Joe Ely — 501

ALBUM: High-Res (1984)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

Joe Ely I forgot about you. How good you are.

I pulled this out of the collection and couldn’t recall a song on it but had the feeling that I used to like this. Ely, pronounced Eeelee, is a Texas roots rocker who was once good  friends with Joe Strummer and played with the Clash.

Great guitar player, good songwriter and club-disciplined live performer.

He defies classification.  That said, I wish I had more of his  records. Hi-Res is good but has a little bit of that 1980s over production veneer. Songs of notice: ‘What’s Shakin’ Tonight,’Cool Rockin’ Loretta,’ and probably my favorite ‘Letter to Laredo,’ which has some nasty guitar licks, and also some not-so -nasty Duane Eddy-like bass string ‘twang’ reverberation.

According to Wikipedia, which I am careful with, Ely toured with the Clash, ultimately performing together in Ely’s hometown of Lubbock, Texas. The Clash even name checked Ely in their song ‘If Music Could Talk’ off  of the Clash’s Sandinista. Ely was preparing to record with Strummer when the Clash front man died.

Here’s from ‘Laredo:’

As I was rolling across the Mississippi, I stopped there and I cried, no use for a man to keep a mighty river all dammed up inside

I jumped bail from  Sweetwater County,  now I’m on the run, on my head is a five-number bounty, for a crime I never done.

Take this letter to Laredo to the one I love, tell her to stay low, beneath the stars above, her love is my only alibi, it’s for her love I lied

My lesson in racial profiling

Every Saturday I post a round-up of this blog for readers of AL.com

Here’s this week’s top of the story. Click on link at bottom to read full piece.

It’s Saturday and time for my vinyl countdown AL.com update.

I have five artists here taken from my collection of 678 records, which I am trying to count down (review and list) before my degenerative brain disease makes it impossible. I have so far reviewed more than 150 records on myvinylcountdown.com blog. I encourage you to explore that blog for the countdown plus essays on life, journalism, basketball and whatever might be on my mind.

But every Saturday I do a catch-up, reaching back into the archives, for those who may not be following my blog regularly, and offering up condensed versions of those on my blog. Today I have five widely divergent records (remember I collected these in the ‘1970s and 1980s when I was in my teens and 20s.) As regular readers know I also do a NP (Now Playing) to show the latest reviewed piece.

In the Kurtis Blow review I recall an incident that inspired my headline: Lesson in racial profiling.

The numbers represent where the albums are in the alphabetical, descending countdown format.  In other words 678 would be the first record I reviewed (King Sunny Ade, whose A-name put him first in line).

Go here for full  story on AL.com story.

Sayings to live by, or adjacent to, or in the same block of

NOTE: A different version of this is posted on AL.com here.

One day recently, I happened to be hanging around with myself and overheard some of the things I say. I’m a fan of Steven Wright so some sounded like him. Some sounded like Mark Twain on a day when he wasn’t feeling well. Will Rogers? Well Will he?

Anyway here they are. My joy would be that you stick them on that refigerator called Facebook.

  • I have a memory disorder. I remember things before they happen. After they happen?  Not so  much.
  • Heard of food for thought? Well I’ve got some thoughts give me some food.
  • One of the symptoms of Lewy body dementia is hallucinations. I had one yesterday but it turned out I was dreaming that I was  hallucinating.
  • Digital divide, digital first, digital upload, middle  digital.
  • Life is what happens when you’re sitting in traffic.
  • I’m learning to feel deja vu on demand.
  • I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m paranoid.
  • I believe in God because I don’t want to have to learn quantum physics.
  • Think quickly, speak slowly
  • I don’t want to get out of my comfort zone.
  • Where is my comfort zone?
  • Eat early  and often.
  • Love is not saying you have a pimple on your nose. But do you have to say your sorry if you do?
  • Freedom is just another word for having left your cell phone at home.
  • Dylan said you got to keep on keeping on but  I’m not sure what I’m keeping on.
  • I like writing quotes from myself because I don’t have to fact check them.
  • A simile is like a word/ a metaphor is a word. That’s my analogy anyway.
  • Mark Twain said everything except for  those things Will Rogers said.
  • My guilty pleasure philosopher is Socrates because he was too lazy to write all of his sayings down. Instead, he enlisted Aristotle and Plato.
  • Steven Wright asks if you are in a spaceship going  the speed of light, what happens when  you turn the lights on.? I ask what happens if your going the speed of sound and you turn the radio on?
  • I see a lot of dogs walking people these days.

If  you like those, then, well, read them again. I got no more. At least right now.

A word with you

I am building words with letters pulling them from deep inside my head.

Flipping them out with my tongue, word sequences, nouns verbs adjectives: Words.

Stop it with a period when your thought is through.

But don’t stop too long  or you will lose you

-Mike Oliver-

The Drifters — 518

ALBUM: The Drifters, Their Greatest Recordings, the Early Years (1971)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$

Dion and the Belmonts picked up a lot of big hits the Drifters did first: Drip Drop, Ruby Baby and Save the Last Dance for Me.

Dion and the Belmonts, reared in Italian neighborhoods of NYC, of course, were bringing black R&B influenced Doo-Wop to white audiences. These early years, the Drifters had the wonderful Clyde McPhatter. Over many years,the Drifters ended up being more of a franchise, with rotating quarterbacks.

Ultimately they recorded one of the best songs of that era and genre, Under the Boardwalk. I love that song. But I also totally enjoy the rawer R&B sounds from the early years represented here.

One song, the opening one on this album, didn’t get released until this collection in 1971. From 1954 a song from McPhatter had executives running for cover and stopping its release. The song was ‘333.’

Lyrics like this were why: “Good Times,  cheap wine, young chicks, so fine, there’s a whole lot of ecstasy, any time you fall in 333.” A little too hot for 1954.

Other hits for the Drifters in these early years include: Money Honey, Fools Fall in Love and There  Goes My Baby.

Their slyly subversive take on Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ sells nearly as many copies as Bing Crosby’s version, according to the liner notes. Their version of that classic Christmas song holds a firm spot in my Christmas rotation.

Train songs, countdown and musical tastes

Train train, take me on out of this town. Man. There are a lot train songs I’m learning.

Catching regular blog readers up to date on a couple of things:

I first posted my train song list on my blog. Then I added some commentary and a concern and posted  my list  — same list –on AL.com.

In that last post I told readers I have been dissatisfied with my blog post list of train songs, namely the Grateful Dead’s ‘Casey Jones.’ Not a big Dead fan anyway,  and the performance by Jerry Garcia is lackluster and has ‘cocaine’ running all through it. So I made a call out for replacements. Based on emails, texts and comments from stories, here’s a list we can draw from to replace Casey Jones (unless there’s an outpouring of support for that Dead song?)

I am amazed at the quality and depth of the selections, these aren’t all of them, I had to do some pruning. But it is a good many.

I’m going to make the final decision, here are the suggestions and I will make a pick by the weekend.

  • “Love in Vain” Robert Johnson. The legendary blues guitarist who influenced Clapton and a legion of rock guitar slingers.
  • “Orange Blossom Special,” Johnny Cash.
  • Elizabeth Cotton or Pete Seeger, Freight Train. Cotton is an amazing woman. Check out this video.

  • Paul Simon’s “Train in the Distance.”
  • Aeorosmith “Train Kept a Rollin’ the rollicking  cover of old blues song, also done by the Yardbirds.
  • ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ by the Monkees.
  • The Nields’ “Train.” Leave it to my good friend Bob to come up with something I’ve never heard or heard of — and it’s a great piece by a female duo.
  • “Waitin’ for a Train” by Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, another legendary folk singer (complete with yodels).
  • “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens
  • City of New Orleans” The Arlo Guthriy version of the Steve Goodman song.
  • Syd Straw’s “The Train that Takes You Away.” Great, if not obscure, song.
  • Gary Clarke, Jr’s bluesy rocker, “When My Train Pulls In.” Audience loved him so much they serenaded him before  he launched in bluesy train song.

  • “Throw Mama From a Train — a Kiss a Kiss.” The Sandpipers. Funny funny. Thanks Marvin.
  • Nanci Griffith – 1) So Long Ago. 2) Southbound Train. Nanci has a few train songs in her and I like them all.
  • Janis Joplin – Me and Bobbi McGee. Um, this is possibly my favorite all time song. Not sure it’s a train song, though the protagonist is ‘headin’ for a train,  feeling nearly faded as my jeans.’ Kristofferson wrote. Found this video of an aging Kristofferson doing this — pretty amazing:

  • Eagles – Train Leaves Here This Morning – Pleasant. Not so sure the Dude would like it.
  • Gordon Lightfoot – Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Historic account of real event as Gordon liked to do.
  • Wreck of the Old 97. Classic country sung by Johnny Cash and  others.
  • Desperados waiting for a Train –Guy Clark (several other versions), including the aforementioned Nanci with Clark.
  • “The Train Song” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
  • Chattanooga Choo Choo —classic, written by a songwriting duo while on a train called the Birmingham Special. Would have been a slam dunk if they named it the Birmingham Choo Choo. (Or, perhaps, not)>
  • “The Locomotion” original by LIttle Eva, babysitter for Carole King. Later Grand Funk Railroad.
  • And one reader says it would be a ‘travesty’ to get rid of Grateful Dead entirely so the reader suggested Dead renditions of “Big Railroad Blues” or Willie Fuller’s “Beat It On Down the Line,” either his original or their cover of it.

Is this my last column? (blog version)

This is not my last post. At least as far as I know this minute in time.

Because I have an incurable brain disease my life will likely be shortened; I just don’t know by how much.

So this has  me thinking about my last post.

I’m still getting along pretty well at 58 after my Lewy Body dementia diagnosis about 20 months ago.

Why think ahead to my last post? I don’t really want to think about it. How bad I’ll be when I can no longer type. I may not even know my last post when I write it.

But I’m thinking about it because I want to make the life I have now as precious as I can. With full knowledge of my assets and deficits, financially and physically.

I want to make decisions directly related to those things. I want to provide for a smooth transition for me and my family. Let’s call it transition defense.

Let’s make super difficult times into not-so-difficult times. It’s easier to smile, laugh and be with your loved ones if you aren’t worried about how to pay the light bill after retirement.

Everybody is going to die. There has been no change in the human mortality rate in, oh, forever. It’s holding steady at 100 percent. (Trust me, I keep my eye on this stat.)

Death should be an open conversation. My wife, Catherine, as a pastor who has worked as a Registered Nurse as well, has visited and cared in both of her roles for dozens of critically ill people in Florida, California and Alabama. Too many didn’t leave instructions or at least legally binding ones. She has helped from the patient’s advocate view to make sure the patient’s wishes are kept.

That means questioning our health care systems where doctors are taught to save and prolong life but not how to prepare for death. The system is  set, intentionally or not, to financially incentivize interventions and heroic measures. When the patient is a pain addled  95-year-old person, open heart surgery may not be the best idea . The system  doesn’t  do death well.

Have you thought about it? Like I’m doing here. Got a will? Power of attorney? Does your spouse or someone you trust know about all savings accounts, investment accounts, retirement funds? Passwords?

Heck, I’ve got more passwords than brain cells at this point.

If you have a spouse will they stay in the house? Or downsize? Maybe it’s time to think about downsizing now. Maybe you should look at assisted living facilities or step-down communities that provide increasing care depending on your health situation?

Do you have a financial plan for retirement? Other than waiting for Social Security. Are you at the age where you need to start moving the stock heavy positions in your  IRA or 401(K) to safer havens  like money market, cash or bonds?

Seek advice from a fee-only financial adviser. In other words, one who will take a flat fee, say $300, and build you a financial plan without trying to sell you any investments for which he or she may get a commission. Ongoing financial oversight of your investments generally costs about 1 percent of your holdings.

Have you talked  about death specifically. Funeral. What do you want to do with your body? Cremation? Have your ashes shot out of a cannon like Hunter S. Thompson? Pour the ashes in the ocean.

Do you want your wife or husband or trusted love one to authorize pulling the  plug or do you want your doctor to make every effort to keep you alive? Do you want that at age 85? age 95? Age and condition would be key considerations.

There’s a specific thing called Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) which you would need to discuss with your family. What happens when you become incapacitated and can’t make the decision yourself?

I do know I don’t want to consume a lot of health care resources when I’m too incapacitated to blow my own nose. I would like to say goodbye in a final column, go home and  kiss Catherine, Hannah, Emily and Claire on the cheek then slip quietly out the back door..

‘Night night,” I’d say.

Dr. John — 520

ALBUM: Dr. John’s Gumbo (1986 RE Alligator Records)

MVC  Rating: 4.5/$$$

Say you are planning a party. A party where music would be up front. But then the president comes on and declares National Music Conservation week.

President’s edict is that parties may play only one vinyl record the entire party.

Seems plausible? Right?

Well here’s the party record I’d recommend, Dr. John’s Gumbo.

It is  danceable, hummable, sing-with-able and eat cajun food-able. Iko Iko can be played 29 times straight without diminished pleasure, scientists measuring brain activity have discovered.

Add on to Iko Iko songs like Mess Around, Big Chief, Stack A Lee, Let the Good Times Roll and you got a party veering toward that shaky ground between ecstasy and agony. The agony is caused by the imbibeable forces the album propels, however those effects won’t begin until  morning. Health specialists recommend that you stay away from the song Iko Iko for several days before easing back in at low volume.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

RIP Charles Neville

My vinyl countdown continues (blog version)

Here’s  an excerpt of what I  posted on AL.com today:

Mike Oliver is counting down his 678 vinyl records before he dies.

This is the regular Saturday column where I showcase some of the 678 vinyl record reviews I plan to review on my website.

I’ve reviewed 151, still have 527 to go.

This is a race, you see, to get these done, reviewed and put up on my website, before my brain disease gets me.

Recenty I posted that I had decades ago lent my Deep Purple live album ‘Made In Japan’ to someone who never returned it. I said jokingly if anyone out there has it, please leave it on my porch no questions asked.

Last week AL.com cartoonist J.D. Crowe walked into the newsroom and handed me the live album plus a copy of ‘Machine Head’ in primo condition.

Read more here

Here’s what J.D. brought me. I’m out, gotta go ‘Space Truckin’

Still catching up with vinyl record countdown before I die (blog version)

UPDATE 6:22 p.m. 4/21:  Back from record stores. Long walk. I got two records one at each shop at 5 points.  Roy Clark’s ‘ Spectacular Guitar.’ He’s one of the best guitarists  and perhaps underrated by rock fans. Grass Roots, some personal reasons I picked ‘Golden Grass’ which I will  talk about at a later date. Fine day to shop, came in under $15 for two I wanted. Don’t tell Catherine. I’m still trying to find the right time to tell her about my growing stack of albums.

I did confess to getting Neutral Milk Hotel’s Aeroplane  record on newly minted vinyl during a recent road trip to see family.  It’s an album  I had on CD, but I love it and couldn’t resist a purchase at WUXTRY in Athens, Ga., where the band lived and, I believe recorded the album.

Hey all,

I published another Countdown update on AL.com. Click here.

I am going right now to 5 pts. South to Record Store Day at the two stores there, Charlemagne and Renassance.  And Seasick little later.

I’m still taking this week all in as my colleague and friend John Archibald won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

I’m off …….Oh wait a minute!

Coincidence or not department. The Difford and  Tilbrook vinyl record I have as my latest review has a song I singled out “Picking up the Pieces.”

My five snippits I introduce to AL.com readers today contains the Average White Band’s famous hit ‘Pick up the Pieces’ a totally different song from different eras and genre………wow.

OK maybe not so  Wow but it is kind of strange…OK maybe not strange at all (I’m going now).

Listen to the AWB video piece of my post and watch the (totally white) crowd try to dance … funny (OK I’m going now.)