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.
Husband-and-wife Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wrote many classic songs of the twentieth century.
I’m always amazed to discover when several great songs recorded by different artists were written by the same person or songwriting team. Of course, it should be no surprise that people can write more than one great song. But it is still fun to learn that someone whose name I didn’t know was behind many of the songs I have loved through my life. One such duo — the husband and wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant — wrote many such classics.
Felice Bryant, who was born Matilda Genevieve Scaduto on August 7, 1925, wrote “We Could,” a song that was a hit for Little Jimmy Dickens and Charley Pride. “We Could” is one of those songs that sounds like it has always existed.
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wrote several of the biggest hits recorded by the Everly Brothers including “Bye, Bye, Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie.” Additionally, Boudleaux wrote “All I Have to Do Is Dream.”
Another Everly Brothers song written by the Boudleaux that later was recorded by several others was “Love Hurts.” That song has been recorded by artists such as Cher, Roy Oribison, and Nazareth. Gram Parsons (with Emmylou Harris) was among those who recorded “Love Hurts” in addition to a few other Bryant songs.
They also wrote “Raining in My Heart,” which was recorded by one of rock’s greatest songwriters, Buddy Holly.
It is hard to select their magnum opus, but probably their song that is most embedded in the classic canon is “Rocky Top.” One of the official state songs of Tennessee, “Rocky Top” has been performed by many artists.
Bands and singers who have covered “Rocky Top” include the Osborne Brothers, Lynn Anderson, Phish, Buck Owens, the Carter Family, John Denver, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and in a marching band version, the University of Tennessee’s Pride of the Southland Band.
The Bryants did record some of their own music, releasing their own album A Touch of Bryant in 1979. But it is through the voices of other artists that we know their words and music.
Boudleaux Bryant, who was born on February 13, 1920, passed away on June 25, 1987. Felice lived much longer, dying on April 22, 2003. They are interred together at Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Nashville. Hopefully they are in the afterlife writing more songs for us when we get there.
