Month: August 2021

I’ve been taking on a new direction

Posted on by brucehhackett

We’re from all parts of the country, and all parts of the world. No matter where we’re from, we can travel east, west, north, south, and find someone and something new and different. Something exciting, something dangerous, something sweet and sublime, something magnificent. As E.B. White once wrote. “Wherever the wind takes us. High, low. Near, far. East, west. North, south. We take to the breeze. We go as we please.”

Old compass on white background with soft shadow

You’d think there would be hundreds of popular songs that focus on one of the four primary directions on the compass, but in my recent search, I came up with only a couple dozen. From the catalog of tunes from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and a few more recent, I have selected four each that mention North, South East or West in the title. They’re an eclectic group of songs, and you can listen to them on the Spotify playlist I compiled and placed at the end of this post.

Happy traveling!

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“Northern Sky,” Nick Drake, 1971

During his lifetime, Drake was a chronically shy, withdrawn person with enormous talent as a sensitive singer/songwriter whose three albums were poorly promoted and sadly under-appreciated. More recently, his work has been celebrated by artists from Beck and Aimee Mann to the Black Crowes and R.E.M. On “Northern Sky,” from his second LP, “Bryter Layter,” Drake welcomed the input of producer John Cale, who added piano, bass and drums to Drake’s typically sparse arrangement, creating what has been called “the most unabashedly joyful song in Drake’s canon.” It should have been his breakthrough single, but that never happened. He died at age 26 of an accidental overdose of antidepressants.

“Life in a Northern Town,” Dream Academy, 1985

This sublime piece of “baroque pop,” as one critic described it, was written as an elegy to Nick Drake, who died in 1974. Nick Laird-Clowes and Gilbert Gabriel, chief songwriters of The Dream Academy, said the song was heavily influenced by Drake’s music, and even the vocals are reminiscent of Drake. The music on “Life in a Northern Town” is a smart blend of classical structure, African rhythms, psychedelia and pop, and it reached #7 on the US pop charts in early 1986. The lyrics pay tribute to Drake and mourn his passing at a young age: “And though he never would wave goodbye, you could see it written in his eyes as the train rolled out of sight…bye-bye…”

“North and South of the River,” U2, 1997

Bono and The Edge teamed up with veteran Irish folk singer Christy Moore in 1995 to write this tune, which Moore recorded and released in the UK. Its lyrics offer a message of hope for reconciliation between warring factions, and most observers believe the song is about Northern and Southern Ireland, or the north and south sides of the River Foyle in the battle-scarred city of Londonderry. U2 recorded it in 1997 and relegated it to the B-side of a single because, as Bono put it, “If we featured that song on an album, it might be reason enough for the Troubles to start up again. We’ve got to be smarter now.” The song also appeared on the group’s “The Best of 1990-2000” compilation.

“North and South,” The Clash, 1985

Perhaps the most important band of the British punk rock movement, and post-punk and new wave as well, was The Clash, who enjoyed widespread critical acclaim in the late ’70s and commercial success in the early ’80s. Following the fine showing of their “Combat Rock” LP and “Rock the Casbah” single in the US in 1982, internal dissension between co-songwriters Joe Strummer and Mick Jones caused a nasty breakup. New members were brought in, but The Clash’s sixth and final LP, “Cut the Crap,” was widely panned for heavy-handed production techniques. Still, there were a couple of decent tracks, like “North and South,” written and sung by newcomer Nick Sheppard.

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“Southbound,” The Allman Brothers Band, 1973

The “Brothers and Sisters” LP is a perfect example of how a period of difficult challenge can produce superb results. The Allman Brothers had lost their leader Duane Allman and then their bass player Berry Oakley, both to motorcycle wrecks, but they decided to soldier on with Dickey Betts leading the way and other musicians like keyboardist Chuck Leavell and guitarist Les Dudek playing guest roles. Thanks to the #2 hit “Ramblin’ Man,” the superb instrumental “Jessica” and Gregg Allman tunes like “Wasted Words” and “Come and Go Blues,” the album reached #1. Betts also contributed the “Southbound,” a spirited guitar/piano blues workout.

“South of the Border,” The Doobie Brothers, 1989

In 1975, Tom Johnston, the leader/guitarist/singer/songwriter of The Doobies, was forced to leave the lineup because of bleeding ulcers and exhaustion. Keyboardist/crooner Michael McDonald was recruited and ultimately took the band in a more soulful direction for its second phase. After breaking up in 1982, The Doobies regrouped in 1989 with Johnston back at the forefront and released “Cycles,” which recalled the band’s early LPs. Johnston’s tune “The Doctor” became a Top Ten single, but just as compelling was his marvelous boogie groove, “South of the Border,” about riding to “a sleepy little town” in Mexico for a romantic rendezvous.

“Southern Cross,” Crosby, Stills and Nash, 1982

In 1982, Rick and Michael Curtis wrote a song called “Seven League Boots” and showed to Stephen Stills. “They brought us this wonderful song, but I decided to write a new set of words for it, a story about a long boat trip I took after my divorce. It’s about using the power of the universe to heal your wounds.” It became “Southern Cross,” named for the Crux constellation, and went to #18 on the US charts: “When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way, /’Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small, but it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a comin’ day…”

“Down South,” Tom Petty, 2006

On his third solo LP without The Heartbreakers, Petty, a native of Florida, wanted to write about the South. “It’s a very romantic place, but it’s also a spooky place,” he said. “You’d think a lot of ghosts still linger down there. I’d written about the South years ago, and I wondered, ‘What if I went back? What would be my impressions?’ And then it came pretty easily. I wrote all the lyrics before I wrote the music.” It’s one of his best: “Create myself down south, impress all the women, /Pretend I’m Samuel Clemens, wear seersucker and white linens, /So if I come to your door, let me sleep on your floor, /I’ll give you all I have, and a little more…”

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“Looking East,” Jackson Browne, 1996

One of Southern California’s native sons and very best singer-songwriters, Browne sang and wrote poignantly about life and love on his 1970s LPs and then turned his attentions to politics and global issues in the mid-1980s and beyond. On his 1996 album “Looking East,” the title track found Browne philosophical about what’s to come with the dawn: “Standing in the ocean with the sun burning low in the west, at the edge of my country, my back to the sea, looking east… And there’s a God-sized hunger underneath the laughing and the rage, /In the absence of light and the deepening night where I wait for the sun, looking east…”

“East at Midnight,” Gordon Lightfoot, 1986

Canada’s premier songwriter since the 1960s had quite an impressive run on the US charts throughout the 1970s, but when pop music tastes changed in the ’80s, sales fell off. Lightfoot continued to write and record great songs, including “Dream Street Rose, Baby Step Back,” “Anything For Love” and particularly the title track from his 1986 album, “East of Midnight.” Its lyrics adopt a familiar Lightfoot theme of a traveling man looking for romance and a place to rest his head: “Put me somewhere east of midnight, along about daylight, /Anywhere I wander is where I’ll take my rest, /If we could just lie down, toss some thoughts around…”

“East of the Sun (and West of the Moon),” Frank Sinatra, 1961

Wrritten back in 1935 by a Princeton University junior named Brooks Bowman for the college’s a cappella singing groups, this tune became a standard by the mid-1940s. It’s been recorded by dozens of major stars like Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald and Diana Krall, and even instrumental,ists like Al Hirt, Charlie Parker and Stan Getz. The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra recorded it in 1940 with a very young Frank Sinatra, and Sinatra recorded it again in 1961 for a tribute LP called “I Remember Tommy.”

“East of Eden,” Michael McDonald, 1993

First as a background vocalist for Steely Dan, then as a full-fledged member of The Doobie Brothers, and finally as a solo artist, McDonald became a ubiquitous presence on Top 40 radio in the ’70s and ’80s. His work in the 1990s failed to gain much attention, though, especially his 1993 LP “Blink of an Eye,” which didn’t chart at all. There’s a nice, spiritually driven tune he wrote called “East of Eden” that’s worth a listen: “The world goes mad around us as I stand by and watch you sleep, /In the hope that harm won’t find us, I pray the lord our souls to keep, /Does he see us here? Are we precious in his sight? /Or are we merely dust on this tiny ball he hurled out into the night somewhere east of Eden…”

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“Once Upon a Time in the West,” Dire Straits, 1979

For the leadoff track on Dire Straits’ second album, “Communiqué,” songwriter/guitarist Mark Knopfler wrote a downbeat piece comparing London’s West End to the American Wild West, where, in both cases, you had to watch your step and avoid dangerous situations. “Once Upon a Time in the West” benefits from Knopfler’s spooky, fluid guitar style, which is the perfect complement for the forbidding lyrics: “Sitting on a fence, that’s a dangerous course, /Oh, you could even catch a bullet from the peace-keeping force…”

“Wild, Wild West,” The Escape Club, 1988

Here’s another example of a British band comparing life in London in the late ’80s to the American Wild West. The Escape Club’s guitarists, Trevor Steel and John Holliday, were the songwriters that came up with the music and lyrics for this unusual song, which has sexual connotations, as did the edgy music video played heavily on MTV at the time. It reached #1 in the US in 1988, with references to the East/West conflict and the Cold War of the Reagan years: “Got to live it up, live it up, Ronnie’s got a new gun, /She’s so mean but I don’t care, I love her eyes and her wild wild hair, /Dance to the beat that we love best, /Heading for the Nineties, living in the wild Wild West…”

“West End Girls,” Pet Shop Boys, 1985

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of The Pet Shop Boys wrote this haunting, yet danceable pop hit, which was #1 in the UK in 1985 and in the US in 1986. It’s about class struggles and the challenges of inner-city life in London, delivered in a half-sung, half-spoken voice. I love how citric Nitsuh Abebe describes it: “Tennant mumbles the verses to us not like a star, but like a stranger in a raincoat, slinking alongside you and pointing out the sights.” All the music on the track was created digitally — drums, bass, synthesized strings, even trumpet — using an Emulator.

“Into the West,” Annie Lennox, 2003

“Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson wanted a poignant, moving song that would work well for the conclusion of “Return of the King,” the final chapter of the Tolkien trilogy. Film score composer Howard Shore collaborated with screenwriter Fran Walsh and the great Annie Lennox to write “Into the West,” sung by Lennox, which won a Grammy, a Golden Globe and an Oscar for best original song that year. The song’s meaning can be viewed from the perspectives of various characters as the epic tale ends, but some say it’s about Death singing to everyone as they prepare to pass away.

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Honorable mentions:

“Girl From the North Country,” Bob Dylan, 1963/1969; “North Sea Oil,” Jethro Tull, 1979; “Southern Man,” Neil Young, 1970; “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way),” Chris Isaak, 1996; “South Dakota Morning,” The Bee Gees, 1973; “Salty South,” Indigo Girls, 2009; “Southbound Again,” Dire Straits, 1978; “South City Midnight Lady,” The Doobie Brothers, 1973; “East at Easter,” Simple Minds, 1984; “Eastbound and Down,” Jerry Reed, 1977: “Wild West,” Joe Jackson, 1985; “West L.A. Fadeaway,” The Grateful Dead, 1987; “Wild West Hero,” ELO, 1977.

I said, Lord, take me downtown

Posted on by brucehhackett

Back in 1970, the two most popular brands of rolling papers were Zig-Zag and Top. When a gritty little blues band out of Texas named ZZ Top released their debut album, stoners assumed the name was a winking reference to those two brands.

Billy Gibbons, the group’s superb guitarist and de facto leader, chuckles when he hears this and replies, “No, I’m afraid not. We had a bunch of posters of great blues players in our apartment back then, people like B.B. King and Arzell Hill, who went by Z.Z. Hill, and we thought we’d combine them into ZZ King, but that was too similar to B.B. King’s name, so we figured, ‘The king is at the top,” so we went with ZZ Top. That’s the true story.”

Hmmm. Well, okay. I can live with that, although I think the first version makes for a more enticing tale. In either case, ZZ Top is certainly a better name than Gibbons’ first band, The Moving Sidewalks. Ultimately, what matters in this group’s story is the music and the remarkable long-term chemistry between the three guys who comprised ZZ Top for all these years. They’ve set a record (51 years) for the rock band with the most years without a change in the band’s lineup.

Dusty Hill, circa 1975

Sadly, though, that has come to an end with the death last week of Dusty Hill, the extraordinary bass player behind ZZ Top’s unique sound. He had suffered from bursitis, a hip replacement and even an accidental gunshot wound in the past, but still, his passing at age 72 was unexpected.

Fans will be pleased to hear that ZZ Top plans to continue touring with Elwood Francis, the band’s long-time guitar tech, on bass. According to Gibbons, “Dusty emphatically grabbed my arm a little while back and said, ‘Give Elwood the bottom end, and take it to the Top.’ That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

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Note: There’s a Spotify playlist at the end of this post that I’ve compiled of ZZ Top’s most noteworthy tunes, if you care to listen along while reading!

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Time for a disclaimer: I’ve never bought a ZZ Top album, and frankly, after listening intently to much of their catalog over the past week, I’m not sure why. Their music — hard-driving, blues-based, boogie rock — is right up my alley. Of course, I knew their radio hits, but I just wasn’t sufficiently motivated to take the time to get to know their albums more fully. My mistake. As of this writing, I have become more of a fan, and I have developed a respect for their work and their achievements in the music business.

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Hill and eventual ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard were both from Dallas, becoming bandmates in a local group called American Blues, which also included Hill’s guitarist brother Rocky. In 1968, Dusty Hill and Beard wanted to broaden their horizons to do more than just straight blues, so they relocated to Houston, where the scene offered more musical options.

Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard in 1975

Houston-born Gibbons had built some notoriety there as a hot lead guitarist, singer and songwriter with his band, The Moving Sidewalks, and they even got the chance to be the warmup act for his idol, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, once in Houston. “We had the audacity to play ‘Foxy Lady’ and ‘Purple Haze’ in our set, and when we looked offstage, he was standing there, watching and grinning. Afterwards he said, ‘I dig you guys. You’ve got guts.'”

The drummer for The Moving Sidewalks wasn’t working out, so Beard made his move and became the new drummer. The band released a single and was poised to sign a deal with London Records, the American affiliate of British-based Decca Records, but their bass player wouldn’t sign. He was ousted and replaced by Hill at Beard’s recommendation, and the deal with London was inked just as they changed their name to ZZ Top.

Their debut album in 1971 was appropriately titled “ZZ Top’s First Album” because “we wanted everyone to know there would be more,” noted Gibbons. Based on its chart performance, it should’ve also been their last — it went absolutely nowhere, missing the Top 200 album chart and yielding no singles. But when I listened to it last week, I was impressed by the way they took their blues influences and merged them with rock elements to create their own approach. As Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys said last week, “They were a blues band with their own sound, and that’s hard to do.” The tracks weren’t polished, nor was Gibbons’ gruff voice, but there’s solid blues rock there, especially “Brown Sugar” (no relation to the Rolling Stones tune), “Neighbor, Neighbor” and “Backdoor Love Affair.”

Their 1972 follow-up LP, “Rio Grande Mud,” at least reached #104 and spawned the single “Francine,” though it stalled at #69. Gibbons continued to hone his blues-rock songwriting, adding dashes of suggestive humor, innuendo and some taboo subjects here and there into the lyrics just for grins.

By 1973, he came up with a tune that still gets classic rock radio airplay nearly 50 years later: “La Grange,” which uses an infectious riff you may have heard in other blues tunes (“Refried Boogie” by Canned Heat, for example). It’s a tale about a notorious brothel called the Chicken Shack, which became “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” on stage and screen in the ’80s. The album it came from, “Tres Hombres,” recorded in Memphis, peaked at #8, putting ZZ Top on the map in a big way.

My friend Tracie, an Albuquerque native who went to college in Dallas, remembers first seeing and hearing ZZ Top at a free concert on the quad her first week on campus. “ZZ Top will always have a special place in my heart! At that concert, the Texas folk knew who they were, but this ‘little girl from the small mining town in the west’ never heard of them! I knew instantly that if this band was typical of Texas rock, I was gonna love college!” My friend Carl, a native Texan, recalled, “They were a wild-times, rowdy, fun, crank-it-up party band. We memorized every note, every word of tracks like ‘Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers’ until the grooves on the vinyl were gone!”

Hot on its heels in 1975 came “Fandango!,’ a half-live, half-studio release that went Top Ten and included “Tush,” featuring another indelible riff that reached #20 on the singles charts. By this point, the three-piece band was touring virtually non-stop, at first warming up for acts like The Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd but usually as the headliner. Whereas their earlier shows didn’t offer much visually, ZZ Top mounted a mammoth, 300-date tour from mid-1976 to mid-1977 they called the Worldwide Texas Tour, where they used elaborate staging and costumes designed to showcase their Texas roots.

That tour made them one of the nation’s top draws during that period, but it also took its toll. Frank Beard had developed a serious alcohol and drug problem that required rehabilitation, so instead of finding a replacement, the band chose to go on hiatus for a couple of years. For us, there was no other drummer but Frank,” said Hill. “We were tired and needed a break, and we were willing to wait for him to get better.”

Their return to active recording and touring in 1979 was marked by several changes. Gibbons had been paying attention to technological developments and the New Wave music trends, both of which showed up on their albums “Deguello” and “El Loco,” and singles like “Cheap Sunglasses” and the double-entendre classic “Pearl Necklace.” The group made their first appearances in England and the European continent, and time spent in the studio with the British band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark introduced them to how drum machines and synthesizers could became prominent tools in the ZZ Top arsenal. Some of their original fans were none too pleased by this development, but for every old fan they lost, they gained three new ones.

Coincidentally, both Gibbons and Hill, independently and without each other’s knowledge, had grown chest-length beards which, when combined with sunglasses worn more or less permanently, gave them a cartoonish appearance that became part of ZZ Top’s new self-deprecating sense of humor.

The timing of all this was perfect, as Music Television, soon known far and wide as MTV, made its debut and changed the face of pop music. Bands became overnight sensations based just as much (or more) on what their video looked like than what their music sounded like. ZZ Top enlisted videographer Tim Newman, who was keen on shooting “mini-movies” instead of standard concert video. Because Gibbons, Hill and Beard felt they didn’t exactly have matinee movie star looks, they agreed it would be fun to appear only as background observers, watching the gorgeous women and high-octane cars on music videos like “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs.” Said Gibbons, “We knew we weren’t prima donna rock stars, so why not be the guys watching from the background, rooting for the underdog and the misfit?”

How ironic that a trio of unfashionable Texas rockers would end up as superstars in the very fashion-conscious MTV era. “We found it all kind of silly, but it was a fun time,” said Beard. And profitable as hell, too — sales of their 1983 LP “Eliminator” topped 15 million and put them in the Top Ten in the US, UK, Australia and several other European countries. The ZZ Top gravy train continued throughout the ’80s, with 1985’s “Afterburner” and 1990’s “Recycler” also achieving huge chart rankings and sales numbers, thanks in large part to MTV exposure for “Rough Boy,” “Doubleback” and “My Head’s in Mississippi.”

1994’s “Antenna” and its hit single “Pincushion” turned out to be ZZ Top’s last fling with superstardom. After that, the band still made a few LPs and toured periodically, but MTV stopped running music videos and their following dwindled. Through it all, the band was like a sturdy three-legged stool — all three legs were of equal importance to the band’s continued lifespan.

Hill, who started playing bass at age 12 because his older brother insisted on it, said he learned a lot about the instrument and what it could do by listening to virtuosos like Cream’s Jack Bruce and jazz greats like Stanley Clarke and Charles Mingus. “I used to try to come up with all these complex bass lines, kind of showing off, I guess,” he said in a 2014 interview. “But it didn’t take me long to figure out I needed to play to the song. Sometimes you shouldn’t even notice the bass, and I hate that in a way, but I also love that in a way. To not be noticed is a compliment. It means you’ve filled in everything just right for the song, and you’re not standing out where you don’t need to be.”

Gibbons, Hill, Beard (without a beard)

That kind of unassuming, humble approach to their fame has served the group well. “We’re the same three guys playing the same three chords,” said Gibbons in the highly watchable 2019 documentary film, “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band From Texas.” If you have even a passing interest in this group, I recommend you check it out. It’s on Amazon now.

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