Bruce Rutherford, an Alabama lover who lives in Texas, last week or so, sent me a YouTube video of himself performing a song he wrote about Alabama. I dismissed the song called The Bigger Moon of Alabama, at first, but then the little tune kind of stuck in my head. My motto is you have to pay attention to ear worms.
What if a great singer and full band did this song. Well, haven’t heard from Jason Isbell or Wet Willie.
But Rutherford tipped me off that his Birmingham friend and colleague in the singer-songwriter world on YouTube, has already done a cover like in the last 48 hours (video below).
The singer’s name is Janet Chitty and I think her version demonstrates what I’m talking about. And that is, this can be sung many ways. Her version is slowed down. Rutherford’s is faster. But at least one commenter said it should be faster than Rutherford’s version (a speed metal version?) Nevertheless, the song is versatile, catchy and as I said yesterday rhymes Montgomery with succumbing — how can you not appreciate that?
So now we know at least two versions exist. Listen to them and see what you think. Newer version first of The Bigger Moon in Alabama.
This was an album I purchased on the virtue of one song: Hocus Pocus, a much peculiar song that actually charted high in the early 1970s.
The six-minute ‘album’ version will be sure to get you a speeding ticket if driving, as the crunchy riffs bang out a head bobbing heavy metal hook. Kind of like ‘Radar Love’ only harder.
And weirder. Almost weird enough to call it a novelty song.
Why? Because sprinkled in between the wall of metal come pit stops in which the instruments quiet down (except drums) and somebody yodels, I mean full out yodeling like Dutch mountain music, if there was such a thing. That yodeling rondo-ing back and forth with the guitar riff happens a couple of pit stops. Then at the next (third?) pit stop there’s a Jethro Tull-like flute solo followed by scat singing, and finally what I can only describe as helium-laced nonsense vocals and blazing guitars. There you go.
If you don’t think you know this song, give it a listen, you might have heard it. Since buying it in a bargain bin for the song, I almost never much listened to the entire album.
There is a shorter version radio single of Hocus Pocus, which besides being shorter, opens with a funky riff, turns into the guitar solo and then it’s yodel time again.)(
The rest of the album is sometimes good in a progressive rock sort of way (such as the obligatory 20-minute album side length song.) Kind of like ELP or Genesis. Not my particular cup of tea. But Hocus Pocus is pretty cool on a listen many years later. That songs takes the ELP and puts a little Grand Funk Railroad and Beat Farmers silliness into it. (The Farmers’ semi-famously had a song, ‘Happy Boy,’ featuring gargling, kazoos and ‘hubba hubba hubba’ in it.
Some critics liked it, others didn’t.
Benjamin Ray at Daily Vault Reviews gave it a C- and said: You know how sometimes you hear a hit song and then pick up the album, hoping the rest of it is just as good? This is not one of the times where that happened.
Meanwhile, AllMusic gave ‘The Best of Focus’ four-and-a-half stars and said it could have used a little more “Moving Ways.”
Go figure, one person’s ‘more cowbell’ is another’s ‘less cowbell.’
Great harmonies good, tasteful but forceful guitar and just a pinch of psychedelia circa 1960s music. Throw that in the mix with a healthy slice of power pop and BAM Birmingham.
Brummies is slang for a Birmingham resident, that’s Birmingham, England. It’s a name that reflects the bands British influence, especially the flood of music during Beatlemania and the British Invasion.
Eternal Reach is a great mix of genres creating a sweet sound full of harmonies and chorus. They cite the Beatles, Elton John, ELO, Blitzen Trapper and My Morning Jacket as being among among their influences.
On the album there are a number of standouts. I like ‘Norway’ which starts with ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home for your birthday.’ In a few words it sets the tone magnificently.
‘Set You Free’ opens with crunching guitar and is like much of the album, multi-layered . ”Haunted” is possibly my favorite piece on the album, with wide dynamic range, shown off on the opening three or so lines. The radio-friendly, ‘Drive , Away’ includes titillating vocal help from recent Grammy winner, Kasey Musgrave, and is probably most likely a hit.
The whole album is seductive, atmospheric, with just enough lyrical intrigue and musical crunch to sweep you in. It sounds like a long-lost classic, with modern accents.
There seems to be a lot of songs on the album — almost like they had a ‘hidden’ song or something.
A poignant line in his 1988 album ‘Streets of this Town’ digs at the heart of Forbert’s pathos.
I used to to think this was guilty pleasure music. But after re-listening to Forbert I can throw the guilty out. This is just a pleasure — and part of that is because of his pain. Forbert suffered early from Dylan comparisons like all those at that time with a guitar and a catchy songs that paint a picture. He suffered because of the high expecations, early success and youth. Look at the cover of ‘Alive on Arrival.’ He’s a baby-faced kid, albeit with a 50-year-old Rod Stewart/ Dylan-esque voice.
Forbert isn’t Dylan. He’s a pop-folk singer who slung his guitar over his back and left his crappy-but-it’s-mine Mississippi town for NewYork city. His first album ‘Alive on Arrival’ was, at least side one, a slam dunk. He opened the album shutting a door on his past by calling Laurel, Miss., a ‘dirty stinking town.’
Forbert was from Meridian, which was near Laurel (can you smell it from there?)
Steve Forbert
For an in-depth Rolling Stone piece at the height of his initial success, go here.
That debut set up the expectations. He came out next with an album that had a blockbuster single ‘Romeo’s Tune,’ a momentary brush in 1979 with the stratosphere. I saw him on the heels of that second album and remember a great show in Atlanta at a small venue.
But alas, like many, the follow-up pressure seemed to have gotten the better of him for a while and he made the scene in New York but watched his creative space get smaller.
From ‘I Blinked Once, 10 years after Romeo:
The nineteen seventies was ten long years,
was ten long years to sing a song
It kicked off madly with a New Year’s cheer
I blinked once and it was gone
Gone, gone I blinked once and it was gone
Looking from present, he has a strong body of work and has had excellent musicians behind him on various albums including Wilco and Nils Lofgren. In addition to these vinyl records, I have about three other Forbert CD’s,each good in their own way.
Favorite line from a good song called, January 23 – 30, 1978: “Some say life is strange, but compared to what, yeah.”
Sorry but if you are going to put funk in your name, you better be Funkadelic. Otherwise, it’s like leading with your chin. This is nice folky, poppy, singer-songwriter-y music. But no funk in sight.
The Funky Kings were a super group of sorts. Too often they seemed under the influence of Kryptonite.
They started in 1976, a bunch of guys for whom there were high expectations. But the album — the one album — was like a feather in a gust of wind., spinning, floating, oops where did it go?
They don’t even have a Wikipedia page for chrissakes.
There was Jack Tempchin, Jules Shear, Richard Stekol, Bill Bodine, Frank Cotinol and Greg Leisz. It was SoCal easy swinging soft rock.
Tempchin was a prolific songwriter with the Eagles’ ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’ and ‘Already Gone’ under his songwriting belt. Jules Shear went on to form Jules and Polar Bears which met with minor success.
The biggest hit on this Funky Kings album was “Slow Dancing’ a piece written byTempchin that is so soft and catchy, it made the Easy Listening charts. It took Johnny Rivers to cover it with a little more ooomph to put it high on the Billboard charts.
Don’t get me wrong there are nice songs on this, just not enough apparently to fuel a Wikipedia page 40 years later. Check out ‘My Old Pals.’
For an update I offer up Henry Bemis. He was the put-upon, bespectacled bank clerk who accidentally locked himself in a bank vault. While inside, a nuclear war destroyed the world and apparently all the people in it.
Except for Bemis.
Bemis was in the Twilight Zone.
Henry Bemis
Bear with me if you know this 1959 black-and-white classic TV episode. I ‘m going to go over the story which has many levels and layers.
After all, we are talking about “a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity,” Rod Serling sedately states. “It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.”
I’ve been there as a person living with Lewy body dementia. Between science and superstition. Shadows and light.
Before being locked in a vault and before the bombs and before the endless stacks of books, Bemis was a man who viewed the world as encroaching upon his precious time. Time to read the books he loved.
At home, his wife Helen Bemis put constant demands on him, wouldn’t even let him read the newspaper, for goodness sakes.
At work, his boss, Mr. Carsvile, also demeaned and belittled him. One day Bemis steals away to the bank vault to catch some valuable reading time, out of view of the boss.
Reading takes time. Do people read like they used to? I’d say per word consumption has gone up but it’s consumed like a patient with attention deficit disorder.
I know I battle with my disease over my attention span.
I believe the reading public feels, like me, ADD-addled.
Technology pushes 300 channels through a skinny cable from pole to house, every house. The torrent of bits and bytes pours into laptops and phones held in the hands of billions. 24/7.
Bemis had his book and sturdy hiding place. Secured in the vault, Bemis was disoriented after the bombs did their work, the blasts blew the vault door open.
Bemis wanders out through the rubble, even contemplates suicide all the way to the point of putting a gun to his head. Then he sees. Hundreds upon hundreds of books lie in piles outside, blast-blown from a library. Bemis can hardly believe his eyes. What’s bad for everybody, death by incineration, turns out to be good for Bemis. As screwed up as that is, it makes some sense as we watch.
He grins broadly at his good fortune.
“And the very best thing of all is there is time now,” he says, picking up a large clock, amid the books strewn about. “There is all the time I need and all the time I want. Time. Time. Time. There is time enough at last.”
A reader commented on one of my recent articles involving oddball random sayings about life and death. The reader posted this offering: “Life sucks and then it ends.”
Cynical, yes, but enough of a truism to resonate with a lot of people. Bemis’ life did suck. It was mundane and tedious, always spent wanting more time to do the thing he loves, too scared to take control of his life.
This appeared originally on AL.com and much on Facebook, But I’m posting here for those who missed. Coming soon: a How-Am- I column and Top 10 (20?) of my blog post AND more music. Gotta keep the countdown going.
My dog is getting old.
You know what I am going to say next, right?
I’m getting old too.
And you know what I don’t want to say, don’t you?
That I’m sad he is going to die.
Gus the psychodoodle. Photo by Rachel Vissers.
My worried thought came after my wife Catherine said it sounded like our dog’s’ breathing was becoming more labored. And he wasn’t running the stairs with the same wild abandon.
Gus is his name. He’s a small, rust-colored, curly mop of a dog, a poodle mix of unknown origin. I call him a psychodoodle. He’s about 12 or 13 agewise best we can guess. We rescued him from a shelter in California. He loves to be rubbed behind the ears.
I love him.
I know most pet owners can relate to that. Still sounds silly that a grown man can care for and love a dog that has complicated life with added expense for vet bills, food, poodle haircuts and just plain worry.
At great physiological expense to us, Gus likes to play a game we call ‘shootig the gap, or doorway.’
Any space he sees at the front door when it is opened he tries to sprint through. If he makes it before a foot holds him back, he is off to a wild, run-through-the-neighborhood spree, oblivious to the speeding two-ton cars.
But given all that expense, a dog pays it back and then some, with unconditional love.
Before I was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia at 56, our other dog died. Well, we, my wife, Catherine and I, had to take Molly in to be ‘put down.’ How else do you say it. Put to sleep?
Molly, a yellow Lab who was as kind as she was dumb, had a nice friendship with Gus. Gus would bark at and relentlessly attack, in a playful way, Molly. And Molly would just let him.
We knew when Molly was dying. The breathing became labored, overtime, suggesting the onset of heart failure. She increasingly didn’t like stairs and quit sleeping in our upstairs bedroom. Given the age and symptoms, I knew as the son of a veterinarian, she needed to be euthanized. But we just couldn’t do it, we made up excuses. “She sounds better today, I think,” we’d tell each other.
Molly’s last night with us, I slept beside her on the floor.
By some amazing strength she stayed alive through the night. She looked in our eyes.
At the veterinary hospital we carried Molly, in a blanket because she could no longer walk.
With tears flowing freely we watch the doctor inject Molly.
I’ll never forget the sight of Molly’s eyes. One minute I was looking into her soul, and then the pupils became fixed. She wasn’t there.
Before Molly there was Maggie, a border collie mix, who had died on our kitchen floor at the ripe age of 16. Our children, three pre-teen daughters petted her, cried and said goodbye.
Our children, now all grown, learned about death through these experiences with their pets. And they learned about love.
Gus is lying on a rug right now in front of me.
I bend down and rub behind his ears.
Maybe Gus, you have some good time left.
Maybe I do too.
Read more about Oliver and his push to raise awareness of Lewy body dementia at his blog, www.myvinylcountdown.com
Saturday was one of the most entertaining days of my life.
Why?
The charity 3-on-3 basketball tournament MikeMadness, after weeks of hype and hoopla, was played at UAB Recreation Center. It was by all accounts a rousing success.
We raised $12,000 with possibly more coming in, easily passing the $10,000 goal, just as we did last year in our inaugural tournament. In two years we have raised more than $25,000 forLewy body dementia awareness and research.
Lewy body dementia, is the second leading cause of dementia (after Alzheimer’s disease). The money is going to UAB and the Lewy Body Dementia Association. More on that in another column.
So why was this one of the most entertaining days of my life?
Because I saw friends and family getting together, making new friends, playing competitive basketball and laughing. And besides a few bruises, jammed fingers and sore muscles, no one was hurt.
I got to play with my brother David, and two athletic nephews Joe Oliver, and Jake Vissers. We came in fourth of 14 teams. There were also three ‘elite’ teams that played their own mini-tournament.
Oh yes, and Buck Johnson, former University of Alabama and NBA star said he really liked my little left-handed runner in the lane. Oh shucks Buck.
Johnson was in attendance along with Trent Richardson, former running back in the NFL and at the University of Alabama. They delighted more than 100 fans and players throughout the gym by stopping to chat, pose for pictures and play a little round ball.
“I really appreciate what you all are doing,” said Johnson, who said he had a loved one with dementia.
Both played some, giving kids and grownups stories to tell their grandchildren (“I stole the ball from Buck Johnson,” I overheard one say.)
I want to thank so many people, those who donated money, time or just plain good words. There are too many to list but I want to single out several who put exceptional work into this: Ramsey Archibald; John and Alecia Archibald; Paul Blutter, Dan Carsen, Julie Vissers; Catherine, Lori and David Oliver; John and Joe Ellen Oliver; John Olsen; Jim Bakken; Kevin Storr (and UAB); AL.com and Michelle Holmes; and John Hammontree; There are so, so many more.
I’m thinking ahead to next year
As I told folks on Saturday, spread the word about Lewy body dementia. It needs money for research but we need to get the word out. As one who has been diagnosed with the disease, you can imagine I’d like a little more awareness coupled with urgency.
We need to name it: Lewy body dementia.
Mike Oliver is a columnist who writes about living with Lewy body dementia among many other topics. Reach him at moliver@AL.com . And follow his blog at www.myvinylcountdown.com .
ALBUMS: Feliciano! (1968); Freddy Fender, The Story of an Overnight Sensation (1978)
No, I didn’t put these two together because they both speak Spanish. Jose Feliciano is from Puerto Rico. Fender is a Texan of Mexican heritage.
I’m looking to double up on occasion and these guys happened to be in the alphabetical line-up, side-by-side.
Feliciano
One of my all time favorite singing performances is Marvin Gay,e’s rendition of the National Anthem at an NBA all-star game in 1982. Gaye turned the Star Spangled banner inside out with beautiful singing a light beat and left it folded properly like a flag. It was greeted with strong strong feelings on both sides, fans either loved it or hated it
That was kind of a barrier breaker leading to more stylistic interpretations of the song, the vast majority in a loving way (Roseanne Barr being the most memorable exception.)
Gaye was lambasted in some quarters for defaming the National Anthem.
And before Gaye there was Feliciano with his Latin tingd version filled with Spanish guitar flurriesl at tje 1968. World Series. He was riding high on his big selling Feliciano! record, an album of acoustic covers of popular songs, with probably the Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’ being his biggest hit.
The New York Times, looking back at that performance wrote:
“In an era when pop stars try lots of different styles with the anthem, it’s hard to fathom that Feliciano, the blind Puerto Rican singer and guitarist known for “Feliz Navidad” at Christmastime, could stir anger with his rendition.
And at a time when the nation is sharply divided over athletes’ body language during the anthem, it is a reminder that the song that has an unusual ability to provoke.”
On his other songs, Feliciano enjoyed international fame. ‘Light my Fire’ is a good example of his style, bluesy Spanish music,, with jazz-like singing. To many strings, though.
Freddy Fender
Fender’s album title is an ironic play on the fact that one o f his biggest hits, ‘Wasted Days and Wasted Nights’ was recorded and published in 1959 but didn’t become a hit until the 1970s. Between those time periods Fender battled the bottle while in the Marines, and was arrested for pot possession in Louisiana. He served three years in prison for that.
He is also known for ”Before the Next Teardrop Falls’ which is not on this album. The album is fun though as re-listening to the ‘King of Tex-Mex.’ a golden country voice, proves. His producer described his voice as being very honest like Hank Williams.
After his solo success, Fender joined the Texas Tornadoes, which I have on CD and highly recommend. One TT album won a Grammy. in 1991 Fender described the group to the Chicago Tribune : “You’ve heard of New Kids on the Block? Well, we’re the Old Guys in the Street.”
Dance. That’s what Cajun music is about. I also get hungry for some of the best food in the world when I hear the music.
The group is named after a spice used in Cajun cooking:
Mix the ingredients: Cajun French singing, gumbo cooking, creole, zydeco, fiddles, accordions, foot stomping, and hand clapping. That’s what’s cooking by this band which was around for about two decades before clocking out in 2002.
It’s a party record and it makes you feel good. File it next to Dr. John’s ‘Gumbo.’
Certainly there’s a time and a place, but when there’s a certain energy in the air, I could listen to this album 10 times in a row.
