I am a songwriter and an accordion player from Victoria, BC, Canada. I record and video a song a week. Sometimes I sing my own songs and sometimes I sing other people's songs. Sometimes I research the history of the song and sometimes I post other versions from youtube. I usually post the lyrics.
In the fall of 2014 I became obsessed with this song by the band Future Islands and in particular with this version of the song on the David Letterman show. Not only is the performance riveting, Letterman's reaction is worth the watch
Summer 2015 I just wanted to learn to play it myself. With some assistance from my musically-smarter-than-me daughter Chloe, I worked up a version on the accordion and quickly became obsessed with playing it. It is a really beautiful pop song. We're working up a version with my band The Ape Shit Army that we'll be playing at our upcoming shows in February.
Here is a version of the song I recorded on my phone one night in December.
The official video for the song is little bizarre. Cowboys, rodeos, couples on horses, pickup trucks....I almost suspect it is a deconstructive anti-video.......comments?
Seasons
Seasons change
and I tried hard just to soften you
seasons change
I grew tired of trying to change for you
And I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
When it breaks
the summer will wake
and the winter will wash away the tears
When it breaks
the summer will warm
and the winter will crave what is gone
crave what is all gone away
People change
but some people never do
and when people change
they gain a peace but they lose one too
And I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
I've been waiting on you
****Stardate Feb 1/2016: finding lyrics on the Future Islands website today I see that where I sing "...wash away the tears...." the actual lyric is ".....wash away the taste...."
And here's the gig posters for our upcoming shows in Nanaimo, Powell River, Victoria, and Vancouver.
Not so long ago after I left home, let's say circa 1980, I went through my parents' records and recorded to cassette anything that seemed remotely interesting. One song I recorded - from Reader's Digest Million Dollar Memories - was Peggy Lee's version of Why Don't You Do Right with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Loved that shit.
Fast forward about 30 years, Sarah Rhude and I were talking potential collaborations and Dan Weisenberger is spinning the vinyl at a swinging post-gig loft party. One slab of vinyl was Lil Green's dynamite original take of the song, a favourite of Sarah's. Bingo! There's our collaboration.
Well not quite Bingo yet. Fast forward another couple of years to the here and now. A great benefit of ye olde blog is it acts both as a catalyst and provides purpose to get together with friends and make music. Rhudey and I are chatting about playing some music together, my brain snaps into blog production mode; Rachelle Reath and I have been talking about playing andhave a long history of collaborating - in The Euphorians, as a duo, and numerous occasions the last time I was song-a-week-ing........OK, this time: Bingo! For real. Rhudey, Rachelle, and me. Here's our version of Why Don't You Do Right, recorded in Rachelle's living room.
Why Don't You Do Right is generally accepted as a reworking of the song Weed Smoker's Dream, recorded in 1936 by The Harlem Hamfats and credited to piano player Joe McCoy. There is some dispute over that credit as there is over the writing credit of Why Don't You Do Right. While official credit is given to McCoy for re-working the song into a classic woman's blues number, others see the song as thematically and narratively distinct and believe Lil Green penned her own version. The Lil Green recording of the song was one of Peggy Lee's favourite records. Here she is.....Lil Green!
In a 1984 interview Peggy Lee said "I was and am a fan of Lil Green, a great old blues singer, and Lil recorded it. I used to play that record over and over in my dressing room, which was next door to Benny. Finally he said, ' You obviously like that song.' I said, 'Oh, I love it.' He said 'Would you like me to have arrangement made of it?' I said 'I'd love that,' and he did." Here's Peggy Lee live with the Benny Goodman Orchestra.
And here's a hipper take of it recorded later....Peggy Lee with Dave Barbour and his Band
When I was eighteen years old my brother gave me a Muddy Waters record, Hard Again, and I was on my way to being a blues junkie. Through that decade I saw iconic figures perform - Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, Koko Taylor, Albert Collins - hung out at the King Eddy in Calgary where many great players and bands passed through, and made two pilgrimages to Chicago specifically to soak up the blues.
When I started performing and then writing music, country and hillbilly were my prime influences, blues for white people I've always thought of it. As I kept playing and writing my music became less specifically referential and began to incorporate prose writing into song form. Songs became lyrically dense and irregular in structure. Unblues-like.
I have always been in awe of the power the writing in blues and country music achieves quite economically. The ability to express deep human emotions and experiences in a few words, a simple phrase, can ultimately be the most moving and evocative. In 2011, after a period of these dense , irregular songs - like Bouncy Castles which you can find elsewhere on this blog - I became interested in re-examining blues forms.
After a bleakly alienating Halloween party I attended in Chinatown where I had sunk to new depths of drunken dysfunction and suffered the physical and psychic toll, I wrote New Blues #1 - Whiskey Blues, which I recorded with The Euphorians
There are now eight songs in this body of work, some of which will feature on the album I hope to release this spring or early summer titled New Blues.
I believe all the songs in the New Blues series homage the blues in musical form and spirit. From a lyrical standpoint, my propensity for surreal commentary re-asserts itself in some of the compositions. The song featured on this blog is a talking blues, with a nod to hip hop - but didn't hip hop nod at the blues first? The song references the traditional tale of the drifter who encounters an authority figure, as in the Jimmy Rogers' song Waitin' for the Train.
New Blues #5 - Walkin' Talkin' Blues
Well I woke up in the morning and I drank three bottles of wine
started out walking on those telephone lines
Over emerald driving ranges department stores on fire
celebrities politicians hustlers hipsters hookers liars
tracks and shacks and strip malls
baseball diamonds
smoking factories burning black trees a river running brown
just kept walking on those telephone lines right outta skeleton town
I left my head in a laundromat at the edge of town
fuckin thing was a fucking idiot always acting like a clown
left my heart in a box at the side of the road
fuckin think was disobedient wouldn't do what he was told
had to leave my liver in a jar by the river
I'd told him more than once never yell give 'er
beside the cellphone island at the shopping mall
where the queens of high school gather to make important calls
the young bucks primp and preen discuss the gravity of their balls
I had seen the field of green where broken hearts all lie
I had spent one night in the room where losers sit and cry
I'd been walkin above the road that is paved with the hair and bones
of old lovers and old friends a road I thought would never end
I walked one thousand miles decided I should stop
that's when I was accosted by a big ole cop
he said Son I'm gonna arrest you for walkin in the air
I said Officer that ain't fair I was not walkin in the air I was walkin on them telephone lines
he said boy I don't like your attitude you smell like cherry wine
I'm gonna pound your ass so fuckin hard you'll be shittin out your mouth
you're gonna wish that whore your mother never let you out
Now I was not enamoured by this turn of luck
being corn-holed by a good ole boy would suck
I was quivering in my space boots
I was leaking from my meat flute
I was spraying in my diaper
I was praying for a sniper
to make a deadly intervention
just one bullet of prevention
but there was not need to fear
there was an answer to my prayers
You see suddenly from the sky that big ole cop was hit
he exploded like a jam jar his torso totally split
he'd been struck down from the heavens by a deadly drone
launched by King Obama upon his ebony throne
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
I headed back to town I had to share the news
I got the walkin on the telephone line walkin talkin blues
________________________________________________________ New Blues #1 - Whiskey Blues
I drank so much whiskey I could not walk or speak
I drank so much whiskey I could neither walk or speak
When I woke up in the morning I said
'this is not the path I seek'
I stepped outside my door sun said 'I'm too low to shine'
Stepped outside my door sun said 'I'm too low to shine'
What's a man to do
'bout the storm clouds gathered 'round his mind
When the sun climbed up he was shining angry and bright
When the sun climbed up he was shining angry and bright
My head was on fire
and I was blinded by the light
The night fell black like a great weight from the sky
The night fell black like a great weight from the sky
I felt so all alone
but I was too empty cry
This is representative of the kind of sound when I saw Muddy.... Nineteen Years Old........take 5 minutes outta your life, put your fucking phone down, roll one up or grab your lover, and check out the slo-o-o-o-ow blues
Hang on to your lover, grab a drink.....Willie Dixon, I Can't Quit You Baby
John Lee Hooker. Live, raw, Hobo Blues.
Okay, I saw Albert King, but I'm generally not a big fan of the 10 minute guitar solo style blues. I understand Albert was a big influence on Stevie Ray Vaughan. But here's a nice little economical number with some tasty guitar work. Fact is, when they fade it out - I want more!
This song may be more associated with Etta James, but my first experience of it was with Koko Taylor. Somewhere I have an autographed pic of her I got at the King Eddy.....with the names of bars I should visit in Chicago written in black felt pen.
Albert Collins was a gifted guitar player with an absolutely unique style, attack, and sound. His nickname was The Iceman. John Zorn composed a thirteen minute piece for him called Two Lane Highway. I had the good fortune of seeing him in a great room in Chicago....with Koko Taylor opening! Sheeeee-yit. These are for all you guitar nerds out there. His signature tune...The Iceman
In 2012 I attempted to do a song a week blogpost. I didn't quite make it, weeks were missed as the year unfolded, especially towards the end. Still, it was ultimately fruitful in that the construct spurred me to play more music and create a body of work. I did a fair amount of research on the cover songs I did and found out some interesting stuff, I think some of the posts were a good read, some of the songs were good performances, and most importantly it was a catalyst for collaborating with other musicians and artists who I admire and love to play with - Rachelle Reath, Marek Tyler, Emily Goodenough, Eric Gallipo, David "The Great Giffoni" Gifford, Grayson Walker, Jeanne Tolmie, Troy "Big Bubba" Cook. It was very cool to track the hits on the blog, where they came from in the world, which posts were most popular, and I cultivated a YouTube presence which was turning out to be the legacy of the blog after it ended.
Then the weird Google shit hit the fan. My account was screwed around with and the videos, though they were still on YouTube, would not come up in a search. It was pretty much impossible to get them to come up, even with very specific searches.....and it still is. This year my wife Betty-Ann has endeavoured to re-post the blogs, an attempt to fan the dying embers, an act I am grateful for. At the same time it begs the question....why not get off your ass and do it again.
Dum-Dum. Dingaling. Ding Dong.
I'm running late! It's goddam January 12th! What the fuck. Here's the first one. When I first picked up the accordion one of my prime influences was the Holy Modal Rounders. Their irreverent, humourous, raw approach to old folk and hillbilly music gave me the license to have a go. Here's a song I've known for years but never played until a couple of weeks ago. Blues In The Bottle.
Here's the whole Holy Modal Rounders album that I was listening to at the time on a worn out cassette....first song is Blues In The Bottle
I haven't done exhaustive research, but I believe this is the original version of the song, recorded by Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers in 1928. It was also recorded, and is perhaps better known, by the great Lightnin' Hopkins. I would venture a guess that The Rounders were listening to this version.
Here's me doing the Holy Modal Rounders' Same Old Man last time I did this song a week biz.
And this is The Dogbreath Brothers channeling the Holy Modal Rounders Black-Eyed Suzy.....beer-fuelled and live to 4-track cassette yo. (Click link below the pic)
