When fellow blogger Max who pens the great PowerPop blog wrapped up his Max Picks song series earlier this month with selections for 1995, my first thought was, ‘I get it.’ After all, considering his taste, which is pretty similar to mine, finding great music for each year becomes more tricky the closer you get to the present time. But then I thought given how much decent new music I’ve been able to uncover each week over the past three years or so, why not continue where Max left it off.
Not only was Max generous enough to allow me to run with his idea, but he even agreed to participate in the continuation of the series by contributing one song pick for each year. Starting today, I’m hoping to publish the 29 installments every other week to get us all the way to 2024. This would mean the series would conclude sometime in the spring of next year. I realize that’s a long time to look ahead, so we’ll see how it goes and take it one post at a time. Here are song picks for 1996.
Jackson Browne/The Barricades of Heaven
I’m thrilled to pick up the series with Jackson Browne, one of my all-time favorite artists. The Barricades of Heaven, credited to Browne, Luis Conte, Mark Goldenberg, Mauricio Lewak, Kevin McCormick, Scott Thurston and Jeff Young, is a track from Browne’s 11th studio album Looking East, which came out in January 1996. Yep, that’s many writers but what a gem!
The Wallflowers/One Headlight
In May 1996, The Wallflowers released their sophomore album Bringing Down the Horse, which became their highest-selling to date. Undoubtedly, this performance was fueled by One Headlight. The album’s second single, which became the band’s biggest hit, was Max’s excellent pick. Like all other songs on the album, it was written by frontman Jakob Dylan.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers/Walls (Circus)
Next up is Tom Petty, another longtime favorite artist of mine. Wall (Circus), written by Petty, is the opener of Songs and Music from “She’s the One”. The ninth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers appeared in August 1996 and served as the soundtrack for the American romantic comedy picture She’s the One, which came out the same year. Man, I dearly miss Tom!
Sheryl Crow/If It Makes You Happy
The title perfectly captures my sentiment about this next song. If It Makes You Happy, co-written by Sheryl Crow and her longtime collaborator Jeff Trott, is among my all-time favorites by Crow. Evidently, many other listeners agreed. The song, which appeared on Crow’s self-titled sophomore album from September 1996, became one of her most popular singles.
Shawn Colvin/Sunny Came Home
Admittedly, Sunny Came Home is the only song by Shawn Colvin I can name, but at least it’s a real goodie! Co-written by her and producer John Leventhal, not only did it become Colvin’s biggest hit, but it also won her two 1997 Grammy awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The song was included on her fourth studio album A Few Small Repairs released in October 1996.
Johnny Cash/I’ve Been Everywhere
Wrapping up this first installment of the continuation of the song series is the Man in Black. I think I first heard I’ve Been Everywhere in a TV commercial. Written by Australian country singer Geoff Mack in 1959, the song was first popularized down under in early 1962 by rock & roll, pop and country artist Leslie William Morrison, professionally known as Lucky Starr. Later that same year, Hank Snow took it to no. 1 in the U.S. on the country charts. It has since been recorded by many other artists. Johnny Cash featured it on his November 1996 album American II: Unchained. I’m still puzzled how you can mention so many different places in rapid machine gun fire fashion without stumbling! 🙂
I’d like to leave you with a Spotify playlist of the above goodies – one down, 28 installments to go!
Once again, Dave from A Sound Day invited me and a few other fellow bloggers to share our thoughts for his monthly Turntable Talkfeature, which has now run for more than two years. Following is my contribution, which first appeared on his blog on April 14. It has been slightly reformatted to fit the style of this blog.
Turntable Talk 25 it is, and the series is still going as strong as ever. This time, Dave’s proposition was to write about a novelty record we like. As usual, he was kind enough to give us some flexibility.
While I had heard the name “novelty song” before, I couldn’t come up with a great definition. Here’s how Wikipediaexplains the concept: A novelty song is a type of song built upon some form of novel concept, such as a gimmick, a piece of humor, or a sample of popular culture. Novelty songs partially overlap with comedy songs, which are more explicitly based on humor, and with musical parody, especially when the novel gimmick is another popular song.
Based on the above, the first artist who came to mind is “Weird Al” Yankovic, but I figured he would be too obvious a choice or somebody might pick him. Then I strangely remembered a song titled Gimme Dat Ding, which my six-year-older sister had on vinyl. When looking it up in Wikipedia, I found it appeared in 1970 and was by The Pipkins, a British novelty duo.
Since it’s kind of an annoying song, I didn’t want this to be my pick, so I ended up doing some research. I was really surprised to see how many novelty songs there are, though the boundaries between novelty, comedy and parody songs are fluid. Finally, I decided to pick a song, which if I recall it correctly was the first I heard by Johnny Cash: A Boy Named Sue.
For some reason, I liked that song right away, even though I didn’t really get what it was about, since I didn’t understand English at the time. A Boy Named Sue was penned by American writer, poet, cartoonist, singer-songwriter, musician and playwright Shel Silverstein. The Man in Black first recorded the song during his February 24, 1969 gig at California’s San Quentin State Prison for his At San Quentin live album released in June of the same year.
Curiously, that live version of the song became Cash’s biggest hit on the U.S. pop chart Billboard Hot 100 where it peaked at no. 2, marking his only top 10 single there. It also topped the country charts in the U.S. and Canada and climbed to no. 4 in the UK – his best showing there in a tie with his 1971 single A Thing Called Love.
According to SecondHandSongs, there are more than 60 versions of A Boy Named Sue. Here’s the original by Shel Silverstein. Not bad, but it’s hard to beat Cash’s coolness factor!
Here’s another live version by The Highwaymen, a country supergroup featuring Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson – quite a quartet! Their live rendition was included on an album titled Live: American Outlaws, which came out in May 2016.
Following are some additional insights from Songfacts:
This is about a boy who grows up angry at his father not only for leaving his family, but for naming him Sue. When the boy grows up, he sees his father in a bar and gets in a fight with him. After his father explains that he named him Sue to make sure he was tough, the son understands.
Shel Silverstein’s nephew Mitch Myers told us [meaning Songfacts – CMM] the story: “In those days in Nashville, and for all the people that would visit, the most fun that anyone really could have would be to go over to someone’s house and play music. And they would do what one would call a ‘Guitar Pull,’ where you grabbed a guitar and you played one of your new songs, then someone else next to you would grab it and do the same, and there were people like Johnny Cash or Joni Mitchell, people of that caliber in the room.”
“Shel sang his song ‘Boy Named Sue,’ and Johnny’s wife June Carter thought it was a great song for Johnny Cash to perform. And not too long after that they were headed off to San Quentin to record a record – Live At San Quentin – and June said, ‘Why don’t you bring that Shel song with you.’ And so they brought the lyrics. And when he was on stage he performed that song for the first time ever, he performed it live in front of that captive audience, in every sense of the word.”
“He had to read the lyrics off of the sheet of paper that was at the foot of the stage, and it was a hit. And it wasn’t touched up, it wasn’t produced or simulated. They just did it, and it stuck. And it rang. I would say that it would qualify in the realm of novelty, a novelty song. Shel had a knack for the humorous and the kind of subversive lyrics. But they also were so catchy that people could not resist them.”
Shel Silverstein went on to write another song titled “The Father of the Boy Named Sue.” It’s the same story, but from the father’s point of view.
Johnny Cash performed this song in the East Room of the White House on April 17, 1970 when he and his wife were invited by President Richard Nixon. Nixon’s staff had requested the song along with Okie From Muskogee and a song by Guy Drake called “Welfare Cadillac,” but Cash refused to perform those songs, saying he didn’t have arrangements ready.
The Goo Goo Dolls named their 1995 breakthrough album A Boy Named Goo in a play on this song’s title.
In the 2019 animated film Missing Link, the main character, a male Sasquatch voiced by Zach Galifianakis, is named Susan.
Welcome to another installment of my recurring monthly feature about record producers and sound engineers. This time, I decided to highlight a producer whose name I had seen repeatedly over the years since I started paying closer attention to album credits: Rick Rubin. Once I began to take a closer look at his work, I quickly realized how prolific he has been.
Rick Rubin (born Frederick Jay Rubin on March 10, 1963) got into music in high school after he befriended the school’s audiovisual department head who gave him a few lessons in guitar and songwriting. Rubin subsequently played in a couple of local bands, including punk group The Pricks. Their eponymous 1981 album marked the beginning of his work as a producer. While attending college at New York University, Rubin started Def Jam Recordings and was soon joined by hip-hop icon Russell Simmons. Aka. Def Jam, the label took on artists like LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and Run-DMC.
Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons
After a falling out with Def Jam president Lyor Cohen in 1988, Rubin and Simmons parted ways, and Rubin started Def American Recordings in Los Angeles. In 1993, it became American Recordings, the label he heads to this day. While Rubin continued his association with hip-hop, he branched out into other genres, including metal, alternative rock and country, among others.
In 2007, Rubin became co-head of Columbia Records. Four years later, he established his own home studio, Shangri-La Recording Studios. In 2012, Rubin left Columbia and revived American Recordings by striking a deal with Republic Records.
Rick Rubin with Tom Petty
Over his 40-year-plus career, Rubin has won nine Grammy awards, including Album of the Year for The Chicks (2007) and Adele (2012). He has also won numerous Producer of the Year awards. In 2007, Rubin was called “the most important producer of the last 20 years” by MTV and made Time’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
As you would imagine, apart from accolades, Rubin has also received some criticism. In addition to select artists who complained about his work style, he has also been criticized to contribute to what is known as the “loudness war”, a trend of increasing audio levels in recorded music, which reduces audio fidelity and—according to many critics—listener enjoyment.
Now to the fun part, i.e., select highlights of Rubin’s production work. Let’s start with Raising Hell, the third studio album by Run-DMC released in May 1986, which Rubin co-produced with Simmons. Even if you’re like me and not much into hip-hop, it’s safe to assume you heard Walk This Way, the hip-hop group’s great collaboration with Aerosmith. The idea to have Run-DMC and Aerosmith collaborate on the rock band’s song came from Spin editor and Rubin’s friend Sue Cummings. Not only has this production often been credited for introducing rap hard rock to mainstream audiences but also for re-booting Aerosmith’s career.
Following the production of thrash metal band Slayer’s third studio album Reign In Blood (October 1986), Rubin worked with them again on their follow-on South of Heaven, which appeared in July 1982 and was the final album he produced for Def Jam. Since the group felt they couldn’t top the frenetic pace of the predecessor, they deliberately decided to slow things down on South of Heaven – jeez, the tracks I sampled all sound pretty intense to me, so I wonder what Reign in Blood is like – clearly, thrash metal isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s part of Rubin’s legacy, so I didn’t want to ignore it. The only track on South of Heaven, which starts out more subdued, is the closer Spill the Blood before heavy distorted guitar kicks in at about 30 seconds into the song.
Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the fifth studio album by Red Hot Chili Peppers and the first Rubin produced for them. Released in September 1991, it marked a notable stylistic change from predecessor Mother’s Milk. There were fewer heavy metal guitar riffs and more melodic songwriting. Let’s just say, the changes didn’t hurt the Peppers, giving them one of their highest-charting and best-selling albums to date. Here’s Under the Bridge, which became the band’s first hugely successful single. I’ve always liked that song!
For his second solo studio album Wildflowers, Tom Petty turned to Rubin, who also co-produced Petty’s next two studio projects with the Heartbreakers, Songs and Music from “She’s the One” (August 1996) and Echo (April 1999). “Rick loves music, and that’s really why I decided to work with him,” Petty explained. “It’s not because of his technical skill; he has no musical skill, he plays no instrument really, not even a guitar. He just loves music.” Here’s the beautiful title track.
In 2002, Rubin produced American IV: The Man Comes Around, the final album by Johnny Cash released during his lifetime. The fourth in Cash’s “American” series of albums, which were all produced by Rubin, has widely been acclaimed as one of Cash’s best works. I think it’s safe to say it also marks a highlight of Rubin’s career. The first in the series, American Recordings, released in May 1993, also was the first album to appear on Rubin’s renamed label. Here’s Cash’s incredible rendition of Beatles song In My Life, which was mainly written by John Lennon. This is a tear-jerker!
The final production work by Rubin I’d like to call out is Magpie and the Dandelion, the eighth studio album by The Avett Brothers, released in October 2013. Rubin had also produced the folk rock group’s two previous full-length albums The Carpenter (2012) I and Love and You (2009). Magpie and the Dandelion debuted at no. 5 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200 and at no. 1 on Billboard’s Folk Albums chart, becoming one of the band’s performing to date. Their upcoming eponymous album, scheduled for May 17, was produced by Rubin as well. Here’s Open Ended Life, the great-sounding opener of Magpie and the Dandelion.
Obviously, the above clips at best provide a snapshot of Rubin’s work over the past four decades. The following Spotify playlist include the above and some additional tracks he produced.
Phil Ochs, Brilliant Yet Widely Obscure Troubadour
Coincidentally, I stumbled across this previous post when searching my blog for something else and thought it would be worthwhile republishing. This piece, which has been slightly edited, first appeared about 4.5 years ago. I realize it’s lengthy but hope you’ll find it worth your time, especially if you’re into protest singer-songwriters.
Phil Ochs, Brilliant Yet Widely Obscure Troubadour
What do Robert Allen Zimmerman and Philip David Ochs have in common? Both wrote brilliant protest songs in the ’60s. The difference? Robert changed his name to Bob Dylan and became one of the most famous music artists of our time. Philip chose to perform as Phil Ochs and remained largely obscure outside singer-songwriter circles. That’s a shame!
Until recently, I had never heard of Phil Ochs myself. Then I saw somebody ranting on Facebook that Bob Dylan undeservedly gets all the credit for being this brilliant protest singer when the recognition should really go to Ochs. The truth is while both artists at some point were important protest singer-songwriters, none of them invented the genre. According to Wikipedia, the tradition of protest songs in the U.S. long predates the births of Dylan and Ochs – in fact going all the way back to the 18th century.
One of the important forerunners to the 1950s and 1960s protest singer-songwriters were the Hutchinson Family Singers, who starting from 1839 became well known for singing about social issues, such as abolition, war and women’s suffrage. And let’s not forget Woody Guthrie, who was born in 1912 and started learning folk and blues songs during his early teens. Over a 26-year-period as an active music artist, Guthrie wrote hundreds of political, folk and children’s songs. He was a major influence on numerous other songwriters who in addition to Dylan and Ochs included Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, Harry Chapin, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and many other former and contemporary artists.
Hutchinson Family Singers in 1845 painting by an unknown artist
‘I get it,’ you might think, ‘but who the hell is Phil Ochs?’ Sadly, it’s a pretty rough story, and it doesn’t have a Hollywood happy ending.
Ochs was born on December 19, 1940 in El Paso, Texas. His dad Jakob “Jack” Ochs was a physician from New York, and his mom Gertrude Finn Ochs hailed from Scotland. The two met there and got married in Edinburgh where Jack was attending medical school at the time. After their wedding, they moved to the U.S. Jack joined the army as a doctor and was sent overseas close to the end of World War II. He returned as a sick man with bipolar disorder and depression.
Jack’s health conditions prevented him from establishing a successful medical practice. Instead, he ended up working at a series of hospitals around the country and frequently moving his family. As a result, Phil Ochs grew up in different places, along with an older sister (Sonia, known as Sonny) and a younger brother (Michael). His father was distant from the family, eventually got hospitalized for depression, and passed away from a brain bleeding in April 1963. Phil’s mother died in March 1994.
Phil Ochs as a teenager playing the clarinet
During his teenage years, Ochs became a talented clarinet player. Prior to the age of 16, he was principal soloist with the orchestra at the Capital University Conservatory of Music in Columbus, Ohio. Although Ochs had become an accomplished classical instrumentalist, he soon discovered the radio and started listening to the likes of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.
Initially, Ochs wanted to become a journalist. Well, he of sort did, combining his interest in writing about politics with music. During his journalism studies at Ohio State University, he met fellow student, activist and future folk singer Jim Glover in the fall of 1960, who introduced him to the music of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and The Weavers, and taught him how to play guitar. It wouldn’t take long before Ochs merged his interest of politics and music and started writing his own songs. He preferred to characterize himself as a topical rather than a protest singer.
Glover and Ochs started performing as a duo called The Singing Socialists and later The Sundowners but broke up before their first professional gig. Glover went to New York, while Ochs started performing professionally at a local folk club in Cleveland. In 1962, he went to the Big Apple as well and soon established himself in the Greenwich Village folk music scene. Ochs described himself as a “singing journalist,” explaining his songs were inspired by stories he saw in Newsweek. By the summer of 1963, he had developed a sufficiently high profile and was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival, along the likes of Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary.
Ochs’ debut album All The News That’s Fit To Sing, an allusion to The New York Times‘ slogan “All the news that’s fit to print,” appeared in 1964. Here is Ballad of William Worthy. The tune tells the story about an American journalist who traveled to Cuba despite the U.S. embargo and was forbidden to return to the U.S. Check out the brilliant lyrics of this tune – safe to assume Ochs’ words didn’t endear him to the Johnson Administration.
In 1965, Ochs’ sophomore album I Ain’t Marching Anymore came out. Here’s the excellent satirical anti-war tune Draft Dodger Rag, which quickly became an anthem of the anti-Vietnam war movement.
After Ochs’ first three albums with Electra Records had gone nowhere commercially speaking, he signed with A&M Records and in October 1967 released his fourth studio record Pleasures Of The Harbor. Unlike his first three folk music-oriented records, the album went beyond folk, featuring elements of classical, rock & roll, Dixieland and even experimental synthesized music. Apparently, the idea was to produce a folk-pop crossover. While the album included great tunes, it’s safe to say it didn’t bring Ochs commercial success. Here is Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends, which became one of Ochs’ most popular songs. The tune was inspired by the case of a 28-old woman who was stabbed to death in front of her home in Queens, New York, while dozens of her neighbors reportedly ignored her cries for help.
Tape From California is Ochs’ fifth album. Released in July 1968 on A&M Records, it continued his shift away from straight folk-oriented protest songwriting, though he was far from abandoning topical songs. The War Is Over is a tune that was inspired by poet Allen Ginsberg who in 1966 declared the Vietnam war was over. Ochs decided to adopt the idea and organize an anti-war rally in Los Angeles, for which he wrote the song.
Phil Ochs’ final studio album came out in February 1970. Weirdly, it was called Greatest Hits, even though it was not a compilation but a collection of 10 new tracks. Most of the record was produced by Van Dyke Parks, who previously had appeared on Tape From California, contributing piano and keyboards to the title track. Greatest Hits featured an impressive array of guest artists, including Clarence White and Gene Parsons, both from the Byrds; Ry Cooder; Jim Glover; and members of Elvis Presley’s backing band, among others. The album cover was an homage to Elvis, showing Ochs in a gold lamé suit reminiscent of the outfit Elvis wore for the cover of his 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong greatest hits compilation. Here is Jim Dean Of Indiana, a tune about the actor James Dean, who like Elvis was one of Ochs’ idols.
Greatest Hits was Ochs’ final attempt to connect with average Americans, who he was convinced weren’t listening to topical songs. Disillusioned by key events of 1968, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the police riot in Chicago around the Democratic National Convention and the election of Richard Nixon, Ochs felt he needed to be “part Elvis Presley and part Che Guevara,” as Wikipedia puts it. Ochs supported the album with a tour, performing in the Elvis-like suit and being backed by a rock band, singing his own songs, along with tunes by Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and Merle Haggard. But his fans weren’t sure what to make of the “new Phil Ochs.”
Pretty much from there, things went downhill for Ochs. He developed writer’s block and slipped into depression and alcoholism. He did not release any additional records. On April 9, 1976, Ochs committed suicide by hanging himself in the home of his sister Sonny. He was only 35 years old.
I’d like to conclude this post with a few quotes I found on Life of a Rebel, a blog dedicated to Ochs. “As a lyricist, there was nobody like Phil before and there has not been anybody since,” said fellow folk singer Dave Van Ronk. “He had a touch that was so distinctive that it just could not be anybody else. He had been a journalism student before he became a singer, and he would never sacrifice what he felt to be the truth for a good line.” In a note to Ochs in 1963, Pete Seeger wrote, “I wish I had one tenth your talent as a songwriter.” And what did the mighty Bob Dylan tell Broadside magazine in 1964? “I just can’t keep up with Phil. And he’s getting better and better and better.”
– END –
If you’re still here, thanks for reading this post, which first was published on October 13, 2019.
Checking my previous content revealed it had been six weeks since the most recent installment of my irregular music history feature. I felt this was a good reason for putting together another post. It also turned I had not covered yet March 14.
1958: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) officially certified the first Gold single (1 million sold units): Catch a Falling Star by American pop vocalist and TV personality Perry Como. Co-written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, it became Como’s final no. 1 hit in the U.S., topping Billboard’sMost Played by Jockeys chart, which was different from the Hot 100 where the single reached no. 3. The melody borrows from Academic Festival Overture by 19th century German classical music composer, pianist, and conductor Johannes Brahms. The backing vocals were provided by The Ray Charles Singers, a group of rotating vocals conducted and arranged by Ray Charles.
1963: British Merseybeat group Gerry and the Pacemakers released their debut single How Do You You It? Penned by English songwriter and record producer Mitch Murray, the song was an instant success in the UK, topping the charts there. George Martin, who saw hit potential, asked his then-new group The Beatles to record it. While the four lads did, they were less than excited. Martin ended up releasing their original song Love Me Do instead and giving How Do You Do It? to Gerry and the Pacemakers. It was a happy ending for both groups who also shared another commonality. Both were managed by Brian Epstein.
1968: BBC primetime television music program Top of the Pops premiered the promotional video of Lady Madonna. A March 14, 2016 article by Ultimate Classic Rock recalls The Beatles had started to make such videos in 1965, long before they would become the norm on MTV in the early ’80s. “Out of convenience, we decided we were just not going to go into the TV studios to promote our records so much,” explained George Harrison in the Anthology documentary. “It was too much of a hassle,” he added. “What we’ll do is just go and make our own little films, and we’ll put them out.” Notably, the video used studio footage of the band recording Hey Bulldog. Sounds like capturing video of Lady Madonna may have been too much trouble as well!
1972: Carole King’s legendary Tapestry album took the coveted Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards held at the Felt Forum in New York City. King also won in three additional categories: Record of the Year for It’s Too Late, Best Pop Vocal Performance for the album’s title track and Song of the Year for James Taylor’s rendition of You’ve Got a Friend, which she wrote. Among other winners that night were America (Best New Artist of the Year), Nilsson (Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male for Without You), Ike & Tina Turner (Best Rhythm & Blues Performance – Duo Or Group (Vocal Or Instrumental) for Proud Mary) and Bill Withers (Best Rhythm & Blues Song for Ain’t No Sunshine) – different times!
1987: Huey Lewis and the News hit no. 1 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 with Jacob’s Ladder. The song, which became third single from the group’s fourth studio album Fore!, was co-written by Bruce Hornsby and his younger brother and frequent collaborator John Hornsby. Jacob’s Ladder became the final of three no. 1 songs Huey Lewis and the News scored on the U.S. pop chart. Hornsby subsequently recorded his own version of the song for his May 1998 sophomore album Scenes from the Southside. His friend Huey Lewis was a guest, playing harmonica on Defenders of the Flag, another song Hornsby wrote with his brother.
1998: In an unusual move, Rick Rubin, who produced Johnny Cash’s 82nd studio album Unchained, aka. American II: Unchained, placed a full-page ad in Billboard magazine to thank “the Nashville music establishment and country radio” for their support. On February 25th of the same year, Unchained had won the Grammy for Best Country Album. The ad was bitter irony to make the point the Man in Black won the award despite country radio, which by that time had written him off as an aging artist. The shot originally was taken by photographer Jim Marshall during Cash’s 1969 performance at San Quentin prison after he had been prompted to “do a shot for the warden.”
Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts Music History Calendar; Ultimate Classic Rock; YouTube
Happy Saturday and welcome to my new music review! In the middle of December, it’s not surprising that new releases are largely limited to “old music” being offered as reissues and special editions. Since this weekly feature is focused on new music, I decided to use the three remaining posts for this year to take a look back at new music I reviewed in 2023.
Between my Saturday posts and album reviews, there was a lot new music I featured. While I oftentimes note the charts on this blog (typically when it comes to ’60s and ’70s music), in general, you won’t find Taylor Swift, Drake, Rihanna or other music artists who are frequently on the Billboard Hot 100 nowadays – not because there’s anything wrong with their music, but because it’s simply not what I like to listen to.
If you’ve visited my new music reviews before, you probably know I tend to look at contemporary music through the lens of my preferences, which are largely shaped by the ’60s and ’70s. While that frame of reference weeds out a good deal of new music, it leaves a remarkable amount to discover, if you’re willing to look beyond the mainstream charts!
Here’s how I intend to tackle this look-back on 2023. The first two posts revisit specific songs I enjoyed. Each post highlights six of them, which are also included in a Spotify playlist, along with other picks. Between the two posts, the playlists include 46 tracks, and I could have added more songs – not too shabby! The third and final installment will focus on my favorite new albums of 2023, which I’m still figuring out as I’m writing this.
Here’s part 1 covering new songs that came out in the first half of the year.
The Bad Ends/Mile Marker 29
My first pick are The Bad Ends, an alternative rock band from Athens, Ga. Their website notes the group catalyzed when Mike Mantione (vocals, guitar), who gained initial prominence as frontman of popular Athens band Five Eight in the ’90s, had a chance encounter with Bill Berry (drums, guitar, electric sitar), former drummer of R.E.M. The band also features Christian Lopez (guitars, mandolin, banjo), Geoff Melkonian (keyboards, piano, guitars, vocals) and Dave Domizi (bass, vocals). Mantione and Domizi had been friends since 1991, while Melkonian produced one of Five Eight’s previous albums. The Bad Ends “quietly recorded, produced, and mastered what would become The Power and The Glory“, their great debut album. Here’s the opener Mile Marker 29 – not a bad end at all! And, yep, they definitely can’t deny their hometown!
Joe Louis Walker/Is It a Matter of Time?
Guitarist and singer-songwriter Joe Louis Walker has earned most recognition with blues but isn’t a one-trick pony. According to his bio, the Blues Hall of Fame inductee and six-time Blues Music Award winner has recorded with Ike Turner, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, and Steve Cropper, opened for Muddy Waters and Thelonious Monk, hung out with Jimi Hendrix, Freddie King, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and was a close friend and roommate of Mike Bloomfield. Walker’s 1986 debut album Cold Is the Night on HighTone announced his arrival in stunning fashion...A brilliantly lyrical guitarist, soulful singer, and prolific songwriter, Walker has toured extensively throughout his career, performing at some of the world’s most renowned music festivals, such as Glastonbury and Montreux, as well as on national television. From his latest album Weight of the World here’s Is It a Matter of Time? penned by Walker – the soulful vibe is totally up my alley!
The Nude Party/Word Gets Around
The Nude Party are a band from North Carolina I first featured in January 2022 with their eponymous debut from July 2018. They were formed in 2012 when freshman students at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. decided to start a band. Their members are Patton Magee (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica), Shaun Couture (guitar, vocals), Don Merrill (piano, vocals), Alexander Castillo (bass, vocals), Austin Brose (percussion, vocals) and Connor Mikita (drums). At the end of their freshman year, they all moved together to a house outside of town and learned how to play their instruments. It still almost sounds a bit like a fairytale! What’s very real is Word Gets Around, a cool-sounding rocker with a ’60s vibe, off their third and latest studio album Rides On, credited to the entire band!
Billy Tibbals/Hollywood Baby
This brings me to Billy Tibbals, a Los Angeles-based alternative rock artist. From his Bandcampbio: Moving from London to Hollywood back in 2014, Billy Tibbals quickly found a love for the city and its esoteric, debauched history. Combining this with his childhood obsession with British rock and roll, surrealist literature, and musicals from the 1940’s, Billy’s music presents a unique and fantastical view of the world around us. As a part of the exciting new wave of rock and roll music emerging from Los Angeles, Billy hopes to inspire the youth to get off their phones and come join in with the fun. Tibbals’ latest inspiration is his debut EP Stay Teenage. Here’s the excellent opener Hollywood Baby, which like all other tracks on the EP was solely written by him.
Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives/Sitting Alone
American country and bluegrass singer Marty Stuart has been active since the late 1960s. Initially working as a touring musician with Lester Flatt and Johnny Cash, Stuart launched his recording career in 1978 with Marty (With A Little Help From My Friends). He has since released 18 additional albums, including his latest, Altitude, appearing as Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives. Let’s check out Sitting Alone, penned by Stuart, which reminds me a bit of a Tom Petty – love that jangly guitar sound!
Foo Fighters/The Teacher
Wrapping up this post are Foo Fighters with a haunting song from But Here We Are. It’s their first new album since the untimely death of drummer Taylor Hawkins in Bogotá, Columbia in March 2022 at the age of 50 during the band’s tour in South America. A brutally honest and emotionally raw response to everything Foo Fighters endured over the last year, But Here We Are is a testament to the healing powers of music, friendship and family, the band said when announcing the album. The statement added the 10 tracks run the emotional gamut from rage and sorrow to serenity and acceptance, and myriad points in between. Here’s The Teacher, a dark-sounding 10-minute track credited to the entire band – quite an epic song!
Here’s the aforementioned Spotify playlist featuring the above and 18 additional songs from the first half of 2023. Look for Part 2, which is scheduled for next Saturday, December 23.
Sources: Wikipedia; The Bad Ends website; Joe Louis Walker website; Billy Tibbals Bandcamp page; Foo Fighters website; YouTube; Spotify
Celebrating music with six random tracks at a time
I hope everybody is enjoying their Sunday and, if you reside in the U.S., that it’s been a nice extended four-day Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. I may have returned from a two-week family vacation in Europe only a few days ago, but great music never prevents me from embarking on another trip. Hope you come along for the ride!
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio/Concussion
Our first stop today only takes us back a few years to March 2018 and groovy Hammond-driven jazz by Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio. Founded in 2015, the trio includes self-taught Hammond B-3 organist Delvon Lamarr, guitarist Jimmy James and drummer Dan Weiss. Their website puts it best: DLO3’s “feelgood music” includes a big helping of the 1960s organ jazz stylings of Jimmy Smith and Baby Face Willette; a pinch of the snappy soul strut of Booker T. & The M.G.’s and The Meters; and sprinkles Motown, Stax Records, blues, and cosmic Jimi Hendrix-style guitar. From DLO3’s debut album Close But No Cigar, here’s Concussion. I surely hope no musicians got hurt during the recording of this fabulous track!
Katrina and the Waves/Red Wine and Whisky
Now that you’re hopefully in the groove, let’s continue this party by getting some booze brought to us by Katrina and the Waves – of course, consume responsibly! Initially called The Waves, this British-American band seemingly emerged out of nowhere in the mid-’80s with their huge hit Walking On Sunshine. Notably, the song only got noticed when it was re-recorded for the group’s eponymous third studio album that appeared in March 1985. But there was more to the picture. One of my other favorite tracks off that same album is the opener Red Wine and Whisky. Unfortunately, the band couldn’t repeat their mid-’80s success and eventually broke up in 1999.
Tommy James & The Shondells/I Think We’re Alone Now
Time to pay a visit to the ’60s. That said, our next stop was inspired by another song that became popular again in the ’80s when it was covered by then-15-year-old American pop singer Tiffany for her August 1987 debut album: I Think We’re Alone Now. Written by Ritchie Cordell, the song was first recorded by Tommy James & the Shondells as the title track of their third studio album released in February 1967. It became one of the U.S. group’s biggest hits, climbing to no. 4 on the U.S. pop chart – a real ear worm!
Johnny Cash/I’ve Been Everywhere
This next pick takes us to November 1996 and the great Johnny Cash who I trust needs no introduction. It’s from an album titled Unchained, aka. American II: Unchained. The second of six albums released by American Recordings, which were all produced by Rick Rubin, fell into a late-career resurgence for The Man in Black. Penned by Australian country singer Geoff Mack in 1959, I’ve Been Everywhere was first popularized in 1962 by another artist from down under, Lucky Starr. If I recall it correctly, I initially heard Cash’s rendition during a U.S. TV commercial in the ’90s and loved it right away!
Gene Vincent/Bluejean Bop
I don’t know about you, but Johnny Cash put me in the mood for some classic ’50s rockabilly. To satisfy my craving, let’s go to August 1956 and Bluejean Bop!, the debut album by Gene Vincent, billed to Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps. Here’s the opener and title track, co-written by the rockabilly pioneer and Hal Levy. Sadly, Vincent’s chart career was brief, especially in his home country the U.S. where it lasted less than two years. His life was cut short at age 36 in 1971 when he passed away from a combination of a ruptured ulcer, internal hemorrhage and heart failure.
Manassas/It Doesn’t Matter
Once again, the time has come to wrap up another Sunday Six. Our final destination today is April 1972, which saw the release of the eponymous debut album by Manassas. Formed by Stephen Stills, the short-lived American rock supergroup also featured Chris Hillman (The Byrds), Al Perkins (The Flying Burrito Brothers), Paul Harris (John Sebastian), as well as Calvin “Fuzzy” Samuel, Dallas Taylor and Joe Lala (each Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). Here’s It Doesn’t Matter, co-written by Stills, Hillman and Rick Roberts, and a listening suggestion by my dear longtime German music buddy Gerd.
Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a Spotify playlist featuring all of the above goodies. Hope you enjoyed the trip and will be back for more!
John Mellencamp Continues Stripped Down, Acoustic Approach On New Album
Last Friday, Rich who pens the great KamerTunesBlog, posted about John Mellencamp’s 1983 album Uh-huh, and we ended up chatting about the heartland-turned-roots artist from Seymour, Ind. In this context, I noted Sad Clowns & Hillbillies, which I think is a true gem. Call it a Fix one-thing-leads-to-another moment, it reminded me of the following post I published back in April 2017 when the album came out. I figured it would be a worthy pick for my irregular Musings of the Past feature where I republish and occasionally update select content from the earlier days of this blog.
John Mellencamp Continues Stripped Down, Acoustic Approach On New Album
For “Sad Clowns & Hillbillies,” Mellencamp teamed up with Carlene Carter to create an album full of warm, stripped down roots music.
Initially, Sad Clowns & Hillbillies was supposed to be a collection of spiritual country duets with country singer-songwriter Carlene Carter, the daughter of June Carter and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash. While prominently featuring Cash on duet vocals for five of the 13 songs, John Mellencamp’s 23rd studio album only includes one tune the two artists wrote together.
Sad Clowns & Hillbillies wasn’t their first trip to the rodeo. They started working together in 2012 in connection with Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a musical for which Mellencamp collaborated with author Stephen King and veteran producer T-Bone Burnett. He subsequently invited Cash to sing a song he had written as part of the music score for Ithaca, a drama motion picture released in Oct 2015 and directed by his then-girlfriend Meg Ryan. “That was when we became friends, when I went to Indiana and recorded with him and the guys this really cool song called Sugar Hill Mountain that’s in the movie,” Carter toldSongfacts.
Carter also joined Mellencamp as the opening act on his extensive 2015-2016 tour in support of his previous album Plain Spoken. It was during that tour when the initial idea for Sad Clowns & Hillbillies was conceived. “It started out like ‘Look, lets go back and do an old country religious record,” Mellencamp said during an interview with Yahoo! News’ Katie Couric. “‘We’ll try to write songs that sound like those songs, but they’ll be new.’ And then it just kept evolving and evolving and evolving, and the songs that she was bringing and the songs that I was bringing – they weren’t so religious. I write a lot of sad songs, so it’s like Sad Clowns & Hillbillies – that’s where it came from.”
The album pretty much picks up where Mellencamp’s previous 2014 studio release Plain Spoken left off, featuring mostly acoustic, stripped down, front porch type roots music. This record is not for the multi-tasking generation; instead, it’s an invitation to sit down and listen. The album is also very different from Mellencamp’s ’80s rockers like Hurts So Good, Jack & Diane, Pink Houses and R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., which I dearly love and which attracted me to him in the first place. Of course, his departure from the straight rock sound these songs represent started a long time ago. It was 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee that for the first time introduced more traditional folk and country music instruments like accordion and fiddle to Mellencamp’s songs.
The one exception that sounds more like vintage Mellencamp is Grandview, the album’s second and current single, for which Martina McBride is joining him on vocals. You could easily picture the tune on 1985’s Scarecrow or 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee. That’s not a surprise – Mellencamp co-wrote it with his cousin Bobby Clark in the 1990s. He told the Indianapolis Star the current version “includes some vocals he recorded in the ’90s and some recorded this century.” The song also features Guns N’ Roses’ co-founder and former rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin and Stan Lynch, the original drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I’m not gonna deny it – I wouldn’t have minded, if Mellencamp had included one or more rockers like this one!
The opener Mobile Blue pretty much sets the tone for the album. The combination of violin (Miriam Sturm), Hammond-like keyboards (Troye Kinnett) and of course acoustic guitars, some mandolin-like, creates a beautiful, warm and rich sound. Written by American country singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury, the song is one of the two covers on the album.
The other one is Early Bird Cafe, a folk song from Lane Tietgen, which was first recorded by the Jerry Hahn Brotherhood in 1970. Mellencamp saw that band in the early ’70s, has liked the song ever since, and has performed it solo on acoustic guitar on various occasions throughout his career.
Indigo Sunset is only tune co-written by both artists. Carter and Mellencamp alternate lead vocals. Her traditional country voice and his rougher instrument that briefly join toward the end of the song are a perfect match. Together with the great Hammond-like keyboard (not sure whether it’s an actual Hammond!) and the seductive violin sound, this makes the tune another standout on the album.
Damascus Road is the only song Carter penned all by herself. With biblical-like references throughout the lyrics, it’s evident the tune reflects the record’s original idea. Musically, I particularly love the acoustic bluesy guitar work by Andy York and Kinnett’s harmonica on this track.
The closer Easy Target presents Mellencamp with his most raspy voice – one review I can no longer find compared it to Tom Waits after he had cleared his throat! Mellencamp’s gravelly singing certainly fits the dark lyrics of the song, which addresses racism and income equality and was initially released on the eve of President Trump’s inauguration – certainly not a coincidence.
Unlike his previous three studio albums Plain Spoken (2014), No Better Than This (2010) and Life, Death, Love and Freedom (2008), which were produced by T-Bone Burnett, Sad Clowns & Hillbillies was produced by Mellencamp. The album was recorded at his studio in Belmont Mall – funnily, as an NPR story pointed out, that studio is located in Nashville, except it’s Nashville, Ind., not Nashville, Tenn. The art work on the album’s front cover is from Mellencamp, who is also a painter. It was taken from Twelve Dreams, a painting he created in 2005.
Painting has become a very important aspect in Mellencamp’s life, which also impacts his songwriting. In the current print issue of Rolling Stone, he explained how songs come to him while being all by himself and painting in his Indiana compound. “A voice in my head will go, ‘OK, put your brush down and write these words down’…And I’ll be like, No, I don’t want to write a fucking song.’ Then the voice will go, ‘You better write it down, you idiot.’ Then I forget about it, and I find it and I go, ‘When did I write this?’ It’s a wonderful way of writing songs.”
– END –
Originally, this post was published on April 29, 2017. I slightly edited it and also added the clips, as well as the following Spotify link to the album. Thanks for reminding me of it, Rich!
Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; Yahoo! News; Indianapolis Star; NPR; Rolling Stone; YouTube; Spotify
Happy Wednesday and welcome to another installment of my weekly feature taking a deeper dive on a song I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all to date. This time, I decided to turn to Johnny Cash. Even at the time when I ignorantly dismissed country as hillbilly music, The Man in Black always represented something special, with a coolness factor that wasn’t far off from my childhood idol Elvis Presley. And, believe me, it really couldn’t get better than Elvis. This was before I discovered those four lads from Liverpool!
My specific song pick is Big River, which was written by Cash and first released as a single in March 1958 on Sun Records, the very same label in Memphis, Tenn., where Elvis first recorded. And Roy Orbison. And Jerry Lee Lewis. And Carl Perkins. And the list goes on. When you look at all these names and recognize they all sounded really cool, you know this can’t be bad, even if it would be hillbilly music!
As the song starts to play, the first thing you notice is a neat-sounding guitar riff played by Luther Perkins. Meanwhile you hear that cool upright bass by Marshall Grant slapping in the background. Then Cash comes in singing the brilliant lines, Now I taught the weeping willow how cry/And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky. I mean, what a great way to kick off a song!
Evidently, American audiences liked it as well. The tale about a man chasing a lost love along the course of the Mississippi River from Saint Paul, Minn. all the way down to New Orleans, La. peaked at no. 4 and no. 14 on Billboard’s country and pop charts, respectively. Big River marked Cash’s fifth top 5 hit on the country chart since his June 1955 debut Cry! Cry! Cry! and his second top 20 song on the pop chart.
Here’s a great live version from the Johnny Cash Show, which aired on ABCTelevision between 1969 and 1971. The clip doesn’t indicate in which year this footage was captured, but based on comments Cash made during the performance, it looks like it should be 1971. Notably, he sang a third verse that didn’t make the original recording. Cash was backed by The Tennessee Three who at the time featured Bob Woottoon (lead guitar), Grant (bass) and W.S. Holland (drums).
Big River has been covered by numerous other artists. Wikipedia lists more than 15. One of them was none other than Bob Dylan who recorded two takes with The Band in 1967 during The Basement Tapes sessions. Here’s Take 2:
Even better, Dylan also recorded a rendition of Big River during his 1969 sessions with Johnny Cash. This version was officially released in November 2019 on Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 15: Travelin’ Thru, 1967–1969. Of course, this was way too great to skip. I absolutely love how Dylan and Cash sound together!
Johnny Cash was on a touring break when he picked up an article titled “Johnny Cash Has the Big River Blues in His Voice.” Soon after, he wrote a lovelorn country tune about a man who is so smitten by a woman and her irresistible Southern drawl that he pursues her down the Mississippi River – and misses her at every turn. Cash is backed by Luther Perkins on guitar, who delivers an electrifying solo, and Marshall Grant on bass. The single peaked at #4 on the country chart.
Cash had a much different sound in mind for the tune before Sun Records founder Sam Phillips got a hold of it. “When I wrote ‘Big River,’ I wrote it [to be sung] real slow, not up-tempo as I did it on record,” he explained in a 1988 interview with biographer Steve Turner. “There was a guitar player named Roy Nichols, who later worked with Merle Haggard, and he used to play that song with me, and he played some really black blues on it. It sounded like a real blues song. Sam Phillips wanted it upbeat, and he made it sound like a rockabilly song.”
Cash uses poetic imagery to express his heartache, opening the song with the verse “I taught the weeping willow how to cry, and I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky.” The song made a big impression on his daughter Rosanne Cash, who recorded it in 1980 for the album Right or Wrong. She said:
“I think my dad’s ‘Big River’ is one of the most eloquent pieces of American poetry ever written. It is so layered and cinematic. It’s a narrative that starts at the top of the Mississippi River, in St Paul, Minnesota, and ends in New Orleans. It was written about a time when travel was still full of surprises, when it was an exotic trip to go from St Paul to Memphis or New Orleans. He uses alliteration in a thrilling way.
The first line of the last verse always gives me a thrill. It is positively Shakespearean. I like knowing my dad was so moved by the river, the South, the Delta and the music that arose from that area.
It inspires me he had such an intuitive and refined sense of narrative and language, that he created a cinematic landscape, a testosterone-fueled chase of a woman down the river, and that he wrote such a driving back beat to hold it together. This is a song that could never be written today, and so it is also a piece of American history and part of the legacy of my family and my country.”
A demo recording included an extra verse that was omitted from the single, but was sometimes included in live performances. The Outlaw Country supergroup The Highwaymen, of which Cash was a member, recorded this in 1985 with each member taking turns singing a verse. Waylon Jennings sang the missing piece:
Well, I pulled into Natchez, next day down the river But there wasn’t much there to make the rounders stay very long. When I left it was rainin’ so nobody saw me cry. Big river, why she doin’ me this way?
Cash and Jennings joined Trick Pony on a cover for the country band’s debut album in 2001.
When Tom Petty was honored at the 2017 MusiCares gala, he said, “You want to be a songwriter? Listen to ‘Big River’ about 60 times, and you’ll write something.”
Bob Dylan also thought the tune was an exceptional piece of songwriting. “There are so many ways you can go at something in a song,” he said. “One thing is to give life to inanimate objects. Johnny Cash is good at that. He’s got the line that goes, ‘A freighter said, ‘She’s been here, but she’s gone, boy, she’s gone.’ That’s great. That’s high art. If you do that once in a song, you usually turn it on its head right then and there.”
The country folk duo Secret Sisters released this as a single in 2010, backed by Jack White on guitar.
This was used on the TV show NCIS in the 2007 episode “Requiem.”
Once again it’s Wednesday, which means the time has come to take a closer look at another tune I’ve only mentioned in passing or haven’t covered at all to date. My pick for this installment of Song Musings is Redemption Song by Bob Marley.
When I think of reggae, a genre I generally dig because of its groove, the artist who always comes to my mind first is Bob Marley. While I’ve only dedicated a handful of posts to the legendary Jamaican artist, I’ve touched on many of his well-known songs. Perhaps the only exception is Redemption Song, I guess in part since it’s a folk, not a reggae song and, as such, it’s an unusual tune for Marley.
Written by Bob Marley, Redemption Song is the closer of June 1980’s Uprising, the final studio album released during his lifetime. Considered one of his finest tunes, Redemption Song also became Marley’s last single that same month. Like many of his other singles, chart performance was moderate. Wikipedia only lists New Zealand as a country where the tune charted, reaching no. 22. However, again mirroring numerous other Marley singles, Redemption Song enjoyed commercial success in Britain where it became one of his two singles that eventually hit Gold status (400,000 certified sold units).
Unlike other Marley tunes, Redemption Song only featured him on vocals and acoustic guitar without any backing musicians. A full band version of the tune appeared separately in the UK and France in October 1980. That rendition has since been included as a bonus track on the 2001 reissue of Uprising, as well as on the 2001 compilation One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley & The Wailers. Personally, I prefer the acoustic version, a sentiment I evidently share with many other listeners of Marley’s music.
When Marley wrote Redemption Song, which was ca. 1979, he already had been diagnosed with cancer in his toe that eventually spread, at least in part due to his refusal to accept medical treatment, and took his life in May 1981. “He was already secretly in a lot of pain and dealt with his own mortality, a feature that is clearly apparent in the album, particularly in this song,” said Marley’s widow Rita Marley, as quoted by Wikipedia.
Redemption Song was ranked at no. 66 in the 2004 edition of Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. On February 5, 2020, the eve of what would have been his 75th birthday, Marley’s estate released an official animated video for the song. The clips also commemorated the 40th anniversary of the tune’s release.
Following are some additional insights from Songfacts:
This was Marley’s last single before his death on May 11, 1981. It sums up his life and what he stood for in his songs: freedom and redemption. Marley was a very spiritual singer who gave hope to the downtrodden in his native Jamaica, and whose message spread to the United States and around the world when he became a star.
Marley completed the Uprising album (his last) in the summer of 1980. He was suffering from the cancer that would eventually kill him at age 36, but was very productive in his later years. He refused traditional medicine because of his Rastafarian beliefs and chose to make music and perform as long as he could.
This song drew from the works of the civil-rights campaigner Marcus Garvey, who in a 1937 speech said:
“We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.”
This can be heard in Marley’s lyric:
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery None but ourselves can free our minds
Garvey’s 1923 book The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey contains this preface, which is likely where Marley got the idea for “Redemption,” which he used in the title:
“Dedicated to the true and loyal members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the cause of African redemption.”
This is much more of a folk song than a reggae number. Very unusual for Marley, it is just his voice accompanied by his acoustic guitar. Marley first recorded it with his group The Wailers, but his producer Chris Blackwell suggested he try a solo acoustic version, and that’s what stuck.
Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer both covered this song.
This plays over the credits for the 2007 movie I Am Legend starring Will Smith. It was also sung by the character Sawyer in the season finale of the first season of the show Lost on ABC.
Barbadian singer Rihanna covered this for the Haiti Relief Fund after the earthquake that devastated the country. Urging fans to download the track she said: “This song for me, growing up, anytime there was a difficult situation, I always listened to this song because it was so liberating. Even now I listen to it when my back is up against the wall. I feel like the people of Haiti need to hear something inspiring.” Rihanna performed an acoustic version live on the Oprah Winfrey Show on January 20, 2010.
French artists Octave Marsal and Theo De Gueltzl created an animated video for the song using 2,747 original drawings. Their black-and-white clip was released on February 6, 2020, on what would have been Bob Marley’s 75th birthday.
“From the history of Slavery and Jamaica, Rastafarian culture, legacy of prophets (Haile Selassie the 1st, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X), as well as Bob’s personal life, we take the audience on a journey through allegories and representations,” Marsal and De Gueltzl explained of the visual.
Christian's Music Musings 