Mule Skinner

Download: "Mule Skinner Blues" mp3


Then I heard this horrible crazy sound. And I felt this insane mad feeling. Neither of which was I in any manner acquainted. It was the bluesiest and most obnoxious thing I had ever heard. It was an attack of revolutionary terrorism on my nervous system through aesthetics.
It was blacker than the blackest black record I had ever heard. It reached out and grabbed and it has never let go of me.

I went limp. I almost fell off the sofa. My mouth fell open. My eyes widened and expanded. I found myself hyperventilating. When it was over I tried to get up and go and get a paper bag to restore the correct balance of power between oxygen and carbon monoxide. I screamed for help but nobody was around and nobody came. I was drenched with sweat. It was like I had woken up to a new and thrilling exciting horror movie.

Nothing has ever been the same since then.

You see, I had gone insane.

And I didn't even know about it.

Wow.

I had to hear that record again. It was madness and I knew it would get me in trouble and it did get me in trouble but I couldn't help it I was out of control.

So I went to the record store in Silver Spring, Maryland, the name of which I forgot. It was at the intersection of Georgia Avenue, and Colesville Road.

Right around the corner from the Silver Theatre.

I asked the man behind the counter about that record. He was a "nice guy." He looked it up in some great big yellow catalogue and actually found it.

But, it was out of print. And there wasn't one on the shelf.

"Sorry, kid, I don't have one and I can't get you one."

"But, I've got to hear it again. I've got to."

"Listen kid" he went on. "that record is no good. In fact it is evil. It caused a lot of trouble while it was around. Women left their husbands. Husbands left their wives. Children ran away from home and were never seen again. There were sunspots on the moon. Revolutions started, massacres happened, suicides and alcoholism went sky high, wars started, monsters were seen on the Edge, it was bad kid. Maybe it would be better for you if you didn't hear it again. I mean I just feel I gotta' tell ya' that kid. It's dangerous for anybody your age to get interested in things like that."

"I don't care," I said, "it must be fate."

"Fate schmate. I gave you a warning. But if ya' don't take it the only thing I can do is tell ya' this. You gotta' find a record collector. Chances are a record collector would know about it."

"You know any of those guys you are talking about?" I asked.

"No, I don't hang out with weirdos like that. But they're around. And I'll pray for ya' kid. I'll pray for ya."

"Thanks a hell of a lot. I may need it."

"Oh, you're gonna need it alright."

From How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life by John Fahey
Drag City © 2000

Locust St. is at it again. If you haven't checked out Chris' exhaustive posts on 7 Means of Movement, do yourself a favor. This post is an addendum to his Interlude 2: Asses and Mules. While it feels to me a little cheap to riff of of his painstakingly epic work, I couldn't
resist posting this Bill Monroe track which I've been wanting to put up for a while. The "horrible crazy sound" that John Fahey so passionately describes in the above excerpt from his book, actually refers to the other side of the original issue of this record. My copy, however is a DJ Promo backed with a godawful track by Elton Britt. Both of these songs come from Jimmie Rodgers.

Here's the flip:

Download: "Blue Yodel No. 7 (Anniversary Yodel) " mp3
by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, 1939.

Buy music by Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys at Amazon
or at your local independently owned record store.

The Stanley Brothers

Shifting gears again. While it may seem to some of you that these rapid genre shifts here in Fluville are extreme, they are indeed not. Basically, most everything here is 20th century American music, which means to say it is all in some way derivative of the blues. So, with that being said, it doesn't really matter if it's Benny Carter or Carter Stanley - as long as it is good. Today, it's The Stanley Brothers, from 1953. This music is so good it hurts. Ralph Stanley is playing tonite at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn.














Download: "(Say) Won't You Be Mine" mp3














Download: "Our Last Goodbye" mp3

Stanley Brothers Photograph by John Cohen, 1961.
from There Is No Eye, Powerhouse Books, © 2000.

Buy music by The Stanley Brothers at Venerable Music

The Glory of Love

"And the hits just keep on coming..."

The Sopranos is over, and I must say I'm relieved. Never have I been so caught up in a show about people I cared so little about. Like Scorsese before him, David Chase used music to create a mood or distraction from what was happening on the screen. In one of the early seasons of the show, Tony is seen listening to CBS-FM. For those of you who don't live in the tri-state area, CBS-FM was the greatest oldies station in the country, with celebrity DJ's like Cousin Brucie, and more relevantly, Don K. Reed with his Sunday night extravaganza, Don K. Reed's Doo Wop Shop. So, getting back to the musical distraction to violence and homicide. I was talking last week with my friend Mike DeCapite, author of Through The Windshield, about these great songs and how Scorsese in particular has used them in his films, when Mike with his usual quick wit responded by saying, "I can't hear that stuff anymore without seeing four guys in sharkskin suits stomping on someone's head." While I don't know if that's applicable to today's selections, it is a jarring image. Below, we have a fine sampling from the golden age of vocal groups. Try not to imagine the violence. Instead, open the windows, let the warm summer wind drift in, listen to to sound of the city outside, turn off the lights, lie down and float away.














Download: "The Glory Of Love" mp3














Download: "In My Lonely Room" mp3














Download: "Deep Sea Blues" mp3















Download: "Stranded In The Jungle" mp3














Download: "Hey Senorita" mp3














Download: "Don't You Think I Ought To Know" mp3

Doo Wop lives on New York Radio every Saturday Night with
Dan Romanello and the Group Harmony Review on WFUV.

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

Moistworks has more versions of "Stranded In The Jungle" Here.

Chuck Berry

Say what you will about Chuck Berry, but he is Chuck Berry: the single most important figure in the development of what we call Rock 'n Roll, and its first guitar playing singer-songwriter. Chuck Berry is a national treasure, and vastly under-appreciated in his and my hometown, St. Louis. You are more than likely to hear someone discuss his run-ins with the law than his genius songwriting. Sure, Chuck is difficult. Anyone who has seen Hail, Hail, Rock 'N Roll will remember his bitchfight with Keith Richards. Chuck does a regular monthly gig in St. Louis at Blueberry Hill, which can be either fabulous or an excruciating trainwreck. It depends what night you catch him. I learned pretty much everything I know about guitar playing from playing along with The Great Twenty-Eight. Below, is his second single on Chess from 1955, the follow-up to "Maybellene." Check out the guitar solo. This not something to be taken lightly. He invented this stuff. The B-side was his first stab at writing a Nat King Cole style ballad. It's a little rough around the edges. Starts off like Bo Diddley, and then he croons.

Tell Tchaikovsky the news...














Download: "Thirty Days" mp3














Download: "Together" mp3

Buy Chuck Berry music at Amazon
or at your local independently owned record store.

Ray Price

Okay, back to the shellac. Here's a couple of early Ray Price records. The first one is a Hank Williamsesque hardcore honky tonk number, "You Always Get By," from 1953. Hank helped Ray Price early in his career, sharing his band on the road and giving him "Weary Blues (From Waiting) to record, as well as getting him onto the Opry.

A few weeks ago Chris at Locust St. published another epic post. This one on Walking. As great as it is, it didn't feature my favorite song about the powerlessness of a man being tugged back to a woman by an inanimate object despite his own best intentions, "My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You," written by Bob Wills, and presented here by Ray Price.














Download: "You Always Get By" 1953. mp3














Download: "My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You" 1957. mp3
Buy Ray Price Music at Amazon

Wilbert Harrison

Sorry if things have been quiet here in Fluville. Between trying to make a living, being a dad and coaching a little league team, my posts have fallen by the wayside. I do hope you all understand. First up today, it's Wilbert Harrison with the first hit recording of Leiber and Stoller's "Kansas City," and it's B-Side, both featuring the searing guitar stylings of "Wild" Jimmy Spruill. Then, Harrison's own composition "Let's Stick Together," a plea to the "very sacred" institution of marriage. Perhaps Wilbert found this wasn't exactly the case, or maybe he just felt the need to revise it to "Let's Work Together (Pts. 1 & 2)." Either way they are both great records with one note harmonica parts slightly reminiscent of Slim Harpo.

Please enjoy...














Download: "Kansas City" 1959 .














Download: "Listen, My Darling" 1959.























Download: "Let's Stick Together" 1962.























Download: "Let's Work Together (Part 1)" 1969.























Download: "Lets Work Together (Part 2)" 1969.


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

Download: "Let's Stick Together" by Bryan Ferry
Available on Let's Stick Together, 1976.

Download: "Let's Stick Together" by Bob Dylan
Available on Down In The Groove, 1988.

Download: "Let's Work Together" by Canned Heat
Available on Future Blues, 1970.

Download: "Let's Work Together" by Dwight Yoakum
Available on If There Was A Way, 1990.

Buy Wilbert Harrison music at Amazon
or at your local independently owned record store.

Happy Birthday Bob

Today is Bob Dylan's birthday, so let's listen to some rarities and non-LP tracks. Below we have Bob's tribute via satellite to Johnny Cash; a duet with Dr. Ralph Stanley; tributes to Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, and my personal favorite Warren Smith; some outtakes from Oh Mercy; a version of "Hazel" from the afternoon rehearsals for his MTV Unplugged gig; the original "Tombstone Blues," with backing vocals by The Chambers Brothers; and a moment of inspired giddiness between the Bob and Richard Manuel from The Basement Tapes.

Please Enjoy:

"Train of Love" mp3
From Tribute to Johnny Cash TV Special, 1999.

"The Lonesome River" mp3
From Oxford American Southern Music Sampler, 2001.

"I Can't Get You Off Of My Mind" mp3
From Timeless: Hank Williams Tribute, 2001.

"My Blue Eyed Jane" mp3
From The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers: A Tribute, 1996.

"Red Cadillac And A Black Mustache" mp3
From Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records, 2001.

"Shooting Star" mp3
"God Knows" mp3
"Born In Time" mp3
"Dignity" mp3
Outtakes from Oh Mercy, 1989.

"Hazel" mp3
From MTV Unplugged Afternoon Rehearsals, 1995.

"Tombstone Blues" mp3
Alternate version from Highway 61 Revisited, 1965.

"I'm Your Teenage Prayer" mp3
From The Basement Tapes, 1967

Buy Bob Dylan Music Here.

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.