Max Picks …songs from 1988

1988

Three albums shaped this year for me. One was by The Traveling Wilburys, U2, and the other was by Keith Richards..

Traveling Wilburys – Handle With Care

This was the hit that kicked the Wilburys project off the ground. George Harrison and Jeff Lynne started the ball rolling… Initially an informal grouping with Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, they got together at Bob Dylan’s Santa Monica, California studio to quickly record an additional track as a B-side for the single release of Harrison’s song This Is Love. This was the song they came up with, which the record company immediately realized was too good to be released as a single B side. They also recorded “You Got It” at the session, which helped convince them to record an album together.

The title Handle With Care came when George Harrison saw the phrase on the side of a cardboard box in the studio.

Tom Petty on Bob Dylan: “There’s nobody I’ve ever met who knows more about the craft of how to put a song together than he does. I learned so much from just watching him work. He has an artist’s mind and can find in a line the keyword and think how to embellish it to bring the line out. I had never written more words than I needed, but he tended to write lots and lots of verses, then he’ll say, this verse is better than that, or this line. Slowly this great picture emerges. He was very good in The Traveling Wilbury’s: when somebody had a line, he could make it a lot better in big ways.”

 

Steve Earl – Copperhead Road

Brilliant song by Steve Earle. I became a fan of  Steve Earle when I heard “I Ain’t Never Satisfied” off of the Exit 0 album. Copperhead Road was an actual road near Mountain City, Tennessee. It has since been renamed Copperhead Hollow Road, owing to the theft of road signs bearing the song’s name.

What is interesting is Earle tells a story of three generations, of three different eras, and shows how they intersect all in one song. Earle himself called the album the world’s first blend of heavy metal and bluegrass.

U2 – Angel Of Harlem

This song has an old feel and a lot of power. It was on the Rattle and Hum album. I’ve talked to many U2 fans who don’t like the album a lot but it is my favorite album the band did. It broke a little from their previous albums. The Edge backed off the reverb and delay some on this album. They traded their “new wave” sound for Americana and I loved it. Rattle and Hum is very rootsy and raw. For me and I’m sure I’m in the minority…this song was one of the best singles of the 80s. I could hear Van Morrison doing this. This song is what made me go back and listen to the rest of their catalog. This album is not The Joshua Tree Part II…they go down a different path like great bands do.

The “Angel of Harlem” is Billie Holiday, a Jazz singer who moved to Harlem as a teenager in 1928. She played a variety of nightclubs and became famous for her spectacular voice and ability to move her audience to tears. She dealt with racism, drug problems, and bad relationships for most of her life, and her sadness was often revealed in her songs. She died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959 at age 44.

Angel of Harlem was recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis.

 

Tracy Chapman – Fast Car

When I heard this song it sounded so different than other songs at the time. It’s a well-written song lyrically and musically that has a folk feel to it. It could have been a hit in any era… the lyrics got my attention. While they’re standing in the welfare lines / crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation / wasting time in the unemployment lines / sitting around waiting for a promotion.

The song remains one of my favorites from that era. I always thought this song was an instant classic. It could have been released in 1973.

A still unknown Tracy Chapman was booked to appear down the bill at the Nelson Mandela birthday concert at Wembley Stadium on June 11, 1987. She had no reason to think her appearance would be the catalyst for a career breakthrough. After performing several songs from her self-titled debut during the afternoon, Chapman thought she’d done her bit and could relax and enjoy the rest of the concert.

That would not be the case… later in the evening, Stevie Wonder was delayed when the computer discs for his performance went missing, and Chapman was ushered back onto the stage again. In front of a huge prime-time audience, she performed “Fast Car” alone with her acoustic guitar. Afterward, the song raced up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Keith Richards – Take It So Hard

When I heard this song with the opening riff coming from that 5-string G turning that he is known for I loved it. I bought the album Talk is Cheap which some reviews half-jokingly called the best Rolling Stones album in years (It WAS!). The song got plenty of play on rock stations at the time. It peaked at #3 in the Mainstream Rock Tracks. The album was recorded in a period when Mick and Keith were feuding with each other about the direction of the Stones. They were not recording or playing live. “You Don’t Move Me Anymore” off of the album points right at Mick.

Personally, I’ve always liked Keith’s voice. Happy, Salt of the Earth, You Got the Silver, and Before They Make Me Run rank among my favorite Stones songs. This song would fit on any Stones album.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

42 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1988”

  2. Awesome list today but I must confess I don’t know the KR song but I liked it. Considering who was in The Travelling Wilburys Petty’s words about Dylan are quite remarkable. I don’t think I knew that story about Tracey Chapman and the Mandela concert. So glad that song is getting a new life.

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    1. The Tracy Chapman song really surprised me at that time…it was essentially a singer songwriter song from the seventies to me…at least that is the way I heard it…I couldn’t believe it was a hit…I was happy no doubt.

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      2. Yea and to have it hit at that time was crazy…I was also overwhelmed by Angel of Harlem that year…another one where it didnt’ sound like it came from that period.

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  3. Nice list Max! In ’88 I was listening to a lot more alt rock so my list would probably have Smithereens, Depeche mode, New Order on it but your choices are good… and way above what was starting to pervade hit radio (ie – by then those Tiffany covers were better than some of the other #1s and that’s not a great thing!). Love that Steve Earle song , fantastic story and building tension – even the bagpipes are cool. ‘Fast Car’, you’re right, like your other song today , has a timeless feel and was so out of step with the times it really jumped out at you. I saw the clip of her doing it with Luke Combs at the Grammys – they did it well and the crowd sure responded.

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    1. My favorite off this list though remains Angel of Harlem…an awesome song out of step with other hits…with the horns and everything. I was listening to more mainstream at this time because of these songs.

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    1. LOL.. they did seem to reach a lot of genres. They were hard not to like… yea I love the Keith song…those two gave me faith in the radio again.

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  8. Great choices. A personal favorite of mine is Timbuk 3, with “Rev Jack & His Roamin’ Cadillac Church” and “Too Much Sex, Not Enough Affection” (previously released on an EP from Pat MacDonald & the Essentials). Melissa Etheridge with “Bring Me Some Water” – the first time I heard it, I thought, “Who IS that?” Not Tina Turner, but close. Damn, that was hot.

    “La Pistola y El Corazón was Los Lobos’ response to “overnight” (after 15 years together) success with “La Bamba”. Traditional tunes with one original, all played on traditional acoustic instruments. A bold statement of their roots and a slap in the face to the execs who wanted them to capitalize on the movie with more of the same.

    “Straight Outta Compton” can’t be ignored historically, with “Fuck Tha Police” pulling no punches in talking about racial profiling and how they propose to respond.

    Bobby McFerrin rose to fame with “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. Another song that you couldn’t escape on the radio, which was not enough to overcome the vocal brilliance of Bobby McFerrin – and the video features Robin Williams and the amazing, rubber-limbed Bill Irwin. A few years later I got to hear the debut of his group Voicestra, exploring what could be done with the unaccompanied human voice.

    Frank Zappa opened the vault with 4 album releases. Michelle Shocked released “Short Sharp Shocked” with several great songs. Dwight Yoakum with “Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room” featuring Buck Owens in an incredible intergenerational duet on “Streets of Bakersfield”, and Flaco Jimenez.

    A better year than I would have thought.

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    1. Don’t Worry, Be Happy…you are correct…it was being whistled, hummed, and anything else you could do with the phrase.
      I forgot completely about “Bring Me Some Water.”
      I also remember “Streets of Bakersfield”…I’ll check out some of the others…thanks as always.

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  9. I didn’t know that story of Tracy Chapman. That is cool. I do love Fast Cars and glad to see her getting some love at the Grammy’s. My kids played that song by Luke Combs and I told them, his version is not as good as this one and played them hers. They still like the Combs version (because that is the one they heard first)…I shook my head.

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    1. LOL… I know what you mean…many times the ones we hear first we remember the best but on this one…I can’t imagine another version as good as hers.

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    1. I did like he narrows things down after writing too much. It sounds like solving a puzzle with too many pieces…
      I have what I call a “lyric graveyard” I will go to…I assume that is close to what he is doing.

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      1. I like that! ‘Lyric graveyard.’ I have something similar, a file that rarey sees the light of day. Most that don’t make the cut I now leave; If they’re buried they don’t look much better when you disinter and dust ’em down.
        Ugh, that sounds Zombie Apocalypse time!

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      2. It does sound that way! If I think of a lyric…which I haven’t done in a while I must say…it goes to the graveyard hopefully to be used at a later date.

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  15. Another set of great picks, Max. The only song I have trouble remembering whether I heard it before is Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road”. The album cover does look familiar but I just can’t recall. In any case, it doesn’t really matter, it’s a great song! 🙂

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  17. It was heart-warming watching Tracey at the Grammy’s last week, such a lovely moment for her and us! Traveling Wilburys, great to see a supergroup get together for a mutual laugh and make it work, and the posthumous Roy Orbison album was brilliant too, along with a highpoint in George’s solo career. I don’t think anyone would have seen Bob & Jeff as last men standing and Roy going almost immediately. A new career highlight to bow out on though…

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    1. It sounds like it’s an important song to you…for me it was a breath of fresh air from the 80s style music….it was a throwback to the early seventies to me.

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