Episode Nine: Final Podcast (Dylan Night '91)

OK, it takes me a while, but I do eventually get the things done that I say I will. Here is the promised second podcast of Bob Dylan material. This one is all taken from our show in 1991, and I'd honestly forgotten how fine that gig was. The sound is pretty good, too. Thanks again to Mike Rae for documenting the evening's activities. It's a beefy helping of Dylanesque goodness, so stand back, hit that "download" button and crank it up. It's almost 50 minutes long, so be patient... Here's the list, followed by the link:

From a Buick Six
Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie
Queen Jane, Approximately
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (with Rick Petrie)
Golden Loom (with Bernie and Carol Heveron)
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (with Michael Hurley)
You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (with Brian Horton)
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (with Geoff Wilson)
Knockin' On Heaven's Door (with Stan "The Man" Merrill and Chas Lockwood)
Please Crawl Out Your Window

http://homepage.mac.com/davidmcintire/FileSharing9.html

There are several things to comment on, but I'll try to keep it brief. Many standout performances happened that night, of which I'm only posting a fraction. I had some serious damage on one of the tapes (Florida's humidity wreaked havoc on a lot of my stuff, including this cassette) and so some sizzling material was rendered unfit for broadcast. Despite that, the band members (abetted by their guests) were in great form on this night. A few songs merit some explication:

Yes, I know I put "From a Buick Six" on the last podcast, and in a nearly identical arrangement, but this version was too good to cut. Phil's solos are fantastic, and it was nice to hear it again with Joe's trombone.

I did have to edit a sharp and unsubtle fadeout on "Golden Loom," at the point where the havoc-wreaked tape trouble started, but I couldn't bring myself to omit it. I'm unaccountably proud of Joe's and my little duet at the end, and it's a lovely song...

Rick Petrie's radical funk re-interpretation of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was a standout that night, and I wish that more of our guests had gone for broke the way Rick did here. And had the security to veer sharply away from the standard "authentic" interpretation. I'll personally never be able to listen to the original again...

"Rainy Day Women" is a deliriously loose version, with Michael Hurley adding hilarious new lyrical twists to the end of the refrain each time it comes back. That glorious, manic sloppiness you hear is due in part to the fact that Michael often didn't change chords at the expected moments. He also had a somewhat different take on the rhythm and inflection of the lyrics than we had. I seem to recall all of us watching his hands on his electric piano (which is very low in the mix) for clues as to when he would move to the next chord. By the third verse we were a bit more together. Also, for this performance we had no rehearsal with the guest (as if you couldn't tell...)

Brian Horton was a fine guitarist and songwriter from Rochester who helmed a fantastic band called Buffalo Road for a few years in the early 90s. I went to hear them often. Brian died in 1995. The band released a truly great cd after Brian's death, entitled 'Through the Sun,' which remains one of my favorite discs of all time.

I really like this version of You Ain't Goin' Nowhere. I wish I could remember who the background singers were but I can't. I am pretty sure that Peggy Fournier and Carol Heveron might be they; maybe Phil remembers.

As indicated in the title, this will be my last podcast. Maybe not forever, but certainly for the present. And I think that I've gathered what I feel is the finest material in my personal archives. Other stuff may surface, but this is what I've got for now. I've enjoyed doing these, and hope that they've had some resonance with listeners. My intent has been to offer some perspective on the band's work that I felt was insufficiently represented on our commercial recordings, and show a side of us that wasn't readily apparent to our European fans. CbJE was primarily a live band, and so I've emphasized live recordings. Most long-time fans thought we sounded 'way better live than on recordings. I'd agree with that sentiment, at least for the most part. If I didn't include your own favorite songs here, I am sorry, but there's a whole lot of 'em, and I have did my best. I also have been careful to only present material where I was present in its making. Lots of great things happened before I joined the group and continued to happen long after I left, but I felt it important to only deal with the stuff that I was witness to. It's a rather narrow slice of CbJE history, but a rich one. Thanks for listening.

New Blog! Colorblind James: Song By Song

I've decided to begin a different venture in retrospect to Colorblind James. Beginning with the first CD, the eponymously titled The Colorblind James Experience, I'm going to offer my reflections, memories and opinions on a song by song basis.

Thanks for stopping by,

Uncle Phil Marshall

Episode Eight (Bob Dylan Vol. 1)

I am actually a day late with this episode, which I meant to have posted on May 24th. The fact is, when the semester ends, I stop looking at calendars for a while, and the day slipped past. Sorry about that... But here it is, a "jumbo big" Bob Dylan birthday episode.

Most fans noticed long ago that Chuck's songwriting was heavily influenced by the Bard of Hibbing, and so early in the band's history, the group started doing an annual Bob Dylan birthday show. This tradition began long before I joined and continued onwards after I left. Each spring we'd shut down for a month and learn about 40 Dylan songs, rehearsing many with guest artists. On the Saturday night closest to his birthday, we'd play through the whole gamut, nothing but an entire evening of Dylan. Over the years they gained in popularity, and former band members carry on the tradition to this day. We also occasionally did an Elvis birthday show and I remember us having conversations about doing ones for Van Morrison and Hank Williams. But the Dylan show was the only one that we did without fail, year after year.

This podcast is comprised of songs that were all taken from a single show, the Bob Dylan birthday show of 1992. This was in fact, my last performance as a member of the band. Joe "The Bone" Colombo had moved on by then (somewhere during our "long nap" through the winter of '92) and Chuck recruited Reece Campbell of the New Dylans to play keyboards with us for the show. This was a pretty good night for us, and the recording is a board tape made by Mike Rae, who recorded many of our shows. The venue was the Country Warehouse in Rochester, and I remember there being a sizeable audience that evening. I've included a number of songs featuring our guests, along with the band by ourselves.

here's the songlist:

From a Buick Six
Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine
This Wheel's On Fire (w/ former and future CbJE member G. Elwyn Meixner, gtr/voc)*
Everything Is Broken (w/ Bill Lambert, gtr/voc)
Dear Landlord (w/ Carol Heveron, voc)
Dark Eyes (w/ Brian Horton, gtr/voc)
Solid Rock

http://homepage.mac.com/davidmcintire/FileSharing8.html

As noted in the heading, this is Volume 1 of at least two Dylan show podcasts. Depending on how much good material I uncover, there may be one or two more. I played on five of these as a band member, but I only have tapes for '88, '91 and '92. And '92 has the best sound by far. Hope you enjoy it.

*I meant this in the sense that Gary had been a member before I joined the group, and he rejoined it after I left it. I realized later that the way I phrased that might not make sense to some folks...

Episode Seven

Here is a brace of five songs all from a single gig in 1987. At this point, the new version of the band had been rehearsing for about six months. As you'll hear, the group was still honing its sound and we compensated for any lack of refinement with sheer raw energy. Sound quality is not great, but listenable. My clarinet is barely audible most of the time--you'll have to strain your ears a bit. On the last track "The Pin-Boy's Life," it's hard to hear me at all, but I take a solo trying channel the spirit of Albert Ayler through my clarinet. I almost make it, too... This track is notable to my ears for its ferocious groove and just plain weirdness; I'd also point out that the band's aggressiveness on this and other tracks could hold its own with just about any punk group of the era. (Note: on this track there was a substantial dropout on the tape. I did my best to make a smooth edit, but it's not very smooth...) We often played Willy Dixon's "Spoonful," and it was usually a powerful standout of our live shows. My tenor solo here is not me at my best, but I did get better, I can say that. Still, it's a song we played a lot that some might not have heard before. "Why Should I Stand Up?" has different lyrics than those on the studio album, and most subsequent performances. Chuck rewrote one of the interior verses, and the arrangement hadn't quite settled into its permanent form.

The songs are:

Why Should I Stand Up?
That's Entertainment
Why'd the Boy Throw the Clock Out the Window?
Spoonful
The Pin-Boy's Life

Here's the link:

http://homepage.mac.com/davidmcintire/FileSharing7.html

Special thanks to Don Argus for sending me the tape of this show.

Coming Soon!

Hello everyone. Here's a quick note to wish you all a Happy Buster Cornelius Day! And to let you know that there are new podcast episodes in the works, even as I type. Stay tuned!

("And that is why on the Third of May/We celebrate Buster Cornelius Day")

Episode Six: Songs of Blind Willie McTell

Here's Episode Six of the podcast, featurng a few songs by Blind Willie McTell, who was one of Chuck's favorite songwriters. Truth be told, I wish I had more material for this one. There's a few songs we did, such as "Little Delia" and "River of Jordan" that I never got recordings of, but they would have certainly been included on the Blind Willie McTell album that we talked about making at some point. Sadly, no record company we dealt with gave the idea a moment's consideration. A couple years after I left the band, Bob Dylan released his excellent 'World Gone Wrong' album, which featured a number of McTell's songs and did pretty well. Apparently, Dylan had more clout in the music business than we did. Here's the list:

Statesboro Blues (Live WITR broadcast, 1991)
Your Time to Worry (Live at Jazzberry's, 1990)
Blues Around Midnight (Live WITR broadcast, 1991)
Your Time to Worry (Live WITR broadcast, 1991)
Sendin' Up My Timber (Live at Jazzberry's, 1990)

"Statesboro Blues" is one we did frequently, and is represented here in a sizzling performance, if I say so myself. In Phil's second guitar solo, he drops his pick—see if you can figure out where. I only wish Joe "the Bone" had been able to make the gig. The horn parts were much fuller with the two of us. I'm used to this clarinet-only version now, but it was a lot better when Joe was present.

You get to hear two versions of "Your Time To Worry" on this podcast. On the first, I play alto sax, and honestly, I had completely forgotten that I did. I think Joe and I sound pretty good here. I often referred to us as "the finest two-man horn section in upstate New York." Heaven knows what other folks called us... On the second version, Joe is absent and I play clarinet.

Chuck's vocal on "Blues Around Midnight" is one of his best ever, in my opinion. It haunts me to this day.

For anyone who's interested in hearing more of McTell's music, I urge you to check out his 'Atlanta Twelve String' album on Atlantic. There are other collections on the Yazoo label as well.


Download the podcast here:

http://homepage.mac.com/davidmcintire/FileSharing6.html

Next up: CbJE does Dylan. Their way.

Episode Five: Girls! Girls! Girls!

After a long wait, here's the link to the Abolutely More! Podcast—Episode Five. My sincerest apologies for the delay; it's been a busy semester. I have two or three more episodes planned and hopefully those will get done fairly soon. The podcast:

Girls! Girls! Girls!

She'll Break Yours Too
Circus Girl
Acorn Girl
Hey! Bernadette
Blind Girl
Polka Girl
O Sylvia
Two-Headed Girl

Here's the link:

http://homepage.mac.com/davidmcintire/FileSharing5.html

A few comments:

"She'll Break Yours Too" is one we never played live very much. I really like the squonk at the opening and the sax/trombone melody in the middle. The recording and mix could have been better, though.

"Circus Girl" is one we did fairly often and even recorded at the BBC, though this is from a different live broadcast. Ken Frank thought it extremely erotic. I get what he means, but I'm not sure most other listeners did.

"Acorn Girl" was one of my favorites from Strange Sounds From the Basement. My daughter Rachel wanted to make a music video of it when she was in high school. She had to get the lyrics approved by her technology teacher, whose response was, "Is this a real song?" She had to show him the album before he believed her.

"Hey! Bernadette" is about the great singer and actress Bernadette Peters, who Chuck admired greatly.

"Blind Girl" is a very early CbJ song. We didn't play it out much, but I liked it.

"Polka Girl" was a really popular song. It took me a while to work out my tiny little solo, and it wasn't that easy to play. I played it better on this BBC recording than on the album version. It's the only CbJE thing that my clarinet teacher ever complimented me on.

"O Sylvia" is, in my opinion, just frickin' gorgeous.

And only Chuck would write a song about dating a two-headed girl. "We'd swing on the porch swing on the porch" is a brilliant line, though the song has many others.

Next up: the lost Blind Willie McTell album.