Category: Music

Here it is, a beautiful day on the first weekend of Spring.  I had intended to pick Madeline Peyroux’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” as the Song of the Week.  It is not particularly about Spring, but, to me at least, Madeline’s performance conjures a feeling of the season.  However, as I was looking on the internet to try to find the copyright information, I was reminded of her song, “The Things I’ve Seen Today.”

Madeline Peyroux has a name and a voice that make you certain she is a French chanteuse, and possibly a reincarnation of Edith Piaf.  In fact, she was born in Georgia (the American State, not the European country) in 1974.  She has described her parents as “hippies” and “educators.”  When she was a child, her family moved several times as her father, a college professor, accepted positions in Georgia, Southern California and New York.  Her parents divorced when she was 11 years old.  She and her brother then moved to Paris (the one in France) with her mother.  So there you have your French chanteuse.

Madeline seems to have been a rebellious child.  She did not fit in well at the French schools, so she was sent to an English boarding school – the kind with bars on the widows.  Upon her return to Paris she began hanging out with street musicians, and in her later teen years she toured Europe singing and playing guitar with various other musicians.

She recorded her first album, Dreamland, in 1976.  It featured covers of old standards by the likes of Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith and Edith Piaf.  Each of those – as well as others, like Ella Fitzgerald – have definitely influenced Madeline’s style; yet it is her own beautiful voice that makes the stylization work so well.

Madeline Peyroux is best known for her cover versions of songs written by others.  “The Things I’ve Seen Today” is an original song which she co-wrote with violinist/vocalist Jenny Scheinman.  It appeared on Madeline’s 2011 album Standing on the Rooftop, which did not sell very well in the United States.

Jenny Scheinman seems like an interesting person, about whom I would like to learn little more.  She grew up in Northern California in what she says is the “westernmost house in the continental United States.”  It was an isolated area where the few residents formed a high school with only six students so they would not have to send their children two hours away to the public high school.  That was where Jenny learned music.  She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, and then began performing professionally.

She was influenced by an interesting family.  She said they lived outdoors in the summer and that her parents were folk musicians with whom she traveled extensively around the US and Europe.  Her grandfather was Telford Taylor, a brigadier general in World War II and the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.  He was a vocal opponent of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s and of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.  Her uncle is Victor Scheinman who was a pioneer in robotics and teaches mechanical engineering at Stanford.

I think her activist grandfather would be proud of her for collaboration with Canadian musician/activist Bruce Cockburn for several years in the Bruce Cockburn Trio.

So, without further ado, here is Madeline Peyroux performing “The Things I’ve Seen Today.”

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – THE THINGS I’VE SEEN TODAY”

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament starts this week.  I need to get my bracket filled out; and to psyche myself up, I picked Al Stewart’s “Nostradamus” as Song of the Week.

As you probably know, Nostradamus was a 16th Century Frenchman who is famous for publishing hundreds of quatrains in a book entitled Les Propheties (“The Prophecies”).  Nostradamus was born Michel de Nostredame (“Michael of Notre Dame’ – not to be confused with the Hunchback of Notre Dame, who was Quasimodo and not Michael) in 1503.  He initially worked as an apothecary and developed a reputation as a healer.  After his first wife and children died – presumably victims of the plague – he traveled throughout France and Italy, married a rich widow with whom he had six more children and developed an interest in the occult.

The occult was not looked upon as a good thing, especially by the Catholic Church, so to avoid persecution, the prophecies he wrote were intentionally obscure.  In the nearly 500 years since they were written his readers and the popular press have conjectured that he has accurately predicted such things as the London Fire of 1666, Napoleon, Hitler and World War II, the Kennedy assassinations, 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden, etc.

Who knows?  Maybe he did.  Most of his verses are simply too obscure to really know.

Nostradamus died in 1567 from complications of gout.

Skipping forward four centuries brings us to Al Stewart, who was born in Scotland in 1945 and was an influential figure in the British folk music revival of the 1960s.  He seemed to know everyone, perhaps because he was a host at the Les Cousins Folk Club in London where many soon-to-be-famous musicians got their start.  Paul Simon was his roommate for awhile and he knew Yoko Ono before she ever met John Lennon.  He reached that level of influence primarily because he was a fine musician and singer and an excellent songwriter.

His song writing is especially notable for its incorporation of literary and historic references.  For example, his best known song, “Year of the Cat,” mentions a morning from a Bogart movie and Peter Lorre contemplating a crime.  He wrote about the French revolution in “Charlotte Corday” and the escape of the last Shah of Iran during the Iranian Revolution in “Shah of Shahs.”  His “Sirens of Titan” is based on Kurt Vonnegut’s novel of the same name.

The historical bent to his writing is perhaps most obvious in Stewart’s 1973 album, Past, Present and Future.  In the liner notes, he states that he originally intended the album to have a song for each decade of the 20th Century.  It didn’t quite work out that way, but there are songs based on the life of Admiral Lord Fisher (“Old Admirals”); Warren G. Harding and his scandals (“Warren Harding”); Hitler’s purge of political opponents, known as “The Night of the Long Knives” (“The Last Day of June 1934”); the German defeat in Russia and Stalin’s subsequent gulags (“Roads to Moscow”) and British politics following the Second World War (“Post World War Two Blues”).

There was a major flaw in Al Stewart’s concept.  The 20th Century still had several decades to go in 1973.  He neatly solved that problem by finishing the album with “Nostradamus” – a look back at prophecies supposedly fulfilled and forward to the future events that may have been included in Nostradamus’s prophesies.

Stewart’s interpretations of those prophecies were based on the work of an English Scholar named Erika Cheetham, who published The Prophecies of Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow in 1965.  Many years ago, after hearing this song, I was initially quite impressed with Cheetham’s work.  I am not so impressed any more.  I won’t go into detail, but will simply say that her translation is not always accurate and her interpretations seem more geared toward selling books in the mid-1960s than really trying to understand what Nostradamus had written. (The same problems with trying to interpret the quatrains as applying to contemporary events may be seen in the images that are part of the YouTube video embedded below.)

One final comment and then I will quit.  This a long song – nearly 10 minutes.  There is a guitar break that is a good show of Stewart’s musicianship, but it could have been shortened.  The last two minutes or so are a semi-operatic vocalization (without words – so that the same as humming?) by a fine singer named Krysia Kocjan.  Perhaps that could have been shortened, too; though I think it gives the song a mystical quality that fits perfectly.

Now, on to basketball . . . .

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – NOSTRADAMUS”

Break Week is over, and I think it has been well used.  I got into Denver International Airport at about 7:00 p.m. on Thursday.  My eyes and mind were glazed and I thought, “When I woke up this morning I was in Shanghai yesterday afternoon.”  I had traveled more than 15,000 miles since leaving home; but you travelers out there know it is not about the miles as much as it is the experiences and the people you meet.

Out on the road, the people come from everywhere, for all kinds of reasons, and they become your friends because fate has brought you to them to share a moment of their lives.

Out of all those folks, the most interesting are those like the young German who had spent a month in India and another month in Thailand and was passing through China on his way to Russia to ride the Trans-Siberian Railroad back to Europe.  He certainly had stories, and will create many more before he is back home.

Yes, the most interesting are the business travelers who are winding down after hammering out the agreement to supply zippers or thread to the garment factory that is going to send your local Walmart the latest American fashions.  Those folks have quite a lot to tell their bosses and co-workers.

In fact, the most interesting are those in the tour group, in the country for a 10 day vacation and then back home.  They have real lives back there – not like those who are always on the move.  They bring the perspective of one looking at a new land through new eyes.  Listen to what they have to say and you will find great insights.

The most interesting, though, are the few who have come to this foreign country to live and work among its people for a whole year or more.  They have a unique understanding and their stories will help us all better understand the international community.

That is why the most interesting folks you meet here are the aging pensioners who have never left this province in their entire lives.  They move slowly with bags of rice in the carts and stop to complain to neighbors – or to anyone who will listen – about the burden of the outrageous government taxation.

Of course there are also your family members who are the most interesting people because each of them can share observations with you from a common and shared set of past experiences.  There is no one else who can give you more personal stories that fit your unique individual understanding.

And there is not a single one of these people who is more interesting than the Observer who is somewhere inside you.  That Observer sees and hears all that is around you and knows – absolutely knows – that what you see and hear are not stories of the past or the future; they are all with you right here, right now, this moment.

Ah, but that is the Observer’s story.  Our human brain is wired so that we cannot process anything we see or hear for several milliseconds after the so-called “physical sensation.”  Consequently, the Observer is leaning forward on its bar stool telling more and more stories about the recent past.

The song “Yesterday’s Wine” was written for Willie Nelson’s 1971 album of the same name.  That was a concept album that told the story of the “Imperfect Man” from birth until the day he died.  On the album, Willie explains its purpose by saying,  “Yes, there’s great confusion on earth, and the power that is has concluded the following: Perfect man has visited earth already and His voice was heard; The voice of Imperfect Man must now be made manifest; and I have been selected as the most likely candidate.”  In this song, the narrator recognizes one who appears widely traveled and asks that traveler to sit down and tell his story.  When you and I are on the road we understand that there is a camaraderie among travelers.  Willie understands that all the time.

This song has also been on several other Willie Nelson albums, but it was never a big hit for him.  Still, it did help Willie to eventually pay his taxes because it became a Number One hit for for Merle Haggard and George Jones in 1982, and it has been recorded by many other artists.

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – YESTERDAY’S WINE”

Recently, and from time to time, I have read comments from people who say that Tom Waits has got to be the most underrated artist around today.  While Waits is unique and his fans are sometimes described as part of a “cult following,” he is certgainly not “underrated” by those in the know.

Waits’ raspy voice has been described, with some justification, as “like how you’d sound if you drank a quart of bourbon, smoked a pack of cigarettes and swallowed a pack of razor blades. . . . Late at night.  After not sleeping for three days.”   Many of his songs give the impression that they were recorded at 3:00 a.m., after the bars all closed, before he crawled back to his Old ’55 Chevy to sleep it off.

Whether that characterization may have been accurate at sometime in the past, I can’t say.  I believe that now, however, it is part of an artistic persona that Tom has fostered and publicly maintains because it serves him well.  In fact, he is a very talented individual who seems to be very much in control of his career decisions and creative endeavors.  He has been recording for more than 40 years and has released more than 20 albums.  Two of those albums have won Grammys and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He has also acted in more than 30 motion pictures – I think the most recent was Seven Psychopaths in 2012.  He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the soundtrack on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 musical film, One from the Heart (which was not a very successful movie aside from the soundtrack).

As another indication that Tom Waits is quite successful and not as underrated as some might think, look at the consequences of his staunch refusal to let his songs be used for advertising.  That position was well known even a quarter century ago when Frito-Lay produced a commercial based on his song “Step Right Up,” which is a “jazzy parody of commercial hucksterism.”  Since it was known that Waits would not participate in the project, a sound-alike singer was found and the commercial was made and played on the radio.  Tom sued and was awarded more than $2.5 million.  On appeal, Frito-Lay claimed that Waits was not “widely known” enough to warrant legal protection of his “distinctive style”; but he Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.  The quotes above about the bourbon and razor blade voice and commercial hucksterism are from that appellate opinion (which you can read here).

Ad agency folks seem slow to learn at times, and only a year later Levi’s used a version of Tom’s “Heartattack and Vine” in a commercial.  Again he sued.  The commercial was withdrawn and Levi’s publicly apologized in a full-page ad in Billboard.  In the 21st Century, Audi ran a commercial in Spain with music very similar to Waits’ “Innocent When You Dream” (after Tom had refused to participate or permit the use of his music), and he recovered another judgment in the Spanish courts.  In 2005, another car company, Opel, tried to persuade him to sing for their Scandinavian commercials, then hired a sound-alike singer when he refused.  Opel claimed the commercials used music composed by Brahms.  Hmmmm, it would be interesting to hear Tom sing Brahms.  Anyway, Opel did settle the resulting lawsuit for an undisclosed sum, which Waits reportedly donated to charity.

Tom Waits has been married to Kathleen Brennan for nearly 35 years, they have three children, he has not drunk alcohol for several decades and he lives close to my good friend Annette and her husband Mark DeBacker in the lovely and thoroughly middle class town of Santa Rosa, California.

Now for the good news:  next week is going to be another Break Week around here.  I won’t be posting anything new for a couple of weeks.  It seemed good to sail into Break Week with an old favorite.  Here is Tom Waits’ ” Shiver Me Timbers” from the 1974 album, The Heart of Saturday Night.  (For some reason this video goes on for a minute or so after the song ends, but it is just silent).

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“You sorry old soldier, go home
‘You sorry old bad girl, go home
Cause by now you’ve seen it all
Just relax now and recall
All your stories forever and ever.”
 -from “All Your Stories” by Jesse Winchester

Jesse Winchester seemed a gentle man with a quiet delivery and a low-key style of putting the stories of everyday life into song.  I was lucky to see him twice in the last three years before he lost his life to cancer just a month short of his 70th birthday.  During those two performances, the story he seemed to have the most fun singing was “It’s a Shame About Him.”

That song was included on Jesse’s 2009 album, Love Filling Station.  The album version is somewhat “slick” sounding for a Jesse Winchester song, with a fiddle featured almost as prominently as Jesse’s voice.  At least to my ears, that recording does not convey the true flavor of the song.  The version chosen for the Song of the Week is a live performance with just Jesse and his guitar.  The sound quality is not that great, but the performance is.

I could write on for pages about Jesse Winchester’s songs, but I will spare you that for the moment.  If anyone would like to really get a feel for Jesse’s story and his personality, I would recommend listening to the American Routes program that was presented by NPR on January 21, 2015.  On that show a full hour was devoted to an interview with Jesse and several of his songs were played.  You can hear it by clicking here.  You can also see a short piece I posted after Jesse’s passing by clicking here.

Just before his death, Jesse completed the recording of his last album, A Reasonable Amount of Trouble.  In the liner notes for that album, Jimmy Buffett wrote:

“In my way of thinking, Jesse may no longer reside in the world of matter, but his energy sure as hell does. It is timeless and eternal and will be with us always from Montreal to Memphis, to those red skies off toward New Orleans [this last phrase being a reference to Jesse’s song ‘Biloxi.’ -law]

I am grateful that we still do have that timeless and eternal energy with us.

Keeping in Mind that the songs on A Reasonable Amount of Trouble were written as Jesse’s life in this world were coming to an end, I think I will move this post toward the end by quoting a few lines from a song entitled “All That We Have Is Now”:

“Oh my my, look at the time fly
Sorry I really have to run
Oh I just love being with you
Really the whole thing was such fun

The sun is going down
There’s shadows all around
And I feel more than wine
We must do this again sometime
But I can’t tell you when
But what a joy it’s been
All that we have is now”

And now, “It’s a Shame About Him.”  If you had been at this performance, you would have probably been laughing.  Watching it now should at least bring a good smile to your face.

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – IT’S A SHAME ABOUT HIM”

“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).

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – THE DEVIL”

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.

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – BOB THE KELPIE”

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.

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – TEXAS TRILOGY”

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.

Continue reading “SONG OF THE WEEK – HAWAII ’78”

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: