No Cool Lines

If you were a teenager in Indiana in the late '70s and early '80s, you came to either hate or love John (Cougar) Mellencamp. As a local it didn't matter if the station was Top 40 or Album Oriented Rock (AOR) his music got played, even before he broke big on the national scene.

The record company tried to sell him as a teen idol (see the look in the video below) but it really didn't work. After four albums, and only moderate success, John was about ready to hang it up. But then he released American  Fool. I still remember being home from college in the spring of 1982, standing on my front porch talking to a friend from high school. He asked if I'd heard the new John Cougar album and I admitted that I had not.

I owned the self-titled John Cougar LP and Nothin' Matters and What If It Did LP. Both were solid efforts that I liked, but not enough that I was waiting the next John Cougar album with anticipation. My friend told me that I needed to pick it up soon; it was better than anything else John had done and a great album. So I did and he was right.

American Fool would become the best selling album of 1982 and would produce a number one single in "Jack and Diane". The album's first single, "Hurts So Good", would reach number two on the Billboard charts and "Hand to Hold On To" would crack the top twenty.  John had hit the charts before, "Ain't Even Done with the Night" had been his biggest hit and had also cracked the top twenty, but American Fool would make him a rock star.

It also helped to completely change his image. Gone was the teen idol. The video for "Hurts So Good" featured bikers and "Jack and Diane" was a melancholy song about living life in a small town. While on tour after the release of American Fool John was once asked why he wasn't a headliner. John laughed and noted that no one had guessed how successful American Fool would be.

I saw John live during this tour and actually felt sorry for Heart, who was the headliner. Not because John was so much better than they were, but because a third of the audience left after John was done and didn't even stick around for Heart (who, incidentally, put on a great show).

The success of American Fool allowed John to drop the "Cougar" pseudonym in favor of his real last name and John would continue to be successful for many years. In many ways the two follow ups to American Fool, Uh Huh and Scarecrow, are better albums but neither would quite match its success (Scarecrow would come close in album sales but not in chart singles).

Mr. Mellencamp will release a new album, Plain Spoken, later this month.

Loki in the Doghouse

For many rock fans, it is the dirty secret of classic rock, but one of the big influences on rock music is country music. It matters not that rock has likewise influenced  country, after all, that is to be expected, right? But country's  influence on rock has been there since the beginning, since country music is older than rock music.

Sometimes the influence has been hard to ignore. The Beatles, with Ringo on lead vocals, covered Buck Owens' "Act Naturally" (written by country singer Johnny Russell). Yes, this is the same Buck Owens who would later co-host Hee Haw. You can also hear the country influence on many luminaries of the Southern California sound, including Neil Young's Harvest and The Eagles Desperado.

The artists themselves have not been shy about naming country influences. Hank Williams has had perhaps the biggest single influence on country music and that influence has also been felt in rock. Hank was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 1987. The biography on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website notes that:

The words and music of Hank Williams echo across the decades with a timelessness that transcends genre. He brought country music into the modern era, and his influence spilled over into the folk and rock arenas as well. Artists ranging from Gram Parsons and John Fogerty to the Georgia Satellites and Uncle Tupelo have adapted elements of Williams’ persona, especially the aura of emotional forthrightness and bruised idealism communicated in his songs. Some of Williams’ more upbeat country and blues-flavored numbers, on the other hand, anticipated the playful abandon of rockabilly. - See more at: https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/hank-williams/bio/#sthash.Lh3xl4eM.dpuf

Hank William's first big hit was "Move It On Over" and it was covered by several artists. But the version I came to love was by George Thorogood and the Destroyers.

The song is a sad tale about a man who stayed out too late one too many times and comes home to find himself locked out. So, he literally ends up in the dog house. George plays with the chorus, substituting "rock it on over" for the original repeat of "move it on over" and rewrote several verses. This isn't uncommon, even Hank Williams Jr. altered the song when he covered it.

Word has come out that Tom Hiddleston, known for playing Loki in the Thor and Avengers movies, will play Hank Williams in I Saw the Light. There's a video of him singing "Move It On Over" and he does a good job with the song. Previous country star biopics for Loretta Lynn (Coal Miner's Daughter) and Johnny Cash (Walk the Line) have been good films. Hopefully this one will live it to those.

Here I Go Again

Love sought; love found; love lost. Rock music has looked at love not only from "both sides now" but from just about every angle imaginable. In "Silly Love Songs" Paul McCartney noted that:

"You think that people would have enough of silly love songs.
I look around me and I see it isn't so."

In the '60s, the Beatles had gone from writing and singing "silly love songs" like "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to being a driving force in the culture shift later in the '60s. After the Beatles broke up, Paul made records solo and with Wings. But much of political nature was gone from the music of Wings and the critics took note.

That did not escape Paul's notice. The Beatles had been one of the most acclaimed bands (probably the most) in history and now he was looked at with a somewhat disparaging eye. Lennon was still largely silent at this point musically, but surely if he was making records they would contain more substance. So Paul answered the critics in the best way he could.

"I only know that when I'm in it,
... Love isn't silly at all."

We can talk about how rock music is a rebellion against authority, because at times it is. We can talk about how rock music has been a force for social change, because at times it has been. But whatever we say about it, rock music's primary subject has been love. It doesn't matter who the band is, sooner or later the subject will come up.

In discussing the song in an interview with Billboard in 2001, McCartney noted:

The song was, in a way, to answer people who just accuse me of being soppy. The nice payoff now is that a lot of the people I meet who are at the age where they've just got a couple of kids and have grown up a bit, settling down, they'll say to me, "I thought you were really soppy for years, but I get it now! I see what you were doing!"

We shouldn't be surprised. At it's best, music reflects things that we can relate to from our own experience and our dreams. Love is at the center of that for most of us, whether positively, as in "Silly Love Songs" or, unfortunately, not so positively (as in Jackson Browne's "The Pretender"). But love isn't going to go away as a theme in popular music, no matter how silly some think songs sound.

As Long As You Are

Rock music, like most popular music, has a certain fascination with itself. Whether it's general, like Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music"  or Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Night," or about what it's like to live the Rock and Roll "dream." In the latter category, some songs are humorous - Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" - while others speak of the negative side of being on the road - Bob Seger's "Turn the Page."

Bad Company, in "Shooting Star" from their Straight Shooter album, attempted to cover the life of a fictional rock star.

Four verses cover the life of Johnny who, like many rock musicians in the '70s and '80s, was inspired after hearing the Beatles. Whether you are a fan of their music or not (given the breadth, it's hard to imagine a fan of rock music who doesn't like at least one Beatles song), their influence can't be denied, or even underestimated.

Johnny buys a guitar and joins a band in the first verse, and leaves home to pursue the dream in the second verse. After two verses the chorus kicks in, and it contains the songs warning. People love you when your hot, but you only burn for so long. The image of a shooting star, that brilliant  flash of light that is as brief as it is beautiful, is the perfect image to convey life of so many rock stars.

Verse three is Johnny's rise to fame ("Johnny looked around him and said, 'Well, I made the big time at last.'") But, as the chorus has already indicated, that fame is fleeting.

Johnny died one night, died in his bed,
Bottle of whiskey, sleeping tablets by his head.
Johnny's life passed him by like a warm summer day,
If you listen to the wind you can still hear him play.

Rock music has lost many of it's best young. Some are claimed by the perils of continual travel (Buddy Holly, Jim Croce, and others died in plane crashes) but many, especially in the early '70s, were victims of the excesses that seemed (seem?) to characterize the rock and roll lifestyle. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison then later Keith Moon and Bon Scott all died from alcohol or drug abuse. In his song "The Big Lie" Rik Emmett (formerly of the rock band Triumph) would sing of "the burned out myth of sex and drugs and rock and roll."

Musically, "Shooting Star" is a happy song and perhaps, even given the untimely demise of Johnny in the song, it's not misplaced. Perhaps those shooting stars of the rock world would prefer to be remembered in a happy light. But the message should still be somewhat sobering. Too many people who seem to have everything we would want do not end up happy. Everyone around us is going through some difficulty we do not know, so be kind to each other.

The Words of the Gypsy Queen

Rock music is sometime criticized for it's lyrical content. Yet Rock seems to deal with a wider variety of subjects than any other form of popular music. It is only within Rock music that songs with science fiction and horror themes seem to have life, and these tend to come from the harder side of Rock music. Blue Oyster Cult is probably the master of songs with these kind of themes, but other groups have songs that deal in these areas as well.

April Wine had a moderate hit with "Sign of the Gypsy Queen" from their The Nature of the Beast album in 1981. As with several other popular Rock groups in the '70s and '80s, April Wine was from Canadia and "Sign" had been a hit on Canadian radio in the 1970s for it's writer, Lorence Hud. The song warns of some impending disaster ("Hurricane at the very least") that has been foretold by the gypsy queen.

Trouble's coming without control
No one's staying that's got a hope
Hurricane at the very least
In the words of the gypsy queen

Like most classic rock songs, musically "Sign of the Gypsy Queen" is driven by guitars. Tending to the harder side of the spectrum, the guitars are electric and drums are also a prominent feature in the song. One disconnect that sometimes occurs in rock music is that the music and lyrics don't seem to line up. Upbeat music accompanying rather sad lyrics is not uncommon. But in this case the music helps support the sense of urgency present in the song.

The song begins in the night, with a strike of lightning and a Paul Revere like figure warning of impending danger. Now is the time to flee "while the darkness can help you hide." The song never gets specific about the nature of what is coming, just that it's bad. In the verse that follows (quoted above and repeated later in the song) whatever it is cannot be managed.

The chorus then tells us that the gypsy queen has a similar message. What is unclear is whether the man got his warning from her or if she in town confirming what he is saying. It really doesn't matter; all that matters is that you get away before disaster strikes.

In the verse following the chorus, the setting becomes more concrete. This is not a modern tale. The singer is not throwing things into a car to escape. He is leaving on horseback, facing a strong wind. But the horse is strong and he is confident they can make it to dawn.

This is another, to some perhaps surprisingly common rock motif, that of the western. The Eagles Desperado album is full of songs with this motif, and it features in songs from Billy Joel to Bon Jovi. This fascination probably has something to do with the freedom that is present in our romanticizing of the American West.

The song gets even darker as it closes. For those that remain in town, now "evil seems to be everywhere." It has come from somewhere in the town itself. The warnings are repeated, so perhaps there is still time, but surely it has grown short.

Overall, it's not surprising this song was not  more popular. Not because it's a bad song; I love it. But the subject matter simply isn't something that then, or now, would garner enough of an audience for it to be a top ten hit. But it exists, along with many other songs that I'm sure to touch on in this blog, as evidence that there is, or at least was, some audience for songs that deal with the mysterious.

Superman's Cape

Growing up I shared a bedroom with a brother who was almost eight years older than I. One day, he was probably close to eighteen and had been working at the local Burger Chef (think McDonald's for you youngsters who don't know what a Burger Chef is), he came home with a new stereo. Mom and Dad had a console record player and our older sister had one of those "turntable in a box" record players, but this was the first stereo system that had ever been in the house. Since he worked after school most days I may have gotten more use out of that stereo until he moved out than he did.

He had several albums that I played regularly, but five got more play than any of the others. They were James Taylor's Sweet Baby James, Neil Young's Harvest, Uriah Heep's Demons and Wizards, Jim Croce's You Don't Mess Around with Jim, and Jim Croce's Life and Times. Of all these, it was Jim's albums that I loved the most. So today, let's take a look at the title track from You Don't Mess Around with Jim.

"Uptown got it's hustlers,
the Bowery got it's bums,
Forty-second street got Big Jim Walker,
he's a pool shooting son of a gun."

Atypical of the songs I generally heard on the radio, whether my parent's Country and Western or my sibling's Pop/Rock, the song wasn't about love celebrated, lost, or sought. It was a story song and stories, of whatever variety and complexity, have always been a joy for me.

The first verse introduces us to Big Jim Walker, the Jim in the title, though there's an obvious double meaning in the album title with Mr. Croce. Big Jim is not smart ("he's big and dumb as a man can come") but he's powerful enough that even the other rogues yield to him. The chorus then tells us a smart person doesn't do four things. Three of these are obvious no-no's and serve to tell us that messing with Big Jim Walker is something you just do not want to do.

The second verse sets up the conflict by introducing Willie McCoy, aka Slim. Slim isn't from these parts and apparently doesn't understand that Big Jim is not a person you want to cross. Slim has, apparently, lost money to Big Jim in a pool game that, perhaps - pure conjecture here, otherwise Slim would seem to be just a sore loser - was not on the up and up. The crowd reacts to the news that Slim is looking to get his money back by warning him about the four things you just don't do if you have any wits about you.

The third verse tells us what we may have already surmised. It is common plot in stories, be it in a book, a movie, or, in this case, in a song, for the city big shot to underestimate someone from a small town, thinking them an easy mark. By the end of the fight, Jim wasn't so big anymore and the crowd's tune had changed. Now, instead of not messing with Jim, a smart man would not mess with Slim. As the song ends, we are reminded the the bully, when taken down, frequently then just fades away to obscurity.

The song did will for Jim Croce, and so a similar formula would follow on the next album (Life and Times) with what is probably Jim's best known song, "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown." The city changes from New York to Chicago and Leroy takes Jim's role as the person that most people did not want to confront. The fight there isn't over money, but love, and Slim is replaced by "a jealous man."  The comparisons are not Superman and the Lone Ranger, but King Kong and a junkyard dog. Musically, the songs are different though. "Jim" has a more serious tone, while the music for "Leroy Brown" makes it clear the song is not serious, but playful (though, if you watch the video above, you can see from Jim's expression that even "Jim" should not be taken too seriously).

On the 22nd of this month it will forty-one years since the plane Jim Croce was in crashed, killing everyone on board. The album I Got a Name would be released posthumously, but all the other songs and stories  Jim might have shared are lost to us. But the songs we do have from Jim are a remainder of the impact that folk music had on rock and roll, particularly in the '60s and '70s. From Dylan to The Band to many other great singer-songwriters, among whom I'm confident Jim would still be remembered had he lived longer, our musical lives are enriched by their contributions.

An Introduction

A couple of years back a discussion on Twitter led to me considering doing a podcast on classic rock music. Some work was put into the idea, including considering what it would be called, what songs would be discussed, and the proper length (thirty to forty-five minutes, if you're curious). But in the end, even though I had a feed, it never quite came together. Largely because I'm not the podcasting type. I've sat in on a few gaming podcasts as a guest, but in general I work better in the written word. My brain likes to have time to mull things over and process before giving out information and that's more suited to writing than to podcasting.

But the idea of discussing the music I grew up with has nagged at my mind. As I listen to many of these old songs they seem call out to be discussed. What do they mean? What was the world like in which they were released? How have they impacted music? The discussions are going to be different for each song, and sometimes the song will give way to discussing the entire album from which the song came or the artist who popularized it.

"All of Chuck's children are out there, playing his licks."

Chuck's Children was the name that was chose for the podcast. Of all the titles that were considered, it was almost perfect. It comes from Bob Seger's "Rock and Roll Never Forgets" which would have also been a great title. However, it had already been used as a title (for the song) and is a bit long for today's world. Chuck's children is a reference to all those who play rock and roll, the Chuck in question obviously being Chuck Berry. Elvis may be the king, but Chuck is the father of rock and roll. There may be older aunts and uncles; there are grandparents and great-grandparents; but you would be hard pressed to put together an argument for anyone else as the father of rock and roll.

Plus, it's Bob Seger. Over time it will become obvious that the most influential rock musician in my younger days (and even today, if we talk rock music) was Bob Seger. "Night Moves" made me nostalgic for a time that hadn't even happened yet in my life. "Beautiful Loser" became a reminder that "you just can't have it all" at a time when I thought maybe you could. "Boomtown Blues" was the soundtrack of my early career and "Coming Home" would later echo with truth as well.

So, if you read this regularly, you will hear about Bob a lot. But also Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, The Eagles, Pat Benatar, CSN (and sometimes Y), REO Speedwagon, Kansas, Boston, and many more. We'll eat "American Pie" and be guided by "Radar Love" as we ride along in a "Taxi." We'll remember that "Lonely Is the Night" while we consider the "Magic Power" that music has in our lives.

But the place to start, it seems to me, is where I recall it starting for me. So that's in a pool hall where a character named Big Jim Walker is shooting pool, when another character, named Willie McCoy walks in. But that's for next time.