The Blame Game

Ironically, there are two anniversaries this month that involve BSRR - one being the fact that the blog began a year ago and the other that five years have passed since Rhode Island's Station nightclub fire.


I was heartened by last week's story in the Providence Journal announcing that WHJY FM's parent company - Clear Channel - is going to donate a substantial chunk of money to the Station survivors' fund. Mike Gonsalves was mentioned in the story as well, since he represented HJY at the event, introducing Great White onstage just minutes before fire swept through the crowded room, taking his life and the hopes and dreams of 99 others as well. If you read my post a year ago, then you'd remember that I first "hired" - maybe "exploited" is a better word - Mike as an intern back in the mid 80s, and was always impressed by his enthusiasm and good nature. If you read between the lines of the article, the implication is that WHJY and Mike were partially responsible for what happened. Unfortunately, despite the goodwill, the fire survivors have received almost nothing. With the exception of the acts set to do a benefit concert next week, the music industry has turned its collective back on the tragedy. I wonder if this has to do not only with the fact that people instinctively shy away from bad news, but also that so many bands and MCs - for that matter - can recall a time in their careers when they were trapped in a club in a situation that could have turned out the same way.


I remember at least two instances at clubs in Plainville, Mass and Providence in which the crowds were so massive - and messed up - that I never would have made it out alive without clawing my way through a drunken mob. The attendance at these venues certainly demonstrates the power of radio promotion. In that respect, I can see Clear Channel's rationale for tacitly acknowledging that WHJY was responsible for creating a successful event. Yet I got the impression that somehow Gonzo was responsible for not stopping the show when, in fact, he was just doing what we got paid to do - hype and introduce the band. It's a little like the Nuremburg defense - Mike Gonsalves was just following orders. The blame for what happened lies between the band and the club's owners, who admitted that they felt guilty but seemed to have avoided any real accountability for overcrowding the club and allowing pyrotechnics in a confined - and flammable - space.


I hope that justice really is served one of these years, but first and foremost, leave Mike Gonsalves out of the blame game and focus on taking care of the survivors. Their lives have been on hold for five torturous years with very little light at the end of the tunnel.

Friend of the Devil

Playing Robert Johnson's tune "Up Jumped The Devil" on my radio show last Sunday started me thinking about how often Satan turns up in the title and lyrics of traditional and popular music. Peruse the Internet and you'll find lists and lists of songs that mention Beelzebub. Of course the sheer volume of gospel, hymns and symphonies that celebrate God and the victory of good over evil far outweigh devil music, but the personification of Satan is more complex and multi-faceted than the typical portrayal of the divine. In Robert Johnson's case, contemporaries have claimed that Johnson fostered the image of his relationship with evil, perhaps to enhance his status, perhaps as a reaction to the Bible thumping religion of his day that strictly defined right and wrong.


The most sophisticated image of the devil - in my opinion - is the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil", which combines a sardonic review of great evil moments in history with its cynical refrain: "Pleased to meet you/Hope you guess my name". In this case, the evil one morphs from hairy, goatfooted spirit of darkness to suave, sophisticated well-dressed charmer. This devil is the temptor that dwells in all of us, just waiting to be unleashed by mob mentality or incited by totalitarian brutality that eradicates individual identity, suppressing justice in the name of absolute power.


At the opposite end of the spectrum, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels' "Devil With a Blue Dress" seems harmless, a paen to that beautiful temptress that beckons to hapless males on the dance floor. Yet, when you look at the song a little more closely, it unconsciously evokes the image of Eve, the Biblical personification of the original sin that caused the human race to be evicted from the Garden of Eden. When Van Halen's David Lee Roth howls: " Runn-IN with the Dev-ILL", he is not only celebrating living on the edge - one misstep away from falling into the pit of flames - but also harkening back to Robert Johnson walking with Satan side by side. Charlie Daniels, Jerry Garcia, AC/DC and numerous others have incorporated the devil and "hell" into their lyrics.


So why is Beelzebub so popular? Is it like looking at a bad accident - so gruesome yet so compelling that you can't turn away? Is it because evil is so fascinating - so accessible - that we aspire to it ? Or is it simply an attempt to associate onself with a powerful, commonly-accepted image in the public's eye, so that a musician will seem truly bigger than life?

Race Music

I have no idea which politician first came up with the idea of using pop music for a campaign theme, but I associate the trend with both Clintons bouncing onstage to the strains of Fleetwood Mac singing: " Don't stop/Thinking about tomorrow". At the time it seemed quaint, but I couldn't escape the thought that McVie, Buckingham and the rest were being co-opted, their lyrics misconstrued to symbolize societal change. This year's crew of office seekers just lends itself to certain songs and lyric. For example:


1. John McCain: Etta James' "At Last" maybe the best testament to the Arizona senator's quest for the nomination, but he needs to convince voters in the long run that he's not - as Chuck Berry once sang - "Too pooped to pop/ To old to stroll..."


2. Barack Obama: The Scorpions' "Like a Hurricane" pretty much describes the way Obama's campaign has swept across the country, but the candidate can legitimately agree with James Brown : "Say it loud/I'm black and I'm proud." The Illinois senator's long term viability may depend on whether he is able to deliver - as David Bowie would say - "Ch-ch-changes" in the mind of the electorate.


3. Mitt Romney: As Leslie Gore puts it: " It's my party/I'll cry if I want to/You'd do it too if it happened to you" - a natural refrain for the Republican with the deepest pockets and a disappointing return on his 20-35 million dollar investment. Based on the results so far, Romney's new campaign song may end up being (Massachusetts' own) Aerosmith's anthem "Dream On."


4. Hilary Clinton: It seems her long held lock on the nomination has become" Just My Imagination" as the Temptations might say, but Hilary's made it pretty clear that she's in it for the long haul, so the message to Obama is not to rest on his laurels, but to: "Get ready baby/Cause here I come".


5. Mike Huckabee: Although voters might have first asked themselves - in the words of Pete Townsend and crew - "Who ARE you?" , Hukabee has managed to snare those voters who agree that : "I don't care if it rains or freezes/Long as I've got my plastic Jesus".


Unfortunately, this campaign is so long and so torturous and so confusing that I hope the average voter doesn't end up disillusioned - or, as bluesman Buddy Guy puts it, losing faith in the democratic process and saying: " You're damn right I've got the blues."

Deconstructing Elvin

I was actually pretty excited when I found an Elvin Bishop CD in my local blues bin. I always liked his sense of humor and stinging blues guitar, having tracked his career with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, his gradual shift from backing Mike Bloomfield to fronting the band. His contribution to SuperSession - No More Lonely Nights - and Elvin's one actual Top Ten tune - Fooled Around and Fell in Love - were the extent of my knowledge about his musical output.The CD in question was supposed to be a compilation of his greatest hits - The Millennium Collection - identifying Elvin as a Twentieth Century Master, a title which Elvin himself would probably snicker over. It's obvious I need to expand my blues collection to keep doing the Sunday radio show without playing the same cuts over and over, so I could hardly wait to add the music,eagerly tearing through the package and slapping the disc into my mini boom box.


The first tune I listened to was "Let It Flow", which left me scratching my head. It isn't very bluesy - it's closer to mediocre hippy music, one of those Haight Ashbury anthems that sound mindless and misguided in retrospect. Next was "Groundhog", which has some built-in funk. I started feeling positive , that maybe this would be the Elvin I was waiting for - irreverent, able to rip some fiery riffs out of his guitar, characterized by those piercing, penetrating solos that seem to go on forever - until the lyrics compared his girlfriend to a groundhog's hole. A few years ago I would have found this acceptable , even humorous, but now it just seems childish and pathetic - haven't we moved beyond this dead end depiction of women ?


Chagrined, I pressed on through Bishop's greatest, still seeking that blistering single that was going to enliven the show. "Stealing Watermelons" has great rthymn, but I can't ignore the fact that songs about watermelon on a blues show featuring mostly black artists just don't fit in. I think Elvin's just poking fun, but racism is no joke. The final straw was reached during the next tune - "Travelin' Shoes". The musicianship is first class. I really figured I'd found my tune until Bishop reached the line about his woman not understanding what he said, so it was time to go get a baseball bat and "tenderize" her head. My reaction went from mild disgust to outright anger. Considering the effect that domestic violence has on society, the emotional toll it takes on both adults and children, I am simply not going to play a tune that overtly advocates beating women.


Don't get me wrong - I still like a lot of Elvin Bishop's music - I ended up playing "Juke Joint Jump" on the show. I am not going to condone lyrics that celebrate sexism and suggest prejudice - even if they masquerade as someone's idea of humor.

Ike Without Tina

One of the blues compilations that I've picked up recently surprised me with some vintage Ike and Tina Turner tunes, sort of on the border of blues and Fifties rock and roll, giving me a new appreciation for how much the duo has contributed to the genre. I played a couple over my last two radio shows. "I Smell Trouble" is vintage Tina blues, her voice trading dominance with Ike's penetrating lead guitar, while "Poor Fool" is closer to a standard doo-wop ballad, although it is hard to tell if Tina is singing lead or one of the "Ikettes."


Ike Turner was pushed into the background once Tina left the band and the marriage, tarnished by his depiction as a wife-beating monster on the big screen (What's Love Got To Do With It?), as well as his admitted fondness for cocaine. According to the San Diego Country Medical Examiner, it was "cocaine toxicity" that was the primary cause of Ike's death at the age of 76 on December 12,2007. Turner was already suffering from "hypertensive cardiovascular disease" and "pulmonary emphysema" as well, certainly a sad end to a controversial life.


He was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1931 but Ike's career didn't get off the ground until the late 1940s, when he started playing with his band The Kings of Rhythm. The band is credited with recording what some say was the first actual rock and roll record - "Rocket 88" at Sun Studios in Memphis in 1951. Ironically, while enjoying his first taste of fame with the Kings in the St. Louis area, Ike Turner was busy signing up artists like Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf for Sun and other independent labels - meaning Ike's "Svengali" persona existed long before Tina. They first met in St. Louis , when a teen-aged Tina - better known at that time as Anna Mae Bullock from Nutbush, Tennessee - belted out a B.B. King song in front of Ike.


She was hired as an Ikette, but became the lead singer after "A Fool in Love" made it to the top three R & B singles in 1960. Ike wasted no time in showcasing her talent by changing the band's name to the "Ike and Tina Turner Revue", and changing Anna's name to Tina Turner. Although Ike claims they never actually got married, another version of their story claims they tied the knot in Tijuana in 1962. Ike and Tina proceeded to churn out several number one R & B hits like: "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", "River Deep - Mountain High" and "Nutbush City Limits". Fed up with Ike's constant abuse, Tina walked out in 1976 and was granted a divorce in 1978. In Ike's 2001 autobiography "Takin' Back My Name", Turner admitted that he slapped and punched Tina but never beat her - although that sounds like beating.

Ike's career has been rocky to say the least, as he blamed his offstage behavior on his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He was in jail on drug charges in 1991 when he and Tina were inducted into the the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ike no sooner got out of jail in 1993 than he was back touring and recording.

Was Ike Turner a consummate artist/promoter who knew how to recognize talent or a coked-out monster with a towering ego? Like most artists, he was multi-faceted; like many performers, it may be preferable to judge Ike Turner on his public contribution and downplay his private life. One way or the other, the minister's son from Clarksdale made his mark on the evolution of blues/soul/funk.

Don't Touch That Dial

Much to my surprise I'm back on the radio for the first time since the mid-1980s. I offerred to do a blues program Sundays from 3:00 - 6:00 PM on WQRI FM, the Roger Williams University FM radio station in Bristol, Rhode Island.


Ironically, I first went on the air with WOBC AM/FM, the Oberlin College radio station in Oberlin, Ohio. The great thing about college radio is that it doesn't depend on overbearing advertisers to keep the lights on, so you can take some chances. My first shift was afternoon drive on the AM, which allowed me to play some of my favorite Motown artists as well as spitting out a lot of the hip phrases I had grown up listening to on New York radio. After a year I made the transition from AM soul brother wanna be to laidback FM rocker - almost like the shift in the industry itself at the time- and switched from Curtis Mayfield, Gladys Knight and the Temptations to Jeff Beck, the Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish. This rather inauspicious beginning lead to over a decade in commercial radio behind the microphone, which I would have done for nothing but fortunately got paid for. I suppose I've come full circle - starting out in college radio and ending up in college radio.


The strangest part of the experience was the method in which I played the music. To think that I spent years meticulously placing needles in vinyl grooves, even taping a coin to the stylus so the needle wouldn't skip, not to mention yelling at people to walk softly in the studio, only to find that now I can use my Ipod. All I had to do was plug a jack into the earphone hole. At first this was a great discovery - I could program the entire show in advance, listen to it over and over to make sure the sequence was right, then finally put it on the air with enough time to say something that sounded intelligent.


Consequently, I showed up at the appointed hour, relying on the janitor to let me in, plugged in the jack, and pressed the Ipod button at the start of the program. But then -much to my dismay - the technology began to unravel. The Ipod began "eating" the songs so they would start halfway through, or skip a song entirely or - even worse- pause for an inordinate amount of seconds before seguing between tunes. I got hyper - I hate dead air. I had brought along a few CDs in case I needed a Plan B, and I ended up resorting to them so I could tighten up the music and cross fade from one song to another. It almost started to feel like the old days,bringing back the overriding fear of not knowing what's going to happen next. The Ipod made me so comfortable I forgot that the show was supposed to be work.


Anyway, I'll be back on this coming Sunday at 88.3 FM or at wqri.rwu.edu for streaming audio - that is, as long as the janitor shows up. My Ipod will be part of the mix, but it won't replace my own efforts at putting songs together. Technology is beneficial as long as you control it, thus proving that human beings are not totally irelevant - yet.

That's The Spirit

Originally, I was going to come up with something clever about musical New Year's resolutions, but I only came up with one. My resolution is to give more exposure to lesser known talent, people who play for the love of the instrument, who focus on dedicating themselves to the craft and forgetting about recognition. The validity of this resolution was amply illustrated by the last live music I saw in 2007, a performance by my friend, mandolin player Will Melton.


He appeared as part of Bright Lights Providence, the successor to First Night, playing with a segment of the Providence Mandolin Orchestra, a group called L'Esperance (Hope). Will is more or less dedicated to the mandolin, having played since he was a teenager, but he is also a walking encyclopedia of early Delta blues and old timey jug band music (He sings well, too, but that's another story!). This is the context in which I typically view the mandolin - raunchy, funky, bluegrassy - so the concert was a real ear-opener.


The first piece was the overture to an opera by a lesser known nineteenth century German composer. It was surprising to hear a group of mandolins mimic a full-fledged orchestra, right down to percussion. Will and one of the other players contributed both the melody and the "tremolo" effect, strumming their instruments to give the song a sort of Neapolitan flavor. The band then tackled a series of dance tunes, each with a slightly different character, but the overall impression was stately and formal, making the mandolins sound as if they had been expressly for the purpose of entertaining royalty. The dances were followed by an Oriental piece that again illustrated the diversity of the instrument, the strings painting a delicate musical tapestry. L'Esperance wound up with their own version of the theme from "Ghostbusters" (Who you gonna call? The mandolin players!). I knew it was familiar but the only tune I could come up with was "Lady Madonna" until Will explained over coffee after the concert.


I've seen incredible blues and jazz shows, major rock concerts, produced two major concerts and seen a lot of club performances, but the enthusiasm and dedication of these individuals was much more impressive than watching the so-called "supergroups" . It had depth and texture and a unique quality that stayed with me. Besides , what better way to enter the new year than with a little hope?

Will Melton speaks:
L"Esperance is grateful for your coverage of our Bright Night performance in Providence. It is fitting that we featured some classical mandolin compositions because Providence has been an important center for the study of the mandolin since the instrument's introduction to America. When Giuseppe Pettine (1872-1966) arrived in Rhode Island from Isernia, Italy in 1888, most Americans had never heard the instrument played. Soon he was recognized as the most successful mandolin virtuoso of his time, teaching, performing, and composing for the instrument. Our most senior member of L'Esperance was a student of Pettine's in 1947. Today most people think of the mandolin only as a bluegrass instrument because of legendary mandolin player Bill Munroe, who invented the "high and lonely" country sound that became known as bluegrass. But don't overlook the mandolin as a blues instrument. The great blues mandolinist Yank Rachell (1910-1997) came out of the Memphis jug band scene and composed many country blues classics including She Caught the Katy and Divin' Duck Blues. He was also the first to record blues classics like Milk Cow Blues and Poor John Blues. He played with dozens of blues legends including John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson and Big Joe Williams. Some of his most important work was done with guitarist Sleepy John Estes who was his partner in the 1920s and 1930s. When they were reunited as a duet in the 1960s, they made the rounds of the college scene during the blues revival, also touring Japan and Europe and all the American folk festivals. Like Rachell, Estes enjoyed a long career, finishing as a featured artist of the Jefferson Airplane spin-off Hot Tuna. Much of Rachell's work is available on CD so check it out!