Music & More

Delbert

I bought my first Delbert McClinton cd, "One of the Fortunate Few", about 10 years ago. Don't remember exactly why. It was not because I was hearing his songs on the radio. I knew that he was a big favorite of Don Imus and my sister-in-law Eileen has been a big Delbert fan for many years. I remember she used to have a Delbert t-shirt and she'd tell me that he's the guy playing the harmonica on Bruce Channel's great 1962 hit "Hey Baby". Checking on CMT.com I find that McClinton has made about 40 albums in his career. To my knowledge he's never had #1 single or album unless it was on a blues chart and he turns 68 in a few weeks. Yet, damn, I feel that I've missed out by not getting into his music sooner. I only have two of his cd's and a "Baby It's Cold Outside" duet with Suzy Bogguss on her Christmas cd.

"One of the Fortunate Few" (1997) starts off with "Old Weakness (Coming On Strong)", a song that makes even those of us who can't dance want to get off the couch and do it. (In my case it's more like a "goofus dance" that I only perform in the privacy of my home. My feet do strange things and my arms flail in all directions. I've also been known to sing badly along with the record.) "Leap Of Faith" and "Somebody To Love You" continue the dance til "Sending Me Angels" slows things down to a speed safer for my back. It took me awhile to get used to Delbert's version since I was familiar with the song by Kathy Mattea. "Too Much Stuff" starts the fun again as Delbert is joined by John Prine and Lyle Lovett. I love the line "Vocal group can't sing, won awards for everything". "Monkey Around" rocks the house again as Delbert sings "You made a man into a monkey now that monkey's gonna monkey around". "Lie No better" gets funky as a girfriend is advised that "If you can't lie no better than that, you might as well tell the truth". "You Were Never Mine" slows it down and concludes "I never lost you, you were never mine". It's back to funky blues with "Better Off With The Blues" and lines like "I still love you baby, but I don't want you back". "Best Of Me" concludes this outstanding cd which also features fine backup singing by the likes of Bekka Bramlett, Mavis Staples, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless and Pam Tillis. Gary Nicholson appears to be Delbert's favorite writer since he co-wrote 9 of the 10 tracks.

In 2005, Delbert came out with "Cost Of Living" and the following year it won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. I got to listen to the entire 13 song cd on CMT.com's "Listening Party" and loved it. This time it was a slow song that clinched it for me, track 6, "Your Memory, Me, And The Blues" written by Delbert and Jim Weatherly. As a long time coffee drinker and creature of habit (been drinking Chock Full o'Nuts for over 45 years), I like the line "A creature of habit in all that I do, when I make coffee, I still make coffee for two". "Midnight Communion" is another favorite of mine with the line "they take the wine till closing time, a fellowship of fools". When I listened to it for the first time it reminded me of Larry Gatlin's "Midnight Choir" song which concludes in its chorus that if they don't have Mogen David in heaven, "who the hell wants to go". The drinkers are "ragged and dirty" in Choir while they're described as "a rag tag congregation" in "Midnight Communion". Melodically, the songs are like night and day. The opening track of "Cost of Living" has the same title as the 1997 cd mentioned above, "One of the Fortunate few". It's a bluesy, up-tempo song as are "Right to Be Wrong". "The Part I Like Best", "Hammerhead Stew" (heroic happenings) , "Dead Wrong", "Down Into Mexico", "I Had A Real Good Time" and "Two Step Too" - "I like to listen to rock and roll, but honey, I like a two step too". More on the mellow side are "I'll Change My Style", "Kiss Her Once For Me" and "Alright By Me". "Two Step Too" and "Dead Wrong" are solo writing efforts by Delbert who has 156 song writing credits on BMI. Backup singers here include Jeffrey Steele (of Boy Howdy fame), Russell Smith, Bekka Bramlett, Crystal Talifaro and Tom Hambridge.

Chance Encounter

The Arts & Entertainment section of The Tennessean on Sunday, October 19th had an article about an exhibit at the Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art in Nashville through January 4th. (For more on Cheekwood see www.cheekwood.org/.) Pieces from the private collections of Red Grooms and Lysiane Luong, husband and wife artists and collectors will be on display. Grooms was born in Nashville but moved to NYC over 50 years ago. 

Back around 1995, I went to an Impressionists exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my wife and kids, mainly because of my daughter's interest in art. She had outstanding art teachers in high school (Joan Hain and Sue Ptacek), went on to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and today is a graphic artist/designer. After viewing the Impressionists and some American artists, which I really found enjoyable, we decided to check out some of the modern art. For the most part, philistine that I am, I thought it was awful stuff. They had a lot of weird paintings that looked like some child had closed his eyes and thrown paint on a canvas plus things like "study in green" where the whole canvas was solid green. I'm thinking that there's a sucker born every minute, that to call this stuff art is kind of like the "emperor's new clothes". Picasso would have been a pauper if he had to depend on me to buy or even review his art. I guess that shows how little I know and how subjective the arts are.

There was one modern art painting that really grabbed me, probably because it had some reality to it. You could see that the scene was Washington Square Park in the Greenwich Village section of lower Manhattan. There are two men sitting on a park bench, another man walking with a dog, a taxi cab, police car and other easily recognizable items. The painting was an oil on canvas by Red Grooms called "Chance Encounter at 3 A.M.". I didn't know who the two men on the bench were when I first viewed the painting. I found that out plus the interesting history of the "chance encounter" at www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/. Just enter the name of the painting in the search box. Since that was the one modern painting that I liked, my daughter gave me a poster of the painting which I taped to the wall in my office at the WTC. The poster was lost on 9/11, relatively speaking a very insignificant loss considering the events of that day. When my job moved to 1 Penn Plaza, my daughter gave me another copy of the same Red Grooms painting. It was displayed in my new office 'til I retired in January of 2006. Shortly after my wife and I moved to Nashville in October '06, I had the poster framed and it hangs in my den/library. I look at it as my New York-Nashville connection.

True Duets

There have been many great country duets over the years and some where country and pop artists have collaborated. Duets are not just any two people singing together. I think that true duets must meet 2 requirements. First, the singers must contribute equally. Singing harmony on the choruses or occasionally chiming in a phrase or two is a backup singer not a duet partner. Second, they must be artists who normally do not perform together. Although most duets are performed by a girl and a guy, that is not a requirement. They must sing well (just kidding - although I would hope so).

Here are some of my favorite country girl and guy duets in no particular order:

Something Up My Sleeve – Suzy Bogguss & Billy Dean

I'm Not Gonna Do Anything Without You - Jamie O'Neal & Mark Wills

A Bad Goodbye - Wynonna & Clint Black

Heart Half Empty - Stephanie Bentley & Ty Herndon

Helping Me Get Over You - Lari White & Travis Tritt

Not Too Much To Ask - Mary Chapin Carpenter & Joe Diffie

Feels Like Home - Martina Mcbride & Raul Malo

Somewhere In The Vicinity Of The Heart - Alison Krauss & Marty Raybon

We Can't Unmake Love - Wynonna & John Berry

Maybe Not Tonight - Lorrie Morgan & Sammy Kershaw

Nobody Loves Me Like You Do - Anne Murray & Dave Loggins

Squeeze Me In - Trisha Yearwood & Garth Brooks

If I Could Find The Heart to Love Again – Gina Jeffreys & Billy Dean

Baby It's Cold Outside - Suzy Bogguss & Delbert McClinton

Loving This Way - Bobbie Eakes & Collin Raye

Let Me Love Again - Lisa Brokop & Steve Holy

It's Your Love - Faith Hill & Tim McGraw

It Must Be You - Juice Newton & Michael Johnson

Keep Mom & Dad In Love - Lisa Brokop & Hal Ketchum

Hopelessly Yours - Suzy Bogguss & Lee Greenwood

In Another's Eyes - Trisha Yearwood & Garth Brooks

A special mention goes to that great Dolly & Kenny Christmas album, Once Upon A Christmas, which included these great duets: A Christmas To Remember, Christmas Without You, I Believe In Santa Claus and With Bells On.

Favorite Girl Duets:

Couldn't find any that I liked. Help!

Favorite Guy Duets:

From There To Here - Randy Owen & Richie McDonald

I Finally Passed The Bar - Michael Peterson & Travis Tritt

Country and pop stars have gotten together for some outstanding duets:

Who Says You Can't Go Home - Jennifer Nettles & Jon Bon Jovi

How's The World Treating You - Alison Krauss & James Taylor

A Mother And Father's Prayer - Melissa Manchester & Collin Raye

We've Got Tonight - Sheena Easton & Kenny Rogers

Missing You - Alison Krauss & John Waite

Trip Around The Sun - Martina Mcbride & Jimmy Buffet

What are your favorite duets? 

Denver's Spirit

Back in the mid 70's when my wife and I started dating, one of the things that we both loved was to listen to the music of the late John Denver. Although some critics poked fun at him, his pure and powerful voice and the great song lyrics attracted us both. In addition to writing many of the songs he sang, he had a great stage presence and a good sense of humor. We got to see him in concert at NY's Madison Square Garden on November 11, 1976.

Last night I got out one of his LP's from 1976 called "Spirit". The cover shows JD sitting on the ground with his legs crossed in a meadow I guess, wearing jeans and a fancy denim shirt and sunglasses. There is an 11" x 11" sheet with the lyrics on both sides that you can actually read without squinting and under the title of each song it tells you who wrote the words and who wrote the music. (For example, on "Come and Let Me Look in Your Eyes" the credits read "Words by John Denver & Joe Henry, Music by John Denver".) For those of you unfamiliar with the 33 1/3 rpm LP's, the diameter of the vinyl discs measured about 12". The disc was placed in a paper protective sleeve before being packaged in a cardboard jacket which was approximately 12 1/2" x 12 1/2". If you didn't already know, you can see why the cd with its 5" diameter is known as a "compact" disc.

When I was a kid, we had 78 rpm records. Many of the albums were somewhat like a photo album. You opened it up and there was maybe 8 sleeves, each holding a single record which had one song on each side. You played the song, flipped it over to play the other side, then replaced it in its sleeve and took out another. If it slipped from your hand, it usually broke. The records were much more rigid than the LP's and hence very fragile. Some of the artists I remember in our collection included Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, the Mills Brothers, Perry Como, Al Jolson, Gene Autry and the Ink Spots plus some classical stuff that I didn't care for.

Back to the "Spirit" album, some of the songs I honestly didn't remember before lowering the needle on the vinyl. "Eli's Song", "Wrangle Mountain Song", "Hitchhiker", "In the Grand Way" on side 1 and "Pegasus" and "The Wings That Fly Us Home" on side 2 are all good songs. The familiar tunes, in addition to "Come and Let Me Look Into Your Eyes" include "Polka Dots and Moonbeams", a Johnny Burke (words) and Jimmy Van Husen (music) song from 1940, a Bob Wills tune "San Antonio Rose", also from 1940, "It Makes Me Giggle" and "Like a Sad Song" both written by JD and an old favorite of mine (the real reason I picked this JD album to listen to first) "Baby You Look Good to Me Tonight" by songwriter Bill Danoff of Starland Vocal Band fame. Give the lyrics a google.

More on JD in a future post. I've got 10 more of his albums to get reacquainted with, one of which is a double live album, his "An Evening with John Denver".

Trisha (Miss Yearwood)

Trisha Yearwood is one of the greatest female country music singers of all time. While her biggest successes occurred in the 1990's as far as awards, album sales and charting singles, she continues to produce great music. (Wikipedia is a good source for information about her career highlights and how well her cd's and singles fared on the charts.) She's equally comfortable with power ballads and up-tempo rockers. There's definitely some Ronstadt in her.

As I pointed out in my posting about Hal Ketchum, if you're just discovering a great artist it could be a problem ($$$) if that singer has released a dozen or so cd's. That is the case with Trisha. She's had 10 studio albums, a Christmas cd and a few greatest hits collections. You could just buy her greatest hits cd's but you'd be missing quite a few terrific songs, including some on her new cd's. You could buy many of her early cd's for under $8 on various internet sources. Having the cd's is nice if you want the lyrics and information as to who wrote the songs, who sang backup, etc. Trisha's cd's have featured terrific singers who have provided back-up for her including Don Henley, Raul Malo, Vince Gill, Kim Richey and, of course, Garth Brooks. You could also buy individual songs on i-tunes or some other source after listening to sources like the 30 second snippets on i-tunes, Trisha's myspace or you-tube. I'll give you my opinion here as to what are the best songs on each cd. Tastes differ so I admit that this is not a perfect solution and I certainly claim no expertise.

Here are her cd's with the songs I liked best:

Her 1991 debut cd "Trisha Yearwood" featured her first big hit "She's in Love with the Boy" along with "The Woman Before Me", "That's What I like About You", "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart" and "You Done Me Wrong (And that Ain't Right)".

"Hearts in Armor" included "Wrong Side of Memphis", "Nearest Distant Shore", "You Say You Will", "Down on My Knees", "For Reasons I've Forgotten", "Walkaway Joe" and the title track. You get seven terrific songs and the other three aren't bad plus great backup singers contributing throughout, especially Don Henley on "Walkaway Joe" and Raul Malo on "For Reasons I've Forgotten".

1993 brought us "The Song Remembers When". Unfortunately, that great Hugh Prestwood song was the only song worth remembering from the weakest cd of her career.

In 1995 she bounced back with one of her best cd's, "Thinkin' About You". In addition to the title track, this cd featured "XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl)", "You Can Sleep While I Drive", "On a Bus to St. Cloud", "Those Words We Said" "O, Mexico", "I Wanna Go Too Far" and "Till I Get it Right".

"Everybody Knows" from 1996 featured "It's Alright" (great harmony again by Raul Malo), "Believe Me Baby I Lied", "I Need You", "Little Hercules", "Under the Rainbow", "Maybe It's Love" (great harmony by Vince Gill) and "A Lover is Forever" in addition to the title track.

1997 brought us "Songbook: A Collection of Hits. It included songs that had not appeared on her previous cd's such as "How do I Live" (better than LeAnn Rimes's version), "In Another's Eyes", a duet with Garth Brooks, and "Perfect Love". The biggest omission in my opinion was a Gretchen Peters song "On A Bus to St. Cloud". How could such a beautiful song not be a hit. According to wikipedia it only made it to #59 on the US Country chart. 

"Where Your Road Leads" in 1998 featured "There Goes My Baby", "That Ain't the Way I Heard It", "Powerful Thing", "Love Wouldn't Lie to Me", "Wouldn't Any Woman", "I'll Still Love You More", "Heart Like a Sad Song" in addition to the title song, a duet with Garth Brooks.

The new century brought us "Real Live Woman". In addition to the title track it included "Sad Eyes", a Bruce Springsteen song, Linda Ronstadt's "Try Me Again",  and a rocking "Too Bad You're No Good". The rest of the songs were ok at best. If I had listened to the cd before purchasing it, I would have just bought a few song on i-tunes if there was an i-tunes in 2000. 

In 2001 things turned "Inside Out" with help from Don Henley. Other outstanding tracks included "I Would Have Loved You Anyway", "For a While", "Seven Year Ache" (with Rosanne Cash), "Harmless Heart", "I Don't Paint Myself into Corners", "Second Chance", "Melancholy Blue" and "When We Were Still in Love".

"Jasper County" came out just over 3 years ago in September '05. "Georgia Rain" was the first hit from that cd and "Trying to Love You", a better song in my humble opinion, was the 2nd and last single. There was a video for the latter song with horses that seemed a little strange since it didn't seem to connect with the song very well. The rest of the cd was pretty forgettable except for two songs, the sassy "Sweet Love" and the brilliant Maia Sharp and Sarah Majors song "Standing Out in a Crowd", an up-tempo uplifting tune. Both songs were better than "Georgia Rain".

Her latest cd (2007), "Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love", shows that she hasn't lost a thing. In fact, it is one of the best cd's she has ever made. In addition to the rocking gospel like title track, "This Is Me You're talking To", "Sing You Back to Me" and "The Dreaming Fields" are outstanding while "Nothin' 'Bout Memphis", "Let the Wind Chase You" (with Keith Urban), "Cowboys Are My Weakness", "Help Me" and "They Call It Falling for a Reason" are also very good songs.  A story song like "The Dreaming Fields", penned by Matraca Berg and Gary Harrison, is probably too beautiful a song to ever be a single. 

In addition to the above studio cd's, she came out with a Christmas cd, "The Sweetest Gift" in 1994. It didn't do much for me. The best song was "It Wasn't his Child" written by Skip Ewing. Loved her duet with Garth on "Squeeze Me In" from his "Scarecrow" cd. In '07 MCA came out with a second greatest hits cd and in '08 with a cd called "Love Songs". These cd's still leave out over 2 dozen outstanding songs that were not hits. I have mentioned in previous posts that I like to make up cd's to play on car trips from songs on cd's I own with an occasional add from i-tunes. I made up a great cd from these "non-hits" plus a 22 song cd I called "Mary & Trisha Rock" where I alternate Trisha songs like"Believe Me Baby I Lied", "You Say You Will" and "Seven Year Ache" with Mary Chapin Carpenter songs like "Shut Up and Kiss Me", "I Feel Lucky" and "I Take My Chances".

One final note: Trisha. Please play the beautiful Schermerhorn Symphony Center. My wife and I don't care for arena shows and the Ryman is so uncomfortable. A singer of your talents should be showcased in the best acoustic setting possible.

I Miss Baseball

Some might say "what do you mean that you miss baseball? We're only halfway through the first round of the playoffs. When they conclude, we still have the AL and NL pennants to decide and then the World Series. This is the exciting time of the year, what everybody plays for." That's true. The playoffs are exciting. The Rays, Dodgers, Bosox and Phils all lead 2-0 and overall the games have been competitive.

But there are so few games. In the first round, the most played on any given day will be 3. During the pennant playoff games, the most will be 2 and 1 during the World Series. Many days during the season you have as many as 15 games being played, 8 in the 16 team NL and 7 in the 14 team AL. Even on Mondays and Thursdays, the usual off-days, you may have a half dozen games being played. Those who know me may think that I'm just disappointed since my Yankees didn't make the playoffs. I am disappointed about that to be honest. Some might guess that I'm in a fantasy baseball league and I miss the action. I'm not.

I can watch my Yankees almost every evening during the regular season. (One of the few bad things about living in middle Tennessee is that Fox Saturday Baseball will almost always show a Braves, Cubs or Cards game when the Yanks are the other regional game. In addition, if the Yanks play an afternoon game that is not one of the Fox options, my Direct TV MLB sports package doesn't cover the game. Guess they have a deal with Fox. I hate Fox baseball.) If the Yanks are losing badly or sometimes if they're winning big, I can switch to another game. I can watch the Red Sox, hoping they'll lose. Once they get a big lead over whoever they're playing I can switch to another game. My choice may be determined by a particular pitching match-up or some new young hitter (e.g., Evan Longoria) or pitcher (Todd Lincecum) I want to see. It's fun to check out the 8th or 9th inning of a close game and when it ends go to the end of another close game. Since regular TV with few exceptions is a waste of time (sorry, but I have no interest in reality shows), this is my main entertainment. (Did I mention I'm retired?) While I'm watching the game, my wife is usually watching House Hunters or some similar show.

Besides the TV aspect, there's the newspaper and internet to consider. I love to pore over the baseball section of the sports pages while I have my morning coffee and toast, eggs, whatever. The internet is great but there's also something about having all the box scores, standings, today's schedule with pitching match-ups, league leaders, transactions and "this day in baseball" on one page for perusal rather than having to flip from screen to screen. I can see who were the stars the night before - who had multi-hit games, who threw 8 shutout innings only to have the closer blow it in the 9th because of the manager's pitch count obsession or his need to pump up the closer's save totals, what the pitiful attendance figures were for the Florida teams, etc. (I get the Tennessean delivered. It's pretty good about getting most of the late games into the paper.) I think that "this day in baseball" is used as a space filler rather than as an everyday feature. An example would be: June 24, 1962 - Jack Reed hit the only HR of his career in the top of the 22nd inning to give the Yankees a win over the Tigers. I remember seeing that game on TV.

The internet has a few advantages too. The box scores are much easier to read on-line and there are much more detailed write-ups of the individual games than the sentence or two you get in the paper.   In addition, the espn stats on line are much more comprehensive and you can just click on a player's name and get his whole career record. Besides ESPN.com I can also check the write-ups in other papers. I read the NY papers - the Times, News, Post or Newsday - and on occasion I check the L.A. Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, etc.

Now the sports section of the paper stinks. In two minutes, I'm finished reading. I have no interest in college football. I'll watch a pro game now and then but I don't read about it. Next is hockey which I have no interest in. My second favorite sport, basketball, doesn't get rolling til November 1st for the pros and a few weeks later for the colleges. I miss baseball.

Parnell at the Well

Lee Roy Parnell put out a great cd in 2006 and it didn't even make the top 100 on the country album charts. That's not surprising. It happens to a lot of great singers. His website calls "Back to the Well" his best album yet. That's not surprising since the goal is to sell more cd's. But I think the touting by the website is justified, not merely self-serving. "Back to the Well" is arguably better than his 1999 cd "Hits and Highways Ahead". What is surprising is that an individual cd of original material is better than a greatest hits cd. It just doesn't happen very often. Mr. Parnell accomplished this in the year he turned 50. Perhaps he went to the well and found instead the fountain of youth.

Hits and Highways had some terrific songs. My favorite is "Love Without Mercy", a song penned my Don Pfrimmer and Mike Reid. (Football fans may remember Mike Reid, an All-American defensive lineman at Penn State and a member of the Cincinnati Bengals. He's also written hit songs for Ronnie Milsap, Wynonna and others. Check the ASCAP site on the right.) "On the Road", "I'm Holding My Own", "What Kind of Fool Do You Think I Am" and "Tender Moment" are great and "She Won't Be Lonely Long", "Heart's Desire" and "When a Woman Loves a Man" aren't exactly chopped liver.

Lee Roy wasn't messing around with this cd. (His cd "Tell the Truth" in 2001 was, to tell the truth, nothing special.) For "Back to the Well" he enlisted the services of two of Nashville's best songwriters, Tony Arata and Gary Nicholson. The former co-wrote 6 songs with Parnell and the latter was in for 4. Tony's contributions included "Something Out of Nothing", "Old Soul", "Daddies & Daughters", "Breaking the Chain", "The Hunger" and "That's All There Is". Gary's included the title cut, "Saving Grace", "Just Lucky That Way" and "Don't Water It Down". The last is the funkiest along with "You Can't Lose 'em All", a collaboration between Parnell and Tom Hambridge. My favorite is "Just Lucky That Way", just edging out "Something Out of Nothing". The cd is one good song after another with a good mix of ballads and up tempo tunes. I like the line from "The Hunger" - "Long ago I learned a simple fact, that you keep on going cause you can't go back". Keep on going Lee Roy.

I saw Lee Roy perform some of these songs plus his hits and other selections at B.B. Kings' Blues Club in NYC in March of 2006. He put on a great show. His music is kind of bluesy country. I was also impressed by his guitar playing. You can learn more about him on his website or wikipedia. I remember being surprised to see his name as co-writer on one of my Collin Raye cd's for the song "That's My story", a favorite of mine. (I even bought a "That's My Story and I'm Stickin To It" t-shirt last year at a Cracker Barrel store.) I didn't know that LR has 138 songwriting credits on the BMI website.