ALBUMS: Greatest Hits (Reissue: 1982 of 1975 release); Truth In Time (1978); Soul Survivor (1987)
MVC Rating: Greatest 5.0/$$$$; Truth 4.0/$$$; Soul Survivor/$$$
One of my favorite artists — all time.
I have three albums that capture the essence and soul of a man with essence and soul. He was the best at covering other’s work and elevating. But he wrote his own as well.
His earlier stuff collected on the hits album is classic R&B, soul. Some of the best made.
The Al Green-penned ‘Let’s Stay Together,’ ‘Let’s Get Married,’ ‘Call Me,’ and ‘I’m Still in Love With You’ all smolder with love and hotter love. Green’s falsetto is the best. That’s not up for debate with me. It is the best.
His song, “Tired of Being Alone” is a timeless classic.
But it’s his cover of the Bee Gee’s ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart’ that takes the prize for top, not to be too hyperbolic, perhaps Top 3, covers of all time. That is an emotional workout listening to Green sing that.
The only song not on the Greatest Hits that should have been is ‘Take Me to the River,’ a Green song covered quite successfully later by the Talking Heads.
Green in 1974, after some traumatic life events and hospitalizations, became a pastor. He leads a big church in Memphis near Elvis’ Graceland. Over the years he has wavered between recording pure gospel music and a hybrid of popular, with God infused throughout.
Some of his ’80s’ work is as powerful as anything he’s ever done. I got religion about three times listening to Soul Survivor and his sung version of the 23rd Psalm with a full gospel choir. In my copy of ‘Soul Survivor’ I was happy to find a 5X7 photo and a bio sheet.
Those who saw my Allman Brothers post know I’m less than a Grateful Dead fan. I used to live in Marin County where the band members lived, but it was years after Garcia had died.
Jerry could play guitar, but I never felt, I mean felt, their music. I realize a lot of their popularity was kind of cultish thing and involved the culture of altered states. So I have Terrapin Station album playing right now under the influence of an Advil and a beer.
Still don’t get it.
It seems a lot of what they do is based in roots music, or laid back bluegrass and folk/country with an electric guitar playing leader who saw his guitar solos as a positive outgrowth of his psychedelic drug-taking — kind of like spiders making webs after some hallucinogens given by scientists. It’s an actual scientific study (look it up here.)
The folky bluesy blend by the Dead is not bad but the music doesn’t stand out to me as do acts such as the Band, the Byrds or CSN&Y for that matter. Some of it is really pleasant rocking chair music in the vein of some of those groups, though.
Two full disclosures: I haven’t heard much beyond what I have (Terrapin Station) or on the radio. I pledge to listen to another album or two at some point.
Other full disclosure: I was a reporter in Orlando covering the Dead when they came in for a show. Must of been early 1990s. Central Florida meet thousands of hippie Deadheads..
I was assigned by the Orlando Sentinel to do the ‘color’ story which means looking for fun tidbits, capture the scene, find an angle.
I got tear gassed.
I don’t remember what the headline was but in my admittedly weak memory I recall this as headline: Deadheads Riot.
A small band of Deadheads opened a couple of doors at the old O-rena allowing those outside to rush the door. It got ugly with some police body slams, numerous arrests and clouds of tear gas. I was temporarily blinded by the spray.
I had to get the spray out of my eyes and write a story.
I guess when I was young and heard of the Grateful Dead I expected something wild, psychedelic, but most of what I’ve heard from them has been rather tame, rioting aside.
I was aware of the Cowsill’s cover song of ‘Hair’ which mentions the Dead as an example of a band with no ‘bread.’ (Money.)
I knew that line from Hair at about 9 but never heard their music until FM radio listening in the md-70s.
Nothing new here. I do get that there is a lot of repetitive instrumental music, and I understand how that can be appealing as your musical brain rides the waves. So part of my critique is about expectations. I was expecting something groundbreaking or, at least, sounding like nothing else from the hippest hippie group of all time. Something closer to Zappa.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention put out the double record “Freak Out,’ in mid 1960s — that was freak out psychedelic music. You have to hear it to believe it.
But unlike Garcia, who celebrated mind ‘expanding’ drugs, Zappa eschewed drugs. Famously he would fire you from the band at even a hint of use. He is reported to have kicked Lowell George out of one incarnation of the Mothers because he was doing illegal substances.
Any way, I don’t mean to diminish the Dead, especially since I don’t know their body of work. Know the better known songs like ‘Casey Jones’ and ‘Truckin’ of course. Terrapin Station is good. I like it. But I wouldn’t follow a tour around the country and go to 12 concerts in a row over this.
It wasn’t too long ago the Grateful Dead had worldwide concerts and drew pilgrims, or Deadheads from everywhere.
With dozens of albums and high level fan loyalty I’ll bet the Dead have no lack of bread.
Ha ha. Funny for a minute there I thought I said I would dunk by our next March Madness.
Funk. Yeah that’s what I meant. I would add more funk to my listening list and this blog.
Ha ha. Dunk.
Sandwiched between great athletes Buck Johnson and Trent RIchardson at MikeMadness 2018. Hoping their talent rubs off on me.
Well it’s the morning (or two) after and you can see my state of mind about my vow to dunk. AL.com colleague John Archibald said if I do it — dunk, that is, — he will donate $1,000 to Lewy body disease research. I have unofficially heard three other colleagues say they would do the same thing.
Before I get too many pledges let me continue with more research. It’s not encouraging so far.
The $1,000 checks seem pretty safe. The more research I do, the more questions and doubts I have. I’m 58 and losing brain cells and muscle tone as we speak.
Then I read a long story in Sports Illustrated about a guy at 42 who never dunked but embarked at a rigorous training expedition to dunk. And he did, eventually. His method? Four or five workouts per week — and it took him nearly a year. Not what I want to hear. A well-meaning commenter said that Spud Webb at 5-feet-7 inches can still dunk at 47.
Great.
Mike points to his defender John Talty where he is going to shoot from. That’s called swag.
Webb, who WON FIRST PLACE WITH A 360 DEGREE DUNK IN AN NBA DUNK CONTEST, can still dunk.
The closest model I have so far is this 42 year-old Sports Illustrated guy who at 6-feet-2 dunked for the first time. Did, did I mention, it took him a year of excruciating exercises?
I started today on my training nonetheless. I went to hot yoga with colleague John Archibald. It was great and I’m going to do it again — if they let me.
As I was preparing to go I realized I lost my glasses. I went back in the yoga room where it was now wall-to-wall people.
Excuse me I lost my glasses I said as I stepped over people in twisted poses and contorted faces. Their eyes expressed disapproval. All that and we ended up finding my glasses elsewhere — in the locker.
I have learned something in my research. I need to have ‘swag.’
I think that’s short for ‘swagger.’ That’s a place of supreme confidence that my YouTube watching has taught me that dunkers have swag. Mac McClung, a viral video sensation in High School, has swag. The phenomenon of McClung is at least partly a racial thing. He’s white and ‘White Men Can’t Dunk,” as the Wesley Snipes-Woody Harrelson movie pointed out to America.
To make it all the more interesting McClung, who played for a small high school called Gate City in Virginia, is going to Georgetown where white basketball players over the past few decades have been more rare than a yellow cardinals.
But that’s a whole different topic and suffice it to say I am white and I can’t jump. I’m also 58. I also have Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease that will likely end my life earlier than I was planning on. So, besides counting down my vinyl records on this website, I will now train to dunk.
I figure I have a good two years before I finish my records. I credit my blog with being therapeutic, keeping my mind active. The dunk training will be a way to keep my body active.
I’d be lying if I said the disease hasn’t affected my memory and my muscle strength and stamina.
So here am searching for my swag and my glasses.
And I’ve always got the ‘out’ when I show up at Mike’s Madness next year and people start calling my name and asking me when I’m going to show the dunk.
Dunk? I don’t remember anything about a dunk.
Really?
The best way to introduce Goodman is through the songs he wrote. Songs that were often made famous by other people.
City of New Orleans — Arlo Guthrie’s version made this a standard, covered by Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Chet Atkins, and Willie Nelson.
Somebody Else’s Problems
You Never Even Call Me By My Name — This send-up of country music lyrics got an uncredited writing assist from John Prine. David Alan Coe made it a country hit.
Donald and Lydia
Jazzman
Don’t do me Any Favors Anymore
The Cubs Anthem — Go Cubs Go — His most sung song.
Goodman died of Leukemia in 1984 at age 36.
Fun fact: He was a high school classmate of Hillary Clinton in Chicago..
Yes the album is called ‘L.’ This almost became a Frisbee when I first heard it. I was a big 10cc fan but this … this was 10cc stirred in with Frank Zappa and Dr. Demento. In fact in “Sporting Life” which sounds like a Zappa song, there’s a voice that sounds like Mr. Frank, so much so that I had to check out the credits — didn’t find him listed. Now I like some Zappa but let Zappa do Zappa. I knew I wasn’t losing my mind when I heard this lyric:
“Does getting into Zappa mean getting out of Zen,’ is an actual lyric in ‘Art School Canteen which follows the Sporting Life and Sandwiches of You, a song I actually like.
This was the second album after these two left 10cc using a guitar synthesizer type of instrument they invented called ‘The Gizmo.’ Not sure what it does or sounds like even now. It might be that zither-sounding strum on ‘Sandwiches. bit no it’s not listed as being in that song.’
Ah, funny reference to their old fun hit ‘Donna is in ‘Group Life.’ Punchbag is interesting (as all this interesting) but I’m sure I’d understand it more if I knew what ‘fourth form punchbag’ means.
The instrumental ‘Foreign Accents’ has some good funky and crazy sounding sounds but, again, I though they were showcasing the Gizmo and it’s not listed for that song.
All in all it’s an ambitious record, which I would expect from 10cc spinoff. But if is too Art School Canteen-ish. I’ll stick to my 10cc when I want a little pretentiousness with my contentiousness. Checking around on the Internets I find some crazy devotion to G&C, especially this album. I’ll keep trying. ‘Business is Business ‘ at the end of the album finally gets to the not so avant gard point. “That the record people and people in general don’t get us and we hate M.O.R.’
Great jazz combo here from 1964. Led by Dexter Gordon, this is a jazz classic. I got as a cut-out reissue from 1985. If I see a cut-out or discounted record with Blue Note on, it I’ll buy, no questions.
The band, which includes Donald Byrd, Art Taylor, Kenny Drew and Niels-Henning Orsted, is tight.
Byrd almost steals the show with his tasteful rapid fire trumpet runs, like automatic fire — pup, pup,pup – landing like marshmallows, soft and sweet. Particularly on his song, ‘Tanya’ which covers all of side 1.
Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the jazz movie ‘Round Midnight.’
I was an early listener to rap/hip hop but by the time it exploded I had pretty much lost track. Here’s the legendary progenitors (so to speak) of rap music as we know it. Sounds funny and outdated now though still catchy to a degree.
GM Flash put it on the map with ‘The Message.’ I got their second ‘big’ single ‘New York New York.’ It was like in my preceding review of Eddy Grant where I got the album released after his big hit ‘Electric Avenue.’
But I bought this one in Birmingham new after hearing ‘The Message’ a bunch of times. Kind of shows you how I think. I wanted the newer disc because I thought it would be even better than big hit. I thought it was better or at least similar, but sales did not reflect that.
New York New York big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain’t always what it seems
I also bought Kurtis Blow on vinyl about this time, called ‘Party Time,’ again not his biggest record. (That would be ‘The Breaks).’
On vinyl that’s about it for my hip hop collection. Though I have on my iPod a number of rap artists, courtesy in many cases of my three daughters. Let’s see (rolling through my trusty 120 GB classic iPod) I have some Lil’ Wayne, Beastie Boys, Rhymefest, Kanye West, Eminem, 50 cent, and Nas. Most are songs singles not full albums though. But I’ve lost track of the scene for the most part (since my daughters moved out).
I thought I had the album with his big hit: ‘Electric Avenue.’
But I don’t.
My album ‘Going For Broke’ is the album AFTER his big one. My album is pretty good, rock inflected reggae, which means it has rock guitar in it. It’s not what I’d call real roots reggae, more of a fusion pop reggae.
On this album, he has a song “Romancing the Stone’ which was commissioned for the hit movie starring Kathleen Turner, however it was not used in the movie (except for a short guitar solo). The song, a so-so piece of reggae pop, never succeeded at the level of ‘Electric Avenue.’
In Barbados, Grant operated a popular recording studio for years. He also wrote ‘Police on my Back’ recorded by the Clash, one of the better tracks on the Clash’s Sandinista album.
I have to say after a few listens, this album is nice. Good playing, happy reggae beat. I’ll play it again and keep my eye open in record stores for ‘Electric Avenue.’
Man, this music sounds like it came out of the same sessions as ‘Wish You Were Here.’ It was around that time period that the Pink Floyd guitarist put out this restrained but so so nice recording.
With it’s slow building solos and fluid note extensions, it sounds like it would fit right in on ”Wish You were Here’ next to ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond.’And ‘Wish’ is my favorite Pink Floyd record, so I love this, almost like a sequel.
Don’t think this record sold all that well despite its quality and Floyd’s soaring popularity at the time. It’s Gilmour without Floyd himself putting out some very pretty but powerful guitar meditations without the Big Theme histrionics of Floyd.
As one of the commenters on a YouTube video of this album said this shows how big a role Gilmour played in the sound the Pink Floyd. This is fantastic album for Floyd fans and even not-so-much fans.
I got this for $3 at my excellent downtown books/records/cultural curios store: Reed Books.
Now I’m not huge into jazz but I have some good jazz records.
I have this Dizzy; a Dexter Gordon Blue Note label album; a Harry James record; some Miles Davis; John Coltrane on CD);Teo Macero, another Blue Note special of Bud Powell, one of my favorite jazz pianists along with Errol Garner. I also have some rock/soul/jazz fusion, if that’s a thing, Steve Howe, Dixie Dregs, Sea Level, and Glenn Phillips.
And going A to Z, I also have some Chet Atkins and Frank Zappa that I would consider jazz or jazzy.
And I have Louis Armstrong, one of my favorite old schoolers, mainly because my father was a big fan of Satchmo, and I heard it at an earl age around the house.
The cool thing about this album is it brings in some newcomers — at least they were new in the 1980s when this was made, including Branford Marsalis, who went on to be the bandleader for Jay Leno for a couple of years and is one of the top saxophonists in the world.
So this has old man Dizzy, he of the bent trumpet and swollen cheeks, has rounded up some youth to make a contemporary jazz record with some old stuff mixed in.
The sound jumps out of the speakers, I must say, which I like on all vinyl productions but especially jazz. I like the trumpet player right in the room with me. I know this seems like my ongoing advice, but this is a good pick in a used record store, high high quality jazz in the ‘bop’ style with an old cheek-ballooning patriarch overseeing some top notch jazz youngsters.
ALBUM: The Essential Steve Goodman (1976)
LBUM: Going for Broke
