Tune of the Day

"Across The Borderline" by Gaby Moreno and Van Dyke Parks (with Jackson Browne). You may be familiar with the version by Linda Ronstadt or Ry Cooder, but this version is very different. Gaby’s vocal is great, but it is Van Dyke’s reimagining of the song that makes this version so special.

Van Dyke Parks was Brian Wilson’s collaborator on the ill-fated Smile album, and is a genius (or at least as close to one as our times has produced). He is a master orchestrator, fully in evidence on this song. I have to get their album. If you haven't yet heard Van's debut album Song Cycle, you should!

"Watching The River Flow". I was knocked out by the song when I first heard it, in 1971. I just watched an interview with the drummer on the song, Jim Keltner. He said the rhythm section on the song---Leon Russell on piano (who produced the session), Carl Radle (from Derek & The Dominoes) on bass, and Jesse Ed Davis (from Taj Mahal’s band) on guitar---was the best he was ever a part of.

Jim said Dylan wrote the lyrics to the song at the session, in a few minutes. He also said Dylan was one of the two best rhythm guitar players he ever worked with, Lennon being the other. But then, Jim never recorded with The Everly Brothers or Dave Edmunds. ;-)

The song sounds as great today as it did in ’71. Timeless.

Iris Dement: "Wasteland Of The Free". This was written and recorded during the Bush Presidency, but is perhaps even more relevant now. This song got her excommunicated from the Far Right Radical Evangelical community.

Iris was born in Arkansas into a Pentecostal family, which moved to Orange County in S. California when she was three years old. She has deep roots in Gospel, Hillbilly, and Folk, and was a frequent collaborator with her close friend John Prine.

Iris has made quite a few albums, all fantastic. This song is from her The Way I Should album. There is a video of the song viewable on YouTube. She’s my favorite living songwriter. I learned of her through Merle Haggard, who recorded her masterpiece song "No Time To Cry". His version is good, hers devastating.