Louis Armstrong, Eva Cassidy - "What a Wonderful World"

SONG What a Wonderful World

WRITTEN BY Bob Thiele and David Weiss

PERFORMED BY Louis Armstrong, Eva Cassidy

APPEARS ON Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World (1968); Eva Cassidy - Live at Blues Alley (1996)

This is one of my favorite songs, but although I like the original Louis Armstrong version, the one that has a special place in my heart is the version by Eva Cassidy. We'll get to that in due time, though. Let's talk about the song itself first, though.

Bob Thiele was a record producer who produced recordings for John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Archie Shepp, and the like when he was head of Impulse! Records. In 1968 he and veteran songwriter George David Weiss wrote this song for Louis Armstrong for a project Thiele and Armstrong were working on. 1968 (for those of you who weren't around yet then) was a pretty tumultuous year; both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated in that year, and protest demonstrations pressing the issues those two were famous for - civil rights and an end to the war in Vietnam. Satchmo wanted a song that would promote positive feelings in the midst of all this strife, and Thiele and Weiss came up with just the right song. It has a hopeful, optimistic tone with regard to the future, with reference to babies being born into the world and having much to look forward to. Satch loved it.

Unfortunately, ABC Records, to whom Armstrong was under contract, didn't like it. In fact, Thiele had to lock ABC sales executive Larry Newton out of the recording session because Newton hated the song and wanted to abort the session. Needless to say, ABC didn't promote the record (first released as a single), and at first it didn't get much play in the US. But it took off in the United Kingdom, where it hit #1 on the singles chart and was the biggest-selling single of 1968.

ABC Records' European distributor EMI forced ABC Records to put out a What a Wonderful World album in 1968, but again, it flopped in the US because it wasn't promoted, while it did well in the UK. Despite ABC's dislike of the song, it gained a measure of popularity because Armstrong sang it every opportunity he got, especially on TV appearances. People loved the song, and loved Satchmo singing it. After his death in 1971 it was rereleased, and from that point on it became a hit and the much-loved standard we've all listened to. It especially became attached to Christmas for some reason; I think Satch sang it on one of Perry Como's Christmas specials, and the image stuck.

So what was all the fuss about with Larry Newton and the other bigwigs at ABC Records? Here are the lyrics; maybe you can figure it out!

Lyrics:

I see trees of green, red roses too,
I see them blue, for me and you.
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white,
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky,
Also the faces of people going by.
I see friends shaking hands, say how do you do?
They're really saying, I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know.
And I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

Yes I think to myself... what a wonderful world.

Still confused? Yeah, me too! Unless ABC thought it was too sappy for the likes of the great Louis Armstrong. Unless they just didn't like the message. Hmmmm... Anyhow, here's the original recording of "What a Wonderful World" by Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong.

And now to my favorite version. If you've been reading this blog for a while now, you've seen mr write about Eva Cassidy before. She had the voice of an angel, great chops on both guitar and piano, and an exquisite, finely tuned sense of musical taste. And she was taken from us far too soon: melanoma killed her in November of 1996. You can read more about her in my post about "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", of which Eva did the most haunting arrangement, and which became her signature tune.

Today I uploaded a slideshow video I'd been working on for a while to YouTube. It's called "Wonderful World", and it consists of nature shots taken in and around Newport, RI, and backed by Eva Cassidy's studio version of "What a Wonderful World" (you can check it out here, if you like). It got me to thinking about the song itself, and inspired me to write this post. It also got me to looking for my favorite video of Eva performing this song live at Blues Alley in January of 1996. Found it!

Marianne Faithfull / Waylon Jennings - "Dreaming My Dreams With You"

SONG Dreaming My Dreams With You

WRITTEN BY Allen Reynolds

PERFORMED BY Marianne Faithfull; Waylon Jennings; Cowboy Junkies; ... amongst many others.

APPEARS ON "Faithless" (1978); "Dreaming My Dreams With You" (2001); "Trinity Sessions" (1988); ... amongst many others.

"Dreaming My Dreams With You" is a gorgeous song written by singer-songwriter Allen Reynolds who, although having written some fine songs, is probably more famous for his production work with artists of very varied quality! Reynolds is perhaps best known for producing nigh on every Garth Brooks LP. However, he's also produced albums for artists of far better quality such as, amongst others, Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum, Crystal Gayle and Emmylou Harris.

An array of artists have covered this classic. Most of them very badly! I was looking for our favourite version - the beautiful fragile Cowboy Junkies version from the mighty "Trinity Sessions" LP - but couldn't find a vid. So instead here's Waylon's decent interpretation of the song (from the 2001 album of the same name) and, perhaps even better, the lovely version by Marianne Faithfull (about whom the song could easily have been written!) from her excellent 1978 comeback album "Faithless".

"Dreaming My Dreams With You" is a complex, beautiful, bijou song of heart-wrenching regret and loneliness, but also too a song affirming the power of love, even in wretched circumstance.

It's a tale of anguished separation from a special loved one lost through the protagonist's unstated weakness. It's a recurring weakness from which he hopes "that I've learned this time."

The haunting refrain of "I'll always miss dreaming my dreams with you" highlights the essence of his longing for those long lost moments of true love. He dreams that the pain will eventually end and that "Someday I'll get over you."

Despite this agony, he still strongly believes in, and affirms, the concept of love ("I won't let it change me. Not if I can. I'd rather believe in love.") However, it may be an idyllic, perhaps over-idealised, concept of love to which he aspires ("I hope that I find what I'm reaching for. The way that it is in my mind.") And that may be his real tragedy.


(Original version at Stupid&Contagious)




LYRICS

I hope that I won't be that wrong anymore
I hope that I've learned this time
I hope that I find what I'm reaching for
The way that it is in my mind

Someday I'll get over you
I'll live to see it all through
But I'll always miss
Dreaming my dreams with you

I won't let it change me
Not if I can
I'd rather believe in love
And give it away
As much as I can
To those that I'm fondest of

Someday I'll get over you
I'll live to see it all through
But I'll always miss
Dreaming my dreams with you

Someday I'll get over you
I'll live to see it all through
But I'll always miss
Dreaming my dreams with you



by Allen Reynolds

Waylon Jennings - "Dreaming My Dreams With You"







Marianne Faithfull - "Dreaming My Dreams With You"

Devil Got My Woman

SONG: Devil Got My Woman

WRITTEN BY: Skip James

PERFORMED BY: Skip James—also Rory Block, Beck, John Cephas et al.

APPEARS ON: Skip James: The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James (Yazoo), Rory Block: Gone Woman Blues (Rounder), etc.

The old blues often isn’t “easy” music—if we listen to the lyrics of many of these tunes, we encounter violence, both random & that spurred by powerful negative emotions, particularly sexual jealousy, & often violence against women—this can arise in songs by even relatively affable singers such as Mississippi John Hurt; while his later version of the song “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” is quite mild, his 1926 version is quite violent. Singers such as Robert Johnson seem to celebrate murder & beating (“32-20 Blues” & “Me & the Devil”) & Skip James—the great bluesman we’re considering here today—wrote the musically great but lyrically disturbing song “Crow Jane,” in which the singer apparently shots Crow Jane simply because she held her “head up high.” Those of us who like to listen to traditional music really are bound (my opinion) to come to terms with this; & those, like myself, who play & perform this music have to come to terms with it in different & perhaps more exacting ways.

Skip James was almost certainly a musical genius, if the term means anything at all. His fingerstyle blues—quite a bit different in technique from contemporaries such as Robert Johnson & Son House from the same Mississippi Delta region—involved guitar playing of a very high order. It’s been said that his 1930s version of “I’m So Glad” (musically quite different from Cream’s later cover) is as fine a piece of fingerstyle guitar as you can hear. In some cases—as in the song under consideration, “Devil Got My Woman”—James used an innovative tuning which made the guitar’s unfretted strings play an E minor chord; this tuning is sometimes called “Bentonia tuning” after James’ hometown, or “Cross Tuning,” a term, as I understand, coined by James himself. A lot of people write about this tune as accentuating the “minor” or mournful character of the songs, & there’s certainly truth in this. On the other hand—& to be technical for a moment—the difference between a major & minor chord is one tone—the third tone of a given scale. So for instance an E major chord contains the notes E, G# & B; an E minor chord contains the notes E, G natural & B. Much of blues playing involves a play between those two forms of the third tone—in E, for instance, a rocking back & forth between G# & G natural. This produces a very characteristic sound. However, if you look at James’ Cross Tuning, you’ll notice that the G natural appears on an open string only once: the tuning goes E, B, E, G, B, E. Because of this, the guitar player is able to limit the use of the third tone, making the song in a sense more eerie, because for stretches of time it doesn’t resolve to either major or minor, but exists in a sort of nether world between.

But what about the lyrical material? “Devil Got My Woman” is a landscape of betrayal—the woman betrays the singer, the singer betrays his friend, & at least in some sense, the friend also betrays the singer. This song is generally considered to be inspired by James’ own broken marriage. However, the motivations behind all these betrayals aren’t understood in terms of human impulses: sexual desire, anger, disappointment, jealousy. They are explicitly understood in a frame of reference of demonic possession. James himself said:

You can lay down happy at night, you and your companion... and in harmony. Everything goin' well. Satan'll creep in the house overnight... next mornin' you cannot get a good word out of her. Why? Because Satan has got the bill of sale over her. He done crept in overnight...

James was, like Son House, a mass of contradictions when it came to religion. He was an ordained Baptist preacher who reportedly believed in Voodoo practices, & also was reputed to be a compulsive womanizer & gambler. He claimed to always carry a gun, & said, “I never draw a gun unless I pull the trigger.” These contradictions certainly come out in his music. For a compelling account of James, you might look at The Haunting of Skip James on the Fascinating People blog.

There are two versions of this song in circulation—one is James’ 1930s version, which only contains three verses, & I must say I find the condensed form very effective. The other version is typified by John Cephas’ cover in the video below; while Cephas is a very gifted singer & guitar player, I find this version a bit more unfocused. I’d also commend Rory Block’s version (as “Devil Got My Man”). Ms Block is a favorite artist of mine—someone who has the rare gift of being able to play old-time blues very close to the source & yet at the same time make the music seem completely her own.

Finally—& to return at last to my original point—I’m aware that this song is sometimes considered misogynist for the line “I’d rather be the devil than to be that woman’s man.” Comparing this with “Crow Jane,” for example (you can see the lyrics for "Crow Jane" here)—a song I can appreciate musically but wouldn’t perform—it seems that the landscape is much more complicated, involving demonically-inspired betrayal, & a sense that relationships exist in a place where human agency only has a limited influence.

I’d be interested to hear what others think of these songs along these lines.

Devil Got My Woman

I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman’s man
I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman’s man
Aw, nothin' but the devil, changed my baby's mind
Was nothin' but the devil, changed my baby's mind

I laid down last night, laid down last night
I laid down last night, tried to take my rest
My mind got to ramblin', like a wild geese
From the west, from the west

The woman I love, woman that I loved
Woman I loved, took her from my best friend
But he got lucky, stoled her back again
And he got lucky, stoled her back again

Hank Williams: Cool Water

SONG Cool Water

WRITTEN BY Bob Nolan

PERFORMED BY Hank Williams

APPEARS ON Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings (2009)

Hank Williams knew a terrible secret, and he revealed it in his songs and performances. He knew that humans have a core of fear where love is a fleeting and treacherous thing, where redemption lies in death, and where loneliness and isolation is the human fate. His performance of "Cool Water," Bob Nolan's campfire classic about a man and a mirage,, fearlessly explores this core, leading us on the harrowing journey that ultimately claimed Williams' life.

Accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, a fiddle, and the occasional whisper of a pedal steel guitar, Hank’s deliberate phrasing summons a paradoxical sense of inevitability. It’s a bravura performance, arguably Williams’ finest vocal. That a simple ballad like "Cool Water" can evoke this illuminates the mysterious alchemy that occurs when a great artist perceives something in a song that no one else -- not even the song's writer -- senses.

For Williams turns “Cool Water” into a Conradian odyssey, a tale of a parched soul pleading for deliverance only to find that redemption is a mirage. Through this performance, Williams reveals his ultimate fear: That the journey is not the reward, but just another part of the horror. So, while he expresses faith that "He'll hear our prayer and show us where there's water," it's not entirely clear that he believes what he's saying. Williams drives this point home in the final verse, where he discloses that what he really desires is release from the "quest for water." His fear -- and ours -- is that there is no water, merely an endless spiritual search that leads only to disillusion. Better, he thinks, to be released from the search than to discover that it is all a mirage.

LYRICS

All day I face the barren waste without a taste of water

Cool water

Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water

Cool water

The nights are cool and I'm a fool, each star's a pool of water

Cool water

But with the dawn I'll wake and yawn and carry on to water

Cool water

Keep a-movin' Dan

Don't you listen to him Dan

He's a devil not a man

And he spreads the burning sand with water

Dan can't you see

That big green tree

Where the water's runnin' free

And it's waiting there for me and you

Cool water

The shadows sway and seem to say tonight we pray for water

Cool water

And way up there He'll hear our prayer and show us where there's water

Cool water

Dan's feet are sore, he yearning for just one thing more than water

Cool water

Like me, I guess, he'd like to rest where there's no quest for water

Cool water

Here's a link to a video of Hank's brilliant performance of "Cool Water." It's blurry and the synching is off, but his desperation comes through anyway. It's that powerful a performance.

Song For You

SONG Song For You

WRITTEN BY Leon Russell

PERFORMED BY Donny Hathaway, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell

APPEARS ON Donny Hathaway (1972); Leon Russell (1972); Shotgun Willie (1973)

Leon Russell's classic "Song For You" takes as its starting point a tradition probably as old as songwriting itself: The troubadour seducing a estranged lover by professing everlasting love while asking his lover forgiveness for his flaws. I want to be what you want me to be, he sings, and I've learned so much from you. But I'll never be perfect, much less as perfect as you. Isn't it enough that "There's no one more important to me?" Isn't it enough that when I'm singing to "ten thousand people" I'm really singing to you? Because while I may be flawed, my love isn't: "I love you in a place where there is no space or time."

"Song For You" also demonstrates the power of a great song (not to mention seduction and love) to cross genres. It's hard to choose between Donny Hathaway's deeply soulful rendition and the direct intimacy of Willie Nelson's country-folk version. Hathaway's voice swoops and soars, demanding attention and inviting his lover to be one with him. Nelson's wistful country baritone is more of a gruff filter, tuning out the noise of the "ten thousand people watching" so that in the end there are only the two lovers. Either way, the message of "Song For You" -- that most quiet and intimate of songs -- comes through loud and clear.

LYRICS

I've been so many places in my life and time
I've sung a lot of songs, I've made some bad rhyme
I've acted out my love in stages
With ten thousand people watching
We're alone now and I'm singing this song for you

I know your image of me is what I hope to be
I've treated you unkindly but darlin' can't you see?
There's no one more important to me
Darlin' can't you please see through me?
'Cause we're alone now and I'm singing this song for you

You taught me precious secrets of the truth, withholding nothing
You were out front and I was hiding
But now I'm so much better
And if my words don't come together
Listen to the melody 'cause my love is in there hiding

I love you in a place where there is no space or time
I love you for my life 'cause you are a friend of mine
And when my life is over
Remember when we were together
We were alone and I was singing this song for you

We were alone and I was singing this song for you

A Song For You (Live @ The Troubador, Los Angeles, CA) - Donny Hathaway

I Love You More Than You`ll Ever Know

SONG: I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know

WRITTEN BY: Al Kooper

PERFORMED BY: Blood Sweat and Tears, Donny Hathaway

APPEARS ON: Child is Father to the Man, Extension of a Man


Writing for this blog has proven to be very educational. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about These Eyes by The Guess Who and how all my life I had been listening to the version of that song by Junior Walker not knowing it was a remake. Well, it just happened again with one of my favorite songs. I was coming up with the words to describe this song and I decided to look up the lyrics while I thought about it. I typed in the words “I Love you more than you’ll ever know” and waited to see Donny Hathaway’s name. I looked at the screen and was shocked to see the name Blood Sweat and Tears. I was positive Donny Hathaway wrote this song and if I went on a music trivia show I would have been eliminated on this question. It turns out I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know was originally performed by Blood Sweat and Tears and written by Al Kooper. It was released on their debut album Child Is Father to the Man in 1968. I have to admit that the original version is very impressive for a band I never heard of. I am not sure about Al Kooper's singing but the band plays the hell out of the music.

The reason why I love the song so much is because it tells a story from the standpoint of a regular man trying to do anything he can to keep the woman he loves. Sometimes the things you do work out and sometimes they don’t but you have to try what you can to make her happy. In this modern day of rhythm and blues it seems songs get attention that go against this theory. It’s all full of fantasy and stories about trips to islands, nice cars and expensive jewelry. There are some real singers still out there but a lot of the make believe images get attention. This song represents what a man really feels inside when he loves someone with real life circumstances. I don’t want to paint all current songs with a broad brush but it’s been a long time since I heard a love song on the radio with lyrics like.

When I wasn’t making much money
You know where my paycheck went
You know I brought it home to you baby
And I never spent a red cent.

That sounds more like real life in this economy. You have to give credit to Al Kooper for coming up with the song and the lyrics but Donny Hathaway sings these lyrics with so much feeling that you can imagine him just walking in the studio without anything written down and singing this straight from his heart. I love Donny Hathaway. He had that special gift in his voice that allows you to feel every emotion of the song. Although he’s been deceased since 1979 he’s still on my concert wish list. If I had found out he went in the studio the same night his woman left to sing this song I would have believed it. Maybe that’s why so many people think he wrote it. It would have been really cool to hear him sing it with the original band because those guys can play.

Lyrics
If I ever leave you baby....you can say I told you so
And if I ever hurt you ..... you know I hurt myself as well

Is that any way for a man to carry on
Do you think I want my loved one gone
Said I love you
More than you'll ever know
More than you'll ever know

When I wasn't making much money
You know where my paycheck went
You know I brought it home to you baby
And I never spent a red cent
Heeey

Is that any way for a man to carry on
Do you think I want my loved one gone
Said I love you
More than you'll ever know
More than you'll ever know

Now listen to this
I'm not trying to be
Just any kind of man
No I ain't
I'm just trying to be somebody
You can love, trust and understand
I know, I know, I know that I can be
A part of you that no one else could see
Yeah
But I gotta hear you say
I got to hear you say
It's alright
I'm only flesh and blood
But I can be anything that you demand
I can be King of everything
Or just a tiny grain of sand
Now tell me

Is that anyway for a man to carry on
Do you think that I want my loved one gone
I love you
More than you'll ever know
I said I love you
I love you
I love you
Heeey
Don't want nobody else but you.....

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Big Star: Nighttime

SONG: Nighttime

WRITTEN BY: Alex Chilton

PERFORMED BY: Big Star

APPEARS ON: Big Star: Keep an Eye on the Sky (Rhino); Big Star’s 3rd: Sister Lovers (Rykodisc)

Today’s post is rather a shift from my usual run of blues & old-time music—it involves a song that really possessed me twenty plus years ago, & an album that seemed to open into a strange, disturbing & fascinating world. The album: Big Star’s 3rd: Sister Lovers; the song: “Nighttime.”

For those of you who don’t know, Big Star was a memphis quartet of the early to mid 1970s, fronted by Alex Chilton & Chris Bell as vocalist guitarists & with Andy Hummel on bass & Jody Stephens on drums. Chilton had already had a taste of stardom when at age 16 he & his bandmates in the Box Tops had scored a number one record with “The Letter.” The experience was not a positive one for Chilton, as it appears—at a young age he grew mistrustful of the music industry’s machinations & marketing & control over artists.

Bell & Chilton were a sort of southern underground Lennon & McCartney; as Robert Gordon writes in the book accompanying Rhino’s hot off the presses box set: “The two bandleaders complemented each other. Bell liked softer, rounder curves, & Chilton was fond of the sharp edge.” With Bell & Chilton collaborating, Big Star recorded the critically-acclaimed but commercial train wreck, #1 Record, & then with Bell mostly out of the band, they released Radio City, which was again met with critical enthusiasm & disappointing sales. In the fall of 1974, Chilton & Stephens were the only remaining band members, & they went into Ardent Studios in Memphis to work on a new project. This is what later became known as Big Star’s 3rd: Sister Lovers (so called because Chilton & Stephens were dating sisters at the time). The album was considered too dark & eccentric to find a distributor, & wasn’t released until 1978 on PVC—that version contained 14 tracks. Rykodisc later released a 19 track version in the early 90s—by this time such alt rock luminaries as R.E.M. & the Replacements were acknowledging the deep influence of Chilton & Big Star, & the band’s work finally had a defined commercial niche.

I was brought back to Big Star’s music by the (very) recent release of Rhino’s box set, Big Star: Keep an Eye on the Sky (co-produced by our friend Cheryl Pawelski, who described the project as a labor of love). For a full review of that, please check out my post today on my Robert Frost’s Banjo blog. Here, I’m focusing on the song “Nighttime.”

When I first heard the demo version of “Nighttime” on disc two of the four disc box set, I was startled to find that Chilton didn’t sing the rather disturbing fourth & fifth verses (see the lyrics below). The demo is an incredibly sweet song—anticipatory of “going out” in all senses of the phrase, & with the air of new love saturating the sound. It’s just Chilton accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Also, tho I didn’t check this in any mechanical way, I believe the underlying tempo of the demo is slightly quicker than that of the released version.

So what happens between the demo & the release? All the sudden, this sweet love song seems to turn so very dark; in the fifth verse, Chilton sings:

Get me out of here
Get me out of here
I hate it here
Get me out of here

In many ways this twist incapsulates so much of what fascinates me about Big Star’s 3rd; there’s the sweet string-enhanced beauty of songs like “Blue Moon” & “Stroke It Noel” combined with the distorted darkness of offerings like “Holocaust” & “Kanga Roo”; there’s the hauntingly beautiful but extraordinarily depressed “Big Black Car” mixed with an upbeat rocker like “Kizza Me.”

Big Star’s 3rd always has seemed to me one of pop/rock music’s most compelling explorations of desire, with all its prismatic & contradictory aspects. The transformation of “Nighttime” from the sweet lover’s stroll of the demo to something more disturbing makes the song one that connects the album’s contradictory states—the heart in its nighttime idyll suddenly confronted by a disturbing reality—the air that had only gone “cool” at the beginning is now “freezing.” The fourth & fifth stanzas also re-shape the lovely lines:

Glanced in your eyes and fell through the skies
Dance in your eyes and fell through the skies

At the beginning of the song, this seems purely (in many senses of that word) a description of “falling” in love—after the darkness of “I hate it here/Get me out of here,” it suggests another type of descent altogether.

There is also the possibility of the song exploring the public versus the private—certainly Chilton's Box Tops' experience must have led him to be distrustful of public adulation as opposed to private passion. Is that the fall "through the skies"—a movement from public adulation to personal love? Or is it something more bleak? The album's exploration of these themes allows us to ponder this question; & as I pointed out in my Robert Frost's Banjo appreciation of the box set, the compilation really enriches our examination.

The setting of the released version is gorgeous; the slide guitar adds a sort of off-kilter lyricism that reinforces the song’s ambiguity, as does Chilton’s vocal, which grows slightly raspy & weary in the concluding lines.

Hope you enjoy the song in the clip below, & do check out Big Star: Keep an Eye on the Sky.


“Nighttime”

At nighttime I go out and see the people
Air goes cool and hurrying on my way
And dressing so sweet, all the people to see
They’re looking at me, all the people to see.

And when I set my eyes on you
You look like a kitty
And when you’re in the moon
Oh you look so pretty

Caught a glance in your eyes
And fell through the skies
Glance in your eyes
And fell through the skies

I’m walking down the freezing street
Scarf goes out behind
You said, get them away
Please don’t say another word

Get me out of here
Get me out of here
I hate it here
Get me out of here

At nighttime I go out and see the people
Air goes cool and hurrying on my way
Glanced in your eyes and fell through the skies
Dance in your eyes and fell through the skies