History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs (25 page)

Henry Townsend quoted in
Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl: The Life & Music of Robert Johnson,
directed by Peter Meyer (WinStar Video, 1997).

Jack White quoted in “Jack White Releases Obscure Blues Records for ‘No Profit,’”
BBC News Entertainment and Arts,
6 February 2013.

T Bone Burnett quoted in Adam Gold, “Q&A: T Bone Burnett on ‘Nashville,’ Elton John’s Comeback and Retiring as a Producer,”
rollingstone.com
, 18 December 2012. “And we’ve done that again and again and again,” he added: “Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmie Rodgers, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters.” In 1981, as a struggling singer-songwriter without a label, Burnett offered his own version of the history of rock ’n’ roll in the form of an invitation to a showcase performance at the Hollywood American Legion Hall:

T. BONE BURNETT

Produced:

River Deep Mountain High

Hey Jude

Oklahoma

I Who Have Nothing

El Paso

Wrote:

My Way

Night and Day

The End

Ya Ya

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Recorded:

Heartbreak Hotel

I Write the Songs

Under the Boardwalk

Strangers in the Night

Beatles at The Hollywood Bowl

ALL I ASK IS A CHANCE
!

Jonathan Lethem, “The Fly in the Ointment” (2007), collected in
The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.
(New York: Doubleday, 2011), 314.

“A ghost is writing”: Bob Dylan quoted in Robert Hilburn, “Rock’s Enigmatic Poet Opens a Long-Private Door,”
Los Angeles Times,
4 April 2004.

Ralph Ellison, “On Bird, Birdwatching, and Jazz” (1962); collected in
Living with Music: Ralph Ellison’s Writings on Jazz,
ed. Robert O’Meally (New York: Modern Library Classics, 2002).

Cuff Links, “Guided Missiles” (DooTone, 1956).

Peter Guralnick,
Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock ’n’ Roll
(1971; New York: Vintage, 1981), 35.

Loretha K. Smith interviewed by Grey Brennan and Steve Grauberger for “Alabama Bluesman Isaiah ‘ike’ Zimmerman,” Alabama Arts Radio Series, Troy University Public Radio Network, 24 July 2011.

Bob Dylan, “Love Sick” in “Angels in Venice” (Victoria’s Secret, 2004). That same year, in a
60 Minutes
interview to mark the publication of
Chronicles, Volume One,
the interviewer Ed Bradley praised Dylan for his stamina: “You’re still out here, doing these songs, you’re still on tour.” “I do,” Dylan said, “but I don’t take it for granted . . . It goes back to the destiny thing. I made a bargain with” (and it sounds as if the tape is cut) “It” (again the sound of a cut) “a long time ago, and I’m holding up my end.” “What was your bargain?” Bradley said. “To get where I am now,” Dylan said. “Should I ask who you made the bargain with?” Bradley said, grinning. Dylan snorted. “Huh,” he said. “He, heh, he, you know, with. With, with, with the chief, uh, the chief commander.” “On this earth?” Bradley said. “Heh, heh, on this earth and the, the other world we can’t see,” Dylan said.

“MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)” 1959 / 1963

“Money Changes Everything” 1978 / 1983 / 2008 / 2005

Rubella Ballet, “Money Talks” (Ubiquitous, 1985, included on
At the End of the Rainbow,
Ubiquitous, 1990).

Barrett Strong, “Money (That’s What I Want)” (Anna, 1960, in Detroit, Tamla, number 23).

Raynoma Gordy Singleton,
Berry, Me, and Motown: The Untold Story
(Chicago: Contemporary, 1990), 71, 84–85. According to Larry Rohter’s front-page report “For a Classic Motown Song About Money, Credit is What He Wants,”
New York Times,
1 September 2013, Strong was responsible for the instrumental track of “Money” and was unfairly deprived of his credit both for that and for contributing to the lyrics. Seventy-two and living in a Detroit retirement home, Strong had reasserted authorship rights to
“Money,” which over the years had produced millions of dollars in royalties: “Unbeknownst to Mr. Strong,” Rohter wrote, “his name was removed from the copyright registration for ‘Money’ three years after the song was written, restored in 1987 when the copyright was renewed, then removed again the next year—literally crossed out.” “The real reason Motown worked,” Strong told Rohter, who also quoted Eugene Grew, the guitarist on “Money,” on Strong’s musical direction of the session, “was the publishing. The records were just a vehicle to get the songs out there to the public. The real money is in the publishing, and if you have the publishing”—Strong had sold his interest in the many other Motown hits he had co-written for two million dollars, which he then lost in an attempt to set up his own studio—“hang on to it. That’s what it’s all about. If you give it away, you’re giving away your life, your legacy. Once you’re gone, those songs will still be playing.”

Devin McKinney,
Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 17–18.

Beatles, “Money,” from
With the Beatles
(Parlophone, 1963). ——— “Money (That’s What I Want),” Stockholm, 24 October 1963, included on
The Beatles Anthology 1
(Capitol, 1995).

Rolling Stones, “You Better Move On” / “Poison IVY” / “Bye Bye Johnny” / “Money” (Decca EP, 1964).

Plastic Ono Band, “Money,” from
Live Peace in Toronto, 1969
(Apple, 1969); John Lennon with Eric Clapton, guitar; Klaus Voormann, bass; and Alan White, drums.

John Lennon quoted in Jann S. Wenner,
Lennon Remembers
(1971; London: Verso, 2000), 144. From a 1971
Rolling Stone
interview.

Brains, “Money Changes Everything” (Gray Matter, 1978).

——— “Money Changes Everything,” from
The Brains
(Mercury,
1980). For this rerecording of the song, Gray paused over one word, rushed over another, cueing the listener what to think; the band, or their expensive new producer, Steve Lilywhite, whose name was just too perfect, smoothed out the ham-fisted drumming of the original and steadied the beat, priming the song for the airplay it missed the first time around and never came close to touching the second. As almost always with punk, you can’t remove the worst without losing what you started with—any sense of why you thought the song was worth singing in the first place. The song was too strong to clean up; it kept most of its power.

Cyndi Lauper,
She’s So Unusual
(Portrait, 1983).

———“Money Changes Everything” (Portrait, 1984, number 27).

Cyndi Lauper with Jancee Dunn,
Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir
(New York: Atria, 2012), 114.

Dock Boggs,
Country Blues
(Revenant, 1997, 1927 recordings).

Cyndi Lauper, “Money Changes Everything,” from
The Body Acoustic
(Sony, 2005, CD and DVD).

Killing Them Softly,
written and directed by Andrew Dominik (The Weinstein Company, 2012).

“THIS MAGIC MOMENT” 2007 / 1959

Jerry Wexler quoted in Gerri Hirshey, notes to
Till the Night Is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus
(Forward/Rhino, 1995).

Lou Reed, “This Magic Moment,” on
Till the Night Is Gone.
Best heard, if not in the movie, on the soundtrack to
Lost Highway
(Nothing, 1996).

Lou Reed and Ben E. King, “This Magic Moment,” Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 22 July 2007.

Richard “Rabbit” Brown, “Never Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice” (Victor, 1927), can be found on the anthology
Never Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice: Blues, Ballads, Rags and Gospel in the Songster Tradition
(Document); “James Alley Blues” (Victor, 1927) is best heard on
Anthology of American Folk Music,
ed. Harry Smith (Folkways, 1952/Smithsonian Folkways, 1997).

Memphis Minnie, “He’s in the Ring (Doing the Same Old Thing)” (Vocalion, 1935), is best heard on
Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music Vol. 4
(Revenant, 2000).

Joe Louis, quoted in “Joe Louis Greeter at Las Vegas Hotel,” United Press, carried in
Spokane Daily Chronicle,
25 May 1955: “Former heavyweight champion Joe Louis started a new job today as official host and greeter for the Moulin Rouge, Las Vegas’ first inter-racial resort hotel.

“A crowd of nearly 4000 persons filled the Moulin Rouge at its lavish opening last night.

“The new 210-room hostelry, the largest of its kind in the country, was built to accommodate Negro tourists who are barred from the 10 luxury hotels along the famed ‘strip.’ The $3,000,000 two-story hotel offers a swimming pool, gambling casino and theater-restaurant.”

Drifters, “There Goes My Baby” (Atlantic, 1959).

——— “Dance with Me” (Atlantic, 1959).

——— “This Magic Moment” (Atlantic, 1960). All best heard on the set
Atlantic Rhythm and Blues, 1947–1974
(Atlantic, 1991).

Keith Richards with James Fox,
Life
(New York: Back Bay, 2010), 256–57.

D. H. Lawrence,
Studies in Classic American Literature
(1923; New York: Viking, 1964), 2.

Lenny Kaye, “The Second Taste, 1954–1962,” in Ahmet Ertegun,
What’d I Say: The Atlantic Story
(London: A Publishing; New York: Welcome Rain, 2001), 125.

Nan Goldin,
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency,
1979–continuing, in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and other museums. Made entirely of still photographs, as many as eight hundred in different versions, the music running through it—opera, blues, soul, Top 40 hits, songs from the most fetid corners of New Wave—makes the work a movie. The music creates the illusion of dramatic inevitability—with every cut, you feel as if you’re part of a forty-minute tracking shot. People pose happily for occasions of ease or friendship or let’s-remember-this, but in moments of sex, misery, estrangement, or despair they don’t seem to be posing at all. There’s no sense of voyeurism. Everyone is a witness to everyone else. “Love, heroin, and chocolate” in Goldin,
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
(New York: Aperture, 1986).

Dean Martin, “Memories Are Made of This” (Capitol, 1955).

AKA Doc Pomus,
directed by Peter Miller and Will Hechter (Clear Lake Historical Productions, 2012). There is nothing remotely ordinary about this film. It can’t be compared to any other music biopic or documentary. There is just too much flair, and too much love. The directors have a visual imagination that makes the cutting together of historical footage, album covers, movie posters, vintage interviews with the main subject, a voice-over of Lou Reed reading Pomus’s journals, talking heads of people now looking back, still photos, and home movies seem like a revelation instead of a formula. The result is countless people—Pomus’s ex-wife, his girlfriend, his children, musicians, collaborators, friends—laughing through tears, and soon enough you’re one of them. Again and again you’re pulled up short by a moment too
right to take in all at once: you hold it in your memory or stop the DVD and run it back. The most remarkable sequence comes after the end of the picture. Pomus has died. You’ve attended his funeral. The credits begin to roll. In a box on the right of the screen, people who you’ve heard tell the story are now singing or talking the words to “Save the Last Dance for Me”—and you recall the footage from Pomus’s wedding, when his new wife danced with everyone but her new husband, who found a way to put it all down on paper. A phrase at a time; you’re surprised how well writers can sing, or that Ben E. King, who took the lead vocal, speaks the words like talk. Five, eight, twelve, seventeen, twenty people, including, just before the end, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Leiber looking terribly debilitated and frail, but hitting all the notes—it goes on and on, until the whole song has been declaimed as if it were the Gettysburg Address.

Ray Charles, “What Would I Do Without You” (Atlantic, 1956). As Robbie Robertson hears it, a love song to heroin.

Chantels, “If You Try” (End, 1958). After “Maybe” and “I Love You So,” a prototype of the life-lesson soul record—there’s no hope for the singer, but you might be luckier.

Five Keys, “Dream On” (Capitol, 1959).

Lonnie Mack, “Why,” from
The Wham of That Memphis Man!
(Fraternity, 1963/Ace, 2006). “A Change is Gonna come,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” and even “Wish Someone Would Care” have long since become part of the pop language, but “Why” remains almost unknown. In 1963 Lonnie Mack was twenty-two, pudgy, dorky-looking despite his flattop-ducktail, but he’s had two big instrumental guitar hits on a little Cincinnati label, a version of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” and “Wham!” so
he gets to make an album. The last track is Mack’s own “Why.” The song is a staircase: after each verse, where he tells us about the woman who left him, it’s the climb of the chorus to the roof, where the singer throws himself off. It’s the surge of intensity, of terror—the singer terrorizing the listener, but more than that the singer terrorizing himself. It’s almost inhuman, how much pain he’s discovered—and the way he’s discovered that he can make it real, something he can all but hold in his hands.

The first chorus comes. “Why,” he sings. And then he screams the word, and it’s unbearable, how far he goes with the single syllable. Mack cuts back with the next line, softly: “Why did you leave me this way.” But the echo of that second “Why” is there.

Then the second verse. “Now I’m standing”—and the last word is drawn out, shuddering—“By my window / I decided”—again drawn out so far—“What I would do”—and you’re sure he’s going to kill himself—“I would never / Tell anybody / How much / I loved / You.” And then the second chorus, the spoken “Why,” then again the same word screamed, then the quiet “Why did you leave me this way”—and then something really terrible: the looming possibility that the singer might go all the way. What if he did? Would he still be standing? Would you? There is a guitar solo. It’s powerful, but it’s a pause, because what you’re really hearing hasn’t happened yet. It’s what you’re wishing for, what you’re afraid of: the final chorus.