Tune of the Day

"Desperados" is a great song, @slaw, written by Guy Clark. One band I was in performed it regularly.

My song of the day is "Go West", a really "fun" song on Geraint Watkins 2004 album on Yep Rock, Dial W For Watkins. Bob Dylan: "Geraint Watkins is my favorite English pianist". Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe apparently agree, as they have both had him in their bands. He was also in Pearl Harbor's road band in the 1980's (she was on Columbia in the U.S., Stiff Records in the UK, and toured with Nick Lowe, Costello, and The Clash over there. She was for awhile married to Clash bassist Paul Simonon). When I told Pearl (I was a member of her band in 2002-03. She's a real sweetheart.) I thought it very hip of her to have Geraint in her band, she was surprised I knew of him. Hey babe, you're not dealing with a "normal" musician here. ;-)

Before I looked at the song's credits, I thought "Go West" might be a song from one of those Bob Hope/Bing Crosby buddy movies. It's a real hoot, a song I guarantee you've never heard anything like. I love it! The album is still available from Yep Rock on CD for about ten bucks. Money well spent.

"Keep Your Distance", both versions. With Buddy & Julie Miller’s version you get their wonderful 2-part harmony duet throughout the song. With Richard Thompson’s original, his distinctive vocals and guitar playing (on his solo, he makes his Strat sound like a steel guitar), and the fantastic bass playing of one of the all-time greats, Jerry Scheff (Elvis, T Bone Burnett, LOTS of studio work).

On this song, Jerry uses the technique of inversion, one of my favorite things in music, "pedaling" (staying on one note) as the other players move through the song’s chord changes. That is possible only when the note being played is contained within the other chords that come around. Rather than remaining the Tonic of the chord (the root note), the note becomes one of the other notes in the following chord(s), a say 3rd or 5th above the Tonic.

Musicians who play in such a fashion as to sound "impressive" (chops, technique) don’t think in this kind of "musical" way. It’s not technically difficult to play inversions, it just sounds really cool. And even if the listener doesn’t realize what the bassist is doing, playing inversions creates a musical tension that, when finally released (the bassist must play a different note when a chord not containing the note he is pedaling on comes along), is very "satisfying" (the ol’ tension-and-release). Just another example of how the best musicians approach the creating of music.

By the way, J.S. Bach’s music is chock full of inversions. He is, infact, the Master at it’s use.

Great song @slaw. And the piano playing is absolutely thrilling!

Paul Simon used to be a mighty fine songwriter (though a pretty poor singer), but not in quite awhile imo. I understand I may be in the minority in this regard, but I don't consider what he did on the Graceland album to be "true" songwriting, and his singing didn't come close to matching that of the South Africans.

There are artists who have taken the music of a different (non-U.S.A.) culture and done something really interesting with it, such as Ry Cooder. Paul Simon is no Ry Cooder. And then there are artists who have brought the music of their culture to we white Americans, Los Lobos being a particular favorite of mine.

Nothing makes me as cognizant of how different as a culture from Europe are "we" as when I listen to pre-20th Century Classical music, especially that of the Baroque period. But then "we" created Blues, Jazz, and Rock 'n' Roll!