Singles – Page 12 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Reverend Horton Heat – Psychobilly Freakout

This one was fun to write about. Sometimes I like to post the offbeat kind of artists, and the Reverend fits that description. This is what happens when you turn frantic Rockabilly up a notch or three. Let’s just rip the band-aid off. This thing doesn’t walk into the room, it tears the hinges off the door, screams in your face, steals your beer, and does donuts in the church parking lot. It is high-octane and has some great guitar.

He does some Brian Setzer and Duane Eddy style guitar playing at 11. It’s NOT a storytelling song. It’s a vibe, a warning, and a shot of tequila thrown down your throat. I love Dylan, Prine, and the other great songwriters, but this isn’t it, and it’s not meant to be. Some songs make you want to sing. Some make you want to cry. This one makes you want to smash furniture and swing from the rafters.

He was on the record label Sub Pop, which also had Nirvana, but he sounds nothing like them. His real name is James C. Heath, and he grew up in Dallas, Texas. His influences were Junior Brown, Willie Nelson, and Merle Travis. He and his band have made 13 studio albums, and many of them charted. In the early 2000s, a friend at work named Lee played this one and a song called Wiggle Stick (live version), which, to be truthful, is more accessible than this one. I loved the sense of humor and sound right away.

This song came off the album Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em released in 1990. Reverend Horton Heat’s songs have been in movies, and he has a huge following.

Wiggle Stick

Psychobilly Freakout

It’s a psychobilly freakout!

Well, we’re off, we’re off, we’re off!
It’s, it’s, it’s a psychobilly freakout!

Well, we’re off, we’re off, we’re off!

I’ll tell you what it is! (what is it, God dang it?)
It’s some kinda Texas psychobilly freakout
That’s what it is

Well, we’re off, we’re off, we’re off!
It’s a psychobilly freakout!

Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel

One of the most perfect Rock and Roll songs ever. There are many different eras of Elvis. This is not the jumpsuit Elvis or even the great comeback Elvis. This is the mid-fifties Elvis, who I think is untouchable.

This 1955 song found Elvis Presley right on the cusp. He’d already cut a few sides for Sun that shaped hillbilly music into something sharp and unruly, but this was his first single for RCA. The stakes were high, and the sound? Even higher. Everything about Heartbreak Hotel is drenched in echo. Not just the vocals, which slap back like they’re ricocheting off the walls, but the very mood of it.

Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore laid down little guitar stabs. Floyd Cramer’s piano combines with the emptiness. RCA execs weren’t sure about it. They wanted something upbeat. Something with bounce. But the public knew better, as they usually do. The song was written by Hoyt Axton’s mother, Mae Boren Axton, who wrote the music, and a steel guitar player from Nashville named Tommy Durden wrote the lyrics. He said he was inspired by a newspaper article about a man who killed himself at a hotel and left a note that stated, “I walk a lonely street.”

The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100 and the Country charts and #2 in the UK Charts. It also reached #10 in the UK in 1971. The first RCA sessions were held on January 10, 1956, at their Nashville studios ( The Methodist Television, Radio and TV Studios, 1525 McGavock Street, Nashville), and that’s where Elvis recorded this song. His backing musicians were his mainstays, Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on bass, D.J. Fontana on drums, Floyd Cramer on piano, and Chet Atkins on acoustic guitar.

Heartbreak Hotel

Well, since my baby left me
Well, I found a new place to dwell
Well, it’s down at the end of Lonely Street
At Heartbreak Hotel
Where I’ll be–where I get so lonely, baby
Well, I’m so lonely
I get so lonely, I could die

Although it’s always crowded
You still can find some room
For broken-hearted lovers
To cry there in the gloom
And be so, where they’ll be so lonely, baby
Well, they’re so lonely
They’ll be so lonely, they could die

Well, the bellhop’s tears keep flowin’
And the desk clerk’s dressed in black
Well, they’ve been so long on Lonely Street
Well, they’ll never, they’ll never get back
And they’ll be so, where they’ll be so lonely, baby
Well, they’re so lonely
They’ll be so lonely, they could die

Well now, if your baby leaves you
And you have a sad tale to tell
Just take a walk down Lonely Street
To Heartbreak Hotel
And you will be, you will be, you will be lonely, baby
You’ll be so lonely
You’ll be so lonely, you could die

Well, though it’s always crowded
You still can find some room
For broken-hearted lovers
To cry there in the gloom
And they’ll be so, they’ll be so lonely, baby
They’ll be so lonely
They’ll be so lonely, they could die

Kinks – 20th Century Man

This is the twentieth centuryBut too much aggravationThis is the edge of insanityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to be here

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is (drum roll please…) a song from a concept album.

This song came from the album Muswell Hillbillies. A blogger friend of mine halffastcyclingclub, wrote up a post about it when I had the Kinks Weeks last year, it’s right here. Muswell Hillbillies is one of the many concept albums The Kinks did in the late sixties and early seventies. 20th Century Man kicks off the album.

The song is an anthem of the over-civilized, over-documented, over-saturated age. Davies isn’t just annoyed by technology or bureaucracy; he’s exhausted by the entire machinery of progress. X-rays, radiation, political ideology, Big Brother watching from the corner of the room, Ray sees it all and wants out. Half a century later, 20th Century Man sounds eerily current. All those worries about surveillance, conformity, soulless routine? They didn’t go away, they just put on a fresh coat of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Musically, it’s a leaner Kinks, with no horn section, no vaudeville flourishes, and no trimmings. Just guitars, grit, and a message that cuts you like a cold wind. Even the production feels lived-in, like it’s already been through the wringer. At the end of the song, it comes to life with a frustrated Ray Davies singing that he cannot keep up and doesn’t want to be there.

I can really relate to what he is going through in this song. This was before the 24/7 news cycle and advertising chasing us everywhere we turn. It peaked at #106 on the Billboard 100. The album peaked at #100 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1971. Lola just came out the year before, but it would be in the mid to late seventies when they returned to more commercial success. These albums, though, were great.

20th Century Man

This is the age of machineryA mechanical nightmareThe wonderful world of technologyNapalm hydrogen bombs biological warfare

This is the twentieth centuryBut too much aggravationIt’s the age of insanityWhat has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem

Ain’t got no ambitionI’m just disillusionedI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want, I don’t want to be here

My mama said she can’t understand meShe can’t see my motivationJust give me some securityI’m a paranoid schizoid product of the twentieth century

You keep all your smart modern writersGive me William ShakespeareYou keep all your smart modern paintersI’ll take Rembrandt, Titian, Da Vinci and Gainsborough

Girl we gotta get out of hereWe gotta find a solutionI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want, I don’t want to die here

Girl, we gotta get out of hereWe gotta find a solutionI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want, I don’t want to be here

I was born in a welfare stateRuled by bureaucracyControlled by civil servantsAnd people dressed in greyGot no privacy, got no liberty‘Cause the twentieth century peopleTook it all away from me

Don’t want to get myself shot downBy some trigger happy policemanGotta keep a hold on my sanityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to die here

My mama says she can’t understand meShe can’t see my motivationAin’t got no securityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to die here

I don’t want twentieth century, manI don’t want twentieth century, manI don’t want twentieth century, manI don’t want twentieth century, man

This is the twentieth centuryBut too much aggravationThis is the edge of insanityI’m a twentieth century man but I don’t want to be here

…

Los Lobos – Evangeline

Damn this song swings, and it has a great guitar intro and feel. I heard this for the first time not long ago, and it stuck with me as well as some more of their songs. With a band like this, it’s hard to pin down one song to post.

They’ve always had that rarest of abilities: to wrap roots, rock, and border ballads into something that feels less like a style and more like a lineage. The brilliance here is in the restraint. There’s no over-arrangement, no big production, and no studio trickery. Just a man sitting with his memory.

The song was written by David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez on the album How Will The Wolf Survive? This is truly a great album. It’s easy to overlook this song when you’ve got so much groove and grit elsewhere on the record. But give it a quiet night and some headphones, and you’ll find it’s one of the songs that stays with you longest. I covered the title cut earlier this year.

This song proves something else… they could write songs that cut deep with almost nothing at all. No drawn-out guitar solos. No choruses built for crowd sing-alongs. Just three minutes of pure delight. The album peaked at #47 on the Billboard 100, #13 in New Zealand, #31 in Canada, and #77 in the UK in 1984.

I gave this link in the other post. There is a documentary about Los Lobos called Native Sons that is set to be released this year. As far as I know, it still hasn’t been released. If you have any more information, I would love to hear it.

Evangeline

Evangeline is on the roamJust barely seventeenWhen she left homeDon’t know where she isOr where she’s goingShe is the queen of make believe, Evangeline

I can still remember this little girlBlack eyes just staringAt this big old worldRan off to find some American dreamTrain ticket in one handIn her new blue jeans

Evangeline is on the roamJust barely seventeenWhen she left homeDon’t know where she isOr where she’s goingShe is the queen of make believe, Evangeline

She went out dancin’ on a Saturday nightSilk stockings and high heelsBlue liner on her eyesBut on Sunday morning she’s all aloneHead lying on the nightstandBy the telephone

Evangeline is on the roamJust barely seventeenWhen she left homeDon’t know where she isOr where she’s goingShe is the queen of make believe, EvangelineShe is the queen of make believe, Evangeline

Willis Alan Ramsey – Satin Sheets

Hallelujah let me sock it to ya
Praise the Lord, and pass the mescaline

You could spend a weekend digging through Texas songwriters and never quite land on someone as mysterious or as mythically hyped as Willis Alan Ramsey. I want to thank a commentator M.Y. for telling me about this wonderful album and artist.

Ramsey was born in Alabama in 1951, but it was Texas where he planted his flag and his musical roots. The Lone Star State was churning out outlaw country and cosmic cowboys in the early ‘70s, and Ramsey’s 1972 self-titled debut landed right in the middle of it. The album was released on Leon Russell’s Shelter Records (home to J.J. Cale and Dwight Twilley), Willis Alan Ramsey was a swampy, soulful, blend of folk, country, and blues.

This album, released in 1972, was his only album. It has been lauded by critics, and I can understand why. He had a contract dispute with Shelter Records and left at the end of the contract. His fans have been waiting half a century for a new album. When asked, he said, “What’s wrong with the first one?” He did start a new album in 1997 and is trying to finish it with financial help from friends and fans alike. It is still in the works.

He did have one song that is widely known. There is a song on this album called Muskrat Candlelight. Do the math, and you know who covered it. Change Candlelight to Love, and yes, you have Captain and Tennille. I’ve listened to this album many times, and the guy can write some interesting lyrics. The ones I have at the top got my attention right away with this song.

Give a listen to this album if you have time.

Satin Sheets

I wish I was a millionaire
Play rock music and grow long hair
Tell your boys
‘Bout a new Rolls-Royce

Pretty women callin’ me
Give ‘em all the third degree
Give ‘em satin sheets
To keep ‘em off the streets

Hallelujah let me sock it to ya
Praise the Lord, and pass the mescaline
Trade your whole world
You’ll come over
As soon as you see me boogie-woogie ‘cross the silver screen

Hang ‘em high, hang ‘em low
Put ‘em in the ceilings wherever I go
And they’d swing all night
In the rafter light

Hallelujah, what’s it to ya?
Got your coffee, me, I got my Spanish tea
Trade your whole world
You’ll come over
As soon as you hear me playing my calliope

I wish I was a millionaire
Play rock music and grow long hair
Tell your boys
‘Bout a new Rolls-Royce

….

Monkees – Pleasant Valley Sunday

I’ve heard so many times, How can you listen to the Monkees? Easy answer: I might not have gotten into rock music as early as I did without them. They inspired me later on to pick up a guitar and join a band. When I was 7, I saw the reruns of the Monkees in the mid-seventies. They made being in a band look fun. Of course, they never told you about the backbiting and the politics. The thing is, they made some good pop singles.

Also, the claim that they didn’t play their instruments, which was true on their first two albums, until their third album on. No, the hits didn’t dry up after they started to play their own instruments. This one they played on. Michael Nesmith was a singer-songwriter and guitarist before joining; Peter Tork was the best musician in the band at the time and played with Stephen Stills, Davy Jones played drums before joining, and Mickey Dolenz was a guitar player. Micky soon learned drums and possessed one of the best pop voices of the sixties. Mickey and Mike did the vocals on this song, singing together.

This song was written by Goffin and King about suburbia. The Monkees started to play their own instruments on the Headquarters album. Pleasant Valley Sunday was released from that album and peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100, #11 in the UK, and #1 in Canada in 1967. The song had a rebellious streak. It is a dig at suburban life, but a really catchy dig.

The Monkees were hot in 1967. Their show was on the air from 1966 to 1968. The opening guitar lick of this song was based on The Beatles’ “I Want To Tell You.” They influenced at least a couple of generations of musicians.

Peter Tork: “A notion of mine that I was real pleased with took over at one point, and that was having two guys sing in unison rather than one guy doubling his own voice. So you’ve got Mike, who was really a hard-nosed character, and Micky, who’s a real baby face, and these two voices blended and lent each other qualities. It’s not two separate voices singing together, it’s really a melding of the two voices. Listening to that record later on was a joy.”

One more thing…Jan Wenner of Rolling Stone Magazine can stuff it.

Here is a demo by Carol King

“Pleasant Valley Sunday”

The local rock group down the street
Is trying hard to learn their song
They serenade the weekend squire
Who just came out to mow his lawn
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Rows of houses that are all the same
And no one seems to care See Mrs. Gray, she’s proud today
Because her roses are in bloom
And Mr. Green, he’s so serene
He’s got a TV in every room
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol land
Mothers complain about how hard life is
And the kids just don’t understand Creature comfort goals, they only numb my soul
And make it hard for me to see
(Ah ah ah) ah thoughts all seem to stray to places far away
I need a change of scenery Ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta ta
Ta ta ta ta, ta ta ta taAnother pleasant valley Sunday
Charcoal burning everywhere
Another pleasant valley Sunday
Here in status symbol land
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)
Another pleasant valley Sunday (a pleasant valley Sunday)

AC/DC – Riff Raff

No big surprise here. No concept album, no reaching for the acoustic, or any subtleties…just Rock and Roll at high volume. It took me years to like this band, and I like both versions, but I favor the Bon Scott era a little more for some reason.

There’s a certain thrill when you drop the needle on Powerage and let Riff Raff come flying out of the speakers, like being tackled by a denim-clad Marshall Amp! It wasn’t about the hits with this band, it was about raw power. Bombastic and proud of it. They were Chuck Berry on steroids. Angus is on fire in this one, and yet somehow, despite the chaos, it’s never messy.

There’s something weirdly noble about AC/DC’s refusal to pander. While everyone else in 1978 was busy adding synths or softening the edges for FM radio, these guys doubled down on bar-fight boogie music. And this song is the kind of track that drives the point home for everyone.

Powerage was released in 1978, and it peaked at #133 on the Billboard Album Charts and #23 in the UK. This was a year before their breakthrough album, Highway To Hell. I have to hand it to them because they never changed, and I can say honestly, never will. Their fans would not expect anything different.

Riff Raff

See it on television, every dayYa hear it on the radioIt ain’t humid, but it sure is hotDown in MexicoA barmaid’s tryin’ to tell me (ha-ha)“Beginning of the end”Sayin’ it’ll bend meToo late, my friend

Riff raffOh, it’s good for a laughHa-ha-haRiff raffGo on and laugh yourself in halfSmile a while

Now, I’m the kinda guy that keep his big mouth shutIt don’t bother meSomebody kickin’ me when I’m upLeave me in miseryI never shot nobodyDon’t even carry a gunI ain’t done nothin’ wrongI’m just having fun

Riff raffOh, it’s good for a laughHa-ha-haRiff raffGo on and laugh yourself in halfSmile a while

Do it again

…

Ricky Nelson – Lonesome Town

Ricky Nelson’s 1958 hit Lonesome Town is one of those songs that sneaks up on you, not with a scream, but with a sigh. Something about this song hits me when I hear it. When I think of Ricky Nelson, I think of this song over Garden Party or any other for some reason.

The production is sparse, but that’s the point. Just a hushed acoustic guitar, a ghostly bassline, and the Jordanaires humming like they’re trapped behind church doors. The reverb wraps around Nelson’s voice like fog rolling in over the streets of this town. Ricky Nelson might not have had Elvis’s sneer or Jerry Lee’s wildness, but he had something those guys didn’t always chase…subtlety.

Not only do we have Ricky Nelson singing, but the great Jordanaires backing him up. The loneliness conveyed in this song still works. The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard 100, 1958. The song was written by Baker Knight. Knight wrote more hits for Ricky Nelson and more. Elvis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, and Jerry Lee Lewis covered his songs.

Ricky Nelson was huge in the 50s, given his constant exposure on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet… This song was a change for him at the time, as he usually did up-tempo songs. The show ended up hurting him a bit in the long run. It was a while before people took him as seriously as a performer.

I first heard this song in the 1980s, listening to an oldies channel that stayed locked in for me. I was reminded of it later in the mid-nineties with a Pepsi Commercial.

Lonesome Town

There’s a place where lovers go to cry their troubles away
And they call it lonesome town, where the broken hearts stay
You can buy a dream or two to last you all through the years
And the only price you pay is a heartful of tears

Goin’ down to lonesome town, where the broken hearts stay
Goin’ down to lonesome town to cry my troubles away
In the town of broken hearts the streets are paved with regret
Maybe down in lonesome town I can learn to forget

Los Lonely Boys – Heaven

I only had to hear the guitar intro to know I was going to like this song. A perfect blend of Tex-Mex soul, swing, and spirituality, and it sounds natural and flows.

The band is made up of three brothers from San Angelo, Texas: Henry Garza (guitar and vocals), Jojo Garza (bass and vocals), and Ringo Garza Jr. (drums and vocals). Music was literally the family business. Their father, Enrique Garza Sr., had been part of a Tejano group in the ’70s and ’80s called The Falcones, with his brothers, and the boys grew up playing alongside him, learning the ropes on stage instead of in a garage.

They moved to Nashville for a short time, chasing the dream and refining their style, a mix of Chicano rock, blues, country, and soul that they called Texican Rock ‘n’ Roll. It wasn’t long before they relocated back to Texas and began building a name playing live gigs anywhere they could

Their big break came when they were discovered by Willie Nelson, who caught wind of their live show and invited them to record at his Pedernales Studio. That led to a 1997 self-released album, then a self-titled major-label debut in 2004. This is the album that Heaven was on. The album peaked at #1 on the Billboard US Heatseekers Albums, #16 on the Billboard Album Charts.

The single peaked at #1 on the Adult Contemporary Charts, #16 on the Billboard 100, and #46 on the Billboard Country Charts. I would have never guessed they slipped in the Country Charts.

Heaven

Vamonos

Save me from this prisonLord, help me get away‘Cause only you can save me now from this misery

I’ve been lost in my own place and I’m gettin’ wearyHow far is heaven?And I know that I need to change my ways of livin’How far is heaven?Lord, can you tell me

I’ve been locked up way too long in this crazy worldHow far is heaven?And I just keep on prayin’, Lord, and just keep on livin’How far is heaven?Yeah, Lord, can you tell me?How far is heaven? (‘Cause I just gotta know how far, yeah)How far is heaven? (Yeah, Lord, can you tell me?)

Tu que estas en alto cieloEchame tu bendicion

‘Cause I know there’s a better place than this place I’m livingHow far is heaven?And I just got to have some faith and just keep on givingHow far is heaven? (Yeah, Lord, can you tell me?)How far is heaven? (‘Cause I just got to know how far, yeah)How far is heaven? (Yeah, Lord, can you tell me?)How far is heaven? (‘Cause I just gotta know how far)I just want to know how far

…

Chris Spedding – Motor Bikin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’

It was hard to just pick one song out of his catalog because he had so many good songs, and I love his guitar riffs.

You could call Chris Spedding a session guy, but that’d be underselling him. He’s the kind of musician who can jump into just about any scene and make it better, without ever stealing the spotlight. A chameleon with a Gretsch. While he never quite became a household name, Spedding is one of those players whose fingerprints are all over the jukebox of the ‘70s and beyond if you know where to listen.

Chris was raised in Sheffield, England. He had classical training and great instincts. By the time the late 1960s, he was already slipping into studios and turning heads. You’ll find him in the credits of records by Jack Bruce, Bryan Ferry, John Cale, Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Tom Waits, Roger Daltrey, Robert Gordon, and Harry Nilsson, just to name a few.

In 1975, Spedding gave the spotlight a try himself with the single Motor Bikin’, peaking at #14 on the UK Charts, and it’s a gem. A three-minute, leather-jacket anthem with a riff that sounds like it could’ve rolled straight out of a jukebox in a biker bar run by T. Rex. He also produced demos for the Sex Pistols, and some thought he would join them, but he didn’t.

His look? Always sharp, slicked-back hair, leather jacket, just the right amount of attitude in the mid-seventies. He looked like a cool rock ‘n’ roll guitar slinger in the best way possible. Cool without trying too hard.

As I’ve said, he has worked with everyone, including a stint with Robert Gordon. He also worked with Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders in 1980. I’ll add a couple of more songs that give you a flavor of him. The guitar riff in Jump In My Car (studio version) is really cool. It was originally done by The Ted Mulry Gang. Him and Gordon did a super job of Summertime Blues.

Motor Bikin’

Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’
If you gotta go, go, gotta go motor bike ridin’

Listen to me and I’ll tell you no lie
Too fast to live, too young to die
I bought a new machine today and say
It take your breath away

Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’

Baby, won’t you come with me?
I’ll take you where you want to be

Well, here I am again and I’m dressed in black
I got my baby, she’s right in the back
We’re doin’ ’bout 95
Whew, so good to be alive
See upcoming pop shows
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Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’
If you gotta go, go, gotta go motor bike ridin’

Motor bikin’
We go motor bikin’
Motor bikin’
Whew, we’re motor cyclin’

Moving on the queen’s highway lookin’ like a streak of lightnin’
If you gotta go, go, gotta go motor bike ridin’

Motor bikin’
We go motor bikin’
Motor bikin’

…

Frankie Miller – I Can’t Change It

This is the kind of song and artist I like posting. I call it New Old music because not everyone has heard of Frankie Miller, unlike Neil Young and other artists. The song just sticks with me with its haunting and melancholy melody. The guy has a voice that is about as strong as you can get. There are certain voices that don’t just sing a song, they bleed it. Frankie Miller had one of those voices. You could park it next to Rod Stewart, Steve Marriott, and Joe Cocker, and no one would flinch.

I was watching Life On Mars when this song came on in an emotional scene. I’d never heard of it before. I never heard of Frankie Miller, but what a singer. He wrote this song when he was just 12 years old. Ray Charles also ended up recording it. Charles did his usual fantastic job on it, but I like Frankie’s stark arrangement. I can’t say enough about his voice. In some of his other songs, he reminds me of Bob Seger with an even a little stronger voice if that is possible. He wrote Ain’t Got No Money which Seger covered.

The best way I can describe this song is that it doesn’t need a big chorus or a clever twist. It just tells the truth. And in doing so, it becomes one of those tracks you return to when the world’s too loud and you need something real. Much like why I keep returning to Ronnie Lane and others. This one doesn’t have a wasted note. No overplaying. Just a slow, steady build that wraps around you.

This was on his 1973 debut album Once In A Blue Moon. In 1994, while he was forming a band with Joe Walsh, he had a brain aneurysm. He has fought back but sadly had to retire. If you don’t know much about him, he is worth looking up.

I can’t find a live version but check out this show.

I Can’t Change It

My friends can’t find some things I say
Must be the way I say those things
My friends can’t find some things I do
Must be the way I do those things
I can’t change it
But I’m trying to do right

I used to steal I used to fall
Was I wrong I can’t recall
I stole in love but all in all
Was I wrong I don’t recall
I can’t change it
But I’m trying to do right

Is it bad to look inside yourself and decide to go
To someone who can show the way complete
Are you glad to lose the doubts you thought would never go
When them inside hallucinations had you beat

My own true love has gone away
What can I say she left that day
The moon still shines a different way
What can I say
She left that day
I can’t change it but I’m waiting patiently

…

Jeff Healey – Angel Eyes

I wrote this a while back, but Deke sent me another song that was incredible on guitar. So I canceled this one for that weekend and came back to this today. This was my introduction to Jeff Healey, as it was to many people.

When I think of this song, I think of a dark, smoky bar because we were playing as a house band, and this was on the jukebox. We would listen to it between sets. The way Canadian Jeff Healy played guitar was very interesting. Healy was of course, blind, and he was given a guitar, and no one taught him how to play it. Jeff Healey was a Canadian who started to play guitar when he was 3. He could bend the notes to a limit that normal guitar players normally don’t. His solos were just as interesting as the songs themselves.

In 1989, Jeff Healey came out with this song that peaked at #5 in the Billboard 100, #86 in the UK, and #16 in Canada. The song was written by John Hiatt and Fred Koller. It helped bring Healey into the mainstream and broadened his audience.

He formed The Jeff Healey Band in 1985 with Joe Rockman and Tom Stephen. The band gained recognition in Toronto’s blues scene before being discovered by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins. They were signed to Arista Records, and they released their 1988 debut album, See the Light. This song came from that album. He would release 5 albums with The Jeff Healey Band and also played with the Jazz Wizards.

Healey was adopted and raised in Toronto, where he developed a passion for music. He was blind from early childhood due to retinoblastoma and had a great career until his passing in 2008.

Angel Eyes

Girl, you’re looking fine tonight
And every guy has got you in his sight
What you’re doing with a clown like me
Is surely one of life’s little mysteries

So tonight I’ll ask the stars above
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say
To turn your angel eyes my way?

Well, I’m the guy who never learned to dance
Never even got one second glance
Across a crowded room was close enough
I could look but I could never touch

So tonight I’ll ask, the stars above
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say
To turn your angel eyes my way?

Don’t anyone wake me
If it’s just a dream
‘Cause she’s the best thing
Ever happened to me

All you fellows
You can look all you like
But this girl you see
She’s leavin’ here with me tonight

There’s just one more thing that I need to know
If this is love why does it scare me so?
It must be somethin’ only you can see
‘Cause girl I feel it when you look at me

So tonight I’ll ask the stars above
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say,
To turn your angel eyes my way?
Hey, hey, hey, yeah, awww

Creation – Making Time

Thank you, Dave, for this Turntable Talk. I wrote this for his series about songs with Time in the title, in the song, or about time. I like trying out new songs on the weekend, and this is a great example of mid-sixties British Rock. If you dig the Who and Kinks…you should like this one.

Here’s a 1966 track that hits you like a kaleidoscopic brick through a plate-glass window. This is a band that I so wish would have done more things. Their lead guitarist, Eddie Phillips, was asked by Pete Townshend to join the Who as their second guitarist. They are one of those bands that slipped through the cracks.

They were formed in 1966 from a band called The Mark Four. The Creation was from Chesthunt, 12 miles north of central London. They formed in 1963 as the Mark Four and went through different names until 1966 when they became the Creation. The Creation was sharper, weirder, and wilder than most of their peers. They had the raw power chords and the feedback fury of early Hendrix, and the pop art mindset of a band who not only wanted to be heard, they needed to be seen as well. The lead singer, Kenny Pickett, would spray paint a canvas, and someone from the road crew would set it a fire during the set…during the song Painter Man.

This song was released in 1966. They patterned themselves after The Who and The Kinks. It had the sonic sound of The Who, the garage grit of The Kinks, and the art-school sound with later groups like The Jam to Blur. But what really made it jump off the grooves? That guitar solo really helped out. Long before Jimmy Page, Eddie Phillips, the guitar player, used a bow. Making Time was the first rock song to feature the guitar being played with a bow. Shel Talmy produced the group that also produced The Who and The Kinks.

The band broke up in 1967-1968 with some different members. The guitar player Eddie Phillips and singer Kenny Pickett started to write songs in the seventies after leaving the business for a while. They wrote Teacher, Teacher for Rockpile. They regrouped in the 1980s and are still out there touring.

I’ve been talking about the Who and Kinks…a member from each band played with The Creation along with a Rolling Stone. Mick Avory, the drummer for the Kinks played with the reformed band from the mid-1980s to 1993. Doug Sandom, who was replaced by Keith Moon in the Who, played with them off and on until he died in 2019. Ronnie Wood played with them in 1968 (right before they broke up) as a vocalist and guitar player.

They only released 3 studio albums. One in 1966 called We Are Paintermen. One in 1987 called Psychedelic Rose and another one in 1996 called Power Surge. This song peaked at #49 on the UK Charts in 1966.

Making Time

Making time
Shooting lines
For people to believe in
Things you say
Gone in a day
Everybody leavin’
Everybody leavin’

Why do we have to carry on?
Always singing the same old song
Same old song
The same old song

Tellin’ lies
Closing your eyes
Making more excuses
Pullin’ the wool
Actin’ the fool
People have their uses
People have their uses

Why do we have to carry on?
Always singing the same old song
Same old song
The same old song

Lookin’ for
An open door
Never taking chances
Take your pick
Makes you sick
Seekin’ new advances
Seekin’ new advances

Why do we have to carry on?
Always singing the same old song
Same old song
The same old song

Ben Vaughn – Shingaling with Me

This song has been in my head for a week now and won’t get out and thats a good thing. The feel of this sounds like it crawled out of the back seat of a 1963 Rambler. It really fits in with The Swingin’ Medallions, Doug Sahm’s 60s style of music, with a tiny bit of a tame Lou Reed thrown in. You can also hear a little of Springsteen in his music at times.

I’m far from an expert on Ben Vaughn, but he shouldn’t be so unknown. Big Star is more well-known than this man. His music is instantly catchy and likable. The song I covered a few years ago, “Too Sensitve for This World,” has hit written all over it. I’m surprised no one has covered that one. Well, I double checked and someone has! Deer Tick…now that is a name that…no I won’t say it.

Vaughn is from New Jersey. He got his start in the late ’70s, playing in punk and new wave bands before forming The Ben Vaughn Combo in 1983. The Combo was everything great about mid-’60s rock and roll, reimagined with a little punk energy. The band was together for five years, releasing two albums and touring the U.S. several times. They received rave reviews in Rolling Stone and People magazine and video airplay on MTV.

This track comes from Mood Swings, the 1992 album that put Vaughn on the map as a Jersey jangle-pop garage guy with a deep record collection. It’s a compilation album that contains his best songs from 1985 to 1990. This song was originally on his 1987 album Beautiful Thing.

Vaughn started a solo career in 1988 and has released over 17 albums. He is very versatile… he plays Rock, blues, jazz, folk, soul, R & B, country, Power Pop, Bossa Nova, movie soundtracks, easy listening, and more, all with Vaughn’s musical slant.

His older albums are not on Spotify, but here is a YouTube playlist that covers a lot of this album. It really doesn’t matter because his songs are just plain out good.

I blogged about Vaughn a while back with this great song.

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Joe Ely – Boxcars

I keep going back to the Texas songwriters whenever possible. Joe Ely was the first, other than Townes Van Zandt, who placed me on that road. I think all of them were born with an acoustic guitar, wit, pen, with paper in hand. So many of them write wonderful melodies and lyrics that any songwriter would drool over. Boxcars captures everything great about Texas songwriting in one cold, mournful ride.

Ely was born in Amarillo in 1947 and raised in Lubbock, Buddy Holly’s hometown and a surprisingly fertile ground for musicians. Ely came of age surrounded by dust storms, flat horizons, and rock ‘n’ roll. By the late ‘60s, he was friends with a couple of brilliant kids named Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Together, they formed The Flatlanders, a band that barely made a dent at the time but later became a blueprint for alt-country and Americana.

This song was written by Butch Hancock, a close friend and collaborator of Joe Ely. This was on his second solo album called Honky Tonk Masquerade released in 1978. The album is in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and was 40 on Rolling Stone’s 50 Essential Albums of the ’70s list. Ely’s first album was released in 1977. He met The Clash the following year in London and both liked each other. They both toured together a bit after that. Ely sang backups on the Clash hit Should I Stay or Should I Go.

He was also involved with a personal favorite pickup band with John Mellencamp called The Buzzin Cousins. He is revered in the music business and by fans alike. He also played in the Los Super Seven. Thanks, halffastcyclingclub, for pointing them out to me a while back. I still need to write one up.

His voice in this one is golden. It’s in Ely’s delivery, equal parts resigned and reverent, like he’s singing about someone he knew once, or maybe used to be.

Boxcars

Well, I gave all my money to the banker this monthNow, I got no more money to spendShe smiled when she saw me comin’ through that doorWhen I left she said, “Come back again”

I watched them lonesome boxcar wheelsTurnin’ down the tracks out of townAnd it’s on that lonesome railroad trackI’m gonna lay my burden down

I was raised on a farm the first years of my lifeLife was pretty good they sayI’ll probably live to be some ripe ol’ ageIf death’ll just stay out of my way

This world can take my money and timeBut it sure can’t take my soulAnd I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracksWatch them lonesome boxcars roll

There’s some big ol’ Buicks by the Baptist churchCadillacs at the Church of ChristI parked my camel by an ol’ haystackI’ll be lookin’ for that needle all night

There ain’t gonna be no radial tiresTurnin’ down the streets of goldI’m goin’ down to the railroad tracksAnd watch them lonesome boxcars roll

Now, if you ever heard the whistle on a fast freight trainBeatin’ out a beautiful tuneIf you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracksShinin’ by the light of the moon

If you ever felt the locomotive shake the groundI know you don’t have to be toldWhy I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracksAnd watch them lonesome boxcars roll

Yeah, I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracksAnd watch them lonesome boxcars roll

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