So you have this charming Jesus thrift store find floating around forever, then you come to find out the duo that recorded it is actually Kevin Bacon’s brother Michael and Larry Gold, a man responsible for some of the entire Philly soul genre’s crucial string arrangements.
Good News – “I’m a-Losin’ My Mind” (1969)
The heart and soul of the Azra, one of Yugoslavia’s greatest bands, is one man, Branimir “Johnny” Stulic, and to me he personifies the old pan-Yugoslav spirit. This is a mythical notion, some may say, but I cling to it all the same. Before making records, Stulic had developed a reputation as a Zagreb street singer, which suited his knack for writing such seemingly well-traveled folk songs. And although he’s Croatian, I wouldn’t characterize Azra as a “Croatian” band. Their first single is called “Balkan,” after all, and includes phrases like “we are all gypsies” and “Balkan, be strong and stand tall.” The inspiration for his band’s name, on top of that, came from a Bosnian folk song called “Kraj tanana sadrvana,” which includes the line: “My name is El Muhamed from the tribe of the old Azra, that lose their lives for love and die when they kiss.”
But Stanislav, our resident Yu rock authority, recently threw me for a loop when he told me how he’d discovered that the line actually comes from German poet Heinrich Heine. In Heine’s “Der Asre,” the closing words, which the unknown Bosnian translator later spruced up, go like this: “I’m from the tribe of Azras in Yemen and we die for love.” Another little tidbit: the mulleted ’80s Bosnian pop band Crvena Jabuka (Red Apple, who I’m also a fan of) appropriated the words for their 1986 song “Sa tvojih usana.”
Azra – “Balkan” (live video c. 1987)
posted by Kim Simpson
posted by Stanislav
I translated Tomaz Pengov’s lyrics for “Danaja” from Slovenian into Serbo-Croatian and English.
Danaja
Mirno je na tornju
pod krillima veceri cekanja
u svom jadu Danaja cuje
kada je vjetar prorocki poziva
u snu.
Ptice su tihe
i konji bjeze dolinom
vec ove noci ce biti kise pod svodom
strelica napinje luk
i harfe se cuje zvuk.
S jutrom braca
razgrcu slijepe i uspavane
nevidljivom toplinom sa strane
i malom kapljom na dlanu
koja hlapi.
* * *
It’s peaceful at the tower
on the evening wings waiting
in her misery Danaja can hear
the prophetic call of the wind
in her dream.
Birds are silent
and horses are fleeing the valley
there will be rain under the arch tonight
arrow strains the bow
and you can hear the harps.
With morning the brothers
uncover the blind and the sleepy
with the invisible heat on the side
and a small drop on a palm
evaporates.
Tomaz Pengov – “Danaja”
Here on Bobby Fuller’s birthday, it’s important to remember that it’s his records, not his mysterious death, that give him his true American rock and roll superhero status. Four decades after we lost him, those records have lost none of their power to exhiliarate. Musically, his heart was always in the right place and he never waivered. One of my all-time BF favorites is an early version of “A New Shade of Blue,” which I first heard on the now out-of-print Shakedown compilation, a 1996 roundup of early singles and demos from 1961 through 1964. This version, as opposed to the Four’s later version on Del-Fi, is a real wonder and perfect in every way. It’s an echo-drenched heartbreaker featuring some of Bobby’s most convincing vocals (which is saying a lot where he’s concerned), delicate guitars and lyrics (written by his neighbor’s mom), and a bullseye bridge. The more familiar and readily-available Del-Fi version loses too much of that atmospheric echo, screws up the middle-eight’s flawless symmetry by knocking out a key minor chord and adding a measure at the end, and finds Bobby overdoing the lead vocal. Enjoy version one, then.
Bobby Fuller – “New Shade of Blue” (1964)
Jesus Christ SurferStar is a 2-CD set full of various latter-day reverb dial instrumentalists doing interpretations of every single song from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. Here are Australia’s Atlantics catching a real heavy – the 1970 Murray Head hit single “Superstar.”
The Atlantics – “Superstar”
“Experimental” is the operative word for this album, although it’s more satisfying than the word might suggest. It’s a good 50% hear-us-on-acid clatter, and a good 10% “When I’m Sixty-Four” envy, but it’s the other stuff, the moderately weird 40% that sounds best. Here’s one of those: an ode to whips and chains that closes with a Salvation Army band playing a Protestant hymn (“There is Sunshine in My Soul”).
United States of America – “I Wouldn’t Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar” (1968)
This track, from Kendell Kardt’s unreleased Columbia sessions, features a gorgeous arrangement by prolific Nashville-based composer Bill Pursell. If you’re well-versed in your instrumental hits of the sixties, you may know of an atmospheric track called “Our Winter Love,” that features a nicely plump, buzzed guitar/proto-synth duet near the middle. Well, this beauty was Pursell’s piece, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it aroused a tinge of professional jealousy in Percy Faith at the time. Pursell’s only big hit, the song reached #9 in ‘63. (Give it a listen here).
Kendell’s friendship with Pursell came about through his work on the Columbia LP. He had been given some arranger demos to listen to and chose Pursell due to what he’d heard as a more classical than commercial orientation. “Whatever you might think of the song itself,” as Kendell puts it, “I can’t say enough in praise of the beautiful symphonic and choral treatment he created for this piece. I think the word ‘masterpiece’ may actually apply here.” Amen, Kendell.
Buried for decades as a memory at least powerful enough for the two to drunkenly wonder together about what might have been, now’s everyone else’s chance to hear it.
Kendell Kardt – “Little Sparrow” (1972)
Here are a couple more Indianapolis tributes I’ve gotten my hands on thanks to Lovemeknot Kyle, a native who first told me about the city’s “Naptown” nickname. The first one’s by Bill Gaither, also known as “Little Bill” or Leroy’s Buddy (as in Leroy Carr). (This is not the same Gaither as the contemporary gospel singer.) His own Naptown tribute came out some six years after Carr’s.
The other one is by Sid “Hardrock” Gunter, a national treasure who’s still at it. A proto-rocker if there ever was one, he was rockabilly before it existed, crossed over into R&B territory with his cover of Billy Ward and the Dominoes’ steamy “Sixty Minute Man,” and got signed to the forward-thinking, country/R&B mishmash label Sun Records two years before Elvis did.
Bill Gaither (Leroy’s Buddy) – “Naptown Stomp” (1935)
Hardrock Gunter – “Naptown, Ind.” (1953)
While Kendell was staying with a Hawaiian family that included 10 children during his time in L.A., he was able to meet the family’s grandmother, who was known affectionately – as many Hawaiian grandmothers are – as “Tutu.” This particular Tutu was the widow of a Catholic missionary who’d served on a South Sea island inhabited by cannibals. The revered matriarch’s visits from Hawaii were “anticipated with great delight,” and when she came, the children would traditionally gather at her feet and ask her to repeat once more the story of how she lived in the jungle with the cannibals. Kendell found this little ritual “both charming and amusing,” given the fact that he felt like he too was “living in the ‘jungle’ – right there in LA,” where the “‘natives’ were as exotic and perplexing” as any that Tutu had encountered. His tongue-in-cheek “Tutu and the Cannibals” would become a popular staple of Kendell’s live performances.
Kendell Kardt – “Tutu and the Cannibals”
In With Six You Get Egg Roll, Doris Day’s final film, the Grass Roots show up and, taking their cues from the Stones’ “Under My Thumb,” sound more weirdly alluring than they ever would again. Curiously, Arthur Lee’s Love, who used to be called the Grass Roots but had to change it thanks to these LA rivals, toyed with the melody line from the verses of “Feelings” for their verses in “A House Is Not a Motel.”