“Jeremiah was a bullfrog.”  Of the hundreds of songs written by Hoyt Axton, those are the lyrics for which he is best known.  He was good singer and guitar player, but Hoyt is best remembered for the many great songs he wrote that became hits for others.  The “Jeremiah” lyrics are from “Joy to the World,” which was a huge number one hit for Three Dog Night, as was “Never Been to Spain.”  Way back in 1963, the Kingston Trio had a hit with Axton’s “Greenback Dollar.”  Steppenwolf’s versions of “Snow Blind Friend” and “The Pusher” were quite successful, the latter gaining popularity from its performance in the movie Easy Rider.  Former Beatle Ringo Starr popularized Axton’s “No-No Song.”  The list could, of course, go on and on.

Song writing came naturally to Hoyt.  His mother was Mae Boren Axton, who published over 200 songs, the most famous of which was Elvis Presley’s first big hit, “Heartbreak Hotel.”

Some of the worst parts of the rock star lifestyle (though I wouldn’t really call him a rock star) also came naturally to Hoyt.  He was married four times and for many years he had a serious problem with the abuse of alcohol and cocaine.  Some of his best known songs are overtly anti-drug and were written after he had overcome those habits.  Steve Fromholz, whose “Texas Trilogy” was the Song of the Week earlier this year, overcame a cocaine dependency at about the same time as Hoyt did, and the two were good friends,  The worked together to write and record some of the music for Peter Fonda’s film, Outlaw Blues.

Hoyt Axton was husky man with a cherubic face and a marvelous baritone-bass voice.  He appeared in several movies and television shows playing a good old boy or someone’s father or both.  Examples are The Black Stallion, Gremlins, Dukes of Hazzard, Bonanza and even I Dream of Jeanie.

I don ‘t know much about Hoyt Axton’s religious beliefs.  Oftentimes when a person overcomes a drug or alcohol problem, they do “get religion”; and there is some evidence of that in Hoyt’s writing.  It has been suggested that Jeremiah the Bullfrog is a reference to the prophet Jeremiah – but it isn’t.*

Still, at about that time he released a single with “Old Time Religion” on one side and “Farther Along” on the other.  We will get to this week’s song in a moment, but while on this subject we should consider the song “Epistle” that was on Hoyt’s 1971 album Country Anthem, the album that also includes “The Devil.”  I believe that song may illustrate Hoyt’s views of organized religion as he says:

To an orphan child dyin’ of hunger,
God is just a half a loaf of bread.
Rise up from your hundred dollar table,
Make sure your paroquet is fed.

And don’t forget to save a dime for Jesus
Don’t forget to send ’em all to war.
…..
And just in case our fathers have forgotten,
Maybe we should help them understand.
And to the church in Baltimore a question:
What have you done to ease the pain of man?

He expressed a similar sentiment in a more lighthearted way a few years later with his song “Rusty Old Halo.”

The real reason that I chose “The Devil” for Song of the Week is because of the first two lines:  “It’s been raining in the mountains and the river’s on the rise/And we cannot hardly reach the other side.”  My wife and daughter and grandson are in Portland, Oregon this week, and I’ve been following the weather reports from out there.  It has been raining, so I thought of this song.

Most of the song, though, does not concern the rain.  It is mostly about the Devil.  It gives us a very black and white view of a life where there is an evil force that can either harm us or we can rise above it.  Hoyt’s eyes were opened by a lovely lady who loved the Lord.  There you have it – the good and the bad; losers and winners; the Devil and the Lord.

The other thing about this song is that it has a really great rhythm.  I often think it should be sung a capella while slapping your palm on your leg to the beat (and Hoyt doesn’t do much more than that).

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I was trying to think of a good Song of the Week when Darcy – Darcy is my dog – asked, “When are you going to do one of my people’s songs?”  I told her that if she meant “Darcy Farrow,” I had already written about that and anyone could read it here.  She said, “No, not ‘Darcy Farrow.’  The Bob Song.”  “Ah,” I said, “the Bob Song.  We could do that.”

The Bob Song is actually called “Bob the Kelpie” and was written and performed by Australian Don Spencer. Before getting  to the song, let me give you a little background.  We adopted Darcy Through a group called Rocky Mountain Puppy Rescue.  No one knew exactly what breed Darcy is, but we were told that she might be part Kelpie.

The Australian Kelpie is Australia’s most popular working dog.  It is great at herding, is extremely intelligent and is a great pet for anyone who wants an active, enthusiastic, loyal (but independent) companion.  Darcy has grown to be a bit smaller than a Kelpie and somewhat more elongated.  Still, she thinks she is a Kelpie, and as part of her evidence she offers these photos.  On the left is a picture of a Kelpie puppy she found on the internet, and on the right is Darcy as a puppy:

Don Spencer seems to be an interesting guy.  He was an outstanding field hockey player in high school, but when he was 17 he left Australia to hitchhike around Africa. A few years later became a member of Kenya’s Olympic Hockey Team and also competed at high levels in rugby, cricket and table tennis.

While in Kenya he met Roger Whittaker.  Whittaker is known somewhat in the United States as a performer of easy-listening pop music, but is a much bigger star in other parts of the world, having over 250 silver, gold and platinum albums.  Don Spencer began touring and writing songs with Whittaker, who was born in Nairobi.  From Kenya, Spencer moved to London to pursue a musical career.  He had a hit record called “Fireball XL5,” which was the theme song of a TV series of the same name; and he toured and performed with groups such as the Rolling Stones, the Four Seasons and the Hollies.

Spencer extended his artistic work into broadcasting and was host of the popular children’s program, Playschool for 17 years in the UK and for 22 years in Australia.  In 2002 he founded the non-profit Australian Children’s Musical Foundation and in 2007 he received the prestigious Order of Australia Medal.  One of his children – daughter Danielle – is married to movie star Russell Crowe, though I read on Wikipedia that they are now “separated.”

Don Spencer has made hundreds of recordings and published more than 500 songs, one of which is “Bob the Kelpie”; and Darcy would like to let you listen to that one now.

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Last week’s Song of the Week, Hawaii ’78, considered the relationship between man and the land.  Inspired by that, this week I would like to take another musical look at the interrelationship of humans, their environment and economy in a song – actually three songs – by Steve Fromholz.

Steve’s family moved frequently during his early years, as his father was an Army officer.  His parents divorced when he was 10 years old, and Steve and his brother lived for several extended periods with his maternal grandmother in Bosque County, Texas.  His older sister was married to a rancher and lived nearby.  The time he spent there during the early to mid-1950s formed the background for his Texas Trilogy.

The first recording that Steve Fromholz released was as half of a duet called Frummox.  The other member was Colorado native Dan McCrimmon.  Dan was a friend of a friend of mine, and because of that connection I saw them play a few times in the Denver area in 1969 and 1970.  The album, called Here to There, has become a cult classic of sorts.  It is a wonderful album and I would recommend listening to the whole thing if possible.  Besides the “Texas Trilogy,” it contains great songs from Steve like “Man with the Big Hat” and “Song for Stephen Stills”; and from Dan, such as “Kansas Legend” and “Weaving Is the Property of Few These Days.”

That was the only album by Frummox.  Dan released a couple of pleasant solo albums and traveled throughout Alaska as part of the Poets in the Schools program funded by the Natikonal Endowment for the Arts.  For many years now he has been a superb guitar maker (luthier) working from his shop in the Denver area.

Steve Fromholz had more success in the music business.  He was a guitarist and backup singer for Stephen Stills and Rick Roberts and recorded several solo albums.  His songs have been recorded by – and he performed with – the likes of Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Jerry Jeff Walker, John Denver, Hoyt Axton and others.  Steve was creating the “Texas music scene” that flourishes in the Austin area before any of the Texas “outlaws” were even in town.  “Texas Trilogy” has been the inspiration for at least two books, including one written by Fromholz.

Steve was also known for his social activism.  When the government threatened to arrest homeless people living in Austin, he led a group in a peaceful “sleep in,” with campfires, on the steps of the Texas State Capitol.  In 1993, he organized a peaceful “mooning” of a Ku Klux Klan gathering that was copied by other anti-Klan activists throughout the country.  Steve was also a river guide around the Big Bend area,he led trips through the Grand Canyon, and he organized trail rides from Texas into Mexico.

In 2003, Steve was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame.  A month later, he suffered a massive stroke.  It took him three years to learn to once again walk, talk, play guitar and sing, but he did those things.  Four years to the day after the stroke, the Legislature named him Poet Laureate of the State of Texas.  He was an active performer and writer up to January 19, 2014, when he was killed in a hunting accident at age 68.

Bosque County is a little bit Southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth and a bit Northwest of Waco.  When Fromhoz was living in the small town of Kopperl – which has never had a population of more than 329, and the whole county has never had as many as 20,000 people – the area was quite rural with many ranching families.  Its economy was essentially dying as the population was migrating to the cities and suburbs throughout the US.  Rail transportation was being replaced by major highways and places like Kopperl began to die as those highways bypassed them.  The “Texas Trilogy,” which is made up of songs entitled “Daybreak,” “Trainride” and “Bosque County Romance,” captures what must have been the feeling of that era better than any other work with which I am familiar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDVpz-qEnPs

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A few days ago I was talking with my friends Connie and Rick Garnett.  A couple of the things mentioned in passing were how some poets and songwriters have the ability to express important universal principles in a way that we all can understand and the wonderful singing voice of Hawaiian Israel Kamakawiwo’ole – who is usually known as “Bruddah Iz.”  Those ideas led me to this Song of the Week, “Hawaii ’78.”

Rather than illustrating simply how a single gifted writer can reach our hearts with his or her words, “Hawaii ’78” shows that many people can beautifully express truly universal concepts, either individually or together.  Most of the verses of the song were written by Hawaiian musician Micky Ioane, with help from friends in the “bruddah bruddah” collegiality of the Islands.  The chorus was apparently composed by local record producer David Kawika Crowley, according to his website.

The haunting Hawaiian words that begin and end the song – “Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono” – are the official motto of the State of Hawaii, as provided in Article 15, Section 5 of Hawaii’s Constitution.  The official meaning of the words, according to the Hawaiian Revised Statutes, is “the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

Translation, though, is a tricky business.  The words were originally spoken by King Kamehameha III on July 31, 1843, when Queen Victoria restored Hawaiian sovereignty after several months of occupation by the British.  In that context, the translation could be “the sovereignty of the land is restored/perpetuated in righteousness.”  Regardless of the exact words in translation, the phrase seems to be recognized to indicate that people should respect and do what is right for the land, and for all life.

David Kawika Crowley’s record label released a version of the song entitled “Hawaii ’77,” performed by Mickey Ioane and others, on January 1, 1977, and it was not commercially successful.  A few months later, it was heard and then recorded, as “Hawaii ’78,” by a group called the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau.  It has been one of the most popular Hawaiian songs ever since.

Two of the members of the Makaha Sons were lead vocalist “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole and his brother “Skippy.”  Although their music shows their love for the land of Hawaii, the brothers, unfortunately, did not properly care for their own bodies.  In 1982, Skippy died of a heart attack resulting from his obesity.  His younger brother Iz apparently did not learn from that tragedy, as his weight eventually exceeded 750 pounds.

In 1990, Iz left the Makaha Sons for a solo career in which he worked to bring the feel of Hawaiian music to better known American songs.  He is best remembered for his versions of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Wonderful World.”  Iz died in 1997, at the age of 38, due to complications of his obesity.  Human organ systems simply are not designed to function in such a huge body.  He left behind some beautiful songs, including “Hawaii ’78,” which he also included on his best selling solo album, Facing Future.

Although it was specifically by Hawaiians and for Hawaii, “Hawaii ’78” expresses  universal sentiments.  Wherever humans exist, they (we) must recognize their impact on the land and on life.  All people can ask what their God would think of their stewardship of the land and their lives if that divine being chose to return to Earth today.

The version of the song that is included here is by the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau.  The harmonies in this song make it superior to Iz’s solo version, at least to my ears.  The video is fairly long – nearly eight minutes.  The first three minutes are mostly Iz talking about the song.  It is worth taking the time to watch the whole thing.

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This is another example of a Song of the Week that sort of worked its way into my brain by accident when I thought I had decided on a completely different song.  It came around as I was thinking about traveling.  For most of my life, I have been in the routine of spending the majority of time at home with my wife and kids and taking off for a family vacation or visit to relatives once or twice a year.  I have been quite happy with that approach to travel, but it seems that a different cycle has begun – I think a temporary one.  More on that later.

The Band was a group of four Canadians and a gentleman from Arkansas.  They originally got together in Canada as the backing band for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, and were known as the Hawks.  After a few years, the group left Hawkins and began performing on its own.  Shortly thereafter, one of its performances was heard by Bob Dylan, who hired them to work with him as he moved from acoustic folk-based music to electric rock.  I was fortunate to have seen a concert by “Bob Dylan and the Band” while I was in high school.  Without getting wordy and going into detail, I vividly recall Dylan launching into a guitar break on “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” and going on and on until Robbie Robertson, the Band’s lead guitarist, walked over and shook him.

There was a break in the touring in 1967, during which Dylan and the Band members retired to semi-seclusion in Woodstock, New York.  That time was extended for many additional months when Dylan was supposedly injured in a motorcycle accident.  While they were not performing, the group continued to work with Dylan, writing songs and recording demos, a process which more or less culminated in Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album and the Band’s first album, Music from Big Pink.

That initial album was quite successful and was followed up in 1969 with the Band’s best work, an eponymous album, The Band.  Although most of the group’s members were Canadian, The Band was based solidly in Americana.  It looked back to the Civil War in “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”; to the unionization of sharecroppers that occurred during the Great Depression in “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)”; to the ragtime era of “Rag Mama Rag”; to the truck driver of “Up On Cripple Creek.”  And among those songs was “Rockin’ Chair.”

“Rockin’ Chair is a complex song about which I could write pages.  I won’t.  I will just say that it tells of an aging sailor who has spent his whole life at sea and is ready to give up his travels and live out his days in a rocking chair “down in Old Virginny.”  The instrumentation is all acoustic – including an accordion – with no percussion. It sounds like it might be the work of a bunch of old friends sitting around a rocking chair or two making music on someone’s wooden porch.

In this song, the narrator does not actually make it back to his rocking chair, but the very last words are “old rockin’ chair’s got me.”  Those are the first words in a song called “Rockin’ Chair” written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1929.  In Carmichael’s song the narrator is in his own home and his own rocking chair waiting to move on to the next world.  It seems to imply that the old sailor will one day make his way to Old Virginny.

Now, as to where my family travelers are going this year.  Well, due to work obligations and family obligations and even children growing older, I get exhausted just thinking about it all.  Just a month ago, my wife Cathy and I were in Florida visiting her brother and her mother (who was visiting from Ohio).  As I write this, Cathy is in San Diego, California on a “girl trip” with three friends and our son Michael is traveling in Thailand (on a vacation from China where he is teaching this year).

Next month, Cathy and our daughter Suzanne and our grandson Ryder are going to Portland, Oregon for a week.  Shortly after that, I am taking a trip to China to to spend some time with Michael.  In the Spring, I am going to Paris (the one in France – and, yes, je suis Charlie, aussi) with Ryder, Suzanne and Suzanne’s husband Jeff.  Cathy wants to get back to Ohio to see her mother twice this year.  Beyond that, we have this timeshare (this “stupid timeshare,” I usually say), and we need to go away at least two more weeks to avoid wasting the money we have “invested” there.  As I say, it is exhausting just thinking about it all.  I would happily let almost anyone take one of our timeshare weeks, if they had somewhere they wanted to go.

Apparently that mental exhaustion caused my subconscious to think “Rockin’ Chair” – so here it is:

I have always liked Bob Lind’s music – and there probably aren’t that many people who can say that.  He was a one-hit wonder (“Elusive Butterfly”), but a lifetime writer.  His songs (mostly the ones from the mid-1960s) have been covered by over 200 artists ranging from Cher to Dolly Parton to Eric Clapton to the Four Tops to Hugh Masekala to the Blues Project.  His elusive success, combined with an overindulgence in alcohol and various pharmaceuticals, caused him to leave the music business for many years.  He became a staff writer for the Sun and the Weekly World News, those famous supermarket tabloids.  He also wrote award-winning plays, screenplays and novels (at least one of which was published – a work called East of the Holyland.)

Despite his musical and writing talents, and despite the fact that I like a lot of his stuff, it is not difficult to see why he had only one real hit.  His songs have often been called “cloying,” he regularly mixes metaphors (even in a 3-minute song) and he has a tendency to use three or four words to express what could better be said in one.  As an example, look at one of his early songs called “Mister Zero” – which, by the way, Keith Relf, the lead singer of the Yardbirds, chose for his first solo record.

“Mister Zero” is about a less than perfect relationship between Mr. Zero and Little Miss Someone.  It begins like this:  “Diamonds of silvery rain in the fountains,/And ten-cent red roses from department store counters,/Watching the moonlight reflect off the river,/Beside where the trains cross the bridge and slow down,/Trains with white letters on black iron sides,/And white rushing water that all rolls away,/And Little Miss Someone does not want to stay.”   Wordy, yes; and that is not even a whole verse.  Nevertheless, Keith Relf must have thought it was good.

It is not surprising that Bob Lind became disenchanted with the music industry because the industry did not seem to understand him.  He was essentially a troubadour with a guitar, but the producer for all of his “popular” songs was Jack Nitzsche, who thought his songs should have a lush background with strings and things.  The backing musicians were good, including Leon Russell and others, and the production did work fairly well on “Elusive Butterfly”; but most of his songs would be better if the production was a little more sparse.

Having said all that, I will repeat that I have always liked Bob Lind’s music.  Despite some major flaws, he wrote songs that are melodic and sound good and are memorable.  I mean, I remembered the words to “Mister Zero” though I have not heard the song for several decades.  I also recall seeing Bob Lind in concert in 1972.  He sang a song for which I have never found a recording that began something like, “Down at Danny’s Diner over ham and eggs, you got me in trouble for looking at your legs.”  I still remember parts of it.

“Go Ask Your Man” is one of those catchy, memorable ditties.  Darcy and I were out for our dog walk the other day and this song sort of popped into my head.  There is a line about “rolling toward the ocean in your trusty Morris Minor.”  As we turned the corner, coming up the street toward us was a red and white Mini Cooper, which is the current version of the Morris Minor of the 1960s.  That was the sign that this should be the song of the week.

By the way, Bob did release a CD of new songs in 2012, at about the time of his 70th birthday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg4av8UbjS8

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As I write this, it is late afternoon on New Year’s Eve and for some reason I have had the thought that somewhere out in the world someone may be waiting for the Ralston Creek Review  Song of the Week to be posted so he or she would know what music to play for a New Year’s Eve dance party.  I hope this is not too late.

Critics and others sometimes talk about needing a good “hook” to make a pop music song successful.  It seems that for 21st Century dance music, it is better for the whole song to be a “hook.”  That is pretty much what Caribou did in “Can’t Do Without You.”

Caribou is the stage name for a gentleman named Daniel Victor Snaith.  He is an interesting musician who holds a Ph.D. in mathematics (his thesis being on Overconvergent Siegel Modular Symbols).  He is originally from Canada, but I believe he now lives in the UK.

Snaith previously performed and recorded under the name Manitoba, but “Handsome Dick” Manitoba of the Dictators, a New York punk rock band, threatened to sue him; so he he took the moniker Caribou.  Trial lawyers often speak of going to trial as “throwing the dice” because we have an imperfect judicial system and you can never predict how a case will be determined by a judge or jury.  It would be interesting to see how a legal proceeding between a punk rocker and an electronic dance music composer/performer might play out.  I guess we will never know.

Here is the song “Can’t Do Without You” from Caribou’s 2014 album, Our Love:

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A few days ago, I had thought that I would probably sit down to write about this week’s song on December 26th, which is the feast day of St. Stephen, and would say something about the Grateful Dead’s “St. Stephen.”  Then, on December 22nd, Joe Cocker passed away and so a short remembrance seems appropriate.

On August 17, 1969, Joe Cocker opened the final day of the Woodstock festival, playing for nearly half a million fans of music and the counterculture.  Another group on the Woodstock stage that day was the British blues-rock band, Ten Years After.  I was not there.

One week later, on August 24, 1969, both Cocker and Ten Years After were playing for perhaps half a thousand fans at a roller skating rink in Denver called Roller City Central.  I was at that concert.

I had worked that summer for the Post Office as a seasonal letter carrier.  My job had ended the previous week because school was about to start.  I had spent a couple of days camping in the area around Guanella Pass in the Colorado Rockies; then, on the night of the concert, I met my friend Annette at the home of her friend Ann, which was less than a mile from Roller City.

There was also a third band called Apple West on the bill that night.  I don’t remember anything at all about its music.  I recall that when Ten years After played I was amazed at how fast Alvin Lee could move his fingers on the guitar.  However, I want to talk about Joe Cocker here.

He was touring with a group of musicians known as the Grease Band.  His first American record had been released that Spring, and he had played a short set at the Denver Pop Festival in June; but most people knew very little about him.  After he was introduced, the band began a jazzy instrumental.  It wasn’t exactly what one would call “cool” jazz.  It was a little farther down on the temperature scale and brought to my mind the song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band called “Jazz Delicious Hot Disgusting Cold.”  Annette asked me, “Which one is Joe Cocker?” and I said that I didn’t know.

None of them was Joe Cocker, it turned out.  It was just the Grease Band.  When the song was over, the band began the intro to the next number – I believe it was Bob Dylan’s “Dear Landlord” – and Cocker came out and sang it beautifully (in his own inimitable style).  At the end of the song, he acknowledged the applause, rubbed his eyes, and said “Thank you.  It’s great to be back in Denver.  This is Denver, isn’t it?”

What I recall about Joe Cocker over the years is that inimitable style.  He was singer, and not so much a musician or composer.  Back in those days, critics referred to him as a white version of Ray Charles; which led me to wonder why we needed such a thing when we still had the original Ray Charles.  Cocker was more, though.  His delivery was certainly influenced by Charles, but it was his personal “soul” that made his music so much fun to hear.

For nearly 20 years before his death, Joe Cocker’s home was in Crawford, Colorado – a town of some 400 residents on Colorado’s Western Slope.  There, he was appreciated for his philanthropic work with youth in the area and for being “a great guy to hang out with.”

Somewhere along the line I read a review of his version of “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” that said his entry was more like a fat man slipping on a bar of soap. That is sort of how I remember him appearing on the stage at Roller City (though he was not fat).  It had been sort of quiet and boring for a few minutes – and then whooom!, what a voice.  Here’s the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkdjMxTdrU8

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