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Big Ears Thursday evening: Welcome to Knoxville! Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan at the Standard were superb. I’ve wanted to see Bill for a long time, and getting to stand three feet in front of him and watch his fingers was mesmerizing. Since they play so quietly the sound was excellent. Can’t say the same for Mercury Rev at the Mill & Mine. The music would’ve been nice, but it was overpowered by a booming cloud of muddy bass guitar colliding with oh-so typical howitzer-level body-assaulting kick drum. Obnoxious “rock” drum sound in general. Do sound guys go to asshole school to learn this technique? I’ve seen so many concerts ruined by this kind of drum mix… On the other hand, I loved the Mathias Eick Quintet at the Standard — Norwegian jazz (piano, bass, drums, violin, trumpet) — inventive, dynamic, and soulful — and played at a very comfortable volume, so you could hear every element.

Big Ears Friday: Breakfast at our regular spot, Three Rivers Co-op. Biscuits and home fries! Friday was a great music day — started at the Knoxville Museum of Art with Ron Mann’s sweet documentary Carmine Street Guitars. Then over to the Mill & Mine for Lonnie Holley backed up by the Messthetics, a surprising combination that meshed very well. I stayed at the Mill for one of the day’s highlights: Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl (guitar, bass, drums, trumpet and the soulful vocals of Amirtha Kidambi). Meanwhile, Valerie enjoyed Coupler’s electronic set at the KMA. Ralph Towner was technically dazzling in the beautiful St John’s Cathedral. Evening show at the Standard was ABSINT (Aurora Nealand, Tim Berne, Bill Frisell, and David Torn) — exciting freeform improv. We closed the day at the Tennessee Theatre with Roomful of Teeth’s moving evocation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s life and work.… Continue reading

It’s easy to understand why we remember songs when we’ve heard them dozens or hundreds of times. But there are also songs that seize a permanent spot in our memory despite being heard only, say, four or five times.

For me, one of those songs is “Say You” by Ronnie Dove. It barely cracked the Top 40 in late September 1964. It was the last track on the B-side of Ronnie’s Right or Wrong LP — kind of a weird position for a single… The follow-up single, a cover of Wanda Jackson’s great “Right or Wrong,” and a bigger hit, was the last track on side A. (Incidentally, Wanda’s song is another of those I heard only a handful of times back in the day, but never, ever forgot — like “Say You,” it’s one of my favorites.)

“Say You” is a great-sounding Nashville record (maybe recorded at Studio B, like Dove’s “Right or Wrong”? Listen to that gorgeous echo chamber…). But I think what made the song stick for me was the vocal delivery. Even as a kid in ’64, I sensed something unusual in its emotional intensity, seemingly relaxed and frantic at the same time.

“Say You” is a fantasy (“I think you’re gonna be my girl”), but it’s not just some guy dream-dream-dreaming in the privacy of his own home. It’s a story with a real setting (a party, a nightclub?) and real characters: a guy named Ronnie and a “girl” across the room (we don’t know her name, ‘cause we haven’t been introduced). There’s the awkwardness of a first encounter: “I know we’re strangers, from different places… don’t be afraid…”

It’s all about desire, and desire is one of the most sung-about topics in all of music. Sometimes, though, desire gets expressed in a way that’s almost out of control.… Continue reading

For aspiring musicians in the 1960s, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was hugely influential. If Bob Dylan turned rock into “music for adults” on a lyrical level, the Butterfield Band did the same thing musically.

The band had a ferocious, street-tough sound, best heard early on in What’s Shakin’ cuts like “One More Mile” and “Good Morning Little School Girl.” The performances on their first full (eponomously-titled) Elektra album were great, but despite the instruction on the back of the jacket to play it loud*, the sound itself, the production, was a tiny bit distant, as if you were standing at the back of the club. What’s Shakin’ put you right at the front edge of the stage. (I don’t think Butterfield achieved that degree of in-your-face toughness again until 1969’s Keep On Movin’, produced by Jerry Ragovoy.)

The first album was straight blues, pure Chicago. Sam Lay was probably the best blues drummer in the world at that point, but when he took ill on tour in Boston, the band recruited a jazzier drummer, Billy Davenport, to take his place. The band’s musical landscape was broadening; the landmark second album, East-West, features traditional blues (Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues”, Muddy Waters’ “Two Trains Running,” and the probably public domain “I Got A Mind to Give Up Living” and “All These Blues”); New Orleans R&B (“Get Out of My Life, Woman”); hard bop (“Work Song”); modal jazz-raga-acid-rock (the title cut); and an old-style jazz ballad, “Never Say No,” that would be at home on a Billy Eckstine (or Billie Holiday) record.

Then there’s “Mary Mary.” The Monkees’ version of this Michael Nesmith tune is cute, it’s bubblegum. The Wrecking Crew (and Micky Dolenz on vocals) play it straight for the band’s teen audience; Micky delivers the vocal in a dry, non-syncopated style that seems disconnected from the lyrics’ plea.… Continue reading