5 Songs March 4, 2024
Starting the week off rather than ending it but only this one time (probably)
Ian Hunter – “Cleveland Rocks” 1979 from You’re Never Alone With a Schizophrenic. Here in St. Louis, we dreamed of having a rock radio station like WMMS in Cleveland. There were live recordings broadcast from there of artists like Bruce Springsteen, and of course, Ian Hunter was a big deal in that town while here he was lucky to get any airplay at all. Four albums into his solo career after the break-up of Mott the Hoople, Hunter and long-time guitarist Mick Ronson recruited some E-Streeters – Roy Bittan, Gary Talent, and Max Weinberg – to record a typically energetic and hook-filled barrage of songs. “Cleveland Rocks” begins with a snippet of Alan Freed on the radio in Cleveland back in the early 50s, then the song takes off. The lyrics don’t always make sense, but they sound good as he sings them, and the important thing is the words “Cleveland Rocks” get sung about a hundred times. Yes, it did.
Lucinda Williams – “Real Love” 2008 from Little Honey. Lucinda Williams needs a great guitarist to feed off her vocals and vice versa. Doug Pettibone took over the reins of her band in the early 2000s, and that led to this, her best album in the post-Gurf Morlix era. Man, that guitar bites and snarls hard right from the git-go (after the false start) on this cut. In fact, Pettibone holds center stage for roughly 1:35 of the 3:45 length of the recording. Williams comes in with all the exuberance of the first rush of love, and matches Pettibone’s snarl with her own grit. “I found the love I’ve been looking for,” she snaps, “Standing up behind an electric guitar.” Whether she’s singing about Pettibone or some other guitar player, there is definitely a love connection between these two right here. And it’s all sweetened by backing vocals from Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet. This song gallops along at a blistering pace, the vocals and guitar practically kiss each other and the listener. It’s a nice reminder that Lucinda Williams can never be written off because at any time, she can come up with something like this.
Los Bravos – “I’m Wearing a Smile” 1967 from Los Chicos con Las Chicas. Things I learned from Google today: Los Bravos is still an active band though honestly I don’t know what connection there is to the version that had the huge hit “Black is Black” and then did this song. Also – hey, they had more than one song. (I probably always suspected that.) The answer to a Jeopardy question almost no contestant would get right – the only band from Spain to ever have a Number Four record on the Billboard chart – Los Bravos prove here that they could compete as well with the Rascals as they did with the Stones. This song fits right in with a pretty frequent trope of mid-60s pop and soul, the sad and lonely person putting on a happy face to cover up his true feelings. Singer Mike Kogel clearly studied the great soul singers of his time. He delivers the melody with a clear affection for the English lyrics, and he builds intensity at just the right moments. Over a Motown styled four/four beat with upstroked guitar, and a shimmering organ, pulsing bass, and horns accompanying the verse, Kogel deftly maneuvers the harmonic shifts in the song – I personally love the way it just drops down sharply after the wild cries at the end of each verse, letting the chorus (which opened the song, anyway) stand apart.
Narvel Felts – “Till Sundown” year unknown available on Super Songs Narvelized. The internet is letting me down while I’m researching this cut. Discogs says it’s only available on this compilation CD released in 2002. Wikipedia tells me he hasn’t released any records since 1979. My ears tell me this sounds like early 80s, what with the sound of the guitars and the drums. At any rate, it’s a very effective song detailing the misery of a man whose lover has left him. He does alright in the daytime, but the nights are pretty miserable. Felts, who has a remarkable range, conveys all the pathos we need for this character. The chorus asks him to rise up to the top of his register, even requiring one note in each of two lines where he can’t do it naturally but has to use falsetto. Felts doesn’t have the power of a Roy Orbison who would have eaten up a song like this, but that makes the emotions seem a little more human. I love the sympathetic rumblings of the low guitar lines and the sweetened pedal steel. I fully expect somebody out there to give me more background on this song. (Bonus info - I have friends who have spoken of Bernie, MO, and another thing I learned today is that was where Felts grew up.)
Tommy Ridgley – “Good Times” 1953 available on The Tommy Ridgley Collection 1949-61. Ridgley was there in the earliest days of New Orleans r&b, when the Dave Bartholomew Orchestra was laying down the template that would become most famous on records by Fats Domino. This particular song, co-written by Ridgley and Bartholomew, was undoubtedly heard by Shirley and Lee, who took some of the lyrics to write their own song “Let the Good Times Roll” a few years later. (Of course, those phrases were probably pretty much in the air around New Orleans at the time.) With a bouncing triplet-driven groove, and some hefty saxophone riffs, “Good Times” is a typical example of what Bartholomew was doing at the time. Ridgley sings with a smooth tenor voice that rises to the verge of shouting as in jump blues, but holds back. He sounds a little tipsy, as someone who can’t resist wine, women, and whisky should sound. And he has no regrets. That means the good times definitely rolled.
Yep, I grew up in Bernie. Narvel was a big deal there since he's the basically the only notable person from there. The drug store had a display of his album covers on the wall. When I was a kid, his mom was one of the school custodians and very sweet, and she sold bait from a roadside stand in front of her house west of town.
Narvel the Marvel! I have a mission today....