RiffRaf

Hal Sirowitz: Being Human (Part II)

                                        

                                                             (Photograph by Kim Soles)                                                                                

                                            Pretending 

 We went to Dan Lynch's, & listened

to White musicians pretending that they

were Black. And the people next to us jumped

up & down, pretending that they were rock stars.

And I put my hand on your knee, pretending

that I was your lover. You remained aloof. Why

did you have to be the only one who insisted on being yourself?

“Pretending" is set in Dan Lynch’s, a classic NYC club. Have you ever been there? If so, did you go specifically to see a band? 

I was actually at the music bar, Dan Lynch, on a date. She was a German artist. I put my hand on her leg before the music started. She told me her female roommate was her lover. That was news to me. I took my hand off her leg. She asked me why I didn’t go for men. I told her that men never attracted me. I don’t remember the band much, except for the fact that they were all male and their loud music made it very difficult to continue our conversation, which I was grateful for.

The line “white musicians pretending that they were black” brought several musicians to mind. What white musicians do you think pretend to be black? Why do you think they behave in this manner?

Elvis Presley purposely sounded like a Black man. He sang that way to make money and meet a need. I always liked the film, “Field of Dreams.” There was a line in the movie. “If there’s a need, people will come.” There was a need for the White race to meet the Black race on different terms. Music reflects what goes on in real life.

The Black Panthers were popular while I was going to college. At Washington Square College, New York University, I was in an honors seminar with Ralph Ellison, author of The Invisible Man. He kept saying that society was going to appropriate Black culture. That’s what Elvis did until he took so many pills and got too fat – he had to wear a girdle – to shake. I don’t mean to put down Elvis. I felt sorry for his later life. He had a bad manager who exploited him – put him in too many second-rate movies. 

I was struck by the line “the people next to us jumped 
up & down, pretending that they were rock stars.” They’re the audience not performers and yet they're "pretending to be rock stars." Why do you think some people have such a desire to be on stage? What’s the appeal of being a rock star?

The appeal of being a rock star is fame and more fame. People think it’ll be easier to meet others if you’re already famous. That may be true. But then again did anyone really know Elvis? He was surrounded by his bodyguards. He had very little privacy. When Elvis got married the first thing his wife did was to make a bonfire to burn his books. She was trying to change him. People change slowly.

I’m famous but my fame is only spread among the poetry scene. I have limited fame. That’s the best kind. When I was in Paris – I went there partly to meet a Parisian girlfriend but ended up meeting an American one – I met a young woman who told me she was going to be famous. I said in what area. She said she didn’t know yet, but whatever it was, she was going to achieve fame. I felt sorry for her. She was too driven.

It reminded me of the Phil Ochs' song, “Chords of Fame.” There’s a line that goes, “Whatever you do, don’t play the chords of fame.” This woman was strumming them a little too loud for my taste. It’s like Zen. If you strive for fame, you don’t achieve it. You can only get true fame by not seeking it.

Two of the poem’s central themes are pretense and duplicity. How do you think clubs/bars contribute to a person’s desire to be somebody else or something they’re not?

The music scene is set up for pretending you’re someone else. Look at Janis Joplin – she was a star and yet she still pretended she was popular. If the stars pretend they’re popular, so will the audience. I’ve always liked the Judy Collins’ song, “You make up your memories and think they have found you.” Or like The Kinks wrote, “It’s a mixed-up shook-up world where boys pretend to be girls and girls pretend to be boys.” Bob Dylan wasn’t his real name. Or like the Stones sang, “What can a poor boy do but join a rock & roll band.’ Mick Jagger wasn’t poor. He went to the London School of Economics. In fact, I fantasized about being a rock & roll star along with thousands of other fans.

One of my most memorable moments was when I was told by the owner of an East Side book store that Bruce Springsteen walked in, took my first book from a display, started reading it, then began laughing. Then he bought two copies of my book by check. The owner promised to give me the cancelled check, but he never did. Now the store is closed.

What has been your most memorable live music experience?

When I went to hear Barry Harris play piano at the Jazz Cultural theatre. Harris used to live in the same house in New Jersey with Theolonius Monk and the Countess who took care of them. Monk was a genius pianist and composer who had severe mental problems. Some days he would wake up and not recognize his wife and kids. He acted like they were strangers. Barry would play Monk compositions, like “Around Midnight.”

I empathized with the jazz world, because they were at the lowest end of the music world, like poets being at the lowest end of the writing world. Barry would play Monk’s songs and it felt like they were touching my soul. I felt close to Monk, even though we were entirely different personalities that came from totally different backgrounds.

What are your favorite spots for live music/performance? 

I’ve been to Webster Hall with a date to hear The Smithereens. They didn’t impress me. They sounded like a modern day louder version of The Monkees – canned music.

I went to Madison Square Garden with a friend to hear Ike and Tina Turner open for the Rolling Stones. I fell in love with Tina. One of the first questions I asked a woman who I was interested in dating was who did she like better – the Stones or Beatles. If she said the Stones, then she passed the test. If she said the Beatles, I’d ask her who was her favorite one. If she said John Lennon, I’d still ask her out. If she said Ringo Starr, I wouldn’t even bother getting her phone number.

I went to hear Chubby Checker perform at the Fillmore East. I was impressed by his piano playing.

My biggest regret was not going to Woodstock. The friends I was planning to go with chickened out, because they thought they would be busted for drug use. They got paranoid.

I heard Holly Neat and Sweet Honey and the Rock at Carnegie Hall. I remember Holly liberating the men’s bathrooms, telling the women in the audience that they shouldn’t be afraid to use the male facilities. I agreed with her until I had to use the bathroom and had to wait while liberated women cut ahead of me in line.

On Writer’s Almanac, you mentioned your book Stray Cat Blues. Can you talk a little about the title and why you appropriated The Rolling Stones’ song?

Titles cannot be copyrighted. Therefore, anyone can use them. I have another poem, which I use a poplar song title as my title - "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do."

“We don’t have anything in common,”/ I said. “We’re two completely different people./ It doesn’t make sense to stay together.”/ But then she started to rub my penis/ through my pants, & I suddenly remembered / that we both did like Indian food.

"Stray Cat Blues" is the title of a poem in my new collection. I like stray cats, though I’m allergic to them, which is one of the themes in my work – the mind is sometimes a step ahead of the body. 

                  

Me and Merle

                                                     

In our Writers and Music series, authors either discuss the music that has been included in their most recent novel or the influence music has had on their work overall.

(Joshua Malbin is the author of Soap and Water, a novel about civil war in a near-future American West, echoing our decade-long occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He can ride a horse and wrestle a steer to the ground for branding, but he can’t throw a rope so he could never make it as a cowboy.)

I lived out West for two years in the mid-1990s, on a ranch in a corner of California nestled up by Nevada, an hour from the nearest town.

For the first six months I had an afternoon job as a mechanic’s assistant—but I’d been assigned to him, he didn’t especially want me or trust me to fix anything. I was allowed to perform oil changes, sweep up, and hand him tools. Otherwise I listened to the radio. The only signal we got was the AM country station, KIBS. This was the first time in my life I had ever listened to any kind of country music.

It was more or less the country equivalent of Top 40, meaning that most of what it played was terrible. But every now and then they played something I liked. I bought the cassingle of Sammy Kershaw’s “Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer” and continue to think it’s catchy. I also bought the Reba McEntire album with her cover of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia." Even better was when they played real country classics, which they’d do maybe once an afternoon.

Growing up I had assumed that all pop music was for kids, by kids, but this was music made for grownups, by people grown up enough to have left behind their resistance to looking weak or foolish in public. I loved rock and I loved hip-hop, but vulnerability wasn’t a big part of either one. Even in blues and R&B the strain of self-abasement that you can hear in, for example, Bill Withers’ “Use Me” or Etta James’ “Fool That I Am,” that was fading too, if it wasn’t gone already. But country music was still full of dirtbags and losers, drunks, cuckolds, dumpees, and piners, all laying their weaknesses bare. It’s a genre that has no use for nonchalance.

I don’t think I ever listened to country radio again after I came back East, but I still listen to and love the saddest of the oldies: Patsy, Hank, Willie, Dolly. I listened to them all again—and many more—when I was trying to find songs to insert in certain places in my novel Soap and Water, a story about the West. I wanted something that embodied the West’s feelings of resentment, failure, and nostalgia all at once. But for a long time I couldn’t find anything that really fit, until at last I stumbled across Merle Haggard and knew he was perfect.

Merle Haggard is a giant asshole. He’s a reactionary and a chauvinist and proud of it. He’s also broken, mourning, and defiantly proud of that too. It was exactly what I’d been looking for, all that loathsome, heartbroken, defiant meanness delivered in a laid-back, honeyed vocal style.

The first of his songs I used was “Carolyn,” in which he coos a verse about visiting a brothel in the big city, and then in a rollicking, angry chorus informs Carolyn that “a man will do that always/when he’s treated bad at home.” 

This brand of "it’s-your-fault-I-cheated" bravado probably explains why so many of Merle’s songs are about having just been dumped. Take, for example, “I Don’t Want to Sober Up Tonight,” which I use much later in the book:

I don’t want to sober up tonight / I don’t want to act like things are alright / And I don’t want to change just to make you think I’m happy / That’s my right, I don’t want to sober up tonight

He’s a drunk, he knows everyone thinks he’s crazy, and he doesn’t care: “I don’t want to change just to make you think I’m happy."

The same attitude shines in “It’s Not Love,” which I have playing on the radio during a sex scene. It’s a little on the nose, but I couldn’t resist it.

She was always there each time I needed you / Holding on to me like I held on to you / We still don't have what you and I once had / No, it's not love, but it's not bad.

This is a man who knows he’s supposed to be better and refuses to care. He’s sad about how things are going, no doubt about it, but he’s still not willing to change his nature one iota. He’d rather beat you up than concede anything about his terrible self-destructiveness, and that’s exactly the American stance I wanted to convey.

And of course I had to use his reactionary anthem “Okie from Muskogee.”

Today the asshole reactionary torch is carried by Toby Keith, but Toby Keith just doesn’t have anything like Merle’s poetry, and he certainly doesn’t have his charm. The really alluring thing to me about Merle’s songs is that buried in all that attitude are these perfect little observations that remind you that assholes are human, too. Attitude or no, “It’s not love, but it’s not bad” is a fucking great lyric, and he sings it with all the heartbreak of classic country.

I’ll beat you up if you try to tell me different.

             

Spring Reading

Whether you’re crammed into a subway car, stuck in traffic on the BQE or just lounging around in your underwear on your couch, nothing beats a good read. With that in mind, here are four rockin' books Riffraf thinks you should check out this spring:

The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young

Acclaimed poet Kevin Young’s new book takes its title from the DJ Danger Mouse album, itself a smash-up of The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. It’s a rambling, fascinating, and at times frustrating look at African-American culture and its place in America. With extensive passages and quotes from musical masters ranging from Duke Ellington to Lauryn Hill, and large sections about hip-hop and its evolution, Young argues that African-American culture and American culture aren’t two different worlds, but one in the same. 

Jimi Hendrix: A Brother’s Story by Leon Hendrix and Adam Smith

After years of accusing his family of mismanaging his brother’s legacy, Leon Hendrix is airing grievances and offering a glimpse into his relationship with his older brother, the late Jimi Hendrix. While the passages chronicling his litigious relationship with the rest of his family may not be page turning, Hendrix offers untold anecdotes and stories about the childhood and rise to fame of one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived.

Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone

Written during his bout with cancer and published eight years after his death, Commando is John William Cummings' (aka Johnny Ramone) life story and a first person chronicle of The Ramones storied career. Clocking in at 176 pages and filled with rare photos hand-picked by his wife Linda, the book is slim, with no frills, and no apologies, much like the music he left behind.

When I Left Home: My Story by Buddy Guy and David Ritz

To say Buddy Guy is a legend is an understatement. A mainstay of the blues scene since the fifties, Guy got his start playing with Muddy Waters. A veteran of Chess Records, he pioneered the use of distortion, feedback, and brutal, no-holds barred guitar solos. Without him there would be no Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, or Stevie Ray Vaughan. As much as anyone, he’s responsible for the sounds we find in modern blues and rock, and with the help of David Ritz, he’s releasing his autobiography in May.

What rockin' book do you recommend?

(Elford Alley has written plays, sketch comedy, and short stories. He currently lives in Dallas with his wife and daughter. Follow Elford on Twitter.) 

Rick James, Neil Young & the Mynah Birds

                           
Can you imagine Bob Dylan and Prince in the same band, writing songs together and harmonizing? Bizarre, right? Such megalomaniacs could never co-exist.

Well, there's an equally bizarre duo with titanic egos not unlike Dylan and Prince who actually made music together in the 60's. "Superfreak" Rick James and Mr. Shakey himself, Neil Young, both played in the rhythm and blues group, the Mynah Birds.

In 1964, Rick James dodged the draft and fled to Toronto. While James was there, he adopted the moniker "Big Jimmy" and formed his first band with Nick St. Nicholas who would later go on to join Steppenwolf.

The following year, bassist Bruce Palmer (who would later go on to form Buffalo Springfield with Neil Young and Stephen Stills) replaced St. Nicholas, and the band changed its name to the Mynah Birds.

In 1966, with guitarists Tom Morgan and Xavier Taylor and drummer Rick Mason, the Mynah Birds auditioned for Motown. Morgan was unhappy with Motown's handling of musicians, so he quit the band. That's when Neil Young joined the Mynah Birds.

The Mynah Birds eventually recorded an album for Motown, but their manager stole the band's advance money. The Mynah Birds fired their manager, so he squealed on James, informing Motown that he had gone AWOL. Motown advised James to turn himself into the FBI, and the Mynah Birds' album was cancelled.

While Rick James was imprisoned, the Mynah Birds disbanded, and Neil Young and Bruce Palmer relocated to Los Angeles to meet up with Stephen Stills with whom Young had briefly played with two years earlier.

When James was released a year later in the summer of 1967, he formed a new version of the Mynah Birds and re-recorded the Rick James and Neil Young composition "It's My Time." Ironically, the Mynah Birds' reformation was actually the beginning of their demise. The band would break-up shortly after the recording.

In Jimmy McDonough's biography of Neil Young - Shakey - Young described his experience working with Rick James:

"Ricky was great. He was a little bit touchy, dominating — but a good guy. Had a lot of talent. Really wanted to make it bad. Runnin' from the draft. I wasn't a driving force behind the Mynah Birds - I was the lead guitar player; Ricky was the front man. He's out there doin' all that shit and I was back there playin' a little rhythm, a little lead, groovin' along with my bro Bruce. We were havin' a good time."

            

Songwriting 101: Thomas Hutchings

  
 

Here at Riffraf our recurring column Songwriting 101 focuses on the craft itself. Ray LaMontagne, Leonard Cohen, Julian Casablancas and New York indie songwriter Martin Rivas have all discussed their influences and the manner in which they "make music."

Recently, we caught up with saxophonist/producer Thomas Hutchings whose horn section The CNP Horns, has appeared on Linda Chorney's Grammy Nominated album, Emotional Jukebox. Hutchings' music has been heard on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Bad Girls Club, and Real World: Las Vegas. He has worked with Gavin Degraw, Stacie Rose, Laurance Rassin, Ron Claiborne, Don Imus, SaRon Crenshaw, The Niagaras, Shane Patrick, and Markeisha Ensley. 

When did you consider yourself a professional musician?

I considered myself a professional artist when I started getting paid for it. I was 19 and still in college, studying music when I started playing at private events with bar bands for a living in Boise, Idaho. It was easier to be a full time musician at the time because housing and utilities were very affordable, and I was playing weekly gigs in a popular local band called the Rhythm Mob, making enough money to get by. It didn't take any dedication whatsoever. Playing music full time was a very organic process because people called me for recording sessions and gigs that actually paid enough to survive. 

 

Describe your writing process.

I typically start with a beat that I like and add bass lines and chord elements like keys and guitar until I feel I have some inspiration. Then I grab my sax or Akai EWI wind synth, and play some melodies until something works that I like. 

Do you ever work with another songwriter? 

I mostly write music on my own with very little collaboration. I do like to have my friends over to lay down ideas once in a while to see if they can create instrumental parts that are interesting or better than what I could sample or come up with on my own. 

I also work with a great songwriter named Stacie Rose regularly on a production and remix level, and we've had some success with our collaborations being placed on television, so I'm not opposed to collaborating, it just doesn't come up very often. I also collaborate with some artists that just need some saxophone solos or lines or some horn parts, so I started a horn section called The CNP Horns (CNP=CutNPaste) for that purpose.  

Can you describe that collaborative process?

For remix production, I typically get the bare bones elements of a song - just vocals or vocals with guitar or piano - and have to create a new version of the entire song. I do this by adding and editing in loops and beats that might or might not be replaced by live instruments toward the end of production. 

For horn arranging, I typically sit in the studio with the track rolling and record different horn part ideas until everything feels right. The CNP Horns, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Americana Album on Linda Chorney's Emotional Jukebox album, will either play parts that are already written or actually sit on sessions, trying to come up with some fun horn parts.     

 
Do you have a motto or creed that as a songwriter you live by? 

Save every idea! I say that because I find that sometimes something that doesn't work in one song might actually work well in another song, and if you're like me you have a lot of unfinished songs. So sometimes I go back and take parts of songs and mash them together to see if they'll fit and most of the time they do. I save everything.  

What is the first song that had an impact on your songwriting?

I think the Sonny Rollins' tune "Doxy" on the Branford Marsalis album Trio Jeepy was what really made me think about writing music and recording it; before that, all I was thinking about was having fun playing some cool sax solos over nice grooves. I started thinking in terms of creative arrangements and melodies and started checking out more recordings of tenor saxophonists, their original songs and arrangements of standards.

How do you think Branford Marsalis' album, Trio Jeepy, influenced your writing?

The first music I listened to seriously as a teenager were saxophonists. The first young saxophonist that caught my ear was Branford Marsalis and his album Trio Jeepy. I heard it in a record store when I was in high school and was just blown away by the intensity of the music of the entire album. I bought a cassette and listened to it over and over. CASSETTES! HA HA HA!

What advice would you give a young songwriter?

Always write what you know from your heart and life experience. Also, I'd say you probably have an idea of what your music should sound like in your head and it's good to be true to that, but be flexible if you want to be in the music business because if you really want success, you can't always be in the driver's seat on all creative choices. People that are successful are that way because they know what works and what doesn't and are good at measuring risk. It's just the way it is and it's nothing personal. If you want to break the industry mold, don't expect immediate recognition.   

Top Five Elvis Costello Albums

  
Declan Patrick MacManus, otherwise known as Elvis Costello, has been making records since 1977 when he recorded his first, My Aim is True. Since then, the singer/songwriter has recorded 30 studio albums. That's quite an output!

Here is my list of top five Elvis Costello albums. Why five? It's an arbitrary number, really, but it's also a very clean digit. Five. Wouldn't you say? Five.

I'm curious to know what albums are in your top five, so leave me a comment in the box below.

 

Album: Blood and Chocolate

Year: 1986

Highlights: Tokyo Storm Warning, I Want You & Blue Chair

Elvis Costello broke-up The Attractions (1986) to record King of America, but he reunited with them later that year along with his good friend, producer Nick Lowe. On Blood & Chocolate, Costello returns to old form and delivers a straight ahead, ferocious rock and roll album.

 

Album: King of America

Year: 1986

Highlights: Brilliant Mistake, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood & American Without Tears

On this particular record, Little Hands of Concrete (as he is affectionately known) appeared to be looking for something different: he replaced The Attractions with L.A. session musicians, recorded an album of rootsy, folk-rock tunes about loss and heartbreak and billed himself by his given name, Declan Patrick MacManus.

 

Album: Get Happy

Year: 1980

Highlights: Love For Tender, High Fidelity, I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down & Riot Act

Twenty songs of impeccable blue-eyed soul, brimming with vigor and diversity. According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine at Allmusic.com, The Pop Encyclopedia "reinvents the past in his own image."

 

Album: This Year's Model

Year: 1978

Highlights: No Action, Pump it Up, (I Don't Want to go to) Chelsea & Lip Service

Elvis' first record with The Attractions as his backing group. The Attractions were a raucous rock and roll band, and because they blaze through the entire record at break-neck speed Costello delivers perhaps his punkiest record. 

Album: Imperial Bedroom

Year: 1982

Highlights: Beyond Belief, Man Out of Time, Almost Blue & Little Savage

Elvis hired Beatles' engineer Geoff Emerick to produce this intricate, ornate and detailed pop record. According to Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine "Imperial Bedroom remains one of Costello's essential records because it is the culmination of his ambitions and desires -- it's where he proves that he can play with the big boys, both as a songwriter and a record-maker." 

Thinking About Tammi Terrell

After writing yesterday's post, 5 Love Songs, I put Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell on the turntable. I was reminded of their brilliance and how young Tammi was when she passed away. When Tammi Terrell was paired with Marvin Gaye, her career skyrocketed, but she had been a seasoned professional before signing to Motown.

Tammi Terrell's career began when she was just thirteen years old. She signed with Scepter Records, recorded the single "If You See Bill" and went on tour with Chubby Checker and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. While on tour, she was noticed by the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Brown signed her to his label, Try Me Records, and then got personally involved with her. After an abusive two years, Terrell fled to her mother's house. In 1964, she met Sam Cooke, but before a relationship could emerge Cooke was tragically murdered.

Terrell went into semi-retirement and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in pre-med. However, in 1965, Jerry "The Ice Man" Butler invited her to sing back-up for him. Terrell accepted the gig, but remained enrolled in college. One night Berry Gordy spotted her and signed her to Motown. Terrell dropped out of college.

In 1967, Mary Wells, Kim Weston and Oma Page departed from Motown, leaving Marvin Gaye without a partner, so Gordy paired him with Terrell. The duo recorded several hit songs for their first duet album, United: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Your Precious Love," "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You," and "If This World Were Mine."

Around this time, the migraines that Terrell suffered as a child had returned. On October 14, 1967, while performing with Gaye, Terrell collapsed onstage. She spent nearly two months in the hospital. After her release, she recorded two number one songs with Marvin, "You're All I Need to Get By" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing." 

The following year, Motown released Terrell's only solo album, Irresistible. Terrell was so ill, she was unable to promote the album.

On January 25, 1970, Terrell had her eighth operation on her tumor. Shortly after, she lapsed into a coma. Terrell died of complications from brain cancer on March 16, 1970 just shy of her 25th birthday. The world lost a wonderful talent, and Marvin Gaye lost his beloved partner, thrusting him into a deep depression that culminated in his masterpiece, What's Going On. 

                    

5 Love Songs

It's Valentine's Day and love is in the air. Is that too corny? How about this? Tonight, millions of couples will breakup over an over-priced meal at some shabby restaurant. How's that for cynicism?

Despite my dislike for Hallmark holidays, I've been thinking about love songs - in which there are countless - but there aren't very many great ones. So many love songs are plagued with cliches, overly dramatic lyrics and histrionic vocal performances.

Nevertheless, I've come up with quite a few good ones. Here are five of my favorites:

 

"Your Song" by Elton John

"Your Song" is one of Elton John's favorite songs: "I don't think I have written a love song as good since." Even Elton's good buddy, John Lennon, was a fan of the song. In a 1975 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon stated, "I remember hearing Elton John's 'Your Song,' heard it in America—it was one of Elton's first big hits—and remember thinking, 'Great, that's the first new thing that's happened since we (The Beatles) happened.' It was a step forward. There was something about his vocal that was an improvement on all of the English vocals until then. I was pleased with it." 

 

"Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

I could have chosen "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You" or "You're All I Need to Get By." Both are extraordinary songs. Marvin and Tammi were the real thing. When they sang together, it was as if they were making love for the rest of the world to relish.

 

"Let's Stay Together" by Al Green

When Al Green wants to stay together, you have to stick around. Who can turn smooth Reverend Al down? 

 

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Johnny Cash

Ewan MacColl's 1957 folk song has been covered by numerous artists - Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Elvis Presley, George Michael, The Temptations, Marianne Faithfull and Gordon Lightfoot, just to name a few. Roberta Flack's 1972 version is perhaps the most popular, but Johnny Cash's rendering is nothing short of gut wrenching. Cash's pointed delivery makes his interpretation even more poignant.

 

"Days" by The Kinks

Ray Davies thanks his former lover for the days they had together and has forgiven her for leaving: "Thank you for the days, those endless days, those sacred days you gave me." 

Davies claimed the song was a goodbye to The Kinks' original lineup (founding member, bassist Pete Quaife, left the band soon afterwards).

"Though you're gone, you're with me every single day, believe me."

Amy Winehouse's Lioness: Hidden Treasures

   

Lioness: Hidden Treasures is a posthumous compilation album by Amy Winehouse. It was released on December 2, 2011.

You can read my review of the record at the Daily Vault.

Check it out www.dailyvault.com.

Great Band in the Sky (2011) Pt. I

It's not a year end list that I look forward to compiling, but I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge some notable musicians who have passed away this year. Riffraf has blogged about a few throughout the year - Amy Winehouse, Jerry Leiber, Don Kirshner, Hubert Sumlin, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Nick Ashford, and Clarence Clemons - so in this post we'll take a look at four we overlooked. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at a few more.

Gil Scott Heron (4/1/49 - 5/27/11)

Heron will be remembered for "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," but perhaps his greatest contribution is the cumulation of spoken-word poems that helped pioneer hip-hop.

Gary Moore (4/4/52 - 2/6/11)

Moore played with Thin Lizzy, but the guitar virtuoso never really found the spotlight on his own. His solo records, however, have influenced generations of guitarists, including Kirk Hammett of Metallica. 

 

Mike Starr (4/4/66 - 3/8/11)

Starr was the original bassist in Alice in Chains whose battle with drug addiction eventually led to his departure from the band in 1993. Later, he appeared on Celebrity Rehab, but ultimately was unable to conquer his demons. 

Dobie Gray (6/26/40 - 12/6/11)

Dobie Gray's "Drift Away" was a huge hit in 1973. He had a handful of minor hits throughout his forty year career, but the singer claimed that he could have been more "popular had the music industry known how to market a black man performing country music."