Saturday, September 20, 2014

Boston Trilogy 2014

Jimmy Webb wrote a book about songwriting back in 1998 called TUNESMITH and thanks to Gavin O'Keefe's recommending it to me, I finally read it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had taught myself many of the tricks he advocated. In fact, it reminded me that one of my old songs from the early 70s was written on the piano with Glen Campbell in mind, and it was Jimmy Webb songs that made Campbell into one of the biggest cross-over stars of that time. So I redid "Boston Trilogy" and asked Gavin to add some viola and voila! A Knees Calhoon Jimmy Webblike song.


Back in the 90s when I recorded just about all of my original songs on a Yamaha 4-track cassette recorder, I did this song for the first time. Is the 2014 version better? That's the question I ask myself every time I redo a song.




Thursday, September 11, 2014

Maybe It's the Wind

In the future, which is now, when books are digitized and transmitted as a couple of million bytes of data, will there be any excuse for listing the words of a song in a book and NOT providing an mp3 (or whatever) so the reader can hear the song as he reads it?

Back in the mid-60s when Jim Thompson wrote SOUTH OF HEAVEN he may have had a melody and arrangement in mind for this song, but only the lyrics were included in the book. But in 2014 Knees Calhoon spied the lyrics, which conveniently rhymed and had rhythm, and decided to see how they sounded sung over the first chord pattern that occurred to him.


Disclaimer: I moved some of the lines around to get the song to fit a three-verse pattern. I have a feeling that the song, as imagined and maybe produced by Jim Thompson, was more sophisticated than my version. It's doubtful that Jim would have opted for two vocal lines, an octave apart, each run through a harmonizer that raised the bass one an octave and lowered the high one an octave. It's reminiscent of one of my favorite scenes from Get Smart. Max is getting some spy equipment from Carlson for an assignment where he'll be undercover as a reporter. He gets a camera (which Carlson explains is actually a tape recorder) and a tape recorder (which is a camera). When Max asks Carlson why he didn't keep the camera a camera and the recorder a recorder, Carlson replies: "Because my mind doesn't work that way."

It's not easy to decipher my singing so here are the lyrics, copyright by Jim Thompson

A while ago as I sat there, counting the cracks in the floor,
Trying to blot out the future, to forget all that happened before,
I heard a baby crying, and I saw a face I’d known.
But the kid was dead and the face and head were crying there alone.
Wailing in infinite sorrow, sucking its finger tips
Till nothing was left but the marrow and the feebly gnawing lips,
But maybe it’s the wind, kid. Maybe it’s the wind.

The devil and a bearded saint peeked through the door at me.
The devil had a smoky taint, the saint a golden key.
The devil laughed, and he said to him, “I keep all whom I take.”
And he bound me there to that very chair with a ten-foot rattlesnake,
Then I heard the woman’s scream when the club came down on her back,
And the starving hounds on the grassy mounds where the dead fight off attack,
But maybe it’s the wind, kid. Maybe it’s the wind.

Maybe it’s the wind that aching hungry breeze
That blows all hell loose through the lid of one contagious sneeze?
Or the gasps for breath as the rope brings death while mob-fire turns bodies black,
Or the mad men, the bad men, and the sad and the glad men who rape and murder and sack,
Where the bombs explode and the shells erode where the sinned-against have sinned,
But maybe. Just Maybe. Maybe it’s the wind.
Maybe it's the wind.
Maybe it's the wind.


BONUS COVER!

After all that mayhem here's a tune by Warren Zevon that poses a possible solution.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Cherokee Fiddle

I like doing songs I have an attachment to, for one reason or another. Cherokee Fiddle was written by Michael Martin Murphy in the early 80s and was a big hit by Johnny Lee in the Midnight Cowboy movie. It's about a guy who played fiddle for tips in Durango CO when the train came in filled with tourists. His name was Scooter. I saw him play many times and a few times he played a song or two with my band at the Palace Cabaret or Francisco's in the early 70s.


From the first time I heard this song I knew it was about Scooter, but to be sure I asked Michael Murphy and he assured me it was, although he mainly remembered seeing Scooter in Silverton. I asked him in Las Cruces NM in the mid 80s when he was in town for a concert and judging a songwriting contest. I saw the concert -- fantastic -- and the song I played electric piano on won the contest.