This Land Is Our Land: Clarence Carter: "Patches"

And now we go back to Detroit, of all places, for a song about rural Alabama.  Native Georgian General Johnson wrote (and The Chairmen of the Board recorded) this song, but it took off when a real son of Alabama, Clarence Carter, covered it. 

As the descendant of a whole line of farmers, I can feel this song in my bones, even though I’m not from the South*.  A farm is a way of life, a perilous one, and dependent on many things, primarily Mother Nature herself.  To be born on a farm is to be born attached to Earth in a way that either attracts or repels; my father was born at home, on the farm, and yearned to get away from it, but it’s hard to take the farm out of the boy, and his appreciation of food – fruit in particular, but all food – is always something I remember about him.  He left home at 18, to pursue the arts, become sophisticated, but he had the stoicism and patience of a farmer, even if he wasn’t one.

Unlike “Patches” he wasn’t the eldest in his family – he was the youngest in fact – but that heavy mantle of responsibility was there, too.  Carter sings about his life as if it was fated, as if no matter where he goes he hears his father reminding him of what he had to do, no matter what.  The father dies of sheer exhaustion before "Patches" is a teenager, and unlike “Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp” his mother stays right there on the farm, doing the things a farmer’s wife always does, no more, no less.  She doesn’t remarry (since this is rural Alabama I’m guessing a lot of the eligible men have gone north, to Detroit perhaps) and the son carries the weight of his whole family – in effect his world – on his shoulders.  There is no bravado here, no defying expectations, just hard work and hoping that the crops will last until they’re ready to be harvested. 

Carter sings the song as if he’s singing it on behalf of every kid who had to stay on the farm instead of being able to leave it and getting to explore the world – to show the solid roots of family, roots that make sure he cannot leave, and as far as I can tell he is still there on the farm, taking care of it like his father told him to decades ago, and will be there until he dies.  He is attached to his family and the farm in a profound way, a scruffy kid inside, older than his years.  You don’t have to have a farming background to understand that attachment; the farm was his father’s and is now his, and he respects his father by tending the farm, which has actual crops and bugs and has to be sown and harvested, but the farm is something else too.  It is his father; it becomes his father, depending on him as much as his father did.  It is a simple and moving story, ancient in a way, a story that takes place way out in the woods in Alabama but could be anywhere, any place a father puts trust in a son and the son, despite hardships, carries out that trust.  1970 has brought many realities to the fore, but none are as basic as this one.

Next up:  hm, did I mention my father was a Mennonite?  And that we’re pacifists?

*My father was born in rural Nebraska, at the beginning of the Great Depression. 

...In His Hands: The Edwin Hawkins Singers: "Oh Happy Day"

Some songs can take a long time to get into the charts; this song took longer than most, and for a good reason: when it was written, the only way to hear it was to go to church.

Think back, if you will, to a time before the Internet; before compact discs, home computers, those big corporate computers programmed with punch cards; before the advent of television, vinyl, acetates, record players, radios, motion pictures, player pianos...back to a time when there were no planes, cars or trains.

We are in the London of the early 18th century, where Phillip Doddridge was born, the last of twenty children, into a religious household. He grew up to be a nonconformist Christian, a pastor of a congregation, and a hymn writer. The purpose of the hymns he wrote was simple - to summarize the sermon, to be a hummable and singable memento of whatever message he was trying to get across. He was also a teacher (of religion and philosophy) and a writer, his main influential work being The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, a book that converted William Wilberforce (the leading antislavery campaigner) to Christianity. For his hymn "O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice" Doddridge wrote the words, and set it to music written earlier by J. A Freylinghausen. Doddridge died of tuberculosis in Lisbon in 1751, admired mostly for his religious writing.

There the hymn sat, words and music printed for congregations, until another man came along: one Edward Rimbault, also from London. He was born in Soho in 1816, son of the organist at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and thus became a musical prodigy, from what I can figure out. At 22 he was lecturing on the history of music already, founded the Music Antiquarian Society not long afterwards with two fellow music historians, he later edited works by Handel including the Messiah and was offered, but turned down, a job at Harvard, already having gotten honorary degrees for his music scholarship elsewhere in Europe.

By the time he was in this thirties however, he settled down to work in various London churches as an organist, and applied himself to rewriting hymns. One he came across that he changed was Doddridge's hymn, for which he wrote a new melody in 3/4 time, and added a chorus. The hymn was sung, as it always had been, at baptisms and confirmations, in the UK and in the USA, the new 1854 version presumably making its way across the Atlantic before the Civil War. Rimbault died in 1876, the American centennial, a man known mostly to musical antiquarians and his London parishioners, and to anyone who looked to see who wrote the new music for various hymns.

There the song rested for some time, sung in waltz time, until in 1967 one Edward Hawkins, choir master, musician and composer from Oakland, changed the hymn from 3/4 to 4/4 time and discarded everything but Rimbault's chorus, taking the song to its essence, and recorded it with his singers at the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, as part of the album Let Us Go Into The House of the Lord. It was recorded in church on a modest budget and they sold the album wherever they appeared, right out of the trunk, just as so many gospel choirs did all over the US. A DJ in San Francisco somehow got a copy and began to play "Oh Happy Day" and it caught on, first a hit in the Bay Area and then spreading outwards, until we arrive here, in June 1969, over 200 years since it was first written, and over 100 since it was re-written, with man about to walk on the Moon, amidst the usual end-of-decade confusion and chaos, most if not all would have been unthinkable to Doddridge and Rimbault.

The influence of this song cannot be overstated; the simplicity of the song - it has, as far as I can tell, two chords - is a relief from the showbizzy songs of late, songs where grown women act like girls and so on. The main vocal here is by Dorothy Combs Morrison, is, amongst many things, the sound of a woman singing, a woman who does not have to be cute or pretty; she is the anchor of the song, the one who has experienced what the hymn is about, that supreme happiness that almost cannot be put into words. She sounds as if she has been through something, something momentous, and oddly enough she is not singing in a way (like Aretha) where you could hear her down the block. That is left to the rest, who are as loud and joyous and unified as a gospel choir should be, lifting the listeners slowly but surely, chord by chord. While Morrison experiences the mercy of being cleansed, the choir rejoices in being taught to sing and pray; it is a hymn wherein those who had been silent before spread the news now, and the happiness they sing of is not momentary or trivial but sits right at the heart and soul of their beings, and is thus transferred to ours (if our hearts and souls are open to it).

To say the least this song's power and simplicity made it an instant classic (I'm sure Doddridge and Rimbault would have approved of that) and no doubt benefited from Aretha Franklin's astonishing leap into the charts, bringing her own gospel style to the charts in an uncompromising and downright refreshing way. I can imagine people hearing this on the radio in complete confusion, admiration and then urgency - in that they had to go find it in a record store, now. It inspired George Harrison ("My Sweet Lord"), Todd Rundgren (his "I Saw The Light" is in the same key, even) and others to turn from psychedelic wig-outs to something simpler and, in some cases, more religious. The musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell had yet to happen, but the whole "Jesus freak" hippie scene was already well underway, as the search for meaning, love and purpose that so many counterculture kids were undergoing led them to Jesus (in part, I tend to think, as he too had long hair and a beard). So this 1967 recording was an anthem of sorts for them, a confirmation of all things good and righteous, as well as being an inspiration to other musicians, in the UK (Primal Scream's "Moving On Up" being the most obvious) and the US.

Its message of acceptance and redemption must have appealed to everyone, at the end of a messy decade, that to sing and pray and participate in celebrating life instead of despairing of it was a way out or through. The happiness here is solid, though, and requires a similar solidity in the listener, as the choir grows louder and louder, the joy absolute, almost overwhelming. This is the beginning of contemporary gospel, gospel that crosses over to R&B and has more or less stayed there ever since, from Mary Mary's light funky soul (this is one of my favorite songs from last year) to Kirk Franklin's R&B swagger (this is another) to Marvin L. Sapp's incredible testifying (this amazing song crushes all competition for most uplifting song of 2010). All of these songs were Billboard hits, not just in the gospel but also R&B charts, and the pop charts as well, and that is a legacy from Hawkins' work, amongst others.

And so we have travelled a long way through time and space, from the misery of Fleetwood Mac to the overwhelming love here. What could come next? The return of the man who embodies these two extremes, in one song...

People Who Know People: Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas: "Do You Want To Know A Secret?"

One of the continuing threads in the charts of the 60s - starting very successfully here - is the Beatles album track being covered by another group and made into a hit single. I don't know of any other group being covered so much in their own time, with (of course!) their permission and indeed help; Billy and his band were from Liverpool themselves and thus knew The Beatles when no one would give them the time of day, and so were more than happy to help their pals out with not just already-recorded songs but songs they had written but didn't, for whatever reason, want to record themselves. Other groups may have been jealous of handsome Billy and his tremendous luck, but Billy could definitely sing and The Dakotas could definitely play and this song survives the transition from shadowy flirtation to gleeful proclamation quite well. It seems to move closer and closer incrementally, just as "Can't Get Used To Losing You" seems to move further and further away, bit by bit. The joy is in knowing that the secret is theirs and theirs alone, and can be that way, deliciously, as if their new happiness was a particularly rich cake they can either eat and/or admire...

The generosity of The Beatles here is amazing, but even more amazing are the songs that were just left on albums for others to cover; I don't get to write about any of the others, but suffice it to say by the time The Beatles prove themselves to be more than a passing fad, it is a regular occurence, whenever an album of theirs was released to pounce on it for any songs that could easily be covered. Of course at this time there were almost no unsigned bands in Liverpool, as managers and agents went on a veritable gold rush of whatever they could find, and soon the charts were full of Merseybeat, produced by George Martin (as this was). (In almost too perfect timing, this was a hit around the time of the Profumo Affair, when secrets were spilled, lives changed, and the Sixties, as understood by many, really begin.)

Lose Yourself: John Leyton: "Wild Wind"

The sound of high voices right out of some impassioned avant-garde classical piece indicate, within seconds that we are somewhere very special indeed; we are in a tiny space above a shop on the Holloway Road, a busy, bustling and somehow different place to any other in town. The man comes in singing with deep longing and urgency about wanting to be...

...elsewhere. I imagine a young man cooped up in his own room far away, perhaps new to his neighborhood, green and yet pained and miserable and maybe even (whisper it) slightly enjoying his intense misery, lifting his window open on a still cool morning and longing for the wind and rain to take his troubles away. To eventually, even, take his soul away, far beyond the earthly bounds it is currently stuck in, for better or for worse. The world is cramped in to much for him, he longs to escape, and these high female voices seem to follow him wherever he goes...

...and so he gives himself up to nature, ignores himself, dies, and is seen (along with her) by local children as ghosts, happy ghosts, happy at last. And how thrilling that loss can be, that ultimate giving up, giving in, to whatever is out there; to the universe, ultimately, with its heat, winds, weathers; to lose yourself in a way that is unifying, not isolating in the least.

Yes, we are in the Age of Meek here, facing up to his longing (or one of his longings) - to cast away his troubles, lose himself, to break into many, many particles that will feel no pain, to be liberated, to reach nirvana...but in the meantime it's another night on the Holloway Road, another space-capsule-compressed and very successful single that is leading to his most important one in a year's time.

(As sometimes happens, I thought of another song while listening to this one; not that the lyrics are much applicable, but "the nameless name of your condition" comes to mind with this song and Meek in general. If I had an iPod these would be right next to each other.)

Mythical Moments: Lou Busch And His Orchestra: "Zambezi"

There are certain moments when you know; you just know and there is no refuting it by any resource of logic or reason. It happened to a Cambridge student, and it was about to happen to a whole nation.

So far I have been following the course of number two songs on the UK charts, but this is an important moment, for many reasons. The time: late February, 1956. The place: the women's union building at Cambridge. A party is being held to launch a literary magazine, made up mostly of Cambridge grads, and it is raucous. A jazz band is playing and student and grads alike are dancing, jiving, getting drunk on the heat in the room as well as liquor. It's a warm evening, so there is a sense of winter being over, the area around the door is muddy and maybe a window or two is smashed in stress-relieving haste or fun. The Fulbright student has an escort for the night who has already taken her to a pub so she is light-headed when she shows up. She is determined to meet the man who has written poems she has already memorized, earlier in the week; she recognizes hardly anyone at the party, but gets to know who is who soon enough. She sees him, he sees her, and that is that. The student is Sylvia Plath, the grad, Ted Hughes.

It is music just like this - loud, giddy, rock without being rock, evocative of African music while being utterly American - that was at number two when Plath and Hughes met. It is happy music that is also a little silly, a little drunk, the sort of music you hear that can fade into the background if something far more important is happening, even if you are in a good mood and want to dance (as Plath did, by the way).

This song also points to what is about to happen. So far most of the songs have been sedate, polite, sophisticated and presentable to one and all. Here, things start to change. "Zambezi" may be an instrumental (I don't count the name of the song as being lyrics, as such) but it is loud and dense and roller-rink/skating rink/ice cream truck simple and repetitive. There isn't much about it that is soothing or calming. It is the first twig, so to speak, that something very big is about to happen; the winter is thawing fast, spring cannot come soon enough.