Posts Tagged ‘Everly Brothers’

Dw. Dunphy On… Criticism

I think you’ve gotten us all wrong, and it’s time to set the record straight.

I’m not going to say there isn’t a contingent of malcontents in the field of criticism, because that would be a lie. There are plenty of people who got into the game because of a grudge against that which they’ve chosen to review. I once knew a movie critic, a local guy for a local newspaper, who frequently and regularly savaged the films he saw. It didn’t matter what it was — comedy, drama, animation, universally lauded, universally panned, the danger money was on him trashing the subject. In the meantime, he shopped spec scripts to agents and sent off treatments to studios. The more he sent, the more he was rejected. The more he was rejected, the nastier his criticism became. His reportage was venomous, like hate notes from a spurned lover.

That, right there, is the underlying truth. Even though that writer was an exception to the rule, approaching everything with aforethought disappointment, most of us critics don’t and it is because we’re still in love, if not with the media of our choosing then with the promise that’s always there. Somewhere in our adolescent lives, we stumbled into a movie theater and saw something that set our eyes on fire, made the blood flow a little faster, gave us something we hadn’t experienced up to that point. For me, it was music and I can’t very well say when it first caught on. Was it my mother’s records of The Coasters Greatest Hits, or The Fifth Dimension or even “Cathy’s Clown” by The Everly Brothers? Was it Dad crooning along to Sinatra and Perry Como on those long, languid summer drives? Was it when we lived in that rental house and I played the 45 RPM record of E.L.O.’s “Can’t Get It Out Of My Head” until the sunset, and I stared at that beige United Artists record label spin ’round and ’round? Was it that weird, unsteady feeling I got when the right chords were strung along, exploding into a surprising and pleasant direction? There is a love there that is almost impossible to adequately describe, but is there in most critics. (more…)

CD Review: The Jayhawks, “Music From the North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology”

Jayhawks - Music From the North Country: The Jayhawks AnthologyThe Jayhawks, Music From the North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology – Deluxe Edition (Sony Legacy)

In the grand history of pop music, there haven’t been all that many voices that blended perfectly. Oh sure, there’s been lots of harmony singing, but what I’m talking about is two voices that just sound like they were born to be together. There were the Louvin Brothers, the Everly Brothers, and the Wilson brothers, but those are kin. In the non-related category, I’d offer Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, David Crosby and Graham Nash, and John Lennon and Paul McCartney as examples. I’m sure that you can add your own favorites. Since they were not related, they had to find each other, and the stories of how that happened are often the stuff of music history.

Gary Louris and Mark Olson belong in that category. The story of how they met is really nothing that special. Both were kicking around in different bands in Minneapolis, and when the timing was right in 1985, they got together. Along with bassist Marc Perlman and drummer Norm Rogers, they formed one of the most important roots bands in American music. Call it alt-country, Americana, or No Depression, The Jayhawks were pioneers in the movement. Together with Uncle Tupelo, and later Wilco, they forged the path that many, many artists have followed over the years. Named not for the fabled bird as many suspect, but as an homage to the Dylan-backing Hawks, who became the Band, the Jayhawks have been through some changes over the years, both in their music, and in the band’s membership. They’ve never really achieved the sort of success that they’d hoped for, but they have soldiered on.

Originally inspired by the Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and anything else that Gram Parsons had to do with, the Jayhawks added something of their own to the stew, and eventually had a sound that defied categories, and ignored trends. They were originally signed to a local Minneapolis label, the legendary Twin/Tone Records, and in 1988 their early demos were spruced up and released on an album called Blue Earth. The beautiful sound of Louris and Olson’s voices blending together became their trademark, and the songs that the two co-wrote were no small part of the equation. In 1989 the august Village Voice called the Jayhawks “the only country rock band that matters.” (more…)

We Wuz Robbed! Great Number 2 Hits of the ’50s

Last year, in the midst of compiling my “Worst Number One Songs of the Rock Era” series, I began contemplating the sad, sorry fate of those records that have come up just short of the top slot on Billboard’s pop charts. After all, nobody celebrates even the greatest, or biggest-selling, #2 hit as a colossal achievement, the same way even the worst #1 hit ever (“Honey”?) is honored. You don’t see Fred Bronson compiling five editions of The Billboard Book of Number 2 Hits, do you?

Put it this way: “Waiting for a Girl like You” sat at #2 for 10 weeks in 1981, behind a bunch of fat guys doing aerobics. “I Want to Know What Love Is” got to #1 for two weeks in 1985. A quarter-century later, which song is considered Foreigner’s biggest hit?

So, beginning this week we honor some of those great songs that, for whatever reason, never got that Casey Kasem drumroll on American Top 40. And when I say “for whatever reason,” I mean it: Sure, many times a single has simply been blocked by a bigger, better rival, but heaven knows there have been plenty of payola/cocaine/label/radio shenanigans through the years that have kept a deserving song from ascending to glory. As I explored last year, the Top 40 has never been a perfect beast; who knows how many times a single has gotten stuck at #2 because some program director’s girlfriend just adored those cute Osmond boys?

Today we start with five singles that never reached the top during the post-“Rock Around the Clock” 1950s. But first, a brief explanation of my methodology for including records in this survey. Initial choices were based on quality; if one’s first response to a song title is “I can’t believe that didn’t make it to #1,” or if a #2 single seems (in retrospect) infinitely better than the song that screwed it out of the top spot, it’s here. Beyond that, over the course of the survey I’ll feature some singles that topped out at #2 during the latter stages of another song’s extended run in the top spot, figuring things might have been different if it weren’t for some amount of programming inertia at radio. After I identify my picks for each decade, I’ll list some other #2s and open the comments section for debate on who got shafted the worst.

Here we go! (more…)

CD Review: Simon & Garfunkel, “Live 1969″

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel gave the world something that has never been fully recognized, I think. Now, I enjoy folk music and several of its most recognizable proponents, but I cannot deny the inherent sanctimony of a lot of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan’s most famous tunes. Sure, these were protest songs, and the subjective “us versus them” attitude was an obvious tack, but over time, some of these songs lost luster. Some lost it because of modern cynicism: “Yes, you’re outraged over this Tower of Babel. Where were you when it was being built? Is singing about it all you can do now?” Others lost it because of an overbearing quaintness, hymns to Ralph Waldo Emerson that smacked of being so out of touch, they might as well be alien transmissions.

So when Simon & Garfunkel burst on the scene, they freed up the voice and acoustic guitar from the tyranny of the right-minded (or the left, thinking politically). Their songs could be political, but they could also be nonsensical, traditional, and deep in their hearts they were always pop stars like their heroes the Everly Brothers; when they approached thorny material, Paul Simon did so as a writer, Art Garfunkel as a choir singer. When the duo was matched with a crack staff of Columbia’s studio musicians, the mass psychosis that plagued Dylan’s efforts in going electric didn’t affect the pair. Their saving grace was not simplicity but subtlety.

This all comes through on Live 1969, a collection of recordings from a tour concurrent with their finishing Bridge Over Troubled Water that year. They were on the verge of an acrimonious breakup that would result in years of sniping, famously documented in a “reunion” on the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975. Fortunately, that subsurface nastiness is nowhere to be found here. Instead, the focus is hard set on the songs of two voices and often one guitar. You couldn’t get more traditional folk than that. And when they are backed up by other musicians, it’s never superfluous. The clearest example is when Garfunkel takes the stage, backed only by piano, to perform “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Just as poignant is “The Sound of Silence,” the song originally intended for the stark folk treatment, then later filled in with studio musicians to produce the rock tune we recognize today. In it’s rawest, live incarnation, nothing is lost because it was always there from the start. When Simon palm-mutes the strings and thumps out a beat while moving toward the end section, it becomes as epic as anything they’ve ever done. (more…)

Chartburn: 11/14/08


Mainstream Rock: Bryan Adams, “Run to You” (1984)

Darren Robbins: This song was the exact turning point for Adams. Up until then, his music has a certain us-against-them quality. While “Run To You” is not a bad song per se, it and the entirety of Reckless (the album on which it appears) is much too polished for my taste.

I like to think that if time travel really were possible, the first thing I’d do is travel back in time and tell Bryan Adams 1984 that I have two songs I’d like to play for him: “All For Love” & “I Wanna Be Your Underwear”. Why, you ask? Because I wanna see Bryan 1984 wrinkle his nose and shout profanities and struggle to find the “off” button before being subjected to another note, all the while trying to keep his lunch down. By doing so, I think I could make the world a better place for everyone.

Dw. Dunphy: About a year ago I got the Live Aid DVD set. I was flipping through chapters and somehow landed on Bryan Adams. Not literally, of course, ’cause I’d have killed him. (Ba-doo-sha! Try the brisket!) At any rate, my brother John walked into the room intrigued. Then he noticed what he was hearing and said, “Oh, I forgot Bryan Adams used to be a rock guy.” And with that one statement the entirety of the Reckless album was put into perspective.

Beau Dure: The first Bryan Adams song I heard was “Cuts Like a Knife.” Good solid rock song. He has spent the rest of his life slowly and painfully sliding into uselessness.

Maybe not that slowly — “Summer of ‘69″ makes me wish the electric guitar had never been invented. (more…)

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 29

We’re going to jump right into the songs this week as we have an extended post in order to finish up the letter E in just two weeks. Enjoy the 26 tracks below as we continue digging through the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

Dave Edmunds
“Almost Saturday Night” — 1981, #54 (download)
“High School Nights” — 1985, #91 (download)

I’d love to hear a remastered version of “Almost Saturday Night.” It’s a good song written by John Fogerty, but it would be nice to see how great it would be with better production. “Almost Saturday Night” was off Twangin …, which would be Edmunds’s final album with his group Rockpile. In 1985 Edmunds put together the Porky’s Revenge soundtrack, which included the theme song “High School Nights.”

Dennis Edwards
“Don’t Look Any Further” — 1984, #72 (download)

This is an absolute classic R&B song from Edwards — one the lead singers of the Temptations. This is another one of those ‘80s R&B tracks that I feel has been used in a billion samples in the past few decades. The only one I can pick out off hand is 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em Up” but I know there must be more. It was actually covered unnecessarily in 1988 by the Kane Gang. The female voice in this is an artist we will get to very shortly – Siedah Garrett.

Walter Egan
“Fool Moon Fire” — 1983, #46 (download)

Walter Egan is pretty much known for one song, 1978’s “Magnet and Steel” but this cool track was his fourth and final charting single. According to the ”official” Walter Egan website this song charted in the Top 40. Who am I to call bullshit on that? Wait, I guess by posting this I’m doing just that.

(more…)