Heading out to lunch today, we saw a campaign sign stuck in the ground at the corner as we turned onto the highway. Heading home, we saw three more on the other side of the corner.
The only problem: You can’t plant campaign signs on the public portion of highway right-of-day in Wisconsin.
My friend Glick checked the law and sagely observed: “Fines: $10 to $100. The cynic in me thinks some will see this as chump change and a small cost of doing business.”
He could be right. Perhaps it’s all part of …
“The Plot,” Lalo Schifrin, from “Music from ‘Mission: Impossible’,” 1967. It’s out of print, even a 1996 CD reissue.
If you watched “Mission: Impossible” at all during the ’60s and ’70s, you probably heard bits of this as things got dicey. This is the full version, one you may not have heard, complete with groovy, mood-setting harpsichord.
This is just a little taste of what’s new at The Midnight Tracker, a lightly-traveled blog where we feature album sides brought back from the sweet blue haze of time. Your mission there, should you decide to accept it, is to enjoy our notion of a soundtrack for the political intrigue of the moment.
The first phase of a long overdue project wrapped up earlier this month at AM, Then FM world headquarters. I entered all of my vinyl LPs into a spreadsheet. There were a few interesting discoveries along the way.
When I pulled out my copy of “The Beatles” — yes, the White Album — I found an extra copy of “Revolver” tucked inside. Just the LP and sleeve, but no jacket.
There also was a name stylishly written on the lower right corner of “The Beatles” album jacket. My copy once belonged to one Riffat Kamal.
Presented with this little mystery — and I do love little mysteries — I began the search for Riffat Kamal. It didn’t take long to find him, even though he lives half the world away. Google, LinkedIn and Facebook make the world smaller.
We exchanged notes. I told him I thought I had a record he once owned, and that I likely bought it in Madison, Wisconsin, where we both lived during the ’80s.
Riffat Kamal is a cool guy, and he has a cool story. Here it is, in his words:
* * *
“I am delighted to know that my copy of the White Album is in good hands. I had quite a few records back at UW-Madison and I guess this was one of them. I started writing my name on the records when I lived in the dorm there, since I was always losing track of who on my dorm floor was borrowing which LP.
* * *
“I eventually ended up selling my entire collection after switching to CDs, a decision I now regret. However, it would have been too difficult to haul crates of records with all the moving around I’ve done.
* * *
“Wisconsin has always had a special place in my heart, so I am really glad to have heard from you. It is the first state I went to when I moved to the U.S. from my native Pakistan as an 18-year-old. It was the start of an amazing journey that took me to Los Angeles and San Francisco after leaving Wisconsin, and becoming a naturalized American citizen in the process. I now live in the Tokyo area with my Japanese wife.”
* * *
And I am really glad to have heard from you, sir.
I’m not sure where I bought Riffat’s record, although I’m fairly certain it was at Madcity Music Exchange at its original location on Regent Street, just south of the UW campus. Likewise, I’m not sure where I got the following bootleg. Somewhere on the web, five years ago.
“Revolution,” the Beatles, from the widely bootlegged Esher demos (also known as the Kinfauns demos), 1968. Never formally released.
Kinfauns was George Harrison’s home in the town of Esher, Surrey, England, from 1964 to 1970. There, in May 1968, the Beatles recorded many of the largely acoustic demos for the songs that wound up on “The Beatles” later that year.
The finished, more familiar version, of course, is on the White Album that once belonged to a Pakistani kid who was studying thousands of miles from home and beginning what has indeed turned out to be an amazing journey.
Please visit our other blog, The Midnight Tracker, for more vintage vinyl, one side at a time.
The tributes to R.B. Greaves started popping up on Facebook late this afternoon, while I was off the grid. The smooth R&B singer was 68 when he died last week in Los Angeles.
His self-titled LP from 1970, the one with “Take A Letter, Maria” on it, was among the first big bunch of records I bought when I got back into collecting vinyl a few years ago. It was part of a haul of 20 records for $20 from the $1 record boxes in the tent in my friend Jim’s back yard.
I wrote about that record from time to time, and I’m glad I did so while Greaves was still with us.
Twice, it was to share his cover of “Always Something There To Remind Me.” Most recently, it was to celebrate the songs of Hal David, the great lyricist, something I did not do while David was still with us.
The first time, it was after I’d accidentally erased a small audio clip of our son’s voice, recorded before his voice changed. That was four years ago, and somehow, I still remember what that little boy’s voice sounded like. Maybe writing that post about a little bit of innocence lost helped to preserve it in my head.
Once, though, it was a deep cut from that self-titled LP, which despite that familiar hit single summons up a bunch of little mysteries.
I also have R.B. Greaves’ second album, also self-titled, which was released on Bareback Records in 1977. It’s full of pleasant enough but unremarkable mid-’70s pop-R&B. The 1970 LP is the only one you really need to have.
After Stevie Wonder hit it big with “Superstition” in 1972, it’s no wonder Jeff Beck was perhaps the first to cover it.
While working together in the studio for Wonder’s “Talking Book” album, on which Beck played guitar, Beck concocted the drum beat around which Wonder built the rest of “Superstition.” So Wonder offered the song to Beck.
However, Motown studio chief Berry Gordy thought Wonder ought to keep it for himself. So “Superstition,” by Stevie Wonder, was released by Motown in October 1972.
By that December, Beck was cutting that song in the studio with his new power trio, Beck, Bogert & Appice.
“Superstition,” Beck, Bogert & Appice, from “Beck, Bogert & Appice,” 1973. It’s out of print but is available digitally. When this LP came out, the “Superstition” cover was about the only thing many critics liked about it.
Dig this, too. Now that, friends, is a ’70s power trio.
Beck has played “Superstition” at his shows for years.
Here, he accompanies Wonder. This is from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary show at Madison Square Garden in New York in October 2009.
The end of softball season signaled that summer was waning.
Fall arrived a couple of weeks ago, when I started working out to get ready for next summer. It takes that long when you’re older than dirt.
My iPod is my constant companion at the Y. I have a mild hearing loss, so I sometimes get a better understanding of songs, especially lyrics, when I hear them on the headphones.
So it is with “The Boys Of Summer,” the Don Henley song from 1984 that has long been one of my faves. The line that caught my attention was this:
“I feel it in the air. Summer’s out of reach.”
Yes, I thought, it is.
As I listened more closely to the rest of that familiar song, I realized this: “The Boys of Summer” is a nerd anthem.
Perhaps you were friends with the boys (or girls) of summer, perhaps loving them from afar, but never hooked up with them as you’d hoped. Still, you never will forget those nights.
There’s hope.
Maybe, someday, they’ll see that you, too, have something cool and beautiful going on, something that still goes strong after the boys (or girls) of summer have gone.
Then you won’t have to show them what you’re made of.
The folks at the fine Star Maker Machine blog shared this laid-back cover a couple of years ago. It’s from the second solo release by Sharp, a Philadelphia-born singer, songwriter and actress. She now performs as part of Beautiful Small Machines, a duo with her longtime writing partner Don DiLego.
A couple other covers worth seeking out: The punk-pop version by the Ataris, which had a Black Flag sticker on that Cadillac and came out nine years ago this month, and the dance version by the UK’s DJ Sammy, which came out 10 years ago this November.
Please visit our other blog, The Midnight Tracker, for vintage vinyl, one side at a time.
My dad and I hit the road on Labor Day, a trip that yielded some nice surprises. Not long after we arrived at my aunt’s house for a visit, she handed me a small album full of old family pictures.
Janet and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, and our wedding was in those pictures. This picture, our first dance, was among them.
The only pictures we have from that Labor Day weekend bash in 1987 were taken by family and friends. The photographer we hired was mortified to find, after the fact, that there were no pictures from our wedding. Technical difficulties.
We showed this picture to Evan, our 17-year-old son. He looked at it and said: “Nice amp.”
And now, the rest of that story.
Janet has long had a wonderful gift for handling my many quirks with patience and grace. She needed it as we planned the wedding. Then as now, we had a big record collection. I thought it would be fun to have the music at the reception come from our albums. So we did that.
If I could do it over, we would hire a band instead of renting a sound system with that “nice amp” and tell that clueless music nerd where to stick his mix tapes. They were dreadful.
After hearing what likely was one too many Dave Edmunds song, quite possibly “I Knew The Bride,” Janet’s aunt asked whether we had anything besides “that cowboy music.” Aunt June was right. How bad was it? The Georgia Satellites’ “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” was on one of those mix tapes. Gahhhhh.
By the end of the evening, one of our guests had become so weary of our mix tapes that he went out to his car, grabbed a Springsteen tape and demanded we play it instead. At that point, we turned off the sound system and adjourned to a bar for the rest of the night.
If I could do it over, our first dance would be to something more sophisticated than Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” At the time, I was really into Elvis. Again, gahhhhh.
It would have been more fun for everyone — and Aunt June probably would have approved — had we danced our first dance to this.
“Just In Time,” Dean Martin, from “This Time I’m Swingin’!” 1960. He’s backed by a wonderful big band led by the incomparable Nelson Riddle. Its big horns evoke the nightclub era at its peak. (This rip is from “The Best Of Dean Martin,” a 1966 compilation on Capitol Records.)
Just in time, I found you just in time
Janet has long loved old musicals, and this tune comes from “Bells Are Ringing,” the 1956 Broadway musical. Few songs have a pedigree better than this one. Jule Styne wrote the music. Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the lyrics.
You found me just in time And changed my lonely life that lucky day
This was cut at the Capitol Recording Studio in Hollywood on May 17, 1960, the last day of a nine-day session during which Dino was really in a groove.
The LP is out of print but the song is available on “Dino: The Essential Dean Martin,” a Capitol CD that lives up to its billing. It was re-released last year with six tracks added to the original 2004 release.
Please visit our other blog, The Midnight Tracker, for more vintage vinyl, one side at a time.
My dad, who is 87, dropped his TV remote. It shattered. Without it, he can’t watch TV. Watching TV has been my dad’s main source of entertainment for as long as I can remember. You can see where this might be a problem. So we got him a new remote and managed to fix the old one.
However, there still are no variety shows for him to watch.
In the ’60s and ’70s, we frequently heard the sophisticated pop songs of Hal David and Burt Bacharach on those shows. At the time, they worked most often with singer Dionne Warwick, of whom David once said: “She always interprets my lyrics in a way that sounds as though she had written them herself.”
Four years ago, I took Dad to see Dionne Warwick. I was certain Dad would remember her from those long-ago variety shows. He didn’t. But once his hearing aid was adjusted, and he heard the songs, he recognized them. That night, Warwick performed two Bacharach-David tunes — “I Say A Little Prayer” and “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” — with new, Latin-flavored arrangements and new phrasing. They sounded just fine.
That’s what makes them classics, and why the songs of Hal David — who died earlier today at 91 — are timeless. No matter who interprets them, they usually sound just fine. (Well, those Isaac Hayes covers might be an acquired taste.)
David and Bacharach worked together from 1957 to 1973, an arc that matches the first 16 years of my life, a time often spent watching TV with my dad. Enjoy, as we did, a little variety, some of the most familiar versions of Hal David’s songs, and some covers.
“What The World Needs Now Is Love,” Jackie DeShannon, 1965, from “The Very Best Of Jackie DeShannon,” 1975. The original version. David and Bacharach didn’t think this was such a good song after they wrote it. “We put it away in our desk drawer and kept it hidden there for 10 months,” David once said. “A flop, we thought.”
“This Guy’s In Love With You,” Al Wilson, from “Searching For The Dolphins,” 1968. Herb Alpert did the original version earlier that year.
“(There’s) Always Something There To Remind Me,” R.B. Greaves, from “R.B. Greaves,” 1969. Warwick did the original version as a demo in 1963. Lou Johnson had the first hit with it in 1964. It’s such a great song that it became a hit all over again in 1983 for the British synth-pop duo Naked Eyes.
“One Less Bell to Answer,” the 5th Dimension, from “Portrait,” 1970. Out of print, but available digitally. The original version, with Marilyn McCoo’s tremendous vocals.
Finally, a little glimpse of one of those old variety shows.
That’s Tom Jones, of course, doing “What’s New Pussycat.” In 1965, he did the original, for which David and Bacharach were nominated for an Oscar for best original song.
Please visit our other blog, The Midnight Tracker, for more vintage vinyl, one side at a time.
New Midnight Tracker blog post: A soundtrack for the political intrigue of the moment. I approved this message. wp.me/p8BMs-dG1 day ago
Kinda bummed, but not surprised, to see Christmas candy at the store today and to know that Christmas radio has started. 3 days ago
Grace Slick is 73 today. That hardly seems possible, but I guess so. 5 days ago
Home from Wausau, where we saw @BlindBoys of Alabama w/ @akadrjohn Wonderful show. Highlight: "Amazing Grace" set to "House of Rising Sun." 1 week ago
Late to the party
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About the music
These are mp3s from my collection, taken from vinyl whenever possible. Enjoy. They are intended to encourage you to get out to the music stores, real or virtual, or out to support live music.
If you hold the copyright to something posted here, and you don't want it posted, please e-mail me at jeffash at new dot rr dot com and I'll remove it. Then again, who else is exposing your music to a new audience today?
About the words
The text is copyright 2007-2012, Jeff Ash. Text from other sources, when excerpted, is credited.
