Bobbie Gentry begins her song “Ode to Billie Joe” by establishing the setting as June 3 in the American South.
Unless you are a big fan of Neil Diamond’s song “Desiree,” probably the first song that comes to mind regarding the date of June 3 is Bobbie Gentry’s classic song “Ode to Billie Joe.” The song opens with the line that sets the story in the American South in early June, after schools have closed but before the hottest days of summer have set in.
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day; I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay; And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat; And mama hollered out the back door, y’all, remember to wipe your feet; And then she said, I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge; Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
The Mysterious Song
Much has been written about the mysteries of both the singer and the song. Many have pondered why the song’s Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the bridge as well as what the narrator and Billie Joe had earlier thrown off the same bridge. Even a 1978 movie about the song focused on those mysteries. Perceptive music critics, though, have explained how the song is not about those questions but instead is about indifference to human suffering.
The real focus of the song is the narrator’s situation around the family dinner table. When Bobbie Gentry appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 (in the same episode where the network had censored a Pete Seeger song), the setting around her performance with mannequins around a dinner table highlighted that aspect of the song.
The Mysterious Singer
Bobbie Gentry eventually became a mystery herself. After a successful music career, several wonderful albums, television shows, and a successful business career, she disappeared. Many have tried contacting her, but she remains out of the public eye.
There are some excellent resources about the song and singer, including a wonderful episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Cocaine & Rhinestones. Another great source is Tara Murtha’s book Bobby Gentry’ Ode to Billie Joe in the 33 1/3 book series.
While recently reading Murtha’s book, I noticed a reference to a young Gentry being fascinated with Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. While many folks while young become fascinated with Rand’s book and philosophy, many also later reject Rand’s ideas. But I could not help but wonder if Rand’s book, about a man named John Galt who disappears from the world, still had some effect on Gentry’s isolation from fame.
Gentry was extremely talented but often encountered hurdles to being able to make music the way she wanted. So one may imagine that she may have decided she did not owe her talents to the world.
Of course, we do not know, and in some ways her mysterious disappearance has made her more famous. While we may dream of her one day returning to share her music and voice with us, she owes us nothing. She already gave us so much, so the least we can do is be indifferent like the characters in “Ode to Billie Joe.” And the best we can do is to wish her well and to every happiness she deserves.
Emmylou Harris and Mary Chapin Carpenter performed three songs in honor of Joan Baez at the 43rd Kennedy Center Honors ceremony.
The 43rd Kennedy Center Honors paid tribute to Garth Brooks, Joan Baez, Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Allen, and Midori. CBS broadcast this year’s ceremonies, which were recorded during several weeks at outdoor events in light of the ongoing pandemic. But, after the event was completely cancelled last year, the show gave us a little hope for the future.
Among several highlights (and one of the hopeful moments), Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris appeared together to perform in honor of legendary folksinger and activist Joan Baez. The two sang “Diamonds & Rust,” “God is God”( written by Steve Earle), and “We Shall Overcome.” Check it out below.
What was your favorite performance at the Kennedy Center Honors? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Folksinger Clarence “Tom” Ashley left a lasting legacy with his versions of songs like “The Cuckoo” and “Little Sadie,” influencing artists such as Bob Dylan.
Clarence Ashley was among the folk and blues singers “rediscovered” during the 1950s and 1960s. Ashley, known as “Tom,” began performing in the early 1900’s, singing and playing banjo or guitar. He played with artists such as Doc Watson and lived to see his influence on a range of singers, even sharing a stage with Bob Dylan at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. He is known for his performances of songs such as “The Cuckoo” and “Little Sadie.”
Ashley was born in Tennessee on September 29, 1895, and he died in North Carolina on June 2, 1967. You may have first heard his voice on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music records, where one of the songs he performs is “The Coo Coo Bird.”
The song, also with other titles such as “The Cuckoo” and “The Cuckoo is a Pretty Bird,” is an English folk song. The song begins with the bird, which is often associated with spring and with infidelity, and then goes on in various versions to lament about luck in love or gambling. Ashley’s version focuses on the latter.
I’ve played cards in England; I’ve played cards in Spain; I’ll bet you ten dollars, I’ll beat you next game.
In the video below from the DVD “Legends of Old Time Music,” Ashley performs his version of “The Cuckoo.” Also, at the beginning of the clip he is interviewed about his music career. Check it out.
Another song that Ashley recorded, but with a darker tone, is “Little Sadie.” Ashley recorded the folk ballad in 1928. The singer, named Lee Brown, tells about killing a woman (in some versions his wife), fleeing, getting caught, and ultimately being sentenced by a judge: “Forty-one days and forty-one nights / Forty-one years to wear the ball and the stripes.”
Music critic Greil Marcus, writing in the liner notes for Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971), noted, “There’s something horribly laconic about Ashley’s 1929 recording of “Little Sadie.” Crinklingly ominous banjo notes trace a circle in which every story goes back to its beginning and starts up again, a circle in which every act is inevitable, worthless, and meaningless, a folk nihilism long before existentialism caught on in Paris.” Below is Ashley’s version of “Little Sadie.” Check it out.
Bob Dylan recorded a version of “Little Sadie” that appeared on his Self-Portrait (1970) album. And two more versions appear on Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971), which was released in 2013. On the latter album, Marcus found Dylan’s “In Search of Little Sadie” to be “a revelation.”
Marcus traces this Dylan version as the voice of a blustering killer, not caring (as in the character in Ashley’s version). But then the murderer finds fear in what may happen to himself.
In The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, author Michael Gray notes that it is most likely that Dylan’s versions of “Little Sadie” were because of his knowledge of Ashley’s recording. He also notes that Dylan would have known Ashley’s recording of “The Coo-Coo Bird” from the Anthology of American Folk Music.
Dylan’s versions of “Little Sadie” are not on Youtube, but perhaps the most famous descendant of Ashley’s song is Johnny Cash’s version of “Cocaine Blues.” Singer-songwriter T.J. “Red” Arnall wrote “Cocaine Blues” as a reworked “Little Sadie” and recorded the song in 1947. Here, Cash performs “Cocaine Blues” in 1968 at Folsom Prison.
I do not believe anyone has yet connected the subject of the folk song “Little Sadie” to a real person. Some have found evidence that the song originated in an African-American community in the South. Wherever the song came from, singers like Clarence Ashley have kept the tale alive in their own ways.
As The Pines at Night, Matthew Ryan releases new essential timely music for our times with the maxi-single, “Song for a Hard Year.”
Matthew Ryan continues to release essential music about our current times. Recently, he released a new maxi-single under the name The Pines at Night. The lead song is entitled “Song for a Hard Year” and is available on Bandcamp.
During the pandemic, I’ve often played a game with myself where I look back on my life and imagine how I would have experienced the shutdowns at different times in my life. I can imagine the pandemic being devastating for me during certain periods. How would I have mustered through my last year of high school? What if it occurred during those years I had people close to me in nursing homes? Where would I have turned if it happened during that year I’d just moved to a new town where I didn’t know anyone or right after a serious breakup? And where would I be if it happened that year I met my wife?
These questions and others always bring me back to connecting with others who are actually in those stages of their own lives right now. In many ways, Ryan uses his music the way I’ve used my “game,” as a way to find common humanity and connections.
Like Ryan’s other EP releases in the last few years like On Our Death Day and Fallen Ash & Embers, his new release gets down to the bone of what many are feeling and experiencing in these unusual times. But Ryan notes that these tracks also constitute a “personal shift” for him.
“Song for a Hard Year,” aided by Doug Lancio’s work on the slide resonator guitar, reflects on what many have felt during the pandemic. Yet, the song is personal and timeless, transcending any one historical catastrophe.
Pay special attention to the beauty of the lyrics, especially when the song warns you to pay close attention: “I’ll try to say / What I haven’t been able to say/ In the next verse.” The singer tells us, “I lost some friends / The world’s gone to shit.”
Beneath the singer’s reflection, he asserts he is not giving up. And he ends with a question we all are asking right now, “Are we in the clear?”
The second song is “Swim Like You Were on Fire.” It features Ryan’s voice over piano, a continuation of his work with that instrument from his 2020 EP Life is Beautiful. With this new song, Ryan sends a message of endurance for those living through hard times.
Finally, the maxi-single ends with what Ryan describes as a “surprise recording of an earlier song that’s been walking with me quite a bit lately.” It is listed as “A Living Song (Free Bonus New Recording of MML).” Longtime fans, however, will recognize the track as a new acoustic version of “Me & My Lover,” one of my favorite songs from Ryan’s East Autumn Grin album from 2000. It is a love song amidst worldwide turmoil.
As noted earlier, Matthew Ryan released this maxi-single under the name The Pines at Night instead of under his own name. He reported on Bandcamp, “I just didn’t feel I could emerge from this hard time in the same mode that I occupied before ‘it.'”
Additionally, although he has limited his participation on social media in recent months, he further explained on Facebook, “I wanted a change that welcomed the collaborative nature of my work with all my friends that give so much of themselves. And obviously, The Pines at Night means something to me, it pretty much describes where I’ve been… I love that it’s conceptual.”
These songs are available for purchase on Bandcamp. Ryan plans to use the money raised from the music to help fund his next album (which will not include these tracks). So head over to Bandcamp to treat your ears, mind, and heart while supporting great music.
What do you think of the music? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In the late 1970s, Jackson Browne released the perfect duo of songs “The Load Out” and “Stay” to complete his live album about life on the road.
In my late teens, I recall the radio playing a song I loved by Jackson Browne that I thought was just called “Stay.” But then friends corrected me with the title I could never remember. The “song” was actually two songs played together “The Load Out” and “Stay.” I can still sing every word of both songs.
In 1977, Jackson Browne released a live album called Running on Empty full of songs Browne had never released on a studio album. The album’s songs together created a theme of being on the road, with the songs recorded on the road, live, in hotel rooms, etc.
The title song “Running on Empty” became a top-20 hit, followed in 1978 by the release of “Stay” as a single. The B-side of that single was “The Load Out.”
“The Load Out” begins with the singer looking out at empty seats after a show, remembering “the people were so fine” and that the crowd made the show. And then the singer lauds the work of the roadies.
Now roll them cases out and lift them amps; Haul them trusses down and get ’em up them ramps; ‘Cause when it comes to moving me, You know, you guys are the champs.
And “The Load Out” recounts a bit of life on the road. Then, the singer returns to the joy brought by the music, asking the audience and the roadies to stick around a little longer (“People, you’ve got the power over what we do / You can sit there and wait or you can pull us through.”) Then the singer goes into another song, “Stay.”
“Stay” became a top-20 hit, boosted by the fact that radio DJ’s chose to play the two songs together. They played the B-side first, in the order the songs appeared on the album. So, as on the album, radio listeners heard “The Load Out,” written by Browne and Bryan Garofalo, lead into a cover of the Maurice Williams‘s classic “Stay.”
Maurice Williams & “Stay”
Browne was not the first artist to have a hit recording of “Stay.” Anyone who bought Browne’s album would likely have already known the song “Stay.”
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs scored a hit with “Stay” in 1960. Williams, who was born in North Carolina and started out singing gospel music, wrote “Stay” when he was only 15. And in 1963, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons also had a hit with the song, even though they had originally released it as a B-side.
In Williams’s original version, “Stay” is a love song, inspired by Williams’s real-life attempts to get his teenage date to stay out after 10 p.m. The singer is asking his love to hang around a little longer: “Won’t you press your sweet lips / To mine; Won’t you say you love me / All of the time.” The singer asks for just one more dance.
Now, your daddy don’t mind, And your mommy don’t mind, If we have another dance, Yeah, just one more.
Williams got a hit song out of his entreaties, but his real-life date ended with his girl going home at the time assigned by her parents. Below is the original version of “Stay” by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. According to Wikipedia, the hit song was the shortest single (1:36) to top the U.S. record charts.
For the Running on Empty album, Browne tweaked some of the lyrics of the original version of “Stay.” The changes made the song more consistent with the appeal to the crowd and the roadies in “The Load Out.”
So, instead of asking for one more dance, the singer asks the crowd to let the band play a little longer. And instead of referencing whether or not mom and dad mind, the singer refers to the promoter and the union.
People stay just a little bit longer; We want to play, just a little bit longer; Now the promoter don’t mind, And the union don’t mind, If we take a little time, And we leave it all behind and sing, One more song.
“The Load Out” and “Stay” Breaks the Rules
Together, Browne’s duo of songs clocked in at nearly nine minutes, with “The Load Out” taking up 5:38 minutes. In early rock history, the common thought was that records had to be under three minutes to allow room for commercials. But FM radio relaxed the rules, and DJs could spin longer songs (and take longer breaks). One reason DJs may have liked the songs is that “The Load Out/Stay” is a tribute to the industry, more specifically to roadies as well as music fans.
The recording is memorable too. “The Load Out,” while lacking a traditional chorus structure, is easy to sing. Because of the length, one may impress others by singing along with all the words because of how the lyrics tie together so easily. And then, when the song goes into “Stay,” everyone knew the song already and could feel the burst of joy.
Brown recorded the version of “The Load Out / Stay” on the album on August 27, 1977 at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. At the time, he was on tour supporting the release of his album, The Pretender.
Below, Browne plays the song in 1978 live on the BBC.
Covers?
Few artists cover “The Load Out” / “Stay” combo. The lack of covers partly may be due to the song’s length, making it unlikely an artist would devote so much time to a cover. Also, artists may be hesitant because the song is so identified with Browne.
One exception is country artist Eric Church. He performed the song in concert in Grand Rapids with help from Joanna Cotten, concluding it in less than five minutes. Check out the performance below, with Church hitting the high notes himself. And also note how the audience knows the words.
Browne’s Perfect Ending
On Jackson Browne’s version, he gets some help from some extremely talented musicians and singers. Rosemary Butler and Browne’s lap steel guitarist David Lindley traded the falsetto on “Stay.” Their voices take the songs to a higher level. Toward the conclusion, they build from Browne’s slow “The Load Out” into an explosion of joy.
Besides the voices, what makes the combination of songs the perfect ending to Browne’s album of being on the road is the message they give. Wherever the road takes you, it is important to thank those who helped you along the way.
And it is also nice to stop for a moment, to stay in one place, and to appreciate the moment wherever you happen to be.
