Junior Kimbrough:Most Things Haven't Worked Out

Is that the best title for a blues album or what?? Way back during this blog's early days, I mentioned the film "Deep Blues" about Robert Palmer (no, not that one) and his trip to the backwaters of the South to find undiscovered authentic bluesmen still performing. Fat Possum Records has released albums by, among others,  R L Burnside and my favorite, Junior Kimbrough. Forget Stevie Ray Vaughan, B B King or (yeesh!) Eric Clapton. These Deep Blues guys are not the least bit polished or technically accomplished; they might as well be drumming on shoe boxes and plucking a mop for all the proficiency displayed. But, but...man, do they tap into something primal and earthy and rock-frickin'-SOLID.  Primal like Ali Farka Toure or Hamza El Din -- this is stuff straight from the motherland. And when Junior gets into the groove, it's mesmerizing.

Here's another example: when I first discovered reggae, I liked the slick, polished Third World version. Bob Marley (then only just beginning to become the LEGEND) was still 'yard', scratchy, thinly produced --  and forget ska and early reggae. Jeez, they sounded like field recordings, and I hated them. Eventually, I worked backwards, and now those dusty tracks are my favorites. Third World really wanted to be the O-Jays, and I still appreciate their music, but give me something with a little grit in the grooves, please.

So back to Junior: I fell in love with his performance on the "Deep Blues" DVD, filmed in his wooden shack/juke joint called Junior's Place, his face lined and battered like some blues Cyclops, one eye seemingly working on its own as dancers shuffle and strut like it's the last Saturday night on earth in Mississippi. "All Night Long" is the live one from 1995 with the long send-you-into-a-trance songs, and "Most Things..." is from 1997, with a different producer, venue and band but still a keeper.

My Apology to Bruce Springsteen

Originally I was going to title this "Bitch-slapping Bruce Springsteen", because that's what I felt like doing. But why, you ask ? (And why risk getting the holy crap beat out of me?) I was recently listening to the compilation "The Essential Bruce Springsteen" (Bruce gets 3 CDs in his 'Essential' set, but Dylan gets only 2? Really?) and I had to face my bete noir in the form of the title track from "The River", and all my anger rose to the surface again. But let's go back in time a bit, dear reader...

I wore out my 45 of "Born to Run". I lipsynced the screams, I did my best fake mike work, and you know I played my air guitar while falling to my knees. And yet...when I heard the "Born to Run" album, it didn't rock enough for me. Was it the piano? The organ? The tight-ass arrangements? I've read that Bruce obsessed with getting just the perfect sound, but it sounded tied down and airless, fake street punk as arranged by Yes. Sure, I still waded through the corny street opera in "Jungleland" to get to the magnificent Wolverine howls at the end (and my late dog Norm howled along) -- but like Ebenezer Scrooge facing the ghost of Jacob Marley ("You might be a bit of underdone potato -- there's more of gravy than grave to you!"), I heard way more Laura Nyro and "West Side Story" in "Born to Run" than I expected. (But then the live box version of "Rosalita" is just as  over-arranged, but it's in my Top Ten Live Faves, so go figure.)

Over the years I heard enough Bruce I enjoyed to warrant my own crappy self-selected cassette best-of compilation. Bruce himself suggests that "The Essential" isn't for the fan but the casual listener (though the 3rd CD collects enough rare tracks that the dedicated fan has to bite.) But skimming through "The "Essential", I once again run up against the song that always gets me angry: "The River". Plot: kid hangs out by the river/reservoir, checks out Mary, fine and tan, oops he gets Mary pregnant "and man, that was all she wrote/ And for my 19th birthday/I got a union card and a wedding coat". Now he's stuck in this dead-end town, married and working at the factory until he dies. This is his life from now on. Even the river has dried up! (Enter stage left, pathetic fallacy!)

This song pissed me off no end. Hey, remember the part where Mary's pregnant? -- you have a child, you SELFISH BABY! Yes, you'll have to WORK to support your FAMILY. OH MY GOD, nobody's ever done that and LIVED!! And get this -- you have a union job! You're not slapping burgers at Mickey D's -- you have a decent wage AND HEALTH BENEFITS!!

Deep breath. And there's more. Songs about dreams gone dry, women sitting smoking on the porch in the dark wondering where their life went... I get it, I really do. I understand disappointment, and despair, and feeling trapped. BUT there's more than just YOU in this equation, boyo, and you need to be a man and strap 'em on.

I thought "Is this how Bruce sees the world? How old is he?? What a frikkin' baby!" Then finally it dawned on me that Bruce is writing about a character. Oh, and maybe he's pointing out (so subtly that this English major missed it) that maybe the character is immature. Umm, duh.

So...I apologize, Bruce. I didn't understand. I wouldn't dream of attempting to bitch-slap you. Thank you for giving me time to get the picture. I just needed time to let the characters grow up, and, heck, grow up a bit myself.

Incredibly Strange Music series

These two books are titled "Incredibly Strange Music", and that's just what it's about: interviews with record collectors and/or performers who acquire music of the bizarre, the kitschy, and the mostly indescribable. Featuring the Cramps, Eartha Kitt, Martin Denny, Rusty Warren (yikes!), Yma Sumac and many more, it's a quirky but affectionate look at the fringes of vinyl collecting, and yes, a sad appreciation of an era more and more difficult to maintain. As most all of the interviewees complain, the days of finding LP treasures in thrift stores or junk shops is pretty much over, since album price guides and online searching has sucked most of the gold from the marketplace.                                                                                                                  

 

                        It's been a few years since I read these, and in re-reading them, I was struck by how much affection was expressed for the weird. Whether it's the tiki exotica of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, or the electronic experimentation of Robert Moog and Gershon Kingsley, or the innumerable rockabilly, r&b, humor or country albums mentioned, every single collector expresses sheer joy in the treasures they've managed to amass over the years --- and the joy they feel in sharing the information with others.