I was checking out various reviews of The Last Waltz on line after having thoroughly digested the anniversary DVD. In this searching I came across a review by Roger Ebert and was horrified by the evaluation. I actually considered Ebert a well-informed guy, and I usually check out his review of older movies that I’m interested in to get a general idea of what is coming.
This is an interesting view by an evaluator of movies in regards to a documentary focused on live music. I would have no disgust or inexcusable disbelief if he were evaluating the cinema of the work, the way it’s shot, edited, pieced together etc., but his evaluation focuses almost entirely on the music and his interpretation of the artists mindset during the performance. Here is the review:
"I wonder if the sadness comes across on the CD. The music probably sounds happy. But the performers, seen on screen, seem curiously morose, exhausted, played out. Recently, I was at a memorial concert for the late tenor sax man Spike Robinson, and the musicians--jazz and big band veterans--were cheerful, filled with joy, happy to be there. Most of the musicians in "The Last Waltz" are, on average, 25 years younger than Spike's friends, but they drag themselves onstage like exhausted veterans of wrong wars.
The rock documentary was filmed by Martin Scorsese at a farewell concert given on Thanksgiving Day 1976 by The Band, which had been performing since 1960, in recent years as the backup band for Bob Dylan. Now the film is back in a 25th anniversary restoration. "Sixteen years on the road is long enough," says Robbie Robertson, the group's leader. "Twenty years is unthinkable." There is a weight and gravity in his words that suggests he seriously doubts if he could survive four more years.
Drugs are possibly involved. Memoirs recalling the filming report that cocaine was everywhere backstage. The overall tenor of the documentary suggests survivors at the ends of their ropes. They dress in dark, cheerless clothes, hide behind beards, hats and shades, pound out rote performances of old hits, don't seem to smile much at their music or each other. There is the whole pointless road warrior mystique, of hard-living men whose daily duty it is to play music and get wasted. They look tired of it.
Not all of them. The women (Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris) seem immune, although what Mitchell's song is about I have no clue, and Harris is filmed in another time and place. Visitors like the Staple Singers are open-faced and happy. Eric Clapton is in the right place and time. Muddy Waters is on sublime autopilot. Lawrence Ferlinghetti reads a bad poem, badly, but seems pleased to be reading it. Neil Diamond seems puzzled to find himself in this company, grateful to be invited.
But then look at the faces of Neil Young or Van Morrison. Study Robertson, whose face is kind and whose smile comes easily, but who does not project a feeling of celebration for the past or anticipation of the future. These are not musicians at the top of their art, but laborers on the last day of the job. Look in their eyes. Read their body language.
"The Last Waltz" has inexplicably been called the greatest rock documentary of all time. Certainly that would be "Woodstock," which heralds the beginning of the era which The Band gathered to bury. Among 1970s contemporaries of The Band, one senses joy in the various Rolling Stones documentaries, in Chuck Berry's "Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll" and in concert films by the Temptations or Rod Stewart. Not here.
In "The Last Waltz," we have musicians who seem to have bad memories. Who are hanging on. Scorsese's direction is mostly limited to closeups and medium shots of performances; he ignores the audience. The movie was made at the end of a difficult period in his own life, and at a particularly hard time (the filming coincided with his work on "New York, New York"). This is not a record of serene men, filled with nostalgia, happy to be among friends.
At the end, Bob Dylan himself comes on. One senses little connection between Dylan and The Band. One also wonders what he was thinking as he chose that oversized white cowboy hat, a hat so absurd that during his entire performance I could scarcely think of anything else. It is the haberdashery equivalent of an uplifted middle finger.
The music probably sounds fine on a CD. Certainly it is well-rehearsed. But the overall sense of the film is of good riddance to a bad time. Even references to groupies inspire creases of pain on the faces of the rememberers: The sex must have been as bad as anything else. Watching this film, the viewer with mercy will be content to allow the musicians to embrace closure, and will not demand an encore. Yet I give it three stars? Yes, because the film is such a revealing document of a time."
What I take the most umbrage with is this:
“…although what Mitchell's song is about I have no clue…”
The song Ebert refers to is Coyote, it follows an interview with the members in which they talk about women on the road. The two together are a glorious coupling.
Here are the lyrics to Coyote, (sung clearly and beautifully by Mitchell I might add)
No regrets, Coyote.
We just come from such different sets of circumstance.
I'm up all night in the studios
And you're up early on your ranch.
You'll be brushing out a brood mare's tail
While the sun is ascending,
And I'll just be getting home with my reel to reel...
There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone, and the skin, and the eyes, and the lips you can get -
And still feel so alone.
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay.
You're not a, a hit and run driver, no, no,
Racing away.
You just picked up a hitcher,
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.
We saw a farmhouse burning down
In the middle of the road,
Where in the middle of the night,
We rolled right past that tragedy
Till we pulled into some road house lights
Where a local band was playing.
Locals were up kicking and shaking on the floor.
The next thing I know
That Coyote's at my door.
He pins me in a corner and he won't take "No!".
He drags me out on the dance floor
And we're dancing close and slow.
Now he's got a woman at home.
He's got another woman down the hall.
He seems to want me anyway:
"Why'd you have to get so drunk and
Lead me on that way?'".
You just picked up a hitcher,
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.
I looked a Coyote right in the face
On the road to Baljennie near my old home town.
He went runnin' through the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down.
And a hawk was playing with him.
Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes.
He had those same eyes just like yours -
Under your dark glasses,
Privately probing the public rooms,
Peeking through keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds,
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them through this passion play.
No regrets, Coyote,
I just get off up away.
You just picked up a hitcher,
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway.
Coyote's in the coffee shop.
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs.
And he picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching a waitresses' legs.
He's too far from the Bay of Fundy
From appaloosas and eagles and tides.
The air conditioned cubicles and the carbon ribbon rides
Are spelling it out so clear:
Either he's going to have to stand and fight,
Or take off out of here.
I tried to run away myself,
To run away and wrestle with my ego -
And with this flame you put here in this Eskimo -
In this hitcher -
In this prisoner -
Of the fine white lines -
Of the white lines -
On the free, free way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSZcK48cTiU
A thoughtful man, a writer about art is befuddled and dumbfounded at the prospects of what this song is about, commented in a way that would infer that to him the song is nonsensical and without meaning? This is really astonishing to me, are the veins of music and movie that different, a man who can be enveloped and deeply moved by the script of No Country For Old Men, dismisses this song as if it were an unknown mathematics?
Ebert also comments that Clapton seems in the right place. Of all the performances his seems to me to be the most uninspired. Did Ebert see the same thing I did, Van Morrison belting out Caravan, or he sees a joy in a Rod Stewart film from the same era that he does not see in Levon Helm’s delivering of a historic vocal on The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down?
For me this is a damning death nail to Ebert’s credibility. I can’t imagine taking to heart his reviews again…
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Bob Dylan Album Rankings #24 Thru #21
24. Planet Waves
23. Nashville Skyline
22. The Basement Tapes
21. Bob Dylan
On the edge of the top twenty. I think someday the Basement Tapes will really reveal themselves to me and will climb the mountain. Recently had that happen with The Band, always kind of liked them but now I love 'em.
23. Nashville Skyline
22. The Basement Tapes
21. Bob Dylan
On the edge of the top twenty. I think someday the Basement Tapes will really reveal themselves to me and will climb the mountain. Recently had that happen with The Band, always kind of liked them but now I love 'em.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Bono on Bob Dylan's Singing
Rolling Stone put together a list of the 100 greatest singers of all time. The following is Bono's comments about Bob Dylan's voice. everyone knows about the "Dylan can't sing" arguement and I have never heard a counterpoint better articulated than this:
"Bob Dylan did what very, very few singers ever do. He changed popular singing. And we have been living in a world shaped by Dylan's singing ever since. Almost no one sings like Elvis Presley anymore. Hundreds try to sing like Dylan. When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth.
To understand Bob Dylan's impact as a singer, you have to imagine a world without Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Lucinda Williams or any other vocalist with a cracked voice, dirt-bowl yelp or bluesy street howl. It is a vast list, but so were the influences on Dylan, from the Talmudic chanting of Allen Ginsberg in "Howl" to the deadpan Woody Guthrie and Lefty Frizzell's murmur. There is certainly iron ore in there, and the bitter cold of Hibbing, Minnesota, blowing through that voice. It's like a knotted fist, and it allows Dylan to sing the most melancholy tunes and not succumb to sentimentality. What's interesting is that later, as he gets older, the fist opens up, to a vulnerability. I have heard him sing versions of "Idiot Wind" where he was definitely the idiot.
I first heard Bob Dylan's voice in the dark, when I was 13 years old, on my friend's record player. It was his greatest-hits album, the first one. The voice was at once modern, in all the things it was railing against, and very ancient. It felt strangely familiar to an Irishman. We thought America was full of superheroes, but it was a much humbler people in these songs — farmers, people who have had great injustices done to them. The really unusual thing about Bob Dylan was that, for a moment in the Sixties, he felt like the future. He was the Voice of a Generation, raised against the generation that came before. Then he became the voice of all the generations, the voices in the ground — these ghosts from the Thirties and the Dust Bowl, the romance of Gershwin and the music hall. For me, the pictures of him in his polka-dot shirt, the Afro and pointy shoes — that was a brief flash of lightning. His voice is usually put to the service of more ancient characters.
Here are some of the adjectives I have found myself using to describe that voice: howling, seducing, raging, indignant, jeering, imploring, begging, hectoring, confessing, keening, wailing, soothing, conversational, crooning. It is a voice like smoke, from cigar to incense, where it's full of wonder and worship. There is a voice for every Dylan you can meet, and the reason I'm never bored of Bob Dylan is because there are so many of them, all centered on the idea of pilgrimage. People forget that Bob Dylan had to warm up for Dr. King before he made his great "I have a dream" speech — the preacher preceded by the pilgrim. Dylan has tried out so many personas in his singing because it is the way he inhabits his subject matter. His closet won't close for all the shoes of the characters that walk through his stories.
I love that album Shot of Love. There's no production. You're in a room hearing him sing. And I like a lot of the songs that he worked on with Daniel Lanois — "Series of Dreams," "Most of the Time," "Dignity." That is the period where he moves me most. The voice becomes the words. There is no performing, just life — as Yeats says, when the dancer becomes the dance.
Dylan did with singing what Brando did with acting. He busted through the artifice to get to the art. Both of them tore down the prissy rules laid down by the schoolmarms of their craft, broke through the fourth wall, got in the audience's face and said, "I dare you to think I'm kidding."
Dead on, just absolutely dead on.
"Bob Dylan did what very, very few singers ever do. He changed popular singing. And we have been living in a world shaped by Dylan's singing ever since. Almost no one sings like Elvis Presley anymore. Hundreds try to sing like Dylan. When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth.
To understand Bob Dylan's impact as a singer, you have to imagine a world without Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Lucinda Williams or any other vocalist with a cracked voice, dirt-bowl yelp or bluesy street howl. It is a vast list, but so were the influences on Dylan, from the Talmudic chanting of Allen Ginsberg in "Howl" to the deadpan Woody Guthrie and Lefty Frizzell's murmur. There is certainly iron ore in there, and the bitter cold of Hibbing, Minnesota, blowing through that voice. It's like a knotted fist, and it allows Dylan to sing the most melancholy tunes and not succumb to sentimentality. What's interesting is that later, as he gets older, the fist opens up, to a vulnerability. I have heard him sing versions of "Idiot Wind" where he was definitely the idiot.
I first heard Bob Dylan's voice in the dark, when I was 13 years old, on my friend's record player. It was his greatest-hits album, the first one. The voice was at once modern, in all the things it was railing against, and very ancient. It felt strangely familiar to an Irishman. We thought America was full of superheroes, but it was a much humbler people in these songs — farmers, people who have had great injustices done to them. The really unusual thing about Bob Dylan was that, for a moment in the Sixties, he felt like the future. He was the Voice of a Generation, raised against the generation that came before. Then he became the voice of all the generations, the voices in the ground — these ghosts from the Thirties and the Dust Bowl, the romance of Gershwin and the music hall. For me, the pictures of him in his polka-dot shirt, the Afro and pointy shoes — that was a brief flash of lightning. His voice is usually put to the service of more ancient characters.
Here are some of the adjectives I have found myself using to describe that voice: howling, seducing, raging, indignant, jeering, imploring, begging, hectoring, confessing, keening, wailing, soothing, conversational, crooning. It is a voice like smoke, from cigar to incense, where it's full of wonder and worship. There is a voice for every Dylan you can meet, and the reason I'm never bored of Bob Dylan is because there are so many of them, all centered on the idea of pilgrimage. People forget that Bob Dylan had to warm up for Dr. King before he made his great "I have a dream" speech — the preacher preceded by the pilgrim. Dylan has tried out so many personas in his singing because it is the way he inhabits his subject matter. His closet won't close for all the shoes of the characters that walk through his stories.
I love that album Shot of Love. There's no production. You're in a room hearing him sing. And I like a lot of the songs that he worked on with Daniel Lanois — "Series of Dreams," "Most of the Time," "Dignity." That is the period where he moves me most. The voice becomes the words. There is no performing, just life — as Yeats says, when the dancer becomes the dance.
Dylan did with singing what Brando did with acting. He busted through the artifice to get to the art. Both of them tore down the prissy rules laid down by the schoolmarms of their craft, broke through the fourth wall, got in the audience's face and said, "I dare you to think I'm kidding."
Dead on, just absolutely dead on.
Bob Dylan Album Rankings #28 Thru #25
28. Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid
27. Empire Burlesque
26. Good As I Been To You
25. Under The Red Sky
28 kind of lumps in with the bottom four for me. There is a significant jump up to 27 with Empire Burlesque. 28 and below are just kind of bad albums. 27 and up are actually good albums to me but are low on the Bob scale.
27. Empire Burlesque
26. Good As I Been To You
25. Under The Red Sky
28 kind of lumps in with the bottom four for me. There is a significant jump up to 27 with Empire Burlesque. 28 and below are just kind of bad albums. 27 and up are actually good albums to me but are low on the Bob scale.
Springsteen Speech for Pete Seeger
There was a recent 90th birthday celebration for Pete Seeger at Madison Square Garden. Bruce Springsteen had the following to say about Pete:
"As Pete and I traveled to Washington for President Obama's Inaugural Celebration, he told me the entire story of "We Shall Overcome". How it moved from a labor movement song and with Pete's inspiration had been adapted by the civil rights movement. That day as we sang "This Land Is Your Land" I looked at Pete, the first black president of the United States was seated to his right, and I thought of the incredible journey that Pete had taken. My own growing up in the sixties in towns scarred by race rioting made that moment nearly unbelievable and Pete had thirty extra years of struggle and real activism on his belt. He was ao happy that day, it was like, Pete, you outlasted the bastards, man!...It was so nice. At rehearsals the day before, it was freezing, like fifteen degrees and Pete was there; he had his flannel shirt on. I said, man, you better wear something besides that flannel shirt! He says, yeah, I got my longjohns on under this thing.
And I asked him how he wanted to approach "This Land Is Your Land". It would be near the end of the show and all he said was, "Well, I know I want to sing all the verses, I want to sing all the ones that Woody wrote, especially the two that get left out, about private property and the relief office." I thought, of course, that's what Pete's done his whole life. He sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we'd like to leave out of our history as a people. At some point Pete Seeger decided he'd be a walking, singing reminder of all of America's history. He'd be a living archive of America's music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends. He would have the audacity and the courage to sing in the voice of the people, and despite Pete's somewhat benign, grandfatherly appearance, he is a creature of a stubborn, defiant, and nasty optimism. Inside him he carries a steely toughness that belies that grandfatherly facade and it won't let him take a step back from the things he believes in. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself. Pete Seeger still sings all the verses all the time, and he reminds us of our immense failures as well as shining a light toward our better angels and the horizon where the country we've imagined and hold dear we hope awaits us.
Now on top of it, he never wears it on his sleeve. He has become comfortable and casual in this immense role. He's funny and very eccentric. I'm gonna bring Tommy out, and the song Tommy Morello and I are about to sing I wrote in the mid-nineties and it started as a conversation I was having with myself. It was an attempt to regain my own moorings. Its last verse is the beautiful speech that Tom Joad whispers to his mother at the end of The Grapes of Wrath.
"...Wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there."
Well, Pete has always been there.
For me that speech is always aspirational. For Pete, it's simply been a way of life. The singer in my song is in search of the ghost of Tom Joad. The spirit who has the guts and toughness to carry forth, to fight for and live their ideals.
I'm happy to report that spirit, the very ghost of Tom Joad is with us in the flesh tonight. He'll be on this stage momentarily, he's gonna look an awful lot like your granddad who wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad could kick your ass."
http://media.brucespringsteen.net/non_secure/videos/Seeger90/seeger90.mov
- for Pete it's simply been a way of life. That is one hell of a compliment I think. Seeger can come off as hokey but sometimes I wonder if he has been right the whole time... fuck being cool, be FOR something...
"As Pete and I traveled to Washington for President Obama's Inaugural Celebration, he told me the entire story of "We Shall Overcome". How it moved from a labor movement song and with Pete's inspiration had been adapted by the civil rights movement. That day as we sang "This Land Is Your Land" I looked at Pete, the first black president of the United States was seated to his right, and I thought of the incredible journey that Pete had taken. My own growing up in the sixties in towns scarred by race rioting made that moment nearly unbelievable and Pete had thirty extra years of struggle and real activism on his belt. He was ao happy that day, it was like, Pete, you outlasted the bastards, man!...It was so nice. At rehearsals the day before, it was freezing, like fifteen degrees and Pete was there; he had his flannel shirt on. I said, man, you better wear something besides that flannel shirt! He says, yeah, I got my longjohns on under this thing.
And I asked him how he wanted to approach "This Land Is Your Land". It would be near the end of the show and all he said was, "Well, I know I want to sing all the verses, I want to sing all the ones that Woody wrote, especially the two that get left out, about private property and the relief office." I thought, of course, that's what Pete's done his whole life. He sings all the verses all the time, especially the ones that we'd like to leave out of our history as a people. At some point Pete Seeger decided he'd be a walking, singing reminder of all of America's history. He'd be a living archive of America's music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends. He would have the audacity and the courage to sing in the voice of the people, and despite Pete's somewhat benign, grandfatherly appearance, he is a creature of a stubborn, defiant, and nasty optimism. Inside him he carries a steely toughness that belies that grandfatherly facade and it won't let him take a step back from the things he believes in. At 90, he remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself. Pete Seeger still sings all the verses all the time, and he reminds us of our immense failures as well as shining a light toward our better angels and the horizon where the country we've imagined and hold dear we hope awaits us.
Now on top of it, he never wears it on his sleeve. He has become comfortable and casual in this immense role. He's funny and very eccentric. I'm gonna bring Tommy out, and the song Tommy Morello and I are about to sing I wrote in the mid-nineties and it started as a conversation I was having with myself. It was an attempt to regain my own moorings. Its last verse is the beautiful speech that Tom Joad whispers to his mother at the end of The Grapes of Wrath.
"...Wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there."
Well, Pete has always been there.
For me that speech is always aspirational. For Pete, it's simply been a way of life. The singer in my song is in search of the ghost of Tom Joad. The spirit who has the guts and toughness to carry forth, to fight for and live their ideals.
I'm happy to report that spirit, the very ghost of Tom Joad is with us in the flesh tonight. He'll be on this stage momentarily, he's gonna look an awful lot like your granddad who wears flannel shirts and funny hats. He's gonna look like your granddad if your granddad could kick your ass."
http://media.brucespringsteen.net/non_secure/videos/Seeger90/seeger90.mov
- for Pete it's simply been a way of life. That is one hell of a compliment I think. Seeger can come off as hokey but sometimes I wonder if he has been right the whole time... fuck being cool, be FOR something...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Bob Dylan Album Rankings #32 Thru #29
32. Down In The Groove
31. Self Portrait
30. Dylan
29. Knocked Out Loaded
Poor Down In The Groove bringing in the rear. One song represented three spaces as Brownsville Girl saved Knocked Out Loaded from the bottom all by it's glorious self. No big surprises here.
31. Self Portrait
30. Dylan
29. Knocked Out Loaded
Poor Down In The Groove bringing in the rear. One song represented three spaces as Brownsville Girl saved Knocked Out Loaded from the bottom all by it's glorious self. No big surprises here.
Dylan Albums Ranked
Following will be my Dylan album rankings. As always with my ranked lists these are based on my favorite, not on any thought I may have on importance etc.... This will be from the original studio list excluding Together Through Life which hasn't been around long enough to be fairly considered.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Bullying the Jukebox Volume II Steve Earle – Train A Comin’
“Under the flag of a greenback dollar or a peso down Mexico way.”
A few weeks back I had the good fortune of catching Steve Earle live. He was backing his Townes Van Zandt cover album titled “Townes”. One of those situations that sort of fell into my lap at the last minute. The show was going to be solo acoustic and I doubted if Steve Earle would be able to carry a show all by himself. I wasn’t a big fan, casual at best, knew of his songs most folks know like Copperhead Road, Guitar Town, and some new stuff I heard like Jerusalem.
My expectations were far surpassed. Steve Earle is a hell of a performer, the show was great and it left me hungry to check out his records. My brother in law who went with suggested I check out Train a Comin’ and thanks to the often mentioned music case / collection my brother Brian made for me I gave it a go and it hasn’t left the player since (except to come inside the house so I could work on the opening part of Mercenary Song on guitar).
Looking back this was the second time Earle surprised me. The first time was on the great (my favorite as a matter of fact) soundtrack for the movie Dead Man Walking. I’m a Springsteen guy all the way and so it was an automatic to purchase a copy. The artists for this soundtrack included:
Springsteen
Johnny Cash
Tom Waits
Lyle Lovett
Suzanne Vega
Michelle Shocked
Eddie Vedder
Patti Smith
Mary Chapin Carpenter
And Steve Earle. I remember listening in complete wonder to the song Ellis Unit One. It was the best song on the soundtrack, a loaded soundtrack with great songs but no question Ellis Unit One was the standout. That seemed like a crazy notion at the time. After getting to know Train a Comin’ it doesn’t seem so surprising.
Train a Comin’ has the great dichotomy working that paralleled what I saw live. It is acoustic and relaxed AND KICK ASS. Now kick ass is an overused term, under the ownership of a different type of listernership you might say. When you hear the term kick ass in regards to music, bands like Skynard or Bon Jovi or Aerosmith come to mind. These bands have never by my definition kicked ass. My kick ass is Waylon Jennings, or Hank III, or Unknown Hinson.
And these are not acoustic affairs like Train a Comin. I think this is that special something that hardcore troubadour Earle fans love. Genuine kick ass; pure, deep, moving kick assification.
A perfect example of this is the song Tom Ames Prayer.
Here is a verse:
“You don’t owe me nothing and as far as I know Lord I don’t owe nothing to you.
I ain’t asking for a miracle, just a little bit a luck will do.
You know I ain’t ever prayed before but it always seemed to me
That praying is the same as begging and I don’t take no charity”
There’s a mouthful right there. Tom Ames Prayer is a classic, a song I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard before.
Train A Comin’ is loaded with great players including Peter Rowan, Norman Blake, and Roy Huskey. Had I known about it, this one would have made a strong run at my Top Ten of the 90’s list.
So now when someone asks me about Steve Earle I’ll say.
“Steve Earle, man he’s great. Have you ever heard Train A Comin? That’s a masterpiece right there.”
As my playing and singing develop (so slowly…) I recorded myself doing a couple of songs off Train A Comin. I keep a video record to reference my progress (hopeful progress) whenever I get pissed and feel like I haven’t got anywhere. I put a couple up on youtube for the hell of it.
You can see that here but please don’t judge the album on it:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ole5anddimer
A few weeks back I had the good fortune of catching Steve Earle live. He was backing his Townes Van Zandt cover album titled “Townes”. One of those situations that sort of fell into my lap at the last minute. The show was going to be solo acoustic and I doubted if Steve Earle would be able to carry a show all by himself. I wasn’t a big fan, casual at best, knew of his songs most folks know like Copperhead Road, Guitar Town, and some new stuff I heard like Jerusalem.
My expectations were far surpassed. Steve Earle is a hell of a performer, the show was great and it left me hungry to check out his records. My brother in law who went with suggested I check out Train a Comin’ and thanks to the often mentioned music case / collection my brother Brian made for me I gave it a go and it hasn’t left the player since (except to come inside the house so I could work on the opening part of Mercenary Song on guitar).
Looking back this was the second time Earle surprised me. The first time was on the great (my favorite as a matter of fact) soundtrack for the movie Dead Man Walking. I’m a Springsteen guy all the way and so it was an automatic to purchase a copy. The artists for this soundtrack included:
Springsteen
Johnny Cash
Tom Waits
Lyle Lovett
Suzanne Vega
Michelle Shocked
Eddie Vedder
Patti Smith
Mary Chapin Carpenter
And Steve Earle. I remember listening in complete wonder to the song Ellis Unit One. It was the best song on the soundtrack, a loaded soundtrack with great songs but no question Ellis Unit One was the standout. That seemed like a crazy notion at the time. After getting to know Train a Comin’ it doesn’t seem so surprising.
Train a Comin’ has the great dichotomy working that paralleled what I saw live. It is acoustic and relaxed AND KICK ASS. Now kick ass is an overused term, under the ownership of a different type of listernership you might say. When you hear the term kick ass in regards to music, bands like Skynard or Bon Jovi or Aerosmith come to mind. These bands have never by my definition kicked ass. My kick ass is Waylon Jennings, or Hank III, or Unknown Hinson.
And these are not acoustic affairs like Train a Comin. I think this is that special something that hardcore troubadour Earle fans love. Genuine kick ass; pure, deep, moving kick assification.
A perfect example of this is the song Tom Ames Prayer.
Here is a verse:
“You don’t owe me nothing and as far as I know Lord I don’t owe nothing to you.
I ain’t asking for a miracle, just a little bit a luck will do.
You know I ain’t ever prayed before but it always seemed to me
That praying is the same as begging and I don’t take no charity”
There’s a mouthful right there. Tom Ames Prayer is a classic, a song I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard before.
Train A Comin’ is loaded with great players including Peter Rowan, Norman Blake, and Roy Huskey. Had I known about it, this one would have made a strong run at my Top Ten of the 90’s list.
So now when someone asks me about Steve Earle I’ll say.
“Steve Earle, man he’s great. Have you ever heard Train A Comin? That’s a masterpiece right there.”
As my playing and singing develop (so slowly…) I recorded myself doing a couple of songs off Train A Comin. I keep a video record to reference my progress (hopeful progress) whenever I get pissed and feel like I haven’t got anywhere. I put a couple up on youtube for the hell of it.
You can see that here but please don’t judge the album on it:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ole5anddimer
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