Happy Birthday Elvis

Thought I'd celebrate the 76th birthday of Elvis with a few originals the Big E reworked under the Memphis Sun.
That's Alright - Arthur Crudup
Blue Moon of Kentucky - Mr. Bill Monroe
Mystery Train - Little Junior Parker
Milk Cow Blues - Kokomo Arnold
I Want to Play House with You - Eddy Arnold

And here's one of my favorite songs by The 60s King:
That's Someone You Never Forget - Elvis Presley

Elvis stirring up delirium with far too much ease:

not in faith and not in madness

Another year presents itself -- plural, shifting, novel, offering us black ice and chance once more to step outside.

All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby --
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,
looking for seeds,
suet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly -- something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house --
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope --
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?
-- Mary Oliver, "The Chance to Love Everything"

most things haven't worked out

Crawling around in the dirt. Crawling around in the dirt between the rows of blooming, blinding white cotton in the field to the side of Junior's old country juke, and this woman, Lord she must have been sixty, she was out there crawling around in the dirt with me, I'm not lyin'! Both of us out there in the sun, drunk on white lightnin' in the middle of the day! And it was Sunday! Amps turned up all the way inside the shack, drums making the floorboards boom, you could hear it fine. Yeah out there in the dirt.
--Robert Palmer "Out There in the Dirt" (from Blues & Chaos)

Palmer was out there in the dirt, trying to find what people go looking for when they're drunk on shine - sex, laughter, the throb of life lived a little on the edge - even if only for a drunk Sunday in the country. And while those words are from the liner notes to Junior Kimbrough's All Night Long, they speak the truth for Most Things Haven't Worked Out, Kimbrough's album released a year after he passed away at age 67. From the sound of "I'm in Love" it doesn't seem like the old dog was ready to give up the ghost. Kimbrough comes on strong, talking about making love all night and how he can't help himself. The man may be close to the other shore, but he's still got both feet in the muddy waters of life. But words aren't even half the point of a song this elemental and driven. Everything which needs to be said comes from Kimbrough's guitar surging on the heavy bottom current provided by Gary Burnside (R.L.'s son) on bass and Kenny Malone (Junior's son) on drums.

Junior Kimbrough - I'm In Love [buy it at Fat Possum]

when i came home from work

Sybille Baier - Tonight [buy at orange twin]

Grateful Handle

The Dead, thoroughly in the bag, with Pigpen fronting on Hard to Handle, churning up the R&B dance grooves, with some, it has to be said, slomo camera to catch freedom in motion. With Pig belting through covers of his beloved r&b, soul, and blues classics, the Dead had a strut about them that was lost when McKernan passed on. He looks very in his element in a great clip from "A Night at the Family Dog" circa 1970.

Soulful Captain

Captain Beefheart - I'm Glad [buy]

Willie and Barbara

then the dam broke

It demanded to be posted. What a complete performance, starting with the host, presiding with a dignified ease sadly lacking in today’s racetrack world. And then there’s Merle Travis hanging out in a farmhouse telling you about Sixteen Tons. Besides getting to see Travis playfully in complete control - picking, practically showing off with his strikingly assured sense of time and rhythm, and using the guitar as a percussive instrument - we're treated to some brushed drums and (is that an?) an accordion, which help give this country song a very jazzy feel. And Mr. Travis twice casually lets go of the neck of the guitar to lean on a box next to him. Nice work if you can get it.

Medicine Show

My pal and workmate, Josh Kantor, got a call from former Dream Syndicate lead singer/tunesmith Steve Wynn to play keyboards for his Boston concert which went down this past Friday. Wynn and his band Miracle 3 plus Josh played the Dream Syndicate album Medicine Show (now back in print) cover to cover. Fortunately for those of us who could not attend, the show was taped and uploaded to archive.org. Enjoy!

something else all of his own

Apparently this was bound to be a Ray Charles day. Walked out the door, spun the dial on the pod, and found The Genius beckoning. By the time I discovered myself at the T some of Ray's early tunes - "Kissa My Baby," "Don't You Know," and his first hit for the Atlantic label "It Should Have Been Me" - had managed to make the dark sky day a little brighter. And then I let Blues and Chaos, the fairly new compilation of Robert Palmer's writing (the music critic and clarinetist, not that other Robert Palmer), fall open to any page it wanted to. The music gods turned the page to his liner notes for Ray Charles: The Birth of Soul. Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder and chairman of Atlantic Records, had this to say to Palmer about his working relationship with Charles:

Ray was never just another artist to us, he was always somebody very important. At first, we didn't know how to bring out of him what we knew was there and we rteally didn't hit our stride until we let him do what he wanted to do. In the first two sessions, we were trying to guide him into what was our formula, the Atlantic formula for making R&B hits. It took us a little it of time to understand that he had something else all of his own. When we heard him on the road, we realized we had a genius of sorts, an artist who had a lot more to offer than just writing a song and singing it. He had a whole conception of what his band should sound like, of what the track should sound like, and of what he should sound like.

Ray Charles - It Should Have Been Me [buy]