In 2016, Chris Cornell performed “Wild World” as a guest with Yusaf / Cat Stevens.
Chris Cornell, who was born on July 20, 1964, had one of the most recognizable amazing voices in rock music. He showed the range of his talents in his solo work as well as his work in the bands Soundgarden and Audioslave. While the below performance with Yusaf / Cat Stevens may seem like an unusual pairing, together they create a sweet live version of Stevens’s “Wild World.”
Yusaf Islam, whose performance name used to be Cat Stevens and now also goes as “Yusaf / Cat Stevens,” released “Wild World” on his 1970 album Tea for Tillerman. The song about a lover leaving is one of both sadness and hope. The singer addresses a departing lover: “And it’s breakin’ my heart you’re leavin’ / Baby, I’m grievin’ / But if you wanna leave, take good care.”
But it is not an angry broken-hearted song. The singer wishes the former lover well (“I never wanna see you sad, girl”), while warning that you can’t get by with just a smile in the “wild world.”
Yusaf / Cat Stevens wrote “Wild World” about the end of a relationship with a woman. He has explained, “I was sending out a warning signal that even though things may look great…you have a lot of fancy clothes and whatever else you want out of life. But don’t forget there’s dangers, too. My message was to her, but also probably to myself, because I was now entering into a new phase of success.” In more recent years, he has noted that he always thought the original version of the song was “too commercial,” and even re-recorded “Wild World” in another version.
In this live performance from The Pantages Theater in Los Angeles, Chris Cornell lends his voice to capture both the joy and mournfulness of the song. Check out this October 6, 2016 performance, less than a year before Cornell’s tragic death on May 18, 2017.
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.
