Food for the Fourth

The greatest thing about America's 4 July celebrations is not the fireworks but the gluttony that accompanies them. So, in honour of the USA's annual pig-out here are some food related songs from Carnival Saloon regulars, plus a couple of oldies, to go with your meat feasts.

MP3: Wendy Rene - Bar-B-Q

There's no other tribute to grilled meat that compares to Wendy Rene's 1964 Stax single. In this year's Southern Music issue of the Oxford American Zeth Landry even suggests that Bar-B-Q "should be adopted as our nation's tailgating anthem". Trivia: According to the OA article Rene owned a pet monkey called Chico that used to terrorise the likes of Rufus Thomas and Stax boss Jim Stewart.
More Wendy Rene: Wikipedia | Amazon | 7digital

MP3: Tom Waits - Filipino Box Spring Hog (1993 version)

In Tom's own words: "When we lived on Union Avenue in LA, we had parties. We sawed the floorboards out of the living room, and we took the bed, the box spring, and first dug out the hole and filled it with wood, poured gasoline on it, and lit a fire. And the box spring over the top, that was the grill. We brought in a pig and cooked it right there." This is an earlier version than the one on Mule Variations. It's from the 1993 benefit record Born to Choose.
More Tom Waits: MySpace | Amazon | 7digital

MP3: Old Crow Medicine Show - Mary's Kitchen

One of the great things about many American food songs is their penchant for innuendo. When the Old Crows sing "come on into Mary's kitchen if you want your sausage ground" I don't think that they're talking about a pound of bangers.
More Old Crows: official site | Amazon | 7digital

MP3: Justin Townes Earle - Chitlin' Cooking Time in Cheatham County (live)

We saw Justin Townes Earle perform this rip-snorter with the brilliant Cory Younts at the Borderline in January. Pig intestines aren't to everyone's taste (though Joanne loves 'em) but if you do fancy eating them the Virginia Department of Health offers the following advice: Keep children out of the kitchen until the chitlins are pre-boiled and the kitchen is thoroughly cleaned.
More Justin Townes Earle: MySpace | Amazon

MP3: Charlie Singleton - Alligator Meat

I once ate alligator meat in the Florida Everglades. I found it tough and not quite as "all reet" as Charlie Singleton suggests. Singleton went to the same school as Charlie Parker in Kansas City and started recording in 1949, aged just 19.
More Charlie Singleton: All Music | Amazon

Enjoy your Independence Day - and remember Americans - if it wasn't for us Brits you'd have nothing to celebrate today. You're welcome!

Related Posts
Chicken Songs for the Soul - finger lickin' goodness
Tom Waits Covers #2: Bruce Sprinsgteen - posted a year ago today

State Songs #11: Georgia

My teenage obsession with REM means I've always had a soft spot for their home state and thanks to my 'American cousin' John Barner living there I've been able to visit a few times.

I vividly remember my first trip to Georgia, traveling along the kudzu lined highway in a Greyhound bus, listening to a tape of Murmur on my Walkman and being reminded of all the weird Southern images conjured up in those early REM songs.

Georgia has inspired hundreds of songs and I've really enjoyed choosing the seven here. If there are any you think I should have included and haven't please leave a comment below. In the meantime fix yourself an ice tea, imagine you have a porch, and enjoy these selections.

MP3: Ray Charles - Georgia on My Mind

Georgia adopted Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrel's 1930 classic as its official state song in 1979. Dozens have recorded it but this is the most famous version and sung by a Georgia native too.
More Ray Charles: BBC | Amazon | 7digital

MP3: Julie London - Hard Hearted Hannah

Julie London is remembered as fondly for her sultry, sexpot image as her songs. As Wikipedia points out, "the notably suggestive portrait photos used on London's album covers made lasting impressions even on the tone deaf." Her rendition of the Tin Pan Ally standard about the "Vamp of Savannah, GA" captures her appeal to a tee.
More Julie London: MySpace | BBC | Amazon

MP3: Justin Townes Earle - South Georgia Sugar Babe (live)

Steve Earle's lad is fast becoming one of my favourite artists and his live shows are particularly fun. This is from a cracking set in Austin last December that's available in full at the Internet Archive.
More Justin Townes Earle: MySpace | Amazon

MP3: Webb Pierce - Georgia Rag

A fine slice of 1950s honky-tonk twang from the legendary Webb Pierce whose previous appearance in these parts was one of my drinking song posts.
More Webb Pierce: Wikipedia | Amazon | 7digital

MP3: Uncle Tupelo - Chickamauga (live)

This track's lyrics are more pertinent considering that the version here is from Uncle Tupelo's last ever show on 1 May 1994 in St Louis. Acrimonious slanging matches between Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar typified Uncle Tupelo's break-up so it's perhaps appropriate that the Battle of Chickamauga took place during the Civil War.
More Uncle Tupelo: fansite | Amazon | 7digital

MP3: Sam Bush - Bringing in the Georgia Mail

Bluegrass virtuoso Sam Bush was America's National Fiddle Champion at 15 but is even more highly regarded as a mandolin player. This track is from one of the superb Crowd Around the Mic CDs that North Carolina radio station WNCW offers its supporters.
More Sam Bush: official site | Amazon

MP3: Blind Willie McTell - Atlanta Strut

William McTell was born in Thompson, Georgia in 1898. This is from only his third session, recorded in Atlanta in 1929. Like many early blues musicians McTell recorded songs under various names for different "race" labels and released this one as Blind Sammie for Columbia.
More Blind Willie McTell: Wikipedia | Amazon | 7digital

Next time we'll be wearing ridiculous shirts and sipping Mai Tais as we say "Aloha" to Hawaii.

Neighbouring States
Alabama - Cat Power, Billie Holiday, Jim White, Joan Baez, Shelby Lynne, Lynryd Skynyrd
Florida - Vic Chesnutt, Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley

Related Posts
State Songs - links to every post on this musical road trip

Friday Round-Up

My favourite links week ending 12 September 2008

Photo of the Week

The picture above is of Salt Lake City in the 1950s that I found via my friend Dave Varley's delicious account. It's one of a dozen or so vintage photographs of American cities taken by a chap called Charles W Cushman that are posted on a forum about skyscrapers. I recall that buying booze in Salt Lake City is not straightforward.

News Item of the Week

"Laureate bemoans 'thankless' job" is a wonderful headline. In a surprisingly honest interview Andrew Motion has said that being poet laureate has been "damaging" to his work and moans that the Queen "never gives me an opinion on my work for her". He'll be spending Christmas in the Tower then.

Obituary of the Week

Farewell then Jack Weill. I hadn't heard of him either but do have much to thank him for. He invented the cowboy shirt. This is my favourite part of the Economist's obit: "When Reagan declared once that America had become a service economy, Mr Weil wrote to him complaining that “where I come from in southern Indiana, servicing meant when you took the mare to the stud.” Reagan gently pointed out to “Jack” that things were less simple in Washington."

Bob Dylan Item of the Week

The video for Bob's 'new' single Dreamin' of You is available to watch on Amazon.com. It's noteworthy mainly for featuring Harry Dean Stanton.

New To Me Music of the Week
My brother-in-law Kev emailed me during the week to ask if I'd heard of The Gaslight Anthem. I had not. They are four fellas from New Jersey who evidently are big Springsteen fans.

Funniest Link Forwarded To Me This Week

"Rod Stewart Apologises For 30 Years of Crap Music". Not before time.

Online Listening of the Week

NPR's World Cafe is streaming five songs by the brilliant Felice Brothers recorded live at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Justin Townes Earle, who coincidentally we saw play with the Felice Brothers in Nashville on our honeymoon, recorded a Daytrotter Session this week which you can download in full.

Video of the Week

My colleagues Lucy and Sarah produced a great site for the Mercury Prize. You can see videos of all the nominees, both from Wednesday's award ceremony and from the BBC archive, as well as highlights of previous years' events. This is who I hoped would win, 2008's token folk act, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset.

Justin Townes Earle & Jubal Lee Young

The Luminaire, Wednesday 10 October

Before this gig I'd barely heard a Justin Townes Earle song, let alone seen him perform. Like most of the small audience at the Luminaire I imagine, I'd come based solely on the fact that Justin is Steve Earle's son and he's named after Townes Van Zandt.

Thankfully Justin more than delivers on his heritage. His songs' references are broad enough to encompass the American civil war and his own checkered past. He introduced one song by saying, "I've been a junkie, thief and alcoholic. Somewhere I managed to fit in singer-songwriter" and dedicated it to a girl who'd worked at the methadone clinic in Asheville, NC. Like father, like son.

I suspect Justin's had a fairly difficult relationship with Earle Sr. I think Steve's time in jail would have occurred when Justin was a young teenager. When someone in the audience shouted "Your dad's alright!" Justin's quick reply was, "He's a damn fine songwriter".

It's a measure of Justin's own songwriting talent and his stage presence - just him and a acoustic guitar - that I wasn't constantly thinking, "That's Steve Earle's boy up there" though Justin did concede to play one of his dad's tracks, explaining that he never used to but would be pretty pissed off himself if he'd gone to see Arlo Guthrie and didn't hear one of Woody's songs.

Impressed, I bought Justin's six-song EP Yuma. It's superb.

Support came from Jubal Lee Young, another southern songwriter progeny. I don't know much about Jubal's dad, Steve Young, but he has a good turn in the brilliant 1975 doc Heartworn Highways.

Jubal looks and sounds like a good ol' boy but his raucous songs aren't all about women and boozing - he's pissed off politically too and found a willing audience to engage in some low-level Bush baiting.

The encore saw Justin and Jubal share the stage, swapping songs, but sadly not playing together (no rehearsal time apparently). It didn't matter - Jubal played a bunch of his dad's songs and Justin's set of covers included a lovely version of Gram Parsons' Song For You, though the harmonies from the pissed-up bloke next to me didn't quite match Emmylou's.

MP3: Justin Townes Earle - Ghosts Of Virginia
myspace.com/justinearle

MP3: Jubal Lee Young - Greed Is The Creed
myspace.com/juballee