A Maharaja at the 100 Club: James Booker in London, 1977, recalled

I was eighteen years old, new in London, and eager for blues and related art forms, when I was lucky to wander into the 100 Club on Oxford Street, in, I think, October 1977, to see the New Orleans pianist James Booker. ‘Lucky’ is an understatement. I had the night pegged as the gig of my life at the time, and nothing I’ve seen since has knocked it off its pedestal. I knew Dr John - In the Right Place was already a firm favourite - and I dug ‘I Want to Walk You Home’ and ‘Walkin' to New Orleans’ like everyone else, but these didn't quite prepare for James Carroll Booker III. Introspection, vulnerability, self-examination and soul-baring emotion are not what you associate with Fats, Little Richard, Lee Dorsey and the rest. What Booker offered was outside my experience of New Orleans music. Sure, he took the piano style of Professor Longhair to new heights of virtuosity, but he offered something else: ‘gumbo’ as a secret source of healing power, perhaps. 

Support came from Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts (two sets from the Thunderbolts; two sets from Booker) but I only had eyes for Booker. He certainly cut a dash, with a star on his eye-patch (he lost an eye through shooting bad heroin, it was said), and a diamond on his front tooth that flashed in the spotlight every time he smiled, or, just as often, grimaced (it was hard to tell which was which). The mystery was how anyone could acquire such musical skill and be so comprehensively, mortally wrecked when either would be a lifetime's accomplishment for lesser mortals. The concert coincided with a sustained acid flashback on the part of the performer, of which we were treated to a running commentary as he played. Innocuous songs took on a new harrowing force. ‘Lonely Avenue’, the Ray Charles tune, was not a boy-loses-girl song, as previously supposed, but was transformed into a graphic trip through cold turkey.

The entire performance was driven by freakish, fantastic anxiety. It was impossible to foretell what the maestro would play or say next. Fats Domino and Dr John tunes were strung together. Or should I say, ‘strung out’ together: addiction was a running theme. ‘Right Place, Wrong Time’ itself became a boogie-woogie rollercoaster ride that communicated elation, danger and panic in lightning succession, with the extreme mood swings that typify junkiedom: “I was in the right place, it must have been the wrong time / I said the right thing / Must have used the wrong lines…" And, in keeping with his confessional tone: “It was the right arm / I must have used the wrong vein.” ‘Junco Partner’, the ultimate doper anthem, was given a hell-bent, demonically gleeful delivery. Dark secrets emerged. It seems he sold  ‘So Swell’ to Aretha. The disclosure made perfect sense. ‘So Swell’ has the pay-off line: “You're so swell when you're well / You've just been sick so long.” Vengeful self-loathing was never Aretha's thing, whereas Booker made it his own. 

The piano-playing was incomparable. Imagine Professor Longhair raised to the level of Liszt, larded with unlikely motifs and quotations. The Woody Woodpecker theme and Flight of the Bumble Bee surfaced with obsessive regularity. And whole tunes, not just licks, were repeated. ‘Please Send Me Someone To Love’, which equates personal loneliness with nuclear holocaust, received two airings. It was as if Booker had been forewarned that this was his last night on earth. In fact, he finally shuffled off to boogie-woogie heaven six years later, in 1983, at the age of 43.

The spirit of that night is most faithfully captured on The Piano Prince From New Orleans and Blues & Ragtime From New Orleans, two live LPs recorded in Germany on a tour the preceding year. He's sporting an Afro on their respective covers, whereas I remember him as he appeared on the cover of Boogie Woogie & Ragtime Piano Contest, recorded in Zurich on the 27 November 1977, and in the picture that heads this blog, with the distinctive star eye patch, which he's also sporting on the cover of Junco Partner, Island Records, 1976: the definitive studio album, not that I would pass on anything by Booker. James Booker: Manchester 1977, was recorded at Belle Vue Manchester the same week as the 100 Club appearance. The backing musicians, including Norman Beaker and Dave Lunt, contrive to iron out Booker's idiosyncrasies, but it’s a worthy document (on Document Records actually). However, Booker had evidently come down from the acid. And now comes a documentary film, Bayou Maharaja – of which I’ve heard glowing reports. 'Bayou Maharaja' looks set to join all those other titles, like ‘The Piano Prince of New Orleans’, ‘Little Chopin in Living Colour’ and ‘Black Liberace’, which so signally failed to attract attention in his lifetime. 

Revenant Records from a Recovered Time Capsule

"revenant, rav-na, rev'a-nant, n. one who returns after a long absence, esp. from the dead..." –

                                                                                                 Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary

A vinyl time capsule has returned to haunt me. It happened that I squirrelled away a bunch of records in Dad’s loft in an attempt to free up some space in my cluttered flat. This was long enough ago for me to forget all about it. But when Dad cleared his loft, it pleased him to return my LPs. He entrusted delivery to brother Ant, who drives a car. The lapse between commission and execution lasted a year, until finally, just before Christmas, I took receipt of eight cardboard boxes containing around two dozen LPs apiece. I had mixed feelings about this. What might I find? My record collection is anyway a refuge for the unloved and unwanted. Rejects from the Mike Butler Home for Vinyl Waifs and Strays must be very, very bad indeed. Or so you might think.  

What I found was… well, a surfeit of Duke Ellington and a glut of Mahalia Jackson. Both artists crossed from being top of their respective fields to mainstream popularity (they collaborated once), and both recorded prolifically. The crumbs off Duke’s table were eagerly pounced upon by the small Stardust label. Stardust #204 is called simply Volume Four, and documents a concert at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, on April 30th, 1947. It could be a bootleg, for the minimal, handmade packaging (pasted text on front; blank white on the back), which betokens genuine love and enthusiasm. The knowledgeable notes are prefaced by an unsourced quotation, presumably from Shakespeare: 

Who governs here? A noble 

Duke, in nature as in name. 

Where should this music be? 

i’ the air or the earth?

Resolutely lo-fi, in fact, but clearly a magical night. 

Mahalia Jackson fell into the clutches of small labels too, but majors abused her talents more grievously. Here, the Columbia (GB) and Columbia (USA) mix-up becomes a live issue, because Mahalia Jackson appears on both labels. Columbia (USA) – let’s call them CBS for the sake of clarity – were the worst for turning sanctimony into saccharine. My Faith, CBS 62944, burdens the great gospel singer with a choir and strings, plunders Chopin (‘Tristesse Etude Op. 10 No. 3’ appears as ‘My Faith’, credited to ‘G. Howe/A. Hansen’), wilfully ignores the scepticism  of ‘Lost in the Stars’ and is generally tailored to the tastes and pieties of Middle America. Garden of Prayer, CBS 62841, is heading that way – the choir on track one, the title song, sound impeccably clean-cut, starchy and white – but matters improve. Indeed, Garden of Prayer rivals Mahalia’s pre-CBS recordings on Apollo. These were licensed in the UK by Columbia, the EMI subsidiary. No Matter How You Pray (Columbia 33SX 1712) – dig the eerie organ! – and In The Upper Room (Columbia 33SX 1753) clearly derive from the same sessions. The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer (Philips B 07077 L) is best of the lot. Mahalia always excels with a small combo, and any record with the legend “accompanied by the Falls-Jones Ensemble” is a guarantee of excellence. As Sister Rosetta Tharpe is to guitar (i.e. a holy roller precursor of rock ’n’ roll), so is Mildred Falls to piano.   

I was clearly over-dosing on Mahalia at the time, with all the above, plus the double album compilation, This Is Mahalia Jackson, The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer (CBS S 66241) and Mahalia (CBS 62659) consigned to the time capsule, presumably because of musical value and/or condition. What did I choose to keep? What, in other words, is my choice as the defining statement of Mahalia Jackson’s art? Readers, Mahalia (so many Mahalias!) on Columbia EMI 33SX 1698 contains the essence of Mahalia.    

Those other Duke Ellingtons, by the way, are The Duke Steps Out (RCA, RD-7731), At the Cote D’Azur (Verve, SVLP 9170), and, with Johnny Hodges, Back to Back and Side by Side (VSP 11/12). It's slightly disconcerting to find Ellington sounding so silly on RD-7731. The collaborations with Hodges are pretty indispensable, but I have the two originals in better shape. 

If I undervalued Duke Ellington, I was also guilty of seriously undervaluing Muhal Richard Abrams. A bunch of mid-80s recordings on Black Saint sound wonderful. Namely View From Within (BSR 0081) and Spihumonesty (BSR 0032). I exclude Duet (BSR 0051), a collaboration with Amina Claudine Myers (piano duets often grate: it’s something to do with all that clashing, jangling activity in the same tonal register). Conclusion: it takes between 85 and 35 years for me to catch up with what the most advanced musicians are laying down.

Or as Swamp Dogg put it, Finally Caught Up With Myself. That’s here (Musicor, MUS-2504). It’s lightweight, low budget, but typically irrepressible Dogg. And here’s another production by Jerry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg: Ruby Andrews’ Kiss This (Ichiban, ICH 1104). No disgrace, pretty nifty, albeit hampered by a cheesy 80s production sound. Kiss This was actually recorded in 1991. Not a great year for soul, but neither was 1980, on the evidence of Candi Staton’s self-titled LP (Warner Brothers WB 56 803), which finds the soul belle comprehensively steamrollered by Disco . But, hey, 1974 was a year of wonders. What’s Danger High Voltage by Betty Wright (RCA SF 8408) doing here?  The sleeve is worn, but the music! Good times, good lovin’ and good grooves are joyously affirmed. 

Also in the ‘What Was I Thinking Of?’ category is Dr John, 16 Greatest Hits (Trip, TOP-16-1). Perhaps the unappealing picture of the Doctor on the cover put me off, or the budget label, or the ragbag nature of the collection. Whatever, no matter what the source (plainly someone else – Ronnie Barron? – is singing the wistful ‘Did She Mention My Name’), this is definitive Dr John. ‘Cat and Mouse Game’ prefigures ‘Such a Night’ (love the eccentrically prolonged coda), and Mac sounds as smashed on ‘Trader John’ as he does on Gris Gris; ‘Xmas in New Orleans’ is one of the great unsung Christmas songs and ‘Woman is the Root of All Evil’ has a winningly nonsensical pay-off line (“Money is worse, but it’s legal”). 

And a 12” single of 1979 vintage, ‘One More Chance’ by Linval Thompson, on Greensleeves, has it all: roots rocking groove, sweet harmonies, a Dub vanishing trick in the extended version: even an irresistible rude toast on the flip, ‘Long Time Me Na Rub You in a Dance’. I must have been mad to part with this! 

This becomes my refrain as superb LP follows superb LP. What can I say? To open your ears is the basic requirement of music appreciation, and my callow self clearly had hearing issues. It’s becomes particularly useful (opening your ears) when it comes to a spot of jazz. Irina by the Barry Altschul Quartet (Soul Note, SN 1065) is graced by sidemen of the order of Enrico Rava and John Surman. This, in 1983, so just before Surman’s hermit-like withdrawal to the ECM Ivory Tower, and a steady string of one-man albums. Yet Surman’s finest moments are group endeavours, like, oh, Extrapolation, How Many Clouds Can You See and Irina. Did I somehow get the notion that drummers couldn’t also be leaders or composers? If so, I blush at my stupidity, and beg the pardon of Paul Motian, Max Roach, Asaf Sirkis and Barry Altschul. 

More faulty logic is exposed in this further example of sloppy thinking: if you’ve got Bobby Bland, do you need Geater Davis as well? 

The short answer is, yes please. The urge to elevate one artist at the expense of another has to be resisted at all costs. So what if some of Geater’s vocal mannerisms recall Bobby Bland? Sad Shades of Blue (Charly, CRB 1132) is gritty, funk-tinged Deep Soul at it’s most assured. And let’s not fall into the Northern Soul trap of venerating the obscure and denigrating the popular. Let’s have James Carr and Otis Redding, Betty(e) Swann and Aretha Franklin, J.J. Barnes and Marvin Gaye. And for that matter, let’s have Bobby Neuwirth and Bob Dylan, Trees and Fairport Convention, Faust and Can. Some broad-minded listeners even find it possible to like both Jim Morrison and Van Morrison, though I remember falling out with a friend of my youth, Andy Shearer, on this point (I was a Van man; he was a Jim man). 

I banished a lot of smoochy soul to outer darkness. Some of it is rather good. William DeVaughn’s Figures Can’t Calculate the Love I Have For You (EMI, EMC 347) contains an unnecessary remake of his greatest hit, ‘Be Thankful For What You’ve Got’, and a piece of regrettable nonsense called ‘Boogie Dan’, but the ballads project the singer’s sincerity and what I can only describe as a sense of natural goodness, enhanced by an uncanny vocal resemblance to Curtis Mayfield. (So I dissed Geater Davis for sounding like Bobby Bland, and hailed William DeVaughn for sounding like Curtis Mayfield! That's inconsistency for you.) 

Feeling Good (United Artists, CH-LA656-G) by Walter Jackson is more penthouse than boudoir, but there’s no gainsaying that impeccable baritone voice. Misty Blue by Dorothy Moore (Malaco #6351) captures the moment when refinement replaced sweeping emotion in soul music. The album’s success established the fortunes of Malaco, a small label operating out of Jackson, Mississippi. By providing a home for veteran old-stagers like Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, Little Milton and Shirley Brown, it could be argued that Malaco rescued Southern Soul Music from extinction. But at a cost. Soul was now a tamed force. Malaco may not have made a bad album, but they haven’t made any great ones either. Typically, Misty Blue slips down smoothly and leaves not a trace.   

What else? The Best of Gladys Knight & The Pips (Buddah, BDS 5663); essential, but it’s a spare copy. Call Me by Ann Peebles (Naylo, WAY 269509 1); a long way from her glory days. The Sweet Inspirations, Estelle, Myrna and Sylvia (Stax, STS-3017); marooned without Cissy. Talking of whom: Cissy Houston, Mama’s Cookin’ (Charly, CRB 1158). A preponderance of lovey-dovey ballads, a skip or two on one track and the inclusion of ‘I Believe’ consigned Mama’s Cookin’ to time capsule oblivion, when in fact the album approaches soul perfection in quite a few places, notably ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’, which predates Gladys’ version above, and is more down-home, a ‘Long and Winding Road’ that glides as it winds, and a stomping ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself’, a lot less glossy than niece Dionne's rendering. 

Aretha Franklin’s Let Me In Your Life (Atlantic, K50031) is simultaneously the best and worst of Aretha; it misses the good old Muscle Shoals mud. Aretha Franklin, Who’s Zoomin’ Who (Arista, Al8-8286); no comment. Two albums by Joe Simon, Get Down (Southbound SEW 013) and Drowning in the Sea of Love (Southbound, SEW 021); I never really got Joe Simon (I mean nice voice, but...). Oh, and Chuck Jackson, Passionate Breezes (Capitol, SW-11775). 

A historic album in it’s way, Passionate Breezes defines the budding sub-genre Boudoir Soul, which went on to become the dominant force in the soul/R’n’B market, for better or worse (worse). Boudoir Soul projects a state of blissful sexuality, and tends to carry the pleasure principle to ridiculous extremes. I might be tempted to laugh Passionate Breezes out of the bedroom, were it not for ‘The Train’, first track, side two, which is very, very good indeed: shimmering guitar, a slow groove and pleading vocals. At one point Chuck takes the phrase “I remember the time…”, repeats, expands the statement, and repeats, adding more words again, all the while squeezing the syllables to fit into the limited space of the musical metre. It’s a trick I associate with the folk song ‘The Barley Mow’. Ah, but George Spicer, when he sang ‘The Barley Mow’ (at The Half Moon, Balcombe, Sussex, on the 17th June 1962: cf. The Voice of the People: They Ordered Their Pints of Beer & Bottles of Sherry) didn’t double-track his voice, like Chuck Jackson does here. Is this the first time Chuck Jackson and George Spicer have been mentioned in the same paragraph? Anyway, I digress. It’s significant that the only song on Passionate Breezes that deals with romantic loss, as opposed to gratified desire, is the stand-out cut. 

Was I down on the blues at the time, I wonder? You Got to Reap What You Sow by Jazz Gillum (RCA Camden, INT 1177) is typical of the pre-war Chicago blues style and there’s nothing wrong with it. Big Foot Country Girl by Mel Brown explores the musical and cultural roots of Brown, a guitarist from the B.B. King school, and incorporates spoken reminiscences and singing from his father, John H. Brown. It’s a funky, bare-arse masterpiece. 

Faulty logic #2: you can be editor of the foremost folk and roots magazine in the UK (that is, Folk Roots) or a notable bluesman, but not both. I think my issues with Carrion On by Hot Vultures (Best Seller, 4C054-96947), basically Ian A. Anderson and Maggie Holland With Friends, were a) there were no originals by Maggie Holland, whose songs became a fixture of June Tabor’s repertoire, and b) if I wanted to hear ‘You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover’, I would go direct to Bo Diddley. Oh dear! Talk about false premises. 

In fact, Carrion On is a little gem: modest, unpretentious and brimful of the joy of casual music-making. If I only looked beyond ‘YCJABBTC’, Carrion On could have opened up an entire cosmology of fabulous, mythical (mostly) USA artists. Carrion On includes covers of tunes by Derroll Adams (‘The Sky’, described as “relatively recent”), The Holy Modal Rounders and (related), the enigmatic Antonia. As it was, I took the long way around to get to the Holy Modal Rounders (it was the connection with Michael Hurley, and where did I find out about Michael Hurley? Why, I read about him in Folk Roots!). Even now, some artists highlighted by Carrion On await discovery. Tracking down Tucker Zimmerman’s self-titled LP on Village Thing might be the task of a lifetime (two Zimmerman songs appear and both are beauties). And skiffler John Pilgrim turns up playing washboard on ‘The Midnight Special’. If anybody knows the whereabouts of John Pilgrim, I would love to talk to him. Not to be mysterious, but my reasons are another story altogether.

Postscript 

And that’s where the original posting left off 24 hours ago, rather abruptly, on the cliff-hanging digression, ‘Where are you, John Pilgrim?’ (It’s just that I’m researching a book about Bill Leader, and Pilgrim’s name has cropped up more than once.) Shall I say, simply and directly, some things I omitted to mention, or was going on to develop? 

Firstly, the reason there is a preponderance of soul, jazz and gospel – did I mention the copious gospel? To keep it brief, can I just say, Myrna Summers and Singers, Give Me Something to Hold On To, Savoy SL 14520 = Good; Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr. Eulogises Rev. C.L. Franklin, A Good Soldier, Church Door Records, CDR-22032 = Bad. As I was saying, the reason there’s such a lot of soul, jazz, gospel and other USA forms is because two thirds of the records came from Yanks/Power Cuts, the record shop, now defunct, which operated from the basement of Canada House, just off Oxford Road (Manchester), and which specialised in cheap cut-outs from the USA. Clearly, I was taking Power Cuts for granted. It’s now second only to Alan Fearnley Records, Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough, as the record shop I miss most in the whole wide world. 

Here’s a typical Power Cuts product: Toby by the Chi-Lites, Brunswick BL 754200. It has the trademark Chi-Lites sound – symphonic soul, lush harmonies, ballads that blur the boundaries between extreme romance and extreme creepiness – but I want to mention it because of the inclusion of a cover of ‘The First Time (Ever I Saw Your Face)’, credited to Chesley McCaull! What was that all about? Were Ewan MacColl’s royalties being siphoned off to a Harlem dealer? 

On the subject of unlikely folk connections – only one LP in the entire batch is overtly folkie and that’s Poetry and Song 3, Argo ZPL 1096 (non-PC; that is, non-Power Cuts), which is a companion to the Voices series: readings and folk song (extended to classical on Voices), a book tie-in, designed for school audiences in the late sixties/early seventies: the producers did the obvious thing and rang Ewan MacColl, who farmed the work to his followers in the Critics Group... While we’re on the subject of unlikely folk connections, as I say, items of Leader interest (because all roads lead back to Bill), include Let Us Get Together by Rev. Gary Davis, on Kicking Mule SNKF 103 (present only because of its distressed condition) with two (very fine) drawings of the Rev. on the back cover by Gloria Dallas, the first Mrs Leader.  

I didn’t mention the classical contingent, did I? Oh, the usual tatty Pictures at an Exhibition and battered Planets. Best of the bunch is Songs From the Land of the Midnight Sun by Brigit Nilsson, Decca LXT 6185, which I notice fetches up to £50 at current prices. Popsike was a resource we didn’t have when I stocked the time capsule.       

But the harsh fact is – and this is the reason why there will be no Revenant Records Part 2 – I must get rid of them, and pronto. If I needed to declutter back then, now the situation is far, far worse, and the strain on my shelves has reached crisis proportions. So it’s eBay for the best (apart from the ones I decide to keep, of course), and maybe Wes, my favourite illegal street trader, for the rest. 

What the hell? Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disneyland DQ-1201. How did that get here? Whereas the musty smell, and this is corroborated by personal memory, reveals that Mauricee Jarre’s Academy Award Winning Music From Doctor Zhivago as played by The Metropolitan Pops Orchestra, MFP 1200, is a relic of my own dear parents’ record collection, sneakily slipped into the time capsule by Dad when I wasn't looking. Did you know that John Hartford penned ‘Gentle On My Mind’ in half an hour flat, directly upon returning home from a screening of Doctor Zhivago? And all it makes me want to do is throw a brick at the nearest passing troika.     

The Collaborative Common of Jane Austen, Randy Newman and Albert Ayler *

What have Jane Austen, Randy Newman and Albert Ayler got in common? 

Might the answer to this teaser (posed by John Fagg, an old friend, a deep jazz lover and unexpected Janeite) have something to do with irony? 

Jane

The most famous opening sentence in English literature is laced with strychnine levels of irony: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that  a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a good wife…” It sets the tone for the irony fest of Pride and Prejudice because the ‘universal truth’ uppermost in the minds of Austen heroines typically angling for a good marital catch, might not have occurred to the s.m.i.p.o.a.g.f. himself. The Austen view of humanity, for all its delicacy and chasteness, is that of a meat-market, albeit with an elegant Georgian decor. The theme is drummed home in the first line of Mansfield Park: “About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park…” That good luck and captivate register the ironic intent here.  

The opening line of Emma, however, bypasses irony and opts instead for heartlessness: “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress her.” Clearly, Austen is setting Emma up for a fall. (Randy Newman has his heartless moments. The reader is recommended to ‘They Just Got Married’. After evoking an exuberant wedding ceremony and a state of enviable married bliss, Newman punctures it all with just three words: “Anyway, she died…”)  

All good Janeites are very fond of the film Becoming Jane, which stars Anne Hathaway as a radiant Jane and James McAvoy as dishy Tom Lefroy, eager to get beyond the bounds of propriety. It has a nicely literate and intelligent script, which is as it should be. At one point, a dinner scene, it’s necessary for Jane to make a good impression on her fiance’s uncle, but instead she argues with him about irony. Jane is made to say, “Irony is the bringing together of contradictory truths to make out of the contradiction a new truth with a laugh or a smile…”   

This struck a chord with John, who had the non-ironic good luck to catch Randy Newman with strings at St Luke’s Church in 2008 (the performance is available as Live in London). “You can hear Randy thinking something other than what he’s singing,” says John, admiringly. 

Randy 

Randy Newman has always flirted with ambiguity, “new truth”, irony (call it what you will) and frequently seems to be playing a game of double-bluff with his audience. ‘Short People’ is an obvious example of disjuncture between apparent message and deeper truth. On the surface, the song advocates the extermination of all short people because they have “nasty little feet” and "I don't want no short people 'round here". Whereas, in fact, ‘Short People’ is a song of moral uplift lightly disguised as a hate song. By pouring scorn on extreme prejudice, Newman ridicules all bigotry, large and small (or tall and short, if you prefer). In the bridge, however, Randy sings "Short People are just the same as you and me..." underlining the prissy and do-good, and makes that appear ridiculous too.    

Of course, saying the opposite of what you mean - which Newman does not once but twice during the course of the song, with conflicting messages - is not irony but sarcasm, which is a lesser art, which is why ‘Short People’ is one of Randy Newman’s more slight efforts, despite being one of his biggest hits (#2 on the Billboard Charts in 1977).   

Like the songsmiths of the Great American Songbook, Newman writes from outside his own life. His political radicalism (implied, rarely overtly stated: his progenitor, Tom Lehrer, was resolutely apolitical) marks him as a product of his time, the sixties. If the former quality drew Frank Sinatra, anxious to locate some continuity between bobby-soxers and flower children, the radicalism aroused his deep suspicion. Plus Sinatra was savvy enough to recognise a piss-take when he heard it, so he turned down ‘Lonely At the Top’ when it was offered to him.

This raises an interesting question: there are degrees of irony and “new truth” is relative, depending on who is doing the telling. ‘Lonely At the Top’, when Randy Newman sings it, is irony pure and simple (he doesn’t bother to suppress a guffaw at the line, “All the money I have made”; possibly, since the success of Toy Story, he works hard to maintain the guffaw at the line, “All the money I have made”). Whereas for Sinatra, the song represents documentary-style realism. 

Peggy Lee, motivated by the same need to reach to the generation down, gamely tackled ‘Love Story’ in the full knowledge that it amounted to a desecration of her signature song, ‘The Folks That Live On the Hill’. But by then (1969) disillusion had overtaken romantic reverie as Lee’s stock-in-trade. The title track (which Randy Newman arranged and conducted, incidentally) of the album in question is ‘Is That All There Is?’ 

But what John really loves is the way Randy Newman refuses to tell listeners what to think. And it’s true, it is possible to treat ‘Jolly Coppers On Parade’ as a grand recruitment song for the NYPD, and agree with the sentiment of ‘Sail Away’ - what's so bad about slavery if it results in the American Way of Life? - or wax nostalgic for the Golden Age of Empire, when men were men (this from‘The Great Nations of Europe’: “Balboa found the Pacific / And on the trail one day, he met some friendly Indians whom he was told were gay / So he had them torn apart by dogs on religious grounds they say / The Great Nations of Europe were quite holy in their way”), and isn't the  protagonist (antagonist?) of ‘Davy the Fat Boy’, in his own way, promoting the happiness of the many? That obese kid with learning difficulties is lucky to have such a friend. 

All these impressions are quite legitimate because Randy Newman gives listeners the freedom to think what they want. If the unspoken corollary is, "You can think that, but you'd be a fool," that's only because Newman is grumpy to a fault. In a culture largely free of irony, and where all listeners are casual listeners, misunderstandings are bound to multiply. That's natural. Newman accepts it, and clearly relishes his role as the arch provocateur of popular song, even if the death threats are a drag sometimes. 

Albert

Today I celebrated International Jazz Day (April 30) with a blast of Albert Ayler. The LP I picked, The First Recordings (Sonet, SNTF 604), preserves a Swedish session from 1962. All side 1 is given over to a standard, 'I’ll Remember April’. The familiar melody is stated comparatively straight, and regularly reprised during a perpetuity of steel-braced grinding, screaming and honking clamour. Albert Ayler was the great naif primitive of the New Thing. Nothing, certainly not virtuosity, could be taken for granted. But the struggle to achieve selfhood is strenuous, urgent and not to be denied, and results in a trail of scattered melodic shards that constitute one of the most compelling sounds in jazz history. 

John is a confirmed Albert-ite. I made notes as he spoke about Ayler on the phone the other day. “He plays everything wrong: neither the right time or the right notes. This is most apparent in his early recordings, when he was teamed with a conventional rhythm section.” [My Name is Albert Ayler contains wild versions of ‘Summertime’ and ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, and the resident Stockholm rhythm team, hopelessly out of depth, provide a broad relief for Ayler’s primal gesticulations.]  

“He’s not purely contrary [says John]. He’s not trapped by doing the precise opposite of what he’s supposed to be playing. No, he goes into a third place. A place that is utterly poetic and ambiguous. Does Ayler’s tumult express anger or joy? It could be mistaken for either or both, but really it goes to a third place. Irony is not a trap: it’s an escape to something else.”  

The third place provides our best hope for the future. I was interested to hear about something called the Collaborative Commons. Someone (Jeremy Rifkin; advisor to Angela Merkel, apparently), was talking about it on the radio the other morning (Start the Week, R4, 28.4.14): –

“My economist colleagues believe there are only two ways to manage an economy, either private enterprise or government or some combination between the two. Capitalism, Socialism or Social Market Economy. They forget that there’s a third economy in our lives that we all of us are engaged in, that provides a whole range of goods and services that aren’t part of private enterprise or government. It’s called the Social Economy, the Civil Society, and this is where millions of non-profit organisations, small and large, are attending to the most intimate affairs of our life: educational institutions, health care services, environmental groups, sports, arts, etc… We are seeing a titanic shift outside the Capitalist system to the sharing economy, and it portends some tremendous disruptions over the  long run.” 

*based on an original idea by John Fagg 

Great LPs Going For a Song on eBay #3: Walk Me to the War by Andrew Calhoun

I don’t think anyone (not in this country at any rate) knows about this genius Chicago-based songwriter. Calhoun is also the label chief  of Waterbug Records, which specialises in acoustic roots music. But no-one on Waterbug is as talented as its owner. This is his third album (I think), released on Flying Fish in 1986, and dipping into a songbook that was already quite extensive, with some songs from his teens (he scrupulously dates songs with the year of composition). So this swings between innocence (like the title track, a lyrical evocation of a child’s wonder at horror) and existential angst, deploying a songwriting technique open to free association and primal therapy. In short, he can rant with the best. Simple observation is apt to spiral into full-blown neurosis. ‘Jack and Jill’ is as unhinged and idiosyncratic as anything by Mark E Smith. He is also a master of John Cheever-style glumness, and there’s also no-one like Calhoun for mingling the numinous and quotidian, as on ‘Rye, New Hampshire’. Like I say, a genius.

Anyway, no bids at 99p. The auction closes 18:25:41 on Sept 8. 

Levon Helm

Dead drummers 1: Levon Helm 

The unique chemistry of The Band can be broadly sketched thus: Garth Hudson, the phantom of the opera; Robbie Robertson, the guitarist who channelled Hubert Sumlin; Rick Danko, a driven bassist and intense singer; Richard Manuel the tormented romantic; and then there was Levon Helm, who, of them all, offered uncomplicated pleasure. He was a Southerner in a group of Northerners, and not only served as a matchless drummer - and mandolin-player, because he was a gifted multi-instrumentalist - he was Robbie’s muse. Robertson was quick to follow Dylan’s lead of re-invention: Levon didn’t need to re-invent himself - he was the real deal. 

He stood out when The Band was a true collective - “One voice for all”, remember - before Robbie took the role of leader upon himself and started to monopolise the writing credits. Ah, but Levon made better solo records and was a better actor. 

It was faintly disturbing to see him as the frail old timer wanting to die in The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada. This, because the carnal whoop of 'Up On Cripple Creek' is still fresh, preserved forever in the amber of The Band, truly the Rock of Ages. Both as musician and actor the role he played went deep into the American grain.

He was the Cracker who quit Dylan’s ’66 world tour because it upset him to be booed, which is understandable. But he came back to Big Pink when he was needed. 

And Levon was the only Band member who wasn’t over-dubbed for The Last Waltz , and he held out against a guest slot for Neil Diamond, showing immaculate taste. 

He was the heartbeat of The Band. 

Ten Great Songs From The Shadows

That is, songs which are obviously the product of genius, albeit unknown genius. It may be that the the name on the credit (I’m talking about cover versions here) is unknown, and the song is manifestly immortal. This may occur because a) the writer was (or is) too well-balanced to pursue a conventional career in music, or b) he happened to be Bob Dylan’s best mate, and the magic has retrospectively rubbed off (otherwise known as the Bob Neuwirth Syndrome). There are an awful lot of Great Songs From The Shadows out there, so here are ten to be getting on with. 

1. Your Sweet  & Shiny Eyes by Nan O’Byrne

An irrepressible song about youth, romance, Mexico, escape, and the escalating pleasures of life. It comes from Home Plate (1975) by Bonnie Raitt, and features a fresh-faced Tom Waits among the chorus. Nan O’Byrne’s name sounds as earthy as the peat and potato mentioned in the lyric, and I would never have guessed (as a quick Google reveals) that the same hand is responsible for ‘You Might Need Somebody’, the Randy Crawford hit.     

2. She Sang Hymns Out of Tune by Jesse Lee Kincaid 

Wistful and absurd, ‘Hymns’ follows the logic of a nursery rhyme, replete with a touch of brain-fried psychedelia. Nilsson sang it on Pandemonium Puppet Show (1967) but the definitive treatment is on Wheatstraw Suite by The Dillards (1968), complete with church organ and high-rent orchestral backing. Jesse Lee Kincaid was a member of The Rising Sons with Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal (above, Kincaid with Taj Mahal). The sole Rising Sons album was issued in 1992, some 27 years after it was recorded.

More info: http://www.myspace.com/jesseleekincaid

3. Icarus by Anne Lister 

A paean of praise to glamorous extremism from a dull bystander. The Icarus of the Greek myth is a charismatic who pushes at the boundaries, and is hero-worshipped from afar. The doomed skydiver here is emblematic of all the decadents, addicts burn-outs and madmen who experience life to the full so that we don’t have to. Found on Martin Simpson’s Sad Or High Kicking! (1985) and guaranteed to cause goosebumps. Writer Anne Lister has another song on the album, ‘Moth’, which is a less effective variation on the same theme. More info: http://www.annelister.com/ (which reveals a more extensive discography than I suspected). 

4. Jazzman by Ed Holstein 

Also celebrating the self-destructive, wilful side of human nature and also on Martin Simpson’s Sad Or High Kicking! (clearly an existential kick), the definitive version of ‘Jazzman’ comes from Steve Goodman on his eponymous debut (1971). It’s distinguished by the contrast between Goodman’s voice - normally warm, but here simmering with controlled frenzy - and the turbulence of the accompaniment (Nashville’s finest, crossing over to the dark side). Bonnie Kolok got to it first on After All This Time (1971), and the song was also recorded by Pure Prairie League and Tom Rush. Ed Holstein, a singer-songwriter from the South Side of Chicago comes from that generation who were fired by Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio. He co-owned a club, Someone Else’s Troubles, with his folksinger brother Fred and Steve Goodman (Ed is pictured, far right, on the cover of the Goodman album of the same name), and subsequently opened Holstein’s, which closed for business in 1988. Ed survives Goodman (d. 1984) and Fred (d. 2004).
Picture by Richard Wasserman - http://www.flickr.com/photos/richard_wasserman/4750624559/

5. Goodbye Goodbye by Nigel Beresford 

An enigmatic, haunting song - from Thank You For… by Bridget St John (on Dandelion Records, 1972), in which something momentous - like the end of a relationship, or the end of the world (the running refrain is “It’s the end of time”) - is held at bay by dreamy composure. The song summons everyday pleasure and everyday melancholia and is inexplicably touching - “Broken down doorway and into the street / Saving my breath for the people I’ll meet…” - in its trust that love will survive the end of time. Who is Nigel Beresford? No idea. A friend of Bridget St John, who delivered ‘Goodbye Goodbye’ bespoke, would be my guess. The line, “Picture the lady who daily flew high” echoes ‘Fly High’, a song from the same album. Beresford also contributed a song to Jumblequeen (‘Last Goodnight’), but that album lacks the charm of Thank You For…, and indeed Ask Me No Questions and Songs For The Gentle Man. 

6. Nelson’s Farewell by Joe Dolan 

A gleeful account of the blow struck against the English Empire when Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin was blown up by IRA sympathisers. The song appears on The Dubliners’ Finnegan Wakes, a live album recorded in April, 1966. The bombing only took place in March, so songs, like journalism, are history’s first draft. It’s author, ‘Galway’ Joe Dolan, is the ultimate songwriter from the shadows. Possessed of a rich baritone voice, oodles of charisma and songwriting genius, he quit Sweeney’s Men (the group he formed with Johnny Moynihan and Andy Irvine) at the first sign of success, and buried himself away in Connemara, where he pursued a living as a painter. Songs still came at a prolific rate, however, and he would preserve them by singing into a humble cassette recorder in his kitchen. The tapes were later transferred to compact disc, and sold by mail order to a tiny fan-base. Dolan’s version of ‘Nelson’s Farewell’ is on Lost Miles and Broken Strings 3. It’s hard listening - the lo-fi sound matches the austerity of Dolan’s vision - but the songs are wonderful. Dolan, plainly a man wrestling with his own demons, identifies with doomed figures from history. There are songs here about Ernest Shackleton, who died trying to reach the South Pole in 1911 (with a companion piece, Amundsen, about the man who succeeded), hunger striker Bobby Sands and Jack Kerouac. Joe Dolan died on January 7, 2008. 

More info: http://martindardis.com/id398.html 

And see also http://s112.photobujcket.com/albums/n200/nuages 

7. They Don’t Write ‘Em Like That Anymore by Pete Betts

The song casts a rosy glow over a deprived past to relieve an equally deprived present. ‘They Don't Write 'Em Like That Anymore’ celebrates the communal sing-song of old with a communal sing-song of the present. It’s nostalgic twice over: for the time it commemorated (pre-rock and roll), and for the time it was written, which are now equally remote. The song graced Vin Garbutt’s 1978 album Tossin' A Wobbler. Naturally, the album didn’t disturb the charts, nor was the author, Pete Betts, troubled by a nomination at the Ivor Novello Awards. Nevertheless, ‘They Don’t Write ‘Em’ is a folk club standard, and can be relied upon to get any assembly singing along with gusto. Pete Betts? This from www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=17293: “...Pete Betts, a long-time friend of Vin Garbutt’s from the Middlesbrough area. I first saw him at one of Vin’s gigs at Louth Folk Club in 1972. He had driven Vin to the gig but also did a floorspot himself. He was superb and was later booked in his own right” - Captain Swing.  (Above, Pete Betts, left, with Vin Garbutt.) 

8. Aqaba by Bill Caddick 

June Tabor is a great cultivator of songwriters (Dave Goulder, Maggie Holland, Les Barker) but the most consistent and enduring has been Bill Caddick. Indeed, no June Tabor album would be complete without a work of heartbreaking genius by Bill Caddick as its centrepiece (‘Unicorns’ for A Cut Above, ‘She Moves Among Men’ for Abyssinians, ‘The Writing of Tipperary’ for A Quiet Eye). ‘Aqaba’, in which England and Arabia, and victory and defeat, are dissolved in the last moments of the life of T.E. Lawrence, gave its name to a 1989 album by Tabor. It is Caddick and Tabor’s masterpiece. Indeed, the notes of the Always box-set reveal that the song is close to being a co-write.   

9. A Woman’s Quiet Night by Marty Kuwahara 

From Calavera (1998) by Abner Burnett. Abner Burnett and Marty Kuwahara were friends on the fringes of the Texas folk scene. Kuwahara’s repertoire included ‘Child’s Song’ by Murray MacLuachlan and ‘A Woman’s Quiet Night’, which he claims to have stolen, but would never reveal the exact source. The song clearly derives from ‘Heritage’ by Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle, which Kuwahara may have found on McGuiness Flint (1970), or as the B-side to the Mary Hopkin single, ‘Think About Your Children’ (1970). It’s a simple song, which Kuwahara simplified even further by dropping all the verses and retaining only a modified version of the chorus - “If I could only give you tomorrow / And put it in your eyes / I’d be satisfied.” The context is the same - a message of reassurance to a lover - but Kuwahara stretches the words and the melody into something infinitely more subtle. Marty Kuwahara? A suicide, Abner thinks, although the circumstances are mysterious. This gem of a song, transformed in the act of theft, is his legacy. 

10. Annabelle Lee by Bob Neuwirth  

Self-loathing and lost love in the cantinas and alleys of Mexico (we’re back where we started). It comes from the album T-Bone Burnett by, ahem, T-Bone Burnett (1986). The author’s own version can be found on Back To The Front (1988). ‘Annabelle Lee’ wouldn’t disgrace Desire by Neuwirth’s old buddy Bob Dylan. 

James Apollo, Kreg Viesselman

Contact Theatre, Manchester, Saturday June 5 

Here's a proposition: two New Dylans on one double-bill. Well, New Dylans in so much as both James Apollo and Kreg Viesselman hail from Minnesota, and both got out of there as soon as possible. "It's only leaving that makes a home at all," sang Apollo at one point, in one of a few allusions to his itinerant lifestyle. Kreg Viesselman, meanwhile, has made his home in Oslo, Norway, whose special micro-climate seems to suit his introspective temperament. 

Indeed, Viesselman was a revelation.  Firmly in the US songwriter idiom, he brings to it an intensity of feeling and an expressive voice that is all his own. To see Viesselman perform is to partake in a soul-deep session of primal therapy. On a song like The Well ("how deep the hole I pushed my brother in / He lost his grasp and gave a gasp") he more or less defines the sick soul, exposing an acute sense of sin and an unvarnished fear of the universe. Although the feeling is directed inward, that extraordinary gravelly voice communicates to an audience, who respond with a mix of awe and self-recognition. The shamanistic element came out most forcefully on Half Baked News, a number where Hobopop Collective's Kirsty McGee and Mat Martin guested on vocals (it was a Hobopop promotion). This was spirit music indeed, and came from deep within.

In contrast to the introspective Viesselman, James Apollo is strong on chutzpah. His smouldering stage presence and charisma are legendary, and here he was joined by a Stateside band of bassist, accordion-player and percussionist. Their instrumental skills were ordinary and their backing vocals were, to put it kindly, undistinguished. The surprise entrance of the latter pair - from the side aisles at the climax of Apollo's second number - was an ineptly-managed piece of business. They were endearingly bad, in short, and displayed more courage and pluck than many slicker musicians.

Apollo, whose gaze became more anxious during the course of the evening, sang a song called I've Got It Easy with calculated irony, and a song called Happiness with relentless joylessness. He raised the quality by including Moman and Penn's Dark End of the Street (uncredited) in the set, before reverting to his own material, which alternated between narcissistic self-regard and romantic claptrap. There is something heroic in such naked self-belief, and Apollo may be in danger of turning into the larger-than-life figure he likes to project. It worked for Dylan, after all.  

Abner Burnett - Discography

Jerusalem/Alley Song

ABNER BURNETT

Ignite Gram-o-phonics H-694, 1968 single

With prominent harmonica and understated rhythm section, John Wesley Harding possibly provided the model for the teenage Burnett's fledgling effort. Naïve and earnest, but hopeful.

Crash & Burn

ABNER BURNETT & THE BURN-OUTS

Worpt W.P.A. SLP 1, 1976 LP

I Woke Up This Morning, Call In The Buzzards, Riverwalk Strut, Why Do I Still Think About You, Baby's Callin' Me Home, Ding Dong - Slick's Song, The Other Side of This Life, My Twentieth Birthday, Arpeggios & Dominoes, That's What You Get For Callin' Me A Spook

The photo-booth back-cover shots depict the artist with a terrific shiner. The music contains further evidence of hard living. It's difficult to pin down musically, low-budget-jug-band-psychedelia perhaps, or acid-casualty-Texas-outlaw-rock-with-an-unusually-dark-feel. The most controversial cut is the 12:38 long instrumental, That's What You Get For Callin' Me A Spook, based on Right Off from the Miles Davis album, Jack Johnson. Only 500 pressed.

Old McDonald

ABNER BURNETT

Worpt CP-2, 1979 LP

High Noon, Bluebird, Bed of Roses, In My Time of Dying, Inter Lewd, Honkytonkin',  Horses Grow Old, Ivory Thighs, Texas River Song, Pancho & Lefty, Hindu Pickin' Cowboy, Girl From The North Country

A terse, enigmatic sleeve-note ('I had my wreck') alludes to Burnett's near death in an automobile accident - the same day that Elvis Presley died. Old McDonald is an all-acoustic album of roots Americana, with a setting of Herman Melville and covers of Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan. Notable for the inclusion of Bed of Roses, the only known song written by cowboy storyteller Buck Ramsey (the album's dedicatee) and a gem. A sitar instrumental called Hindu Pickin' Cowboy alerts that this is not your conventional shitkicking stash. Townes Van Zandt, in a backhanded compliment, claimed that Old McDonald was his favourite record to fall asleep to. Most of the limited print-run ended up in a thrift shop in Austin.

Happier Than I Was

ABNER & PAUL BURNETT

Warped Records, 1990 tape

Happier Than I Was, Hold On, Bright Side, Yours, Dollhouse Girls, We're Movin' Now, A Woman's Quiet Night, Firebird

Simple and straightforward bar-room fare, with the two brothers spurring each other on to more egregious acts of bad behaviour. The tape marks the first sighting of Abner's N'Awlins strut Look On The Bright Side and also contains the ineffably lovely A Woman's Quiet Night. Then there's Burnett's torrid tribute to topless dancers, Dollhouse Girls, and the grumpy tone of Hold On ('For every famous asshole there's a camera / For every fucking sport there's a magazine') belies the sentiment of the album title.

1975-1979

ABNER BURNETT

Worpt 001, 1997 CD

I Woke Up This Morning, Call In The Buzzards, Riverwalk Strut, Why Do I Still Think About You, Baby's Callin' Me Home, Ding Dong - Slick's Song, The Other Side of This Life, My Twentieth Birthday, Arpeggios & Dominoes, That's What You Get, High Noon, Bluebird, Bed of Roses, In My Time of Dying, Enter Lewd, Honkytonkin', Horses Grow Old, Ivory Thighs, Texas River Song, Pancho & Lefty, Hindu Pickin' Cowboy, Girl From The North Country

Lo-fi, low budget reissue of Crash & Burn and Old McDonald on an atrociously packaged CD with the wrong track order. Burnett defended the release with skills honed from his training in law. "Most criticism has focused on the substandard engineering/recording techniques, poor mastering and sloppy packaging. Nitpicking, I think, but willingly say, 'Perhaps'. Me and the rest of the kids making the music were usually wasted, and might have fudged on the hi-fidelity factor a little. I made one mistake on the order of song listing on the back cover. Remember that the Navajo weavers put a flaw in each of their works so that the soul is not captured. Let us move on."

Calavera

ABNER BURNETT

Worpt 002, 1998 CD

Test of Time, Who Among You Sings Praises For The Training (Abner's Sad-Eyed Lady), Knowin', The Father's Son, The Mahakala is Savage and Terrifying, A Woman's Quiet Night, The Whistlin' Diane, You Love Me Baby, I'm Not Getting Over On You, Footsteps, The Days of Wine and Roses, 'Round The Bay of Mexico, The Kid's Last Night (Heaven is in the Mountain)

The official comeback album. 'Most eclectic… is Calavera, released nineteen years after the last one. The Texan lawyer, cult non-star and old drinking pal of Townes Van Zandt covers a broad swathe of Americana, from rootsy folk-picking and rolling country rock to the gorgeous Who Among You Sings Praises For The Training, an amalgam of Dylan's Sad-Eyed Lady, and his own free-form piano lullaby' - Sylvie Simmons, Mojo, September 1998. 'In closure, the digital desert landscape and mumbled Spanish of The Kid's Last Night almost reconcile Burnett the instinctive troubadour with Burnett the frustrated composer' - Stewart Lee, Sunday Times, 11 October 1998.

CALAVERA - f, skull. m, dare-devil, madcap; roué (Webster's Spanish/English Dictionary)

"El Dia de Muertos" is celebrated on November 2 of each year in Mexico, the Day of the Dead. Celebrated may not be a good verb choice, perhaps acknowledged. I was once engaged to be married in Cuernavaca on the Day of the Dead. The wedding did not take place. Malcolm Lowry, a mid-20th century Britsh novelist, wrote a profound book, Under the Volcano, about El Dia de Muertos in Cuernavaca. Mr. Lowry's history, Mexico's, and mine entertwine occasionally. According to Henry McCarty, my old friend who wrote the note on the back cover of the jewel box of CALAVERA, I leapt from the bluff near Las Calderónes which overlooks ciudad Guanajuato. The bluff is called Las Comadres. The witches and their cauldrons. Ask him for details and Henry will tell you this occurred on November 1st - Abner Burnett

KAY KAY & THE RAYS FEATURING ABNER BURNETT

Worpt 94441-1, 2000 CD

Crossfire, Garden of Eden, Waiting For Dreams, Standing on Shaky Ground, Mystic Pontchartrain, I Can't Stand the Rain, Evil, Stealing Love in the First Degree, There'll Come A Time, Never Gonna Hurt Dianne, Slow Drag, Love is a Beautiful Thing, Juke Joint Kings & Queens

Back to the bar-room. The band is primarily a vehicle for feisty soul singer Kay Kay Greenwade, but Burnett justifies co-billing by singing lead on Garden of Eden, Mystic Pontchartrain, Evil, Never Gonna Hurt Dianne and sharing vocals on Standing on Shaky Ground, Stealing Love in the First Degree, Juke Joints Kings & Queens and Love Is A Beautiful Thing (which may qualify Abner and Kay Kay as the new sweethearts of soul). Standard bar-room fare, perhaps, but Burnett bestows a few idiosyncratic quirks it would otherwise lack. Mystic Pontchartrain shows that elliptical lyrics and good-time New Orleans 'second-line' rhythms don't necessarily cancel each other out. Stealing Love in the First Degree, by contrast, is just the kind of R&B song you would expect two lawyers to write. 'I know the lyrics to Stealing Love are kind of corny, but listen to the opening, the horn lines, the drums at the end, and the organ. Those are my contributions. I think we dressed it up pretty nice,' said Burnett.

Sal Si Puedes

ABNER 'BIG HONKY' BURNETT

Worpt (2003) CD

Find That Dog A Home, Boomtown, 7-Falls, Beyond the Sea, The Galveston Bay, Forgotten Road, A Spirited Waltz, Take It To The President, Sorry As I Can Be, Demands of Love, The Uncharged Knight, Brightside. 

Intended as a pure statement of Burnett's aesthetic and a showcase for his idiosyncratic songwriting, the singer got cold feet and added some bar-room fodder at the last moment. Actually, some of the bar-fod is really good - like the Fats Domino-styled Find That Dog A Home, and the funky Take It To The President (whose mild tone marks it as a pre-George Bush Jnr song). New Orleans strut, Brightside, is revived. The heart of the album, however, resides in great songs like Boomtown (which announces Burnett as the Kurt Weill of Ector County, Texas) and the poignant Galveston Bay, while Sorry As I Can Be takes the confessional to new heights of sensational self-revelation. Beyond the Sea, by Charles Trenet via Bobby Darin, is the sole non-original. 

It Ought To Be Enough 

ABNER BURNETT 

Worpt WPT039 (2008) CD

Two Bit Lawyer, If You Can Be An Elevator, Key to the Highway, O Catrina, The Cross By The Road, Plans For The Future (50th Birthday), Pat Garrett's Lament, King Of The Road, Someone Else's Hunger, It Ought To Be Enough

It Ought To Be Enough was recorded over three nights at The Chapel at Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara, California. A single microphone was placed in the aisle in front of the pews, which meant that an oversize Christ on the cross was always in front of the singer. Perhaps this explains the special atmosphere of the sessions. It feels more like a reckoning than anything. IOTBE focuses on the enormous verities - of love and death, good and evil - without flinching from uncomfortable facts. The Cross By The Road is a story-song in the Texas tradition, and deals with bereavement and filial feelings in a totally unsentimental manner. Two-Bit Lawyer does for law professionals what Death of a Salesman did for travelling salesmen. The bittersweet Plans For The Future confronts the  mystery and mystification of middle age, and the loneliness of the hour is only softened by Heidi Jacobs' sweet and sensual harmony vocals. Then there is the niche that Abner has made his own - the post-mortem song. The major/minor phrasing of the brooding O Catrina suggests the ebb and flow of the life force itself. The narrative voice in Pat Garrett’s Lament shifts, but it finally settles on the eponymous bounty-hunter (deceased). Guilt, it seems, has survived death: "Now I’m walking that forgotten road, looking for you where the wind won’t blow." This is better than Leonard Cohen, and as good as Townes Van Zandt.