We lost one of the great ones yesterday. John Prine was a songwriter’s songwriter. A true poet. His songs were irreverent, hilariously funny, sad, and poignant, often in the same line.
I’ve only got a few of his shows, but I thought I’d share them here
“When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I’ll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin’
Just five miles away from wherever I am”
It’s been a long time since the last installment of Bootleg Country, and I’m sorry about that. The truth of the matter is that I do most of my primary musical listening in the car. Sure tunes are often playing in the homestead, but it is usually regulated to the background as when I’m at home I’m either cleaning, or reading, or playing on this here computer and definitely not paying that much attention to the music that fills the aural cavities.
The thing that makes sense in that above paragraph is that I was laid off from my job back in August. Without a daily trip to and from the workplace, my automobile driving is rather limited. Well, I should say my automobile driving of my own car, for when I do go out these days it is usually with the misses and since she owns the better car, we take it.
Thus I’ve had little opportunity to do any listening to bootlegs, and without the listening, there isn’t much to write about.
Thanks to a long drive to visit my folks out in Oklahoma I’m happy to present the newest edition of Bootleg Country. I’d like to promise regular upcoming editions, but there still isn’t a decent job in sight.
Back in the days of college, I had a friend, well I had lots of friends, but there was one in particular that stood out. Musically that is. He had this big giant tape collection filled with all sorts of musicians I had never heard of.
You see when I was in the age of growing up I only knew music through the pop radio station, MTV, and my mom. MTV and the radio both played basically the same songs, that is to say whatever was a hit at the moment, while my mom had a nice collection of classic rock vinyl. It was there I first heard Dylan, the Beatles, Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beach Boys and many others. But even all this was not cutting very deep into the pantheon of rock music.
It was in the latter days of high school that I began to search out music out of the mainstream. With magazines like Spin and Alternative Press I began to learn of bands like Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., All, and Operation Ivy. Periodically I actually had the cash to buy the albums I was reading about and my musical knowledge grew.
Then there was this fella in college who had such a lovely collection of tunes. We became friendly enough, and I dropped by enough that he gave me a key to his dorm room and I would often slip in while he was at class or on a date or whatever. I would sit all alone in that room playing tape after tape, filled with new music.
It was within those walls that I first heard a Grateful Dead bootleg. It was there I first fell in love with a man named Willie Nelson. And it was there I discovered Lyle Lovett, John McCutcheon, and John Prine.
John Prine
09/12/99
West 54th Street
New York, NY
In the liner notes to the first John Prine album, Kris Kristopherson tells the story of hearing an unsigned and unheard of John Prine play a few songs in a little club, after hours. He relates that moment to what it must have been like to hear Bob Dylan at the Gaslight in the early sixties. Kristopherson, no stranger to great songwriting, knows of what he speaks.
Prine laughs off the Dylan comparison in an interview on this bootleg with a breezy, “Yeah there were four or five of us,” and while Dylan comparisons aren’t really necessary, Prine has written some of the best-danged folk songs this country has ever seen.
This bootleg is from a taping of the television program, Sessions at West 54th and as such you get a few things that differ from the normal bootleg. The sound quality is great, though having been compressed for television signals, the extreme audiophile may beg to differ. The set is relatively short, fitting nicely onto one blank CD. And there are a few interview sections with John Hiatt.
I should also note that my bootleg is missing a few songs from the official set list, which makes me assume that it was recorded straight off of the television show, and not the later DVD release, or soundboard feed.
As an added bonus there are a few duets with the always lovely Iris Dement. The taping comes off of Prine’s release of the album, In Spite of Ourselves, which heavily featured Ms. Dement.
The show starts with a rollicking, rambling “Spanish Pipedream” with a full band, and they sound like they are having lots of fun, even if the music is a bit of a mess. It still remains one of my favorite songs and contains an oft-quoted (at least by me) chorus:
Blow up your TV, throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your own
The band settles down to a gentle “so sad it’s pretty” version of “Six O’Clock News” followed by the relatively new, but still utterly sad “All the Best.”
Iris Dement sings on four songs (“(We’re Not) The Jet Set,” “Let’s Invite Them Over Again,” “When Two Worlds Collide,” and “In Spite of Ourselves”) and while she is always a welcome voice to my ears, on this set she only accentuates the raggedness of Prine’s natural voice.
There is an amusing anecdote given before “In Spite of Ourselves” where Prine discusses how he had to cajole DeMent a little to sing the song with him due to its “questionable lyrics” (which include sniffing undies and convict movie fetishes.) Ultimately she was won over and we have a song that’s pure Prine – raunchy, sweet, and hilarious – and the world is better for it.
During one of the interview sections, Prine mentions how he got started in the business by playing at an amateur hour for a local club. After hearing the first three songs he’d ever written Prine was hired permanent.
Those three songs? “Souvenirs,” “Paradise,” and “Sam Stone.”
As Hiatt says in the interview, “Good God, I would have hired you after that too.”
For those of you unfamiliar with Prine or those songs, that would be like Dylan saying his first three songs were, “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Blowing in the Wind,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin.”
This is the best-sounding Prine bootleg I have, and despite a somewhat ragged performance, it is still a great disk.
The entire session has been released on DVD and is available through Amazon.
“(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” – KC and the Sunshine Band From The Best of KC and the Sunshine Band
Truth be told, if the story comes out, I’m really not a fan of dance music. Disco, hip hop, techno, and rave music all get a collective ‘meh’ from my bones. Maybe it’s that I’m a middle-aged white boy with a Church of Christ background (where dancing is a sin) but the appeal of the dance club is completely lost on me. The loud music, the smoke, and the embarrassment of having to shake my hips in rhythm just turn me off from the whole scene. This being true, the music involved has never really done anything for me, either.
There are a few exceptions. “Shake Your Booty” is one of them. It has enough infectious pop grooves in it to make a grandma shake. It also reminds me of a Simpsons clip show where they play this song along with a montage of all the Simpsons’ nudity from previous episodes. Hilarious stuff.
The booty shake of the music isn’t enough to get me out on the dance floor mind you. If played in public, I might jiggle my buns for the laugh effect, but then I’d keep myself firmly rooted in standing-ness, or sit-down-ness and just sing along. If the mood struck me, and I was feeling particularly frisky, I might get down a little in the privacy of my own home. The problem then comes back to my non dancing background and any attempt at hip movements from this old body usually results in laughter from my wife.
“Tennessee” – Arrested Development
From 3 Years 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of…
I grew up in the 80’s. My musical sensibilities were developed in the early 90’s. I don’t like dance music. Rap and hip hop mean MC Hammer, Young MC, and Vanilla Ice to me. I came of age musically at a time when radio wasn’t dominated by hip-hop acts. This isn’t really to diss the genre of music, I just don’t get it. I see guys I work with, a good 5-10 years younger than me completely engaged with rap artists. I suspect if I had been born a few years later, I too would have at least some existence with this culture. As it is, what I know of it comes from a period of time when it was marginalized as a novelty. Hammer and Vanilla were not real artists, they were mocking the true performers. They were circus performers, acceptable to the mainstream audience at a time when they didn’t know what to do with hardcore artists.
Even so, I think Arrested Development put out some dang good music for the time. “Tennessee” along with “People Everyday” stands up to the best music in my collection. They have just as much in common with what is now termed “Americana” as they do with rap. They threw in fat beats along with a folksy, country twang.
I know I’m no longer hip. My musical universe is so outside the popular or even hip world it would make me sad if I cared. I don’t know where Arrested Development fares amongst the kids today and their Eminems and Tupacs. What I do know is “Tennessee” is a great freaking song, no matter what genre you put it in.
“Fish and Whistle” – John Prine
From Souvenirs
Souvenirs is Prine’s album full of cover songs, except that he’s covering himself. Essentially he wrote a whole bunch of beautiful songs as a young man, but as an older man, he felt he could do better. Sometimes he’s right, other times he sounds pretty much like he did when he was younger.
For “Fish and Whistle” I can’t make any proclamation, for I’ve never heard the original. But I must say this version is a treasure. Prine’s voice has aged gracefully over the years. It is never something you would call beautiful, but now the ruggedness has been toned down by something sounding suspiciously like wisdom. His lyrics have always been beyond his years, and now his voice has caught up to that.
The music here is lilting, catchy, and sunny. Honestly, I have no idea what the lyrics mean. They sound like Prine is making some kind of joke that I just don’t get, or being cynical about religion without being too hateful about it. Either way, it’s fun to sing along even if I don’t know what I’m saying.
“Candle in the Wind (acoustic version)” – Elton John
From Yellow Brick Road
Elton John completely ruined this song for me with his Princess Diana tribute. I was never mesmerized by the Princess in life or death. I didn’t wish her any harm, and she seemed to have done some good in this world, but she lived in a world I just wasn’t particularly interested in. John changing his lyrics to lionize her, however honest and heartfelt, always seemed like a cheap way to make a buck.
This version begins to sway my feelings back. It is an acoustic version with a guitar playing the piano parts. It seems more stripped down, more honest. Like it has torn the exuberant, Liberace Elton away from the honest songwriter.
It is a beautiful, heart-tearing version of a song I’m happy to relive again.
“Conscious Evolution” – Donna the Buffalo
From Live from the American Ballroom
I must say the time I caught this band live here in Bloomington it was a much better show than what I hear from this live album. Maybe it was that I was but ten feet from the band, or maybe it was the pretty girls dancing around me, but that show was so sweeeet, where this disk is a good deal of fun, but nothing mind-blowing.
This song has a good deal of verve to it. They get out there a little bit with a revolution groove that jiggles my innards. There is a curviness to the guitar that completely melts my inner sanctum.
Halfway through it morphs into “Working on a Building” an old spiritual that fits perfectly into their root’s musical background and their own spiritual lyrics.
Editor’s Note: I couldn’t find a Youtube clip of the live version of the song I’m writing about here, so I found a different one.
“I’m Lonely (But I Aint That Lonely Yet) – The White Stripes
from Get Behind Me Satan
There was a period of about 3 years where my live music lust pretty much blocked everything else out. I had no interest in new music. The stuff I periodically heard on the radio was trash. Boy bands and Britney Spears, my life can totally live without that.
The thing was, live music moved me in ways that the typical studio album didn’t. Plus it was a lot cheaper to buy a blank CDR at about ten cents a pop than spend $18 for a studio album I wasn’t even sure was any good.
Slowly, I began coming out of my hibernation and came around to the idea that there was some good music out there that wasn’t live, that was produced in a studio, and that was worth my $18.
It is during this reemergence that my sister’s husband, Brian asked me if I had heard the new White Stripes album. I replied I hadn’t and he said I should check it out, that I would like it. I’m always a little annoyed when people tell me I’ll like something – whether it’s a song, or a movie or a book – most people have no idea what I really like, and to presume I’ll like something based on whatever is annoying. But Brian is usually pretty spot on with his recommendations (well except for talking me into seeing Shallow Hal, for which he will never be forgiven).
So, I got a copy of Get Behind Me Satan and freaking loved it. I had been hearing about the White Stripes for a while, about how they were the saviors of garage rock, but had pretty much ignored them. The album was so much more than garage rock, or punk, or just loud guitars. These were well-thought-out tunes, with insight into melody and song craft. The band could use a little filling out from their trick 2-person lineup. The songs need little more than guitar/drum, piano/drum, and solo piano. Would it kill Jack White to hire a bass player, and maybe a rhythm guitarist?
“I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet) is a nice little piano ballad. It is a far cry from the pumped-up boom of “Seven Nation Army.” It’s also one of my least favorites from the album. There just isn’t enough to it. It’s got sad little lyrics, but it’s just pling pling on the piano and mopey singing from Mr. White. This seems to be a trend in ballads these days – write moody, poetic lyrics and a bland, unmelodic bit of music to go with it.
“So Alive” – Ryan Adams
from Rock N Roll
Ryan Adams came to me in this same musical awakening period as the White Stripes. I forget when I actually started to dig him. I absolutely loved “New York, New York” which got all sorts of airplay just after 9/11 what with the timely lyrics and the video on the bridge overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
But after that song, I looked no further into the Ryan Adams playlist. All the cool people seemed to dig him. I think I couldn’t get past that sloppy hipster hair. But slowly, somewhere I heard another song and another and became a fan.
Adams is the king of the no melody, just pluck on your instrument while singing a super sad lyrics ballad. He drives me crazy with that stuff, especially since he can write a darn fine piece of pop music.
“So Alive” is a rather upbeat, lively piece of tuneage. It’s actually a bit U2ish in its grandiosity, albeit with a Morrissey kind of vocal thing going. The results are interesting. It’s a good song, something that could easily blare out of my car speakers on a warm sunny day. It’s not really what I expect, or want from Ryan Adams though. He has the ability to write a real hook. His best songs keep me singing them for hours after I’ve heard them, this one leaves my head soon after the last note is played.
“Hello in There” John Prine
from Souvenirs
God bless John Prine. He’s been writing songs like a mystic sage living on a mountaintop since he was but a young man. His lyrics are some of the most beautiful, moving words sung this side of Bob Dylan. He likes to say that he is an old rock and roller who has made a living writing folk songs. We are better people because of it.
Souvenirs is Prine covering himself. It is a collection of songs he wrote some 20 years before, reworked for a voice that is much more mature, and a man who has lived enough life to live in lyrics written by a man too young to know better.
“Hello In There” is a song written for old people. It’s a sad, beautiful thing that makes you want to call your grandmother after a listen. I have to admit, this new version nails the song in ways the original just couldn’t. Prine’s voice, while never smooth and pretty, has taken a rougher edge, with a maturity that fits the loneliness of old age perfectly.
“I Am Mine” – Pearl Jam
from Riot Act
Speaking of Brian turning me onto music, he’s one of the last few die-hard Pearl Jam fans out there. Like a million other teenagers I fell in love with the band with their first release, Ten. The music was straight out of the 70’s hard rock box, with lyrics that spoke of alienation and hard times. It was perfect for a long-haired, mixed-up 17-year-old.
I listened to their second album Vs for several weeks straight, without playing any other album. This was my band.
Then I went to college, met a girl who was too punk for grunge, and Pearl Jam left me behind. Their very different, and ungrunge-like third album Vitalogy didn’t help much. Periodically I heard a new single from the band and had a brief thought that I should get back into them, but never got around to it.
As stated, Brian is one of the last of the die-hards. The boy loves him some Pearl Jam. His enthusiasm for the band always gets me and always makes me want to listen to the band fresh again. So, I buy an album or download a single and dig them for a little while.
“I Am Mine” is fairly typical of what I’ve heard from new Pearl Jam. The hard rock edge is lessened by a better melody. Eddie Vedder’s deep baritone sweeps the song along. The lyrics are mysterious, sounding vaguely political and meaningful yet difficult to decipher and make sense of, yet remaining thematic and full of sing-along ability.
“Not Fade Away” – Grateful Dead
from Dicks Picks 4
My first time seeing any member of the Grateful Dead was at a Furthur Festival in Atlanta. This was a couple of years after Jerry died, and the surviving members were just starting to play music again. Bob Weir played a set with his band, Ratdog. Mickey Hart played all kinds of worldly drums with his ensemble, Bruce Hornsby had his band, and a few other Dead-like bands were invited along as well.
At the close of the night, all the bands joined together for a jam session. They closed with this Buddy Holly classic and Dead staple. As the song ended the musicians left the stage one by one, while those still onstage kept up the beat. Lastly, there were the drummers, banging out the bop, bop bop-bop backbeat. As they, too, left the stage the entire audience kept rhythm with hand claps and their own voices. I stood there in the hot Georgia night smiling in the knowing feeling that I’d just had the time of my life. Even if the band had played that song a million times, and a thousand other audiences had sung along in the exact same way, I felt special. I felt a part of something. It was magic.
The Grateful Dead did play this song a million times. It was a concert staple from their early years. This version, taken from a show in February 1970 exemplifies the Dead’s ability to take a very simple pop song and elevate it to something far more. It is some 13 minutes in length and never has a misstep or a dull moment. The Dead never takes it to the cosmic heights of say “Dark Star” but it is transcendent just the same.
themidnightcafe.org 