears on her 2023 album Rockstar.

It's a fun listen with a few surprises.  Warren Phillips & The Rockets were members of Foghat.  Joe Elliott is the Def Leppard frontman.  Ron Flynt was in the power pop band 20/20.  Jeremy Spencer was in Fleetwood Mac (and their alter egos Earl Vince & The Valiants). The La De Da's were from New Zealand (and are remembered for their 1966 single "How Is The Air Up There?") And didja know that Adrian Utley from Portishead was the rhythm guitarist on Jeff Beck's tribute to Gene Vincent?! If you've read this far, you're most likely a hepcat who recognizes the rest of the names on the tracklist, so jump on in -- we're going rockabilly!