Chuck Jackson Was There Before Elvis: “Any Day Now”

Before Elvis Presley’s classic recording, Chuck Jackson had a hit seven years earlier with “Any Day Now.”

One of the many highlights of the great 1969 Elvis Presley album From Elvis in Memphis is “Any Day Now.” While that album yielded other hits, Presley’s “Any Day Now” was not even released as a single. But seven years earlier, someone else had scored a hit recording of the song. Singer Chuck Jackson had a top 25 hit with the song, sometimes listed as “Any Day Now (My Beautiful Bird).” The song was written by Burt Bacharach and Bob Hilliard.

Jackson was born July 22, 1937 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After starting off with a gospel group, he joined the 1957 to sing with a gospel group. Later that year, he joined the Del-Vikings (also known as the Dell-Vikings) in 1957 before leaving the group in 1959 to start a solo career.

Jackson’s biggest pop hit would be 1962’s “Any Day Now.” But he had other successes on the R&B charts like “Something You Got” and “Beg Me.”  The latter song featured  backing vocals by Whitney Houston’s mother Cissy Houston, who also later often sang back up for Elvis. Jackson passed away on February 16, 2023.

“Any Day Now” is a somewhat unique pop song as it is not directly a love song and not about a break up. Instead it is about an in-between time, where the singer laments that his lover will soon leave him “any day now.”

Any day now,
When the clock strikes go,
You’ll call it off;
Then my tears will flow;
Then the blue shadow will fall all over town;
Any day now,
Love will let me down;
Oh, oh, oh.

In the video below, a young Burt Bacharach, who passed away eight days after Jackson died, introduces Jackson to sing the song that Bacharach co-wrote. Check it out.

As noted above, Elvis Presley’s version appeared on what was a “comeback” album for him in 1969, recorded at American Sound Studio. That album featured many outstanding tracks like “Suspicious Minds,” which partly explains why he never released “Any Day Now” as a single. But the song did appear as the B-side to “In the Ghetto.”

Elvis’s version is very similar to Jackson’s, down to the introduction. Unfortunately, Elvis never performed “Any Day Now” in concert, although he came close. On August 12, 1972, he rehearsed the song in the Main Showroom of the Las Vegas Hilton before starting a run of shows there. But unfortunately, the song did not make it into the setlist. The song did, however, make it into the recent Elvis (2022) movie and soundtrack.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Cover of Bob Dylan’s “Brownsville Girl”

    In 2012 Bonnie “Prince” Billy gave one of the rare live performances of Bob Dylan’s great epic song “Brownsville Girl.”

    Bonnie Prince Billy Brownsville

    In my personal history of being a music fan, my great Bob Dylan awakening came in the 1980s. Perhaps it was not the best time to start out as a Bob Dylan fan. Yet I still have a fond attachment to albums like 1985’s Empire Burlesque. These were the Dylan albums I first heard with everyone else as they were released. Another album from that time was Knocked Out Loaded (1986), which I bought on cassette as it was released. I liked the album well enough, but like many others, I recognized “Brownsville Girl” as the standout masterpiece it was.

    “Brownsville Girl” started out as a song entitled “New Danville Girl,” inspired in part by Woody Guthrie’s song “Danville Girl.” Dylan recorded “New Danville Girl” during the sessions for Empire Burlesque. That version was not officially released until 2021 when it appeared on The Bootleg Series Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980–1985.

    For whatever reason, Dylan, though, was not satisfied with “New Danville Girl.” He enlisted playwright Sam Shepard to help add some additional lyrics, and he also added other instrumentation, including saxophone, to the new version, now called “Brownsville Girl,” released on Knocked Out Loaded. This new version has one of my favorite lines from any Dylan song: “The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter / Is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter.” In the context of the song, I find it one of Dylan’s funniest lyrics but cannot explain why.

    Even for those who believed Dylan had entered a fallow period in the early 1980s starting with his religious albums, “Brownsville Girl” illustrated that the master was still a master. “Brownsville Girl” incorporates themes of memory, yearning, and lost love, building around images from across the country and the West, including throughout the song several references to a Gregory Peck Western film. The song makes one man’s memories seem as big and as important as the entire country.

    Well, there was this movie I seen one time,
    About a man riding ’cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck;
    He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself;
    The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.

    Dylan’s version of “Brownsville Girl” on Knocked Out Loaded is sophisticated and beautiful, even though some may prefer the rougher cut of “New Danville Girl.” Dylan scholar Michale Gray calls Dylan’s delivery on the Knocked Out Loaded version “faultless” and “astonishing. Not a false moment, not a foot wrong.” (Micheal Gray, The Bob Dylan Encylcopedia, p. 99 (2006). I agree.

    Because Dylan’s version reaches such heights, and perhaps because of the song’s length at more than eleven minutes, Dylan only performed the song live once. And also because of the song’s length, few artists have attempted to cover the song. For example, Reggie Watts did a shortened version for a 1980s era Dylan tribute album.

    One wonderful version emerged when Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham) performed the song at Actors Theatre in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky on November 11, 2012. Billy’s performance is part music and part acting, as he conveys the narrator’s feelings and memories. It took a major committment to tackle the epic song. And everything comes together beautifully as Billy is wonderfully backed up by Louisville’s Motherlodge band.

    In the video of the performance, the image is a little grainy and the sound quality is good but not perfect. Yet it is the next best thing to being there for a rare moving performance of a song as great as “Brownsville Girl.”

    And in a world with an endless number of covers of Bob Dylan’s songs, this cover performance by Bonnie “Prince” Billy with Motherlodge is really something special. Check it out.

    Well, we’re drivin’ this car and the sun is comin’ up over the Rockies;
    Now I know she ain’t you but she’s here and she’s got that dark rhythm in her soul;
    But I’m too over the edge and I ain’t in the mood anymore to remember the times when I was your only man;
    And she don’t want to remind me. She knows this car would go out of control.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Bruce Willis Was in “The Verdict”?

    Before he became a star, Bruce Willis was an extra sitting in a courtroom watching Paul Newman’s closing argument in “The Verdict.”

    One of the greatest lawyer movies of all time that also features one of Paul Newman’s best performances as a down-on-his-luck alcoholic attorney is the 1982 film, The Verdict. Fans of the movie likely know that it was directed by Sidney Lumet and in addition to Newman featured standout performances from Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, and Milo O’Shea. But did you know that Bruce Willis also appears in the movie?

    Yes, Bruce Willis is in the The Verdict. But if you did not know, you probably do not remember him because he was an extra and had no lines. 

    During Paul Newman’s closing argument, Willis sits in the courtroom. Watch about three rows back as Newman starts the scene. As the camera starts to pan in, Willis is high in the center of the screen.

    Unfortunately, once you see the 27-year-old Willis in the scene, it is hard to stay focuses on Newman’s great acting. Maybe I should not have told you about it, but I had to share.

    Three years after The Verdict, Bruce Willis would gain a more prominent role playing  David Addison Jr. in the television series Moonlighting starting in 1985. After a few film roles, his movie career took off following a starring role in 1988’s Die Hard. Like other fans of many of his films, I was saddened to hear of his retirement in 2022 due to an aphasia diagnosis.

    Bruce Willis, however, is not the only future popular actor sitting in the audience as an extra in The Verdict. Just to Willis’s right in the courtroom (and in the photo above), you may also see Tobin Bell, who later became famous as John Kramer, aka Jigsaw, in the Saw movie franchise.

    If you have never seen The Verdict, make sure to check it out, both to catch a glimpse of yet-to-be discovered stars and to see a great movie. The film currently has an 89% critics rating and 88% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But maybe it would get a few extra points if more people knew about Bruce Willis.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Lisa Marie Presley and Elvis: “I Love You Because”

    Lisa Marie Presley carried the burdens of being a famous daughter but she also exhibited her own talents as a singer-songwriter.

    Many of us may first think of Lisa Marie Presley, who died on January 12, 2023, as a child and the connection we felt to her through her famous father Elvis Presley. Some younger people may first think of her famous marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage. But Lisa Marie Presley was a talented musical artist in her own right, recording several albums as well as some “duets” with her father.

    I bought her debut album To Whom It May Concern when it came out in 2003. Presley wrote or cowrote all of the songs on the album, which was a solid debut.  I loved the fist single, “Lights Out,” featured in the video below. The lyrics seem extra powerful now that it has been announced that Lisa Marie Presley is going to be buried at Graceland.

    Someone turned the lights out there in Memphis;
    Ooh, that’s where my family are buried and gone (gone);
    Oh yeah;
    Last time I was there I noticed a space left,
    Oh, next to them there in Memphis, yeah,
    In the damn back lawn.

    In 2005, she released her second album, Now What. And her third and final album Storm & Grace was released in 2012.

    Through the years, she also released a handful of “duets” that incorporated her vocals with recordings made by Elvis. One of the touching duets she created was on “I Love You Because,” as song written and originally recorded by country music singer-songwriter Leo Payne in 1949.

    Elvis recorded “I Love You Because” in July 1954 at Sun Studio, at the same time he was recording “That’s All Right.” The recording occurred before Presley had become a star. Of course you can hear his talent in his vocals, but if you listen closely enough, you may hear a teenager who has no idea of how big of a success he will become.

    Lisa Marie Presley recorded her vocals and created a video for “I Love You Because” that was featured in the 35th Anniversary Elvis Concert on August 16, 2012. The video featured never-before-seen family photos, not only of Elvis and his daughter, but also of Lisa Marie and her children: her twin girls Finley and Harper, along with her son Benjamin and daughter Riley (who has since become a talented actress).

    As the obituaries about Lisa Marie Presley point out, not only did she and her father die at a relatively young age, but her son Benjamin also died tragically. When we think about these deaths, they of course bring a lot of sadness. And not long before her own death, Lisa Marie wrote a touching and thoughtful essay about grief and about losing her son to suicide.

    But also as seen in the video for “I Love You Because,” there was a lot of love in the family. The video is a reminder that although life inevitably brings many tragedies and losses to our lives, there also can be a lot of joy and love at times. The sadness and tragedies may hinder our view of much of life when we look in the rear view mirror. But it also is important to stretch our necks a little to try to see the moments of grace and joy that are there too.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

    Beyond the Danceable Hits: Irene Cara’s Moving Song About Isolation and Loneliness, “Out Here On My Own”

    While best known for the uplifting title songs from “Fame” and “Flashdance,” Irene Cara created a movng performance of a song about isolation and loneliness with “Out Here On My Own.”

    In the early 1980’s, one would have expected Irene Cara, who passed away in November 2022, to go on to have a long and successful music (and acting) career based largely upon recording two of the biggest hits of the early 1980s. Few artists have such big exciting hit title tracks from successful movies so close together. First, starring in the movie Fame (1980), Cara hit it big not only with “Fame,” but an impressive star turn as an actress. Then, three years later, she topped the charts with “Flashdance . . . What a Feeling” from the movie Flashdance (1983). But while I loved those songs, it was a quieter performance from Fame that I always think of first when I hear her name.

    In the early 1980s, I had gone off to attend college several hundred miles away from home. Like many others there, I was young and living on my own for the first time, going somewhere where I had no friends or family. Of course, all of us there were extremely fortunate to be where we were, but many of us also were experiencing a new kind of loneliness. As with any recolocation, during those early days we had not yet forged the new bonds and friendships that would eventually come.

    It was in those days that the school’s movie theater offered a showing of Fame. And there, in that darkened theater, we found some kinship with the young characters on the screen striving to create something out of their lives, struggling for success while also learning to encounter failure.

    In that context, Irene Cara appeared onscreen and performed the song “Out Here On My Own.” Unlike the title track where she and everyone danced, she sold this song by merely singing at a piano. Her moving performance of the opening lyrics made our audience lean into the song. And we were there with her all the way to the final note.

    Sometimes I wonder where I’ve been,
    Who I am,
    Do I fit in.
    Make believin’ is hard alone,
    Out here on my own.

    As I listened, I thought about my own feelings, connecting as we do with much great art to find ourselves. I felt connected to the isolation reflected in the song, thinking it was only me. But then something happened I had not seen before and have not seen since.

    I have seen movie audiences clap at the end of a movie.

    I have heard movie audiences cheer when the good guy finally defeats the bad guy.

    But during Fame, in the middle of the film, I was surprised to hear the college audience applaud and cheer Irene Cara’s performance of this quiet song.

    And that is why Cara’s “Out Here On My Own” remains so important for me. At that moment when I was feeling alone and isolated, I realized that others in that same room were feeling the same thing. And Irene Cara brought us together for those few minutes. And it also taught me a lesson that remains to this day, to remember to be kind to others because they are often going through things that you might not suspect or know.

    In recent years due to the Covid pandemic, many of us around the world have encountered new layers of loneliness, making “Out Here On My Own” seem especially timely. Reportedly, Irene Cara herself faced her own isolation in these last years leading to her death too, making the song even more poignant.

    “Out Here On My Own,” while not as big of a hit as the title track “Fame,” was successful on its own. The song, written by the sister-brother team of Lesley Gore and Michael Gore, not only charted but was nominated for an Academy Award. It lost to the other bigger and happier Irene Cara song from the movie about living forever, “Fame.”

    But “Out Here On My Own” remains one of the great movie songs about loneliness. In Billboard, Chuck Taylor wrote about the rerelease of the soundtrack, noting that “Out Here On My Own” “remains as simplistic and memorable a statement of isolation as has ever been written”

    For a song about isolation, though, I always remember it as bringing people together.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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