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.
Actually recorded this a week and a half ago, but haven't got around to putting it up. Booze Party was a song I first heard through my friend and obsessive music and film collector Gary Field. It was on a compilation of obscure rockabilly and rhythm'n'blues called Sin Alley and was performed by a combo called Three Jokers and An Ace. I vowed to learn the song and learn it I did, performing a trashy take on it for a couple of years during my solo accordion period, before recording a pretty fucked up version of it with Mansmell for the album Hurtin' Dance Party. It was a staple of our live set for many years, half the fun being the chaotic and discordant free noise and screaming at the end of the song. I don't have a link to it at the moment, but I'll see what I can do....in the meantime, how about a little listen to Three Jokers and An Ace?
So after doing a crazed, balls-out version of Booze Party for years, I started to have this hankering to do what in my mind I started to call "The Legion Mix"....you know, a take on this psycho-billy song that you could slip into the middle of your cover band's set when you're playing at the church fundraiser or whatever. So here's me with Booze Party 2012, The Legion Mix. There's some wicked mic distortion in the middle of the song, but this was the best take.
When I was in my period of heavy C&W music acquisition, there was one low budget cassette compilation I bought that ended up leaving a lasting impression on me. It is deeply buried in a box somewhere so I can't show it to you, but it had utilitarian packaging - green type on a white background, no pics - and an odd mix of songs of uneven quality and relevance. A few of those songs turned out to be pretty important to me. I was familiar with the song Sittin' And Thinkin' from the Elvis Costello album Almost Blue, but here I was introduced to the sublime original version by Charlie Rich, there was Jerry Lee Lewis' What Made Milwaukee Famous (Made A Loser Out Of Me),and the subject of this blog, Willie Nelson performing his song Night Life. Beyond that, everything else must have been pretty forgettable because...well....I don`t remember it. Man, I loved Night Life, and a few years later when I heard Ray Price`s version I was blown away by it too.
Always wanted to learn it, but being a Willie Nelson composition, this isn`t a straight ahead 3 chord country song. It`s packed with coloured chords and interesting modulations. That means if you try and find it on the internet there's a lot of versions, some of them sounding righter than others. Found a version I liked, worked on it for a while, didn't seem to sit quite right, so I turned to accordion / guitar / musical saw hero Aaron Watson for guidance. We watched a version of Willie performing it (see below) smunched that together with what I was already doing, shook it, gave it a twist, and well.....here's my interpretation of the classic Night Life. Thanks Willie, Ray, and Aaron.
Night Life - Willie Nelson
When the evening sun goes down
you will find me out hanging 'round
The night life
ain't no good life
But it's my life
Many people just like me
dreaming of old used-to-be
The night life
ain't no good life
But it's my life
Listen to the blues they're playin'
Listen what the blues are sayin'
Mine is just another scene
from the world of broken dreams
The night life
ain't no good life
But it's my life
Here is a really stellar version of a young Willie Nelson perfoming Night Life at The Opry
And here's Ray Price doing the version most people are familiar with. This video includes the spoken intro from the original album the song came out on.
If you're like me, the On Top Of Old Smokey you grew up with was a goofy bastardized campfire song. Maybe in the back of my mind I knew there was a real song, maybe saw it in the track listing on a Burl Ives album or something, maybe the plaintive folk melody was lodged in my consciousness like a fish hook....but what I knew was this:
On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese
I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed
It rolled off the table and onto the floor
then my poor meatball rolled out of the door
It rolled through the garden and under a bush
then my poor meatball was covered with mush
Early next summer that very same bush
was covered in meatballs, meatballs and mush
Yah I know.....pretty profound shit. Hilarious. A real side-splitter. A few years ago I received as a gift from my wife and daughter some previously unreleased Hank Williams radio recordings - The Mother`s Best Sessions. More about the Mother`s Best story later. There is a complete 15 CD box set of this material, while the release I have is 3 CD`s that distills the seventy-two 15 minute shows into an excellent overview. There are the hits, sometimes just written or recently recorded, unexpected covers like Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain and Cherokee Boogie, a whole load of gospel with lots of harmonies from The Drifting Cowboys, and a version of On Top of Old Smokey that was a revelation to me. I never knew what a heartbreaking lament it was - but I guess Hank did. Check it out
In the intro, Hank refers to a it being one of the "top pop tunes in the nation." This is likely a reference to the version by The Weavers, an abysmal piece of shit I couldn't bring myself to post here even in the interests of history.
A couple of weeks ago I stayed up too late drinking beer, playing piano and singing with Jeanne Tolmie, and On Top Of Old Smokey was one of the songs we played. It got me all fired up about the song (again) andSaturday afternoon, Rachelle Reath and Jeanne came over and we worked out a version of it....here it is.
The lyrics we sang are Hank's version (which differs to many versions in the second verse) with a few of our own extras and twists.
On Top Of Old Smokey - Traditional
On top of Old Smokey
all covered with snow
I lost my true lover
from courtin' too slow
On top of Old Smokey
I went there to weep
for a false-hearted lover
is worse than a thief
A thief he will rob you
and take what you've saved
But a false-hearted lover
will lay you in the grave
The grave will decay you
and turn you to dust
The price you will always pay
when you misplace your trust
They'll hug you and kiss you
and tell you more lies
than crossties on a railroad
or stars in the sky
On top of Old Smokey
Old Smokey so high
where the birds up in heaven
can hear my sad cries
On top of Old Smokey
all covered with snow
I lost my true lover
from courtin' too slow
Mothers Best Sessions
The Mother's Best shows were broadcast live between 7:15 and 7:30 a.m. on WSM out of Nashville, Tennessee and Hank was paid $100 a week for recording the shows that usually consisted of one country song, one instrumental and a gospel song to close the show. During the 15 minute show Hank and the announcer Louie Buck would pitch the flour in between Hank's songs and Hank even wrote a theme song for the show.
"I love to have that gal around Her biscuits are so nice and brown Her pies and cakes beat all the rest Cause she makes them all with Mother's Best"
Back in those days if a radio show wasn't actually live, it was recorded live onto a 16 inch acetate and that's what the Mother's Best sessions are. Hank and the Drifting Cowboys had a grueling touring schedule. All the travel was by car and adding to the grind was the obligation of Opry regulars to return to Nashville most weekends, no matter where they were, to perform. The transcriptions gave WSM and its listeners a daily dose of the Lovesick Blues Boy, just as though he was there right in studio. These recordings have a compelling immediacy and show off the relaxed musicianship and professionalism of a seasoned touring band and their dynamic leader.
At some point in history, WSM was purging its vaults and the Mother's Best acetates were destined to be dumped. WSM employee and huge Hank fan Les Leverett recognized their value and saved them from oblivion. What followed was years of legal battles between the estate of Hank Williams in the persons of Jett Williams and Hank Jr and "other parties"...yeah, I can't seem to find out on the internet exactly who. While Leverett had given the acetates to Jett Williams (who had gone through a long legal battle to prove she was Hank's daughter) a copy had also gone to someone else, possibly Drifting Cowboys bass player Hilious Butrum.
Whatever the murky details are, the end result is an amazing musical document. A relaxed Hank, joking and talking, a band on top of its game, a group of musicians delving into their extensive catalogue. A real piece of country music history. After researching this blog, I'm feeling like I'm going to have to get the 15 CD set, if only to hear Hank's venereal disease PSA. "Stars In Her Eyes" is a 14 minute soap opera than Hank sings and recites, interspersed with running remarks from woman who portrays an unfaithful wife who contracts syphilis.
A Song A Week is a song a week in name only. I had been feeling bad/guilty about my lack of activity on the blog, but I have got over it. I started the blog to give myself a kick in the pants, to ensure that I was engaged and active with music. What it boils down to is I have been busy playing and practicing music - The Golden Country Band, old folks shows, working on my original material - along with getting through the busiest period of the painting season with my company, Kingfisher Painting Services. I've had ample opportunity to record a song for the blog, but it just has seemed less pressing and important.
What has instigated this blog post is a new song I've been working on. It started to come together Friday night after Golden Country rehearsal and I pounded it out on the piano over the next couple of days and came up with this.....that was last weekend. I did numerous takes of the song for the blog but I wasn't happy with the melody and dramatic and narrative arc of the song, so I kept working on it over the last week. Here's me performing the song in its current form
******Stardate January 13, 2016: this song has gone through numerous melody, time signature, feel, and key changes.....and it still ain't quite there.
New July
I laid my arms by the side of the road
they were tired said they needed a rest
I laid down my heart and laid down my head
after listening to them confess
My torso, my legs and me
drinklessly persevered
weaving, weaving
no matter which way we steered
I've decided I'm gonna start smoking
please, light me on fire
I'll burn hot and bright through the soft dark night
a funeral pyre of human desire
At dusk, bats' acrobatics
the geometry of geese in flight
these are the charms I use
to defend against the night
Summer rain inert upon abstract blocks of hospital
where three thousand lie damaged and decaying
A crouching woman howls, a man snarls and lick his balls
What!?! Another blogpost!?! COMEBACK TRAIL, YO. Here's a song I recorded on my cd Hurtin' Dance Party (2002). After the fractious demise of The Dogbreath Brothers, I played solo for a couple of years and the initial concept was that this would be a solo album. However I excitedly invited all kinds of people to play on it, the result being some very fresh live off the floor recordings as we learned and recorded the songs on the fly. The sessions also acted as the genesis of two distinct combos: the heavy-hitting and unpredictable Mansmell and the dreamy and atmoshperic Whelps.
But I digress here...Bus Depot Blue is a simple narrative C&W song that would have been part of the Mansmell repertoire, but we never performed it live too much because it's kind of quiet and sensitive and Mansmell was anything but. People wanted the rock, they wanted to see Calvin Dick lose his shit on a set of drums. The studio version features the Wurlitzer Sideman, a mechanical drum machine circa 1950's. Playing lapsteel is Tolan McNeil. Pretty sure we did 3 takes, not sure which one we used. I remember Tolan not being totally stoked about his part, but I think his snakey intuitive playing makes the song. Not only did we rarely play the song back when it was current, I never play it now. Ever. So it was kind of strange I sat down to play and it popped out. Here's the version I just recorded and below it is a link to the album version.
Bus Depot Blue - David P. Smith
Snot-nosed kids with Grandma, knapsacks and sweethearts
seats adjoined row on row all vinyl and chrome
Ghostly figures on the screens of coin-operated TV's
like flickering memories of a time we used to know
This big and modern bus depot is the end of the road
You're riding Greyhound to Saskatoon
you might as well be flying to the moon
And I'm sick with hurt and I'm confused
I'm sick of arguing till dawn
I'm sick with booze and missing you
and you've barely been gone
My heart is in my mouth it might fall out on the floor
and I can still see you walking out that automatic door
Yodel
A hundred mile high prairie sky towers sullen and grey
The night glides in on silent wings sucks the light out of the day
Clouds fall to the ground, rain is all around
you're headed east, I'm headed west, I guess that you know best
Travelling down this highway, my heart filled with regret
a note to myself - remember to forget
Remember to forget the joy that we had
remember to remember the crap that made me sad
there's nothing on the radio 'cept preachers and white noise
but it's better than listening to the echoes of your voice
Followers of this blog, if such a thing exists, may have noted the absence of postings over the past few weeks. Been sucking wind. Blowing chunks, some might say. You'll find no litany of excuses here....you wanna know the dreary details? Drop me a line, give me a call, we'll go for a drink. I'll fill your glass - and your ear. I'm attempting a comeback. My tailor's sewing me a bejeweled lycra jumpsuit with a padded junk pouch. Keep watching the blog and you might get a peak of that.
In the meantime, here's a George Jones song. George Jones is such an emotive and absolutely unique vocalist that taking on one of his standards is somewhat foolhardy. Well call me a fool, and a hardy one at that. I love this song and have sung it for years. When I was first getting into C&W I bought this cassette at a drugstore in Three Hills, Alberta.
I had heard of George Jones but didn't know much about him. There were some Hank Williams songs on the collection I knew, I think maybe a Buck Owens cover too, some other titles I recognized - so I bought it. I was just out there making exploratory purchases to discover and learn about country. No one I knew was into the shit. I've got piles of George Jones now, but for quite a while this was the only George I had.
She Thinks I Still Care was written by songsmith Dickey Lee, who also wrote the oft recorded Patches as well as many other hit songs. It has been recorded an estimated 1,000 times by different artists including Elvis Presley. Here's my version of the song.
She Thinks I Still Care - Dickey Lee
Just because I ask a friend about her Just because I spoke her name somewhere Just because I rang her number by mistake today She thinks I still care
Just because I haunt the same old places Where the mem'ry of her lingers ev'rywhere Just because I'm not the happy guy I used to be She thinks I still care
But if she's happy thinkin' I still need her Then let that silly notion bring her cheer But how could she ever be so foolish Oh where would she get such an idea
Just because I ask a friend about her And just because I spoke her name somewhere Just because I saw her then went all to pieces She thinks I still care She thinks I still care
Here's a couple of George Jones versions, one by Elvis.....and more. Enjoy!
Young George: gotta love the guy doing harmonies popping in and out of frame to sing his lines
Actually recorded this a week and a half ago, but haven't got around to putting it up. Booze Party was a song I first heard through my friend and obsessive music and film collector Gary Field. It was on a compilation of obscure rockabilly and rhythm'n'blues called Sin Alley and was performed by a combo called Three Jokers and An Ace. I vowed to learn the song and learn it I did, performing a trashy take on it for a couple of years during my solo accordion period, before recording a pretty fucked up version of it with Mansmell for the album Hurtin' Dance Party. It was a staple of our live set for many years, half the fun being the chaotic and discordant free noise and screaming at the end of the song. I don't have a link to it at the moment, but I'll see what I can do....in the meantime, how about a little listen to Three Jokers and An Ace?
