COOL CHICKS

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away there were some tough, cool chicks who ruled the rock roost. This was before folkies like Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins took the baton. These old school singers had it all. In this clip from "Shindig!," the Shangri-Las sing "Give Him A Great Big Kiss," Aretha Franklin sings "Shoop Shoop Song," Leslie Gore sings "Judy's Turn To Cry" and Ketty Lester sings "Love Letters." Dig the hair and outfits and tell me that's not cool.

The Queen Beehives were always The Ronettes. Here they sing "Be My Baby," an all time great tune you may remember from Martin Scorsese's film "Mean Streets." Very cool wall of sound production with a big beat. With all due respect, this blows away Judy Collins. This song was written by Ellie Greenwich, who died this week.


Amy Winehouse, what's got into you? There's something old school about Amy, and it's not just the Ronettes' hairstyle. She's a tough girl and probably tougher on herself than anyone. She gets into trouble. Still, she's got the chops-- if she can only stay away from the bad boys and the Tanqueray.

ROCK 'N' ROLL RENEGADES

"Rip it Up!" by Little Richard:
"When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake." - Plato



Hell with easy listening, in the sleepy days of yore something strange and dangerous and downright insane crawled out of the dark swampy south, a devil brew of blues, country, and rhythm and blues, a crawling King snake moving through the night on radiowaves nationwide. Call it rock and roll. Where did it come from?

"Hell Hound on my Trail" by Robert Johnson:

They say Robert Johnson met the devil at the crossroads, shook his hand and an eerie light came across the sky. Nobody knows what transpired, but afterward he could play like nobody's business. Slide guitar. This wasn't church music, but something that made your skin crawl. Robert would have played forever but whiskey can be poisoned. They sang Danny Boy at his funeral and the Lord's Prayer, and the preacher talked about Christ betrayed. They say he loved a women named Dee or Miss Delilah who did wondrous works with his fate, fed him coconut bread and spice buns in bed, but a panderer named Red wasn't crazy about the arrangement and brought the curtain down with a fixed drink.

Murder and whiskey. Rock and roll came to town in a black Caddie with no plates. Birds fell silent when it passed. They carried the casket to the cemetery and were surprised when it turned up empty. Get a mojo hand. Light a candle. Turn the radio up.


"Come On" by Chuck Berry:


What was the first rock 'n' roll record? A leading contender is "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951. That was four years before Bill Haley recorded "Rock Around the Clock." Listen to Rocket 88:


Grand and vulgar, powerful and absurdly simple, before pills pills and cream pies and Hollywood and untold power slogged him down, this Tupelo truckdriver named Elvis became the King of Rock and Roll--or at least a King, along with Chuck and Richard and Buddy and Jerry Lee and those early rockers who slammed pianos and guitars and tore a hole in the fabric of the universe.

"Mystery Train" by Elvis Presley:


Okay, this is part one and three of rock and roll renegades. I know, I know, but part two has sound problems and until it's fixed I suggest you get non-linear and enjoy these two spots. Now let's get real gone.


Part 4 of the documentary is here.
Part 5 is here.
Part 6 is here.

THE CLAMPDOWN

The Clash, the greatest punk rock band of all time, sings about the Clampdown. London, 1980. They turned righteous rage into music that mattered. It still does. We just saw the brilliant documentary, The Future is Unwritten, about Joe Strummer. See it, by all means.


The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

But, you grow up and you calm down and
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown and
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now

--from The Clampdown, by The Clash

BO DIDDLEY, R.I.P.

Ellas Otha Bates was born in McComb, Mississippi in 1928, and he died today. Known to the world as Bo Diddley, he invented the Bo Diddley beat, which is a boogie beat that sounds like "shave and a haircut, two bits," and the foundation of such rock and roll classics as "Who Do You Love?"

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
Use a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let's take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love


Bo Diddley appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in November of 1955, and really ticked off the old man. "I did two songs and he got mad," Bo Diddley later recalled. "Ed Sullivan said that I was one of the first colored boys to ever double-cross him. Said that I wouldn't last six months".

Lucky for the rest of us, he proved Ed Sullivan wrong. He was a big hit, and lasted seventy nine long years. On top of that, he had a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind, and from what I hear he wasn't scared of dying.

BLUES IMPROVISATION FROM JIMI

A message of peace and love from Mr. James Hendrix. After Expatbrian mentioned so many great sixties heroes passing in his comments (all coincidentally with names starting with the letter "J") I had to play some Jimi, and this bluesy exploration from the historic Woodstock performance fits the bill. Imagine plenty of mud, and people for miles on Max Yasgur's farm. The New York State Thruway is closed. It's 1969, and you leave Nixon and Vietnam and the Moon Landing behind for "three days of peace and music." It doesn't get any better than this blues improvisation from Jimi Hendrix.

"With the power of soul anything is possible."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOB DYLAN

Dylan is 67 today. Here's an outtake from DA Pennebaker's reels of film from the 1965 tour.

ZAPPA SWAPS SOULS WITH A MONKEE

There is only one Frank Zappa. Maybe two. This creative weirdo stood alone in the music world, a creature at the edge of the wilderness, with no commercial potential. On the other side of the void, but still in Los Angeles, a four-headed beast built solely for commercial potential, ersatz-Beatles created by Hollywood hucksters to capitalize on pop music, struggled to life in both television and records, though never actually playing their instruments...The Monkees!

You would think these two had nothing in common. In fact, you'd think they couldn't occupy the same universe, much like matter and anti-matter, or pasta and anti-pasta. And yet these two forces came together one glorious day, the fuzz-tone Lion and the wool-hatted lamb, somehow merging a moment in the time-space continuum, and this is proof. Do you believe me? Watch as Frank Zappa and Mike Nesmith, the coolest Monkee, swap souls one fine afternoon in LA.

ONE, TWO, TRES, QUATRO!

Let's not be L-Seven!

It's Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs! These Texans in turbans, led by Domingo "Sam" Samudio from Dallas, burned this killer riff into a million dance floors back in 1965. Maybe you don't get it. Sure, it's not logical, the words don't make sense -- but you're not exactly George Will, right? Loosen your bow tie, kick back, and feel the music. Wooly Bully.

One, two, tres, quatro...

Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw.
Had two big horns and a wooly jaw.
Wooly bully, wooly bully.
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully.
Hatty told Matty, "Let's don't take no chance.
Let's not be L-seven, come and learn to dance."

LED ZEPPELIN TAKES OFF

According to John Hodgman, in The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, authors and books are funny "because they are sad. They are as sad as zeppelins are -- they wish to soar, but they are using a technology that is old, largely forgotten, highly flammable."
Hodgman triggers a synaptic linkage, bringing a huge, old, largely forgotten, highly flammable rock band to mind. Unlike cartoonist Ellen Forney, who wrote and illustrated the comic "I [heart] Led Zeppelin," my feelings are complicated. I don't [heart] them uncritically. It's more of a love/hate relationship. They are overwrought, lumbering, reactionary, and personify all the rockist wretched excess of stadium groups punk came along to destroy. Zep stocks the "classic rock" stations like rack-jobbers, providing tired old warhorses for button-down nostalgics, and false memories for kids who weren't even there in the first place. Honestly, I could do without hearing "Stairway to Heaven" ever again.

On the other hand, once in a while, the behemoth lifts off. Those moments rattle me with cognitive dissonance; I know I shouldn't like it, but I do. The earth moves, and Led Zep, that improbable wasp trapped in fossilized amber, somehow takes wing. Watch this clip of "Kashmir." You wonder, will this thing ever fly? It does.

SOMETHING FUN BECAUSE IT'S THE WEEKEND

Okay, this is cool and fun because it's the weekend! How about the amazing Gene Vincent singing "Rip It Up!" Ooh, baby, you know what I like. This crazy cat will knock the sleepy 1950s suburban Eisenhower flotilla out of the bubble bath, if you catch my draft. Crazy, Daddy-o!

Here's an article from PopMatters about the subversive rocker. Click here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELVIS! LITTLE ANTHONY!

January 8th is a big day for birthdays. Not only is it Elvis Presley's, it's also the birthday of David Bowie, and Robbie Krieger, guitar player of the Doors. It's the birthday of Shirley Bassey, who sang the theme from "Goldfinger," Dave Eggers, American writer, rapper R. Kelly, cranky chef Gordon Ramsey, comedian Soupy Sales, New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno, actress Butterfly McQueen, Mary Queen of Scotts, and Little Anthony. My birthday isn't for a couple days yet, but I've requested a medley from Little Anthony and the Imperials.