JERRY LEE LEWIS LIVE AT THE PALIMINO

Back in the early 1960s Jerry Lee Lewis recorded THE definitive live rock ‘n’ roll album at a famous bar in Hamburg, Germany. Live at the Star Club, Hamburg wasn’t even released in the states for twenty years. If you’ve ever wondered why preachers condemned rock ‘n’ roll and why kids went crazy over it, this recording explains it all.

Some twenty years later, Lewis recorded a series of live shows at the legendary Palomino Club in North Hollywood.

Jerry Lee had (barely) lived every minute of the twenty years in between the two recordings. He’d gone from rock ‘n’ roll to country, had several personal tragedies, lasted all of about a week at Betty Ford, and was still rockin’ his life away in his late forties.
Most artists have a different persona offstage than they do when they’re under the spotlight, but not The Killer, much like the Waffle House, he’s wide open twenty-four seven, 365 days a year. This album shows him at his absolute best, and enjoying every minute of it. He trades banter with the audience, makes a few mildly (actually extremely) suggestive remarks to some of the ladies in the house, makes several off-mike jokes to the band, which features James Burton on guitar (Go call your favorite rockabilly guitarist and ask him about James Burton) and generally lets it be known that The Killer is in charge, and he’ll play what he damn well pleases. If you find him brashly egotistical, a bit crude and unrefined, not to mention obviously intoxicated, you are cordially invited to kiss his Ferriday, Louisiana, hindquarters .

This two-CD set covers the entire spectrum of American music from 1945 to 1985. Unlike Elvis, he never drifts into mediocrity or maudlin covers of MOR standards. Jerry Lee F—ckin’ Lewis doesn’t follow a smokin’ bump-and-grind version of “Johnny B. Goode” with some piece of slop like “Wind Beneath My Wings.” 

Hell no, this is a master at his absolute best.

(By the way, I know I rave about most of the albums I write about, but that’s the point, these are not reviews, they are all five-star, must-haves, especially for certain genres.)
 This album just gets better with every song. Damn it, this man can still play the blue-eyed piss out of a piano, and as you hear him end “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” by slamming the piano cover against the piano for emphasis, you realize you are listening to a true American original at work. … And, trust your Uncle Billy on this, nobody, nobody, and I do mean nobody, can wring more emotion out of two-minute songs than The Killer. 

Need proof? 
Check out “Another Place, Another Time.”

By the way, Lewis freely admits that he and his first cousins first learned how to brush the elephants’ teeth (play the piano) by listening to the black piano players, including Memphis Slim, Little Brother Montgomery, andSunnyland Slim, at Haney’s, Bar, in Ferriday, Louisiana. Although they weren’t allowed inside, they soaked up every eight-to-the-bar, big-legged bass note of grease-drenched boogie-woogie, combining it with the phrasing of southern gospel Hovie Lister to redefine the piano, taking it from the stage of the concert hall to the back seat of a ’59 Caddie.

(I’m listening to “Chantilly Lace” while writing this, now he’s doing a straight-ahead, third-base-on-the-first-date version of “Little Queenie.”) 
For all of you fellow piano players that thought Mr. Lewis was pretty much limited to bashing minor thirds and running arpeegios should live so long as to match his solo on “ I Can’t Stop Loving You.” No one plays with this much command and originality, and pure, unadulterated soul.
His piano playing ranges from in the pocket to truly jaw-dropping, W.T.F.!! Jerry Lee doesn’t play the piano, he just uses it to sing in another voice.

You want Blues? 
Try “Who Will the Next Fool Be?
After that, see if you can even make it through the saddest and most painful song I’ve ever heard a man sing: “She Even Woke Me To Say Goodbye.”
 Have I made my point yet?
When all is said and done, these are the reason you should order this album right away:
1) The band is phenomenal; James Burton plays truly inspired solos.
2) The material ranges from “Great Balls of Fire” to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
3) Jerry Lee is in total command from beginning to end. He sings every song as if it were his last.
4) He finishes “Don’t Put No Headstone On My Grave” by stopping the band and declaring, “ Hell, I don’t want a headstone, I want a f—ckin’ monument.” After listening to Live At The Palomino, you’ll agree that he damn sure deserves one.

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THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM (In “G”)

THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM (In “G”)

 “Life turns on a dime. Sometimes towards us, but more often it spins away, flirting and flashing as it goes: so long, honey, it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?” Stephen King From his novel: “11/22/63.”

******

Tuesday Night 11 P.M.

The past three weeks have been devoted to the saga of Stagger Lee. I was going to continue discussing Blues as social media beginning with Louis Jordan, and then I stumbled across the story of a song known to an entire generation as “The Negro National Anthem.

The Facts:

1933- While attending Alabama State Teachers College, trumpeter Erskine Hawkins becomes leader of the “The ‘Bama State Collegians.” The Collegians are the school’s Jazz band. Pianist for the band is Birmingham native, Avery Parrish.

1934- Hawkins moves the band to New York, changes the name of the group to “The Erskine Hawkins Orchestra.

1938-Hawkins, along with other members of his group, writes an instrumental about a bar on the Chitin’ Circuit in Ensley, Alabama. The song is “Tuxedo Junction.”

1939- Composer and lyricist Buddy Feyne writes lyrics to “Tuxedo Junction.”

1939:  Glenn Miller slows down the tempo, adds some trumpet fanfares, and has a number one hit with “Tuxedo Junction.” It sells at the rate of 115, 000 copies per week. Miller’s version is released on the RCA-Bluebird label.

1940- The Erskine Hawkins Orchestra records “After Hours” a twelve –bar blues, written and performed by twenty-three year old pianist Avery Parrish. The song is first released on the tiny Advent label, and then picked up for release by RCA-Bluebird.

1940- Buddy Feyne, under the pen name of Robert B. Wright, pens lyrics to “After Hours” and another song by Hawkins, ”Dolemite.”

1941-Parrish quits the band.

1941- Parrish moves to California. Soon after relocating there, he is partially paralyzed as the result of injuries from a bar fight.  At the age of twenty-four, his career is over. He never plays piano again.

1941-1945 – “After Hours” becomes known as “The Negro National Anthem.” There is no official declaration made, however, Parrish, being from Alabama, hs most certainly been exposed to what Thomas A. Dorsey described as the “lowdown, gutbucket blues.” “After Hours” blends old-fashioned blues licks with just enough sophistication to make it acceptable for Black folks only two generations removed from slavery, struggling to shed rural, unsophisticated stereotypes. The songs’ simple form embraces the blues but smoothes out the rough edges, making it acceptable to a slowly emerging Black middle class. Along with demands for an end to Draconian Jim Crow laws, Black folks discourage the use of such demeaning terms as Nigra and “Colored” in favor of Negro. “After Hours: serves as an anthem for those struggling to secure civil rights and societal acceptance.

1952-? – Herman Grizzard hosts “After Hours” on WLAC a 50,00 watt AM station in Nashville, Tn. WLAC booms out over twenty eight states and several countries, bringing pure, undiluted Rhythm and Blues to Black and White audiences for over thirty years. Grizzard uses the Hawkins tune as his theme song.

1958- Avery Parrish dies under “mysterious” circumstances at the age of forty-two in Los Angeles.

1960 (approx) “Lift Every Voice and Sing” becomes “The Negro National Anthem” for the next generation and the Civil Rights movement.

1972- Ray Bryant performs a live version of “After Hours” at the Montreux Jazz Festival. He introduces it with: “I think it’s the greatest piano blues solo in the world.” He plays a note-for-note rendition of the song, and receives a thunderous ovation at the end of it.

July, 1979-While staying with Sunnyland Slim in Chicago, I visit pianist Erwin Helfer. He offers to teach me Blues piano. The first song he recommends I learn is “After Hours.” He gives me a copy of the song, reissued by RCA on forty-five RPM.

Spring, 2005- I speak with seventy-two year-old Harold Bessent owner of “Fat Harold’s” a dance club often listed as the world headquarters of Carolina Beach Music in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. At the end of a long interview, I ask him about his all-time favorite song. He answers:  “An old Blues tune called ‘After Hours.”.

October 3, 20212- While researching this article, I notice that there is still no sheet music to the original available. The only sheet music is for the vocal version sung in a different key (A flat) than the original (G major). A jazz site, dothemath.typepad.com, posts an obituary for Ray Bryant. Discussing Bryant’s style, which bridges the gap between Jazz and Blues, the article notes:

“Bryant deals more exclusively with the folk side of things on another 1957 recording, “After Hours” on Dizzy Gillespie’s “Sonny Side Up”. The original recording of “After Hours” by the composer Avery Parrish with Erskine Hawkins was a huge hit and the progenitor of a kind of urban, glistening, and patient piano blues."

Despite its fame, there has never been accurate sheet music to “After Hours” available. No classical pianist has ever been able to play it. To learn it requires extensive listening to the record -- and, ideally, someone who can play it already to show you how parts of it go. You don’t have to come from the black community to acquire the right information, but it surely doesn’t hurt.”

“After Hours” is indeed, the song that all Blues piano players are expected to know. However, in thirty years, I have run across very few jazz players that are familiar with it. The observations in the above quote are correct, you have either watch somebody play it, or listen to it over and over on your practice tape. The primitive recording makes it almost impossible to hear exactly what Parrish is playing, and therefore, everyone plays it slightly different, but always in the key of “G.” The only sheet music I could find is for the “vocal” version in the dreaded key of “A Flat.”  In the last seventy years it has been re-recorded numerous times by such artists as Muddy Waters, Danny Gatton, Glenn Miller, Bobby Enriquez, Pinetop Perkins and Henry Mancini.

Blues For Avery

If you Google “”Erskine Hawkins” you’ll find numerous entries and several collections of his great music still in print.

A “Search” for Avery Parrish yields:

 - Wikipedia: A brief bio and no picture

-Allmusic.com:  The same bio and no picture

- Allaboutjazz.com: Once again, the same bio, and a picture…of Bull Moose Jackson

Finger Pluckers

( Note: This is a piece I did last Fall . The Box Set that’s got my nerves ramped and stamped is a pricey, gorgeous collection from Bear Family Records that calls itself “Electric Blues 1939-2005-The Definitive Collection.”
It is





Finger Pluckers

Back in 1971, we Blues fans were small in number.
I worked at Glen’s Music in Rockville, Md., with a lot of cool people, My favorite was Dave Pierce; he was a real sarcastic guy who also became my first Blues buddy.
We used to sit in his apartment drinking Silver Satin (Hoy, Hoy)Wine and listen to Muddy and Chuck Berry.
When I asked him who his all-time fave guitarist was, he began telling me about a show he used to watch late night on Channel 11(the station that featured Negro programming) from Baltimore. He claimed that it featured some guy named Gatemouth, who could actually make the guitar talk.
“Talk?”
Figuring it was the primitive hallucinogenic effect of the Solver Stain, I didn’t push it.
 Years later, the show turned up in someone’s vaults. Its name was “The Beatttttttt” a mid 60’s dance show from Nashville hosted by legendary R&B Disc Jockey, Bill “Hossman” Allen of WLAC radio.
The guitarist in question was Gatemouth Brown.
:
Fast Forward:

Last night,  first at Dr. Joel’s crib, and then later at The Wirtz Compound, I spent the better part of the early morning hours  having my wig fried, dyed and laid to the side, by a whole bunch of totally Gonzo Cat Gut talkers most of them not from Chicago, but around Houston, Texas.
 If Chicago is “the Home “of the Blues, then Houston would be its “All You Can Eat Buffett.” 
The town that would one day is known as the birthplace of John Bradshaw, Dr. Phil and a host of other Codependent Cowboys still thrived on booze and betrayal in the mid 50’s.  It rocked all day and night to the gospel tinged erotic pleas of old Black Railroad piano players, Dixie Peach Conked Gospel quartets, and Bipolar Hillbillies, fueled by Mexican Cough Syrup and “Diet Supplements.” They made dozens of almost hits for record labels owned or inherited by small time pornographers, and minor league gangsters.
Much of what was considered “Blues” in the Black community during the early 1960’s owed as much to Count Basie as it did to Robert Johnson, and often sounded closer to Ernest Tubb, than Robert Johnson. When you said “Blues” to the Black community it meant Jr. Parker and Bobby Bland...
It also meant good steady work for the musicians that played with them. 
These next few cuts feature some amazing music, that frankly, even after forty years, I was virtually unaware of.
This “talking” style of guitar uses licks and runs I recognize from Check Berry, Keith Richards, and especially, Alvin Lee.


Okie Dokie Stomp
Gatemouth Brown
-This is the great Blues guitar song of all time. 
It’s Frank Zappa’s favorite, the one that turned his head around.
Swings like a Tea Party politician up for re-election.
The horns blow right on the edge of hysteria. 
Gate was the slick down, Bad Mother Shut Your Mouth Player in those days.

  Strollin:
Jimmy Nolen:
 Jimmy Nolen was a serious mothf-ckin’ guitar player, that’s him, standing behind James at The TAMI Show. He’s the one that came up with that funky chord in Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.”
 What a Tone!!
He sounds like a really pissed off Chuck Berry whose just been told to turn down for the fifth time by some brain dead cub owner.
Apparently, Strollin’ was a fave in the strip clubs, and on Border Radio.

Johnny’s House Party:  
Johnny Hartman
Beats me, I’ve never heard of this guy either.
However, Hartman and the boys, have obviously paid off a few speeding tickets with gigs in Tijuana.
Sounds like a medley of the hits they’d play behind Ouchy Wa Wa, the midget stripper that came onstage in a giant neon taco shell.
Or something pretty similar.

The Big Push:
Cal Green
Before Elvis, guitar players, especially in R&B were rare.
Hank Ballard changed all that, replacing the screaming tenor with the biting Telecaster. 
You want it down and dirty??
This is X rated guitar.
Actually this is an instrumental combining the melody of “Lucille” and “Work with Me, Annie,” 
 The result:
A prime example of (in the words of the White Segregationists) “Filthy, suggestive Negro music” at its best/’worst.

A f-cking Masterpiece, as is the next one:

Hard Grind:
Jimmy Spruill
Go dig out your original copy of “Kansas City” by Wilburt Harrison that insane guitar solo is played by Wild Jimmy Spruill, the pride of Little Washington, N.C.
 Each note rings out with attitude and command.
A solid ten on the “dirty” scale. 

Prancing: 
Ike Turner
And then there’s this charming number, that literally stings your ears. Once again, he makes that instrument laugh, cry, talk and mainly groan.
Great musical surprises and rhythm patterns. 
In the liner notes, Turner attributes his “talking” style to his use of the Whammy bar; apparently, he thought that it was like a pick, to be used on every stroke.
Oh Lord what a cool sound, and it just gets more interesting every verse, with wolf whistles in the background 
And Finally:
Red Light 
Carl Green
I swear this guy sounds like Alvin Lee or vice versa. Everyone always compares Lee to Django, but for my money, this is the guy. How weird to be writing this on the day, Alvin leaves to join Green for the eternal Jam session. This is the fastest solo I’ve ever heard, it makes “Going Home” sound like “Goodnight Irene” .

And Finally:

Finger Lickin’:
Johnny Jones:
 Nashville’s resident Blues master in the early Sixties. 
Jones is often acknowledged as the single greatest influence on a young Jimmy Jones, who would later change his last name to Hendrix.

The above selections can be found on “Volume Two/ CD Number Three of this amazing collection.
Wow.
I repeat, 
Wow.
This is some amazing guitar playing. Very, very cool stuff. 
The music is so high energy; it wears me out just listening to it. 
Usually I’m not all that big a fan of guitar, but quite frankly, Spruill, Turner, and the Green Bros, actually leave me with a touch of Pianist Envy.
***************

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MAYBERRY AFTER DARK

Mayberry After Dark

By Rev. Billy C. Wirtz

Okay, for one hundred dollars and a trip to Mt. Airy, North Carolina, name the first comic to record a “blues” album.

This forgotten volume featured songs by Leadbelly, Leroy Carr, Joe Turner, and the Golden Gate Quartet.

Not only did the comic cover these classic tunes, he enlisted the aid of blues legends Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.

As a result of the session, he and Brownie became close personal friends and the artist then used his influence to land Brownie a cameo in the movie "A Face In The Crowd."

 This cameo led to Sonny and Brownie appearing in several other films, most notably the notorious "Baby Doll". (That film also featured “Shame, Shame. Shame” by Smiley Lewis in a mild bondage sequence involving Eli Wallach, a rocking horse, and a fly swatter.)

Give up?

Too busy looking up the scene in "Baby Doll"?

Check out:

 

Andy Griffith Shouts the Blues and Old Timey Songs

(Capital T1105)

In 1959, the year before he would begin his career as the sheriff of Mayberry,Andy Griffith recorded an album of blues and traditional folk songs.

The role of Andy Taylor became a career-defining role for the young man from western Carolina, however, listen to this album, rent a copy of " A Face In The Crowd" and you’ll another side of Opie’s father.

Rewind: 1959

Five years after "Brown v. Board of Education", the South is still experiencing it’s greatest upheaval since the Reconstruction Compromise of 1877. Along with social integration, there is, for the first time, an integration of cultures. Whites are now openly expressing an affinity for black music and style. In the Carolinas, what would later become known as “Beach Music” ( a code word for Black R&B) is played on the jukebox at The Pad in Myrtle Beach. Prior to 1954, R&B could only be heard in black clubs or in juke joints like The Tijuana Inn in Carolina Beach, North Carolina.

There is a new school of “hip” comics working the nightclubs and showrooms. Unlike Minnie Pearl and other “rube” acts,they speak in dialect and hipster jargon; a former drummer from Jackson, Tennessee, named Brother Dave Gardner is the Lenny Bruce of the South.

One example of his new style is delivered on an album, recorded in Dallas, circa 1960:

Young Lady: “Honey, this place is a drag. Let’s blow this joint.”

Boyfriend: “Naw, leave it for the waitress.”

The joke gets one laugh out of audience of several hundred.

Brother Dave parodied the southern preacher, and also created characters later “modified” by other comics, the most famous being Geraldine by Flip Wilson.

Although Gardner enjoyed fleeting national fame on the Jack Parr Show, his personal life and extremely right wing politics would bar him from future success. To this day, however, mention his name to any southern male between the ages of sixty and eighty and they’ll begin to recite one of his routines.

Andy Griffith’s first character was likewise based on the southern preacher.

Billed as “Deacon Andy Taylor,” his forte was the retelling of classic literature (Cleopatra and Andy) and performances like “Swan Lake.”

Griffith and Garner were the first (and unfortunately the last) cerebral southern comics for nearly thirty years and both featured blues and “folk songs” in their acts. Along with his records, Griffith stars in two movies:

In "No Time For Sergeants" he plays a genteel country boy for whom the indignities of boot camp are cause for daily celebration.

 "Hee Haw" meets "Full Metal Jacket."

In the other film, he’s cast in the deeply disturbing role of Lonesome Roads in "A Face In the Crowd."

This dark and chilling picture depicts the rise of a ruthless, amoral populist hero in the early days of television. Griffith plays a truly vile misogynist, rivaling Robert Mitchum’s Henry Powell in "Night Of the Hunter" as a personification of pure evil.

There is an eerie quality to Griffith’s character, foreshadowing the rise of such modern-day “commentators” as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Former MSNBC commentator Keith Oberman often made frequent references to Griffith, even nicknaming Beck “Lonesome Roads.”

When Griffith recorded "Blues and Old Timey Songs", he was a rising star and a somewhat controversial one at that.

"Andy Griffith Shouts The Blues and Old Timey Music"

Although I knew of this album, I hadn’t really listened to all of the tracks until yesterday; I was in for more than a couple of WTF moments.

Here it is, song by song:

1)  “The Preacher And the Bear”

Griffith abbreviates this story/song by The Golden Gate Quartet. Unlike the original,his tongue-in-cheek version begins with “Can I get an amen?” He follows with two semi-blue jokes.

2) “Midnight Special”

It begins with a banjo and an “authentic” Dixieland arrangement, while Griffith sings it  in dialect. Example: “Well she gonna see da gubna, she gonna free her man.” Otherwise, pretty true to Leadbelly’s original version.

3) “The House Of The Rising Sun”

This features a harmonica solo by Sonny Terry with changes to the gender of the original, but otherwise a faithful rendering. Griffith also borrows a verse from “In The Pines” by the Louvin Brothers. I find it difficult to imagine Andy Griffith as a young, male prostitute, but, whatever…

4) “How Long Blues”

Leroy Carr as performed by Blaze Starr’s house band. Classic Blues with a stripper beat?? A heartfelt vocal performance with a blistering guitar solo by Brownie Mcghee.

5) “The Crawdad Song”

Uses the intro to “Mystery Train.” A very hip version of the “You get a line and I’ll get a pole” standard. Once again, a fabulous guitar line against Griffith’s (more than adequate) vocals. Utilizes a hambone rhythm played on someone’s thighs, that goes on unaccompanied for eight bars at the end of the song.

6) “Good Mornin’ Blues”

“These are called ‘The Good Mornin” Blues that I learned from my good friend Brownie Mcghee who you hear playin’ the guitar.” Cool! Griffith acknowledges his debt to Brownie, but then proceeds to engage in scolding someone named “Lucy” throughout the song. Although Griffith would be horrified to be accused of such, unfortunately, it smacks of a musical head rub. Unintentional P.C. violations aside, this is a really well played song by all the musicians, and includes a smokin’ piano solo.

7) “Police Department Blues”

Begins with an Albert Ammons piano figure. Griffith credits it to someone “back home.” A basic “Everyday I Have The Blues” twelve-bar shuffle with another great guitar solo. Griffith comps a few standard blues verses. At 1:02, during the piano solo, Griffith tells a joke about women’s menstrual cycles. I kid you not.

8) “Little Maggie”

“Here’s a song I learned from a guy named Jeff Pack in the Blue Ridge Mountains.” A bluegrass standard about an alcoholic girlfriend with fidelity issues. Griffith bemoans his inability to obtain closure.

9) “Careless Love”

Another song about multiple dysfunctional relationships. Once again, Brownie provides a five-star guitar solo.

10) “Molly Darlin’”

Folk song meets Broadway show tune. Includes a solo on the spoons.

11) “I Want A Little Girl”

Griffith proceeds to tell us how his current significant has dietary issues, and isn’t particularly attractive. He then spends the rest of the song wishing for someone “smaller than me.”

12) “Pick A Bale Of Cotton”

I guess any album of “authentic” blues back then had to include at least one song about picking cotton. Actually he and Brownie sing a duet with pretty good results. Andy mentions turnip greens, fatback, etc.

While "Andy Griffith Shouts the Blues, featuring Brownie McGhee", may not be recognized as one of music’s great collaborative efforts, it deserves consideration. As the first entry in the “Actors as Blues Singers” genre, it stands up well against later releases.

In the course of twelve songs there are several great solos and some decent vocal performances. Deacon Andy tells a couple of pretty funny (and raunchy) jokes. And, perhaps most important, unlike subsequent efforts, Capitol T1105 didn’t spawn a generation of fedora-clad frat boys deconstructing the musical legacy of Joe Turner and Robert Johnson.

 

Me Gotta Go Now!!!

ME GOTTA GO NOW

OK, faithful readers:

Name this tune:

(Read it out loud)

Bomp-bomp-bomp

Bomp-bomp

Bomp-bomp-bomp

Bomp-bomp

Did ya get it?

How about if I told you that the progression goes I-IV-Minor V?

By now, I hope you’ve figured out that I am referring to a song written byRichard Berry and immortalized by a bunch of guys in Seattle, everybody grab your honey, it’s LOUIE LOUIE time!!!

The story:

First of all, after Richard Berry, there are numerous versions of the saga.

Here’s one of them:

Los Angeles, 1955 – A young black artist named Richard Berry was trying to compose a tune in the style of “Havana Moon” by Chuck Berry. He wrote some lyrics on a napkin between sets of a bar gig.

He ended up writing the song about a love-starved fellow sailing to Jamaica to meet his girlfriend.

Here are the words he scribbled down:

Louie Louie, me gotta go

Louie Louie, me gotta go

Fine little girl she waits for me

Me catch the ship for cross the sea

I sail the ship all alone

I never think I’ll make it home

(Chorus)

Three nights and days me sail the sea

me think of girl constantly

on the ship I dream she there

I smell the rose in her hair

(chorus)

Me see Jamaica moon above

It won’t be long, me see my love

Me take her in my arms and then

I tell her I never leave again

(Chorus)

Shortly thereafter, Berry needed money for an engagement ring and sold the rights to “Louie Louie”…for $750. That’s not a misprint.

1957 – “Louie Louie” by Richard Berry is released on Flip Records. Berry performs with an R&B revue at Eagles Auditorium in the Seattle area.

From here on, it gets really weird; I read about six different accounts, and this seems to be the majority opinion.

Tacoma, Washington – 1960: A white kid named Robin Roberts sings with various local bands.

His two favorite songs are “Rockin’ Robin” and a doo-wop obscurity, ”Louie Louie.” He records “Louie Louie” with The Wailers, a local group with the recent hit, “Tall Cool One.” They are frequent performers at The Spanish Castle, a club later immortalized in song by Jimi Hendrix.

Roberts’ version goes to #1 locally, but tanks on the national charts.

April 1963 – “Louie Louie” has become a regional standard played by all the bands. Two groups record versions of it in the same week.

The first version by Paul Revere and Raiders sells respectably, but they would find greater fame with a dozen other hits.

A group of teenagers known as The Kingsmen pony up $36 and record the song in one take. There are two microphones, one over the drums, and another one for the vocals and rest of the band. The words come out mumbled and virtually incomprehensible.

FACT: The original vocal was sung by Jack Ely, who quit the band two days later.

FACT: In the song, Ely makes a one glaring mistake, coming in too soon on the vocals after the guitar break, Lynn Easton covers it with a drum roll. It doesn’t matter; the mistake becomes part of the song, part of music history, and is included by The Kingsmen when they play it live.

FACT: At :54, Easton drops a stick and yells a clearly audible “F—ck,” in the background. (Go ahead, go listen, and then come back and finish the article).

The guys decide “Louie Louie” is a terrible recording and forget about it.

October, 1963 – A Boston D.J. plays “Louie Louie” declaring it the worst record of the week. His joke backfires and the song sells over 20,000 copies in a week. Wand Records buys the master from Jerden (Hell yes, it worth some serious cash), the original label in Seattle.

Jack Ely realizes his mistake, pleads with Lynn Easton to let him back in the band. “No way “ says Easton, and thus begins a series of The Kingsmen versus Jack Ely and The Kingsmen rivalries that will ultimately end up in multimillion dollar lawsuits.

Winter, 1963-64 – Rumors begin to fly that when played at 33 RPM the words describe a variety of sexual acts. School kids pass notes in class with the “secret lyrics.” “Louie Louie” sells two million copies and spends four months on the charts. It charts yet again in 1966.

The State of Indiana bans “Louie Louie.”

Radio stations refuse to play it.

My band, Thomas Tuff and The Soul Exhaustion, gets kicked out of Teen Club for playing it.

A senate investigation is launched; millions of dollars are spent, until finally, a year later the subcommittee confesses that it has been unable to discover any obscene lyrics. The “F” bomb at :54 goes unnoticed.

1965 – Yet another Seattle band, The Sonics, record a version of “Louie Louie.” Their version has a distinctly different feel, the progression being an edgy I-III-IV progression. The buzz-saw guitars and sneering vocals predate punk by almost fifteen years. Black Flag will record a cover of this version complete with spontaneous lyrics by Henry Rollins.

1978 – The movie Animal House begins spurs a resurgence in the song’s popularity.

1983 – Radio station KFJC in Los Altos Hills, California, plays over 600 versions in one weekend.

1995 – After years of legal wrangling, Richard Berry regains his rights to the song. He records an album featuring “Louie Louie,” “Have Love, Will Travel,” and “Yama-Yama, Pretty Mama,” for his good friend Johnny Otis. He buys an SUV and pays off his mom’s mortgage.

1997 – Richard Berry dies a rich and happy man. In the past two years he has collected more than two million dollars in royalties.

The Millennium – Richard Berry’s little song is now the most covered song, with somewhere around two thousand documented versions, in all of pop music.

In many respects, “Louie Louie” is the classic American story. From the B-side of a forgotten single to the floors of the U.S. Senate, from Jack Ely to J. Edgar Hoover, spur of the moment decisions made by teenagers, affecting the rest of their lives, and changing popular culture. The night before they recorded it, The Kingsmen played a ninety-minute version of it at a dance.

Dave Marsh wrote an entire book about it and due to legal hassles couldn’t print the lyrics.

When asked why he used a minor five chord instead of a major five, Ely admits it was a simple error.

If you were unaware of the :54 remark, don’t feel bad, I just found about this week.

I have recently gone into semi-retirement after thirty years on the road. In the world of itinerant musicians, there are certain annual events that help to make ends meet.

The Christmas season is always tough, people aren’t going out, too many private parties, and clubs traditionally book a light schedule.

At the end of the season however, there’s the New Year’s Eve gig. Every year I played one, I would of course, play “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight. Following that I’d pause and announce: “Ladies and Gentlemen, our national anthem.” Without missing a beat, I’d dive head first into “Louie Louie.” It killed ‘em, every time.

…And finally, according to LouieLouie.net, Richard Berry’s children divide a royalty check of around one hundred thousand dollars every year.

Harmony

Harmony
A Flat, Down From the V Chord

I’ve spent the last several months “woodshedding.” For thirty years, I’ve hidden the fact that I was musically illiterate. It’s nothing to be proud of, and last Spring I decided to do something about it.

The whole process began as the result of a present.

 A friend of mine in California found a book of Albert Ammons piano solos from 1941. I was determined to figure some of them out. From the first page on, I realized I had been playing some of the left hand figures incorrectly. Unfortunately, there were so many notes going in so many directions, three lines below the staff, four spaces above it, and this was just the damn bass (All Cows Eat Grass) clef. In the past, I would have framed the cover and forgot about the rest, but I decided, one last time, to try and teach myself how to read music.

I pulled out my copy of “Alfred’s Adult Piano Course One” and began with “Row, Row, Row Your F-ckin’ Boat.” I felt like a fool, and probably sounded like one. I was in the privacy of my bedroom, and indeed, there are more than a couple of frustration driven scuff marks on the wall from those first few sessions. 
I have severe attention deficit disorder. I am “outing” myself, in the hopes that anyone else with similar problems might benefit some of the practice regimens I used recently that helped me break through some lifelong walls. I have always loved playing music, but sitting down and staying focused has proved almost impossible. On a good day, I have attention span of a Bipolar  Ferret in Manic phase, after two cans of Mountain Dew ( and that’s on a good day). The least little jingle from my “smart” phone, outside noise (like the idiot next door with the chain saw, what’s he doing? He know we’re not supposed to be, Damn, I remember when I worked at Camp Shenadoah, and that guy From Finland almost cut off his leg with the chain saw, what was his name? Esko, oh yeah, he used to fu...) oops, sorry.
I’m back.
One of my best high school friends ended up at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. She practiced eight hours a day, every day, Christmas and Holidays included. Eight hours a day? Even the thought of sitting still and focusing for one hour a day was discouraging. Somebody, somewhere passed on the following:

Set a kitchen timer to fifteen minutes. Just play around for fifteen minutes, but when the timer buzzes, stop. Now, go do something, reward yourself with fifteen minutes of cartoons. 
Solid, can do. 
Sure enough, the fifteen minutes flew by, and somewhere in the middle of the dreaded key of A Flat, I was saved by the buzzer.
I took a break. 
I sat down for another fifteen minutes and played some slow boogie woogie. 
BZZZZZZZZZZ
 More cartoons. 
I took me the better part of three hours, but I put in one whole hour of practice. 
I did that four times in the first week. 
The second week, I increased the intervals to twenty minutes.
Week Two found me ignoring the buzzer and playing for a few more minutes at the end of each cycle. 
 I had also begun actually being able to pick out a few of the more familiar notes on the staff in the keys of C, F and G. 
I began testing myself while eating dinner. I would draw out a musical staff on the back of an envelope from a bill collector (plenty of those around) and write out the notes on the bass and treble clefs. 
I screwed up the nerve to try the Ammons book again. I broke it down by measure, and then by individual note.
 Lo and behold, I realized how he played this one lick that I had been trying to figure out for years. I actually got a little emotional. I can do this.
 I felt like I had just aced that spelling test in First Grade. Two hours later,  my hands were getting tired, and the sun was coming up. 
Back in 1967, I bought a book titled “Swing and Progressive Styles for the Piano” by John Mehegan. For some reason, I’ve kept it all these years. I must have looked at no less than a dozen times and given up. Even for someone who reads music, it’s a challenge. This is not “Jazz Made Easy” it’s a serious book for serious players. Joey Defrancisco lists it in the back of his “technique book as indespinsable. Hoarce Silver and Bill Evans wrote the intros. There are transcritions of Lester Young and Art Tatum (132nd note arpeggios??)  solos in the original keys, many of them in the dreaded A Flat. There are sub chords, turn-arounds, numerous standrads in numerical transpostions, and page after page of walking tenth chords (a major triad with the third displaced up an octave, requiring a hand stretch of ten notes), and he expects you to learn them in every damn key, along with the relative minors. One of the by-products of my “disorder” is the ability to recognize and utilize patterns.  Take away the Pentatonic runs, embellishment tones and chord inversions and most popular music is “Row, Row, Row, Your  Boat,” with a Conk. (editor’s note)
On September 28, I will turn Fifty Eight years old. Twelve months ago, I was hobbling around, facing long-term dependence on painkillers and a cane. A lot had changed since then.
Thanks to Dr. Manderson, I no longer need the cane.
Thanks to Dr. Meetze, I no longer need  the crutch.
 Thanks to Chip Eagle, I have a weekly commitment that demands a clear mind and full faculties.
 Thanks to Duane Straub (who gave me the Ammons book), I understand  John Mehegan.
…And thanks to John Mehegan, I play a very cool arrangement of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

This is one of the articles I wrote for Blues Revue last year. It is one version of where this famous song came from.

STAGGERLEE.COM

ST. LOUIS GLOBE-DEMOCRAT

 VOL 5—NO.213.

 ST. LOUIS. SATURDAY MORNING. 

DECEMBER 28, 1895

—FIVE CENTS

William Lyons, 25, a levee hand, was shot in the abdomen yesterday evening at 10 o'clock in the saloon of Bill Curtis, at Eleventh and Morgan Streets, by Lee Sheldon, a carriage driver.

Lyons and Sheldon were friends and were talking together. Both parties, it seems, had been drinking and were feeling in exuberant spirits. The discussion drifted to politics, and an argument was started, the conclusion of which was that Lyons snatched Sheldon's hat from his head. The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Sheldon withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor Sheldon took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away.

He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station. Lyons was taken to the Dispensary, where his wounds were pronounced serious. Lee Sheldon is also known as 'Stag'Lee.

---

  I got the date wrong, it actually happened on December twenty-seventh.

Apparently, Mr. Sheldon could have benefitted from some “Bullying” workshops.

One hundred and two years later:

-The original column in the St. Louis paper, along with everything you could ever want to know about the man, the myth and even the location of the original bar (now an office building) is available at staggerlee.com

Why?

As usual, I began this series, with no idea where it would end up. For the past month, I’ve listened to at least twenty-versions of the song, recited the toasts to Chip over the phone, and read half-dozen academic discussions of “The empowered Black male in story and song.”

I’ve read essays, listened to the Toast version by Johnny Otis and a round twenty versions of the song. In the first installment of this series I mentioned the significance of the hat. There was still a piece of the puzzle missing. Anyone who’s taken Journalism 101 knows the importance of the four W’s.

Who- Lee Shel(d)on and Billy Lyons

What- A barroom shooting

Where: East St. Louis

When: 1895

However, added together they still didn’t answer why?

Why did the story of Stagger Lee become part of Black and American Folk culture?

He’s a Bad Mother Shut Your Mouth:

The Trickster, the Anti-Hero and the Rebel, surface again and again in myth, literature and mass media.

From Hermes to James Dean, from Randall P. McMurphy to John Shaft, there is a secret admiration for the one who defies the rules, and upsets the Status Quo.

Numerous sources cite the story of Stagger Lee first surfacing among dockworker and Stevedores back around the turn of the century in the Post-Reconstruction era south.

Stop for a minute and consider the circumstances:

Manual labor, lousy pay, dangerous working conditions, an all Black all-male work force.

At the end of another fourteen hour day, the guys are sitting in a tavern relaxing. There are no T.V.’s, no video games, maybe a piano player. Someone begins to recount a story he heard from a cousin visiting from Arkansas. As the story progresses, the teller, maybe remembering an incident with the dock boss earlier that week, might have Stag laughing at the cops, then the judge, and maybe even the Devil himself. The bartender hears it, and noticing the positive reaction it gets from his customers, repeats Friday afternoon to some factory workers. One of the factory workers goes to a funeral later that week. After the funeral there is the need for some diversion, and so he begins to spin the story told to him by the bartender. A distant cousin of the deceased, who also happens to play guitar, puts some music to some of the story and sings it at a Bar-B-Q in Mississippi later that year.

Although the locations might have differed, among Blacks in the South in the latter years of the nineteenth century, there was a desperate need for stories that didn’t end in tragedy. Following the acts of 1876, any act of defiance, even as small as not stepping off the sidewalk to let whites pass, was often met with unspeakably harsh consequences. As the story of Stagger Lee grew, Lee Shelt(d)on became black America’s first outlaw hero, the Rebel, the original “Bad Boy”.

Staggerlee.com is worth a visit for the timeline on the History page alone.

Here a just few excerpts from nine page timeline:

1903: Earliest known transcription of lyrics from Memphis but reportedly first heard in Colorado in 1899 or 1900.

1903: Another transcription of lyrics to the Ballad of Stackerlee. Sung from the perspective of a St. Louis prostitute working for him as her pimp.

The song spread like a game of Chinese Whispers across the South as musicians heard it and played it back from memory with their own embellishments. The Stag Lee of the song is hung for the murder, sent off with an elaborate funeral, kicks the Devil from his throne and takes over Hell.

1909, Thanksgiving: Lee Shelton released from prison, pardoned by Governor Joseph Wingate Folk.

1910, February: Miss Ella Fisher of Texas sends John Lomax, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist, 8 stanzas of The Ballad of Stagalee. She writes to him, “This song is sung by the Negroes on the levee while they are loading and unloading the river freighters.”

A few pages later:

1960 - 1970

1960: Pat Boone covers Lloyd Price’s version but changes the chorus from "Go, Stagger Lee! Go!" to "Oh, Stagger Lee! Oh!" Pat, apparently, is not comfortable cheering on the badass black man.

1963: The Isley Brothers record it with a young Jimi Hendrix on guitar. They sing the song on live TV in the UK and create a scandal when Ron pulls a gun from his coat and mimes the shooting.

(There is a YouTube link, and sure enough, Ronnie Islay waves a pistol around in the middle of the song, and the other two pantomime the actual shooting...)

Late 60s: Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, identifies himself and other black leaders as Stagger Lee characters. Seale names a son after Stagger Lee.

At the end of the timeline, there is another link to all four hundred thirty-three known recorded versions of the song, including a neo-disco rendition by Neil Diamond.

Lee Shelton’s acquaintances’ described him as a man who enjoyed “being observed.”
I think he got his wish.

CLEAN AND GREEN PART ONE

My Dearest Brothers and Sisters:

Thanks for the love and support over the past two years.
Addiction is a crummy way to live.
It's  hard on the pocketbook and even harder on the soul..
I think I'm finally over my druggee phase.
 I hope.
The last time I was one hundred percent "clean," including tobacco, was around January of 2005.
This time, I tried some new methods that seemed to work, including Suboxone, which I had had success with in the past.
Suboxone Replacement Therapy, as it's nicely known, helped me get clean once before, and did again this time.
 With the help of Suboxone, and  Dr.Russell Meetze I have, once again, and hopefully for the last time, put the Sleeper Hold On Satan and The Body Slam on Sin.

Some Thoughts on Suboxone, Addiction, And Clean And Green Sobriety: 


Introduction:
My world  started to slowly unravel back around 1996. My marriage tanked. my mom got cancer, I.R.S. troubles , Mom died, dad remarried, dad died, gigs started to slack off, all in the course of about six years. 
The best I can figure, (addicts always look for that one thing they could have done different), something went haywire in my body from all the stress, and I began experiencing horrible, excruciating, brutal kidney stone attacks every three to four months for the next ten years.
 I guess that stress is what caused them.
 I guess.
I tried every diet, pill, herb, guided meditation (picture your urethra as long. flowing canal of peace), along with gallons of water a day, to no avail.
Anyway-
At that time, I was still  active in N.A. Although I began shying away around '96, I picked up my ten year chip in '98.
And-
 I had begun getting kidney stones on a regular basis.
So-
I started requiring large amounts of extremely powerful prescription narcotics to be able to stand the pain of of what I called "Satan's B.B.'s."

I didn't know what else to do, other than take the pills, tell "The B.B. Gun" joke and keep playing.

One morning, try as I might to screen the applicants, I woke up with a new roommate named Mr. Jones..

Rewind:
Back in '84, I used to have a bit in my shows called "Mr. Clown."
Mr. Clown was a kid's trash can with a smiling clown face on it. I would hold Mr. Clown upside down so that he was frowning, while telling the audience:
"Hey kids, Mr. Clown is upset because he knows you take DRUGS!!!
"And the way we make him happy (turning him right side up) is for you to come and put allll your drugs in Mr. Clown."
It worked.
A little too well.
I got lots of Cocaine, some great buds (which I gave away< because t that time, I hated weed,) and one night in Baltimore:
 Someone threw in a bottle containing a dozen tablets of something called Demerol.
The next night, on top of around a dozen beers, I tried one.
It sucked, I threw up and felt like shit.
A few days later, sitting upstairs in my cousin's carriage apartment, with one of John Waters' actresses',  I tried another one..
The ooey gooey feeling began in my toes.
And crept it's way up my legs.
 It felt like I was being stripped and dipped head first, in warm honey  by a Lesbian Biker gang; while simultaneously recovering from the most eye rolling self-induced (always the best) orgasm possible. 

And then it got good to me.
 A little too good.

Next:
Recovery Round One.

11/16 Saturday Morning:
A Moment of Senior triumph:
Writing down my passwords on a piece of paper and remembering where I put the paper.

What I learned this week:
-Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, was also known to use Opium extract in her Eulsian rituals.
Helen of Troy served it.
It was served in cakes, made into candles, and beverages mixed with Wine (the original element of Spo-Dee-O-Dee).
Helen of Troy had it in her pantry as well.
By the eighth and ninth centuries, Arabs introduce it to China Iran and India.
By the eleventh and twelfth century it has made it over to Europe.
In 1520, this cat named Paracelsus (real name: Phillppus von Hohenheim??!) appears on the radar.
His deal?
He lists his occupations as:
Alchemist
Physician
Astrologer
Scientist
Occultist
He is an interesting mix of old and newer practices:
He advances the theory that some illnesses may be psychological in origin.
He identifies and names Zinc.He invents an alphabt to be used on lucky Talismans.
He changes his name to Para (meaning better than, or at least, as good as), Celsus (THE Man in ancient medicine).
He is in effect, claiming to be "The New Nature Boy" and far superior to that Celsus Geek.
Hohenehim gets bored one afternoon and starts mixing up a few things laying around on the shelves.
The result is a combination of Opium, Wine and spices that would be popular and freely available for the next four hundred years known as Laudanum.

Rokool Part Two:
(Rokool is a weekly guide to some movies and shows available on Roku you might enjoy).

Channel: Netflicks

Movie: Bride Of Frankenstein-
Five out of Five Stars A classic

The Rev Sez:
I assume, that if you're like 90% of the population, "Young Frankenstein" is one of your favorite comedies of all time.
I always assumed assumed it was a send up of the original Frankenstein from 1931. 
Actually, Brooks' spoof was based more on this one.
 It begins where the first one left off, in the town where the  monster was destroyed.
This scene, and everything else, from Cloris Leachman's character, to the grave robbing hunchback, to the blind hermit, all come from this 1935 classic.
 Trust me, after seeing it, you will want to go and re-rent "Young..." now that you get all the references you realized you missed.
This is a great piece of cinema.
When I say "Great", I don't mean in a "Rev. Billy" kind of  f--ked-up way either, I mean it really is a well written and brilliantly acted story.
If you're squeamish, don't worry, this movie was made long before the era of chain saws and casual dismemberments, and it's just subzero/straight from the fridge/live and direct from the Antarctic Moose Lodge....cool. 
Dig it deep my children:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_of_Frankenstein

Channel: Netflicks
Movie: Bernie
Four and one/half out of five stars

Well damn!
Another small town, another monster.
In this case, the monster is a relentlessly upbeat, deeply religious, sexually ambiguous, assistant funeral director named Bernie.
It's based on a true story.
Of course
It happened in Texas.
Of course.
Actually, what's interesting is:
 This kind of thing usually happens in Georgia.

I'm not the world's number one Jack Black fan, but this is a real gasser of role and he touches the match to it.
Bam!
 One minute you dig him, the next minute you want to pull the switch, it's never easy...
I really dug the way it took a couple of surprise curves and never went into the skid.
 Black' choice of threads and his hairdo alone make this little gem  worth beaming into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_(2011_film)


On the Turntable:
The Mighty Clouds Of Joy
Best of Vol II
MCAD 22050

Back in the early sixties, these guys were putting hip arrangements on old faves and saving some souls. Incendiary vocals and Willie Dixon on Bass, What more can you want?
Here's a cut off this collection: 
Some truly rockin" Gospel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7811PTXmzU

Here is your bizarre clip of the week maybe the month: "The Breakfast Song!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqM9-Fj0Pg&feature=youtu.be



That's it for this week, make sure and tune in the show at rhythmrevival.podomatic.com.