Tag: Peter Paul & Mary

Duet of the Day: Cass Elliot and John Denver “Leaving on a Jet Plane”

John Denver Cass Elliot

Cass Elliott was an amazing talent who left us too soon in 1974. With the Mamas and the Papas, her voice always stood out. Similarly, John Denver had a wonderful tenor voice and was a great songwriter (although some music fans ignore the talent as a reaction to Denver becoming so popular in his heyday). Despite their talents, one might think they never crossed paths due to being in slightly different music genres. But one night on television in 1972, Elliot and Denver joined forces on one of Denver’s classic songs, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

The duet is from the August 19, 1972 premiere of the 90-minute NBC television show The Midnight Special. Those of us who grew up in the 1970s remember the Friday night show fondly. As a kid, I would stay up late to watch the show to see the latest music. Long before we had MTV, The Midnight Special was one of the few places to regularly catch current rock and pop stars performing on television.

So, one night on television in 1972, Elliot and Denver joined forces. Their voices intertwined on the choruses to create something special. Check it out.

This episode of The Midnight Special featured the Mamas and the Papas and Denver. And it was a special treat to hear Elliot and Denver together on the song. The tune had originally been a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary when they released it in 1969. But by 1972, Denver had become so popular, he could keep the songs he wrote as hits for himself.

In addition to being wonderful singers, both Cass Elliot and John Denver were involved in important social causes during their lives. You hear a little of that in Elliot’s introduction to the song about the importance of voting.

The country was divided at the time, as the Vietnam War continued with President Richard Richard M. Nixon in the White House. Two days after the Elliot-Denver performance, the Republican National Convention nominated Nixon and Spiro Agnew for a second term. But amidst the divisions in the country at the time, Mama Cass and John Denver showed America a little harmony.

Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Trini Lopez: Hammerin’ Out Danger

    Singer-actor Trini Lopez was born in Dallas on May 15, 1937. At the age of 26, he had his first hit recording with “If I Had a Hammer.”

    Lopez’s released a live album as his first record, Trini Lopez at PJ’s, in 1963. That album featured his live version of “If I Had a Hammer” that became a hit song for him.

    Although the song seems timeless, Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote “If I Had a Hammer” in 1949 and first recorded it in 1950 as “The Hammer Song” with The Weavers. I believe the first time I heard the song was in the version by Peter, Paul & Mary. They had a top ten hit with the song in 1962, one year before Lopez’s release.

    Other artists continued to record the anthem, even immediately after the hit versions by Lopez and Peter, Paul and Mary. For example, Sam Cooke featured a live version of the song on his 1964 album Sam Cooke at the Copa. And Martha and the Vandellas included their version on the 1963 album Heat Wave.

    There is something about the song about the hammer. It reminds me of “The Riddle Song (I Gave My Love a Cherry)” where the final verse of the songs answers the riddles about the cherry, the ring, the chicken, and the baby. Perhaps the way “If I Had a Hammer” is similarly structured gives it the timeless quality of the old English folk song, “The Riddle Song.”

    As others have noted, though, with “If I Had a Hammer,” Seeger and Hays beautifully combined activism with a popular song format. The lyrics re-purpose the working person’s hammer, the laborer’s song, and the work bell. And the writers use those tools as patriotic instruments to change the world and protect civil rights.

    And while “The Riddle Song” is melancholy like a lullaby, “If I Had a Hammer” has more energy. Lopez’s driving version really captures that it is a song about the hammer of justice, the bell of freedom, and the song about love between my brothers and my sisters.

    What is your favorite version of “If I Had a Hammer”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Peter, Paul & Mary’s Ode to Playing “Right Field”

    baseball card Ruth
    Some right fielders are good.

    It is that time of year when winter turns to a season of hope.  We hope for a beautiful spring as we welcome warm weather.  Also, we hope that this year will be “the year” for our baseball team.  But no matter what happens with the season, every team at least has a chance on opening day.

    For anyone who played baseball growing up, there is one position where they would stick the kids who were not very skilled at the game.  These were the kids who were hopeful enough to play the game.  But the coaches did not have much hope in them.  I know, because I was one of those kids.

    I still love baseball.  So it is worth celebrating those of us who grew up in right field.

    Peter, Paul & Mary wrote a touching ode to playing right field “watching the dandelions grow.”

    I’d dream of the day they’d hit one my way;
    They never did, but still I would pray,
    That I’d make a fantastic catch on the run,
    And not lose the ball in the sun;
    And then I’d awake from this long reverie,
    And pray that the ball never came out to me,
    Here in . . . Right field.

    Below, Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey, and Mary Travers perform “Right Field” at their 25th Anniversary Concert.  Check it out.

    Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo of Ruth card via public domain.

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    Elizabeth Cotten: “Freight Train”

    Cotten Freight Train Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten was born on January 5, 1895 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, although some sources list the year of her birth as 1893. Cotten began playing the banjo at the age of eight and soon thereafter turned to the guitar and at the age of twelve wrote “Freight Train,” a timeless folk song that would eventually stand beside other classics in the canon of great train songs.

    Early Life, Discovery, and “Freight Train”

    As a young woman, Cotten put aside any hopes of being a musician for marriage, motherhood, and work. But after a divorce in 1940 led her to Washington, D.C., Cotten’s work in a department store led her to be discovered by the world, according to Nigel Williamson’s The Rough Guide to the Blues.

    While working in Landsburgh’s Department Store around the mid-1940s, Cotten found a lost girl and helped reunite the girl with her mother. The mother turned out to be Ruth Crawford Seeger, and the little girl was Peggy Seeger, who was the sister of Pete Seeger. The chance encounter led Cotten to working in the Seeger household, where the family’s interest in music rekindled Cotten’s own musical talents.

    Eventually, Peggy’s brother Mike Seeger produced Cotten and her unique finger-picking guitar playing for an album with Folkways, Folksongs And Instrumentals With Guitar (1958). The album included the song about death that Cotten wrote as a 12-year-old, “Freight Train”: “When I die, oh bury me deep / Down at the end of old Chestnut Street, / So I can hear old Number Nine / As she comes rolling by.”

    Music Career

    Audiences came to love Cotten’s performances at folk festivals, where she would tell stories about her life and perform songs with her distinctive guitar playing. As her friend and musician Dana Klipp would later explain, “It wasn’t just her music; it was her entire personality and her spirituality. It was a very gentle and graceful spirituality.”

    Still, she kept her day job of doing domestic work until 1970. She made additional recordings, and the album Elizabeth Cotton, Live won a Grammy award in 1984 when Cotten was 89.

    Later Life and Death

    Cotten spent the last years of her life in Syracuse, New York, which in 1983 named a small park “The Elizabeth Cotten Grove” in her honor. But Cotten still continued to perform in her later years. Cotten’s last performances occurred at the 1986 Philidelphia Folk Festival and at a New York City performance arranged for her by Odetta in 1987.

    Cotten passed away on June 29, 1987, and although in “Freight Train” she asked to be buried “Down at the end of old Chestnut Street,” her body was cremated.

    Cotton’s music and spirit, however, live on. Cotten left behind a lot of fans, while others are still discovering her today. Below is one of her late interviews, when she was interviewed by Aly Bain for his 1985 series Down Home.

    Cotten’s songs have been covered by many performers, including Jerry Garcia and Peter, Paul and Mary. Another of her many honors is that she was included in Brian Lanker’s book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America.

    What is your favorite performance by Elizabeth Cotten? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Death of Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon on Earth

    Last passenger pigeon
    Martha

    On September 1, 1914, the last passenger pigeon on earth passed away. The passenger pigeon once was the most numerous species in North America and perhaps the world.

    In the mid and late 1800s, there were millions of passenger pigeons in the United States.  But the species dwindled down from hunting and other reasons, until on this date a passenger pigeon named Martha died in the Cincinnati Zoo.

    According to a New Yorker book review of Joe Greenberg’s A Feathered River Across the Sky, the last pair of passenger pigeons, George and Martha, lived in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. After George died in 1910, Martha lived on four more years as a sad attraction, reminding visitors of the destruction of a once widespread species.

    Although officials offered a $1000 reward for a male passenger pigeon, no more were found. And Martha passed away in 1914, ending the species. (Jonathan Rosen, “The Birds,” New Yorker 6 Jan. 2014: 62)

    Below is a short video about passenger pigeons, featuring a song about Martha called “Martha (Last of the Passenger Pigeons),” written and sung by singer-songwriter John Herald.

    Singer John Herald was one of the founders of the bluegrass group Greenbriar Boys, and he worked as a session guitarist for a number of artists like Bonnie Raitt and Doc Watson. He wrote the classic song about a drunk racehorse, “Stewball,” which was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. Herald passed away in 2005.

    As for Martha, after her death, she was frozen in ice and sent by train to Washington, D.C.  There, she was stuffed and put on display at the Smithsonian. She is now part of a special exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo.

    Meanwhile, Project Passenger Pigeon works to educate about the loss of the species. Although Martha has died, we have kept her body to forever haunt humans and remind us that nobody — and no species — survives forever.

    Photo of Martha, the last passenger pigeon, via public domain.

    What species extinction do you think most about? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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