A trend among singer-songwriters today is to give a “stay safe” salute, and offer a free song or two via social media. With so many concerts postponed because of the pandemic, it’s been nice to see Randy Newman concoct a new song about the problem (“Stay Away”), and solemn Paul Simon offer his masochistic “American Tune” to give us some comfort, and Elvis Costello sitting in his quarantine answering questions submitted by fans after launching into “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding.” It keeps us all together. For one thing, we’ve learned that Randy, Paul and Elvis are just like you and me: they have shitty cellphones. It was pretty bizarre to see these three, who are often very particular about the high tech level of their recordings, willing to toss items out that are either in that uncomfortable vertical format, or recorded on what seems like an open-box Panasonic camcorder bought from Best Buy ten years ago. You see better quality fan bootlegs of their concerts on YouTube! Over at Farcebook…er, Facebook…many have done one-on-one concert broadcasts. Last night it was a 90 minute intimate concert from Allison Moorer. She averaged about 500 listeners throughout the show.
Her song choices were based on fans submitting requests. A few lucky people who wrote in were randomly gifted with prizes…Allison giving away autographed copies of her book “Blood,” her album on orange vinyl, and some other fun things.
One song she didn’t perform was “When You Wake Up Feeling Bad.” Not enough people asked? Or was it too much of a downer to include? This was the song that introduced me to her work. She performed it on David Letterman's show. It’s pretty rare when any artist on the Illfolks blog actually gets to be on David Letterman’s show, but she did. The song is on "Crows," which reached #11 on Billboard’s “US Folk Albums” chart. It was released on the Rykodisc label in 2010. I'm sure it was Dave's love of unusual singer-songwriters (he adored Zevon) that led to this appearance, rather than a push from Moorer's indie label.
Too many people these days WAKE UP FEELING BAD...blinking their eyes to realize the reality of another weird day of social distancing, and not making enough money, and wondering who the next Covid-19 casualty will be and if it's a fatality or a recovery (nice to know TOM RUSH has recovered).
So what did I do when I heard about the coronavirus from China? I went to my favorite local Chinese joint, and I ordered chow fon (aka chow fun…some menus spell it differently). I wanted my Asian pals to know that I wasn’t afraid they were carrying the virus, and that I was supporting their fine, fine food. (Music hath charms…I never heard of “chow fon” until Paul Simon sang about having a plate of it stolen from him.) Unfortunately, most Chinese restaurants have now shuttered, because either the staff couldn’t get to work, or because there was a huge disruption in obtaining the special ingredients needed. While ordinary stores couldn't keep toilet paper, soap, and eventually canned goods and boxed pasta in stock, Chinese restaurants found their distributors unable to import supplies or deliver them. OH, another reason Chinese restaurants began to close, and the various Chinatowns in major cities became ghost towns…some racists out there were blaming Chinese Americans for the bat-shit-crazy bat eaters and “exotic animal” slurpers (raw monkey brains, anyone?) who have started epidemics from obscure regions in China.
So let's all sing along with Eric Idle! "I LIKE CHINESE"
Of course, everyone's sense of humor is a bit different. Isn't it, lady...
It's unfair to blame all Chinese for what a few ignorant peasants do in China itself. BUT it IS time for China to take action. If they can restrict their citizens to one child each, they can certainly clamp down on wacko Asian markets where unclean and disgusting “delicacies” are sold…ones that mutate into deadly diseases.
It’s very rare when the conservatives and the liberals agree on anything, but in the case of Covid-19 (there were 18 previous ones?) aka coronavirus (which had people refusing to drink Corona brand beer), a few think that the REAL name should indeed be the “Chinese Virus” or the “Wuhan Flu.” Trump himself has used one of those terms, but guess who agrees with Donnie Orange, for a change? Yes, Bill Maher, the man Trump once sued. Here's Bill Maher's editorial last week on why we SHOULD call this plague the "Chinese Flu" or "Wuhan Flu."
Here's hoping that things get back to normal soon, that such a thing NEVER happens again, and that we can all go back to our favorite Chinese restaurants just for fun. Or for chow fun. Or for whatever your own favorite might be....
There was nothing amusing about the passing of Julie Felix, except perhaps one obituary which offered a caption that made it seem that she was about to smoke a joint.
Back when there were proofreaders and copy editors, that line would've been re-written so that the line break wouldn't be so odd. As in, "Use her full name, JULIE Felix, so that "joint performance" is on the second line. Anyway.... Julie was sort of known as the Joan Baez of England, since she covered Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs (as Joan did) and had a Latino father. She was actually born in America, but turned up in the U.K. in 1964, exploring the emerging folk clubs that were also luring Paul Simon and so many others. Just as Paul was signed first in the U.K. and put out his "Paul Simon Songbook" there, Julie was quickly signed to Decca. A song from the album, "Someday Soon," got her an appearance on "The Eamonn Andrews Show," and from there, regular work on "The Frost Report."
Some might recall that Frost's "That Was the Week That Was" made a star out of Millicent Martin, and the American version did likewise for Nancy Ames. So it was that regular appearances on the new "Frost Report" series helped Julie remain firmly in the public eye. She covered Phil Ochs on her 1966 album "Changes" and sang with him on a Swedish TV show. Brian Epstein did his part, booking Julie and Georgie Fame together for a popular series of "Fame & Felix" shows in 1967. 1967 was also the year Julie got her own BBC show. Leonard Cohen made his UK debut on it. Julie's eclectic interests also allowed for Spike Milligan to guest on the show, too. In 1969, when Bob Dylan appeared at the Isle of Wight festival, so did Julie.
She sang "Changes" with Phil Ochs on a Swedish TV show, and like Baez, Julie kept Phil's spirit alive by covering his songs in concerts over these many decades. Here's Julie singing Leonard Cohen's "That's No Way to Say Goodbye" and then Phil's "Flower Lady."
Julie's cover of Paul Simon's "El Condor Pasa" gave her one more Top 20 hit in 1970. At the age of 80, she released (that's "dropped" for any of you under 30 in age or IQ) her final album, "Rock Me Goddess." Well, "Folk Me Goddess" wouldn't have sounded right, would it? But Julie Felix sure was the goddess of folk-rock. Julie Ann Felix (June 14, 1938 – March 22, 2020).
Not everybody dies on their birthday. Eddie Cooley did (April 15, 1933-April 15, 2020). Not everybody co-writes ONE mammoth hit song and no more. With Otis Blackwell, Eddie penned "Fever," first recorded by Little Willie John and then turned into a classic by Peggy Lee. Not everybody can sound like he might be of a different race, and get onto the charts that way. Yet DJ Alan Freed promoted a "rockabilly" tune called "Priscilla" that sounded no different from what Presley might do, but...no, it was Eddie and "The Dimples" (the Coates sisters and Barbara Sanders).
The song, originally on the Roost label and then picked up by Roulette, drifted around the edge of the Top 20 on the Billboard charts, but that was it for Eddie Cooley and The Dimples. As a songwriter, Eddie had a minor hit with "Aw Shucks Baby" (sung by the hefty Tiny Topsy).
Hopefully, in those days before Spotify and Piracy, Eddie got enough royalty checks to keep him comfortable, and to supplement whatever else he did over these many years. Death is final, all right, but "Fever" keeps burning.
This is a music blog, so we honor the passing of the legendary Honor Blackman with a look back at the highlights from this, her only album. Considering her long, fantastic career, most obits didn't even bother to mention the record, but for the record, it's a good one.
Some find "celebrities who sing" awfully funny. Honor Blackman did...when she tried to duet with Patrick Macnee on the novelty song "Kinky Boots." You might recall that Macnee titled his autobiography "Blind In One Ear." That could've referred to his singing. Still, he managed to sort of "talk" his way through that tune, and "Avengers" fans were delighted.
It was in 1964, when Honor Blackman made the athletic leap from Cathy Gale to Pussy Galore that she was asked to cash in with a REAL record album. The idea wasn't novelty. It was to cover Rodgers and Hart, The Beatles (well, McCartney...HE wrote "World Without Love") and Aznavour. She acknowledged in the liner notes that she was
not a professional singer, but figured what the fuck (I'm not quoting exactly) she'd give it a try.
And she did good. Most of the tracks are very entertaining for the right reasons.
No
surprise that her most effective tracks were more spoken than sung,
most notably a fierce and passionate reading of Charles Aznavour's
venomously sulky "Tomorrow Is My Turn." With the words now becoming more the focus than the music, Blackman's actually far more effective than Nina Simone, (pardon the sacrilege). Like an actress working in Broadway musicals rather than a
professional singer working in nightclubs (Gwen Verdon, Angela Lansbury
and Chita Rivera would all be in that latter category) on the numbers that do require she stay on key, Honor
puts over the tunes with panache if not pitch-perfection. "To Keep My Love Alive"
is a show tune from Rodgers and Hart, and since it involves MURDER, it's a perfect choice for Blackman. Less successful, but kind of cute, is her attempt at pop via "World
Without Love." Then there's "C'est Droll," in which our gutsy lady attempts an over-emotional ballad sung in French!
It's all in the zip file, which should download easily for you. Years later, after the William Shatners of the world had turned celebrity-vocals into an art form, Honor was sometimes asked to return to the microphone for talk-singing, most notably in live performances of "The Star Who Fell From Grace." Meanwhile, that "Everything I've Got" album actually won a re-issue.
The title track, another cheerfully vicious femme-fatale number from Rodgers and Hart, had been covered by everyone from Blossom Dearie to Ella Fitzgerald, including Barbara Carroll, Betty Garrett (with Milton Berle!), Morgana King, Annie Ross, Nancy Walker (yes, the comic actress) and Meg Myles, among others, but again, top honors to Blackman.
Individual songs from it are also streaming on YouTube for your free listening pleasure. You DO know how to use an app or a download service to convert YouTube to MP3, and own 'em for your very own, don't you?
The four best songs from the album, zip-file style (see DOWNLOAD button top right corner of the website page):
How many hipsters, flippin' through the record rack bargain bin, thought, “Hey, is THIS guy the SENSATIONAL Alex Harvey? He sort of looks like him? No? Maybe not? These song titles don’t seem like him…uh….do I waste a buck to find out?”
Hmmm. No. "Alex Harvey" from Tennessee was completely different from Scotland's eternal delinquent, "Alex Harvey." All they have in common is they both recorded and are both dead.
Like so many others on this blog, Alex Harvey was not a household word, and not the type of artist that would have lonely bloggers in Holland crying out, "Here's an entire discography, PLEASE tell me you LOVE me with a NICE comment." Nor was he so hip, that clueless nitwits in Sweden, Croatia or Turkey would proudly swipe everything he did, say "I'm posting this for FUN," and expect a NICE comment like, "Keep going, you aren't some retired fart with no respect for music, you're another Clive Davis or Dave Marsh...you know it all." Or at least, know how to steal not only the music, but a few lines off "All Music" or somebody else for whom English isn't a second language. You get more than an R.I.P. over here. You get the item below. It's Alex Harvey, doing what so many denizens who end up on the Illfolks blog did...performing in front of a very small audience for very little money. But that doesn't matter if the result is something moving, and artistic.
Yes, Alex Harvey performs his two best known songs, "Reuben James" and "Delta Dawn." But listen to how he introduces "Delta Dawn," and the story behind that song. It's memorable. Put it that way.
Thomas Alexander Harvey (Mach 10-1947-Apr 4, 2020) had a lengthy career as a singer/songwriter, but is remembered mostly as the latter…the writer of “Reuben James” (a hit for the late Kenny Rogers) and “Delta Dawn,” which kept coming back for more radio play via everyone from Tanya Tucker to Bette Midler. Those were the days when a hit song could buy you a HOUSE…and maybe even enough residuals to pay for its upkeep year after year. In fact, if you want to know, those were the days when a semi-hit could buy you a HOUSE, too, or a co-write of a hit (which is why so many pricks and cunts, from Al Jolson to Joan Jett, would want to put their names on a song they didn’t write, JUST because the songwriter, so they figured, wasn’t going to get on the charts without those talented tonsils.) Alex, in terms of vinyl, had his best luck in the 70’s, when he released (that’s DROPPED, for you youngsters) five albums in the decade. After only one in the 80’s and two in the 90’s, he averaged an album a year from 2001 to 2005, and issued his last in 2015 (“Texas 101”) and 2018 (“Heart of the Art in Song”). In Harvey’s day, “crossover” was not much of a word, and so “Delta Dawn,” now considered a standard, was Grammy-nominated in the “Best Country Song” category. And lost. Still, he won over so many with his songs and his performances, and always will. It would've been nice if the music biz hadn't collapsed before he did, and he'd been treated to one of those re-issie packages with great CD notes, rare unreleased tracks and super sound quality. But hell, let's give a thank ya to YouTube, for making this item available free. Money ain't everything.
Yes, John Prine qualifies for turning up here on the “blog of less renown.” Although successful, he remained something of a cult figure, admired by those who like “roots” music, or tunes with a slightly quirky twist on country music. One of his better known songs remains “Sam Stone,” about a man coming back from Vietnam with an addiction to drugs. Prine appreciated that Johnny Cash covered this song and helped get him noticed, and tactfully shrugged off the way Cash changed the cynical and despairing “Jesus Christ died for nothing” to “Daddy must have hurt a lot.”
What's above, is my own favorite, a wonderfully lame and droll tribute to how two people can stay together despite their very human faults. The bonus is that John's partner in grime is played by the great Iris Dement, who first turns up at 2:18 with anecdotal remarks that would send most any other woman hitchin' down the highway as far away from that guy as possible. Ah, Dement, you sing them pungent lines so well, lines you wouldn’t expect to hear in a lyric by anyone other than Prine. In his latter years, recovering from neck cancer and continuing to tour and to create music on his own “Oh Boy” record label, Prince had plenty of famous people supporting him and playing with him. Duly noted, as well, is that along with C&W singer Joe Diffie, jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis and jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, John Prine’s life was shortened by the COVID-19 virus. One of the lesser known victims is Hal Willner, who might be known for his various “tribute” albums and concerts as well as his many decades of contributing to “Saturday Night Live.” From Seth Meyers to Al Franken to Van Dyke Parks to Joan Jett, the tributes have poured in. One of his oddest projects was his own solo album, which had elements of Parks, Zappa, and other weirdos, as he did everything from slow down his voice and gimmick “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” to fuck up his voice and add jazz to the W.C. Fields/British Music Hall recitation “Fatal Glass of Beer,” which you see below:
No harm done. It was a throwaway album, the kind of thing a lot of Illfolks blog favorites have done for their own indie labels or for CD Baby...things that end up getting 50 or 250 hits on YouTube and are only amusing to a very small circle of oddballs. It's just something to do while the world continues to deteriorate. Among those currently being treated for Covid-19: Jackson Browne, Christopher Cross, Pink, Rita Wilson and Marianne Faithfull.
This disease, along with various other forms of flu (and the rise in a variety of insane illnesses and fatal maladies unknown only a few decades ago) is symptomatic of this crowded, unsanitary, reckless, over-populated, crude world.
The irresponsible idiots who are destroying it are aided and abetted by politicians who not only refused to nip Covid-19 in the bud, but de-funded those who monitor such diseases. World leaders have a literally sickening record of neglect and stupidity in not emphatically enforcing sanitation and birth control, and allocating more money to health care. Epidemics and pandemics are not going to end as long as there's filth, backward notions on the safe handling of food, and weird ideas of what is FOOD and what ISN'T.
At the very least, there should be a permanent end to handshaking and overcrowding, and a greater awareness of how dangerous it is to live life as a clueless selfish moron.
