I just got back to NYC and even though it ain't what is used to be it's always a relief to be home.
Five days back in Florida where I spent the greater part of my youth and I feel like somebody took a vacuum cleaner and stuck it in my ear and sucked out that dried up little peanut looking thing that now sits where there was once part of a brain. Since I can't seem to finish anything I start today, I'll just do what I've been doing since I got home last night, spinning 45's. Somehow these little buggers always cheer me up, they're my favorite type of record, and the perfect delivery system for rock'n'roll. Here's five great 45's, in fact, five of my absolute favorites.
First one is Tommy Jim Beam & his 4/5th's; if that isn't the coolest band name ever, it'll do 'til the coolest gets here. They were out of Fort Worth, Texas (despite the Tulsa and Nashville label info) and issued this disc on their own 100 Proof label. I'm gonna post both sides of this baby, the a-side (which I favor) is a spooky ballad called Bayou and it never fails to put chills up my spine. It's probably the best white disc ever to feature bongo drums. The b-side is a feral rocker: My Little Jewel which gets extra points for mentioning Dragnet. I believe it was released in 1958.
Next in the stack is from the great Fortune label from Detroit, Michigan. Fortune might just be the greatest label of all time, it's roster included John Lee Hooker, Nolan Strong & the Diablos, Dr. Ross, Andre Williams, Johnny Powers, Nathaniel Mayer, and this guy, Eddie Kirkland who began his career as John Lee Hooker's sidekick. He is often billed as Eddie Kirk for reasons known only to him. He's still alive and has made many great records, and is often seen beneath the ultimate sartorial touch-- a turban. He cut this canticle thrice, first on Volt as The Hawg (Pts 1 and 2), then this version retitled The Grunt, he re-cut it a third time for King as Hog Killin' Time. The year of our Lord, 1966.
Plop goes the automatic changer and the next disc that hits the turntable is Bop Cat Stomp on the Folk-Star label, a subsidiary of Eddie Shuler's Goldband Records from Lake Charles, Louisiana. The titled might make you think it's a rockabilly platter, but it's not, it's a wild R&B instrumental rocker. The artist is King Charles and his Orchestra (the orchestra being guitarist Left Handed Charlie wailing away, a sax, piano, a bass player and drummer). If they still made records like this the world would be a much better place.
Since the subject sort of came up anyways, I must say rockabilly and Goldband Records are two things that go together well as exemplified by this beat up old slice of polystyrene. Ray Vict and his Bop Rockers-- We Gonna Bop Stop Rock. I think this band's gimmick was they tuned their instruments after the song, not before it like normal people do. Have you ever heard anything like this before? Or since? I think this one is from '58 also.
Now we set the Wayback machine for Chicago, 1966 and bingo, we land on Baby Huey & the Babysitters' Monkey Man on the Satellite label (not the Satellite label from Memphis that became Stax). Baby Huey & the Babysitters where hugely popular on the frat circuit around Illinois, and the rotund Baby Huey has received much posthumous acclaim for the LP- The Baby Huey Story: Living Legend, produced by Curtis Mayfield, it's something of a funk classic. I prefer this earlier and cruder sounding disc. Baby Huey (James Ramsey) was only 26 when his heart gave out in 1970.
So keep your box sets, wax cylinders, and digital downloads, I'll take the little ones with the big holes every time. Maybe I'll do this (post five 45's) once a month, or once a week. Or never again.
I'm away for a week and won't be posting so here's a long one for you, it runs 1:17 hrs. It's put together from footage shot in the early 70's around Memphis and New Orleans by the photographer William Eggleston, one of the greatest and most famous photographers alive.
If you're in NYC you can catch the retrospective at the Whitney (which ends Jan 25th so hurry), where this is also showing. Otherwse, turn to full screen and sit back. It's mostly drunken, quaaluded out, late night debauchery you could find anywhere in the south around that time. It reminds me a lot of growning up in Florida. Although I've never seen anyone bite the head off of a chicken as seen here. And Eggleston doesn't know any paint huffers.
You'll also spot some (in)famous faces like bluesman Furry Lewis, Jim Dickinson, Jerry McGill (I think the only Sun Recording artist to go into bank robbery as a career, he made this great record with Jim Dickinson in '66, the last good Sun 45), Johnny Woods, Stanley Booth, Dewey Phillips, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, et al, all make cameos. It's fun and haunting and sometimes a bit unwatchable, but always riveting.
It was edited together by Robert Gordon, author of It Came From Memphis (Pocket Books, 1995) and Can't Be Satisfied: The Life Of Muddy Waters (Little, Brown, 2002), both excellent.
I'll be back around the end of the month and hopefully have something to say.
Nothing to say today, but I love this clip of Lightnin' Hopkins from some European TV show circa 1962. If you look close at the end you can see him spit out his fasle choppers.
Nick Tosches has something to say, check out his take on things here.
Hound Dog Taylor's left hand, count the number of fingers.
Live with Little Walter on harmonica.
Hound Dog Taylor with the House Rockers.
Here's some nice footage of Hound Dog Taylor, and that's Little Walter, near the end of his life (he was only thirty two when he died) on harp. The second clip I just added thanks to who ever left the comment. The photo is H.D.'s six fingered left paw, no he didn't use the extra pinkie to play slide, it was just there because God thought it looked cool. Although he died back in '75, Hound Dog Taylor & his House Rockers were probably the last really great blues band. Blues has become one of the most offensive marketing tools in history and by this point just the word gives me a headache, it brings to mind bands like best exemplified by Blue Hammer, the jock blues band in Terry Zwigoff's film (taken from Dan Clowes' comic book) Ghost World (2001), white guys in thrift store suits and silly hats, and idiot guitar solo worship. Or as my old pal Ike Turner said--"Who want to hear white guys imitating what the blues used to be"? But Hound Dog Taylor & his House Rockers were kinda like the punk rock of the blues, primitive, noisy and proudly showing off the chops they didn't have. They're a good place to plant the tombstone for blues, and a great band whose music hasn't dated at all-- sloppy, drunk and derivative (those are compliments), their sound makes me miss drinking. Theodore Roosevelt Taylor, born in either 1915 or 1917 in Natchez, Mississippi had been kicking around for years, cutting the odd 45 for Chess, Bea & Baby, Alley and other small labels before Bruce Iglauer started Alligator Records in Chicago to record him and his House Rockers (Brewer Phillips- guitar and Ted Harvey- drums), releasing three albums: Hound Dog Taylor & his House Rockers (which can be found here) Natural Boogie, Beware Of Dog (here), and later two more LP's of outtakes and live recordings-Genuine House Rockin' Music (here) and Release The Hound (look here, downloaders), all great, all sounding pretty much the same. They would be the only good records Alligator ever released as Alligator soon pioneered the beer commercial sound that we think of today as blues. Death to digital reverb. As Hound Dog said of himself, "When I die they're gonna say--he couldn't play shit, but it sure sounded good". Calling him derivative is besides the point, all blues (in fact all pop music) is derivative. Hound Dog Taylor based his sound on Elmore James' "Dust My Broom" riff, of course Elmore James got it from Robert Johnson, who got it from Kokomo Arnold, who got it from somebody else, it hardly matters who. On his earlier sides he comes off as just another enjoyable but fairly generic Elmore imitator (c.f. his version of Watch Out with Big Walter Horton on harp, issued by Chess in '67), but with the House Rockers' rhythm section he found a way to put his own personal stamp on the old riff, which is really what it's all about. Here's some highlights: Kitchen Sink Boogie, My Baby's Comin' Home, Roll Your Moneymaker, The Sun Is Shining, Dust My Broom and Brewer Phillips', who played the bass parts and lead guitar simultaneously, is showcased on this whacked out version of What'd I Say. They could even take a goofy tune like "She'll Be Comin' Around The Mountain" and make it rock and roll (I'd like to have heard 'em tackle "The Ink Dinky Spider"). It's obvious from these recordings that these guys were pretty drunk for most of their sessions and gigs. Now let's face it music was better when it worked on the alcohol standard (i.e., musicians were paid in booze and just enough money to buy a new set of strings). Perhaps a return to such practices would improve the dire state of modern music, if not the lifestyles of the rich and useless. I don't know if any amount of booze could help Coldplay but they sure couldn't get any worse. And I doubt if Hound Dog Taylor & his House Rockers would have sounded any better sober. The richer the artist the worse the music. Something to think about....
I really miss Dee Dee Ramone. Of all the Ramones, Dee Dee is the one I knew best. We hung out on and off for around 25 years. It was always a pleasure to run into Dee Dee, he always had a funny story, a strange antidote, bizarre things always happened to Dee Dee. In a way he sought them out, but in another way he was just a magnet for nuts and weirdos. Dee Dee was a doer, and not in a small way. Whatever Dee Dee did, he did a lot of, good or bad. When he decided he was going to be a writer he knocked off three books in less than five years, and all three are great: Poison Heart: Surviving The Ramones (with Veronica Kofman) (Firefly, 1997, this has also been published as Lobotomy), Chelsea Horror Hotel (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2001), and Legend Of A Rock Star: The Last Testament Of Dee Dee Ramone (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002). When he got into painting he churned out hundreds of paintings (with help from wife Barbara and Paul Kostabi) we bought the one pictured above. He wrote thousands of songs. When he decided to move out of New York City, he moved dozens of times, first to Argentina, then Amsterdam, then a small town in the Netherlands, then back to New York, then upstate New York, then L.A., with Ann Arbor thrown in somewhere. He got a dog, an Airedale, it died. He got another dog, also an Airedale, it died, he got another. He couldn't figure out why they kept dying. If Joey had OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), Dee Dee had CCD (Compulsive Compulsive Disorder, a condition I just made up).
When I went into the bar biz, Dee Dee really wanted me to do well so he offered to play (for free!) every Tuesday night. But since he'd long since stopped drinking he couldn't wait until show time and would just show up and start playing, sometimes before the audience even got there. If showtime was 9:30 he'd want to go on at eight, and sometimes did. He got Joey onstage with him, two weeks in a row, the first time they'd performed together since he'd left the Ramones eight years earlier, but everyone missed it because Dee Dee was insistent on going on so early! I don't even have a photo. When his novel Chelsea Horror Hotel came out he demanded that the book release party be held at the Lakeside (where the above photo was taken) instead of Barnes and Noble or someplace that would help sell the book. It was the last time I saw him. He sat an autographed books until he got bored, then plugged in his guitar, a rhythm section appeared and he played for an hour. He also gave me a tape of this song, I think it eventually was issued on a small label in Europe, he wanted it to be included if a film was ever made from the book that my wife co-wrote: Please Kill Me (by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil, Grove Press, 1996) in which Dee Dee plays a major (and hilarious) role. Hopefully such a movie will never be made. It's amazing that he was writing great tunes right up to the end of his life, he never lost his touch. We had a strange conversation that day, he was very bummed out by Joey's death and said something that would later haunt me. He had been clean for years and somebody at the bar offered him some dope, he declined but said, "If I ever kill myself that's how I'm going to do it, I'll shoot up ten bags". Five months later he was dead from an overdose, ten bags in the cooker. I'm sure he killed himself.
Of course there was the crazy Dee Dee also, as detailed in the aforementioned PKM, and also in his own books. Chelsea Horror Hotel is an interesting look inside Dee Dee's mind. It starts off like a very well written horror story, then takes a left turn into insanity, much like Dee Dee himself. I only saw the crazy side of Dee Dee occasionally. I saw much more of his good side.
He's often compared to a puppy, and that carried over to his loyal side. One story I want to share is that of a guy named Phillip Smith, a rather sleazy, low end drug dealer. Phil had lots of money and lots of coke and therefore lots of friends. Phil contracted AIDS around '90-'91 and went into Cabrini Hospital to die. It was ugly, and Phil's friends soon abandoned him, stealing everything in his apartment, etc. Except Dee Dee. Dee Dee was at the hospital almost every day for months. He gave Phil sponge baths, sang to him, brought him food and magazines and tapes. He never abandoned the guy, he was there until the bitter end. By the final days even Phil's family and girlfriend had stopped coming to the hospital but Dee Dee was loyal and stayed with Phil to the bitter end. My respect for Dee Dee jumped immeasurably. I could understand Dee Dee's freak outs and paranoia better after that, Dee Dee was willing to give a lot of himself to people and couldn't understand why they always let him down. It made him crazy.
Or crazier. The only time he ever got mad at me was when he asked me to manage him and I turned him down. He already had a publishing deal and didn't want a big record deal (and couldn't have gotten one if he did) and there was little for a manager to do except babysit and/or keep him on the road touring, something he'd long burned out on after years of touring the world as a Ramone. I felt bad turning him down but as I explained he didn't need to give up 20% of his earnings to somebody who could do little to help him, I suggested he hire a good road manager to babysit. He was mad for a couple of days then forgot about it, but I felt like I let him down. I still feel guilty.
One other thing I'd like to add is that by no means was Dee Dee dumb. The press, especially the British press loved to play up Dee Dee as idiot savant but it was an act. His thick Queen accent might have made him sound goofy but he mostly played dumb as a defense mechanism. It gave him a way to feel people out, to see if they'd try and put one over on him, but believe me, uneducated- yes, dumb, no way, Dee Dee didn't miss a trick.
I miss running into Dee Dee on the street and hearing his latest crazy story. Or the phone calls (sometimes accidental because for years me and Joey Ramone had similar phone numbers, I was 777-9408 and Joey was 777-6881, so Dee Dee would call me by mistake and often babble for minutes before I could get a word in edgewise:
Dee Dee-- "Joey, I have to talk to you, things are not right, this is fucked, we have to talk...
Me--"Dee Dee, it's Jim, not Joey, you dialed the wrong number".
Dee Dee-- "Jim Marshall? Sorry..." (phone hangs up).
(phone rings again)
Dee Dee- "Joey, this is Dee Dee...
Me-- "Dee Dee, you did it again, it's Jim".
Dee Dee-- "Sorry, you got any pot"?
Me-- "Yeah, come on over and we'll smoke a bomber..."
Dee Dee Ramone, he overcame tremendous odds to leave his mark on the world, but leave his mark he did. Every time I see a Ramones t-shirt, or hear the "Hey Ho" part of Blitzkrieg Bop at a ball game, I think of Dee Dee, and how much I miss him.
The above clip is from Lech Kowalski's movie Hey! Is Dee Dee Home? a short documentary made mostly from left over interview footage from an interview Dee Dee gave Lech for his Johnny Thunders' flick. It gives a good sense of Dee Dee's personality.
Redd Foxx. born John Elroy Sanford on Dec. 9, 1922, was as a funny motherfucker. These videos are compiled from his best LP-- You Better Wash Your Ass which was
recorded live at the Apollo at the height of his Sanford & Son fame in the early 70's.
He was raised in St. Louis and later Chicago where he attented DuSable High School where most of Sun Ra's Arkestra (John Gilmore, Pat Patrick, Marshall Allen) amongst others went.
He never graduated. He hit New York in the late 40's and got a job washing dishes. The other dishwasher at the joint was Malcom Little, later Malcom X. Redd was known as Chicago Red, Malcom as Detroit Red. As recounted in his autobiography (The Autobiography Of Malcom X, co-written by Alex Haley, I can't find my copy but it's easy to find so you don't need the publishing info) they had some wild times together.
Foxx made his name first on the chitlin' circuit, recorded dozens of LP's for the Dootone label in L.A., and became a huge draw in Vegas where stars like Frank Sinatra and Elvis showed up nightly to catch his act and be insulted. He even cut some decent R&B discs, here's one from Savoy cut in '48-- Let's Wiggle A Little Woogie, and here's one from his own Foxx label from the 80's -- Pussy Footin'. Not great but not bad at all, certainly better than anything that's hit the top ten this century. His sound didn't change much in forty years. Redd Foxx was the only entertainer invited to Elvis' wedding. Later Elvis gave him a watch worth $100,00 (in 1968 dollars), it was later sold at auction by the IRS. In the early 70's Foxx found mainstream fame on TV as Fred G. Sanford in Sanford and Son, a remake of a British show called Steptoe and Son. Fred G. Sanford was the name of his late real life brother. My favorite episode is when Fred and son Lionel (Demond Wilson) find the Blind Mellow Jelly 78's and donate them to the library, then steal them back when they find a record collector willing to pay $20 a pop for 'em. On Sanford and Son he hired many of his chitlin' circuit pals like Lawanda Page as Aunt Esther, Whitman Mayo as Grady, Slappy White as Melvin, Leroy "Sloppy" Daniels as Leroy, not to mention Stymie from the Little Rascals (Mathew Beard) who appeared in a couple of episodes as Otis Littlejohn.
Foxx also made a memorable film appearance in Ossie Davis' Cotton Comes To Harlem which was based on the Chester Himes novel (with the classic evil cop duo Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, all of Himes' books are worth reading, but the Grave Digger/Coffin Ed series are essential).
I saw Redd Foxx perform several times (and I hate stand up comedy) and he was one of the greatest performers I've ever witnessed.
He was brutal on anyone who caught his attention, especially hecklers. The last time I saw him he walked out onstage with a breast shaped pitcher full of some sort of alcohol and quipped-- "I got this from Betty Ford". Then he looked at a guy at a front table (this was at the Desert Inn in Vegas) and said-- "Last thing I seen that ugly had a string hangin' out of it". Well, it when he said it, it was funny. Anyway, if the three clips above don't make you laugh, have somebody take your pulse, you're probably dead.
Addendum: Great interview with Iggy on the subject of Ron Asheton can be heard here.
Very sad, I'm not sure I ever heard Iggy cry before.
James "The Hound" Marshall is a former WFMU deejay (1985-97), music writer and bar owner (Lakeside Lounge NYC, Circle Bar, New Orleans). He has contributed articles to dozens of mags and newspapers including the Village Voice, NY Times, LA Weekly, Spin, Penthouse Forum, New York Rocker, Newark Star-Ledger, East Village Eye, High Times (columnist for ten years), Kicks, and worse.
He also wrote liner notes to CD re-issues by Larry Williams and Johnny Guitar Watson, Ray Price, Eric Ambel, Challenge Records,The Okeh R&B Box, and others as well as compiling three volumes of the early rock'n'roll compilations Jook Block Busters (Valmor). At age 17 he edited two issues of the punk fanzine New Order (1977) He was born in Paterson, N.J. and raised mostly in Broward County, Florida, moving to New York City at age 18 in 1977 and has resided there ever since except for 1998-2002 when he split his time between New York and New Orleans. He has been acclaimed in print in the New York Times, Village Voice, Time Out New York, New York Magazine,The Manhattan Catalogue, and other publications you wouldn't be caught dead reading.
I just got back to NYC and even though it ain't what is used to be it's always a relief to be home.
Five days back in Florida where I spent the greater part of my youth and I feel like somebody took a vacuum cleaner and stuck it in my ear and sucked out that dried up little peanut looking thing that now sits where there was once part of a brain. Since I can't seem to finish anything I start today, I'll just do what I've been doing since I got home last night, spinning 45's. Somehow these little buggers always cheer me up, they're my favorite type of record, and the perfect delivery system for rock'n'roll. Here's five great 45's, in fact, five of my absolute favorites.
First one is Tommy Jim Beam & his 4/5th's; if that isn't the coolest band name ever, it'll do 'til the coolest gets here. They were out of Fort Worth, Texas (despite the Tulsa and Nashville label info) and issued this disc on their own 100 Proof label. I'm gonna post both sides of this baby, the a-side (which I favor) is a spooky ballad called Bayou and it never fails to put chills up my spine. It's probably the best white disc ever to feature bongo drums. The b-side is a feral rocker: My Little Jewel which gets extra points for mentioning Dragnet. I believe it was released in 1958.
Next in the stack is from the great Fortune label from Detroit, Michigan. Fortune might just be the greatest label of all time, it's roster included John Lee Hooker, Nolan Strong & the Diablos, Dr. Ross, Andre Williams, Johnny Powers, Nathaniel Mayer, and this guy, Eddie Kirkland who began his career as John Lee Hooker's sidekick. He is often billed as Eddie Kirk for reasons known only to him. He's still alive and has made many great records, and is often seen beneath the ultimate sartorial touch-- a turban. He cut this canticle thrice, first on Volt as The Hawg (Pts 1 and 2), then this version retitled The Grunt, he re-cut it a third time for King as Hog Killin' Time. The year of our Lord, 1966.
Plop goes the automatic changer and the next disc that hits the turntable is Bop Cat Stomp on the Folk-Star label, a subsidiary of Eddie Shuler's Goldband Records from Lake Charles, Louisiana. The titled might make you think it's a rockabilly platter, but it's not, it's a wild R&B instrumental rocker. The artist is King Charles and his Orchestra (the orchestra being guitarist Left Handed Charlie wailing away, a sax, piano, a bass player and drummer). If they still made records like this the world would be a much better place.
Since the subject sort of came up anyways, I must say rockabilly and Goldband Records are two things that go together well as exemplified by this beat up old slice of polystyrene. Ray Vict and his Bop Rockers-- We Gonna Bop Stop Rock. I think this band's gimmick was they tuned their instruments after the song, not before it like normal people do. Have you ever heard anything like this before? Or since? I think this one is from '58 also.
Now we set the Wayback machine for Chicago, 1966 and bingo, we land on Baby Huey & the Babysitters' Monkey Man on the Satellite label (not the Satellite label from Memphis that became Stax). Baby Huey & the Babysitters where hugely popular on the frat circuit around Illinois, and the rotund Baby Huey has received much posthumous acclaim for the LP- The Baby Huey Story: Living Legend, produced by Curtis Mayfield, it's something of a funk classic. I prefer this earlier and cruder sounding disc. Baby Huey (James Ramsey) was only 26 when his heart gave out in 1970.
So keep your box sets, wax cylinders, and digital downloads, I'll take the little ones with the big holes every time. Maybe I'll do this (post five 45's) once a month, or once a week. Or never again.
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