5 Songs Friday Oct. 25

Some fun music to play on the weekend

The Legendary Rich Gilbert – “It’s Going to End in Tears” 2024 single only. “Who is this legendary Rich Gilbert dude?” I hear many of you asking. Well, he is a legend in certain circles – the guitarist in Human Sexual Response and the Zulus back in the 80s and early 90s, then a man who has played with the likes of Uncle Tupelo, Steve Wynn, Frank Black, Tanya Donnelly, Loretta Lynn, and his main squeeze Eileen Rose over the last thirty-five years. He’s releasing a new single every Saturday morning for the time being. This particular one is chock full of overdubs – I’m not sure if he plays every instrument, but he does play most of them. You will not believe what a pedal steel guitar is capable of achieving here. I’m pretty convinced there are some 70s synthesizers, too, but that sound could come from other sources. This instrumental has a somber groove to it, but the multiple variations and sonic contrasts of the main riff are thrilling throughout. I can also recommend the other very cool tracks he’s released in this series so far. The man is an enormous talent just waiting for way more people to discover him.

Billie Holiday – “If I Were You” 1938 available on Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia Vol. 4. Whenever faced with a customer at the record store asking what Billie Holiday record serves as an introduction, I always say start with something on Columbia. It almost doesn’t matter which. The later material on Verve is great, and most likely has better songs, but I love the lightness of the early Holiday records. This song was written by the entirely forgotten team of Buddy Bernier and Robert D. Emmerich. It’s a mildly clever catchy little ditty with lyrics like “If I were you / I’d give my heart a break / Instead of trying to break my heart.” Holiday handles this with aplomb, loving the melody and imbuing hope into her voice. It’s not a deep song, so it’s not a deep performance, but try to get it out of your head, and you’ll be stuck for a while. The second half has a sweet trumpet solo by Charlie Shavers, clarinet by Buster Bailey, and piano by either Claude Thornhill or Billy Kyle.

Yachts – “Mantovani’s Hits” 1979 from Yachts. I wrote about a different song by Yachts a while back. These guys never made a big splash in the whole New Wave scene of the late 70s, but I had friends who played their albums for me now and then so I kind of liked them. Not enough to actually buy them for myself, mind you. This song shows off their strengths – after a pseudo-Bach intro that turns into a pseudo-Bach organ riff welded to sharp guitar chords, the singer starts complaining about the prevalence at the time of Muzak wherever he went. Mantovani has been pretty much forgotten now, but back in the day, he was symbolic of the “beautiful music” trend of heavy string versions of popular tunes. The song is catchy and energetic, silly and irresistible. It all ends on a chord I can’t quite identify they took from some other song that’s gonna drive me crazy. One of you lovely readers might remember what I’m talking about.

Johnny Adams – “The Bells Are Ringing” 1960 single available on The Complete Ric and Ron Recordings, Vol. 2. As much as I love the jazzy Johnny Adams records of the 80s and 90s, I haven’t spent much time with his early stuff. This single is a delightful nugget of sorrow over losing a lover to the one she will marry, a familiar enough trope of the time. With a gentle but insistent New Orleans groove behind him, Adams delivers the lyrics about the wedding bells causing him misery with a perfect melancholy. He blames himself, and does a swoop into falsetto on the first word of the line “Hear those jingling ringing bells and the story they tell” that can break your heart. Adams sells the song entirely with his phrasing and the clear connection he has with the loss. This must have been a tense slow dance song, as the partners had to be telling each other not to mess up the way this guy had.

Benny Carter “Sirius Samba” 1996 from Journey to Next. This is one of those records that’s hard to suss out from internet sources. The idea of the album, which also features Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones, is that it compiles music these musicians created which were then used to score animated films. This means I can’t tell you who plays the delightful flute, trumpet, guitar, and piano solos in this spritely samba number. I can tell you the short little piece is a great way to start your day, to make you feel energized and to wipe away any cares you may have for at least the 2:25 duration. At this point in his career, Benny Carter was in his mid-eighties and had nearly 70 years as an important musician. He was remarkably exhilarated coming up with this number.