THOWBACK THURSDAY: The John B Sails Again

Reviewing the movie Love and Mercy last week sent me on Beach Boys kick. One of my favorite songs of theirs for decades has been "Sloop John B," the tale of a miserable sea voyage that started in the Bahamas.

Released first as a single in March 1966, then included a few months later on Pet Sounds, the John B story told goes way beyond cruising to the hamburger stand in your daddy's car:

We come on the sloop John B
My grandfather and me
Around Nassau town we did roam
Drinking all night
Got into a fight
Well I feel so broke up
I want to go home

So hoist up the John B's sail
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the Captain ashore
Let me go home. 
Let me go home
I wanna go home, yeah yeah
Well I feel so broke up
I wanna go home

The first mate he got drunk
And broke in the Cap'n's trunk
The constable had to come and take him away
Sheriff John Stone
Why don't you leave me alone, yeah yeah
Well I feel so broke up I wanna go home

So hoist up the John B's sail
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the Captain ashore
Let me go home,
I wanna go home
Why don't you let me go home
I feel so broke up I wanna go home
Let me go home

The poor cook he caught the fits
And threw away all my grits
And then he took and he ate up all of my corn
Let me go home
Why don't they let me go home
This is the worst trip I've ever been on

No, Brian Wilson didn't write this song. It was brought to him by Al Jardine, the Beach Boys' resident folkie, Jardine had picked it up from a version, titled "Wreck of the John B," by The Kingston trio.

Take a listen:



The Trio was not the only folk group that did this song. Cisco Houston recorded a version, as did The Weavers in the '50s.  Country singer Johnny Cash, who also moved around folk music circles, included it under the title "I Wanna Go Home" on his 1959 album Songs From Our Soil.

 

But the song goes back much further. It came from the Bahamas. It was transcribed by British author Richard Le Gallienne in a 1916 issue of Harper's Monthly in an travel piece called “Coral Islands and Mangrove-Trees” We should thank Le Gallienne for introducing the song -- under the title "The John B. Sails" --  to mainstream culture. And we should try not to puke at his condescending, racist tone:

 These negro songs of Nassau, though crude as to words, have a very haunting, barbaric melody, said to come straight from the African jungle, full of hypnotizing repetitions and absurd choruses,  which, though they may not attract you much at first, end by getting into your blood, so that you often find yourself humming them unawares.

Thank you, great white father.

Poet Carl Sandburg collected it a decade later in his 1927 book of folk songs  American Songbag. 

Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, who recorded his own version a few years ago, did a little research on the song. (Click that link. McGuinn has a nice, free MP3 for you.) On his website, he quotes Sandburg:

'John T. McCutcheon, cartoonist and kindly philosopher, and his wife Eveleyn Shaw McCutcheon, mother and poet, learned to sing this song on their Treasure Island in the West Indies. They tell of it, 'Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau. The weathered ribs of the historic craft lie embedded in the sand at Governor's Harbour, when an expedition, especially set up for the purpose in 1926, extracted a knee of horseflesh and a ring-bolt. These relics are now preserved and built into the Watch Tower, designed by Mr. Howard Shaw and built on our southern coast a couple of points east by north of the star Canopus.'

Nassau singer Blake Alphonso Higgs, who went by the name "Blind Blake" (but was not the American bluesman!) did a calypso version in the early 50s. Another Bahamian, guitar picker Joseph Spence recorded it in his own peculiar way, on his 1972 Arhoolie album Good Morning Mr. Walker.



Van Morrison teamed up with skiffle king Lonnie Donegan at the turn of the century to do this mighty keen rendition. Donegan had recorded a lush version of it in 1960 under the title "I Wanna Go Home." I especially like his verse about the captain being a "wicked man.'



With all the drinking, fighting and other mayhem in this songs it's a wonder that there aren't more punk rock versions. But this Italian band, Devasted, had the right idea





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

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Let Al Duvall Creep into Your World

Al Duvall's latest single

This is a musician I stumbled across several years ago when messing around on the still wonderful Free Music Archive. 

I'll admit, what first drew me to Al Duvall was the fact that he'd actually teamed up with one of my other FMA discoveries, the lovely Singing Sadie.(Whatever happened to her? Someone lemme know!)

But soon I was lured to Duvall's own strange compositions like "Stuck on a Hat Check Girl" and "When Dorey's Behind the Door" (I find myself singing the refrain to this at the strangest moments.)

Usually accompanying himself on banjo, sometimes doubling on kazoo, Duvall seems like some medicine-show performer from some past century come to life. Vaudeville for the criminally insane. His pun-heavy lyrics are dark and wicked, in a Tom Lehrer sort of way. Not hard to imagine Lehrer and Duvall sitting on a park bench together poisoning the pigeons.

Not much is known about Duvall. There are a couple of interesting bios online. This one appears on his FMA page:

Born June 31, 1877 in Pahrump, West Virginia, Algernon Otmer Duvall began his musical career on the vaudeville stage as end-man in Lew Dockstader's Minstrels. He fought in a bicycle squadron in Ypres during World War I, where he received a crippling dose of the Hun's mustard. Returning home, he made ends meet working at a sausage factory in Harrington Delaware from 1921 until 1989. He took up the banjo in 1991 as physical therapy for his pleurisy. He went on to master the alto kazoo at the age of 118. "Al" Duvall attributes his remarkable longevity to a daily dram of Hamlin's Quinsy Balsam.

A slightly different version of the Duvall biography can be found at his Reverb Nation site.

Al Duvall, a grandchild of the Great Depression, was one of many unemployed musicians in 1932 who was sent via time machine into the future to find work, as part of the WPA program. His timing couldn't have been better, for IN TIMES LIKE THESE (SM) we could all use an entertainer whose charm and musicianship once made the Great Depression so great. Hopefully, Al will bring a little bit of Depression to you with his cloud-scattering mirth.

I don't know which one to believe.

Actually, I understand he lives in Brooklyn and might not really be over 100.

Here is a tune called "Bareknuckle Ballerina" There's a classic Duvall line in this one: "I still cherish that night in Paris / When you were in St. Paul ..."

 

Apparently Duvall found religion. In fact he's been washed in the "Blood of the Hog." (Warning: This melody might remind you of a Lovin' Spoonful song.)



Below is Duvall's most recent album, Insomnibus available at Bandcamp. You can listen to it for free. But if you like it, buy the darn thing. I just did.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, June 7, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Love is Like A Blob by Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Fire in the Western World by Dead Moon
Lesson of Crime by YVY
Sugar Buzz by The Ruiners
It's Gravity by T. Tex Edwards
Marijuana Hell by The Rockin' Guys
Spy Boy by Graceland
Blame it on Mom by Johnny Thunders
J'vais m'en j'ter un derrière by Tony Truant & The Fleshtones

Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Bowlegged Woman, Knock-Kneed Man by Bobby Rush
I'm Not a Sicko, There's a Plate in My Head by The Oblivians
Black Snake by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Backstreet Girl by Social Distortion
Heroes and Villains/ Melt Away/Surfs Up by Brian Wilson

Cambodian Rock Set
Phnom Penh by The Royal University of the Arts
Under the Sound of the Rain by Sinn Sisamouth
Dondung Goan Gay by Meas Samoun
What Girl is Better Than Me? by Ros Serey Sothea
B.E.K. by Baksey Cham Krong
Dance Soul Soul by Liev Tuk
Taxi Dancer by Dengue Fever
Cyclo by Yol Aularong

Pedestrian Blues by Jody Porter
Please Judge by Roky Erikson
The House Where Nobody Lives by King Ernest
Hang Down Your Head by Petty Booka
I Wish I Was in New Orleans by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 5 , 2015
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 below:

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens

Long Hauls and Close Calls by Hank 3

Harm's Way by The Waco Brothers

Bad on Fords by Ray Wylie Hubbard

West Nashville Boogie by Steve Earle

Name Game by D.M. Bob & The Deficits

Still Drunk, Still Crazy, Still Blue by Whitey Morgan & The 78s

The Old Man From the Mountain by Bryan & The Haggards with Eugene Chadbourne

Closing Time by The Pleasure Barons

Coffee Grindin' Blues by Asylum Street Spankers

 

Don't Touch My Horse by Slackeye Slim

Here Lies a Good Old Boy by James Hand

Truck Driver's Queen by Louie Setzer

Honky Tonk Queen by Moe and Joe

Diggy Liggy Lo by Commander Cody & His Last Planet Airmen

I'm a Nut by Leroy Pullens

Hiram Hubbard by Jean Ritchie with Doc Watson

It's All Going to Pot by Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard with Jamey Johnson

 

Love and Mercy on Wilco

My Blood is Too Red by Ronny Elliott

The Devil, My Conscious and I by Billy Barton

Hell's Angels by Johnny Bond

Banjo Lovin' Hound Dog by Johnny Banjo

Rubber Doll by The Lone X

Shot Four Times and Dyin' by Bill Carter

Back Street Affair by Webb Pierce

Ragged But Right by George Jones

What Made Milwaukee Famous by Johnny Bush

 

I Can Talk to Crows by Chipper Thompson

Roll on Colorado by Fred Shumate

Whiskey and Cocaine by Stevie Tombstone

Sleep with Open Windows by Chip Taylor with Lucinda Williams

Suzie Ana Riverstone by The Imperial Rooster

Angel of Sunrise by Earnest Lovers

CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Love & Mercy, The Movie

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 5, 2015

“A choke of grief heart hardened I/Beyond belief a broken man too tough to cry.”

Those lines, from Brian Wilson’s greatest song, “Surf’s Up,” sum up a good portion of the new biopic Love and Mercy. I don’t know whether Wilson’s lyricist Van Dyke Parks was consciously describing Wilson’s emotional state when he was collaborating with him on the songs for the album Smile in the mid-’60s, but the words fit.

And indeed, it’s a broken man at the center of Love and Mercy. Wilson, portrayed by Paul Dano (’60s Brian) and John Cusack (’80s Brian) is psychologically shattered despite his popularity, wealth, and accomplishments.

In the two main periods covered by this movie, Wilson is seen as the victim of loathsome bullies. First, there his father, Murray, who physically beat and psychologically abused him (“It’s not a love song, it’s a suicide note,” he growls when Brian plays him an early version of “God Only Knows.”).

And then there’s Wilson’s cousin and bandmate Mike Love, one of the most annoying jerks in the history of rock ’n’ roll, who fought, criticized, and humiliated Wilson at every turn during his most creative period, the Pet Sounds and Smile years. “It’s not Beach Boys fun!” he snaps at Wilson during the Pet Sounds sessions. “Even the happy songs are sad.”

But the most intense and fearsome bully in Wilson’s life is Dr. Eugene Landy (played magnificently by Paul Giamatti). He was hired as a psychotherapist to help Wilson overcome his addictions, but turned into a virtual captor who overmedicated him and ripped him off financially. “I have it under control,” he says to Wilson’s girlfriend Melinda. “I am the control.”

A fun family barbecue with Dr. Landy

With all these villains here, there has to be a hero, and that’s Melinda Ledbetter, played by Elizabeth Banks. A former model who meets Wilson when she’s working as a Cadillac saleswoman, Melinda is not a fraction as forceful as Landy. And as hard as she tries, she’s unable to make Wilson stand up for himself.

But her compassion and her determination eventually succeed. (In real life, she and Wilson married in 1995, several years after Landy was vanquished.)

Speaking of real life, I’m not sure how close the movie is to actual events. The film was made with the cooperation of Wilson. (He appears in the closing credits, singing the title song.) So it’s bound to be the version of events that he wants to tell – even though he doesn’t come out looking so gallant. I don’t think anyone would deny that Wilson was as helpless and befuddled as he appears in the film.

But was Landy really as deplorable as Giamatti makes him? Was Ledbetter really as angelic?

Paul Dano as Brian Wilson in the studio

For a 50-plus-year Beach Boys fan like myself, the best scenes are the ones in which Wilson is in the studio recording tracks for Pet Sounds and the ill-fated original Smile with that tight-knit gaggle of studio cats nicknamed the Wrecking Crew. Dano portrays Wilson as wide-eyed and on fire with crazy ideas, much of which worked.

You see the infamous scene in which Wilson makes all the studio musicians wear firemen’s helmets while recording a track about fire. You see Wilson putting bobby pins on piano strings to get a crazy sound. And there are Wilson’s dogs in the studio barking for the final fade-out of “Caroline No.” (“Hey Chuck, do you think we could get a horse in here?” Wilson asks an engineer.)

One of my favorite elements of this movie are the lush, eerie sound collages representing the music, and sometimes the demons, in Brian’s head. Recognizable snippets of Wilson/Beach Boys music rise and fall back into the swirling vortex of sound. I had to check the credits to make sure it wasn’t Animal Collective on the soundtrack, a Wilson-influenced group if ever there was one.

It’s not. The man responsible is Atticus Ross, who has won awards including an Oscar and a Grammy for his soundtracks for The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, respectively. These strange sonic montages – sometimes sweet and heavenly, sometimes dark and tormenting – are essential to the story. The nonstop crazy symphony in Wilson’s head seems to be the source of his greatest works, though it often sounds like a direct and terrifying reflection of his inner turmoil.

I’m not sure how much Love and Mercy will appeal to those who don’t know or don’t care about Wilson’s music. (And believe it or not, there are people like that who walk the Earth.) But for those of us who have known and loved the Brian Wilson songbook, it’s a must-see.

The real Brian Wilson and
The real Dr. Landy

New Mexico side trip: They aren’t mentioned in Love and Mercy, but there are a couple of obscure New Mexico connections in the Wilson/Landy saga.

In August 1994, Beach Boy Al Jardine and two companies representing the band — Brother Records and Brother Tours, Inc. — filed a lawsuit in Santa Fe, accusing Wilson, Landy, and HarperCollins publishers of defaming the Beach Boys with the now discredited 1991 Wilson “autobiography” Wouldn’t It Be Nice.

That book painted an ugly portrait of the other band members and made Landy look as heroic as he appears villainous in Love and Mercy. (Wilson has since said he skimmed a draft of that book and did none of the writing.)

The plaintiffs also filed a virtually identical suit in New Hampshire. Wilson’s court-appointed conservator at the time, Jerome S. Billet, told me in 1994 that those were the only states that allowed suits to be filed three years after the alleged defamation.

But no Beach Boy ever had to appear in a Santa Fe courtroom. According to court records, a year later, Wilson was quietly dismissed as a defendant. The case was dismissed in early 1999.

After Landy lost his license to practice psychology in California, he still retained his license in two states: Hawaii and – you guessed it – New Mexico.

I don’t know how active he was here, but state records show he was licensed here between 1981 and his death in 2006. He’d had his license renewed in the state the year before. There are no violations or discipline reports on his record here.

Here is the official trailer:



Here is a frightening profile on ABC's Prime Time Live in 1991 when Wilson was still being "treated" by Landy.


And here is one of the most moving versions of the title song I've ever heard.