«Today’s Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad» Rick Beato

@onhwy61: Your Sonny Boy Williamson (no offense intended, but it’s not Williams) quote is missing a few words which are important in making his point. His statement was "The English boys want to play the Blues so bad, and that’s just how they do it." Pretty funny. By the way, as retold in the the Last Waltz film, in 1965 Williamson met and jammed with The Hawks (who of course became The Band in ’68), and he and they discussed going on a U.S.A. tour with them serving as his band. Williamson died later that year, and The Hawks went on the road with Dylan instead.

Hawks drummer Levon Helm had already met Sonny Boy, while still in high school. Helm and Sonny Boy both lived in Helena Arkansas, and Sonny would regularly appear on the local music station’s lunchtime radio show. Helm says he would buy himself a coupla donuts and a Coca Cola, eating his lunch on the floor in a corner of the radio station while watching and listening to Williamson and his band.

I loved The Yardbirds (they quickly became my favorite of the mid-60’s British bands with the release of their debut album), from whom I first heard songs like "I’m A Man" and "Train Kept A-Rollin" ( a cover of the scorching hot 1956 Rockabilly version by The Johnny Burnette Trio. Jeff Beck was a huge fan of the Burnette Band’s guitarist Paul Burlinson). The 1951 original was a Blues by Tiny Bradshaw. As I said in one Audiogon thread (maybe this one), in the South (like Elvis, Burnette lived in Memphis) musicians integrate their music.

@onhwy61: You were mocking Blues Hammer, right? That’s certainly what the Ghost World movie is doing.

Speaking of which, for those wanting to hear Blues music butchered, check out Canned Heat’s performance at Woodstock. About as bad as I’ve heard the music performed. Even worse than Blues Traveler.

My peers and I had our musical lives seriously impacted with the hearing of the debut by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Playing drums and bass in the band at that time were veterans of Howlin’ Wolf’s band. Now THAT’S a Blues band! Mike Bloomfield on lead guitar, of course. That’s where Dylan heard his playing, and hired him for recordings.

In 1969 The Charles Ford Blues band (whose members included guitarist Robben Ford and his two brothers on drums and harmonica. The band’s name was a tribute to their father) relocated from Ukiah California to my hometown of San Jose. As you can imagine, that sent shock waves through the local music community. Every guitarist I new went to as many of their shows at possible, to see the Blues played by the then 18 year old Robben Ford, already a superb guitarist. The bassist in my senior year high school band played bass with them for a while, until Robben left for Los Angeles. Near the corner of Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road and Stevens Creek Blvd---the heart of the San Jose suburb Cupertino, there was a rental house where a bunch of local musicians lived. It was referred to as The Blues House.

@onhwy61: Ghost World, a favorite movie of mine! Another great scene is the one in which the young girl asks Steve Buscemi’s character if the R. Crumb album is good. "Naw, that one’s not so great." Director Terry Zwigoff and Crumb are of course close friends (Zwigoff made the Crumb documentary).

This may be a minority opinion, but as I watched Blues Hammer performing, Ten Years After came to mind.

@ghasley: By your use of the term "thumper" (short for Bible thumper of course), your view of Contemporary Christianity is clear.

T Bone's Southern California church is named The Vineyard, and in the 1970's and 80's it was a main church for musicians seeking to look into Christian spirituality. Lesley Phillips already had three albums out on the Myrrh Records (Phillips was the no. 2 best selling artist on the CC chart), the very well known CC label. T Bone produced her fourth---The Turning---a joint effort between Myrrh and Horizon Records, distributed by A & M.

Myrrh Records is as Contemporary Christian as you can get. From Christianity.com: "Burnett produced The Turning, Phillips' final album before leaving Contemporary Christian music to become an independent artist." Does that make T Bone a Bible thumper? No, but his new album is certainly a discussion of the topic we are speaking of.

Was Dylan's Slow Train Coming Bible thumping? Indeed it was! T Bone's involvement on The Rolling Thunder Review shortly preceded Dylan's "Christian period", and many believe it was T Bone who "led" Dylan to that exploration of Christianity. Burnett: "Probably about 15 people out of that Rolling Thunder Tour started going to church, or back to church." Doesn't seem like T Bone is adverse to being viewed as a Bible thumper.

Others so inclined are Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and more recently Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives (on their Saturday Night/Sunday Morning album. Well, half of it at least ).

@ghastley: I take it then that you haven’t heard T Bone’s latest album The Other Side. If you go way back to his first solo album from 1972 (entitled J. Henry Burnett, The B-52 Band & The Fabulous Skylarks) you will find a song written by T Bone entitled "I Don’t Mind No Light Sermon". In between those two albums, his others include lyrics with spiritual references, just as do Dylan’s. And just as do his albums as a member of the trio known as The Alpha Band, with David Mansfield and Steven Soles.

But remember, I said T Bone "came out of the Contemporary Christian community." That doesn’t necessarily mean he recorded and released any album in that format/genre. T Bone was a member of a famous church in Southern California (I don’t recall it’s name), where Dylan also went to study the Bible.

T Bone’s ex-wife Sam Phillips also started as a Contemporary Christian artist, then going by the name Leslie Phillips. I have her four CC solo albums (all on Myrrth Records, the last---The Turning---produced by T Bone) on CD. T Bone and Sam met as a result of their Christian activities, as did Buddy and Julie Miller. Julie also had some solo albums put out as a CC artist, which I also have on CD.

@ezwind: The two times I saw Iris at The Troubadour, the room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop between songs. It was kind of uncomfortable. Iris didn’t speak much, and at one of the shows I think there were a few groups from churches in the audience, with their kids.

At the two shows here in Portland, Iris was having a lot more fun, and was actually quite funny. Lots of self-deprecating humor. God I love her so.

@slaw: I just picked up a coupla Secret Sisters albums at Music Millennium. All it takes for me is to see that T Bone Burnette produced. He or Buddy Miller. Has anyone else heard the Healing Tide album by the Gospel duo The War & Treaty (Michael and Tanya Trotter) that Buddy produced? Fantastic! Buddy (and his wife Julie) come from the Contemporary Christian music community. Coincidentally, so does T Bone.

@tomic601: Damn Jim, where'd ya see Iris with accompaniment? A bassist and guitarist? All four times I've seen her she was solo, which was fine with me. I've seen Joan Osborne with just her pianist and guitarist, and with her I missed a rhythm section. Still great though.

About a year ago I saw two new young(er) artists and an old-timer touring together, in a great little theater in Portland, Mississippi Studios. They were Kelly Willis, Brennen Leigh, and Melissa Carper. Melissa was playing an upright bass, Kelly and Brennen acoustic guitars. A night of great songs, singing, and playing! The audience was divided about equally between greybeards (such as myself) and young hipsters. Outrageous alcoholic beverage prices! I gotta start sneaking in my flask.

@ezwind: You’re looking in the wrong places. Right here on Audiogon posters such as @slaw are making recommendations of great youg(er) artists. Steve has excellent musical taste, and really keeps up with new ones.

I myself can heartily recommend Molly Tuttle and Billy Strings (both heard on Ringo Starr’s album out later this month), two young bluegrass artists. Then there are Jenny Lewis, Tift Merritt, Brennen Leigh, Courtney Barnett, and plenty of other new females. I seem to gravitate to the dames, but here’s a video of Chris Stapleton---a newish Country artist---performing a killer live version of the Rodney Crowell song "Ain’t Living Long Like This". Watch for the guitar solo by Buddy Miller, a solo that epitomizes cool! For contrast I’ll also post a video of Rodney performing the song live with Emmylou Harris (and a stupendous band), another great version.

https://youtu.be/pFTedYeP-vQ?si=M8TJtWiuGTvuyBMs

https://youtu.be/KnqBH7jLb0I?si=iDgVtgjD4UFb6RN7

And while Mary Gauthier and Gillian Welch are no spring chickens, they have a couple/few more good decades ahead of them. For more, head over to the No Depression website, the home of Americana music.

I just again listened to Rodney’s version, and was as always left in utter awe at the quality of the music being made. It just don’t get no better!

As for what the future holds, I figure I have about a decade left here on Earth, so it ain’t my problem.

Rodney Crowell's The Houston Kid is my favorite album so far this century. Buddy Miller is my favorite living musician/producer, Iris DeMent my favorite living songwriter. But there are plenty of others plowing the same field---great songs, great singing, great musicianship. This is in fact a golden age of great music, better imo than the 1960's. Sacrilege!

Totally agree @stuartk. As far as I know, Beato is completely oblivious to the likes of Rodney Crowell, Buddy and Julie Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Mary Gauthier, and hundreds of other superior current artists. It wasn’t that long ago that Lucinda Williams won the Grammy for her Car Wheels On A Gravel Road album. And it sold very well.

Beato expecting to find "good" lyrics (or music for that matter) in the stuff most popular these days is akin to him expecting to find good food at a fast food restaurant. Kids listen to whatever music they are fed, and eat fast food regularly. Doesn’t mean we have to, and to worry about it like he does seems like a waste of my precious remaining time on Earth. If he thinks the video will make him some money, good for him.

Beato has a deep technical understanding of music, but I find that musical education has greatly affected his tastes in same. He knows a lot more music theory than do many songwriters I could name, but he hasn’t written any songs as good as those writers have. I’m sure he likes Steely Dan far more than Hank Williams and Merle Haggard, and has never heard anything by Iris DeMent. Merle liked Iris’ song "No Time To Cry" so much he recorded it himself. I’ll bet Dylan finds more wisdom in Hank’s "I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive" than he does in any Steely Dan song, but I’m not going to fault Beato for not doing the same.

As others have already here said, there are plenty of songwriters, singers, and musicians currently making music as good as is true of every past decade. Lucky me (and others here), my taste runs to music now known as Americana, and there is so much coming out in that genre (Americana is more accurately viewed as an umbrella term for music made by those in the Singer-Songwriter, Folk, Country, Alt-Country, Hillbilly, Bluegrass, Rockabilly, etc. genres) that I have trouble keeping up with it all.