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1. Johnny Cash - San Quentin 2. Gil Scott-Heron - When You Are Who You Are 3. Gil Scott-Heron - Or Down You'll Fall 4. David Allan Coe - Long Haired Redneck 5. The National - Karen 6. Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) 7. Deborah Harry - Well Did You Evah? 8. David Bowie - Sound and Vision [Live] 9. R.E.M. - Pilgrimage 10. Johnny Cash - Starkville City Jail
Brilliant. This is the 6th or 7th times Cash had played San Quentin. This one was being filmed for the BBC, who more often than not were getting in Cash’s way and trying to make him play the songs they wanted. This set is where the famous photo of cash flicking off the camera came from. The first time Cash had played, it was an outdoor even on a rainy day. Merle Haggard was one of the inmates, and in the linear notes he talks about the inmates being largely uninterested in Cash. By this time Rock and Roll had taken hold and country was out. Cash came out and played through the rain, with equipment going bad, and just kept going until he earned the inmates respect. By the next time he played, they were his devotees. On this album, you can hear the crowd of inmates hanging on Cash’s every word. Cash is constantly raising the tension and then releasing it a moment later. The band is in top form. I’ve been a Cash fan for more than half my life, but hadn’t picked up this album till recently. Even I Was surprised by the force of these songs. He doesn’t start out with anything as crazily deranged as “Cocaine Blues” off the AT FOLSOM PRISON album. That album had a lot more focus on criminality, where as AT SAN QUENTIN focuses more on injustice. AT SAN QUENTIN is also heavier on the uplift at the end. Once June Carter Cash comes out, the mood turns from something dark and bitter, to something redemptive. But always with a sense of humor. He performs two versions of “San Quentin”, at the request of the inmates. It’s really a chilling song. Full of bite and anger. The line “San Quentin you’ve been living hell to me.” is delivered with such force and commitment, the anger and pain hits home. The structure of the song is brilliant, punching through with a feeling of injustice. It’s clear Cash didn’t believe San Quentin was helping the inmates, as much as they may have deserved to be there. “Starkville City Jail” is maybe more lighthearted, but still carried through with anger at authority figures who just don’t care. The song tells a true story about Cash going out to pick flowers late at night and being tossed in jail for being out beyond curfew. I find it hard to read the reaction of the crowd on this song. Whether the crowd was really digging it because they were identifying with it, or because they are laughing with it. I think it’s both, Cash is telling them a pretty unremarkable story about one night in jail. The crowd laughs when he goes to pick flowers and the officer calls him a “flower child”. But by the end, Cash is able to get across the frustration and indignity of the situation and make it universal.
I’ve been listening to this album straight through since I bought it. At least once or twice a week. Brilliant stuff. It slips into a groove that is hard to disengage from. Heron may have written the first rap song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. Which is included in this collection. There were poems put to music before this “revolution”, but nothing really laid out the blueprint for an emerging genre like “revolution” The rest of the collection features songs with a more traditional socially aware, soul sound. For a greatest hits collection, it’s amazing how cohesive the album is. Slipping from one song to the next smoothly, but each song is still unique. The band is in top form and it’s amazing to hear the interplay between the band and the voice. The lyrics are top form and only one of the songs, “Save the Children”, gets too preachy. The delivery is terrifically clear and powerful. I’m at a bit of a loss for specifics, for as many times as I’ve played the album in the last couple months, it’s very easy to just get locked into it and lost in it. I’m still enjoying it way too much, and still surprised by it way too much, to analyze it to any extreme degree.
“I can sing all them songs about Texas…” Coe sings in a the snottiest, snarkiest country voice I’ve heard in a long time. Coe is a long haired, long bearded, crazy man who was part of the outlaw country craze, but didn’t gain the same level of recognition as Haggard, Cash or even Kristofferson. This song is pretty much about the radio inattention and lack of respect that the general country scene give Coe. The song is full of shout outs, boasts and a slyly sarcastic delivery style.
LOUDMOUTH IN THE CORNER'S GETTING' TO ME This song and the collection in general really makes a lot of similarities between country and rap clear to me. The way both use shout outs to other artists in order to establish community, credibility or a feud. The outlaw persona (Coe supposedly killed a man during one of stays in jail). I could even stretch it to point out how country artists sing about booze in the same way rap artists rap about chronic. On a wider scale, country during the outlaw days was experiencing the emergence of a huge gap between the mainstream country and non-mainstream. To point where now what’s called “country” is about as separated from it’s roots as a genre can be. Rap it’s in the middle of the split now, with few artists riding the mainstream. Uh, back to the song. The lyrics kind of say it all, “My long hair just can’t hide my redneck.” The moves along at a typical country drink up speed, but slows down suddenly to deliver the “I can sing all them songs about Texas” line. Coe is willing to break down the structure of his songs in ways other country artists don’t typically do. Unfortunately, I can’t quite recommend this collection. Too many of the songs have a slicker production that afflicted too much country music in the late 70’s to the mid 80’s. If it weren’t for the lyrics and vocal delivery, much of the music in this collection would be hard to distinguish from Hank Williams Jr., Merle Haggard, etc. It’s just not a sound that can keep my attention track after track. Hopefully his back catalog deviates a bit more production wise. But it’s still a cracking good collection of songs, and taken only two or three at a time, I don’t suffer from the listening fatigue. Also worth checking out is “Would You Lay with me in a field of stone” a sweet, sad song that is surprisingly stark and brutal.
The best album from last year, I’ve already said it, but it needs to be repeated.
I’ve already written about this one. One of my favorite songs of all time.
I just found out today that they are putting out a re-release of this album, with remastered tracks and all the videos from the album. This collection was my first real introduction to Cole Porter. It’s not a perfect collection, but there are some great pieces in the lineup. U2, David Byrne, Tom Waits, Sinead O’Connor. Iggy Pop and Deborah Harry team up on this song. Just a really fun and catchy song. Nice interplay between Iggy and Deborah. Worth checking out.
This is one of my favorite Bowie songs and one of my favorite Bowie live recordings. A nice transition of the song live. It’s not very different than the album version, but it does take a song that seems ephemeral, withdrawn and synthetic(in a good way) and helps to make it organic.
I have a bias towards anything off this collection though, because I happened to stumble blindly upon it in a used CD store a looong time ago. It wasn’t even in the Bowie section. I haven’t seen it for sale before or since. Though, there is now a re-released import of it with a different cover. 
9. R.E.M. – PilgrimageFrom MURMUR I’ve played this album to death. It’s another album that pulls me into it’s groove and I usually play it straight through over and over again. It’s layered and abstract enough to stay interesting each time. I love the “ooh ooh ooh” sounds on this track. A good example of R.E.M.’s ability to sound massive and intimate at the same time. Still my favorite R.E.M. album, but I’m not one of those people who thinks only their early stuff was worthwhile. My second fav of theirs is NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI and third is UP. (REVEAL had some really great moments, and I haven’t heard much off the new one.) -Steven Mangold
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Album of the Week
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