Reggae, Rock, Country, Funk and The (Accoustic) Dead : Newport Folk Festival 7/25/14

I have an indelible image of Jimmy Cliff burned into my mind from the pivotal reggae film "The Harder They Come". Time has run out for Cliff's character - he has to flee Jamaica or face certain death at the hands of the brutal police. Cliff tries to swim after a Cuban bound freighter , struggling to plow through the waves as the crew beckons to him, finally forced to give up and retreat to a small island, where he is quickly discovered by the Jamaican authorities. In a final show of desperate bravado, Cliff's protagonist -dressed in his sharpest outfit, brandishing his six gun -   challenges the cops to " Send out the best MON" - a gonzo reference to TV Westerns a la High Noon - before he is snuffed out.

Fast forward 40 years or so to the Quad Stage at Fort Adams in Newport for the first day of the 2014 Folk Festival, where Jimmy Cliff himself launches into an energetic, uplifting set of the songs that reverberate in the collective baby boomer consciousness, the band kicking things off with an a cappella version of "By The Rivers of Babylon" before Cliff swooped onstage to "You Can Get It If You Really Want". He sounds exactly the same, and he knows how to handle a crowd , leading an informal singalong to "Under The Sun , Moon And Stars" that had the audience bellowing back the chorus between swaying to the accessible beat as Cliff reminded them" Got to have some fun - let happiness run - und-er the sun - moon - and stars." He delivered an appropriately moving "Many Rivers To Cross"  as well as "Wide World" a la Cat Stevens as opposed to the Maxi Priest version, and threw in an updated version of "Vietnam" substituting "Afghan-is-tan ---Afghan-is-tan" instead. Cliff's anthem will always be "The Harder They Come", which had the entire crowd on its feet swaying to the beat, the ultimate Jamaican poor man's lament: "They tell me of a pie up in the sky / Waiting for me when I die / But between the day you're born and the day you die / They never seem to hear even your cry". Jimmy Cliff deserves a lot of credit for knowing how to work the crowd in the tradition of James Brown or Wilson Pickett, as well as embracing the songs that - in many respects - first brought reggae to the world stage.

The great thing about festivals with the stature of a venue like Newport is the surprises you hear, as well as the sleeper acts. In this case, there were several surprises, staring off with The Devil Makes Three, a group I blogged about a couple of years back because of a personal connection, not to mention their high energy blend of strings including a stand up bass and a truly sizzling fiddle that resonated with the crowd. Another surprise was Reignwolf, falling somewhere between Stani'd and Jimi Hendrix, but exceptionally well played  heavy duty electric guitar. The "sleeper" was Robert Hunter. His name sounded vaguely familiar, but it wasn't until I was walking up to the stage that - with my girlfriend Sue's help - I realized Hunter was responsible for some of The Dead's best known songs. His entirely acoustic performance had the crowd gently singing along to Jerry Garcia standards such as "I Will Survive" and "Friend of the Devil". One of the true surprises of the day was a sudden appearance by Mavis Staples herself, unexpectedly joining Lake Street Dive on stage even though she wasn't supposed to play until Sunday. But that's why music festivals with a long tradition like Newport are the best way to experience music - you never know what you'll hear next !!!     
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The Wolfman

If you've never heard Howlin Wolf, then you've never seen those insidious Viagra ads on TV, where the self confident but obviously over the hill dude with the muscle car uses bottled water to keep it from boiling over while Wolf moans "Oooh-ooh-eeee" to his signature tune "Smokestack Lightnin'" in the background- the new theme song of the ED- inflicted male.

In a kind of cultural twist, the first version of the song I ever heard was by the Yardbirds, another testament to the fact that the Wolfman's influence spread far and wide from his Delta roots, born Chester Arthur Burnett, June 10, 1910 in West Point,  Mississippi. Supposedly, his nickname came from his grandfather, who would warn little Chester that, if he misbehaved, howling wolves would get him for being bad.

Burnett was always an overpowering presence, as another one of his nicknames as a youth was "Big Foot" - Wolf was over 6 feet tall and weighed close to 300 pounds ! Like many Mississippi bluesmen, he started out singing in a local church choir, getting his first guitar at the age of 18. Burnett was drawn to the legendary  Charley Patton after seeing him perform at a local juke joint, amazed by Patton's Jimi Hendrix-ish gyrations with the guitar, playing it backwards, forwards, over his shoulder, between his legs. Wolf loved showmanship. One of his favorite tricks was to shake up a Coke or other carbonated soda, stick in his crotch prior to going onstage, then unzipping his fly at the climactic point of the song and popping the cap off.

After playing throughout the Delta in the 1930s with the likes of Robert Johnson and Johnny Shines, and serving in the Army during World War II, the Wolfman caught the ear of the legendary Sam Phillips, who recorded Burnett's first "hit" , "Moanin' After Midnight". A year later in 1952, Howlin' Wolf is signed by Leonard Chess, and moves to Chicago. If the movie "Cadillac Records" rings true, Burnett showed up in a pickup truck to sign the Chess recording contract. He was apparently pretty strict with his band and his morals, and was married to a woman who managed his money so well that Wolf actually paid his musicians decent salaries as well as health insurance.  One scene in "Cadillac" depicts the bluesman as paying for Little Walter's funeral in a tense scene with Muddy Waters, who reportedly clashed with Wolf over the theft of backup musicians.

A lot of Chester Burnett's music has permeated rock and roll, with tunes like "Ain't Superstitious" . "Spoonful", "Red Rooster", "Back Door Man", "Killin Floor", and of course - "Smokestack Lightnin" , which actually won a Grammy in 1959. The Wolfman died in 1976. and has a harmonica and guitar etched on his Chicago grave. Perhaps the most ironic tidbit to his cryptic career concerns an interview in which he was asked what the mysterious lyrics to "Smokestack Lightnin' " actually meant. Howlin Wolf reportedly - and somewhat sheepishly - admitted that he just liked the tune and the words really didn't mean anything at all. 

 

Being B. B.

Seeing BB King with my girlfriend Sue at Lupo's in Providence was a milestone of sorts for me since I have now seen  him 3 times, tied with Chuck Berry and James Brown, which should give you an idea of the kind of music I like. The first time was the most bizarre, a concert that King headlined in my gritty hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut. It was a strange line up, since the Santana clone band Malo was the opener. BB was the heart of the show, running through "The Thrill Is Gone", "Lucille", "Payin The Cost To Be The Boss" and his other blues "Top Ten" hits, backed by high powered horns and a rock bottom rthymn section. The second time was when he closed out the 1985 Newport Jazz Festival. I had dragged my late wife Jery there despite the fact that she was extremely pregnant because Miles Davis was playing and I had never seen him before. Unfortunately, the two airheads in front of us talked all the way most of Davis' solos, so BB was a relief, although I had to leave a few songs into the set in order to preserve my marriage.

Keyboardist Mark Taber and his son opened the show with some dynamite boogie/woogie - barrelhouse dual electric keyboards, setting the mood for the King of Blues. His band ran through the warm up music, a funky mix of horns, guitar, keyboards and rthymn, until BB himself arrived in a wheelchair, a testament to his  age and diabetes.. Two of his "handlers" then lead him to a chair in front of the stage.

He started by introducing the band, a function that most artists save for last, and spent a lot of time explaining who the musicians were before slipping into "You Are My Sunshine". BB seemed to be preoccupied with the audience in front of the stage. In my almost but not quite nosebleed section, the audience was preoccupied with taking selfies as BB played in the background, one particular woman managing to block everybody's view as she and her partner kept trying to find the right angle and the right spot.

Fortunately, King segued into "The Thrill Is Gone", a timeless tune that brings out his distinctive, mournful voice and seamless guitar, followed by another signature number, "Every Day I Have The Blues" , bringing me back to the "Live At The Regal" album. The band was given lots of opportunity to jam which they did admirably, especially the second guitarist., once again evoking  James Brown , the musicians trading funky riffs, a couple of dudes waiting on the fringes with his hat and coat, BB still playing with the crowd, again changing the tune to "How Blue Can You Get?", the show finally winding down to the grand exit. King donned his stylish hat and coat as the crowd cheered , the selfie addicts popping up in front of us, and headed back to retirement, not without a final wink at whoever was getting his attention in the expensive seats.

There's no mistaking BB King's stature and soul, as he wrenches more emotion out of a single lyric than an opera singer, so any performance is an opportunity to see an authentic blues pioneer. It just seemed to me this third time around, that the focus had shifted from being BB's music to Being BB, able at the age of 88 to rest on his blues credentials as well as still churn out those powerful, unmistakeable melodies that have become blues anthems.              

Jingling

I can tell my brain is rotting more quickly than I thought, mainly because the only music I have on my internal playlist right now is advertising jingles. You know what I mean, that mental harddrive that keeps rec-creating that Hendrix riff you partied to or the Clapton solo or - unfortunately - some kind of catchy pop musical hook over and over in your "head" until you say enough already. I reached that point a couple of days ago when I realized I was actually obsessing over local ad jingles, obviously reinforced by those old favorites, frequency and saturation via radio. 

The two that are competing for my attention right now are the Paul Masse commercials and the ballad about the Original Italian Bakery. The Masse commercial features a hot , sexy female voice belting out an uptempo chorus that sounds straight out of high energy road rock - "Just give me one more mile - I'm riding in style - In my Paul Masse ride". The production value - to me anyway - is way above the level you normally experience in secondary radio markets. It works, and the unknown vocalist definitely has a future.

The Original Italian Bakery "song" is at the other end of the spectrum, sounding like "The Big Rock Candy Mountain " (Which, again for what it's worth, was used successfully by LL Bean a few years back) with a hint of Hank Williams. " I love those pizza chips," The male vocalist warbles, " From the Original Italian Bakery", also mentioning something about smacking your lips. It's sort of like your typical broadcast advertisement "unplugged" Listening to it is probably close to what the mermaids sounded like to eighteenth century sailors, a melody that really makes you feel like humming along, or - of course - having pizza chips. I also like the organ and the chorus for Rhode Island Credit Union, since that's invaded my memory banks in the recent past  A lot of musicians got their start writing jingles, the most notable being Barry Manilow, who immortalized fast food before raking in millions from heavy easy listening rotation, not to mention the massive vertical billboard of him I saw on my repeat trips to Las Vegas, meaning he is still viable - and profitable.

I'm going to spend the next few hours re-tuning my synapses back to the blues and rock riffs typically stored there, but it's obvious I need to stop listening to so much talk radio before I spend all my disposable income on pizza chips.   . 
    

The Fab Four at Fifty

I didn't like the Beatles at first, probably because they were too clean cut compared to the Rolling Stones, whose defiant lyrics and bluesy instrumentation appealed to my adolescent sense of rebellion. The first albums I actually bought with my on money were Out of Our Heads by the Stones, East West by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion by the Grateful Dead, Shotgun by Junior Walker and the All Stars and a great Chess double album collection called Chuck Berry's Golden Decade. It wasn't until Rubber Soul came out that I began paying attention to John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Originally, Paul was the cute one, John was the brainy one,George was the quiet one and Ringo - well, we ALWAYS made fun of Ringo. Ironically, some of Ringo's tunes have had the most staying power, most notably "A Little Help " , "Yellow Submarine", etc. Besides Rubber Soul's improved content, I soaked up "Hard Day's Night" and "Help", but I didn't buy any Beatles albums until Sergeant Pepper's, unique for the acid references and the streetcorner band aspect, proving to be the beginning of my veritable Beatles buying spree. I guess - to me anyway -  The White Album had the greatest impact simple because of the multiplicity of styles, from the blissful lyrics of "Dear Prudence" to the barroom tale of "Rocky Raccoon" to that seminole disembodied voice intoning: " Number 9 - Number 9 - Number 9."

I was on the air when John Lennon was shot, part of an all news station outside Boston, in the middle of some earnest local "police blotter" story when the News Director abruptly came in and motioned for me to turn up the volume on the Associated Press feed. The details unfolded stupidly and sadly, Lennon cut down by a crazed fan. It was decades later when I was working for rocker WHJY in Providence that I saw an exhibition of Lennon's artwork, an aspect of his boundless creativity that I had been dimly aware of , never realizing the actual depth of his talent.

Of course it is nostalgic to see Paul and Ringo teaming up yet again, a sort of survivor's salute to fool the Baby Boomers into thinking they're still young, but it just seems mercenary, brand reinforcement to the max, a far cry from the more purist goals of the Quarrymen Skiffle Band when John and Paul formed it back in Liverpool. The Beatles' impact on the Twentieth Century is undeniable. Only time will tell. if they are remembered as cultural icons, laying the groundwork for the explosion and rebellion of the Sixties, or if they were simply cruising, responding to the moment, making it up as they went along. On second thought, that decision has perhaps already been made. 

For Pete's Sake

Pete Seeger's unique and all pervasive influence on folk and popular music has been so well documented that repeating it would really just be paraphrasing Wikipedia. My perception of the late and, fortunately for us, long-lived icon is a direct link to the time honored tradition of American protest music.

The rambling talking blues style originated with African American musicians in the early Twentieth Century, the songs essentially social commentaries documenting everything from poverty and corruption to unique weather events like dry spells or floods. The tradition carried  into the late 1920s and early 30s in the raucous sounds of the jug bands and popular artists like Big Bill Broonzy, Lonnie Johnson, Memphis Minnie, just to name a very few, but protest music grew and flourished during the Great Depression, spurred on - unfortunately - by shared misery. The Dust Bowl exile of the suddenly nomadic Okies was musically documented by a young Woody Guthrie through tunes like "If You Ain't Got The Do-Re-Mi", but the style and the content spread through popular music of the time. Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur have successfully resurrected some of these tunes for contemporary audiences. There is a definite link between protest music and reggae, which Jamaican artists have used to highlight social conditions and agitate for change, as well as rap, with its piercing commentaries on social disparity viewed from the street.

Seeger's place is firmly established as he protested everything from racism to poverty to war to cleaning up the Hudson, but he did it in a self effacing collegiate persona that opened the door for Peter,Paul and Mary and the Kingston Trio among other folkie groups in the early 1960s. Seeger looked earnest and well groomed, the opposite end of the spectrum from Bob Dylan or the luminaries in the flourishing New York folk community of the time like Dave Van Ronk, Essentially, it was  protest music from the kid next door.

It seems doubtful that Seeger's legacy will be fulfilled in the same way that he stepped into Woody Guthrie's shoes. The element of protest is still there, but the message is not "We Shall Overcome" or "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?". The squeaky clean activists who politely demonstrated about moral causes have been replaced by flash mobs, cyberthreats, suicide bombers and terrorist acts that are clandestine and random. Yet you can bet that in some corner of America, in the thin and ragged network of coffee shops, community halls, and festivals that still host folk musicians, Seeger's epitaph is being played out tonight by another earnest folkie out to change the world - for Pete's sake.   

  

In The THICKE Of It

I finally feel vindicated. After all the years of arguing with my daughters that this particular riff in this particular rap song was stolen from David Bowie's "China Girl", or the obvious rip-offs of the Stylistics and the Chi-Lites - among others - by the 90s boy bands like New Kids,etc., someone has finally gotten their wrists soundly slapped for musical theft.

The first few times I heard Blurred Lines my general reaction was: " Ah yes, another white dude stealing  Motown riffs ". This would make me ruminate about the hundreds of old blues and R&B artists whose tunes are routinely stolen without them earning a dime (My favorite being the often repeated nugget that Bob Marley sold the rights to "I Can See Clearly Now" for $75) before reaching the conclusion that everybody steals from everybody else so that's that. The more the song started cropping up, the more I began getting seriously pissed , muttering "Marvin Gay" every time I heard it. It sounded just like "Got to Give It Up", which is a supremely funky, move your feets to the beat type get down party tune.This egregious rip off would be bad enough if it was just the beat itself, but Thicke sounds almost nearly just like Marvin Gay, which is why Gay's family apparently sued Thicke over the curious similarities - and won. True , it was buried alive in the news, an out of court settlement , but the point has been made. 

Please note that I didn't say Robin Thicke was a bad singer or that some contemporary rappers routinely rip off choruses and  never credit the original artist. The ongoing dialogue over copyright and sampling won't ever be easily resolved, but the issue here is credit where credit is due. In Privacy Law, you call theft of someone's name, likeness, or voice appropriation. This case, like so many others in the music biz, comes very close. I think of Bonnie Raitt's laudable efforts to help legendary blues giants like Sippie Wallace or Mississippi Fred McDowell get the recognition they deserve, or, at the other end of the spectrum, Chuck Berry's piano player suing the R & R legend because he claims he wrote a lot of Berry's songs.

Does this mean Marvin was so good that imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery ? Or does this mean that the technology of mixing, mashing, scratching, over dubbing and "skanking" is now comparable to - gulp! - music ?