DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS

Both Rich and I are in the process of moving; Rich from his Florida manse to the green hills of North Carolina, and I…. to who knows where, or when? But it’ll be soon. I have lived in my house for 24 years, and the amount of accumulation is mind boggling, and paralyzing. Since the death of my wife, Chemayne, two years ago, I’ve been unable to face the tremendous lift it’s going to take to purge a lifetime of stuff. But, it must be done, and I’m gritting my teeth. And, Rich, following the death of his mom, June, is smack dab in the middle of his own major life shift, which is exacting a toll on his spine and spirit. 

As is my usual response to the challenges of living, such reflections often result in the writing of a song - in this case, an ode of sympathetic solidarity, which I offer in tribute to my friend. 

In October, 1966, the singer Nico began a residency at a bar in the East Village. She wore a white pantsuit and wielded a tambourine; her drawn vowels hung in the smoky air. She was still playing occasional shows with the Velvet Underground, whose first album would be released the following year. But, to Nico’s dismay, the band’s leader, Lou Reed, refused to play guitar at her solo shows, and barred the rest of the group from joining her. Onstage, she was forced to sing to a prerecorded backing from a small cassette player. “The tears would roll down her face because she just couldn’t remember how the buttons worked,” Andy Warhol, who managed the Velvets, recalled. Humiliation was a theme: four months later, at a club called the Dom, Warhol tried to make her perform inside a Plexiglas box.

Nico was used to being treated as a physical spectacle. At the Dom, Leonard Cohen was a regular guest, and he began writing songs in hopes of seducing her. Her improbable bone structure, and her role in “La Dolce Vita,” intrigued prominent rock managers like Albert Grossman, who worked with Bob Dylan. But her songs were less appealing, and the Dom’s clientele often laughed through her set. She was eventually accompanied on guitar by Tim Buckley, and then by Jackson Browne, who had just arrived in New York. Browne became enamored with Nico, and before they fell out—she accused him of harassing her with obscene phone calls—he gave her two songs: “The Fairest of the Seasons” and “These Days,” both of which appeared on her 1967 début, “Chelsea Girl.”

Few songs so beautifully misrepresent a singer as “These Days.” The clarity of Browne’s fingerpicked guitar lines, and the delicacy of Nico’s languor, is rendered just alien enough by her vocals, a more tuneful version of the stentorian drawl she used with the Velvets. “Please don’t confront me with my failures / I had not forgotten them,” she sings. Since its inclusion in Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” where it accompanies a kohl-eyed Gwyneth Paltrow, “These Days” has become Nico’s best-known song, a hymn of stifled glamour. It reinforces her popular image, which has been confected from late-sixties publicity stills, bits of blank-stare footage from Warhol films, and photographs of her with Reed and John Cale, the Velvets’ Welsh savant. She migrates in the mind between fashion and folk, downtown bohème and Fellini-sponsored stardom. And always, in case you don’t know, there is the spectre of her heroin addiction, the protracted ruin of her personal life.  -
The New Yorker

Several years ago, I wrote a time-travel film treatment called “Song Trippers” about a quartet of lonely, damaged people who found solace through music. Each lost soul connects to a song that transports them back in time to the place in their youth when they were the happiest. Of course, we all know that music has magic power. There are songs that can trip my memory far from the here and now to earlier states of joyful wonderment, and sadness, too, if that’s what’s called for. It’s strong medicine.

For each episode in this series, I’ll take an 8 Track down from the shelf and share it with you, along with some special memories, bonded by that spiritual epoxy that has forged the framework of my life’s scaffold. - Captain Billy

"CARRYING A TORCH"

THE END OF THE WORLD by Julie London (Liberty, 1963)

That indelible contralto voice… smoky, sultry, and so sexy: the quintessential “torch” singer, Julie London’s singing career almost didn’t happen. She had given up show business for her first husband, Jack Webb (Sgt. Friday in Dragnet, and successful Hollywood producer). When the marriage broke up she linked up with their friend, Bobby Troup, the musician and composer of Route 66, and great things started happening for the vocalist.

In 1956 she recorded Cry Me a River, produced by Troup, for the film The Girl Can’t Help it, and the tune entered the ledger of all time classic jazz standards (#48 in NPR’s 50 Greatest Jazz Vocals). She went on to make over 30 albums, and this one, released in 1963, though more heavily orchestrated, features her blasé, no frills approach, standing unperturbed at the center of the lush arrangements. Adaptation was easy for this singer - check out her insouciant cover of Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Love in My Tummy. (MUCH BETTER than the original).

In legendary fashion, the gorgeous Julie Peck was discovered in 1945, running an elevator in Los Angeles, and an acting career was inevitable. 30 years later, still alluring, Julie was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Dixie McCall in Emergency! (Produced by ex-husband Webb). Troup was also in the series: they all stayed friends.
I’m melting as I enjoy this lounge classic, and in full agreement with record producer Simon Waronker’s observation: “the lyrics poured out of her like a hurt bird”. Julie was a chain smoker from the age of 16, and it was lung cancer that brought her down in 1999. Was it a “Faustian” bargain: to trade the ravages of tar and nicotine for an eternally immortal sound? I’ll let the philosophers puzzle that out.

"Two Trains Running" - From The Blues Project Album "Projections"
STEVE KATZ: It was Danny's tribute to Muddy Waters. Danny lived for Muddy Waters, which is sort of understandable given how wonderful, how monumental Muddy and some of his songs were. And that was one of his most monumental songs.

AL KOOPER: We started playing it and as we became a better band it became a better arrangement. And there were amazing things in it. It was a really great arrangement. It's nothing like the Muddy Waters version.

DANNY KALB: It's one of the great things done by any blues band there is, white or black. And we're going through it and it's powerful, it's like a rock opera but short. And it's Muddy Waters. But it's also us. And it's also showing that America was going down the road through music and a lot of other things of integration. The music was making people take a second look at the hatred.

AL KOOPER: What's really funny is on the version that's on the album, Danny's string went out of tune and as part of the arrangement he tuned it back up. It was fabulous, we didn't have to stop. Normally you would stop. But he made it part of the arrangement. That was a great moment.

DANNY KALB: We were up there in the studio and there's magic in the air. We were right before the end and I hit one bad note, but I quickly made the bad note into a good note in a quarter of a second. And the thing comes together and ends right and we've got a masterpiece.

STEVE KATZ: There was no creativity on the engineers. They were busy setting up for Eric Burdon. They probably were bringing in microphones while we were doing our take.

DANNY KALB: I'd been playing it for a long time. I was a folk guitarist and a blues guitarist. I studied with the great Dave Van Ronk, he was my teacher. Dave was one of the greatest. A great blues singer, a great teacher and a great soul. He died a few years ago. He changed my life, he changed [Bob] Dylan's life. We always gave tribute to our mentors. When we played on the same bill as Muddy Waters, who was our hero, a top man, we did "Two Trains Running." After the show, his band was packing up, the show was over and I was packing up and I saw Muddy leaving the Café au Go Go and I had to find out, in my deepest part, what he thought of our version of this tune that started out in the South many years ago, before he recorded it with any electric band. And these strange white people were doing this song. What was that about? So right before Muddy opened the door to go, I went up to Muddy Waters and I said to him, "Mr. Waters -- well, what did you think?" And I knew at that point that he knew what I was asking him. And he said to me, "You really got to me." If I had died then, it would have been enough.

FROM OUR 2020 "DIG THIS" ARCHIVES TO WISH GARNET MIMMS A HAPPY 89th BIRTHDAY!
Best known for his original rendition of "Cry Baby," later a major item in Janis Joplin's repertoire, Garnet Mimms' pleading, gospel-derived intensity made him one of the earliest true soul singers. His legacy remains criminally underappreciated.
Garnett Mimms was born in Ashland, West Virginia.He was brought up in Philadelphia, and began singing in church as a child.As a teenager, he was a former member of the Philadelphia-based gospel groups, the Evening Stars, the Harmonizing Four and the Norfolk Four.The latter he recorded his first record for in 1953.Garnett served several years in the military, and upon his release, he returned to Philadelphia in 1958 and formed a doo wop quintet called the Gainors.The line-up included Sam Bell, Willie Combo, John Jefferson and Howard Tate.The Gainors recorded singles for several labels over the following three years, including 'Red Top' (later picked up by the Cameo label), Mercury (from 1959-1960), and Tally Ho (in 1961).The group subsequently evolved into Garnet Mimms And The Enchanters, where the singer and Sam Bell were joined by Charles Boyer and Zola Pearnell.They met songwriter / producer Bert Berns, who signed them to United Artists, in 1963, and Bert teamed them up with another songwriter / producer, Jerry Ragovoy.Jerry's work helped create some of R & B's finest moments.The song 'Cry Baby' was an immediate U.S. hit, while 'Baby Don't You Weep' and 'For Your Precious Love' consolidated their arrival.The group split in 1964, when Garnett embarked on a solo career.Although the Enchanters found a new vocalist and continued to record, they were overshadowed by their former leader.Garnett' subsequent releases, 'Look Away', 'It Was Easier To Hurt Her' and 'I'll Take Good Care Of You' (the latter Garnett's last Top 40 hit in 1966), were well received, highlighting the singer's church roots against Ragovoy's musical backdrop.Such excellent records were not always well received, and in 1967, Garnett was sidelined to United Artists' subsidiary Veep.'My Baby' and 'Roll With The Punches' followed, but the singer's precarious artistic standing was confirmed when the latter was only released in Britain.Ragovoy then took Garnett to Verve Records (where he was also producing Howard Tate), but the four singles that appeared, although good, did not do as well as expected.It was not until 1977 that the singer returned to the chart.Credited to Garnet Mimms And The Truckin' Company, 'What It Is' was a minor R & B hit and even reached the UK chart at number 44.The track was produced by Randy Muller of Brass Construction fame.Garnett Mimms is now a born-again Christian and has not recorded for many years.

Several years ago, I wrote a time-travel film treatment called “Song Trippers” about a quartet of lonely, damaged people who found solace through music. Each lost soul connects to a song that transports them back in time to the place in their youth when they were the happiest. Of course, we all know that music has magic power. There are songs that can trip my memory far from the here and now to earlier states of joyful wonderment, and sadness, too, if that’s what’s called for. It’s strong medicine.

For each episode in this series, I’ll take an 8 Track down from the shelf and share it with you, along with some special memories, bonded by that spiritual epoxy that has forged the framework of my life’s scaffold. -
Bill "Captain Billy" Mesnik

FROM THE DIG THIS ARCHIVES- THE VERY FIRST EPISODE OF CAPTAIN BILLY'S MAGIC 8 BALL! -AFTER THE GOLD RUSH, by Neil Young, (Reprise, 1970)

This allusive, abstract ballad, inspired by a screenplay by fellow Topanga resident, Dean Stockwell, was lambasted by critics, and loved by the record buying public, making the album of the same name Neil’s second biggest seller. Few people care to parse out the thorny meaning of the lyrics, which take us from a knight’s festival, to a squalid junkie’s basement, to an alien spaceship coming to herald a new world.

Maybe it was all the acid I was consuming, but the thing made perfect sense to me – I simply flowed with the imagery, and bathed in the keening vocalism of the protagonist, an acquired taste to be sure. I also fucking loved that flugelhorn!

If you’re a fan you might prefer Heart of Gold, Cinnamon Girl, Old Man, The Needle and the Damage Done, or many of his other myriad time trips. All good, all good. All I know is that I love Neil dearly, and I’m glad he’s been with us all this time. Through it all, he has remained Neil. He has always demonstrated a stubborn independence, and made his own way against a sea of antagonistic forces and voices, corporate and artistic – a level of integrity which I so admire, and, from which I often fall so short.

For years, Tell Me Why, and Only Love Can Break Your Heart were on my set list. One reviewer covering my act wrote that when I sang high I was an ersatz Neil Young, and when I sang low I was a bargain basement Cat Stevens. Of course I did; I was finding my voice, asshole!

Lesley Sue Goldstein was born in Brooklyn in 1946 but grew up in Tenafly, NJ. She was a junior in high school when she was discovered by legendary producer Quincy Jones, who produced her 1963 hit "It's My Party" – a song which has achieved legendary status in the classic rock cannon. It remained at the top of the charts for two weeks and prompted Gore to record the Top 10 answer song "Judy's Turn to Cry". Her next two singles – "She's a Fool" and 1964’s most empowering feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me" – were also Top 10 hits. Additional Gore hits included "Maybe I Know," “That’s the Way Boys Are” and Marvin Hamlisch’s first hit composition "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows." After conquering the music charts, Gore branched out and began acting. Her film appearances included “Ski Party” and “Girls on the Beach” as well a performance in the concert film “The T.A.M.I. Show.” Her most notable acting role was that of ‘Pussycat’ – Catwoman’s sidekick on the 1960s Batman television series – where she introduced the single “California Nights.” In spite of her unrivaled recording and acting success while still a teenager, Gore refused to give up her education at Sarah Lawrence College. During most of the 1970s she remained out of the spotlight; but in 1980 Gore resurfaced when "Out Here On My Own," a song she co-wrote with her brother Michael for the film “Fame”, was nominated for an Oscar as Best Original Song. Throughout this period Gore continued to act on stage and on television. Her life story also inspired the 1996 movie “Grace of My Heart” in which a 1960s bubble-gum singer is shown to be a closeted lesbian. She released her final album in 2005 and came out publicly the same year. Gore also hosted several episodes of the LGBT newsmagazine series “In the Life” on PBS. She died of lung cancer on February 16, 2015 at the age of 68 and was survived by jewelry designer Lois Sasson, her partner of 33 years. Though she achieved only minimal financial success from her recording career, Leslie Gore remains one of the most iconic women in the early history of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

JOY GENERATORS

I first heard The Mills Brothers on a compilation disc in the 70’s with their rendition of F.D.R. Jones (a song with a complicated history). But, what struck me right off the bat was the fanfare of mouth trumpets, the infectious swinging groove, the unadulterated joy that gushed forth, and the perfectly in synch sibling harmony.

This was one of the most enduring acts in American History: 54 years, 2000 recordings selling 50 million copies; the first African-American group to have their own radio show and a #1 on the Billboard Chart: Paper Doll, which is, of course, included on this collection. The cart is manufactured by GRT, a division of Paramount, but The Mills Brothers recorded multiple versions of their hits, so most likely these more mellow and mature evocations are third or fourth generation renderings, packaged for a nostalgic 8 track community.

I had no clue the extent to which the “fart sound” that I learned to make by humming through my lips could be employed to such symphonic magnificence. The music these gentlemen created without instruments was mind blowing, and they employed their signature ensemble of ersatz trumpet, trombone, and tuba generously throughout their careers.  Listen, and be swept into the joyous vortex. 

Spanning from early jazz, through Doo-Wop, and vocal Rock n Roll, The Mills Brothers embodied the entire spectrum of 20th century American popular music. Such titles as Lazy River, Glow Worm, Basin Street Blues are timeless, and when you hear them, you hear the past, present, and the future blend together as smoothly as their unparalleled genetic synchronization. They were the children of a barber who helmed his own actual barbershop quartet, so these gentlemen were born to harmonize, which they did better than anyone.

Song titles: 
Paper Doll, Nevertheless, Till Then, Cielito Lindo, Basin Street Blues, Rockin’ Chair, You Always Hurt the One You Love, Across the Alley from the Alamo, I’ll Be Around, Lazy River, Glow Worm, Be My Life’s Companion.

"In 1960s New York City lived a blind, often homeless man with a long, flowing beard, who dressed as a Viking and stood sentinel at the corner of West 54th Street and Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. He sold his poetry and performed on custom-built percussion.  His recordings are considered legendary pieces of original sound emanating from a unique artist who continues to be misunderstood and under appreciated."

"Nico was used to being treated as a physical spectacle. At the Dom, Leonard Cohen was a regular guest, and he began writing songs in hopes of seducing her. Her improbable bone structure, and her role in “La Dolce Vita,” intrigued prominent rock managers like Albert Grossman, who worked with Bob Dylan. But her songs were less appealing, and the Dom’s clientele often laughed through her set. She was eventually accompanied on guitar by Tim Buckley, and then by Jackson Browne, who had just arrived in New York. Browne became enamored with Nico, and before they fell out—she accused him of harassing her with obscene phone calls—he gave her two songs: “The Fairest of the Seasons” and “These Days,” both of which appeared on her 1967 début, “Chelsea Girl.”-

"PRIDE OF PLACE"

QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE by Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968, Capitol)

Just like an inveterate fisherman, there are tales of conquest that every collector will regale you with. Here’s one of mine: Buried inside a snow blanketed storage locker in the Pacific Northwest I discovered a treasure trove of some long dormant, left for dead 8 track cartridges. I was paying a Christmas visit to my Father in Law, Murray — a survivalist, ex-biker Hippie living in the North woods, who resides in a converted trailer, complete with pot belly stove. Knowing he used to enjoy the medium, I casually inquired if he had any old carts that he could sacrifice, and he replied with equal casualness, that yes, he thought there were some stored in one of the sheds placed around the property. There was about 6 inches of freshly fallen snow covering it, but we unlocked it, and sure enough there were a few boxes containing some frozen tapes. There were several goodies, but this Quicksilver Messenger Service cart caught my eye. It had lain dormant and unloved for about 40 years, and when I got it home - Hosanna - it played like new!

This is the first Capitol release by one of the quintessential San Fran Jam bands - a sterling psychedelic outfit, founded by John Cippolina, David Freiberg, and Dino Valenti (who is not on the record because he was in jail for marijuana possession, although one of his tunes, Dino’s Song is represented).

They melded a jazz/pop sensibility with a freewheeling (but scrupulously rehearsed) spirit of psychedelic experimentation characterized by interesting chord and tempo changes, viola, and spiky raga guitar filigree - this was a tight band that created an illusion of looseness.

I recorded and posted my own version of the album’s opener, Hamilton Camp’s Pride of Man in tribute, because I was so moved by QMS’s rendition.