At this Season wisdom is found not in speech but in silence.
Stand in Awe.
Commune with your own heart.
Be Still.
Hope and wait.
In Silence.
Not in the mountain rending wind.
Not in the earthquake.
Not in the fire.
A still small voice.
To listen you must be silent.
Attend to the great blue bell of silence.
Conversation flourishes when surrounded by silence.
Hidden treasures in silence sealed.
In silence sealed.
Silence of the stars and of the sea.
For the depths of what use is language?
The music is in the silence.
The silence between the notes.
Can you feel the silence?
Don and Phil Everly with The Boys Town Choir of Nebraska.
There is inestimable mystery and depth in the sound of harmonising human voices and few can have sounded those depths as heart wrenchingly as The Everly Brothers.
Can you feel the silence?
Sinead O’Connor.
A singer who takes tender care of silence.
A singer who can, shockingly for us and for herself, cut to the very quick of life.
Can you feel the silence?
From Duluth in the far North, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker – Low.
In stillness a perfect marriage of sound and silence.
Can you feel the silence?
Notes :
Thanks to – The King James Bible, Plutarch, Charlotte Bronte, Claude Debussy, Cicero, Edgar Lee Masters and Delmore Schwartz for the inspirations.
Christmas is a time when memories cascade – especially for those of us steeped in age.
Christmas, if we surrender to its spell, opens the door for the Child within to breathe again.
Music, in the form of songs we learned in our youth, when we had no sense we were learning them, invites us to be once more, once more, the wide eyed Child of days long past as counted by the turning of the Calendar’s pages.
So, let’s call upon a Jukebox favourite, Emmylou Harris, to stir that Sense of Wonder once again.
Come they told me Pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring Pa rum pum pum pum
Shall I play for you Pa rum pum pum pum On my drum
Oh, play it please.
Play it please, Emmylou.
Now, when I was a teenager, I became, in the way that a certain sort of teenager does, a deep dyed Francophile.
If you had asked me why I would have said, with proper teenage pomposity, it was naturellement, because of the visionary poetry of Rimbaud, the kaleidoscopic brilliance of the mind of Blaise Pascal and the mystical beauty of the films of Robert Bresson.
I would have said less about the allure of the Disque Bleu Cigarette Packet and the taste of Pastis 51.
But to tell the truth, the heart of my devotion to French Culture was to be found in my prized collection of records by the Yé-yé girls of the 1960s – France Gall, Sylvie Vartan and above all, far above all, the divine Francoise Hardy!
I could definitely hear her calling me across La Manche.
And, when she sang, in her uniquely seductive plangent tones, about the falling snow and the north wind blowing, the cool of the evening sky and the falling star, I had my own Christmas Anthem, whether anyone else recognised it as a Christmas Song or not!
It may be, after the two selections above, that some Jukebox Readers, will think the criteria for an appearance on The Alphabet Series is having a melancholy voice combined with being extremely photogenic.
Long time Readers will know that my taste is somewhat broader than that!
And, to prove it, here’s the wonderful Stanley Holloway, with one of his inimitably great recitations – masterpieces of comic character and timing.
At the same time as I was assiduously practicing the Yé-Yé Twist I was learning by heart party pieces like, ‘The Lion and Albert’, ‘Sam, Sam, Pick oop thy Musket’, ‘One Each Apiece All Round’ and ‘It’ll All be the Same (A Hundred Years from Now).
Of course, when Christmas rolled around, with a hat cocked on the side of my head and fortified by some fine fortified wine, I would launch, unstoppably into, ‘Sam’s Christmas Pudding’ in homage to the great Stanley.
I might well do it again this year!
Come on! Join In!
It was Christmas Day in the trenches In Spain in Penninsular War, And Sam Small were cleaning his musket A thing as he’d ne’re done before …
Now, weren’t that reet grand, Reet Grand.
The Alphabet Series will continue on 9/11/13/15/17/19 and 21 December.
That lucky old Sun, He got nothing to do but roll around Heaven all day.
All Day.
Now, you have lots to do.
You have goals and tasks and targets.
You have reflections and reviews to consider.
You have outcomes and KPIs to attain.
You have stratagems.
Things to do. Places to be.
Youre on the case. You’re in charge.
All day. Every Day.
Until, eventually, that lucky old Sun has rolled all around Heaven to set in The West.
Now, The Moon has dominion.
Now, you need your sleep before you can face another busy, busy Day.
And, with Sleep, unbidden, unstoppable, come The Dreams.
Everybody has them Dreams.
Dreamers find their way by Moonlight.
The Captain of the Watch and his Guards are no longer at attention – in fact they are carousing in the Town – AWOL.
And, if they should glance up from their cups all they will say is:
He is a dreamer; let us leave him : Pass.
Unfettered you slip the bonds of time and are free to wander the echoing halls of memory.
Free to peer into the open doors and to ascend/descend the Escher stairs to secret rooms.
Who knows who you will meet?
Perchance all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Perchance dreams are all you will truly ever own.
Poor as you are you have your dreams.
You have your dreams.
And, you have to dream if you are to live.
Though you are nothing you have in you all the dreams of the world.
Life without dreams is a broken winged bird.
Some dreams will not survive the fluttering of your opening eyelids.
Some dreams will stay with you for ever after and permanently alter the colour of your mind.
Some dreams, though you are yet to know it, will be the last, the very last, dream of your soul.
Some dreams are nought but the gleanings of an empty heart.
An empty heart.
Why can’t I forget my past and live my life anew …
Instead, instead, instead.
Instead I’m having Sweet Dreams about you.
Sweet Dreams about you.
Don Gibson, the Nashville Laureate of Heartbreak, wrote, ‘Sweet Dreams’ in 1955 and singers have been launching it into the ether ever since.
Don put it out first but it was Faron Young who had the first Hit.
Don had another go in 1960 and emerged with a nice morose version that got even more people listening.
But, in 1963 Patsy Cline, who sang supremely in the Key of Heartbreak took the song to another dimension of feeling.
Patsy Cline had a voice that seemed to possess ancient knowing about the human heart.
Every Patsy Cline vocal is an intense drama that commands you to listen with deep attention.
Her bruised and anguished tones tell you; this is how it is and you know it too don’t you?
You might not want to admit it but Patsy makes it plain.
No good pretending.
Troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.
I should hate you the whole night through.
The whole night through.
Instead I’m having Sweet Dreams about you.
Once you’ve fallen asleep none can know what dreams may come.
Should you be grieved in the spirit visions in your head may trouble you all your live long days.
Jacob and Daniel and Joseph.
And in 1966 from Jonesville Louisiana Tommy McLain.
Tommy’s version of Sweet Dreams will play forever in your dreams from the moment you first hear it.
Surely this version was recorded direct from the soundboard of your dreaming soul.
Why cant I forget my past and live my life anew?
Why, Why, Why!
Tommy’s time banishing, heart stopping, ethereal vocal seems to surround your senses with the vibraphone adding further levels of sensual derangement.
Floyd Soileau recorded Tommy in his Ville Platte Studio but was not convinced this version would sell.
He changed his mind when it was reported to him by the owner of a local bordello that the song was No 1 on their Jukebox – a favourite of the working women and customers alike!
Later on as the song got picked up by national distributors and major radio stations three Million record buyers came to agree with the folks back in Ville Platte.
Emmylou Harris (a firm Jukebox favourite) has always found the sweet heart of any song she chooses to sing.
There’s an ache in her voice that it is even more emotionally affecting now that her hair has turned to silver and her knowledge of the trials of the world has deepened.
Here, live with The Nash Ramblers she sings like the angel always out of sight in your dreams.
The one you hope will return to those dreams again.
The one you could listen to the whole night through.
The whole night through.
Some dreams don’t need words.
Some yearnings cry out beyond syllables.
Roy Buchanan made his Guitar sound your deepest dreams.
Now some will tell you this is because he played a 53 Fender Telecaster and some will wax lyrical about overtones and pinched harmonics.
Maybe. Maybe.
Yet, there is something in Roy’s playing that’s undreamt of in philosophy or guitar manuals.
When he plays like this the valleys are exalted and the hills and mountains made low.
When he plays like this the hills and mountains are made low.
When he plays like this the rough places are made plain.
When he plays like this the crooked places are made straight.
Wherever they go, for whatever reason, no one ever forgets the Home they left.
Even, especially, if they can never go back there again.
Except in dreams.
Everyone has those dreams.
Jimmy :
When Daddy got home from the War he was sporting a chest full of medals.
Trouble was now he had only one arm and poison headaches near enough every day.
Makes running a small farm damn near impossible.
Some people say that’s what turned him mean.
Those folks mustn’t have known him before the War.
He’d always been mean as a mean rattlesnake on his meanest day.
Don’t know how Momma put up with him.
Except she’s one of them people who when she makes a promise she means to keep it.
For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.
Drunk or sober.
Arms around or fists Flying.
Me, I had to take mean when I was a Kid and I put up with it, for Momma’s sake, when I could have fought back.
Then, one blue hour of the morning I decided it was time to take a freight train north.
Leave them fields of Cotton far, far, behind.
It’s a long way from Lubbock to Detroit.
Cotton field to Car Factory.
Ford or Packard or Chrysler.
Momma never would leave Daddy or Texas for that matter.
Detroit’s got jobs.
Jobs that pay.
A man can make his way.
Another thing Detriot’s got – Baseball.
The Tigers.
See if Al Kaline is as good as they say.
Don’t doubt they got Jukeboxes I can pump some quarters into.
Surely they got some Hank Williams and some Buddy Holly.
I wrote a letter to Mary Margaret saying I’d send for her when I’d made my fortune.
Shouldn’t be more than a couple of years.
A couple of years.
We will still be young.
Left a note promising Momma I’d write home every week.
That’s a promise I mean to keep.
Henry :
They say working a shift at Ford is hard work.
Well, not if you spent years picking Cotton.
That is work.
Back breaking work in the Sun.
Cotton Fields at dawn and dusk can seem beautiful.
But, when you’re working in them until you drop it’s a cruel beauty.
Oh, sure, we ain’t slaves no more.
Might as well be.
Might as well be.
Stay in line.
Stay in step.
Lower your eyes.
Move aside Boy!
Mississippi Goddam.
Strange fruit hanging from Southern trees.
School children sitting in Jail.
Some say a change is bound to come.
But when?
How many people got to die first?
Not sure if I even hear the murmur of a prayer.
Gonna ride that freight train North.
To Detroit City.
Where a man can get a Man’s job.
Now, I know Detroit ain’t no paradise.
Still have to have be alert, wary.
But, plenty of us up there now.
They call it the great migration.
Add me to the number.
They got Baseball there.
The Tigers.
One of our own Jake Wood on the team.
Like to sit in the bleachers and cheer him Home.
Maybe after the game find a bar with a good Jukebox.
Hit the buttons for Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker.
One scotch, One bourbon, One beer.
Got to leave a lot of family behind.
Promised Momma I’d write and that’s a promise I’ll keep.
Soon as I can I’ll send for Wilma.
If I make enough money and things change down here maybe I’ll come back one day.
Everybody dreams of Home even if living there was a nightmare.
Gareth :
Mining villages are very close knit communities.
Everyone knows you.
And your Mam and your Da and all your brothers and Sisters.
At least they think they know you.
My Granda was a miner.
My Da is a miner.
My Brothers went down the pit too.
But not me.
Passed the scholarship exam to go to Grammar School.
Some people are just naturally good at Sport.
I’m just naturally good at writing essays and passing exams.
i was never going down the pit.
College.
Cardiff.
A new world.
Finding out who you really are.
Getting to know yourself.
Or, admitting something you always knew about who you were – what you were.
He was a sailor from Detroit.
Couldn’t help myself.
Love is Love is Love.
So, I moved to Detroit.
I write Home to Mam and Da and tell them how well I’m doing.
Let slip that I’ve met a very nice girl and maybe …
I can trust them not to read between the lines.
I go to Tiger Stadium to see Baseball.
It’s not the Arms Park but you do get that sense of a crowd becoming a community.
There’s a bar nearby with a good Jukebox.
Don’t think anyone back Home will have heard of Smokey Robinson – but I bet one day they will.
Amazing how often I dream of Home.
Maybe I’ll go back for a visit.
Next year.
Or the year after.
Linda :
When I was 16 I was just filled to bursting with dreams.
And, none of those dreams were about living a quiet life at Home.
No dreams about Cotton fields and calling on kinfolks to see how they’re doing.
No dreams about settling down with the quiet boy who lit up every time he saw me.
No dreams about catching the train South with my heart pounding louder and louder and louder with every turn of the wheels.
No, No, when I was 16 my dreams were about a life filled with colour and fanfares in far away Detroit City.
Detroit, where I would make my own money, in my own way.
Detroit, where people would see me as my own person, not – oh that’s the third Henderson Sister.
Detroit, where I would find a man who would make every day feel like a holiday.
Nearest I get to a holiday now is when I put Patsy Cline on The Jukebox.
I write home every week.
In my letters life must seem glamorous up here.
I don’t talk about the man, the men, anymore.
I wonder if they can read between the lines?
I want to go home
I want to go home
Oh, how I want to go home
I want to go home
I want to go home
Oh, how I want to go home
I want to go home
I want to go home
Oh, how I want to go home
I want to go home
I want to go home
Oh, how I want to go home.
Notes :
Danny Dill and Mel Tillis wrote the Song.
Bobby Bare’s typically laconic Version from 1963 gave him his first top 10 Country Hit launching a career filled with expertly chosen songs examining the joys and pains of living an everyday life.
Detroit City was Arthur Alexander’s last recording for the Dot Label In 1965.
No one has ever sung with such quiet, affecting passion.
Tom Jones has always had the capacity to give dramatic burnish to a Song and it is cheering that in his autumnal years he is turning more and more to songs that allow him to express that side of his talents.
Pam Tillis has carved out an impressive career of her own. Her reading of her Father’s Song honours them both.
By happenstance I see I have published this post on Pam’s Birthday.
You learn that as you fall in and out love and form friendships that flare bright before they fade away.
So, you’re left all alone with The Blues.
And, you can hug those blues close to get you through.
The Blues becomes your old and trusted friend.
But, remember, remember, sometimes you are the lover who walks away.
Remember, remember, sometimes you are the friend who’s doing the letting down.
So, don’t make The Blues your best and only friend.
We all get The Blues.
We all need The Blues to get through the lost loves and the failed friendships.
Loss and failure hurt.
But, they go with the territory.
Love and Friendship will be the treasures of your Life.
The Blues will see you through until you’re ready to face the joys and pains of Love and Friendship again.
Dont lean too long on your old friend The Blues.
Love again. Be a Friend again.
Meantime let’s have a hugely enjoyable wallow with our old friend The Blues courtesy of the young Steve Earle (this is a quintessential young man’s song).
Paradoxically it’s young hearts that feel the weariest.
Ah … a shiver of recognition and illicit pleasure in pain for all of us there!
Steve Earle, a natural songwriter, came out of San Antonio Texas fit to burst with energy and a desire to tell stories about the way the world was and the way it damn well should be.
‘Guitar Town’ from 1986 was his breakthrough record announcing him as a literate, rocking, rough, rowdy, romantic and righteous artist who was here to stay.
You could hear the influences of Folk Icon Woody Guthrie and Texas troubadours Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt
Add in a dash of on’ry ol Waylon Jennings and workshirt era Bob Dylan and you’ve got a very potent and occasionaly explosive mixture which near guaranteed a vesuvial flow of songs.
Steve Earle’s best songs have drama and impact and emotional reach.
Across the Atlantic in Scotland, ‘My Old Friend The Blues’ reached the tender heart of Eddi Reader who was surely born to sing room stilling ballads.
Listen to her here bring the same focus and sensitivity she gives to the songs of Robert Burns to Steve Earl’s cancion Triste.
Eddi has a voice that can croon or keen.
A voice laden with ancient knowing.
A quiet voice that sounds loud in your heart.
A voice of balm for weary hearts wherever they may beat.
Staying in Scotland we now turn to twins Charlie and Craig Reid, The Proclaimers.
Their Records are distinguished by the fierce commitment they bring to every song they sing.
Which, of course, brings even more allure to their tender moments.
The Proclaimers bring a stark echoing intensity to My Old Friend The Blues.
Patty Loveless is a blue Kentucky Girl – a State where lovelorn ballads are not exactly in short supply!
Patty made her mark at the same time as Steve Earle and like him she had done her fair share of hard traveling before she had the spotlight directed at her centre stage.
Playing small bars and clubs in nameless towns she learned a lot about lonely nights and weary hearts.
She also learned that if you have a voice shot through with plaintive grace you could offer a ray of hope to those battered hearts all around – including her own.
I’m showcasing a live version suffused with bluegrass duende.
Speaking of Duende, as we collect the glasses and turn out the lights let’s have one more take from Steve himself before we shut the doors.
Just when every ray of hope was gone ….
On those nights when sleep seems loath to appear and knot up ravelled care you can always turn to an old friend – The Blues.
Then, when dawn breaks, as it always miraculously does, take that weary heart of yours and go in search of love and friendship once again.
Some will tell you that you’re opening the door to a whole world of trouble.
Oh, oh, you are wrapping chains that will bind you tight until you just can’t breathe anymore.
Look out! Danger ahead!
Pain and sorrow goes with the territory.
No doubt about it the hurting will be certain.
But, but, but … take a tip.
Take a tip.
Whatever you think and feel about it ; no matter how many times Love has let you down, you just won’t be able to live without it.
Won’t be able to live without it.
Oh, oh, and when Love is in bloom and your heart is singing aria after aria of Joy you’ll cradle mountains in the palm of your hand.
Rivers running slow and lazy.
Crickets talking back and forth in rhyme.
You won’t wonder why the world spins around.
You’ll know.
You’ll believe in magic.
You’ll know that no matter how deep the ocean is it’s not as deep as this feeling.
Love makes the world go around.
It always has.
It always will.
And, if you lose that love you’ll ache for it to return.
Ache for the heat of that touch.
The healing power of that touch.
And, in the midnight watches when the Moon looms in the dark sky you’ll hope and pray that somehow, somehow, that lost Love will be found again.
Found again.
Turning the late night radio dial you’ll search for a song you used to sing in whispers to each other and maybe, just maybe, far, far away, the lost one is listening too.
And, that song will be your midnight prayer.
Your midnight prayer.
Who knows what the power of prayer is?
Except those who really pray.
Pray with all their heart.
And, as the lost one, far, far away, sings to themselves maybe, just maybe, they’ll remember who they used to sing it with and realise how much they miss that singing, the heat of that touch.
And, maybe, just maybe, they’ll drive all the way home – tuned in again, listening to the border radio.
Maybe, just maybe, the boy asleep in the next room, who looks just like his Dad, will wake up and hear his voice – not metallically on the phone but in his very room.
Call up to hear that song one more time again.
One more time.
Border Radio
One more midnight, her man is still gone The nights move too slow She tries to remember the heat of his touch While listening to the Border Radio
She calls toll-free and requests an old song Something they used to know She prays to herself that wherever he is He’s listening to the Border Radio
This song comes from nineteen sixty-two Dedicated to a man who’s gone Fifty thousand watts out of Mexico This is the Border Radio This is the Border Radio
She thinks of her son, asleep in his room And how her man won’t see him grow She thinks of her life and she hopes for a change While listening to the Border Radio
This song comes from nineteen sixty-two Dedicated to a man who’s gone Fifty thousand watts out of Mexico This is the Border Radio This is the Border Radio
They play her tune but she can’t concentrate She wonders why he had to go One more midnight and her man is still gone She’s listening to the Border Radio
This song comes from nineteen sixty-two Dedicated to a man who’s gone Fifty thousand watts out of Mexico This is the Border Radio This is the Border Radio
Border Radio first appeared on a 1982 CD from The Blasters which included Dave and brother Phil among its members.
That version is modern day Rockabilly and has the punch of the old Sun studio sound. I think Dave knew that the emotional core of the song – it’s sense of longing and loss and desperate hope had got somewhat lost in that production.
By the time of his solo record from 1987, ‘Romeo’s Escape’ he had figured out that the song needed to be performed slower and with more emotional intensity for it to fully bloom in the listeners imagination.
So, this version drips with emotional humidity.
There’s a palatable ache in Dave’s vocal and a tender tremor to Greg Leisz’s guitar and Katy Moffatt’s backup singing.
The song is now a country ballad – but a country ballad infused with southern soul stylings.
Like that song from 1962 Border Radio lingers in the mind echoing on and on as it encounters and colours the particular incidents and memories it evokes in each listeners own life.
Which is to say that Border Radio is a Keeper!
Dave Alvin is well aware of its merits and that its one of those songs whose power only grows over the years.
That’s why you can’t imagine a Dave Alvin concert without Border Radio.
And, it’s one of those songs that other songwriters, hard schooled in the craft, instantly recognise as a classic.
Here’s a live take on the song featuring David Hidalgo from Los Lobos and accordion maestro Flaco Jimenez that crosses back and forth across that borderline and rocks out too!
Why do we let time stand still and live in memory of the lonesome times?
Why not, by an act of will, stop this troublesome loving?
Useless to say.
Because, while you’re alive you’re in search of love.
Might as well ask the waves to cease surging to the shore.
Such folly!
Yes, but divine folly.
If you won’t risk being a Fool you’ll never find Love.
Oh, you’re crazy for crying and crazy for trying but it’s all worth it for Love, Love, Love, Crazy Love.
It often doesn’t travel on the broad highway.
No, true love often travels on a gravel road.
You can’t start it like a car – you can’t stop it with a gun.
And, in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.
One more midnight, one more prayer, one more turn around the floor with the Border Radio playing that song from 1962.
One step for aching and two steps for breaking.
I can’t stop loving you.
Those happy hours that we once knew.
Those happy hours.
She calls toll free and requests an old song.
She prays to herself that wherever he is he’s listening to the Border Radio.
It’s nothing to do with how loud you shout or how sharp you dress.
No. If present it surrounds the possessor like a solar corona that exerts invisible influence on distant objects.
Madeleine Peyroux has a charisma that is insistently present in her recordings and in performance.
When Madeleine sings she doesn’t come at you like a full force gale. Rather, standing still and singing softly she invites you to still yourself, lean in and listen closely.
She selects songs that have emotional depth; songs that resonate with our lived experience and our dreamscapes, songs that never let us go, songs that no matter how many times heard always retain a core of unfathomable mystery.
Songs a true singer can sing over and over again because they continue to engage the person and the performer.
Madeleine had a peripatetic bohemian childhood and adolescence taking in Canada, France, England and the USA.
Her parents were radical academics who had a record collection which exposed her to Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
As she was beginningto play guitar she was struck by the self possessed quiet authority of Tracy Chapman.
While living and busking in Paris as a teenager she encountered the Chanson tradition through the works of Josephine Baker and Edith Piaf.
All very good preparation for taking on songs by the greatest songwriters of the 20th century!
Let’s start with her languorously hypnotic take on Leonard Cohen’s, ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’.
Now, it’s immediately obvious that Madeleine swings.
She feels where the beat is and chooses when and how to engage with it.
She’s both above and within the song slyly pausing and eliding notes to emphasise the ritual cadences of Leonard’s lyric.
She’s barefoot dancing through the song, her voice burning incandescently as like the homeward dove she leads us safely through the suppressed panic till we’re safely gathered in.
Safely gathered in.
In a sense every song Madeleine sings becomes a tent of shelter against the cruelties of the world both for herself and through her singing for her audience.
For the duration of the spell cast no matter how threadbare our spiritual and emotional raiment we are given glimpses of wholeness and redemptive hope.
You can bet that Leonard laboured long and hard to write, ‘Dance Me To The End of Love’ juts as you can safely assume that Bob Dylan received, ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ as a more or less direct transmission from his extravagant Muses.
The miraculous flow of the song is Bob at his Olympian best entrancing us with his sensuous mastery of language.
The song is a tapestry of images strartling in their freshness, beauty and tenderness.
It would be idle to pick out individual lines in a song which has such imaginative, lyrical and musical unity.
Madeleine gives the song a highly attentive reading so that time seems to meander and eddy as we listen.
Perhaps the gretest Songwriting Forefather for both Bob and Leonard was the one and only Hank WIlliams.
Hank is dead for 60 years now.
But, of course though Hank is dead he will never be gone.
For Hank wrote songs that speak with shocking intimacy to the bare forked animal inside every one of us.
The snow falls round the window and dream worlds fall apart.
Fall apart.
Oh God forgive us if we cry.
Forgive us if we cry.
Madeleine knows that with a Hank Williams song only minimal ornamentation is required. Hank has put so much feeling in the song that to sing it truly is to become a Medium channeling his spirit.
I’m going to leave you with a grand cadeu for the New Year.
Madeleine paying homage to Josephine Baker and the Chanson tradition with a song from 1930 written by Vincent Scotto, Henri Varna and Geo Koger.
Now wasn’t that pure pleasure!
Madeleine has had an erratic recording career. It’s clear from my choices above that I have a particular fondness for her, ‘Careless Love’ album.
Yet, every record she has made will surely repay your interest as she illuminates a treasury of great songs within Jazz, Blues, Country, Folk and Chanson.
Out on the perilous deep
Where dangers silently creep
I’m gonna die today.
29 last month.
And, I’m gonna die today.
Consider this my last letter.
About 12 hours from now I’m gonna take that slow walk.
To The Chair.
To The Chair.
I been drifting too far from the shore for a long time now.
Drifting too far.
Counting down the hours sets your mind thinking all right.
Mine goes back to the beginning.
A cabin in the Piney Woods.
Listening to the radio at night with the moon and stars shining through the windows and ol’ Bill Monroe (with Mama’s harmony) singing me to sleep.
Ain’t no one sing like Bill.
Today, the Tempest rose high,
And clouds o’ershadow the sky
There’s many a guy in here who’ll look you straight in the eye and tell you they is innocent.
Not one of them telling the truth.
Well, not me.
Not me.
I’m here because I killed a man.
Shot him twice through the heart.
Caught him carrying on with my wife.
Glad I done it.
Ain’t no reprieve from The Governor coming.
Just counting down the hours.
Counting down the hours.
Eight hours now.
Eight hours.
Drifting too far from the shore.
Drifting too far.
Can’t get that song out of my head.
Come to Jesus today,
Let Him show you the way
Padre came.
Told me all about repentance and forgiveness.
Told me all about tender mercies waiting for me.
Mama would have said the same.
Jesus name was never very far from her lips.
Just tidying up she would be singing, ‘Kneel At The Cross’ or, ‘Just A Closer Walk’.
She was a true believer.
True believer.
Never did take with me.
No, when you go.
You go.
No Sun. No Moon.
No Heaven. No Hell.
Black earth and the worms.
Four hours now.
Four hours.
Still, I sure would like to hear Mama sing Drifting Too Far one more time.
No one forgets their Mama’s voice.
No One.
One more time Mama – as I drift further and further away.
Further and further away.
Sure death is hovering nigh,
You’re drifting too far from shore
Well, I had my steak and eggs.
Everybody’s lined up.
Lined up to take me away.
Minutes not hours now.
Minutes not hours.
Drifting too far from the shore.
Drifting too far.
I’m gonna stand up straight and walk with my head up.
Ain’t gonna cry or scream.
Keep my eyes open wide when they shave my legs and head.
Can’t get that song out of my head.
This time.
This last time it’s Hank Williams I hear.
He never made it to thirty too.
If there’s one man who looked over the River of Death then it has to be Hank.
He walked with Death all his life.
Walk with me now Hank.
Walk with me.
Hold my hand Hank.
Hold my hand.
Hold …
Notes:
If you want to assess the influence and reach of Drifting Too Far From The Shore consider this statement from Bob Dylan The Keeper of American Song:
Maybe when I was about ten, I started playing the guitar. I found a guitar… in the house that my father bought, actually.
I found something else in there, it was kind of mystical overtones. There was a great big mahogany radio, that had a 78 turntable–when you opened up the top.
And I opened it up one day and there was a record on there–country record–a song called “Drifting Too Far From The Shore.”
The sound of the record made me feel like I was somebody else …
that I was maybe not even born to the right parents or something.”
Bill Monroe – the Father of Bluegrass and one of the greatest figures in 20th Century music first recorded Drifting Too Far with his brother Charlie in the 1930s.
I like to think this was the mystical version that opened up Bob’s head!
The RCA/Bluebird recordings of The Monroe Brothers are eternal treasures.
Boone Creek – featured the wonderful high tenor voice of Ricky Scaggs and the Dobro King, Jerry Douglas.
Their late 70s recordings, ‘Boone Creek’ on Rounder and, ‘One Way Track’ on Sugarhill glow with passion.
Emmylou Harris – Her luminous version of Drifting Too Far is from her, ‘Angel Band’ collection of Country Gospel songs.
Hank Williams – His version was unreleased during his lifetime. One thing I can say – you can never have too many Hank Williams records.
Sometimes you just need that Bim, Bam, Boom – or think you do.
You like to be in a place where everyone knows your name but nothing really important about you.
You like a place where the Jukebox is stuffed with drinking, fighting and cry, cry, crying songs.
The ones you sing along to under your breath without even realising that’s what you’re doing.
The ones that bring those stinging tears to your eyes.
The ones that remind you of all the things you had.
The ones that remind you of all the things you lost.
No, the things you threw away.
Threw away.
Threw away in a joint just like this.
Threw away because you thought you needed a head full of Red, a bellyful of Beer or the wild song of Whiskey in your blood before you could face another Night or find the courage to face another Day.
In the end the nights and the days bled into each other and love and happiness drifted away with the alcoholic tide.
Too late you finally see.
Too late.
Time now to call on The Killer.
He knows a thing or two about throwing things away.
Hey Hank – right now I cant read too good – what number is, ‘What Made Milwaukee Famous’?
‘A1’ ‘A1’
Aint that just right.
Funny, every time this song comes on the place goes quiet and the murmur of the Loser Choir drowns out the Air Con.
Take it away Jerry Lee.
Sing this one for me.
Jerry Lee Lewis! Jerry Lee Lewis!
Now, it would take the combined genius of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews to invent a character half as extraordinary as Jerry Lee.
For my part let’s just say that with Ray Charles I consider him the greatest song stylist of the modern era.
I’m not one for joining Fan Clubs.
But, at 17, I did join the Jerry Lee Lewis Fan Club and much as I looked forward to my subscription copies of The New Yorker, Southern Review and The London Review of Books coming through the letter box none of them quickened my pulse like seeing the bulky envelope with, ‘Fireball Mail’ stamped brightly in red hitting my mat!
What Made Milwaukee is from 1968 when Jerry Lee was rebranding himself as a Country Singer( having had more than a few run ins with the press, the radio, local sheriffs and the whole damn, petty, you can’t do that here!, official world which just couldn’t cope with a bona fide Wild man).
A Wild Man who also happened to be by an act of will and character a conduit for the great streams of American Music.
Jerry Lee, is of course, a Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll as well as a Country Singer to top all except George Jones.
Goodness gracious Jerry Lee can sing the Hell out of any song that’s ever been written and make it 100% Jerry Lee.
100% Jerry Lee.
And, Glen Sutton, when he wrote, ‘What Made Milwaukee Famous’ sure gifted Jerry Lee one fireball of a song.
Now, as is so often the way, the song was not the product of careful deliberation and prolonged polishing.
No.
Glen was reminded by a music publisher that he was supposed to have songs for The Killer who was due to be in town tomorrow.
What had he got?
With a professional’s presence of mind (Glen also wrote ‘Almost Persuaded’ and, ‘Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad’ among many other classics) he looked down at the beer mat next to the phone and said, ‘Its a drinking song – should be perfect for The Killer!’
Nw, it was simply a matter of working through the night to turn the slogan on that Schlitz beer mat, ‘The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous’ into a song that would appeal to Jerry Lee and the record buying public.
I think we can agree he succeeded!
Jerry Lee recorded the song the next day and gave it a regretful stately majesty powered by his rolling piano, glistening fiddle, and a vocal that proceeds with the awesome certainty of a Paddle Steamer navigating The Mississippi.
Follow that!
Very few could (you’ll find numerous versions of the song if you search) but there is only one other version which can stand comparison with The Killer’s.
One by another great song stylist who, when he was on his game, treated songs with a profound respect and care.
A singer who had an instantly recognisable voice – a voice which could express deep emotions with elegance and elan.
Let’s call Rod Stewart to the microphone!
On the evidence of this magnificent performance it seems to me that Rod missed a trick in his career by not recording an album of Country Songs.
Had he teamed up with a producer like Cowboy Jack Clement and launched into, ‘There Stands The Glass’, ‘Cold, Cold, Heart’ and, ‘Heartaches By The Number’ I think we would have had a record for the ages.
Still, lets look at the glass as half full given his bravura take on ‘Milwaukee’.
Of course, Rod, knew a fair bit about drinking as a member of The Faces who were Olympic Champions of partying.
At his best Rod’s let’s live it large! relish for life combined with an acute emotional intelligence when reading a lyric made him a truly great singer.
One entirely ready to share a microphone with The Killer.
I’ll leave with Jerry Lee, live at the piano, performing with his trademark insouciant charm.
‘Well it’s late and she’s waiting
And I know I should go Home.’
The Immortal Jukebox 