I've posted both of these before, but they behoove reposting.
So from the Jimmy Fallon show in 2010, please enjoy country star/Mr. Nicole Kidman (lucky guy) Keith Urban and his definitive take on "Tumblin' Dice"...
...and (from the same week) dig Green Day and "Rip This Joint."
Both of these performances are absolutely non pareil. Urban's "Dice" has all the swagger and soul of any live version I've ever heard by the Stones themselves, and his lead guitar work is stellar. As for Green Day's punk remake of the Stones' rockabilly original? Words fail me. It ups the land/speed level and still maintains the swing and humor that is the song's raison d'etre.
From 1966, please enjoy pleasantly gruff-voiced blue-eyed soul guy Chris Farlowe and his hit (in the UK) version of the Rolling Stones' Aftermath classic "Out of Time."
Farlowe had a few other succesful records in the UK -- on Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records label -- and apparently the Stones were quite fond of him. I suspect if he had been a little more conventionally attractive, he'd have been a bigger star, but who knows? In any case, he's had a very long and productive career in the company of a variety of artists, including most recently Van Morrison.
I should add that you can hear the same backing track, only with vocal by Mick Jagger, on the Rolling Stones' unfairly maligned 1975 outtakes album Metamorphosis.
From her album No Frills, please enjoy Bette Midler as she absolutely nails the Stones' great "Beast of Burden." Originally released as a single in 1983.
I haven't listened to that album in a gazillion years, so I have no idea if the rest of it holds up -- I seem to recall that the Marshall Crenshaw cover was absolutely terrific -- but I will say this: The band behind her on BOB, which includes Danny Kortchmar and Jim Keltner, is fucking great.
And I am SOOOO stealing that "Now write this down!" intro if I ever get to play on stage again.
From 1997, please enjoy the incomparable Steve Earle, along with cowpunk giants The Supersuckers, and an utterly idiomatic rendition of Keith Richards' autobiographical classic "Before They Make Me Run."
I've loved this since the moment I heard it back in the day, and obviously Earle might as well have been genetically bred to sing it.
From 1971, and Farther Along -- the last studio album by the late version of The Byrds (before the reunion album by the original members two years later) -- please enjoy the astounding Clarence White and his heart-wrenchingly beautiful rendition of the country weeper "Bugler."
I gotta admit, I can't hear that without getting all verklempt, and not just because I've been a dog owner. Also, frankly, if you can listen to it without your tear ducts being exercized, I don't want to know from you.
And speaking of irony, I should add that White would be fatally run over by a drunk driver as he was loading his amp into the trunk of his car behind L.A's The Troubador club a mere two years later.
Presumably, the guy who did it is currently being sodomized amidst sulfurous fumes by Satan himself.
Apparently, there was another death by cop yesterday. Police in Ohio shot and killed a 16 year old black girl shortly before the Chauvin verdict.
The fact that the above 1999 Springsteen song is still obviously relevant -- 22 years after the murder of Amadou Diallo by Rudy Guiliani's city-sanctioned sociopaths -- is beyond infuriating.
[I originally posted this back in early 2011, when this blog and the world were young. I'm putting it up again, for reasons that will become obvious, and -- also -- because I love you all more than food. Enjoy.]
So I'm reading Keith Richards' Life at the moment; so far, it's absolutely fascinating, and I haven't even gotten to the part where he and Mick start to get the Stones together.
More to the point, toward the end of Chapter Two, Keith talks about records he actually owned in his formative years, rock and rockabilly LPs and singles that shaped his musical tastes circa 1959, and he mentions a couple of "forgotten jewels." In particular a 45 I will confess to having never heard or heard of -- Johnny Restivo's "The Shape I'm In."
Which turns out to have a rather, er, interesting pedigree.
Johnny (John Charles) Restivo was born in the North Bronx, New York September 13, 1943. He enrolled in Cliffside Park Junior High School, New Jersey and was graduated in June of 1958. In 1959 Johnny was discovered by Joe Mulhall and Paul Neff and in June 9, 1959 he recorded "The Shape I'm In" and "Ya, Ya" at RCA Victor in New York City with Paul Simon (aka Jerry Landis) playing guitar on both tracks.
Not a bad little record, I'd say (and it's certainly still startling to hear early rock stuff like that in such excellent stereo). But on balance it strikes me as a tad (shall we say) inauthentic, at least compared to the Elvis and Buddy Holly records Keith was grooving on in 1959.
And for some reason, I neglected to include the song itself back in the aughts, an oversight I am now correcting.
On the other hand, compared to most of the homegrown Brit rock that was around at the time it probably sounded like a work of genius. But that's a subject for another post.
I should also add that you can download a high quality version of the original Restivo album that song's from, for free, at the invaluable Old Melodies blog over HERE. Just scroll down when you get there to find a teeny-weeny CD link.
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