Compiled by Albie The Good, your average desert-dwelling, Bible-believing, Christian Beatnik and Incurable Bookworm... Thoughts about stuff... oh, and things too. :)
God bless the USA, God bless THE BLASTERS! What would my '80s have been like without them?? I shudder to think...
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This song was first found on their classic 1980 debut album. The clip below is from the very first FARM AID benefit concert September 22, 1985.... and you better know young Albie was watching riveted at the U of A campus in Tucson AZ on the dorm TV that very night...
AMERICAN MUSIC
Words and Music by Dave Alvin
Well, a U.S. soldier boy on leave in West-Berlin
No music there that rocks, just a thousand violins They wanna hear some American music, American music They wanna hear that sound right from the U.S.A.
Well, it can be sweet and lovely, it can be hard and mean One thing's for sure, it's always on the beam They wanna hear some American music, American music They wanna hear that sound right from the U.S.A.
It's a howl from the desert, a scream from the slums The Mississippi rollin' to the beat of the drums They wanna hear some American music, American music They wanna hear that sound right from the U.S.A.
We got the Louisiana Boogie and the Delta Blues We got Country, Swing and Rockabilly, too We got Jazz, Country-Western and ChicagoBlues It's the greatest music that you ever knew
It's American music, it's American music, it's American music It's the greatest sound right from the U.S.A.
Well, a US soldier boy has to stop right in his tracks When he hears that crazy beat, he turns and doubles back Because they're playing American music, American music The whole world digs that sound from the
Albie's Note: Although I am no Roman Catholic, I like the famous Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis Of Assisi. [1181-1226] It eloquently prays for God to use the individual Christian to spread His Peace in a fallen world... I sure can't find any problem with that!
Here is the prayer set to music by the great Catholic singer/songwriter John Michael Talbot [born 1954] back in-- I believe-- 1980. It is one of my all-time favorite Christian songs. Talbot used to come do free concerts at my college [John Brown University, Siloam Springs ARK] back in the 1980s and he would always play this. Great memories.
Back about 10 years or so ago, during my massive "rockabilly mid-life crisis" period, I bought a great 1997 CD by Josie Kreuzer entitled HOT ROD GIRL. It remains one of my all-time favorite albums. Josie, who recorded a couple more albums and then disappeared, was a great songwriter and the album was filled with well-performed original material, but my favorite song on it was this cover of an old Sonny Burgess single originally recorded on the SUN label back in 1957. Burgess was an unusually smooth rockabilly cat who is pretty hard to cover legitimately, but I think Josie, as backed by the great San Diego trio HOT ROD LINCOLN, pulled it off...
Behold: the great "Ain't Got A Thing":
Well I got a car, ain't got no gas
I got a check, but it won't cash
I got a man, he ain't got no class...
Well I got a guitar, ain't got no strings
I got ten fingers, ain't got no ring
I got a man, ain't got a thing...
Well I got a stove, ain't got no heat
I got some drums, but ain't got no beat
I got a man, but he ain't so sweet...
I got two feet, ain't got no shoes
I got a wagon, ain't got no mules
I got a man, but he ain't so true...
I got a piano, ain't got no keys
I got a cracker, ain't got no cheese
I got a man, but he climbs trees...
Just about a month ago I blogged a mini-sermon by Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith called "Exploits!" [Read it HERE if you like.] I said in the header that he was one of my true heroes in the Christian Faith and I meant it. Yesterday old Chuck passed from this mortal coil and into an eternity with The Christ he loved and preached for over 70 years. I got a chance to go and see him in person in Tucson back in 2011. I don't often say these kinds of things about mere men, but the man had a spiritual presence you could almost feel. It was an amazing service. He will be missed.
Lord, do it again!
HERE IS A TRIBUTE PRINTED YESTERDAY
ON CHRISTIANITY TODAY'S SITE:
Chuck Smith, the evangelical pastor whose outreach to
hippies in the 1960s helped transform worship styles in American
Christianity and fueled the rise of the Calvary Chapel movement, died
Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 86.
Diagnosed in 2011, Smith continued to preach and oversee administration
at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California), where he'd been pastor since
1965. In 2012, he established a 21-member leadership council to oversee
the Calvary Church Association, a fellowship of some 1,600 like-minded
congregations in the United States and abroad.
Smith was known for expository preaching as he worked his way through
the entire Bible, unpacking texts from Genesis through Revelation and
offering commentary along the way.
Yet it was his openness to new cultural styles, including laid-back
music and funky fashions of California's early surfer scene, that helped
him reach young idealists and inspire a trend toward seeker-sensitive
congregations.
"He led a movement that translated traditional conservative Bible-based
Christianity to a large segment of the baby boom generation's
counterculture," says Brad Christerson, a Biola University sociologist
who studies charismatic churches in California. "His impact can be seen
in every church service that has electric guitar-driven worship, hip
casually-dressed pastors, and 40-minute sermons consisting of
verse-by-verse Bible expositions peppered with pop-culture references
and counterculture slang."
Born to a Bible-quoting mother and a salesman father who became a
zealous convert in midlife, Smith grew up in Southern California, where
he witnessed to the Gospel from a young age.
After Bible college training and a stint as a traveling evangelist, he
sought a niche in Pentecostalism by pastoring several Church of the
Foursquare Gospel congregations. But he confesses in Chuck Smith: A Memoir of Grace: "I just never succeeded" in that denominational environment.
He found his groove in the 1960s, when many evangelicals were frowning
on the wild outfits, long hair and psychedelic music that were all the
rage among young adults. One seminal moment came during his early days
at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, where old guard trustees posted a sign in
their renovated sanctuary: "no bare feet allowed." Smith tore it down
with a promise to reach young souls for Christ, even it meant throwing
out new pews and carpeting and bringing in steel folding chairs.
"Lifestyle issues and morality issues were things that he would expect
Christ would clean up in these folks lives," said Larry Eskridge,
associate director of the Institute for the Study of American
Evangelicals at Wheaton College. "But the informality of these folks and
the music they were fond of – he was willing to let that slide quite a
bit."
Smith never became a hippie, Eskridge said. But he nonetheless won a
following as a non-judgmental father figure by welcoming a blend of pop
music, poetry and aspiration to live like Jesus. Together with hippie
Lonnie Frisbee, Smith helped propel the Jesus People Movement, with its
embrace of Christ's teachings and disavowal of institutional church
trappings.
Smith also pioneered translations of Gospel teachings into 20th-century
pop art forms. In 1971, he launched Maranatha! Music, a pioneering
record label designed to promote the "Jesus music" that his young
followers were producing on the California coast.
Ministries born in the 1960s and 70s grew into a distribution empire.
By 2013, Smith's radio and television programs were airing in more than
350 cities around the world. The Word for Today, a publishing program
begun in 1978, now packages Smith's messages through books for adults
and children, DVDs, CDs and other channels.
"From age 50 on up would be his larger fan base," said Word for Today
General Manager Mark Rich. But Smith's easy-to-understand messages keep
attracting followers from other demographics, Rich says, because "Pastor
Chuck has always been able to relate to the younger crowd and to
children."
Never a denominational man, Smith forged a different type of fellowship
among congregations as word of his success spread. Calvary Chapels,
concentrated largely in coastal population centers, reflect Smith's
preferences for authoritative male pastors, expository preaching and
openness to contemporary music. What Eskridge describes as "restrained
exuberance" in worship has spread from Costa Mesa to Calvary Chapels on
the East Coast and beyond.
Some in other Protestant groups now look to Smith as a role model, whose methods have become the stuff of seminary workshops.
"Chuck Smith is one of my heroes," said Kurt Frederickson, a church
vitality expert who invokes Smith's work when he trains pastors in
Fuller Theological Seminary's doctor of ministry program. "He's able to
read the culture and to see a group of people who've been marginalized
by the institutional church and say, 'these people too should be cared
for'…. So he opens up his arms."
In Smith's absence, the Leadership Council of the Calvary Chapel Association will continue to govern the fellowship's affairs.
Early today, Evangelist Greg Laurie posted on his blog,
"I am so sorry to tell all of you that our friend, pastor Chuck Smith,
has died." At age 19, Laurie began ministry under Chuck Smith's
leadership. Laurie is the founding pastor of Harvest Christian
Fellowship in Riverside, California.
Then Came Bronson was a short-lived American TV series about an existential biker traveling the country in search of... well... adventure? himself? meaning? ... that whole sixties quest thing.
It starred Michael Parks, a good actor who also sang the theme song, and ran for just the one 1969-1970 season in a pack of 26 epsiodes. The run began with a special pilot movie that aired before the official fall season on Monday, March 24, 1969. Unfortunately this excellent pilot film-- at this writing-- is still the only episode available on DVD.
Although I was born in 1964, I actually have distinct memories of this series. I remember watching the cool closing with Parks riding his Harley Sportster to the tune of the theme song "Long Lonesome Highway" [an actual Top 20 hit that somehow never gets played on oldies stations today.]
My other 2 memories are odd ones. I remember my older brother Joe was a big fan who even named a kitten of ours "Bronson" in honor of this show; and I remember that our Dad, a WW2 vet and hard-rock copper miner with no time for "hippies", also loved it... mainly, I think, because he always seemed to love shows with a wandering, traveling theme.
Later, in the mid-80s in Tucson AZ, my apartment roommates and I would watch re-runs of this show on Sunday nights on TV-18, a UHF channel that also showed stuff like Gidget and The Rifleman. I remember we were always impressed by 2 things: the off-beat stories and the distinctive music-- As the clip below indicates, hymns and folk music often set the strange mood. [Once the soundtrack even included "Piney Wood Hills" being sung by lovely guest star/folkie Buffy Ste. Marie.]
Now, comin' up on 30 years later... I have never seen it run on regular TV since then, which is puzzling to me since it is always referred to as a "cult classic."
Viewed today, this pilot episode holds up amazingly well. In fact, I actually like it much better than the similarly themed but heavy-handed and sloppily directed "classic" EASY RIDER. Sometimes you will hear this show called a "rip off" of the Fonda/Hopper film, but the actual fact is that BRONSON was both filmed and released earlier than RIDER. Also, to me at least, the script for BRONSON is quieter and more intelligent... really much more descendant of Melville, Wolfe and Kerouac than the typical "drop-out" fare of the late sixties.
Sometimes people even dis the show because Bronson-- who rode a lightweight bike and sported no leathers at all-- doesn't live up to the label "Biker." I guess that subtracts from "street cred" or something, but it's one of my favorite aspects of the show. Bronson-- in his wool beanie and brown jeans and t-shirt-- is no Hell's Angel or Son Of Anarchy by any means... in fact, he's something you'd never expect form Hollywood: a beatnik pacifist vagabond with literally no agenda at all.
It's just plain cool, man.
The story is pretty simple. in flashback we learn that Jim Bronson is a journalist who has become disillusioned after the suicide of his friend Nick, played by a young Martin Sheen. He decides to buy back the Sportster he sold Nick from Nick's widow, quit his job, and just ride around seeing the country.
Although the original pilot sort of leans toward a "self discovery" theme, the show that developed was even better. The difference was, as I recall, that the regular episodes sort of lost even this original threadbare concept and instead became nothing short of a weird, Zen experiment in TV drama; as Bronson would just happen into situations and then refrain from judging or advising at all. But still, even this pilot is compelling because of the way it juxtaposes Bronson against the conformist world around him as demonstrated by the dialog below -- which can be seen in the Youtube clip I have attatched-- where Parks first utters his catch-phrase "hang in there" to car-bound suburbanite at a stop light:
Driver: "Taking a trip?"
Bronson: "What's that?"
Driver: "Taking a trip?"
Bronson: "Yeah."
Driver: "Where to?"
Bronson: "Oh, I don't know. Wherever I end up, I guess."
Driver: "Man, I wish I was you."
Bronson: "Really?"
Driver: "Yeah."
Bronson: "Well, hang in there."
Well anyway back to the story. Jim meets a girl on the beach named Temple [played well by the fine actress Bonnie Bedelia] who is a recent "runaway bride." She decides to join him in his travels for a couple weeks, all the way to New Orleans. [Perhaps another reason for the common EASY RIDER comparisons. ]
Oddly, we do not get the love story we have been conditioned to expect in a situation like this. In fact, the whole point seems to be that Jim and Temple are kindred souls whose paths cannot truly intertwine for reasons far beyond them... sounds weird I know, but that's the best way I can describe it. The banter is great too:
TEMPLE: Jim, I want to be your friend.
BRONSON: Ya know, when you take on a friend, you take on a lot.
An especially interesting sequence finds them stopping at the
desert home of Jim's mentor and father figure, the enigmatic Papa Bear [played by vet character actor Akim Tamiroff in what is said to be his final role.] This guy is a
boisterous old artist who live and works with a brood of lively children, and eagerly welcomes Jim's visit. He senses, however, that something is troubling his young
friend, and he approaches Jim as a traveler on a road he himself has trod. The quiet dialogue between
the two is touching and wise.
Well.. for those who haven't seen the film yet-- and it is available--
I won't say anything more about the plot. It's not so much a matter of "spoilers" either-- I just think you need to experience it yourself with no pre-conceptions.
In short, the pilot of TCB is some classic television. Not just a really great time-piece for looking back at the 1960s, but a film that still offers some quiet wisdom in a unique way.
Albie's Note: In 1980, when I was a junior in high school, 2 of my all-time favorite performers -- both of them great singers with definite Rockabilly tendencies [Praise God!]-- teamed up for this unlikely duet that peaked on the American country charts at a measly #79 [although I have read it was a much bigger hit in England.] The song itself was a neo-cowboy song that had floated around Nashville in various slower versions until Carter [bleach-blonde descendent of country's founding family] and Edmunds [Welsh guitar hero and best friend of Carter's then-husband Nick Lowe] decided to speed it up into this quirky classic. I have always thought the poem of the song was kind of a redneck parody version of "If I Were A Carpenter." I like to imagine that Carlene-- daughter of June Carter Cash herself-- thought so, too. In any case I always liked the playfulness of the whole production.
BABY RIDE EASY
If I drove a truck And I were waitress And I ordered coffee And I poured you some
Then you'd stop by on your way sometime later And if we arm-wrestled I'd say that you won
Chorus
Ai-eeee my baby, ride easy Ride high in the saddle all day If your lovin' is good And your cookin' ain't greasy HITCH UP the chuck wagon And we'll ride away
If I were a winsome, hale senorita And I a bull-fighter, down in the sand While the band kept on playing that "Old Paso Doble" I'd throw you a flower Would you take my hand?
Chorus If I ran the country Yeah I'd be your first lady And fix up the white house While you were away Waitin' while I'm passing time with world leaders And later together alone we might lay
Repeat Chorus twice
HITCH UP the chuck wagon and we'll ride away HITCH UP the chuck wagon and we'll ride away HITCH UP the chuck wagon HITCH UP the chuck wagon HITCH UP the chuck wagon HITCH UP the chuck wagon and we'll ride away
When my blog header says I am both a Beatnik and a Bible Believer, you can rest assured that both are-- somehow-- totally true! I will be 50 next year... and I still love Kerouac, Snyder, Lew Welch, and Bob Dylan... and also D.L. Moody, Spurgeon, Billys-- Graham and Sunday, and Larry Norman.
Can I explain all of that?
No, not really. Life is a journey... and the signposts pop up sometimes before you have a chance to investigate them. But they are all a part of your strange, individual voyage... and it is best to embrace them and be thankful for them. [I Thes. 5:18]
Who was NEAL CASSADY? Well, he was the hard-living, fast-driving, pill-popping womaniser who was immortalised in Jack Kerouac's On the Road. And young Albie read this-- as well as Ken Kesey and John Clellon Holmes and Tom Wolfe and innumerable related non-fiction tomes-- at a very impressionable time in his crazy life.
So... why is Neal remembered? Because this unlikely drop-out anti-hero in many ways was responsible for an entire literary and social movement, the repercussions of which are still being felt today... for better or for worse.
And this song? Well... all I can tell you is I used to play it over and over years ago after I first bought it on a brand new vinyl record... and literally weep as I did so.
And even today.. it does something to me. I think it's because it's not just a tribute song. It makes an uncomfortable comment.
Life is fleeting, my friends.
And the Beat goes on.
"Did You Hear Neal Cassady Died?" -- The Washington Squares Did you hear Neal Cassady died? Lying on the tracks down in Mexico Did you hear Neal Cassady died, last night?
Can you see Neal Cassady drive? An old car and a girl in heaven alive Can you see Neal Cassady drive? That's right! He was a-lying on the tracks down in Mexico What a sad, sad, lonely way to go for the king of the hipster daddy-0's Who balled the jack in ON THE ROAD ...
FROM Wikipedia:
On February 3, 1968, Cassady attended a wedding party in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. After the party he went walking along a railroad track to reach the next town, but passed out in the cold and rainy night wearing nothing but a T-shirt and jeans. In the morning, he was found in a coma by the track, reportedly by Dr. Anton Black, later a professor at El Paso Community College, who carried Cassady over his shoulders to the local post office building. Cassady was then transported to the closest hospital, where he died a few hours later on February 4, four days short of his forty-second birthday. The exact cause of Cassady's death remains uncertain. Those who attended the wedding party confirm that he took an unknown quantity of Secobarbital, a powerful barbiturate sold under the brand name of Seconal. The physician who performed the autopsy wrote simply "general congestion in all systems". When interviewed later, the physician stated that he was unable to give an accurate report, because Cassady was a foreigner and there were drugs involved. 'Exposure' is commonly cited as his cause of death, although his widow believes he may have died of renal failure.
"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."-- I Thessalonians 5:18
