Song Book Jonathan Richman

As most of you probably already know Jonathan Richman is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and founder of The Modern Lovers. However since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key acoustic and electric backing, releasing 20+ albums and even had a few minor hits.

I guess the first time I was exposed to Jonathan Richman’s quirky songs must have been in 1978 when he performed Egyptian Reggae and 6 others on Dutch TopPop tv special (*), which made a bit of an impact.

In 1986 I even saw Jonathan and 1 Modern Lover (on sax) at a a concert in Hilversum, good fun.

Over the years I bumped into his songs from time to time (There’s Something About Mary soundtrack!), had a greatest hits album, etc.

A few posts ago we got the request for a Jonathan Song Book, which seemed like a good idea, as he has written most of own songs.

One problem though, Jonathan has become a bit of a cult figure over the years and by now 7 (I’m not kidding!) tribute albums were released:

Baby We Are Richman: A Tribute To Jonathan Richman

Can You Talk to The Dude? Volume 1 & 2

If I Were a Richman - A Tribute to the Music of Jonathan Richman

Songs from The Astral Plane, Vol. 1 & 2: A Tribute to Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers

We, Jonathan (A Tribute To Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers)

However all songs (at least that I’m aware of) were specially recorded for these tributes, which left still plenty of other covers!

As usual there are some favorites that got covered a lot: Pablo Picasso, Road Runner, I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar, Fly Into the Mystery, She Cracked, That Summer Feeling, etc.

But I also found some tracks that aren’t covered often: Back In Your Life, Dancing Late At Night, Dodge Veg-O-Matic, Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste, a.o.

The end results are 2 entertaining Jonathan Richman cover CDs, enjoy!

Artists include: John Cale, The Rubinoos, The Morells, Burning Sensations, The Jazz Butcher, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Galaxie 500, Echo And The Bunnymen,Tsunami, Noise Addict, Fred Thomas, The Rocks, a.m.o.

(*) TopPop was Dutch weekly pop TV show eagerly watched by many. Despite most of the artists just play-backed their latest hits, occasionally there were 'specials' with a few songs performed live in the studio. And this particular special shows Jonathan & The Modern Lovers in great shape playing 7 songs!  

As the quality of these TopPop videos was usually very good, do check out Jonathan's 22+ minutes mini set!

Guest Spots: Robert Quine

 

I've got a post planned that will highlight Robert Quine's work with Richard Hell and Lou Reed, but for today there are two sets of Guest Spots: Quine with The Singers, and Quine with The Artists.  Which is not to say that artists can't sing, or that singers aren't artists.  

Quine first gained notice on record in 1977 with Richard Hell & The Voidoids. Quine and Jody Harris recorded "Let It Blurt" with Lester Bangs that same year (though the single wasn't released until 1979).  Quine and Fred Maher played with Bill Laswell in the bands Material and Deadline.

Quine and Harris released Escape (an album of guitar duets) in 1981.  Another album of duets by Quine and Maher called Basic was issued in 1984.  Quine once said that the track "65" from Basic was "one of the best things I've ever done in my life. It reflects how I feel about music."  He was also proud of his work with Deadline.  He quit Deadline before the group entered the studio, but one 1980 gig at CBGB's was captured on tape.

Quine and Maher toured with Lou Reed in 1983.  When Fred Maher became a producer, he often called on Quine as a studio musician.  This is how Quine ended up on records by Matthew Sweet, Lloyd Cole, and Scritti Politti.  Quine's playing could be tasteful and restrained (as on Tom Waits' "Downtown Train") -- or he could tear shit up, as he does with the jaw-dropping leads that drive "Girlfriend" (the title track of Sweet's 1991 breakout album).  Check out this TV performance of "Girlfriend" to watch Quine in action.  

As you can see from the tracklists, With The Singers is mostly major label stuff that Quine did in the 90's (with Matthew Sweet, Lloyd Cole and TMBG), plus a few less familiar performers.  With The Artists goes back to Quine's downtown NYC origins -- playing with Jody Harris, Lydia Lunch, Ikue Mori, Lee Ranaldo, John Zorn, Bill Laswell, and Marc Ribot, as well as Naux (aka Juan Maciel), who replaced Ivan Julian in The Voidoids for the recording of Destiny Street.  Quine seemed to prefer playing with another guitarist, switching between lead and rhythm and trading solos. 

ELSEWHERE ON THE BLOG: jonder on Ivan Julian, Stinky on Lou Reed, and Koen on Marc Ribot.  Enjoy! 

GET IN LOSER, WE'RE GOING PSYCHEDELIC! Vol. 1

GET IN LOSER, WE'RE GOING PSYCHEDELIC! Vol. 1

As a child of the sixties, I have a huge soft spot for psychedelic music.  Fellow fans of the genre may have snapped up my PSYCHEDELIC SIDE OF TOM PETTY comp from a while back, and Tom’s so adept at it that he appears here, as well.

I feel like I achieved a good balance of songs by bands who were at the forefront of the psychedelic movement like The Beatles, The Stones, The Animals, The Zombies, Donovan, The Byrds, & The Fugs & the acts who were following the leaders like Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Pretty Things, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Kenny Rogers, & Tommy James.

Kenny’s group The First Edition was a country/pop group who knew a good song when they heard it, and Tommy James may have started out recording songs by Brill Building writers like Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry (Hanky Panky) & moved on to coming up with his own Merseybeat-styled numbers--but he quickly proved himself a master of psychedelia with songs like Crimson & Clover, and the track included here Sweet Cherry Wine.

On sabbatical from The Damned, frontman Dave Vanian recorded the side-project Naz Nomad & The Nightmares.  As did XTC when they adopted the nom de plume; Dukes Of Stratosphere.

Bob Seger came by his taste for it honestly, whereas a few others, like my beloved Everly Brothers, seem like bandwagon jumpers despite the high quality of their entry.

Dwarves did a whole psychedelic album, from which I plucked Average Dick, and Webb Wilder pretty much kept his involvement to a few tracks which include the psych classic; I had Too Much To Dream Last Night.  The Jam dabbled a little more than that, and even Southern Rock stalwart Duane Allman jumped on the lysergic carousel for a number.

While I could have easily come up with Volume 1 without it—I found another discussion string that offered up some deep cuts that will pop up on the SEVEN Volumes (132 songs) that I currently have compiled.  So please don’t rain on my parade by making a ton of suggestions for future editions… May I suggest we keep it to one per customer and try for something outside the box with Gwyneth Paltrow’s severed head in it?

We love it when visitors comment, and urge you to do so, but no one wants to hear (or say): "I'm way ahead of you."  :)

 

Song Book: Robbie van Leeuwen

Robbie van Leeuwen… “Robbie who?” is probably the reaction from most of you, but once you know he was the lead guitarist, sitarist, background vocalist, and songwriter of the Dutch band Shocking Blue… 

This post is courtesy of Richard who suggested it and helpfully sent me a zipfile with 30 covers! However I must admit that besides Shocking Blue my knowledge regarding Robbie was rather limited as well, consequently I started surfing the web and went down the digital rabbit hole...
In fact Robbie has had quite a musical history as he was active in various groups both before and after Shocking Blue, e.g. The Motions, Galaxy-Lin, and Mistral. 

The Motions were a Dutch band from The Hague and active from 1964 until 1970. Their Nederbeat sound brings back memories of listening daily to the radio… 

I remember Shocking Blue clearly as sexy lead singer Mariska Veres made quite an impression to put it mildly and they were active from 1967 to 1974 with several hits.
Their Venus was a monster hit all over the world and has seen countless covers over the years and even lesser known tracks like Love-Buzz got covered by Nirvana! 

The follow-up Galaxy-Lin was another Dutch pop rock band founded in 1973 by Robbie van Leeuwen in which electric mandolins played a central role. Unfortunately after only 2 albums Robbie pulled the plug out of Galaxy-Lin, but their hit Long Hot Summer (1975) is definitely still worth listening to. 

Together with Rick van der Linden, Robbie founded Mistral in 1977, a completely different kind of musical beast; synth pop anyone?
I needed to check them on YouTube and indeed Starship 109 gave me one of those OMG moments, at the time I don’t even think I was aware that Robbie was part of that ‘weird’ synthesizer band.
I never was a fan of Mistral, but must admit that their performance of Jamie was pretty off the wall! 

In the early 1990s Robbie gave up on the music business and moved to Luxembourg.

What’s fascinating are the relatively large number of covers released in other languages; Finnish, Swedish, Spanish, Czech, Italian, Japanese, French, and even Cambodian!

Main songs that were covered at the time included: Venus, Never Marry A Railroad Man, & Send Me A Postcard.

Love Buzz was completely ignored until Nirvana got famous and fans discovered their 1988 cover.

Therefore the first CD focuses on covers from the beginning until 1988.

Since then lots of artists and groups have rediscovered Robbie’s songs and tackled them in various ways.

The second CD has more recent covers and although most covers follow the originals closely we do have some exceptions, incl. Italian Brass & Roll, electronic, & Indonesian dub reggae versions of Love Buzz!

Besides the covers I also added a few originals, incl. one song each by: The Motions, Shocking Blue (pre Mariska Veres), Galaxy-Lin, Mistral (with Mariska!), & Cat's Eye (Robbie's last band). 

Punks Got Soul

 

In a similar vein to Steppingstones (punk covers of garage rock) and Nuggetized (punk covers of psychedelia), here's Punks Got Soul.  The first set starts out with pub rockers (Feelgoods, Hot Rods, Lew Lewis, Count Bishops). 

Then we get into the first wave of UK punk (Saints, Stranglers, Jam, Cortinas), and from there it's on to the Mod revival (Dexys, Secret Affair, Merton Parkas, Chords) and the ska revival (Specials, English Beat). Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and the Boomtown Rats are in there too. All of these genres and subgenres (including the original ska and Mod movements) were influenced by soul, Motown, R&B and blues.  

The second volume includes US artists, mixing in a bit of downtown NYC artiness (Contortions, Del Byzanteens, Talking Heads) and a couple of Dolls (David and Johnny) who first reminded us that girl groups were badass.  Plus more UK punk (Clash, Saints, Jam, 999, Boys, Upstarts), more pub rock (Roogalator, Inmates, Nine Below Zero), a few post-punks (Slits, Flying Lizards, Inner City Unit), and some new wave (Jane Aire, Japan, Original Mirrors).  Please enjoy irresponsibly!

Get In Loser, We're Going Rockabilly Vol. 5 - The fifth time's the charm.

Get In Loser, We're Going Rockabilly Vol. 5

I once read that every new style of music came about as a result of someone trying to play an existing style of music and failing. In the case of rockabilly, country boys who were steeped in country and bluegrass tried to play the blues and it came out wonderful.  

Elvis is credited with being the first, but he wasn’t really.  Carl Perkins was doing the same thing on some of the same stages but Elvis certainly climbed the highest with it (partly thanks to Carl supplying The King with the song that defined him: Blue Suede Shoes).  But they both fit the description above, to some extent.

Simply put, rockabilly was the earliest form of rock & roll.  People think of it as an offshoot, but for the 3-4 years (roughly 1956-1959) when it ruled the charts, it was simultaneously rock ’n’ roll AND pop music.  Pop music being whatever is popular—whatever’s on The Pop Charts.  

People are of the mind that it vanished, and had a resurgence compliments of The Stray Cats, but it’s always been there.  It’s DNA is firmly entrenched in rock music.  Elvis dabbled longer than most with songs like 1969’s Suspicious Minds, and Carl Perkins & Roy Orbison kept the fire burning well into the 60’s as well.  Carl’s Daddy Sang Bass was a 1968 hit for Johnny Cash, and Orbison’s 1964 smash Oh, Pretty Woman harbors a rockabilly heart.  Johnny Rivers scored with Secret Agent Man the same year, and Conway Twitty cut his last rockabilly sides around 1964 before going full-on country.

And lots of country artists tried to cross-over to the pop charts by jumping on the rockabilly bandwagon.  On this installment of Get In Loser, We're Going Rockabilly, we have Jean Shepard, Buck Owens, Porter Wagoner & Ferlin Husky (aka Simon Crum).  Husky and George "Thumper" Jones both recorded rockabilly (the original country rock) under pseudonyms—so as to not hurt their credibility with country audiences.  Of course Jerry Lee Lewis always played whatever he damn well pleased.

Some other country artists were balls-deep in rockabilly like Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakum, & Billy Swan, who doesn’t get NEARLY enough credit for recording rockabilly well into the 80’s.  He topped the charts with I Can Help in 1974, & included Lover Please (which he wrote when he was 15), & Shake, Rattle & Roll on the same album.  Ubangi Stomp followed in 1975, Blue Suede Shoes in 1976, Lonely Avenue in 1978, and My Girl Josephine in 1981—he was literally holding the door open for Brian Setzer to walk through later that year.  (Watch this space for an already completed “Best Of Billy Swan.”)

But let’s get on with who makes an appearance on Get In Loser, We're Going Rockabilly Vol. 5!  

The Sonics tear Tallahassee Lassie a new one, and The Clash revamp Bobby Fuller’s I Fought The Law (written by sometimes Cricket Sonny Curtis) live at Shea Stadium.  And The MC5 mop the stage with Back In The U.S.A.

One of my favorite purchases was a bootleg CD of Led Zeppelin playing rockabilly songs for fun during their sound-checks, and they illustrate how often blues-based rock side-swiped rockabilly with C’mon Everybody.  Another hard rockin' paint-swappin' Brit, Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan shows his true colors with Trying To Get To You.    

Avant garde artists even love the ‘billy beat—proven by Pink Faires, The Soft Boys, The Flying Lizards & Alan Vega.  But, even in that company, the three strangest tracks here may be The Four Seasons doing The Rockabilly Trio’s standard Blues Stay Away From Me, Moe Tucker doing Ricky Nelson’s Poor Little Fool (with a Bo Diddley beat), and Francoise Hardy’s whacked out and reverb-drenched That’ll Be The Day.  Teen idol Tommy Sands’ rapid-fire version of Maybelline gets a gold star—but to tell the truth, anyone who's slept with Nancy Sinatra is always welcome on one of my mixes.

Song Book: Arthur Alexander

After our first Song Book compilation post one of the candidates mentioned by a commenter for a follow-up was Arthur Alexander.

In brief, he was a classic soul singer with quite a few ups and downs, his best known song probably being You Better Move On.

Despite a few hits during the 1960s he never really broke through and left the music business for many years. In 1990, he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and began to perform again in 1993 due to renewed interest shown in his back catalogue.

His last album, Lonely Just Like Me, was his first in 21 years and received good reviews.

Unfortunately he suffered a fatal heart attack on June 9, 1993, three days after performing there with his new band, what a bummer… 

Considering that his songs have been covered by a wide range of artists and groups, from The Beatles and the Stones to Marshall Crenshaw and Nick Lowe, it made a lot of sense.

Even more so considering there’s been no official release showcasing his songs’ impact over the years, only a few newly recorded tribute collections; Adios Amigo: A Tribute To Arthur Alexander (1994), Alan Merrill’s Double Shot Rocks (2003), and Donnie Fritts’ June – A Tribute To Arthur Alexander (2018).

Granted, these 3 albums contain some neat and respectful versions, but our focus here is on covers from the past.

One problem though was that some Arthur Alexander songs that are pretty well known were actually not written by him, he just recorded them first!

As a result classics like A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues and Burning Love are not included, sorry…

Even so, we got 12 cool tracks in 2 versions:

Anna (Go To Him, Every Day I Have To Cry, Genie In The Jug, Go Home Girl, If It's Really Got To Be This Way, In The Middle Of It All, Johnny's Heartbreak, Lonely Just Like Me, Sally Sue Brown, Soldier of Love, We're Gonna Hate Ourselves In The Morning, and You Better Move On

 

Recorded by the following artists:

The Beatles, C. J. Chenier And The Red Hot Louisiana Band, JD Fox & Sunset Travellers, Ry Cooder, Marcia Ball, Nalle & His Crazy Ivans, Arthur Alexander & Ben Vaughn, Nick Lowe, Bob Dylan, Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul, Clifford Curry, The Rolling Stones, Humble Pie, BZN, Dave Berry, The Derailers, Irma Thomas, Otis Redding, Donnie Fritts, Sugar Ray & The Blue Tones, Nursery Rhymes, and The Leaves