Side A Side B
From
the Movie of the Same Name
Ball
of Confusion
(That’s What the World Is Today)
13
Questions
Old
Times Good Times
[Jimi Hendrix on electric guitar]
In
Memory of Elizabeth Reed
To
A Flame
Give
Me Just A Little More Time
Something
In the Air
Top
of the Pops/Money-go-‘round
Working
Class Hero
[F-word warning]
Give
Peace A Chance
War
Goin’
Back
|
Come
and Get It
Hollywood
Dream #2
Instant
Karma!
Domino
Biloxi
Them
Dance Hall Girls
No
Matter What
Uncle
Charlie and his dog Teddy/Mr. Bojangles
[Rainy
night in South Carolina, Dec. 17, 2000]
Rainy
Night In Georgia
Accidents
Two
of Us
Happy
Xmas (War Is Over) [1971]
|
Further additions and corrections to 1970 Tape Notes (June 2003)
(any further
corrections/additions are in red below)
Unlike
Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison of The Doors didn't die a few weeks after the Isle
of Wight festival, as I said in the original notes. He died almost a year later. Since several
other prominent young rock stars died at about the same time, I’ll just give
the list here:
Jimi Hendrix was born in Seattle on
November 27, 1943 and died in London of drug and alcohol related asphyxia on
September 18, 1970. Janis Joplin, was born in Port Arthur, Texas on
January 19, 1943 and died in Hollywood, California on October 4, 1970 of a
heroin overdose. (I saw the news story
on the Today show before I left for school the next day, so I was for a brief
moment in the 11th-grade the center of attention in the hippie
wannabe group I was standing around with before school started. I remember a girl named Ann Hutchings saying
she didn’t believe me, which was understandable given that Hendrix had died
less than three weeks earlier.)
Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne,
Florida on December 8, 1943 and (as far as I can tell from recent reading on
the Web) died mysteriously of a possible heart attack in a bathtub in a hotel
room in Paris on July 3, 1971. The Doors
song Riders on the Storm had just been released that summer. Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison were all 27
years old when they died. Duane Allman was born in Nashville on November
20, 1946 and died in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia on October 29,
1971.
I mention in the original notes below that Peter
Rowan complimented the looks of my bass drum when my band played at a house
party in 1991—a party at a rock-music photographer's house in the Hill Country
near Austin. I was happy to get the
compliment, as Rowan's band was setting up, because I'd refinished the drum
myself in 1989 with a natural finish after stripping the black paint off
it. I've had that Slingerland bass drum,
and the tom-tom that goes with it, since 1967.
They were used drums when my parents got them for me (the date November
11, 1965 is stamped inside both drums) as part of an agreement that I’d take
drum lessons and be in the band at school.
I managed to more or less keep my band buzzard status a secret—popular
kids weren’t in the band, and I was morbidly interested in being popular in the
8th grade—because I was in the “training band” and never had to play
in public, although I also played snare drum with the Dial Singers so I had to
do some public performances.
Additions and corrections to the 1970 Tape
notes
I was a bit hasty in putting together the info for
the 1970 tape, so I’m sending corrections, and, while I’m at it, some
additional comments and more media material (other side).
Quoting from the Pearls Before Swine album notes,
the (rather famous) cover art on The Use of Ashes is "French or Flemish,
late XV Century tapestry, ‘The Hunt of the Unicorn VI; The Unicorn is Brought
to the Castle,’ from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection,
gift of John D, Rockefeller, Jr., 1937.”
Rainy Night In Georgia addenda: Benjamin Franklin Peay (1931-1988), a.k.a.
Brook Benton, was born in Camden, South Carolina; “Hoverin’” is the first word in the song; the original lyrics say “ you’ve got to do
your own thing” instead of “you just got
to play the game," which is indeed what I remember now from seeing the
sheet music. Rather different
interpretations! Marshall Miller did
hear the song, but not for the first time, in Germany—it may have been '70 or
'71, he says, and it was a rainy night during an Army training exercise in a
field (not on the base), and it did seem like it was raining all over the
world.
Seatrain, originally a Boston band, later was based
in California (not Central Texas), and Peter Rowan was only a member for a
couple of years, not the head of the band.
Rowan has bluegrass roots despite being from Boston (see http://www.dirtywater.com/
links to Seatrain and Peter Rowan); he was also in Old and In The Way with
Jerry Garcia and David Grisman, circa 1973, and also wrote "Panama
Red" (recorded by New Riders of the
Purple Sage) and "Free Mexican Airforce." 13 Questions (not written by Rowan) peaked
on the singles charts at #49 in April 1971.
As far as the Earthtrain/Seatrain connection is concerned, I didn’t know
Rowan had been in Seatrain until I happened to look at my copy of the album a
few years ago, long after the demise of Earthtrain. The album photos sure look like central Texas
to me. . .
Idlewild South is the second, not the first, Allman
Brothers' album. Their first album is The
Allman Brothers Band, released in 1969.
Thunderclap Newman had three members (and one
album): the 16-year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (later in Wings), the 30ish
drummer/ lead vocalist/songwriter John 'Speedy' Keen, and the 35ish
pianist/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman. All three are shown in the tiny photo of the
original album cover at the top left of my photo collage. The Hollywood photos, showing Keen in
cardboard cut-out form, are from the 1973 re-release of the album.
The photo of Paul and John (apropos Two of Us) is
from a short article titled "Why They Were Fab" in The New Yorker of
October 16/23, 2000. The caption on the
photo says: "Paul and John, at
Joe's Café in Liverpool, in the early sixties, after performing in Operation
Big Beat, at the Tower Ballroom."
Lennon turned 30 in 1970, and was killed in 1980. The songs of his on my
tape show him as angry (Working Class Hero), philosophical (Instant Karma!) and
hopeful (Happy Xmas (War Is Over) and Give Peace a Chance). At least that's my interpretation.
I won't bother to correct my misspellings and
grammar errors, or my inappropriate use of the word
"interleaved." This is just a
hobby, after all. But how long will it
go on, you wonder. Look for '71 and '72
tapes (or CDs) in the mail in the future.
DWT,
February 19, 2001
1970 Tape Notes
All songs on the tape are from albums (or were
singles) released in 1970, except for Happy Xmas (War Is Over).
From the Movie of the Same Name is on The Use of
Ashes by Pearls Before Swine (Tom Rapp, singer/songwriter).
I recorded The Tempations’ Ball of Confusion (That’s
What the World is Today) from the CD Soul Train 1970. The song was recorded on May 7, 1970 (info I
got from the group’s Anthology album).
I also recorded Give Me Just A Little More Time (Chairmen of the Board),
War (Edwin Starr), and Rainy Night In Georgia (Brook Benton) from this CD,
which is © 2000 by Rhino Records. Ball
of Confusion and War were both written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong;
Give Me Just A Little More Time by Ronald Dunbar and Edith Wayne; Rainy Night
In Georgia by Tony Joe White (as I recall from seeing the sheet music, the
lyrics saying “you just got to play the game” are not the original lyrics—I
don’t recall what they are, however).
13 Questions is by SeaTrain, a central Texas
band headed by Peter Rowan, no longer together.
Rowan is still playing, however, and was part of the recent Austin City
Limits tribute to Townes Van Zandt.
Rowan played at a 1991 house party in the Hill County outside Austin
where my band also played. He complimented the looks of my bass drum. My band was named Earthtrain, but Steve the guitar
player would never tell me how he got the name.
A few years later, after Earthtrain was derailed, I made the connection
with SeaTrain’s name.
Old Times Good Times and To A Flame are on Steven
Stills first solo album. Jimi Hendrix
plays only on Old Times Good Times.
Hendrix, of course, died in 1970, soon after his appearance at the Isle
of Wight Festival in August (ditto Jim Morrison). The video of that festival was not released
until 1995 and is well worth renting, but not primarily for the music. Steven Stills, the album, is “Dedicated to
James Marshall Hendrix.”
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed is on the Allman
Brothers’ first album, Idlewild South.
Something in the Air, Hollywood Dream #2, and
Accidents are on Thunderclap Newman’s album Hollywood Dream, which I
bought in 1971 from Threshold Record Shop (owned and run by Pat Calkins and Jim
Kennedy) in The Hut on Cherry Street.
Top of the Pops and Moneygoround are on The Kinks’ Lola
Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. I don’t know if a Part Two was ever made.
Working Class Hero is on the John Lennon/Plastic
Ono Band album. The original version
of Give Peace A Chance was released as a single in 1969; this version is from
the movie “The Strawberry Statement,” released in 1970 and based on James Simon
Kunen’s book about the 1968 Columbia University student revolt. The soundtrack, as I recall, was better than
the movie. (Yep, I left out Instant Karma! in original
notes. In these tape/CD notes, by the
way, the first time I mention a musician, I list all his/her songs that I
used.) Happy Xmas (War Is Over), written by Lennon and Yoko Ono, was
released as a single in 1971. Background
singing is by the Harlem Community Choir.
I almost left this off the tape because I heard it twice this Christmas
season as background music (in a coffee shop and at Piggly Wiggly). But it fit on the tape, and applies to the
very immediate and potentially catastrophic Israeli/ Palestinian conflict.
Goin’ Back is on Writer: Carole King; James
Taylor plays acoustic guitar on the throughout the album, but sings only on
this song.
Come and Get It was written by Paul McCartney, who
donated it to Badfinger for use as their debut song, featured in the (not very
good) Peter Sellers/Ringo Starr movie “The Magic Christian.” No Matter What is on No Dice, but I
recorded both these songs from The Best of Badfinger CD, which was
“digitally re-mastered at Abbey Road Studios, London, England, March
1994.” Actual recording dates of these
songs are, respectively, August 2, 1969, and May 13/May 20, 1970.
I recorded Domino from The Best of Van Morrison,
a 1990 compilation. If you have trouble
understanding one part of the lyrics, it’s probably where he says, “Or
vice-a-versa.”
Biloxi is from Jesse Winchester’s first album,
recorded while he was living in Canada as a draft resister. I suppose he illegally traveled a few miles
south or east to Bearsville, New York, where
Todd Rundgren (engineer) and Robbie Robertson (producer) recorded the
album. Robertson and Levon Helm also
play on some of the songs, but the particular ones are not specified.
Them Dance Hall Girls is from Fraser and DeBolt,
featuring Allan Fraser, Daisy DeBolt, and Ian Guenther (fiddle). DeBolt, a Canadian, now has a website; Fraser
is said to be “keeping quiet.”
The Uncle Charlie Interview and interleaved Mr.
Bojangles (written by Jerry Jeff Walker) are from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
album Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy.
The interview was recorded in April 1964, the year Uncle Charlie
died. When Teddy died is not mentioned.
I put a microphone near my opened window in the wee
hours of the morning on Sunday, December 17 (Daddy’s 79th birthday) and
recorded the rainy night sounds that precede Rainy Night In Georgia. Marshall Miller once told me he heard Rainy
Night In Georgia on a rainy night at an Army base in Germany. I’d like to think, for the improved dramatic
effect and relevance to this tape, that he first heard it then and that it was
in 1970, but I’ll have to check with him on that.
Two Of Us is the first song on Let It Be.
Best Wishes for the year 2001! DWT, December 19,2000
