THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Lady in the Long Black Veil

It's  a song sung by a ghost, so it should not be a surprise that it's a song with an afterlife.

I'm talking, of course about "Long Black Veil." I first heard it by The Band. It's probably best known for its version by Johnny Cash. It originally was recorded by Lefty Frizzell. It was written by  by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkins.

American Songwriter in a 2013 article said the song began with Dill wanting to "write a folk song that would last for the ages."  Writer Jim Beviglia said:

He was partially inspired by a newspaper story of a priest in New Jersey who was killed under a streetlight with witnesses watching. For the chorus, Dill drew from the song “God Walks These Hills With Me.”

Perhaps most fascinating of all, Dill borrowed elements of the urban legend surrounding the grave of actor Rudolph Valentino. It seems that each year following the death of the legendary Italian screen star, a woman wearing a long black veil would lay a single red rose on the grave, drawing the attention of the press in the process. (The majority of the evidence points to the Valentino phenomenon having originated as a publicity stunt, which was then carried on in subsequent years by copycats.)

Dill took his unfinished song to co-writer Marijohn Wilkin to hammer out the plot. What they came up with was a tale that transcended all of its disparate sources.

Indeed they did. Here's Lefty's version recorded in 1959:



The song has been covered by a wide range of folk, country and rock acts, from Joan Baez to Social Distrortion's Mike Ness to The Chieftains (vocals by Mick Jagger) to Nick Cave to Bill Monroe to Orion.

But before most of those, the song's co-writer, Marijohn Wilkin, cut a version from the perspective of the best friend's wife. She called it "My Long Black Veil."



Then in 2011 Jason Boland & The Stragglers recorded a song called "False Accuser's Lament" in which he revealed the murder beneath the town hall light was part of a conspiracy by the husband of the lady in the long black veil.



Somehow Boland's answer song didn't inspire its own answer song in which the ghost of the frame man seeks revenge on his former best friend.

Maybe that's next. But until then, here is Red Foley's country hymn, "God Walks These Hills With Me"

[UPDATE 6-29-17: Just a couple of months after this post, Foley's version has disappeared from YouTube. But here's a version by Don Gibson.]



And here are enough "Long Black Veils" to last you an eternity!




For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

WACKY WEDNESDAY: 40 Years of Cramps

It was 40 years ago today Poison Ivy taught The Cramps to play.

Or something like that ...

Yesterday Norton Records co-founder and one-time Cramps drummer Miriam Linna posted on her Facebook page a video featuring eight lo-fi, early, early versions of Cramps songs.

And here's what she had to say:

So, like it or whatnot, now is the 40th anniversary of the Cramps first studio recording session, no matter what any boob or youtube might say. This sesh was in April 1977 and it was at Bell Sound in NYC and it was booked and paid for by Richard Robinson who also shot a home movie in his living room a few days later. The cover shown here was for  a Munster boot out of Spain many moons ago. I have no clue where they got the tape. That's all. You can debate the date all you want, but as Kim Brown's Renegades would say, "I Was There".  Just the facts, that is ALL.

As you can see, both the Youtube she posted as well as the bootleg album cover she refers to says the session in question in 1976, the year of our Bison Tentacle.

But like Miriam wrote, she was there and she says '77. So I'll go with that. Miriam said it, I believe it. That settles it.

Anywho, here's that music. As I said, the fi ain't high, but you're listening to HISTORY being made so stop your sniveling!



This is the set list:

1. Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk
2. I Was a Teenage Werewolf
3. Sunglasses After Dark
4. Love Me
5. Domino
6. What's Behind The Mask
7. I Can Hardly Stand It
8. TV Set

And in case you were wondering about the obscure reference to Kim Brown and The Renegades ...

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 9. 2017
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Man in White by The Taxpayers
Creature by Double Date with Death
Lizard People by Playboy Manbaby
The Straight Life by Mudhoney
Dinero by Ton Ton Macoutes
Mantrap by Thee Headcoats
Panic is No Option by Mission of Burma
English Civil War by The Clash
I'm a Big Man by Big Daddy Rogers
It's All Right / For Sentimental Reasons by Sam Cooke

Sing Me Back Home by The Chesterfield Kings
It Ain't Gonna Save Me by Jay Reatard
Take Me Aay by Willis Earl Beal
Spastica by Elastica
I'm Moving On by Yoko Ono
Who Shot the Druggies by Lynx Lynx
No Rock on Mars by The Vagoos
Claw Machine Wizard by Left Lane Cruiser
Pan by Ty Segall
Over and Over by The Moonglows

Youth Against Fascism byb Sonic Youth
Sacrifice/Let There Be Peace by Bob Mould
I Walk for Miles by Dinosaur Jr
Hanged Man by Churchwood
Land of a Thousand Dances by Little Richard
Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf
Don't Fuck Around With Love by Bernadette Seacrest & Kris Dale

The Fat Angel by The Jefferson Airplane
What Once Was Dead by Laino & The Broken Seeds
Is That You in the Blue by Dex Romweber Duo
Don't Blame Me by The Everly Brothers
Peace Like a River by Jerry Lawson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 7 , 2017
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
They Call the Wind Mariah by Bobby Osborne
Dwight Yoakam by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Two Doors Down by Dwight Yoakam
Steve Earle by Lydia Loveless
Hardcore Troubadour by Steve Earle
Bottom Below by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
I Don't Give a Shit by Shinyribs

Border Town Blues by John Wagner
666 Pack by The Meat Purveyors
She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye by Jerry Lee Lewis
Bowling Alley Baby by Reach Around Rodeo Clowns
Mean Mama Boogie by Johnny Bond& His Red River Valley Boys
Patrick by The Misery Jackals
Pigfork Jamboree by The Imperial Rooster
Too Much Pork for Just One Fork by Southern Culture on the Skids
Carny Folk by The Saucer Men
I Drink by Mary Gauthier

Fishin' Forever by Mose McCormack
Season Too Soon by Stephanie Hatfield
Homeland by Lauria
Feelin' Haggard by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
He Won't Ever Be Gone by Willie Nelson
One Sweet Hello by Merle Haggard
Old Man from the Mountain by Eugene Chadborne with Bryan & The Haggards
I'll Fix Your Flat Tire Merle by Pure Prairie League

Take Out the Trash by Jesse Dayton
Who's Gonna Take Your Garbage Out by Rosie Flores & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Long Old Time by Scott H. Biram
Southern White Lies by Marty Fields
Praise Ye the Lord by Jessi Colter
Second Coming Blues by Larry Kirwin
The Man in the Bed by Dave Alvin
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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THROWBACK THURSDAY: See You in My Dreams (Part 2)

Back in December 2014, just a few weeks after I started the Throwback Thursday feature on this blog, I did a look at one of my favorite old songs from the 1920s, "I'll See You in My Dreams."

Written by Isham Jones and lyricist Gus Kahn and published in 1924, and first recorded by the Ray Miller Orchestra (vocals by Frank Besinger) in 1925, "I'll See You in My Dreams" became an instant American classic.

Khan's lyrics seem almost like a mystical incantation, an opening of the door into the world of dreams:

I'll see you in my dreams
Hold you in my dreams
Someone took you right out of my arms
Still I feel the thrill of your charms

Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light my way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams

You can find Ray Miller's version of "Dreams" and several others in that original post.

But there have been so many wonderful covers of the song in the past 90 years or so, I believe my original post deserves a sequel.

Let's start with Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded "Dreams" in the mid 1940s. That's Louis Armstrong on trumpet.



Thrill to the charms of the ever-sultry Julie London, who sang it on her 1968 album, Easy Does It.



Fast forward to the 1990s and you'll find The Asylum Street Spankers singing it on their first album.



British rocker Joe Brown sang it as the closing number of a tribute concert for George Harrison at the Royal Albert Hall in 2002. [Update 5-29-22: That clip apparently was taken down off Youtube. This video is from a different show.]



Brown's cover inspired this moving version by a young British ukulele enthusiast named Sophie Madeleine



That's it for now. See you in my dreams ...


For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook