Crossroad 18: Piece Of My Heart

Tags

Bert Berns, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Bill Graham, Cheap Thrills, Erma Franklin, Hells Angels, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Jerry Ragovoy, New Speedway Boogie, Peter Albin, Piece Of My Heart, Pigpen, Robert Hunter, Ron McKernan, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones

Piece Of My Heart

Big Brother & The Holding Company

BBHC l to r – Sam Andrew; Peter Albin; Janis Joplin; Dave Getz; James Gurley

A sound that  creates a feeling of anticipation –  the amplified sound of hi-fi needle gently placed onto rotating vinyl. A few crackling seconds of silence and then …

If the vinyl happens to be Cheap Thrills, anticipation is intensified by the electric murmuring silence echoing in a crowded concert hall, headline act on stage … Bill Graham announces:

Four gentlemen and one great great broad … Big Brother … and the Holding Company.

Next … it rips.

It screams and grates and screeches … grabs you, a tantalising promise from a voice that makes a promise sound like a threat:

Yes. We’re gonna knock ya, rock ya
Gonna sing to ya now.

And that’s exactly what they do.

Almost 40 minutes later, a powerhouse version of Big Mama Thornton’s Ball and Chain closes with a jolt, the crowd cheers, announcer wishes everyone goodnight, you’re exhausted … and you just want to go through it all again.

Some 45 years later, the affect is exactly the same.

Right at the heart of the album is a searing performance of passion and fury – Piece Of My Heart. 

The Songwriters – Ragovoy & Berns.

It was written by Jerry Ragovoy & Bert Berns who also together penned Cry Baby, a later hit for Joplin.  Individually both Ragavoy and Bert had significant impact on the music industry.

Ragovoy penned a couple of other songs covered by Janis Joplin – Try (Just A Little Bit Harder), Get It While You Can, My Baby – he also co-wrote Time Is On My Side which became the first “Top 10” hit for The Rolling Stones in the US.

Berns died in 1967, aged just 38. Piece Of My Heart was one of his last compositions. Despite his short time with us, his writing credits are impressive and include Twist and Shout (with Phil Medley), Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, and Here Comes The Night … and so are his producing efforts with, amongst others Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison) and Under The Boardwalk (The Drifters).

What connects Piece Of My Heart and New Speedway Boogie?

In the days before Big Brother & The Holding Company or The Grateful Dead, Peter Albin – Big Brother’s bassist – played with Grateful Dead founders Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan.

Accepting that New Speedway Boogie is about Altamont, there is a connection through the San Francisco chapter of the Hell’s Angels who stamped Cheap Thrills with their insignia.

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Other Stuff You Might Enjoy.

* Piece of My Heart – A YouTube playlist – 9 videos. The one above plus the following 8:

– Janis Joplin & The Kozmic Blues Band Frankfurt 1969.
– Dusty Springfield who recorded the song in 1968.
– Vanessa Amorosi recorded in 2010.
– Faith Hill who recorded it in 1993.
– Erma Franklin who originally recorded the song in 1967.
– Beverly Knight from 2005 (This video has been closed)
– Company of Thieves live from Daryl’s House 2009.
– Joss Stone & Beverly Knight.

* Interview with Laura Joplin, Janis’ younger sister. This is from 2003.

* Official Janis Joplin Website.

* Janis (1h 36m 44s) -1974 documentary directed by Howard Alk with assistance from Albert Grossman. It seems YouTube have taken this video down.

* Robert Crumb website – Crumb drew the Cheap Thrills album cover in a single overnight drawing session.

And the next road takes us to?

North:  Hesitation Blues by Hot Tuna.
East:     New Speedway Boogie … done.
South:   Medley: Summertime/Motherless Child  by Mahalia Jackson 
West:    Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin

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Crossroad 17: New Speedway Boogie

Tags

Altamont Speedway, Anthem Of The Sun, Crosby Stills and Nash, Don Maclean, Hells Angels, Jefferson Airplane, Jerry Garcia, Marty Balin, New Speedway Boogie, Ralph Gleason, Robert Hunter, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, Workingman's Dead

New Speedway Boogie

The Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead were the second band to have an album in my collection. The first was Creedence Clearwater Revival. To Creedence’s self-titled first album, I added The Dead’s Anthem of the Sun … immediately doubling my collection.

It is somewhat inaccessible, Anthem of the Sun. Track 3, Born Cross-Eyed, opens with a descriptive couplet:

Seems like I’ve been here before
Fuzzy then and still obscure – goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Although there were parts of the album I loved, it meandered a bit much – a Dead trait I was not quite ready for. So, I said goodbye, goodbye, goodbye to The Dead.

I don’t think I even heard their next two releases – two of their best Aoxomoxoa and Live/Dead. Live/Dead remains one of the best live albums (well, if you ignore the 7m 49s of Feedback) … and definitely the best titled one.

My “Dead” hiatus came to an end in 1970 when they released Workingman’s Dead. They had been hanging around with Crosby, Stills & Nash and the influence was pretty clear.  Workingman’s Dead had 8 great tracks making up a great album – although for some of my mates it was perilously close to country.

The Grateful Dead circa 1970

New Speedway Boogie is track 4, it was also on the B-side when Uncle John’s Band was released as a single.

The song is supposedly about the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in December 1969 – four short months after Woodstock a dark curtain dropped on a colourful decade. The events at Altamont are well known. Perhaps less known are the circumstances that led to the staging of Altamont and its subsequent notoriety. But its impact has been most succinctly expressed in a verse of Don Maclean’s anthem:

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil’s only friend
And as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

The Rolling Stones were the headline act. The Grateful Dead were scheduled to go on before them. The Dead refused to perform because of the escalating violence – apparently the final straw was hearing that Marty Balin (Jefferson Airplane) was knocked out by one of the Hells Angels.

New Speedway Boogie was written by Robert Hunter (lyrics) & Jerry Garcia (music), supposedly as an answer to the Ralph J. Gleason’s indictment of the Altamont affair. It must have been written pretty quickly because apparently it was first played at the Fillmore (SF) on 20th December – just 2 weeks after Altamont.

I know it is a device used often but I really like  the “I don’t know but I been told” military cadence – I think the attraction is the feigned ignorance followed by a “pearl of wisdom”. In this song:

Now I don’t know but I been told, it’s hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I’ve heard it said, it’s just as hard with the weight of lead.
…
Now I don’t know but I been told, in the heat of the sun a man died of cold.
…
Now I don’t know but I been told, if the horse don’t pull you you got to carry the load

The middle line reminiscent of the ambiguity, even paradox – maybe nonsense – found in Stephen Foster’s Oh Susannah (at Crossroad 14):

Rained all night the day I left
The weather, it was dry
Sun so hot I froze to death

 This idea of being hot yet freezing to death dates back a lot further. Geoffrey Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde wrote:

Alas! What is this wonder malady?
For heat of cold, for cold of heat, I dye.

Where am I going with this … buggered if I know. But I do wonder if writers like Robert Hunter “sample” works from centuries ago – I’m sure they do. Also I just love this sort of ambiguity …

As Ken Kesey once said:  “Some things aren’t true, even if they did happen.”

It wasn’t long after Workingman’s Dead that I wrote in and enrolled as a Dead Head.

What do New Speedway Boogie and What Are Their Names have in common?

Jerry Garcia.

Isn’t that enough?

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Other Stuff You Might Enjoy.

* Live Performance of New Speedway Boogie from 1970 – The Grateful Dead (6m 28s).

* Cover version by Melbourne band Black Cab from their 2004 debut album, Altamont Diary.

* Official Grateful Dead Website

* Listen to a swag of live versions of New Speedway Boogie at Heady Versions – a website dedicated to finding the best versions of Grateful Dead songs.

* Saturday Night At The Speedway subtitled Exposing Altamont in a TexturaI Analysis of the Grateful Dead’s “New Speedway Boogie”  – a mouthful I know, but a very interesting essay.

* San Francisco Chronicle clippings – Ralph J. Gleason’s columns from 1969 – 28th November and 5th, 12th, 18th December. Interesting reading from just before and just after Altamont.

* The Rolling Stones@Altamont | We’re Not In Woodstock Any More … a blog post with some great photos. The entire blog is well worth a look. It is called: The Selvedge Yard – a historical record of artistry, anarchy, alchemy, and authenticity

* Gimme Shelter (1h 31m 41s) – the film chronicles of the Rolling Stones 1969 US Tour which finished with their performance at Altamont.

And the next road takes us to?

North:  What Are Their Names – they’re back at the last stop.
East:     Long Black Veil by The Band
South:   Train Round The Bend  by The Velvet Underground 
West:    Piece Of My Heart by Big Brother & The Holding Company

Crossroad 16: What Are Their Names

Tags

CSNY, David & The Dorks, David Crosby, David Frieberg, Grace Slick, Graham Nash, Jefferson Airplane, Jerry Garcia, Joni Mitchell, Mickey Hart, Neil Young, Occupy Wall Street, Paul Kantner, Phil Lesh, Santana, Stephen Barncard, Stephen Stills, The Grateful Dead, What Are Their Names

What Are Their Names

David Crosby

David Crosby

What Are Their Names comes from David Crosby’s 1971 solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name.

Crosby had written (or co-written) some songs that were often on my turntable.  Long Time Gone, Wooden Ships, Deja Vu, Almost Cut My Hair – from the albums Crosby, Stills & Nash & Deja Vu. Triad, from Jefferson Airplane’s Crown Of Creation was another favourite written by Crosby. And also the haunting Everybody’s Been Burned from The Byrds‘ 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday.

I really like his songs.

He’d lined up a veritable who’s who of West Coast psychedelia to play on the album. Most of The Grateful Dead, Grace Slick & Paul Kantner from Jefferson Airplane, his colleagues from CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Greg Rolie & Michael Shrieve from Santana, & David Frieberg from Quicksilver Messenger Service.

My school lunch money would be much better saved and spent on this album … than on a couple of pies from the canteen.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Unfortunately, my vinyl copy was lost sometime in the late 70’s or early 80’s. A time when I was lost and my collection was decimated through various household moves, break-ups, break-ins, and desperation sales.

Crosby himself, was lost for an extended period around the same time and a bit later … ending up with a list of convictions and eventually spending some time in prison in Texas. He was in a dark place. By the mid-90’s he needed a liver transplant – primarily due to his immoderate approach to drug and alcohol consumption. He survived and will turn 72 in August this year.

How do What Are Their Names & Ohio relate to each other?

A song from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young makes for an easy link to songs from any of the individual members of CSNY.

The 3 songs coming out of the Ohio crossroad were each selected because they have a political edge. What Are Their Names has continued political relevance today, being used as an unofficial anthem in the Occupy Wall Street leaderless resistance movement in late 2011.

The song’s progression seems to match that of the Occupy movement  – a soft, leaderless and loose movement of sound, connecting & threading its way to finally aggregate into a moving, powerful song that is all too brief … then petering out and fading away.

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Other Stuff You Might Enjoy.

* Personal Notes (about the album tracks) from Stephen Barncard, producer of If I Could Only Remember My Name.

* During December 1970, around the time of recording If I Could Only Remember My Name, David Crosby, Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh & Mickey Hart, played a few nights at The Matrix in San Francisco. It seems they were billed as Jerry Garcia & Friends but also called themselves David & The Dorks; Jerry & The Jets; or David & The Ding-A-Lings.

This link takes you to 6 recordings from those sessions: David & The Dorks. And this one to a little information: Willard’s Wormholes.

* What Are Their Names is the subject of a post in a great blog called Political Tunes – The Politics In Popular Songs.

And the next road takes us to?

North:  Chestnut Mare by The Byrds
East:     Greasy Heart by Jefferson Airplane
South:   New Speedway Boogie by The Grateful Dead 
West:    We just visited Ohio 

Crossroad 15: Ohio

Tags

4 Way Street, CSNY, David Crosby, Devo, Gerald Casale, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Ohio, Stephen Stills

Ohio

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

So much has been written about this song, Ohio, and the event that inspired Neil Young to write it. The event was, of course, the killing of 4 students, on 4th May 1970, during a peace demonstration at the Kent State University. If you want more detail on this there are links below, under the heading “Other Stuff You Might Enjoy”.

America was at its own crossroad.

Kent State University – 4th May 1970

Ohio was recorded just 17 days after the killings and released as a single in June 1970, the “B-side” was Stephen Stills’ Find The Cost Of Freedom. It first appeared on an album in 1971 when Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young released their live double album – 4 Way Street.

My first recollection of hearing Ohio was when listening to 4 Way Street – over a year after the Kent State U events, it still poignantly conveyed the sense of disbelief and shock. I guess that is understandable as 4 Way Street was recorded around the time Ohio was released.

Although I never owned this album, it regularly traveled through our networked community vinyl collection – it was under my arm a few times as I walked home from visiting it’s “home” collection at Glen Davidson’s place.

The studio version of Ohio finally appeared on the 1974 CSNY compilation So Far and then on Neil Young’s 1977 compilation Decade. Neil Young wrote the following in the sleeve notes for Decade:

Neil Young on Ohio (from Decade)

If this is illegible to you, it says:

OHIO. It’s still hard to believe I had to write this song. It’s ironic that I capitalized on the death of these American students. Probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning. My best CSNY cut. Recorded totally live in Los Angeles. David Crosby cried after this take.

How are Ohio and Oh Susannah connected?

By the “Oh”? No! Well, yes they do both start with “Oh”.

But, just as obvious … the connection is Neil Young who performs Oh Susannah, and writes Ohio.

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Other Stuff You Might Enjoy.

* “Four Dead in O-hi-o”. An excellent, if long, article on the Kent State University killings written by Jack Doyle for the website Pop History Dig.

* Neil Young’s Ohio – The Greatest Protest Record a very interesting article published in The Guardian in 2010. Written by Dorian Lynskey.

* The Official Neil Young YouTube Channel

* Neil Young Documentary: Part 1 (14m 51s); Part 2 (13m 57s); Part 3 (14m 21s); Part 4 (7m 49s).

* Cover of Ohio by DEVO. Jerry Casale, a founding member of Devo, was at Kent State and witness the shootings that killed two of his friends. Casale, at the time saw the Young song as a means for “rich hippies” to make money out of a horrible event. Many years later Devo would play with Young and they suggested the title Rust Never Sleeps for a later project of Young’s. Unfortunately this video has been deleted from You Tube due to copyright claims.

And the next road takes us to?

North:  Chicago by Graham Nash
East:     What Are Their Names by David Crosby
South:   Oh Susannah. 
West:   For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield

Crossroad 14: Oh Susannah

Tags

Americana, Bananarama, Crazy Horse, Dave Matthews, Days of 49, Gold Rush, Hey Joe, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass, Neil Young, Oh Susannah, Self Portrait, Shocking Blue, Stephen Foster, The Banjo Song, The Big 3, Tim Reynolds, Tim Rose, Venus

Oh Susannah

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Last year Neil Young released two albums Americana and Psychadelic Pill, both with Crazy Horse. This song – Oh Susannah – opens the Americana album.

It was written by Stephen Foster – his first success. First published in 1848 it is one of the best known of all American songs … and not only in America, I certainly recall singing it in either infants or primary school. In fact, besides Oh Susannah, there are 4 other songs on Amercana that would almost certainly have been known by pre-teens in 20th century Australia – Clementine, Tom Dula (Tom Dooley), Jesus’s Chariot (She’ll Be Coming ’round The Mountain), and God Save The Queen.

Over the years the song has changed considerably. The original lyric and the way it was performed (black-faced minstrels) showed the embedded racism in American culture at that time. The song’s evolution has rendered it quite benign and most of its earlier meaning lost and forgotten.

In the early sixties, Tim Rose wrote a new arrangement of Oh Susannah. It was released in 1963 as The Banjo Song by The Big 3. The three member of The Big 3 were Tim Rose, Jim Hendricks, and Mama Cass Elliot.

Here is The Banjo Song by The Big 3:

In 1969 The Banjo Song reemerged as a new song with new lyrics composed by Robbie van Leeuwin. Robbie was the guitarist for Dutch band Shocking Blue – the song was Venus. It was a hit in 1969 and in 1986 it again went to the top of the charts for Bananarama.

This Tim Rose arrangement has been used by Neil Young here, he has reverted back to the lyric known universally.

(It was Tim Rose’s arrangement of Hey Joe that Jimi Hendrix used and was the trigger for his meteoric rise.)

What connects Oh Susannah to Days Of 49?

The gold rush!

Soon after Oh Susannah’s debut in Pittsburgh, the song swept through the United States and became a favourite of the forty-niners – the thousands who made their way to California seeking their fortune.

As well, one of Neil Young’s earlier albums was After The Goldrush.

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Other Stuff You Might Enjoy.

* Explore Oh Susanna at Shmoop, an excellent educational website. This exploration examines all aspects of the song, its history and context.

* Arthur Fields’ 1925 recording containing the original lyrics.

* Bridge School Benefit Concert 2011 – Neil Young, Dave Matthews, & Tim Reynolds perform an acoustic version of Oh Susannah at this annual benefit started by Young & his wife Pegi.

* The transformation: The Banjo Song to Venus to Oh Susannah … The Big 3, Shocking Blue, Bananarama, a German reality TV group, Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

And the next road takes us to?

North:  Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
East:     Old Dan Tucker by Bruce Springsteen
South:  Days of 49 – they’ve passed us by.
West:   Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix Eexperience