As you prepare for a day of watching commercials occasionally interrupted by a football game played by the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, Chimesfreedom considers songs inspired by the states in the big game. An upcoming post will address the state of the Packers, but this post considers the hometown of the Steelers: Woody Guthrie’s “Pittsburgh Town,” recorded by Pete Seeger.
Like some other songs sung by Guthrie and Seeger, “Pittsburgh Town” takes on the big corporate interests. For Pittsburgh, at the time, that meant attacking the steel industry: “What did Jones & Laughlin steal now Pittsburgh?” But the song ends by defiantly proclaiming the workers are organizing and joining the Congress of Industrial Organizations (a precursor to the AFL-CIO).
All I do is cough and choke in Pittsburgh All I do is cough and choke in Pittsburgh All I do is cough and choke From the iron filings and the sulphur smoke In Pittsburgh, Lord God, Pittsburgh
From the Allegheny to the Ohio, in Pittsburgh Allegheny to the Ohio Allegheny to the Ohio They’re joining up in the C.I.O. Pittsburgh, Lord God, Pittsburgh
According to Ed Cray’s Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie, most of the lyrics to the song were improvised when Guthrie was performing for Jones & Laughlin employees after Guthrie had just seen the workers’ poor living conditions. Guthrie may not have been in too good of a mood, having just spent the night in hotel infested with cockroaches.
Bonus Cheerier Songs: Yeah, the song is depressing, and maybe I’m mad my team did not make the Super Bowl. If you would like a “happier” song, here is Charlie Daniels “In America” (“Go and lay your hand on a Pittsburgh Steelers fan / and I think you’re finally gonna understand”).
Country music legend Charlie Louvin died this morning due to complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 83.
Charlie Louvin, born Charlie Elzer Loudermilk in 1927, and his brother Ira formed the Louvin Brothers, known for their harmonies and described by Allmusic.com as “one of the most influential musicians of the ’40s and ’50s.” After the Louvin Brothers stopped recording together in 1963, Charlie continued to record on his own, including a couple of well-received CDs in the last several years. Ira, who battled alcoholism, died in a car crash with his wife in Missouri in June 1965.
The Louvin Brothers, who started out with gospel music and then branched into secular songs, had many great recordings, including some original compositions such as “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” which later was Emmylou Harris’s first hit.
Although rock and roll played a part in the Louvin Brothers’s declining popularity in the early 1960s and their eventual break up, many “younger” people like me discovered the Louvin Brothers through later rock artists who were influenced by the Louvins, like The Everly Brothers and The Byrds. I first discovered them through Gram Parson’s recording of their song, “The Christian Life” (as well as Roger McGuinn’s version with the Byrds). I do not know if Kurt Cobain ever heard the Louvin Brothers’s recording of “In the Pines, (Where Did You Sleep Last Night)” but one could see a connection between their version and his intense haunting MTV Unplugged version. Although Cobain’s version is generally considered to be more connected to Lead Belly’s version, one might hear Cobain transform the Louvin’s yodels of pain into anguished screams for help.
One of my favorite album covers of all time is the cover of the Louvin Brothers album Satan is Real. The album features the smiling brothers in whites suits standing in hell with a cartoonish devil in the background. I love the cover song too, as I also love their song “The Great Atomic Power.” Even though the songs do not preach my type of religion, I find the songs beautiful and terrifying, with a touch of humor. Uncle Tupelo also did a nice cover of the Louvins’ “Great Atomic Power.”
Here’s to you Charlie. Thanks for the music. I hope today you found out heaven is real.
Here in New York, amid all of the celebrity couples, one of the most famous couples has been the red-tailed hawks who have lived for nine years above a Fifth Avenue co-op building overlooking Central Park: Pale Male and Lola. They even have a Facebook page. (Chimesfreedom recently added a Facebook page too.)
In the last month, though, Lola has been missing and observers suspect she might have died. Pale Male, who has fathered 26 hawks since first being observed in 1991, has apparently moved on and is courting another mate.
I am the hawk and there’s blood on my feathers, But time is still turning they soon will be dry. And all of those who see me, all who believe in me, Share in the freedom I feel when I fly
The story about Lola reminds me of the John Denver song “The Eagle and the Hawk” (maybe you expected The Kinks?). The song was on his 1971 album, Aerie. In the 1970s, John Denver was everywhere. He had numerous hits, he had an Emmy-winning special, he guest starred in TV shows, he hosted the Grammys, he was in a movie with George Burns, and he even guest hosted The Tonight Show. By the end of the 1970s and into the 1980s, though, perhaps partly due to a backlash because of so much exposure or perhaps because he began devoting more of his time on humanitarian and environmental causes, he seemed to largely disappear from pop music. Denver asked to participate in 1985’s “We are the World” recording, but producers denied his request because they thought his participation would hurt the credibility of the project because he was no longer popular.
Denver died in 1997 in a flying accident. One irony is that during his lifetime, he did more for humanitarian causes than many of the other people who participated in “We Are the World.” And, while many still see him as a lightweight pop star, in later years many have come to recognize his contribution as a great writer of pop songs such as “Rocky Mountain High,” “Annie’s Song,” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Had he spread out the big hits over his lifetime instead of releasing them in a few years during a huge burst of creativity, maybe he would be more highly regarded than he is.
While one of his first hits came when Peter, Paul, and Mary covered “Leavin’ On a Jet Plane,” he also had a great voice. The power of his voice and his range is on display in singing “The Eagle and the Hawk,” originally written for a documentary and a beautiful song. Maybe if you play it loud enough, Lola will return.
Bonus “What Were They Thinking Video”: I have no idea why this amateur video of “The Eagle and the Hawk” with a guy in a tie mouthing the words and dancing in the woods has almost 500,000 views.
Don Kirshner, rock promoter, producer, and host of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, passed away this week. He was 76.
Time Magazine once called him “The Man with the Golden Ear,” and the many bands that he helped included the Police, Billy Joel, Tony Orlando, Neil Diamond, Carol King, Prince, Ozzy Osbourne, The Eagles, and The Monkees. But I remember him as host of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.
Rock Concert was on ABC every other week late at night beginning in 1973 and ran through 1981, starting well before I had access to cable and before MTV. For much of that time, along with NBC’s Midnight Special during most of the same years, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert was one of the few places to see many great bands on television. Kirshner gave national TV exposure to bands like The Ramones and Bruce Springsteen before most people had heard of them. As someone who was still a kid listening to AM radio, I found my first exposure to many bands I later would grow to love on Don Kirshner’s show.
When Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert would come on, past my normal bedtime, through my sleepy eyes I saw this balding middle aged man with a monotone voice introducing various bands. He seemed so different from the bands he introduced that one wondered what he was doing on the show. I cannot help thinking of Kirshner without remembering Paul Shafer imitating him on Saturday Night Live. But, like John Hammond (discoverer of Dylan, Aretha Franklin and many others) and Ahmat Ertegan (founder and president of Atlantic Records), Kirshner was one of those people who were important to rock and roll who looked like he should be working in an accounting office. I doubt they would put someone as modest in demeanor and appearance as Kirshner on television today, but it is a tribute to his importance that he hosted and had the show named after him even then.
We rightfully focus on the art and the artists, and we cheer when bands like Wilco find a way to avoid getting handcuffed by record company suits. But it is worth thanking the many people who make it possible for us to enjoy the music. Don Kirshner was one of the few behind-the-scenes people we got to see because of his television show. Still, today most of the clips on YouTube from his show are edited to just show the music without Kirshner’s introduction. I understand, because the music is what is important. But it is worth taking a second to acknowledge the passing of someone who helped bring us such fun and great music who is now introducing many of the same bands in heaven. Thanks Mr. Kirshner.
Image via YouTube. Do you remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert? Leave a comment.
I recently drove to the only remaining CD store within reasonable driving distance of where I live. It is an FYE chain CD and video store. The selection was never great, and most items were overpriced. But it was the last remaining CD store for me after the Tower Records stores closed down a few years ago.
I would go to the FYE store occasionally to browse. And over the years there were a few CDs I wanted to get on the first day out, so I would take the drive to this store.
Today, when I stopped at the store, it was adorned by a large “Going Out of Business” sign. I was so heartbroken I could not even take advantage of the 50% off sale.
It is odd to despair about the demise of a commercial enterprise. I am sad even though the cause of the demise, the Internet, has played an important role in helping me discover new music that I might never have found on my own in the record stores. But I cannot help feeling the loss from the closing of the CD/Record stores.
Today, I purchased Two Men with the Blues by Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis. I still remember the first three CDs I bought when the format was new. They were Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run.
Before that, I remember as a child saving my money to buy 45 rpm records at a small-town GC Murphy five-and-dime store to play on my portable record player. In college, I haunted the record stores on Coventry Road in Cleveland, discovering European recordings and bootleg LPs. As I moved around as an adult, there were always record and CD stores that were often open late at night where one could find new discoveries, old friends, or comfort from sadness, heartbreak, or loneliness.
In the late 1990s, I remember the thrill of discovering I could make my own CDs from selected songs off my other CDs. And then of course came the iPod and other music players, and everything changed.
I have a 160GB iPod that lets me carry around my entire music collection. In my youth, I dreamed of being able to do that when I used to take long drives to visit my family in college and later. Instead, during those drives I would have to select the tapes or CDs that would fit in a case to take with me.
One loss from the iPod and computerized music, besides sound quality, is that I rarely listen to a single album repeatedly any more. There’s too much convenience to go to the next album, the next song, or shuffle play.
There are so many CDs where I listened to them repeatedly before falling in love with them. So I wonder how much music I have lost as the CDs got buried in my digital collection.
For example, last month I read about a CD that sounded good. I downloaded it from Amazon, put it on my iPod, and then forgot the name of the band and album. So, this potential new discovery sits buried somewhere on my iPod, waiting to be found again when I hear one of the songs on shuffle play. Perhaps I’ll never hear the album in its entirety once. That would never have happened in the old days of physical CDs.
One remaining remnant of the past is that my car stereo does not connect directly to my iPod. So I do listen to CDs in my car.
But this summer, due to decreasing space in my small New York apartment, I moved my CDs to vinyl sleeves and little suitcases where they no longer sit out where I can grab them easily. My home stereo CD player died a few years ago and I have not replaced it, instead opting to play my iPod through the stereo.
So today’s purchase will be played in my car and through my iPod. But the CD will probably never be played on a CD player in my home.
My last CD store purchase ever?
So what is my point? Things change and there are good and bad things about the new world order. It is also okay to be glad one had the chance to spend those days and nights in the record stores, and to be sad those days are gone.
I wonder if today’s generation knows what they are missing. At least we still have the music. And book stores. For now.
As you prepare for a day of watching commercials occasionally interrupted by a football game played by the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, Chimesfreedom considers songs inspired by the states in the big game. An upcoming post will address the state of the Packers, but this post considers the hometown of the Steelers: Woody Guthrie’s “Pittsburgh Town,” recorded by Pete Seeger.
