Tony Tost - If Only Johnny Cash Had Covered These...

Last week I posted my interview with Tony Tost about his book on Johnny Cash's American Recordings album. One of the things I like about the book is that it shares my view that some of the covers JC tackled on his later albums with Rick Rubin, quite frankly, sucked.

With this in mind I asked Tony to come up with a list for Carnival Saloon of the Worst of American Recordings. Being a creative chap Tony suggested something much better. What songs should Johnny Cash have covered in those final, highly productive, years of his life?

Over to Tony...

MP3: The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God

This list is inspired by my undying wish that Cash would have covered this song in particular. It hits the self/God/land trifecta perfectly, showing how intimately interwoven personal, divine and communal identities can be. It would have to be slowed down, of course, but I'd trust that Marty Stuart and friends could find a nice rambling rhythm for it. The lyrics are reminiscent of Cash at his Big River best: all around the dark-hearted protagonist, the natural and supernatural worlds come alive, inspired by his restlessness.
Buy The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God on Amazon

MP3: Guy Clark - The Randall Knife

Essentially a recitation, this is a superbly controlled song, and one of the best illustrations of TS Eliot's notion of the Objective Correlative I've come across. Eliot believed, rightly, that in the best art, objects accrue emotional resonances to a point that the objects stand in for those emotions. Not as vague symbols, however. The best works of art accumulate emotions unique to themselves. Via precision. In the song, Guy Clark finds that he cannot weep for the death of his father, even though he is presented with a series of objects that should, conceivably, do the job. It is not until he finds the object worthy of his father's life that he can find tears, and it is no coincidence that this worthy object is one that touches upon marriage, country, war, fatherhood and disappointment, all at once.
Buy Guy Clark - Better Days at Amazon

MP3: The Highwaymen - Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

Cash covered Woody Guthrie's song with The Highwaymen, but I would love to hear it solo. A bitter, angry song that is all the more effective because it controls its bitterness and anger, finding the correct, specific images for its outrage. Again, God and land and family and self mingle here, shown to be inextricable from one another. Rubin could have brought in Calexico to do the arrangement, as they have nailed the sort of The-Band-meets-Warren-Zevon's-Carmelita vibe that I find irresistible on their cover of Tom T Hall's Tulsa Telephone Book (see below) and their backing work on the I'm Not There soundtrack. If I was Rick Rubin, I would've hired Calexico and presented Cash with this song, Dylan's Senor (Tales of Yankee Power), Zevon's Carmelita, Los Lobos' Will the Wolf Survive, Van Zandt's Pancho and Lefty and some Doug Sahm and Gram Parsons numbers. There's still time to do this album with Willie Nelson. Someone get to it, quickly. Please.
Buy The Highwayman Collection at Amazon

MP3: Townes Van Zandt - To Live Is to Fly

Maybe the most moving song I can imagine, the specificity and deep resonance of its imagery, and the gentleness of its sentiment, kill me every time. The last three albums Cash did, it seemed that he and Rubin were piling on the he-might-just-croak-after-this-one vibe. Fine. But instead of Danny Boy or boomer pablum like In My Life, why not a song that seems to encompass all the awful, joyful, baffling fullness of life?
Buy Townes Van Zandt - Texas Troubadour at Amazon

Bonus Track!
MP3: Calexico - Tulsa Telephone Book (Tom T. Hall cover)

The Tom T Hall tribute album Real should be a must for Carnival Saloon regulars. This is one of the many highlights of a record that also features Johnny Cash, Whiskeytown, Iris DeMent, Freedy Johnston and many more.
Buy Real: The Tom T Hall Project at Amazon

I appreciate Tony taking the time to share this list. A fantastic selection don't you think? And the sort of insightful writing you'll be unaccustomed to around these parts.

So, they're Tony's picks. What would yours be?

Related Posts
Tony Tost on Johnny Cash's American Recordings - my interview with Tony
Johnny Cash: Chicken in Black - just so you know why Johnny needed a credibility comeback
A Cup of Coffee with Johnny Cash - Cash hawks Folgers, as heard on Tony Tost's America

Related Links
Tony Tost's America - if you like Carnival Saloon, you'll love Tony's podcast
33 ⅓ books - official blog for the series

Townes & The Tanyas - Waitin' Around To Die

I've been watching the second series of the excellent chemistry-teacher-turned-crystal-meth-cook drama Breaking Bad this week. One episode featured The Be Good Tanyas cover of Townes Van Zandt's Waitin' Around to Die. It's from their second album Chinatown which I'd not given a spin for some time and thoroughly enjoyed listening to again.

MP3: The Be Good Tanyas - Waiting Around To Die

But it! Chinatown (Amazon)

Townes claimed that this was the first proper song he ever wrote and anyone familar with his biography won't be surprised that he penned such a fatalistic song at a young age.

The original version that's on Townes' first album For the Sake of the Song is regrettably overproduced. This stripped-down version from the Live from the Old Quarter album is miles better.

MP3: Townes Van Zandt - Waitin' Around to Die

But it! Live At The Old Quarter (Amazon)

The Old Quarter album is probably the best starting place for Townes novices. Those who want to dig deeper should certainly seek out the superb documentary Be Here To Love Me. That film uses a fair amount of footage from Heartworn Highways, another must-see movie for twang fans.

Songs of the Shrimp

Photo: SA Steve @ Flickr

Song of the Shrimp is one of the weirder tunes in the Elvis Presley canon but now has an odd poignancy in light of the effect the Gulf Coast oil spill has had on the region's shrimpers.

MP3: Elvis Presley - Song of the Shrimp

Amazon | Find it on Kid Galahad/Girls! Girls! Girls!

Elvis recorded the track for the soundtrack to his 1962 film Girls! Girls! Girls! but I first heard it sung by Frank Black of all people. His 2005 solo album Honeycomb couldn't be further away from the sound of the Pixies and his version is brilliant. Recorded in Nashville with the likes of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham it's a wonderfully laid-back record that also includes covers of Dark End of the Street and Doug Sahm's Sunday Sunny Mill Valley Groove Day.

MP3: Frank Black - Song of the Shrimp

Amazon | Find it on Honeycomb

In interviews promoting Honeycomb Frank Black claimed he'd never heard the Elvis version and was instead inspired by Townes Van Zandt's cover on Live at McCabe's. He told Barney Hoskyns in Uncut, "He just barely plays the song, he just hits a chord and sings a line and cracks up, hits another chord, makes a joke... it’s a really deconstructed but very entertaining version, and that was my reference point." That's an accurate description.

MP3: Townes Van Zandt - Song of the Shrimp

Amazon | Find it on Live at McCabe's

Any other suggestions of fine seafood related songs? It's a shame not many things rhyme with whelk.

Six-Pack To Go

Half A Dozen Great Songs About Booze

I watched Martin Scorsese's phenomenal Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home again last night. One of my favourite moments near the start of the film, when Bob's recalling the music that affected him growing up, is the clip of Webb Pierce, the best-selling country star of the 1950s, singing his Number 1 hit There Stands The Glass.

MP3: Webb Pierce - There Stands The Glass

I'd never heard of Pierce before seeing No Direction Home. Dressed in classic cowboy couture, he cuts an impressive figure and sings in a distinctive voice that Scorsese felt warranted subtitles. But what's most remarkable about the clip are the song's lyrics. This is the first verse: "There stands the glass/ That will ease all my pain/ That will settle my brain/ It's my first one to day". Even in the often maudlin world of country music, I'm not sure you'd get away with that today, let alone get to perform it on mainstream TV. This clip from the Grand Ole Opry is what's in No Direction Home.

In a culture where every beer bottle advises us to "drink aware" songs about boozing are less popular than they once were. By some distance. The excellent blog Barstool Mountain is solely dedicated to tipsy tunes, mainly of fine vintage, and last year compiled an impressive list of the Top 100 Drinking Songs of all time.

One of Bob Dylan's most enjoyable Theme Time Radio Hours was the episode about drinking. The best song I'd never heard of from that show was by a 50s R&B group called The Clovers. Their 1951 Number 1 hit One Mint Julep blames boozing for much more than a regrettable one-night stand: "I’m through with flirting and drinking whiskey/ I got six extra children from a-getting frisky".

MP3: The Clovers - One Mint Julep

Another song Bob played on his show portrays the darker side of the demon drink. Loretta Lynn is famous for her forthright lyrics and this song is pretty self-explanatory.

MP3: Loretta Lynn: Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)

Townes Van Zandt was a man who liked a drink. While in hospital to detox in the 90s a doctor told his third wife Leanne, "If anyone ever tries to dry this man out again, he will die." I know alcohol had an horrendous effect on Townes and those who loved him but I still find this song incredibly funny.

MP3: Townes Van Zandt - Talking Thunderbird Blues

People do still write songs about drinking. Carolyn Mark is a Canadian singer-songwriter I first supporting Po' Girl at the Borderline some years ago. I don't mind a Muscadet or a nice Sauvignon Blanc but I still love this song.

MP3: Carolyn Mark - The Wine Song

The Felice Brothers are a proper modern-day boozing band. Joanne and I saw them support Justin Townes Earle in Nashville on our honeymoon. They wobbled near us, hammered, during the opening act and their subsequent set was full of songs of drunken violence like this one.

MP3: The Felice Brothers - Whiskey In My Whiskey

Whether you're tea-total or salivating at the thought of your next lager I hope you enjoy the songs. Please leave a comment to recommend your favourite drinking tunes.

Beer Fact: Jax beer was brewed in New Orleans between 1890 and 1974. The old brewery off Jackson Square is now a touristy shopping centre but the sign on top of the building still evokes its boozy past.

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