George Jones – “Things Have Gone to Pieces” 1965 single available on George Jones Greatest Hits. I don’t think it’s controversial for me to say George Jones was one of the greatest singers in recorded music history. This Leon Payne song is a perfect example of his ability to make the most trifling problems register as seismic emotional earthquakes. “Tonight the light bulb went out in the hall” is right there with losing his job and his lover. It’s all because of the conviction Jones commits to every word in the song. That and the impeccable phrasing, the way he makes sure you are aware each problem, from the faucet dripping to the picture falling off the wall to the baseball breaking the window, is one of a series of shoes dropping. “Things have gone to pieces,” he sings with all his power. Then this phrase is quiet, matter of fact: “since you left me.” I was lucky enough to see Jones live twice. Nobody else had his mix of skill and spirit.
Fairport Convention – “Si Tu Dois Partir” 1969 from Unhalfbricking. This is a classic Bob Dylan cover song released a couple years after Dylan’s obscure original English language single. “Si Tu Dois Partir” is a French translation of “If You Gotta Go, Go Now.” Though I didn’t hear this version until 1983 – on the greatest day of musical discovery in my life, when I first heard Fairport Convention and John Coltrane – it would still be a while before I heard the original. Heck, I might have heard Eric Ambel’s cover version before I heard Dylan’s. Unhalfbricking was the last album released before drummer Martin Lamble died in a car accident, and original singer Iain Matthews left after recording only one song with the group. It is a showcase for Sandy Denny, who sings this song with verve and vigor and a notch of humor. The arrangement is screwy – heavy on the accordion (or some lesser known squeeze box), with oddball rhythm instruments, and one of the men, probably Simon Nicol, singing background. I love it, of course.
Cliff Edwards – “I’ll See You In My Dreams” 1930 available on If I Had You among other collections. Many of us first heard Edwards as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s Pinocchio, but by that point he’d been a performer for many years. (I just learned he spent some time living in St. Louis, which means he’d be a candidate for a revised edition of the book I wrote with Amanda Doyle, St. Louis Sound: An Illustrated Timeline, if people would just buy more copies of the first printing so we could justify a second.) This song is one of those I’ve always known without ever knowing a definitive version. Edwards, who was not a jazz singer, does hover on the verge of jazz with his ukulele-led arrangement. His heavy vibrato and occasional projection vies with the intimacy of the microphone he (and everybody else) was just learning from Bing Crosby at the time. I’d be willing to bet Tiny Tim studied this and other Edwards records. It’s not a classic record, but it’s a nice one to hear 94 years later.
Clifton Chenier – “Falksy Girl” 1978 from Clifton Chenier and His Red Hot Louisiana Band. Clifton Chenier is known as the King of Zydeco, but he recorded as much blues and r&b as two-steps and waltzes during his career. That was the only way to make money outside of Louisiana at the time, though his fame helped lead to a breakthrough for the next generation of zydeco musicians. “Falksy Girl” is a ramshackle little blues number that succeeds entirely because of the rhythmic push and pull of his singing and the band’s playing. Chenier’s accordion holds down the chords, the drums and rubboard interact with the bass, and the saxophone gives us a genuinely exciting blues solo in the middle. I’m thinking the word “falksy” is a Creole version of “folksy,” since he substitutes “country” on one of the later choruses. At any rate, Chenier assures us “She treats me so nice.”
Scone Cash Players – “Anadira” 2022 from Brooklyn to Brooklin. Back in the early 60s, when half the mainstream jazz world was scrambling to record Brazilian music, I don’t think there were any organ players biting on the trend. Adam Scone, a mainstay organist for the Daptone Records label, thinks he can put his instrument in any situation, so this track from his group’s enjoyable album a couple years ago, has a definite samba feel to it. There are some light harmonized vocals in the background, but the joy here is in the groove, and the expression is in Scone’s jubilant solo about two/thirds of the way in. I don’t think I gave this record enough of a chance when it came out – this is some highly enjoyable music which you will add to your choices for your next party. (Spanish students will think that sentence was funny; the rest will think it’s clumsy.)