The Nick Lucas Connection

In 1922, Nick Lucas recorded the first solo jazz guitar record, for Pathe. Here it is re-recorded a year later for Brunswick. His guitar style transcends jazz, and probably influenced many country and blues players as well. Known as "The Crooning Troubadour," he brought guitar to the forefront of the orchestra, replacing the banjo as a rhythm instrument, as well as being the first singing guitar player. He was also the first person to have a signature Gibson guitar named after him. It was designed with a deep body for extra volume. Bob Dylan used this model in the mid 60's, and below you can hear a sample of what it sounded like. Lucas' biggest hit, "Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips" was from the 1929 musical Gold Diggers of Broadway, and was revived by Tiny Tim in the late 60's. Dylan crossed paths with Tiny Tim on more than one occasion. In Chronicles: Volume One, he writes (in reference to the scene at Cafe Wha?)

At about eight o'clock, the whole daytime menagerie would come to a halt... Everyone who had been there during the day would pack up. One of the guys who played in the afternoons was the falsetto-speaking Tiny Tim. He played ukulele and sang like a girl -- old standard songs from the '20s. I got to talking to him a few times and asked him what other kinds of places there were to work around here and he told me that sometimes he played at a place in Times Square called Hubert's Flea Circus Museum. I'd find out about that place later.

Tiny Tim stopped by Big Pink in 1967, to record four tracks with The Band, also featured below and yet another chapter of The Basement Tapes. A few of these songs were featured in the film You Are What You Eat, including a fabulous duet with his girlfriend Eleanor Baruchian on "I Got You Babe." He later married another girl, known as Miss Vicki on The Tonight Show, in what was one of the highest rated television broadcasts at the time. I used to see him walking around on the upper-west side, in the 1980's, looking like a sad, dejected clown. He apparently had an apartment at The Dakota. Tiny Tim died in 1996, while performing "Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips" in Minneapolis.













Download: "Pickin' The Guitar" mp3














Download: "Teasing The Frets" mp3














Download: "Somebody Like You" mp3














Download: "Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips" mp3

More on Nick Lucas: HERE and HERE

Nick Lucas on YouTube, 1929.




















Download: "You Don't Have To Do That" mp3























Download: Tiny Tim and The Band

"Be My Baby" mp3
"I Got You Babe" (with Eleanor Baruchian) mp3
"Sonny Boy" mp3
"Memphis, Tennesee" mp3

Tiny Tim on Laugh-In via YouTube


Buy Tiny Tim music at Amazon
Buy Nick Lucas music at Venerable Music
or at your local independently owned record store.

Memphis Flu

Well folks, I'm gonna be out of town for the next several days, in Memphis TN, the jewel of the mid-south and one of my favorite places. So, feeling a strange obligation to keep all of you readers amused, I've compiled a little playlist of songs concerning Memphis. None of these mp3's are from actual records (i.e. 78's or 45's) like in my ordinary posts, but they're all good and I'm sure some of will you prefer the less noisy recordings. Plus, it's really a bitch to find a copy of Mott The Hoople on 78. There were several ways I could have approached this, considering the plethora of great music recorded in Memphis' studios, (Stax, Hi, American, Sun, Easley, Ardent, etc.), or songs mentioning Memphis ("Honky Tonk Women"). Instead, I've opted for the easy and painless (search title) option of itunes. There are omissions and things I don't have, but I think these selections are just fine.

Please Enjoy.

"I'm Going To Memphis" by Johnny Cash
Unearthed, 2003.

"That's How I Got To Memphis" by Tom T. Hall
Ballad Of Forty Dollars, 1968.

"Raining In Memphis" by Dan Penn
Nobody's Fool, 1973.

"All The Way From Memphis" by Mott The Hoople
Mott, 1973.

"Memphis And Arkansas Bridge" by Charlie Rich
Boss Man, 1970.

"Memphis Yodel" by Jimmie Rodgers
First Sessions, 1928.

"Night Train To Memphis" by Roy Acuff
The Essential Roy Acuff: 1936-1949 1943.

"The Memphis Train" by Rufus Thomas
The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959-1968, 1968.

"Well, I've Been To Memphis" by David Johansen
David Johansen And The Harry Smiths, 2000.

"Memphis Tennessee" by Jerry Lawler
It Came From Memphis Volume 2, 1975.

"Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again" by Bob Dylan
Blonde On Blonde, 1966.

******** Additional Track at THIS POST *********

Buy these records at your local independently owned record store.

Pee Wee Crayton on Imperial

Like his pal T-Bone Walker, Pee Wee Crayton was a California bluesman by way of Texas. He cut several sides for the Bihari Brothers and Aladdin, before moving over to Imperial in 1954. These records, recorded in New Orleans at J & M Studios with the great Dave Bartholomew and their house band, are a departure from his smooth blues sound, and have a more fierce sonic guitar attack. Check out the intro to "Do Unto Others," as it foreshadows a revolutionary rock number recorded in England fourteen years later.














Download: "Do Unto Others" mp3














Download: "Every Dog Has A Day" mp3














Download: "You Know, Yeah" mp3














Download: "I Need Your Love" mp3

Special Bonus: HERE

Buy at Amazon or at your local independently owned record store.

A Walk On The Wild Side

In 1952, Hank Thompson cut this gem. It was a #1 hit on the hillbilly charts for three months. A tale about a girl shunning her would-be husband for a life as a honky tonk girl. Songwriter J.D. Miller in turn composed the answer song and shopped it around Nashville for a singer, where he was turned down by nearly everyone except Kitty Wells who came out of semi-retirement to record what would be one of the biggest selling country hits of all time. "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" shot to #1 on the charts, but was banned from the Grand Ol' Opry for it's proto-feminist viewpoint. It's hard to imagine the matronly Kitty Wells as controversial, but this was 1952 and Nashville (and the Opry) was and still is not exactly a hotbed of progressive politics. So here it is: the grandaddy (or grandma) of all answer songs.















Download: "The Wild Side Of Life" mp3














Download: "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" mp3

Buy Hank Thompson and Kitty Wells music at Amazon
or at your local independently owned record store.

This Just In...

From the New York Post:

May 3, 2007 -- KINDERGARTEN kids in ritzy L.A. suburb Calabasas have been coming home to their parents and talking about the "weird man" who keeps coming to their class to sing "scary" songs on his guitar. The "weird" one turns out to be Bob Dylan, whose grandson (Jakob Dylan's son) attends the school. He's been singing to the kindergarten class just for fun, but the kiddies have no idea they're being serenaded by a musical legend - to them, he's just Weird Guitar Guy.

Download: "This Old Man" mp3
Download: "Froggie Went A-Courtin" mp3

Buy at Amazon or at your local independently owned record store

Bo Diddley

I've been feeling a little uninspired to post in the last week or so.

So, when in doubt, you can't go wrong with Bo Diddley. This record was the follow-up to his debut single, "Bo Diddley" and it's B-side "I'm A Man", which we heard a few weeks ago in the Jerry McCain post. "Diddley Daddy" features the Moonglows on backing vocals. And as an added bonus, a clip of Bo from the Ed Sullivan Show, in November 1955. Bo pissed off the humorless and condescending Sullivan by Playing his own # 1 song, instead of Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" as Sullivan had instructed him to do.

Early guerrilla rock and roll TV.

Dig it.














Download "Diddley Daddy" mp3














Download: "She's Fine, She's Mine" mp3


Bo Diddley





Buy: Bo Diddley music at Amazon
or at your local independently owned record store

Rockin' Behind The Iron Curtain

I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist.

I wanted to post this a few days ago, but had a hard time finding a copy. Luckily for everyone, Alex from Moistworks, who was born rockin' behind the Iron Curtain, has graciously supplied this gem.

Download: "Rockin' Behind The Iron Curtain" mp3
by Bobby Marchan and the Clowns 1959

Buy at Amazon or at your local independently owned record store

Tampa Red

Tampa Red was a triple threat. He played bottleneck guitar, piano, and as heard on these recordings, the kazoo. He also wrote some great songs, many of them of the double entendre variety, including "Let Me Pet Your Poodle" and "Let's Get Drunk and Truck." Today's selection, from 1949, "When Thing's Go Wrong With You" will be familiar to you as the Elmore James number: "It Hurts Me Too," from Elmore's last session with Bobby Robinson in New York City a few months before his death in 1963. It was released posthumously and was a hit on the R&B Charts in 1965.














Download: "When Things Go Wrong With You" mp3














Download: "Come On, If You're Coming" mp3

Download: Elmore James "It Hurts Me Too" mp3

******************** Bonus **********************

Two of these three Greenwich Village folkies recorded
their own versions of "It Hurts Me Too" a few years later.

Download: Bob Dylan "It Hurts Me Too" mp3

Download: Karen Dalton: "It Hurts Me Too" mp3





















Photograph: Bob Dylan, Karen Dalton, and Fred Neil at the Cafe Wha? 1961
© Fred McDarrah

Buy at Amazon or at your local independently owned record store:
Tampa Red, Elmore James, Bob Dylan, and Karen Dalton.

Slim Gaillard

For Phil Schaap:

Once upon a time there were hipsters. I'm not talking about the people who moved to and ruined your neighborhood and are killing you softly with their ironic bad taste. Hipsters had good taste and were actually hip. They knew about and experienced things that you only read about in books. Slim Gaillard was a hipster of the highest order. Jack Kerouac (another hipster) knew this and wrote books about it. In On The Road, Sal and Dean go to see Slim play in San Francisco and have a drink with him after his set. "Bourbon-orooni...thank-you-ovauti..." Slim said. Like Lester Young (another hipster), Slim spoke his own language. He called it Vout. It was mostly gibberish be-bop jive, but there was a method to his madness. He was funny as hell and he swung. Slim claimed to be half Greek and from Cuba. In fact, he was half German and from Detroit. When I was kid, we sang a nursery-rhyme called, "Down by the Station," I found out later that Slim wrote it. It's featured below in today's selections, as are collaborations with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Cold War musings about the apocalypse, and "Yep-Roc-Heresay," where he recites the menu from an Armenian restaurant.

So have "a double order of reeti-footees with a little hot sauce on it...that'll just about fix it."














Download: GONE mp3














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Download: GONE mp3

Slim Gaillard and Van Morrison on YouTube: Here

More about Slim Gaillard: Here

Buy Slim Gaillard music at Amazon
or at your local independent record store

Porter Wagoner

Before the Nudie suits and the big hair; before Dolly and Norma Jean; before The Grand Ol' Opry and The Porter Wagoner Show; before "Rubber Room," "The Carroll County Accident," and "The Cold Hard Facts of Life," there was Porter Wagoner the hillbilly singer from the Missouri Ozarks. This record was his first number one hit in 1954.














Download: GONE mp3














Download: GONE mp3

************ Bonus ***************

The birth of cosmic country music.
GONE by The Byrds
GONE by The International Submarine Band

Buy at Amazon or at your local independent record store:
Porter Wagoner, The Byrds, The International Submarine Band.

Hank Williams B-sides + Luke The Drifter

I can clearly remember the first time I heard Hank Williams. I was probably 9 or 10 and in my father's car listening to WIL in St. Louis. Country radio was still listenable in those days. It was the mid-70's. In between Donna Fargo and Glen Campbell, they played an oldie. I think it was "Why Don't You Love Me" or maybe "Your Cheatin' Heart." Anyway, it was so real and so great, I was transfixed. I stored that information away, and five or six years later bought Hank's 40 Greatest Hits and that was what I knew of him for quite a while. Today's selections are B-Sides of some of Hank's MGM singles, none of which are on that 40 Greatest Hits record, which if that's all he did in his short life, it would have been remarkable. But as I found out later, that's just the tip of the iceberg. In addition we get a Luke The Drifter single, which was Hank's alter-ego for his spoken word recordings.














Download: GONE mp3














Download: GONE mp3














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Download: GONE mp3














Download: GONE mp3














Download: GONE mp3

Buy: Hank Williams and Luke The Drifter at Amazon
or at your local independent record store

Jerry McCain

Jerry McCain, AKA "Boogie" McCain made his first recordings on Trumpet Records before moving over to Excello, where he released this as his first single. "That's What They Want" takes it's cue from Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man", but it's money that he's talking about. By the time we get to the b-side, he's demonstrating his point and out cavorting and "Courtin' In A Cadillac."














Download: GONE mp3














Download: GONE mp3

**** BONUS ****

Upon further listening, it's clear that "That's What They Want" is what you would call an answer song to the Bo Diddley track mentioned above, so without further ado here's "I'm A Man."



Download: GONE mp3

And as requested by the good folks at Airform Archives
Muddy Waters' take: GONE mp3

Buy at Amazon or at your local independent record store

Gene Vincent

In 1956, looking for competition to RCA's recent signing of Elvis, Capitol Records signed Gene Vincent and released this as his first single. While Elvis was seen as a threat to the middle class American values, Capitol raised the bar with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps who exuded a more menacing hillbilly degeneracy and made Elvis look tame by comparison. Vincent was allegedly thrown in jail for performing "Woman Love" on charges of public obscenity. The b-side, "Be-Bop-A-Lula" is one of the greatest songs of the rock 'n roll era. Check out the great Cliff Gallup on guitar.














Download: GONE mp3














Download: GONE mp3


**** Bonus ****

Gene Vincent on YouTube: HERE

And a loving tribute to GV by one of rock's greatest oddballs via YouTube: HERE

Buy at Amazon or at your local independent record store

The Singer Not The Song

Alex Chilton photograph: New York, 1985 © Ted Barron

In 1978, Alex Chilton entered Phillips Recording Service in Memphis Tennessee, with Jim Dickinson, Sid Selvidge, Lee Baker, Richard Rosebrough, and few other friends to record his first post-Big Star LP, Like Flies On Sherbert. The results of these sessions were mixed over the following year and released on the small Peabody label in a pressing of 500 copies. The record is made up of mostly covers, including these two singles below. It's a great and messy rock 'n roll record with an eclectic collection of songs ranging from the Carter Family to K.C. and the Sunshine Band. It's also a difficult record that some people just don't get. It's long been one of my favorites. Like on Big Star's 3rd, which was still unreleased at the time, rather than strive for perfection, Dickinson's production stresses the mistakes, although it is perfect in it's own unorthodox way. It's also a document of a time and place, that being midtown Memphis, late 1970's. The band sounds fucked-up because they are fucked-up. Still, that's only half the point, or not the point at all. It's complicated. Chilton had been burned by the record business not once, but twice. He was a jaded and slightly burnt-out veteran and only in his late 20's. I won't attempt to put my finger on what it is that is so compelling about it, as much better writers have done so more eloquently than I could do. I will however suggest reading It Came From Memphis, by Robert Gordon, which ties together the disparate elements of the music and culture of Memphis into what reads like a secret history of rock 'n roll. So here it is, some of the source material for Chilton's overlooked and misunderstood classic. Hope you like it, I do.




Download: GONE mp3



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Download: Alex Chilton

GONE mp3
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Buy: The Bell Notes, Troy Shondell, Alex Chilton.