This is the ultimate summer single, two minutes and thirty-eight seconds of heat in audio form. Hear just a few seconds of the introduction, a fanfare for soul-revue horns, and pretty soon that school's-out-let's-party state of mind takes hold. Then the vocals start, and Martha Reeves, the former Motown secretary with the commanding voice, issues an "invitation across the nation, a chance for folks to meet." The lure? "Swinging and swaying and records playing." Of course.
Perhaps the most magical part of the song, though, is the list of cities where Reeves expects dancing to break out. Lots of hits from the era contain references to specific locales, but few convey the sense of purpose Reeves brings to this. She makes you feel that if you're not out there, you're really missing something. Each city gets a little shot of love ("can't forget the Motor City") that registers as totally sincere; even some of pop's greatest voices, like Mick Jagger and David Bowie (who collaborated on a version in 1985), can't match Reeves's energetic roll call.
"Dancing in the Street" was cowritten by Marvin Gaye, producer Mickey Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter, and was originally intended for another Motown singer, Kim Weston, who passed on it. Recorded in two takes and featuring Hunter playing a crowbar for percussion, the tune became a smash hit for Reeves in the summer of 1964, and has been included on countless hits compilations since. Still, the Vandellas album issued by Motown in the spring of 1965, entitled Dance Party, arguably remains the best. It's got "Dancing in the Street" and the scarifyingly good subsequent single "Wild One," several smart B sides and covers, and a thrilling Supremes-like tune called "Nowhere to Run," making it one of the few consistently strong long-players from singles-obsessed early Motown.
Genre: R&B
Released: 1964, Gordy
Appears On: Dance Party
Another Interpretation: Mick Jagger/David Bowie; Dusty Springfield; Van Halen
Next Stop: Aretha Franklin: Lady Soul
After That: Bettye LaVette: Souvenirs
Book Pages: 477–478
Disregard the cheesy cover and the how-to title (and the step-by-step photographs in the CD booklet). This is actually a fine document of Turkish nightclub music from the 1960s. It was put together by Özel Türkbas, the belly dancer who, with this record, began a campaign to take "the art of domestic seduction" international. Her ploy worked: The record sold 150,000 copies in the U.S. and over a million in Turkey, and was the first of several Türkbas hits.
Put this on, and the first image isn't of some scantily dressed cosmopolitan housewife of the era sashaying around snapping finger cymbals. It's more like a public celebration or a scene from a bustling dance hall, where the band is cranking out brisk, precise music that has everybody moving. Built around the wizardry of clarinetist Mustafa Kandıralı, this ensemble slithers and undulates, creating swirling waves of hypnotic rhythm. Several pieces leave room for improvised variations, and that's where things heat up. Kandıralı and violinist Cevdet Çağla keep the dance rhythm going while unspooling extended technically demanding embellishments. Like the swing-era musicians who had more to offer than "In the Mood," they manage to slip in subversive, jaw-dropping runs without shirking their main responsibility, accompanying dancers.
Genre: World, Turkey
Released: 1969, Traditional Crossroads
Key Tracks: "Taksimler," "Tokat," "Tin Tin"
Next Stop: Ivo Papasov and His Orchestra: Balkanology
Book Page: 790
The canvas is almost blank when Roberta Flack begins "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." There's barely a discernible tempo—activity, such as it is, comes from idling acoustic guitar chords. A bass creeps in, and Flack drops little sprinklings of piano ornamentation on top. The lullaby mood changes when she begins to sing: Suddenly what had been a neutral atmosphere is flipped into something stately, pensive, almost regal. Flack captures Scottish songwriter and playwright Ewan MacColl's recollection of love with a quiet, and very internal, lucidity. It's as if she's talking to herself, remembering, with a kind of awed reverence, someone extraordinary.
A former junior high school teacher, Flack recorded "The First Time" on her debut, First Take. The album drew positive notices from jazz critics—Flack was "discovered" by organist Les McCann, and the album included a sassy reading of his "Compared to What" as well as two Donny Hathaway songs. But it sold little until Clint Eastwood put "The First Time" into his film Play Misty for Me. That essentially kick-started Flack's career: The song hit number one in early 1972, lifting the album to the top of the charts for five weeks. Flack then made several strong albums, each with at least one transfixing ballad—the best known is "Killing Me Softly with His Song," a monster hit in 1973. The subsequent recordings are pleasant showcases for Flack's serene easygoingness, her ability to improvise without relying on showbiz dazzle. But "The First Time" stands apart: So slow it'd never get a chance on the radio today, it's the rare song that makes time stand still.
Genre: R&B
Released: 1969, Atlantic
Appears On: First Take and all her hits collections.
Catalog Choice: Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway; Killing Me Softly
Next Stop: Anita Baker: Rapture
After That: The Fugees: The Score
Book Pages: 280–281
In his treatise A Defense of Poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley likens the poet to "a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds." That eloquently describes the enterprise of the British singer, songwriter, and guitarist Nick Drake (1948–1974). On three albums that were almost completely ignored during his lifetime, Drake developed music uniquely suited to solitude. His voice an otherworldly, hollowed-out half whisper, his guitar outlining unusual hypnotic patterns, Drake created a sound-world that stands apart from "folk" or "rock." From that place he wrote spare, wrenching songs unlike anything else in popular music.
Drake struggled with mental illness—he died after an overdose of antidepressants, an apparent suicide. He wasn't afraid to explore his conflicted interior world, but he didn't dwell there all the time: This album includes tales of strange oracles ("River Man"), vision-quest journeys ("Three Hours"), philosophical musings on fame ("Fruit Tree"), and luminous portraits of women ("The Thoughts of Mary Jane"). Many are distinguished by a strange confluence: They're woeful and almost resigned, steeped in the enveloping melancholy characteristic of British romantics like Shelley. But at the same time, they contain shrewd, levelheaded appraisals of human nature.
Five Leaves Left is Drake's first statement. Its ruminating songs left those in his circle (which included Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson) awed, and inspired predictions of fame. Its riches are almost infinite—the austere guitar finger-study inventions; the strings (arranged magnificently by Robert Kirby) providing a somber, funereal aura; the melodies that tremble yet manage to cut through the thickest armor.
From here, Drake turned toward more upbeat, Van Morrison–influenced pop (Bryter Layter), and when that failed to draw a sizeable audience, he wrote the stark troubled blues incantations of Pink Moon. It took a VW ad campaign in the 1990s to bring his music to wide attention, triggering more interest than he'd ever experienced in his lifetime. Drake would have approved: On his intense, prophetic "Fruit Tree," he sings, "Safe in your place, deep in the earth, that's when they'll know what you were really worth."
Genre: Folk, Rock
Released: 1969, Hannibal
Key Tracks: "Time Has Told Me," "River Man," "Three Hours," "Cello Song."
Catalog Choice: Pink Moon; Bryter Layter.
Next Stop: John Martyn: Solid Air
After That: Joni Mitchell: Blue
Book Pages: 235–236
Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite is among a handful of jazz works to directly address slavery, racism, and the African American experience. On a purely musical level, it's arguably the most successful of them, because the drummer, a bebop-era veteran, does more than merely inventory the long list of injustices. With the help of a tremendous ensemble that includes three percussionists, he translates the frustration of the civil rights years into gales of vibrant sound—purposeful chants and grieving screams and inquisitive solos (from tenor legend Coleman Hawkins and others) that amplify the indignation of the title.
Roach (1924–2007) recognized that merely insisting on vague "change" was not enough—he had to make it "real" by confronting the protracted suffering of a people and the emotional scars that lingered over generations. He also recognized that the struggles were not unique to America: Several pieces look to Africa, enabling him to chart the diasporic connections between African, Afro-Cuban, and jazz rhythms. Still most of the pulse is derived from jazz. The critic Nat Hentoff, who was involved in the making of this record, said later that Roach regarded jazz as "an essential paradigm for constitutional democracy. In jazz each individual has a voice, but in order for it to work, the individuals must listen to each other."
Those involved in the five-part Freedom Now are clearly listening to each other; every-one calibrates his or her own contribution to align with the overall mission. The lyricist Oscar Brown Jr. reels off an account of a harsh slave driver, "Driva' Man," that is one chilling highlight, its message driven home by a needling, intensely focused improvisation from tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. Then there's the work of Abbey Lincoln, the cool-headed singer then married to Roach: On the drums/vocals duet called "Triptych: Prayer, Protest, Peace," Lincoln begins in a mood of deep introspection, then moves through a series of wordless moans, eddying cries, and shrieks that is unlike anything else in music—a riveting roar of feeling.
Genre: Jazz
Released: 1960, Candid
Key Tracks: "Tears for Johannesburg," "Triptych," "Driva' Man."
Catalog Choice: Clifford Brown and Max Roach
Next Stop: Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man
After That: Eugene McDaniels: Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse
Book Pages: 647–648
This compilation documents the brief, extraordinary collaboration of two woefully overlooked jazz geniuses. The material comes from the pen of pianist and composer Tadd Dameron (1917–1965), whose tricky yet supremely logical tunes balance bebop macho against a warm-hearted lyricism. Taking these pieces to the next level is the trumpeter Fats Navarro (1923–1950), a fireballer with a radiant tone and technique to burn, whose recording career only lasted four years.
Not every speed demon could handle Dameron's compositions, which are far more demanding than the typical heat-and-serve jam-session riffs. Navarro, who first attracted attention in 1945 when he replaced Dizzy Gillespie in the Billy Eckstine band, makes them seem easy. He begins his turn on Dameron's bebop agility course "Our Delight" with clipped single notes, then broad and effusive lines that carry the distant hint of taunting blues. His solo ends with an ascending series of perfectly placed triplets that's so precise it seems to startle the rhythm section. That's not the only "how'd he do that?" stunner either: The alternate take of "Our Delight" features an even more blistering Navarro solo, one of several here that have been taken apart, note for note, by generations of jazz trumpeters.
These small group recordings were made in the late 1940s, for Blue Note. Even though Navarro could literally play anything, he did his best work contending with the unconventional minefields Dameron loaded into these tunes. To hear that happening at a dizzyingly high level, check out "Focus" and any of the several versions of "Bouncing with Bud." These pieces have all the Dameron trademarks—the off-center chords and backdoor resolutions, the loping lines that wander a step or two away from the conventional. Dameron's music is challenging stuff, in part because it demands more than the razzle-dazzle technique that defined so much jazz of the 1940s: It asks soloists to dig deep and share something of their souls as well.
Genre: Jazz
Released: 1995, Blue Note
Key Tracks: "Our Delight," "Focus," "What's New," "Bouncing with Bud," "Boperation"
Catalog Choice: Fats Navarro with Tadd Dameron Live; The Magic Touch of Tadd Dameron
Next Stop: Freddie Hubbard: Backlash
After That: Charles Mingus: Blues and Roots
Book Pages: 541–542
To hear why the Washington, D.C.–based guitarist and bandleader Chuck Brown calls his music go-go, check out this live performance, which catches Brown and his band the Soul Searchers at a zinging peak. Honed in sweaty and inhospitably crowded D.C. nightclubs, this hybrid style is all about forward motion. Its simple bass-and-drums backbeat has hypnotic power—often the same groove cruises for hours, serving as the foundation for a highspeed chase through unlikely musical worlds. On an average night, Brown weaves bits of Star Wars music or TV cartoon themes (check out the version of "Woody Woodpecker" here) between jazz, torch songs, and funk chants.
This set begins with an update of Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing," which serves as a clue about what follows: This rubbery, high-intensity groove swings like the proverbial barnyard gate. The tunes flow together as a medley; they're often connected only by Brown's chicken-scratching rhythm guitar, which resembles Ike Turner's wickedly terse approach. Soloists from the horn section claim the spotlight briefly and then disappear, and every now and then the groove stops abruptly, only to roar back with greater force. It's impossible to remain still when the Soul Searchers are playing: If you're not dancing, you're at least nodding your head.
The so-called "Godfather of Go-Go," Brown taught his groove to several generations of musicians—among his disciples were E.U. (which had a hit with "Da'Butt" from the School Daze soundtrack), and the more progressive Trouble Funk. When those bands began to attract national attention in the late 1980s, Brown seemed destined to break big. Things didn't quite work out—his studio sides could be erratic—but Brown, undaunted, never stopped performing. As the live Any Other Way To Go? makes clear, he continued to expand the go-go horizons—check out the way he and the Soul Searchers twist a jazz standard like "Moody's Mood for Love" into a risqué booty call.
Genre: R&B
Released: 1998, Verve
Key Tracks: "Moody's Mood for Love," "Family Affair," "Harlem Nocturne."
Catalog Choice: This Is a Journey . . . Into Time
Next Stop: Trouble Funk: Live
After That: The Soul Rebels: Rebelution
Book Pages: 118–119
Of the many changes that roiled hip-hop after the violent deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., the most dismaying was the rapid rise of bling culture. MCs and entrepreneurs like Sean Combs (then known as Puff Daddy) who'd been affected by those murders began aggressively name-checking brands of expensive Champagne and luxury cars, as though living large was the best way to escape the genre's multiplying tragedies. One could argue that this wave of narcissistic materialism contributed to the general erosion of persuasive wordplay: Where Tupac's raps, for example, waxed philosophical, the third-generation gangster like 50 Cent seized exclusively on the bullying gunplay.
Not everyone rolled that way. The New York–based Native Tongues collective, which spawned A Tribe Called Quest and others in the 1980s, promoted alternatives to the prevailing gangsta-rap viewpoints. This 1998 album, the only collaboration between agile thinkers Mos Def and Talib Kweli, is among the best.
They arrive at the microphone bursting with ideas—about the meaning of blackness ("black like the planet that they fear, why they scared?"), about the decline of the rhyming art ("some people think MC is shorthand for misconception"), about the rampant spread of violence ("Hater Players"). But they don't overwhelm listeners with verbiage. The thirteen tracks on this debut, named after the shipping line run by the Universal Negro Improvement Association founder Marcus Garvey, work first as music—the DJ Hi-Tek creates deep rhythmic pockets and thick atmospheres, and the two MCs just saunter through them. Those looking for polyrhythmic slice-and-dice rapping spiked with sticky melodic refrains (and narratives that don't involve loaded firearms) will find much to admire here.
Genre: Hip-Hop
Released: 1998, Rawkus
Key Tracks: "Astronomy (Eighth Light)," "Definition," "Brown Skin Lady," "K.O.S. (Determination)"
Catalog Choice: Mos Def: Black on Both Sides. Talib Kweli: Reflection Eternal
Next Stop: Common: Like Water for Chocolate
After That: Blackalicious: Blazing Arrow
Book Pages: 525–526
Inducting Roy Orbison (1936–1988) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, Bruce Springsteen contrasted the exuberance of early rock with the tender musings of one shy bespectacled kid. "Roy's ballads were always the best when you were alone and in the dark. Because they addressed the underside of pop romance. They were scary. His voice was unearthly."
Of all the figures on the scene during the first decade of rock, the shy, Texas-born Orbison was the one focusing on the cold hours after the sock hop, when the ardent young lover found himself alone, contemplating that unrequited romance. "You walked away, the pain began, I knew I'd never love again," Orbison sings on "I'm Hurtin'," one of the more symphonic of his singles. Other late-night confessions are, of course, more familiar: the dejected "Blue Bayou," perhaps the most achingly vulnerable of Orbison hits; the perpetual sigh that is "In Dreams"; the worshipful "Oh, Pretty Woman." These are not just craftily produced showcases for a trembling voice that ranged three octaves and featured a wondrously controlled falsetto—they're also maps to a world of pent-up longing.
As happened with many of his contemporaries, Orbison's primary singles have been reissued in countless configurations—there are so many hits albums featuring the same set of songs, you might expect a sticker on the outside claiming "Available for the first time in this sequence!" Of them, For the Lonely offers clean sound quality, with none of the gimmicky "enhancements" that often mar recordings from the 1950s and '60s.
Genre: Rock
Released: 1988, Rhino
Key Tracks: "Only the Lonely," "Running Scared," "Dream Baby," "Blue Bayou," "Oh, Pretty Woman."
Catalog Choice: Authorized Bootleg Collection (4 CDs); Mystery Girl
Next Stop: Eddie Cochran: Somethin' Else! The Fine Lookin' Hits Of
After That: Chris Isaak: Heart Shaped World
Book Pages: 564–565
Here are two distinct slivers of history: an excellent representation of the Johann Strauss operetta Die Fledermaus and the first recording of the Vienna Philharmonic's now annual "New Year's" concert, which is devoted to the waltzes and polkas of the city's heritage, many written by the Strauss family.
Performed here without between-songs spoken dialogue, Die Fledermaus is a polarizing work—some dismiss it as provincial fluff, others hold it up as some of the best music of the nineteenth century. Even its detractors have to acknowledge this much: There's genius in these melodies, broadly lyrical lines that carry character portraits while glancing at subtle undercurrents of human emotion. Strauss (1825–1899) was a master of the local delicacy, the Viennese waltz, and uses it to tell a saucy tale about rich people acting out sexually at a masquerade ball. The plot resembles that of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and like that work contains episodes of brash cavorting as well as more introspective moments. "Ach, meine Herr'n und Damen" is a simple motif that approximates the cadences of hearty (and contagious) laughter. A bit later, in the "Csardas: Klage der Heimat," Hilde Gueden (as Rosalinde) sings in lavish descending spirals "around" the melody, in a way that suggests an inescapable regret.
The conductor, Clemens Krauss, was working with the Vienna Philharmonic during World War II; among his ideas was a free concert celebrating Austrian music, an affirmation of culture while the population, still suffering hardship, rebuilt the city's hallowed performance spaces. The concert became a tradition on New Year's Day, and is now broadcast live throughout Europe. Disc two of the surprisingly crisp transfer contains what's known as "New Year's" concert No. 1, from September 1951. It opens with Strauss's magnificent "Tales from the Vienna Woods," which features the Viennese zither. In this excellent rendering, it's possible to hear not only the orchestra's customary precision, but its uniquely "Viennese" phrasing: As the music swells to mark some key culminating point in the waltz, the group, en masse, pauses ever so slightly. Turns out this "lilt" is polarizing too: Some conductors believe it can be taught, while others contend it never feels right unless it's in your bones. Which it clearly is here.
Genre: Classical, Opera
Released: 1992, Decca
Key Tracks: Die Fledermaus: "Ach, ich darf nicht hin zu dir!," "Also, noch verschärft die Strafe?" New Year's Concert: "Tales from the Vienna Woods," "The Dragonfly," "Egyptian March."
Another Interpretation: Die Fledermaus, Berlin Philharmonic (Herbert von Karajan, cond.).
Catalog Choice: 19 Waltzes, Wiener Johann-Strauss Kammerorchester (Willi Boskovsky, cond.).
Next Stop: W. A. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro
After That: Richard Strauss: Capriccio, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Philharmonia Orchestra (Wolfgang Sawallisch, cond.).
Book Pages: 746–747
From the minute she arrived in 1996, rapping and cowriting several songs on Aaliyah's second album, One in a Million, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott made clear that she intended to travel her own path. A bellicose rapper with an extraordinary gift for catchy phrasing, Elliott dismissed annoying rivals with withering putdowns dispensed at 120 beats per minute. And yet, on her trailblazing debut, Supa Dupa Fly (1997), she seemed equally interested in having a good time: Unlike gangstas and underground urban prophets, she approached hip-hop as dance music, sensual music, a prelude to getting it on. She didn't conform to the typical male rapper's notions about sex, either: On some of her most memorable tracks, Elliott presented herself as a woman in control, talking up her physical attributes ("I'm Really Hot") in ways both explicit and assertive.
Elliott's singles, gathered on this excellent collection that for some reason hasn't been released in the U.S., define the state of the art in commercial hip-hop from the 1990s forward. Just about every singer, rapper, and producer aiming for a hit on urban radio has copped something from these highly addictive productions, which marry Elliott's incisive running commentary to razor-sharp rhythm programming.
Key to Elliott's enterprise is Timbaland, the beatmaker whose concept, honed through his work with Elliott, propelled him into the top tier of in-demand producers. On the Bengal-influenced "Get Ur Freak On" and others, he establishes a hypnotically simple pulse, then surrounds it with burbling "incidental" sounds and hand-percussion blips. As with much of his work, the final result is so streamlined it feels wholly spontaneous, as if he just sat down at the sampler and banged the thing out in minutes. And that sets the tone for Elliott's contributions. From the opening verse of "The Rain," the big single from Supa Dupa Fly, she dishes lines that seem too crazy to be premeditated, interrupting the free association every so often to deliver one of those radio-ready catchphrases. The result: a synergy of groove and message rare in the assembly-line world of contemporary urban music.
Genre: Hip-Hop
Released: 2006, Goldmind/Atlantic
Key Tracks: "Get Ur Freak On," "We Run This," "Gossip Folks," "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)."
Catalog Choice: Supa Dupa Fly
Next Stop: Mary J. Blige: No More Drama
After That: Salt-n-Pepa: Blacks' Magic
Book Pages: 254–255
In the mid-1950s, just as James Brown and Jackie Wilson were getting started, Little Willie John came along and defined what a soul singer could do. He swerved into sweetness, shouted with earthshaking feeling, transformed phrases like "Talk to Me" into desperate cries for help. The diminutive Arkansas native had the nuance of a jazz singer and the emotional focus of a blues belter, traits that made him a key connecting point between musical worlds that were at that time isolated from each other. He showed everybody who followed how to draw on different realms, as James Brown acknowledged later, explaining why he was moved to record a tribute a month after John died in prison in 1968, while serving time on a murder charge. "Willie John was a singer that could take you places," Brown said in Gerri Hirshey's 1984 book Nowhere to Run. "I did not want this fact to be lost to man."
John's recordings have not been lost. But they haven't exactly been enthusiastically rediscovered, either—even his most famous song, "Fever," is best known for recordings by Peggy Lee and Elvis Presley, which are both virtual note-for-note copies of John's still-definitive original. But it's the other singles that remain John's best legacy: The bended-knee plea "Need Your Love So Bad," the rough "Suffering with the Blues," and "Leave My Kitten Alone" are the work of a singer who always got himself immersed in the emotional netherworld of a song. One reason to seek this Collectables set over the Rhino anthology Fever is "A Cottage for Sale," a dreamy ballad that presents John as a master of perfectly timed persuasion.
Genre: R&B
Released: 2001, Collectables
Key Tracks: "A Cottage for Sale," "Fever," "Need Your Love So Bad," "Leave My Kitten Alone."
Next Stop: James Brown: Messing with the Blues
After That: Wynonie Harris: The Best of
Book Page: 400
This sometimes talky art-rock epic is more than two hours long. That's a significant time investment, considering that the primary lyricist, Peter Gabriel, intended audiences to follow his tale of a half–Puerto Rican juvenile delinquent on the loose in New York from start to finish. Inevitably, you lose something by parachuting in somewhere in the middle.
Still, by parachuting in, you can quickly determine whether you're temperamentally disposed toward Lamb, one of the towering peaks of progressive rock. Cue up the eight-minute "In the Cage," on disc 1. Listen to its mad-hatter keyboard arpeggios and thrashing tilt-a-whirl rhythms. Check out the manic edge in Gabriel's voice. If the fitful, sometimes suffocating, trapped-in-a-psychodrama feeling of the tune makes you curious about what happens next, go back to the beginning and settle in for a rare treat. If, however, you're not completely enthralled, stay away. (Instead seek out the less demanding Genesis album Trick of the Tail.)
While Lamb's lyrics overflow with visions of majestic grandeur (practically a prerequisite for British art-rock), the music exhibits a grind-it-out grittiness, with muscular, at times even funky, polyrhythms. It's possible to love Lamb and not care at all about the story: The band's cohesive attack is intriguing enough to atone for any stray moments of overblown pageantry.
When Lamb was released in 1974, drummer Phil Collins told an interviewer that "It's about a schizophrenic." Gabriel called his primary character, Rael, a "split personality." Attempting to rescue his brother John, Rael finds himself swept underground, where he encounters grisly video game–style fantasy figures that impede his progress. As the work goes on, the real and subterranean worlds interconnect in odd, hallucinatory ways. By the end, it seems that Rael is on a youth's quest to discover himself, not his sibling. Cosmic? Yes. Go down that rabbit hole. All will become clear.
Genre: Rock
Released: 1974, Atlantic
Key Tracks: "In the Cage," "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"
Catalog Choice: Selling England by the Pound; Trick of the Tail; Genesis
Next Stop: Supertramp: Crime of the Century
After That: Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs
Book Pages: 305–306
Near the end of the first half of this recording, which documents Pete Seeger's June 8, 1963, appearance at Carnegie Hall, the guitarist and folk singer makes oblique reference to the "events" in Birmingham, Alabama. He explains that he visited the area, one front in the civil rights movement, a few weeks before. As he shares a brief set of the songs he heard there, more than a few in the crowd sing along. Particularly on "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," it sounds as though this audience knows the words, even the appended verses that speak directly of the struggle for civil rights. Once he's got the crowd locked in a powerful unison, Seeger strays away from the melody, adding a slightly errant, deliberately scruffy harmony vocal. With that, the storied hall becomes a church and Seeger its choirmaster—the dedicated soul whose idealism inspires congregants and makes profound social change seem possible.
That's classic Pete Seeger: There's no outrage in his delivery, yet he somehow stirs outrage in his listeners. A founding father of modern folk, Seeger intends nothing more than to raise consciousness, and just by singing his tales of hardship and hymns of struggle, he does exactly that. This uniformly strong two-disc set contains the complete concert and includes most of his well-known songs. It serves as an excellent introduction to the vast Seeger trove of protest music, folk songs from across the globe, and children's songs. It's essential listening for anyone who wants to understand American idealism.
Seeger's songs are appeals to basic right-mindedness, governed by a universal golden-rule view of justice. Though they're now indelibly linked to the tumult of the 1960s, they resonate beyond that era, because they speak so eloquently about compassion, understanding, and dignity. When Seeger begins another sing-along, "We Shall Overcome," he urges his listeners to "go and help those people down in Birmingham and Mississippi . . . and maybe we'll see this song come true." And then he sings in that unshakable way of his. Pretty soon his believing becomes contagious, spreading possibility. And look where that eventually led: A reprehensible chapter in American history came to an end.
Genre: Folk
Released: 1964, Columbia
Key Tracks: "We Shall Overcome," "Mrs. McGrath," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," "I Ain't Scared of Your Jail"
Catalog Choice: If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle
Next Stop: Bruce Springsteen: The Seeger Sessions
After That: John Jacob Niles: My Precarious Life in the Public Domain
Book Pages: 686–687
During her performances, the irreverent folksinger-songwriter Michelle Shocked makes it a point to urge her audiences to get involved in music. Play or sing every day, she tells people, because "music is too important to be left to the professionals."
Shocked is living proof of that idea. She grew up in Gilmer, Texas, but after a rocky childhood tour of army bases, she left her mother and sought out her estranged father, who introduced her to country music and blues. Shocked bounced around a lot, living in San Francisco and Amsterdam; she was "discovered" while working as a volunteer at a folk festival in Kerrville, Texas. A producer heard her, and recorded what became The Texas Campfire Tapes on a portable cassette machine in a field, with crickets chirping in the background. That led to bigger things: This, her second effort, was recorded in Hollywood and produced by veteran Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam's musical director). It's got Shocked playing guitar and singing with the steadying support of a full band. Her voice, which exudes an errant, almost punkish energy, is more front-and-center than it was on The Texas Campfire Tapes.
Happily, the upmarket surroundings don't overshadow Shocked's songs, which share truths and shine light on injustices in a deft, almost subliminal way. Singing as though she's got no time for niceties, Shocked kicks out raucous blues double entendres (the shuffling "If Love Was a Train"), paints a bleak portrait of where she grew up ("Memories of East Texas"), and summons a leftist's indignation to interpret Jean Ritchie's haunted Rust Belt lament "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore." Yet when she wants to, Shocked can reel off a conventional narrative—the lovely "Anchorage" is a series of letters to an old friend that ruminate on the diverging paths of their lives. True to her code, Shocked doesn't deliver these sparkling tunes like a professional folkie determined to enlighten (or scold) listeners; she lets her feisty character shine through. As a result, Short Sharp Shocked feels like an evening spent around a fire with friends, with one great storyteller holding forth.
Genre: Folk, Rock
Released: 1988, Mercury
Key Tracks: "Hello Hopeville," "Graffiti Limbo," "Anchorage," "If Love Was a Train"
Catalog Choice: The Texas Campfire Tapes
Next Stop: Ani DiFranco: Dilate
After That: Vic Chesnutt: Is the Actor Happy?
Book Page: 695