I got a column coming up this weekend that is too long but it’s early. As Mark Twain wrote ‘Sorry this letter was so long. I would have made it shorter if I had more time.’ NOTE: From memory, not exact quote.
So, what I’m writing about is my disappointment that there is not more awareness of Lewy body dementia. The old sore spot was resurrected last week when I received an 82-page, 16,077 word report on Alzheimer’s research. One of those 16K words was Lewy. One!
Again everything, money, publicity, public awareness is focused on Alzheimer’s. We’re going to change that.
Look for it on AL.com Saturday. Even though I went ahead and wrote it too long. Ranted too long. so like my old buddies Archie Bell and his buddies the Drells used to say: Tighten Up.
Here are some records I’m pulling out. I’ll probably put up for sale my A through D’s or E’s, about 150 albums or so. (You can see a list just by scrolling my blog starting from the A’s.)
MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$ (First pressings and promo albums can be expensive.)
John Prine wrote some classic songs. Socially conscious, witty and biting, he upon further review should go down as one of America’s finest songwriters.
‘Angel from Montgomery,’ ‘Sam Stone,’ ‘Illegal Smile,’ ‘Hello in there,’ and ‘Donald and Lydia’ are major and minor classics. And that was just his first album. I believe I got this in Middle School (actually we called it Junior high school back then). I was about 9th grade. I remember hearing ‘Donald and Lydia’ and thinking I had to find this song. I had to tell my brother to turn down the Alice Cooper so I could figure out a way to find out who did that song and what was it called. It took some sleuthing. Spanish Pipedream was another favorite: “Blow up the TV, throw out your paper … go find Jesus on your own.”
Bob Dylan is reportedly a big fan.
In 2017 Rolling Stone did a profile calling Prine the Mark Twain of singer-songwriters.
Prine’s lyrics can be funny, biting and can make you cry — sometimes all within one song.
From Sam Stone he sets the tone, a family where ‘Daddy,’ a war veteran with a Purple Heart, has a drug problem: ‘There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose. Little pitchers have big ears, Don’t stop to count the years, Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.‘
His much covered ‘Angel from Montgomery’ has these lyrics near the end of the song.. They always give me the chills because I think it is a strong hint that that she (the song’s protagonist killed her husband. I’ve been in debates over this, but here they are followed by a famous cover of the song by Bonnie Raitt.
There’s flies in the kitchen I can hear ’em there buzzing And I ain’t done nothing since I woke up today How the hell can a person go to work in the morning And come home in the evening and have nothing to say — John Prine “Angel from Montgomery.’
Here’s Bonnie Raitt covering the song:
In the middle of the Vietnam War — Prine was drafted and did a tour of duty — he wrote this:
But your flag decal won’t get you Into Heaven any more They’re already overcrowded From your dirty little war Now Jesus don’t like killin’ No matter what the reasons for And your flag decal won’t get you Into Heaven any more
They talk about James Brown being the hardest working many in showbiz. Well I proffer Papa John Creach.
Born in Pennsylvania, classically trained he found some rare symphony gigs open to a black man. So the began to cater to many audiences, learning the biz one nightclub venue at a time in Chicago, he once played many months on a cruise ship and then went West.
His violin playing was a slick mix of blues, jazz, bluegrass and he adapted to his audiences to keep his music gigs alive and to put food on the table. Jazz threw him for a loop at first because he had to learn a new bowing technique, according to his Wikipedia write-up.
“Because of all the nationalities [there], I had to learn to play everything. At some jobs it was strictly German music, or Polish. Now, they used to dance and knock holes in the floor,” according to an LA Times interview in the 1990s cited on his Wikipedia page.
In the psychedelic 1960s, through some connections he made, he was asked to join Hot Tuna, a San Francisco spin-off of Jefferson Airplane. He ended up playing with Airplane as well and played with everybody from the Grateful Dead to the Charlie Daniel’s band to Louis Armstrong.
From St. Louis Blues to Over the Rainow to Danny Boy, Creach help bands expand their musical horizons with his vast knowledge of music and expert playing.
This album has two fun bubblegum singles: I’ll Meet you Halfway and Doesn’t Somebody Want to be Wanted. Besides these two hits for the TV teeny bop band of the 1970s, the album contains innocuous filler, many from the professional songwriting team of Wes Ferrell and Gerry Goffin.
I went into this album hoping there’d be a surprise hidden gem but nah. It’s all pretty mediocre stuff. But I like the hits.
If you don’t already know it, David Cassidy and Shirley Jones are the only ones who had record time along with their camera time on the insipid TV show The Partridge Family. But I watched it — heck I was 11 years old and kind of liked the notion of screaming girls chasing me, um, David around.
The Cowsills, the Rhode Island family band who actually did play their own instruments, were the inspiration for the TV show. If memory serves me the TV producers wanted the family but not Mrs. Cowsill — the mom. Not because she wasn’t a good musician, but because Shirley Jones, who starred in Oklahoma, wanted this chance of being a Rock and Roll mother as she rolled into her middle age.
I forgot to publish this yesterday. So I am publishing now, Friday, Feb 14 Happy Valentine’s Day (Fake thought it is). I will add new items for the next 24 hours to this post so keep checking. It’ll be stuff I remembered that I forgot or forgot to remember.
[UPDATE 2/15: A column is forthcoming either later today or Sunday morning on AL.com — may post here as well]
There’s lot’s of stuff going on inside my head these days and that’s good. Sure there’s bad stuff like memory loss caused by the invasion of alpha-synuclein proteins. I just say my brain is streamlining.
Keep this post at the ready and go back over the course of the next 24 hours because my memory will be jarred and a new bit of news will appear on my blog. It will be a compilation blog.
My vinyl obsession now makes me forget of a lot of the great CD’s I accumulated in the 90s. Remember I went 20 to 30 years with my vinyl stashed in boxes as I did the digital thing. Anyway, it’s a long setjj-up just to play you a song. This oneis by Sufjan Stevens riffing off of “Sound of Silence” All Delighted People contains everything people love or loathe about this artist. (I’m on the love side.”
ONWARD: Here are some ICYMI’s.
I gave Mike Love a vinyl record on Wednesday. Then I went to see them in a moderately entertaining concert at the Alabama Theatre. I’m talking about the Beach Boys — although that’s a point of contention as several of the commenters pointed out.
I still stand by my argument that nothing is something.
I still dislike ‘Seasons in the Sun’ by Terry Jack, both the music and the lyrics and any and all emotion it evokes: anger, sadness, bewilderment, and huh? (That’s an emotion in most states).
This is going to be big for me: I’m going to the Alabama Record Collectors Association show at Gardendale Civic Center on March 6. That means I am going to start selling my Countdown records I’m the guy in the booth in the back with a tear in my eye
If you are introducing someone to good jazz, Blue John is a good place to start. Because it is so much fun. What do you expect from an album that starts off with “Hot Sauce.”
This record has an odd history. It was recorded in 1963 but didn’t see its release until 1986 on Blue Note.
Allmusic.com says this: “There may be something of a novelty element to (George) Braith‘s (saxophone) playing, but bluesy, groove-centered soul-jazz rarely sounds this bright and exuberant, which is reason enough not to dismiss his contributions.”
In addition to Braith’s funky sax sounds, Grant Green’s guitar throughout is tasty. Many people get introduced to good jazz with ‘Kinda Blue’ by Miles Davis or John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” or “My Favorite Things.” Great albums and must haves for a jazz collection. But Blue John by Big John Patton is an instant like with its laid back tempo and bluesy swing.
This all came about just a few hours before Love and his Beach Boys were to take the stage at the Alabama Theatre.
I’m going to the show, by the way. My brother bought me tickets for Christmas. Thanks David.
OK, here’s how I came about giving Love an album, or at least I hope he got it.
Earlier today I decided to take a stroll out of my office in downtown Birmingham to get a bite. Instead, I stopped at Reed Books, a favorite haunt which sells just about everything vintage, old and collectible.
All records are $2 and since I was skipping lunch I figured I’d use my lunch money for a record. The record was ‘Almost Summer,’ the 1978 soundtrack of a movie with the same name, which I found just rummaging around. Never heard of it but I looked at the songs and who wrote them.
A good portion of the tracks were written by Mike Love and Brian Wilson, I noticed. So there seemed to be good vibrations following me or leading me.
A record with obscure Beach Boys songs. One of them was apparently a hit.
I bought the record and wandered back to my office. The Alabama Theatre is on the way to my office, however. I stopped where a small group of people were standing near at least three large buses. They eyed me warily as I approached and began talking: Are you with the Beach Boys I asked? They really didn’t say anything. A security guard, clearly labeled so on his shirt, started to make his way closer to me. I reached into my satchel — slowly — and pulled out the album.
I told him I just wanted to give this to Mike Love or Bryan WIlson (not knowing if he’d be here or not).
“Oh,” the security guard said. “You just want me to give this to him?”
I said, yes. And I did, give it to him. Hope he likes it. Hope the security guard gave it to him. Then I started thinking, Love probably has this or maybe he doesn’t like it. I was arguing with myself.
Well, you never know. God only knows I felt good doing it, even if I won’t have it for My Vinyl Countdown.
ALBUMS: Two Wheels Good (1985); From Langley Park to Memphis (1988)
MVC Ratings: Two 4.0/$$$$; Langley, 4.0/$$$
This group on these two albums play great, melodic folk English Pop-Rock with very smart lyrics. It’s the kind of band I guarantee someone reading this review and listens to it will fall in love. Not for everybody, but those who fall, fall hard. Listen to first side of Wheels five times. ‘When love breaks down’ was a hit. I love ‘Bonny.’
Listen to ‘The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and ‘Cars and Girls’ on Langley five times each.
Get back to me next week and tell me what you think.
If you like two or more of these following groups, you will certainly enjoy Prefab Sprout: Squeeze, Roxy Music, 10cc, the Housemartins, Thomas Dolby (who produced both of these albums.)The sound is very 80s but very good 80s.
One explanation for their name is that band members misheard the June Carter-Johnny Cash song ‘Jackson’ when Carter sings “We got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout’ — they had apparently been singing and hearing that as “prefab sprout.
Two Wheels Good was released with the name Steve McQueen (yes the American actor) in the UK. But the McQueen estate objected and that why mine says ‘Two Wheels Good’ at the top right corner of my album.
A writer here in Birmingham, Lanier Isom, a cancer survivor, has written a very helpful guide and analysis about the steps needed to be taken after a cancer diagnosis.
This, of course, struck home as I am facing a shortened lifespan due to a diagnosis more than 2 years ago of Lewy body dementia.
Lanier, here, tells it like it is. How you see the best and worst sides of health care delivery in this county.
She writes:
Doctors are guides, not gods. You will witness some of the best the medical profession has to offer, and you will be stunned by the worst of the American healthcare system. Doctors are doing the best they can, but they’re handicapped by a system which has overloaded them with too many patients, too much profit motive, and too much meddlesome oversight by heartless insurance companies.
Question everything. Your life is at stake. Despite the queasy stomach and sweaty palms, when you find yourself in yet another doctor’s office, don’t let the doctor dismiss your questions or diminish your right to know and your right to choose what you do. Often the dismissal is simply a product of the doctor’s need to limit time spent with any given patient, so as to see to the backlog in the waiting room; however, you will encounter narcissists in white coats who view any question as an indictment of his/her ability and protocol.
