Posted on

Carole King — 385

ALBUM: Tapestry (1971)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$

When I was growing up — I was about 11 when this came out — nearly all of the songs on Tapestry were on the radio. Or so it seemed. They are among the all time greatest pop songs ever written.

Rolling Stone magazine has her and writing partner Gerry Goffin at #7 on the list of greatest songwriters behind Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson and Mick Jagger/Keith Richards. She’s the highest ranking female on the list. But I could argue for an even higher rank.

I think King hops the Stones’ boys and Smokey, all brilliant mind you, and on my desert Island I’d probably take the Stones first. But from a purely objective point of view, I think she’s a No. 5 on the list. And if you pulled the two Beatles together into one rank – the No. 2 slot — she would move up to the No. 4 slot. I’m not going to do a side-by-side on these but Tapestry, the album, is astonishing in that nearly every song is a standard.

But the kicker is this: Look at what she has written for other artists including a song — Chains — covered by the Beatles. Here’s a small sampling of non-Tapestry songs she wrote:

  • ‘The Loco-motion’ for their babysitter Little Eva.
  • “Go Away Little Girl,’ Donny Osmond and Steve Lawrence.
  • ‘Up on the Roof,’ the Drifters.
  • ‘Don’t Bring Me Down,’ the Animals.
  • ‘If it’s Over,’ Mariah Carey.
  • ‘One Fine Day,’ the Chiffons,
  • ‘I’m into Something Good,’ Herman’s Hermits.

At one time I remember Tapestry being the biggest seller ever, at least for a period, eclipsing Beatles. Then I remember hearing Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ surpassed Tapestry. Don’t know if this is accurate, but it comes out of my Lewy body dementia memory that way. Tapestry is still in theTop 10 best selling album of all time.

The copy of Tapestry I have in the house is from my wife’s collection. We began dating in 1978 and were married 1981 and that involved ‘merging’ of some records and tastes. Catherine loved Tapestry and knew every word to every song. Here’s the songs from Tapestry as listed on Wikipedia.:

Side 1

  1. “I Feel the Earth Move” – 3:00
  2. “So Far Away” – 3:55
  3. “It’s Too Late” (lyrics by Toni Stern) – 3:54
  4. “Home Again” – 2:29
  5. “Beautiful” – 3:08
  6. “Way Over Yonder” – 4:49

Side 2

  1. “You’ve Got a Friend” – 5:09
  2. “Where You Lead” (lyrics by Carole King and Toni Stern) – 3:20
  3. “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” (Gerry Goffin, King) – 4:13
  4. “Smackwater Jack” (Goffin, King) – 3:42
  5. “Tapestry” – 3:15
  6. “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (Goffin, King, Jerry Wexler) – 3:59

I was learning to like some of Catherine’s music: James Taylor, for whom I skipped class to camp out and buy tickets to his sold-out concert at Auburn University in, oh, 1980 maybe; Carly Simon, whose ‘Your So Vain’ was one of the few songs I could listen to a million times without getting tired of it. Other groups she loved that I came to appreciate, for the most part anyway: Bread, America, the Carpenters and Diana Ross.

Here’s a good overview of her work by Rolling Stone.

Posted on

King Crimson — 386

ALBUM: Discipline (1981)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

This is a good progressive album. And as I’ve stated before progressive is not my go-to genre. Those who have been following this blog know that — but also know that I admire and own some good examples: Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Yes; and Genesis.

And I also own what I’d call genre-busting proggers: Captain Beyond, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, and Crack the Sky.

It all starts on this album with ‘Elephant Walk’ with clever wordplay on the meaning or lack of meaning in verbal communication. Robert Fripp and Adrien Belew deliver some articulate and geometric guitar that blazes, stops and fills better than anyone this side of Zappa on his A-game.

But it’s the opening lyrics that set the tone in ‘Elephant Talk.’

Talk/It’s only talk 
Arguments, Agreements, Advice, Answers , Articulate announcements 
It’s only talk 

Talk /It’s only talk 
Babble, Burble, Banter, Bicker/bicker/bicker, Brouhaha, Balderdash, Ballyhoo 
It’s only talk/ Back talk 

Talk talk talk/It’s only talk 
Comments , Cliches, Commentary, Controversy, Chatter, Chit-chat/Chit-chat/Chit-chat, Conversation, Contradiction, Criticism 
It’s only talk/Cheap talk’

Better at alphabetical order than I am. Some call it ‘math rock.’ You can see for sure that Robert Fripp and crew influenced progressive New Wavers, especially the Talking Heads.

Posted on

King of Comedy (movie soundtrack)–387

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

I remember buying this 1983 compilation soundtrack for one song. Van Morrison’s ‘Wonderful Remark.’ A great great song that at that time appeared on no other albums; it was written explicitly for this movie.

Yet I believed it was as good as anything Morrison has done — and that’s alot.

Now there are other good songs on here, some like the Pretenders’ ‘Back on the Chain Gang’ I already had (and loved). Since then the ‘Wonderful Remark’ cut has been on several compilation albums.

Listening to the soundtrack, I almost want to see the Martin Scorcese movie starring Jerry Lewis and Robert DeNiro. A black comedy it was blistered by critics at the time but now seems to have fallen into the good graces of some critics.

Play list with links from rateyourmusic.com

Here’s Van Morrison video. This song was worth the admission for me, esp. because it was unreleased at the time. but as you can see there’s other good songs here.

Posted on

6 questions with professor who says Alabama could still reap billions expanding Medicaid

This is the intro to a story I did for AL.com . For full interview click on link at bottom.

Just say ‘Yes’ to Medicaid expansion and more people will get health insurance and the economic benefit will be in the billions of dollars.

Say no and the state gets no extra dough.

Alabama said ‘no’ in 2014, turning down full federal funding to expand the program to hundreds of thousands of people and the requisite economic benefit estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

Although we can’t go back and get that money — the federal funding was at 100 percent for three years. We can still say yes to expansion and reap benefits going forward. The federal funding fixes at 90 percent of costs starting in 2020. The state’s investment of $1 billion in Medicaid would generate $11 billion in increased economic activity between 2020 and 2023, according to David J. Becker, professor in UAB’s School of Public Health.

Becker has been at the forefront in studying the economics of an expansion. His reports have been cited by proponents, which include hospitals. We ask him six questions.

1. You were quoted by AL.com as saying the state missed out on the ‘deal of the century.’ Elaborate on what you mean by that.

For rest of story and commenters reaction, go here.


Posted on

Hisicanes and hurricanes (Pt. 7)

[Scene Part 7. Prosby still trying to figure out why he is being kidnapped, looks for an escape from the crazy psychopathic Dani and two of her muscle heads.]

It was midnight in Bithlo. Prosby had been tied up, mask on, in the back of a pick-up truck since they left the Panhandle town of Dothan.

Dothan was relatively safe. Bithlo was not.

But because the ocean had covered 70 percent of Florida over the past few hundred years, the only way to get to Orlando was through Bithlo.

Prosby banged his head on the rear view glass to try and get Dani’s attention. She wasn’t driving, one of her steroid enhanced men was at the wheel. He looked about 6’7” and a chiseled 250 pounds. Another one, was quite a bit shorter but probably heavier. As one North American comic put it years ago: His muscles had muscles.

Prosby shook his head. How did this happen?

And then there was Burnees. They were friends in childhood, lovers thereafter. Then their world changed. Hell, everybody’s world changed.

Larger hisicanes and hurricanes, tornadoes with winds off the charts, and the rains that never stopped — except when they stopped… they really stopped.

Last time he saw her, Prosby and Burnees were broke in an ever-disappearing Baton Rouge. They hopped aboard an 18-wheeler and headed west, singing, playing harmonica. Last time he saw her was in California, some godforsaken town. Lodi, maybe? Prosby’s memory was failing him.

He was officially diagnosed years ago, with the little known brain disease called the Woolies, a condition named after Dr. Chapo Wulu, believed caused by radiation exposure. The radiation cultivated killer proteins nicknamed Memory Monsters. Prosby was in early stages but he knew someday his memory would be wiped. On days like this, maybe that’s a good thing.

Salinas! The memory though a late arrival decided to visit. That’s right. Beach town probably underwater now. He remembered that he and Burnees had such great expectations.

But she walked away. ..Anyway.

He never saw her again. He had heard the rumors though. That she was working for the Guardians or hiding from the Guardians. He was glad to hear she was still living nonetheless. He wondered what the witchy woman Dani wanted.

Prosby was snapped out of his reverie by the short muscle head standing over him as the truck came to a stop.

“Hey Popeye,” Prosby said to the man glaring at him. “Gonna whip up some spinach omelettes for us?”

“Shut up unless you want me bounce your head on the street,” said square-muscle.

“Good one, muscle head,” Prosb y said, actually impressed with bicep-boy’s ability to string words together into a sentence.

“Whasssup!” Dani said smiling, emerging from the passenger side, raising her hands and dancing. You two boys introducing yourselves? Big meathead stayed in the driver’s seat looking straight ahead.

Prosby suspected Dani was on cocaine, pharmaceutical.

“I gotta take a leak,” Prosby said.

“Aww nature calls,” Dani said. “You know I may be calling too, soon. As they say, let nature take it’s course.”

She flicked her head to square peg indicating for him to take Prosby for a short walk.

“Stay with him,” she said. “Don’t try anything Prosby, he has orders to kill if you run and he has killed lots of running people.”

“And Prosby, even if you do run and escape the killing machine that is my man here, you’ll be running in Bithlo. The twitching freaks and their dog hybrids will kill you and cut you up for dinner in quick time”

To be continued ...

Posted on

I decided to quit driving. How’s that going for me? (Blog version)

This is an opinion/humor column in that the author is of the opinion there’s humor in this column. The views are solely those of Mike Oliver and do not reflect those of AL.com — and especially not the views of Catherine.

I gave up driving some time ago.

As a 59-year-old man living with Lewy body dementia, I believed I was doing myself and others a favor by turning the wheel over.

The view from the passenger side has given me a totally different perspective, onefueled by adrenaline and abject terror.

Every day I gather my stuff together, grab a cup of coffee and hurry outside to the passenger seat. My wife, Catherine, is waiting which I can see but she tells me anyway. She’s in the driver’s seat.

Many days I arrive at my Birmingham office white=knuckled and covered in a nice cold layer of sweat.

“Bye bye dear,” my wife Catherine says as I practically roll out of the car – though she usually slows down a bit.

On those really bad days where my hands are a vise grip on arm rests, she finds it helpful to pull my pinky finger back first in order for the rest of my fingers to relinquish their grip. She learned that in a self-defense class some years ago.

“Aaaaauuuugghh,” I scream.

On this particular day, I wasn’t sure how I went from vise grips to lying on the street. But I popped up, brushed off my clothes and snatched my nearby backpack containing my laptop just seconds before it would have been crushed under the wheels of a 10-ton transit bus.

“That was close,” my lovely wife noticed and felt the urge to verbalize.

You think? Captain Obvious.

I kept that thought to myself. But I continued my silent thought:

Sure it was close but not as close as you came to hitting a garbage dumpster about 10 minutes ago as you tried to shoot the narrow gap on a merge between a car and the aforementioned dumpster.

The dumpster was on my side – the passenger side — and appeared to be coming at me at 50 mph.

“Honey slow down now,” I said gently. “We are coming to a merge here. Um, there’s a merge here. Catherine? We are not going to make that gap. Catherine, seriously the car won’t fit in that space, slow down.”

I think she sped up to get ahead of the car. My voice got a little louder.

“HONEY YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT THROUGH THERE!

S-L-O-W T-H-E F-U-D-G-E D-O-W-N

I actually don’t know if I fell asleep for a few seconds or just closed my eyes, whatever my body’s adrenal glands were plain used up. No crash noise did I hear. No scraping the top of the car off by a dumpster sized can opener. Regaining consciousness, my head was on a swivel looking back and front, incredulous that she once again had threaded the needle.

I gathered myself and was almost inaudible. “I did not think you could make that.”

She was humming along with a song on the radio.

She wasn’t even listening to me at this point. I think she was still a bit angry because early in the trip when I yelled ‘Watch Out’ at the top of my lungs. Turns out she didn’t really need to watch out. My bad, sheesh, no need to hold a grudge.

To be fair, I have found that it’s not just Catherine who drives like this. It’s practically every single person who takes me somewhere pulls these scary maneuvers on what seems like every single trip when I am in the passenger seat.

How could this be?

From my new vantage point, maybe I’m coming to some truths about myself and others and the difficulties it is to be more dependent on others.

The passenger side takes me away from my comfort zone and into a world where I have to learn to accept that I am dependent on other human beings.

Yes, the passenger side has given me new perspectives and confirmed a perspective I already suspected:

I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE.

AL.com version here

Mike Oliver can be reached at moliver@AL.com. Read his blog about living with Lewy body dementia at www.myvinylcountdown.com

Posted on

Kaleidoscope -388

Kaleidoscope was a pioneering psych rock folk world music band from San Francisco.

ALBUM: ‘Incredible’ (1969)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

If you like psychedelic banjo music you’ll love this.

Actually, I do. But it’s not for everybody. I became aware of this band because I’ve long been a fan of David Lindley who has put out some fun, eclectic music over the years on his own. And he also has been a fixture in Jackson Browne recordings and performances over the years.

Excellent on guitar, steel guitar, banjo – and assorted string instruments you may have never heard of. In his youth, Lindley won the Topanga Canyon Banjo Contest two years in a row back in tIhe 60’s, according to Wikipedia.

This band, Kaleidoscope, preceded Lindley’s work with Browne. It’s a product of the psychedelic 60’s but what separates it from some in this genre is the highly skilled playing of the instruments and its infusion of world music. And banjo.

It’s also an example of how now and again I decide to buy LPs.

I bought this just about a year ago for a few bucks. I saw it, saw the name David Lindley and pounced. I’ll be doing some Lindley reviews coming up after I finish the K’s .

One of the videos below is “Banjo’ and another is ‘Seven Ate Sweet’ a progressive instrumental in 7/8 time. Enjoy, or, at least, admire.


Posted on

The Greg Kihn Band — 389

ALBUM: RocKihnRoll

MVC Rating: 3.0/$

At the risk of releasing a giant ear worm, here’s the band that wrote and recorded ‘The Break-up Song.’ Don’t remember it?

How about if I add the rest of the song title. (‘They Don’t Write ‘Em) No?

How about this hint:

Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah, ah

Yes, they don’t write ’em like that anymore.

It’s a decent song with little to say other than people are dancing to a song like you don’t hear much anymore. That may be profound. Or, like a lot of things, profundity is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case the ear of the listener.

Remember this was 1981. So we can look back and say the same thing about this song.

Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah, ah. They don’t write ’em like that any more.

Maybe we are thankful.

Some decent power pop rock on this album with the emphasis on ‘some.’ I don’t recall buying this but I must have obtained it pretty cheaply. Mostly forgotten fodder. Most of the songs are written or co-written by Kihn. But there’s a cover of “Sheila” by Tommy Roe, he of ‘Dizzy’ fame. “I’m so dizzy, my head is spinning.’

Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah-ah, ah.

Posted on

Robert Gordon w/Link Ray — 390

ALBUM: Fresh Fish Special (1978)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$

Authentic 1950s rock-a-billy from the 1970s. Gordon does his best Sun years Elvis or Eddie Cochran or Gene Vincent.

Gordon along with guitar rock-a-billy pioneer Link Wray gives a by-the-note lesson in reproducing the sound of the era. And to top it off, Gordon gets a contemporary Bruce Springsteen song — ‘Fire’ — that not only sounds right at home but was so catchy it jumped on to the charts where it sounded like no other song in the Top 40 at that time..

Gordon operates in the relatively small universe of non-novelty retro sounds as put forth by the Stray Cats and Chris Isaak.

Gordon is mostly a great interpreter here rather than trying for a new or hybrid sound with rock-a-billy — unlike, say, Jason and the Scorchers who punked their billy up a bit.

As Allmusic.com writes:

He still comes off more as an enthusiastic interpreter than a musician with a vision of his own. Still, there weren’t that many American-born rock & rollers who were willing to fly the flag for rockabilly at end of the ’70s, and if other acts would surpass Gordon in imagination and impact a few years on, he certainly gets an ‘A’ for effort.”

Oh and you may notice that this is out of alphabetical order. I missed it — it was in the wrong place. It’s a ‘G’ record at a time I’m opening up the K’s.

There are others coming I’m sure. I’ll point it out when it happens . At the end, I’ll probably have several that I missed and finish with an addendum after the Original 678. Remember if you are looking for an album, you can narrow it down some by clicking on its letter in the categories at the left. Or, simply type the name into Search.

Posted on

The Best Rendition of the National Anthem at a sporting event wasn’t at the Super Bowl

This came out today on CBS Sport.com ranking the Top 10 National Anthems. A pretty good list but two things for historical perspective and posterity need to be mentioned.

Whitney Houston may have done the best version ever. Luther Vandross may be in the Top 10. Jennifer Hudson may be No. 2 behind Whitney.

But these soulful renditions would not have been possible, IMHO, without the pioneering sporting event National Anthems done by two men.

Way back in 1968, a blind Puerto Rican, Jose Feliciano, took heat following his ever so slightly Latin-tinged rendition and Spanish guitar flourishes at baseball’s World Series, Game. Some sources say the backlash nearly derailed Feliciano’s career: This is the man who made a pop standard out of the Doors’ ‘Light My Fire.’

And at the 1983 NBA All Star game Marvin Gaye blew the lid off the structure of the song and made it a soul song of incredible depth– still my favorite version. When has there ever been a National Anthem performance that had the crowd clapping and swaying in time near the end of the song.

I remember watching it live on TV and being riveted, hanging on to every verse to see what Gaye would do next with it. Check it out.

For more see My Vinyl Countdown posts on Feliciano and Gaye.

I eagerly look forward to Gladys Knight’s version today. She is a veteran and can really sing soul music. I have her at No. 2https://myvinylcountdown.com/2018/04/30/top-10-train-songs-dedicated-to-railroad-park/ on my Top 30 all time train songs.

orts.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-2019-national-anthem-the-top-10-renditions-of-the-star-spangled-banner-at-the-super-bowl/