Last week, it was "A Night With The Jersey Devil," for Halloween. This week, it's "Working On A Dream," for Barack Obama. It's about time the guy who wrote "Working On the Highway" and "I'll Work For Your Love" has covered Elvis Presley's "Follow That Dream," Roy Orbison's "In Dreams," and Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" while spending his career sweating it out on the streeets of a runaway American dream got around to that title, come to think of it. This one is a hopeful acoustic prayer of a song, performed with his wife Patti Scialfa at an Obama rally in Ohio.
Here's a Labelle "Lady Marmalade" video from back in the day, to go with my interivew with Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash in today's Inquirer. Not sure exactly where this clip is from, though it likely dates back to 1974 or '75. The ladies are lip syncing, but there's lots to look at. Go here to sample LaBelle's reunion album, Back To Now.
An Obama celebration song, called "Obama," from Kenyan-American band Extra Golden. The Illinois Senator and now President elect helped the band get visas to tour the U.S. in 2006, and here's how they paid him back:
Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers made a dedication to President-elect Obama at the Electric Factory on Saturday night during the "Rock & Roll Means Well" tour his Southern rock band co-headlined with The Hold Steady. It wasn't a song of celebration, though Hood seemed pretty happy about the election result. Instead, it was "The Righteous Path," one of the best songs on Brighter Than Creation's Dark, an album that's full of good ones. It could hardly have been more appropriate though, giving voice, as it did, to those blue collar Hillary Clinton voters that Obama got enough of to win the election last week.
Though it came out back in January, "The Righteous Path" could have been a sound track to the economic implosion of 2008. "I got a couple of opinions that I hold dear/I got a whole lot of debt, and a whole lot of fear/I got an itch that needs scratching, but it feels alright/I got a need to blow it out on a Saturday night.... More bills than money, I can do the math/I'm trying to stay focused on the righteous path."
The Truckers' are a pretty prodigiously talented group, songwriting wise. Even though ace tunesmith Jason Isbell left the band in 2007, they've still got a triple threat going, with Hood (he's the big guy with the beard), Mike Cooley (the Keith Richards of the band, whose "Marry Me," gives the tour it's name; "Rock and roll means well, but it can't help tellin' young boys lies"), and bass player Shonna Tucker, Isbell's ex-wife, who sang her languourous "Houston" on Saturday night.
That embarrassment of riches, though, can sometimes result in the Truckers' losing sight of the righteous path, in three hour shows that meander as they make room for all stories they have to tell. Saturday night, though, the Truckers were kept to a taut 80 minutes or so, as were the opening Hold Steady. And the condensed format - and friendly competition, one suspects - between the two band meant that they were both bashing it out on top of their games over the course of a never-dull riff-happy marathon.
There was a good bit of interaction, with Hood coming out to join the Hold Steady for "Your Little Hoodrat Friend," one of Craig Finn (he's the spastic frontman with glasses, making quote marks in the blue light) during the opening, convulsively-rocking set. And the joint encore ended with a glorious bang, with HS guitarist Tad Kubler and keyboard player/accordionist joining the Truckers for Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World." Neil's got a good double bill of his own coming up, with Wilco at the Spectrum on Dec. 12, but he and Jeff Tweedy will have their work cut out for them for that twofer to top this Saturday night blowout.
Here's the cool looking video for Kanye West's "Heartless," directed by Hype Williams.The rotoscope animation technique borrows from Ralph Baskshi's 1981 American Pop , with a nod to The Jetsons and Andy Warhol. The autotuned vocal borrows from T-Pain, whose "rapper ternt sanga" model Mr. West seems intent on appropriating on 808s & Heartbreak. Still, it's an improvement on "Love Lockdown," the first single from the album that's West's first post-Graduation trilogy effort, which has a release date, Monday November 24, that's the same due-out day as new albums by the Killers and Ludacris, and comes one day after Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy, in what seems to be a joint effort at doing away with the industry's long new release Tuesday tradition.
Here's some Taylor Swift stuff to go with the interview in this morning's Inky. Four songs from Fearless are streaming at her MySpace page. Below are videos for "Love Story," and Def Leppard's "Photograph," from CMT's Crossroads. You can relive her Swiftian Phillies World Series moment here, in which the Pat Burrell fan took a novel approach to the Francis Scott Key composition. "I felt like the National Anthem had sort of become a singing contest to see who could show off the most," she told me. "So I thought what better way to turn it back into a song than to play guitar."
Somebody called out with a request for "Castanets" at Alejandro Escovedo's show at the World Cafe Live last night, and the Austin, Texas guitarist and songwriter paused before granting it. In a 2005 article in the New York Times, it turns out, it was revealed that the gnarly rocker ("I love her hair in a tangled mess, I like her better when she walks away") can be found on President George W. Bush's iPod. Escovedo quit playing it for just that reason, but on Wednesday, "since he's on the way out," the singer, who was accompanied by violinist Susan Voelz and guitarist David Pulkingham, relented and closed the show with it. After dedicating it to Barack Obama, that is.
Earlier in the encore, Escovedo had delivered a crushingly beautiful version of Warren Zevon's "She's Too Good For Me," and before that, roamed the room with Voelz (pronounced like the '80s Philadelphia band, the Vels) and Pulkingham, to serenade the packed house, mariachi style, with Ian Hunter's "I Wish I Was Your Mother," among others.
He also delved deeply into Real Animal, the terrific, Tony Visconti-produced album he wrote with Chuck Prophet, and which he's been touring behind throughout 2008. The sorrowful "Sister Lost Soul," dedicated to Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Sid Vicious and Bo Diddley, was a highlight, but the whole chamber-rock show was marked by the consistency and intelligence and class that marks everything that Escovedo does. Not as electrifying as his set at the Xponential Music fest in Camden this summer, but every bit as good.
Everybody does indeed need somebody to love, but not everybody knows that it was Solomon Burke, and not the Rolling Stones, who was the originator of "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love," as well as "Cry To Me" and "If You Need Me," all soul classics covered by the Stones' during their mid-60s coming of age.
The Philadelphia born and raised Burke, now 68, is a soul giant in every sense of the words, is an imposing yet genial presence who sits upon his rightful throne on stage, sometimes with a crown atop his shaven head. He declares himself to be "the fastest moving entertainer in a wheelchair in the world," in
Paul Spencer's documentary, Everybody Needs Somebody, which will screen Sunday at 6 at the Painted Bride as part of the First Persons Arts Festival.
Burke, who grew up the godson of Pentecostal evangelist Sweet Daddy Grace, started out preaching on Philadelphia street corners when he was 9. In Spencer's lively documentary, he's driven around to his old haunts (though we're never told exactly where in the city we are) and he's interviewed on WDAS, where he talking about growing up and "growing accustomed to shouting and praising the Lord and giving Good the glory."
Everybody Needs Somebody is the tale of a man who has spent a career turning the concert stage into his own personal pulpit, and bringing religious fervor to secular soul songs. "If he's singing about Jesus, you believe it, and if he's singing about sex, you believe it, too," says his good buddy Tom Jones.
Jones is among the assembled talking heads, along with Irma Thomas, the Stones' Bill Wyman and music historian Peter Guralnick, who says of the King of Rock and Soul: "I don't think there's ever been a better singer of American vernacular music than Solomon Burke. Not to put him ahead of Ray Charles or Hank Williams or Sam Cooke or Hank Williams, but he's right up there in their league."
Burke named his Joe Henry-produced 2002 comeback album, Don't Give Up On Me, after Dan Penn's title track. And the thing that's unique and inspiring about him as a performer, is that the father of 21, great grandfather of 79 and great great grandfather of 17, still possesses an all powerful yet mellifluous voice, and his powers of concentration as a song interpreter and a theatrical performer intent on selling a song are undiminished. The movie, which is also available on DVD, commits the typical music doc crime of rarely allowing performances to be seen from start to finish. But besides being a charismatic storyteller in his interview segments, Burke's compelling in performance, whether singing Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan's "Diamond In Your Mind," at the Kimmel Center in 2005, or giving life, one more time, to "Everybody Needs Somebody," with Jools Holland in the studio in London.
At the Bride, the $25 admission to the screening will include a soul food supper, and a performance by The Barbara Walker Story. Details here. Here's a 2003 Top of the Pops version of "Everybody."
Little Steven lays that tag on a tune every week on his Undergound Garage channel, heard on Channel 25 on Sirus Satellite Radio, and, since the merger is finally going into effect, on Channel 59 on XM, too. This week's coolest is "Baby Should Have Known Better," come from Palmyra Delran, the now New York based South Jerseyite who fronted grrl rockers The Friggs, whose compilation disc, Today's Is Tomorrow's Yesterday came out this fall. As did She Digs The Ride, Delran's solo EP, in which the self described "Russ Meyer-esque" guitarist and singer puts her ample garage-rockabilly and girl group rock skills on display. Check out "Baby Should Have Known Better" here.
Melodic British eccentric Robyn Hitchock plays the World Cafe Live tonight, focusing on his much loved 1984 album I Often Dream Of Trains, which was re-issued last year. The video for the album's title cut is below. Underneath that is the stop motion animation clip for "The Man With The Lightbulb Head," which is not on that album, but worth hoping he'll do. Sometimes Hitchock's Lewis Caroll-Syd Barrett whimsical psychedelia can be forced, but at his best his music is not just clever, but haunting. He's also the skinny gray haired guy in the wedding band in Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, and you can hear "Up To Our Nex," from that soundtrack here.
My interview with Philadelphia's own Jazmine Sullivan, who plays the indoor Susqeuhanna Bank Center with Maxwell on Friday, is here. The "Need U Bad" video is below. Beneath that is a clip of the 11 year old Sullivan on Showtime At The Apollo.
Talking backstage at Constitution Hall in D.C. this week, Sullivan spoke a bit about her favorite singers. Here's her top five.
1. "Kim Burrell. I'm attracted to people with wonderful tones. I have a tone similar to hers. It's very raspy, almost hoarse to ears who don’t understand it. She has a great range, actually. Her range is pretty high, and she can do a lot of vocal tricks with it. But it was the tone. ...She has a voice that has inspired a lot of singers. People who know music, know Kim Burrell. She’s a singer’s singer."
2. "Stevie Wonder. Stevie is the artist of all artists. He's so creative. His music brought so many people together: Young, old, black, white, purple, gray. His career is one to emulate. I went to his concert at the Wachovia Center. I tell you, he had 3 hours of hit after hit after hit. I almost cried. He had people of all different nationalities ... just happy. They didn't know each other, they were just singing the songs. He just brought them all together because his music is just so wonderful. When he's on stage you can tell he has such a great spirit."
3. "Donny Hathaway. His voice - He had a tone that was so beauftiful and so simple. He could sing one note, and it would mean more to you than somebody else singing a full song. I can't even explain it. That's a God given gift. The tone of his voice is just so beautiful. You felt everything he said. Just amazing."
4. "Aretha. She’s the Queen of Soul. Nobody had soul like Aretha. She sat down and played that piano....."
5 "Who would be my fifth? I’m naming all older people.... I'll say, and a lot of people will be surprised, but I’ll say Brandy…I love Brandy. I do, I do. She’s another one of the young artists who has such a different voice. Her voice is along the lines of mine. it's low, it's raspy. It’s different than most singers."
Christine Weiser has created excellently-named bands both actual and fictional. In real life, she played bass in Mae Pang, the '90s all-girl garage trio fronted by her partner in crime, Lynette Byrnes, with whom she still plays bass around town in The Tights. And with Mae Pang - misspelled after John Lennon's '70s "lost weekend" girlfriend - as her template, Weiser's now given birth to Broad Street, the terrific Philadelphia rock roman a clef that she'll read from this weekend at the Atlantic Bookshop on South Street on Saturday and at the Big Blue Marble bookshop in Mt. Airy on Sunday.
Broad Street is the name of the book and the name of the band that Weiser's bass playing protagonist, Kit, forms with her cool friend Margo. Kit works for a medical publisher in Center City, and though she used to spin Chrissie Hynde and L7 records on her college radio station, she's a passive member of the Khyber Pass and Trocadero-centric Philly rock scene until she meets Margo, a charismatic presence with hidden vulnerabilities who turns her on to Wanda Jackson's "Fujiyama Mama."
And the rest is herstory, or at least a female friendship tale of growing self-esteem that gets all the grimy details right - from the deceitful rock boys in Stooges T-shirts to the shout-outs to long lost local bands of the era like Electric Love Muffin. Kit and her sister Nikki have enough boyfriend trouble to satisfy readers seeking a chick-lit fix. But the core of the book is Kit's relationship with Margo, and the compelling and convincingly rendered scenes of them learning to make music together.
The best part about Broad Street, though, is that Weiser, who lives in Elkins Park and is cofounder of the literary journal Philadelphia Stories (and has already completed a sequel to Broad Street), is a real writer who gets Kit's interior voice down in clean, concise prose. "I felt like a frog pinned down to a board, a scalpel dangling above me," is how the self-conscious protagonist describes being dissected by Margo's gaze when they first meet a Center City hipster party with a Nirvana soundtrack. And she's funny, too: She captures the perils of being in an all girl band when a pervert approaches the stage, "gray tongue slithered out between thin chapped lips" and "brown teeth emerged in a reptilian smile," Kit realizes the mic stand was "my only bodyguard against his drunken hormones." (There's also a cool part where a Broad Street show at the Troc gets reviewed in the Inquirer by some hack music critic with alliterative initials, but you'll have to read the book to find out about that.)
Spanish beat maker Pablo Díaz-Reixa - a.k.a. El Guincho - brings his pan global mix all the way to Fishtown on Sunday night. Diaz-Reixa is based in Barcelona, though he originally hails from the Canary Islands. His pan-global kitchen-sink indie-dance debut, Alegranza! - the name translates as "joy" - is one of the year's best. It's an early, all-ages show, with San Francisco's equally trippy, though not quite so joyous, Lemonade.
