THROWBACK THURSDAY: An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Shortnin' Bread

Did a happy, snappy American standard start out as a song about malnutrition among rural African Americans?

I'm talking about "Shortnin' Bread," that favorite of Mammy's little baby, about a tasty treat with strange medicinal power that can heal the sick and the half dead. This tune has been sung and recorded by some of the country's best known musicians, black and white, representing a number of styles and genres.

In her blog Pancocojams, dedicated to "the music, dances, and customs of African Americans and of other people of Black descent throughout the world," Azizi Powell writes.

Although "Shortnin Bread" is now considered a light hearted children's folk song, its beginning verses reflect the fact that Black Americans often lacked adequate food.

In contemporary versions of this song, the first verse is given as "two little boys/laying in bed/one was sick/and the other almost dead". The reason why the boys were in those conditions was because they were suffering from malnutrition because of the inadequate food rations that enslaved families were given. 

In this song, the doctor was called to examine the children. His prescription was that the children be given some food. However, in actuality, enslaved Black people rarely saw any doctors. Also, shortnin bread and coffee were rare treats for enslaved Black people. 

James Whitcomb Riley

Even so, throughout the song's history, "Shortnin' Bread" has been played as a happy good-time tune -- often as a children's song. That's a frequent thread in blues, hillbilly music and other types of songs sung by poor people in this country -- finding humor and ultimately hope in terrible situations.

Some argue that "Shortnin' Bread" is a true folk song, coming from slaves on southern plantations or their immediate descendants. But some say it could have come from the minstrel shows, in which white performers parodied blacks. (Check out this discussion over at Mudcat.org)

Apparently the first known written version of the song was a poem, published in 1900, by James Whitcomb Riley, written in black dialect.

The chorus goes:

Fotch dat dough fum the kitchin-shed—
Rake de coals out hot an' red—
Putt on de oven an' putt on de led,—
Mammy's gwineter cook som short'nin' bread

Nowhere in the poem is anything about those two little children lyin' in bed, or the doctor who prescribes shortnin' bread for them. While Riley took credit for the poem, it's possible that he based the various (seemingly unrelated) verses on songs or stories he heard from folk sources (i.e. plantation workers and the descendants of slaves).

Powell points out that several folklorists, beginning in the 1920s, documented versions of "Shortnin' Bread" -- who do have the familiar elements of the ailing children and the doctor.

In 1924 country singer Henry Whitter recorded a harmonica-led instrumental medley of "Hop Out Ladies & Shortenin' Bread." Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers recorded it -- including lyrics -- a couple of years later. Both J.E. Mainer, a proto-bluegrass artist, and Sonny Terry did versions in which the Jew's harp was prominent.

Mississippi John Hurt didn't actually record it until the early '60s, but his timeless style sounds like it could have been recorded decades before.



The song made it's way into the city. Paul Robeson lent his baritone to it in 1933.  Nelson Eddy sang it in the 1937 film Maytime. 

And Fats Waller had a lot of fun with it in 1941. (Powell points out that Waller sang about two "Senegambians" lyin' in bed. That's a reference to a region in West Africa, though Waller seems to be using the word to describe African Americans in general.)



The Andrews Sisters also sang it in the '40s.



The song found new life in the 1950s. Dave Brubeck did a drum-heavy jazz version called "Short'nin' Bread Gone With The Wind" in 1959. And there was a new audience in R&B and rock 'n' roll. The song mutated into "Shortnin' Bread Rock," which sounds heavily influenced by Big Joe Turner.  Etta James did a rocking version, as did Tony Crombie & His Rockets, who recorded it in 1956. But it's tough to match the crazy energy of The Collins kids, who sang it on this TV appearance, introduced by country great Tex Ritter.



Several early '60s "garage" bands recording the song in the early '60s. Paul Chaplain & The Emeralds recorded it in 1960. There also were fine rocking renditions by The Bell Notes, Johnny & The Uncalled Four. But my favorite of this style was the ferocious version by The Readymen. Their wild arrangement appears to have inspired the cover by The Cramps on their Stay Sick album.



There was a do-wop version in 1962 by a group called The Blisters.



And a tasty '60s soul version by Lee Dorsey



And in the early '90s The Residents found every ounce of weirdness in the tune and, as they love to do, turned it into something bizarre and nearly unrecognizable.





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

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Music to Drive Your Neighbors Nuts

Last week a Facebook friend of mine posted the following on her page:

Anyone have a superloud playlist of jams for me to drown out this fucking ASSHOLE doing his homework loudly on Facetime?

I'm not sure where she was where a jerk using Facetime would bother her like that. But everybody can relate to the being bugged so much by some noisy fool you just want to BLAST THEM OUT!

Now this lady is in the music biz, so lots of her music nut friends, including me, began suggesting loud and obnoxious songs The thread took on a life of its own.

So I decided to put a list together including some suggestions from the thread. And thus my latest Spotify list: Music to Drive Your Neighbors Nuts.

Metal Machine Music was one of the first suggestions there. Someone else suggested some Tuvan throat singing (I chose something by Huun-huur-Tu).

Another contributor offered Shooby Taylor's weird version of "Stout-Hearted Men," I know that one from Irwin Chusid's Songs in the Key of Z Vol. 2. I couldn't resist adding another classic from that album, "Cousin Mosquito" by Liberian Congresswoman Malinda Jackson Parker.

Added some Skinny Puppy, Butthole Surfers, Zappa, Residents, a song with T. Valentine being T. Valentine, some Smile-era weirdness from The Beach Boys, a sinister little Charlie Manson tune and some supreme tackiness from David Hasselhoff that will make you want to commit unspeakable crimes.

You can use this to harass your neighbors, force ousted dictators out of their sanctuaries, torture prisoners ... lots of possibilities. Hey and since it's Spotify, chances are a couple of those obnoxious ads they run will pop up. These will fit right in.

For the record, I like my neighbors. I hope I didn't play this too loud when compiling this list.

Have fun ...

Make Music Santa Fe!

 

Big show coming to Santa Fe this Sunday. And it's free.

The Santa Fe Music Alliance is presenting Make Music Santa Fe 2015 at Santa Fe Railyard Plaza, featuring a boatload -- or maybe a trainload -- of Santa Fe musicians.

On the bill are a couple of siblings -- Tony Gilkyson and Eliza Gilkyson -- who lived and played here years ago but moved on to bigger towns and bigger things. Eliza has had a successful career as a singer-songwriter, while Tony has been a guitarist for Lone Justice, X, and Chuck E. Weiss' G-d Damn Liars. He's great as a solo artist too. His solo album Goodbye Guitar was near the top of my Best of 2006 list.

The show starts at 2:30 pm Sunday and goes on until 10 p.

For the complete schedule check out the Make Music Santa Fe website.

(Full disclosure: I recently became an advisory member of the Santa Fe Musical Alliance, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering creativity and community by supporting a sustainable and vital environment for music of all genres in Santa Fe, N.M.)

 

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 12, 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

Who Do You Love by Ronnie Hawkins & The Band

Hot Dog by Rosie Flores

Crazy Heart by Augie Meyers

Wanted Man by Billy Barton

The Creeper by Al Duvall

Lampshade On by The Dustbowl Revival

Travelin' Mood by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Eggs of Your Chickens by The Flatlanders

I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water by George Thorogood & The Destroyers

He's Biding His Time by Danny Dill

 

Lubbock in the Springtime by The Beaumonts

Too Sweet to Die by The Waco Brothers

The Old Man from the Mountain by Merle Haggard

Cold Comfort by Ed Pettersen

Kitty Cat Scratch by Suzette & The Neon Angels

Down By The Gallows Philip Bradatsch

Sam Hall by Tex Ritter

 

Back Street Affair by John Prine & Patty Lovelace

Beautiful Blue Eyes by Red Allen & The Kentuckians

High on a Mountain Top by Loretta Lynn

Thunder on the Mountain by Wanda Jackson

I Won't Go and He Won't Stay by Paula Rhae McDonald

Rescue Me by Amy Helm

Tall Tall Trees by Roger Miller

It Keeps Right. On a Hurtin' by Louie Setzer

The Crazy, Laughing Blues by Yodelin' Shorty

 

I Know You Are There by The Handsome Family

My Blue Tears by Dolly Parton

Storms Never Last by Waylon Jennings & Jessie Colter

I Wanna Go Home by Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan & Chris Barber

Never Going Back by The Lovin' Spoonful

Going Home by Slackeye Slim

CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

 

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TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Cambodia's Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 12, 2015

For about a decade after the nation’s independence from France in the early 1950s, there was a great cultural bloom in Cambodia. The country was relatively prosperous. Phnom Penh, its capital, was alive and thriving. The ancient culture was strong — in fact, strong enough not to be threatened by encroaching modern Western culture. 

During this time, before the war in neighboring Vietnam spilled over and eventually engulfed the land, Cambodians joyfully welcomed the outside world: motorcycles, miniskirts, and long hair. They didn’t miss out on the ’60s in Cambodia. They loved the cha cha cha from Cuba. They loved soul music and rock ’n’ roll from the U.S.A. — and from France, England, and wherever else it drifted in from.

As shown in the new documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, by John Pirozzi, this was a sweet dream that ended brutally. Communist rebels known as the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975. Led by a shadowy figure named Pol Pot, the new leaders forced mass evacuations from Phnom Pehn and other cities, and for the next four years, in their effort to build a socialist paradise, they basically turned the whole nation into a big agricultural prison camp. With grim vehemence the Khmer Rouge targeted intellectuals, professionals, artists, and, yes, musicians. They almost destroyed a nation, including its music.

Another terrible truth: Some of the biggest stars of Cambodian pop and rock — including Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran (sometimes spelled Pan Ron), and Yol Aularong — apparently ended up in unmarked graves in the killing fields during the Khmer Rouge years. Nobody, not even their surviving family members, knows exactly when or where they died. 

Although Pirozzi certainly doesn’t pull any punches about the Khmer Rouge, fortunately the documentary is not just about slaughter, repression, and horror. The first part of the film deals with the good times, the crazy music, and the amazing musicians who made it.

My name is Prince ...

During that heady golden age, Cambodia was ruled by a prince named Norodom Sihanouk. He might be the closest thing to a benevolent dictator the world has seen in modern times. You might say he governed with a velvet fist. Not only was he the man in charge, Sihanouk was an artist, a poet, a filmmaker — and a musician. He sang, and he played sax. He was a prince, and he was funky! Sihanouk composed music, including a patriotic anthem called “Phnom Penh,” which appears in the documentary and on its excellent soundtrack album, performed by members of the Royal University of Fine Arts. (The song originally appeared in Sihanouk’s mid-’60s movie, The Enchanted Forest.) Sihanouk ordered government departments to start their own orchestras. His regime sponsored singing contests around the country. The national radio station moved away from focusing on dull government propaganda to blasting cool music.

It is true Sihanouk didn’t put up with much dissent. As the film points out, he cracked down hard on Commie insurgents from the rural areas. Watching the movie, it seems Sihanouk considered these rebels not only to be traitors but party poopers as well. He adopted a policy of neutrality during the Cold War. That became harder as the fighting in Vietnam escalated next door. The drums of war would eventually drown out even the loudest Cambodian rock bands and spell doom for Cambodia’s cultural oasis, but in the meantime, the kids there rocked out to those wild American sounds brought there by tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming.

Sihanouk was overthrown by a right-wing, U.S.-backed coup in 1970. He later joined forces with the very Communist insurgents he’d once repressed. But as soon as the Khmer Rouge took power, Sihanouk basically ended up under house arrest.

I’ve been listening to Cambodian rockers like Sisamouth (who Pirozzi has described as the Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley of Cambodia) and Sothea for nearly a decade, ever since I became a fan of Dengue Fever, a California band that was sparked by Cambodian rock from this era. But until watching Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten, I didn’t know anything about their lives — except that they probably were killed by Pol Pot’s bully boys.

Despite facing some obvious limitations, Pirozzi brings these artists to life. Unfortunately, not much footage of the musicians survived the great destruction. However, the filmmaker found tons of great photos, including an amazing colorful gallery of record covers. He tracked down surviving family members — Sothea’s sister and Sisamouth’s son, Sin Chanchhaya (who died earlier this year shortly after winning the legal rights to more than 70 of his dad’s songs).

He also found some musicians who survived the Pol Pot years. There is Mol Kagnol of the band Baksey Cham Krong — the group could play surf music as well as what sounds like a twangy country ballad (the song “Full Moon”). 

There is also an interview with a female singer named Sieng Vannthy, who recalls Nancy Sinatra in miniskirt and go-go boots in her star years. Vannthy, who died in 2009, tells how she avoided probable execution by lying and telling the Khmer Rouge soldiers that she was a banana vendor, not a singer.

I once wrote that Dengue Fever, by turning so many people on to long-forgotten Cambodian rock, represented “a sweet, symbolic triumph of freedom over totalitarianism; of rock ’n’ roll over the killing fields; of sex, joy, fast cars, and loud guitars over the forces of gloom and repression.” That goes triple for Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten. This story needs to be told, and this music needs to be heard. 

The film opens on Friday, June 12, at The Screen.

Here's the trailer:




And here's some Cambodian rock strating with Sinn Sisamouth doing the monkey

 Ros Sereysothea rocks!



On this next one by Yol Aularong, try not to think of "Pagan Baby" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

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.