Keith Richards is 64 today. That's like 128 for you and me. Let's celebrate with a few collaborations he's done over the years outside of his main gig.
I walked out of Southpaw here in Brooklyn last week after the dB's show and snapped this photograph. Immediately I said to my friend Laura "Isn't there a song about trucking trees for Christmas?" She, being married to a well known authority on truck driving songs, confirmed that indeed there is. So here you have it....
Ike Turner's dead. He was a lot of things. Among them, he was a badass guitar player, piano player, producer, arranger, bandleader, songwriter, and a talent scout for Sam Phillips at Sun. He was also a bad motherfucker. Unfortunately, he'll probably be best remembered as a wife beating substance abuser. He probably wasn't a "nice guy," but his contributions to American music are vast and deep. I remember reading an interview with him in an early issue of Spin, where when asked about Tina's suicide attempt, he tried to make light of the matter by saying (and I'll paraphrase this from memory) "There's something you gotta understand about black folks, Tina tried to kill herself by jumping out of a first story window." Ike did eventually serve time in jail, get clean, and make a Grammy nominated comeback record.
Download: "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" mp3 by Ike and Tina Turner, 1960. (and as pointed out in the comments that's Mickey Baker not Ike answering Tina) available on Golden Classics
And from the Club Imperial in St.Louis hear but not see Ike Turner & The Kings of Rhythm playing for some jitterbuggers on local TV....
For the entire show, go to Bedazzled HERE It's quite amazing. In between smoking performances by the Kings of Rhythm, fans of late night St. Louis television can get a glimpse of Steve Mizerany selling Norge refrigerators before the toupee, roller skates and gorilla suits.
I'm pretty familiar with the Dave Edmunds catalog, but I had no idea of the existence of this record until I walked into House of Oldies on Carmine Street asking for an Earl King 45, and walked away with this. I had no intention of buying any Christmas records, but must have been an easy mark since I reached into my pocket and bought the record without any hesitation when the proprietor suggested it instead.
Download: GONE mp3 by Dave Edmunds, 1982. available onParty PartyOST
And finally, Keith's Christmas single from 1978. Here he is joined by Ronnie Wood and Sly and Robbie. The b-side, a Jimmy Cliff classic, is not a holiday number but is too great not to include. In it, he recreates his four note"Sympathy For The Devil" solo at about a quarter of the speed and all of the soul.
Download GONE mp3 by Keith Richards, 1978. non scratchy version available @ itunes store.
Below we have eight records that are in some way associated with my people. Bookended by a record by a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn singing about a gospel tent show, and a noted disturbed and not Jewish anti-semite backed by Yo La Tengo, who celebrate the eight nights of Hanukkah in Hoboken almost every year with a star-studded Festival of Lights. In between we get noted Yids: The Lovin' Spoonful, The Clash (singer Mick Jones); The Strangeloves, who pretended to be Australian brothers, but were in fact the songwriting team of Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer; Joey Ramone AKA Jeffrey Hyman singing a song co-written and produced by psycho-Jew Phil Spector, Leslie West (nee Weinstein) fronting Mountain in a guilty pleasure of mine as well as my second favorite cowbell song; and a semi-rare B-side by Mr. Zimmerman himself.
OST
