(Nearly) WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Back again by popular demand -- for this week at least!

1. Flying / The Beatles
From Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Okay, so it's mostly an instrumental, and a woozy, loungy romp at that, full of organ and bass. But I love it when the Beatles break in with those lusty "La la la las," dissolving into that space-age scrum of random noise--psychedelic, man!

2. Senior Service / Elvis Costello
From Armed Forces (1978)
Vicious jerky rhythms on the verses, insinuating legato choruses, and a riff that roars up the scale like a fighter jet taking off--wowza!  Tons of Angry Young Man aggro here: "I want to chop off your head and watch it roll into the basket . . . ." Nasty as hell, but this song is SO much fun to dance to.

3. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go / Madeleine Peyroux
From Careless Love (2004)
Sometimes I don't even want to hear Bob Dylan's original versions of certain songs. I am quite happy to leave this one with Peyroux's exquisite finger-snapping cover--it's like skipping through Paris with Django Reinhardt in my head.   

4. Gasoline Baby / Marshall Crenshaw
From Jaggedland (2009)
Very few instrumental tracks make the cut onto my iPod, but somehow Marshall's always do. I like to imagine he dreamed this song up while he was at the self-service pump one day -- okay, there's  singing, but it's just variations on "Gasoline baby, gasoline girl, gasoline baby, suck it on down" over and over, with rat-tat drums and a wash of brilliant guitar riffs. Any excuse to listen to Marshall play guitar!

5. I Knew It All The Time / The Dave Clark Five
(1963 single)
Hard to believe this song was just four years before "Flying." One of my fave DC5 numbers, though, with those pounding heartbeat drums (Clark always kept himself high in the mix) playing against a lonesome harmonica. I even love those growly vocals, though it's hard to believe that's Mike Smith. Could it be Dave took over lead vocals on this one?  Anybody?  

6. Love Attack / James Carr
From You've Got My Mind Messed Up (1966)
Same era, but oh, what a different sound! Memphis soul, a slow-dancing seducement that was James Carr's second hit single, peaking at #21 on the R&B charts.  Think Otis Redding with a little extra honey...

7. 36 Inches High / Nick Lowe
From Jesus of Cool (1978)
Oh yeah, and while he was producing Armed Forces for Elvis, Nick Lowe also tossed off his own brilliant LP, lighter on the anger but just as witty. Nick always tucks in a few covers--just to keep himself humble--in this case a Jim Ford gem delivered in lazy, smoky style. It's like he's sitting in a rocking chair, spinning tales of his past as a soldier, a tax man, a king, and why he's only 12 inches high I don't know, but I believe the operative word is "high."

8. Planet of Weed / Fountains of Wayne
From Traffic and Weather (2007)
And speaking of high...how much fun is this track? That fuzztone guitar, the clink of glasses, voices murmuring in the background: It's a ready-made party, in two minutes and 46 seconds. "We've got magazines to read / We've got Doritos to eat / So lay back on the couch / And kick up your feet" -- why, yes, I think I will.

9. Hangin' Your Life on the Wall / Guy Clark
From Dublin Blues (1995)
One of the great storytellers, and totally underrated.  Here Guy duets with Ramblin' Jack Elliott on a wry-but-wise Verlon Thompson song. Like two cracker-barrel philosophers, they recall foolhardy past glories -- as lover, bullrider, baseball player -- chuckling as they push back their Stetsons and put their boots up. "I used to be forever chasing firetrucks / I sure could raise me some hell" -- emphasis on the past tense.

10. Kansas City / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (compilation)
Must be my day for sorta-instrumentals. For years, all I knew was the Beatles' cover of this Leiber/Stoller standard, but now that I've heard Doug Sahm's swinging version--dig that horn section!--I'll never go back. Only problem is, there's just not enough of Doug's soul-shivering singing on this track.  I always want more Doug.

"Stoned Faces Don't Lie" / 
Doug Sahm

TEXAS MUSIC WEEK

Texas music doesn't have to be all about tacos, tumbleweeds, and honkytonks. Looky right here at the long and rambling career of Douglas Wayne Sahm of San Antonio.  At various times he could be found in such bands as the Sir Douglas Quintet (the faux-British invasion "She's About a Mover"), the Honkey Blues, Doug Sahm and Band, the Sir Douglas Band, Doug Sahm's Tex-Mex Trip (the ultra-soulful "Houston Chicks"), or the Tejano super groups the Texas Tornadoes and Los Super Seven -- that is, when he wasn't recording solo albums under his own name, or his alias Wayne Douglas. Having begun life as a country music child prodigy -- he was onstage with Hank Williams in the country music star's last live performance -- he traced an idiosyncratic career arc through the 60s, 70s, 80s (when he was insanely popular in Scandinavia), and 90s, switching musical styles with a chameleon's easy grace, yet never really hitting the big time nationwide.

Sahm sang some of the most iconic Texas rock songs ever, like "Texas Me" and "Beautiful Texas Sunshine" and "I Can't Go Back to Austin," but he also could also sing R&B like nobody's business, launch into a polka or a bit of Western two-step, then turn hippie at a moment's notice -- a mode permanently imprinted from a spell in the Bay Area during the Summer of Love. That's the Doug Sahm I've been thinking about today . . . as if that song title hadn't clued you in already.





The Doug Sahm discography is a very complicated thing; it doesn't help that most of the original albums are out of print, superseded (but not really) by a succession of hit-or-miss "best of" compilations. But as near as I can figure out, this track first came out on on a 1971 LP called The Return of Doug Saldaña. He'd just moved back to Texas (hence the Mexican-sounding alias) and reassembled the Quintet, most notably childhood friend Augie Meyers, whose keyboards were so essential to the SDQ sound. But whereas his 1969 album Mendocino was all about pining for Texas from the confines of Northern California, on this homecoming album he's sitting in a Texas roadhouse, reflecting wistfully about the good old days in San Francisco.

Doug Sahm had one of the great voices of rock and roll; I love how that acoustic opening sets it off, soft and husky with just a little reverb.  "Stoned faces don't lie, / Baby, when you're high," he croons gently over a muted dab of bass.  One by one the instruments drift in -- a light jangle of guitar, then the drums, a splatter of honky tonk piano -- as he muses about running into an old friend from his mellow San Francisco days, when life was so much more simple and straightforward.

That low-key ballad tempo -- ticking along nicely, but never breaking a sweat -- betrays Sahm's country roots, translating them perfectly to this stoner anthem.  (Dig that little yip of self-pity he throws into his voice.)  Everything strips back in the middle-eight, almost as if he's taking a long reflective toke over the pit-a-pat of bass. You can almost hear the scrape of his chair as he pushes it back from the table. It's getting late, and the jukebox is gonna turn to Hank Ballard in a second; the beer sign in the front window is starting to flicker.  For all his nostalgia, Sir Douglas is very much in Texas here. But then, he never really left it behind.

It's a classic grass-is-always-greener scenario (emphasis on the grass), but I don't hear a bit of irony here -- not even towards the end, when it dissolves into a barroom singalong ("Everybody now!") and Doug lets loose a mournful howl of "When you're high, when you're high, when you're high!" I do love a song with handclaps, even if they only creep in at the end. Mind you, I don't know what he's moaning about -- it sounds to me as if his current lifestyle is plenty stress-free. But then, hey, I live in New York.  What do I know about a stress-free lifestyle?

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

An eclectic bunch of tunes for the end of summer [sigh] . . . .

1. "When I Live My Dream" / David Bowie
From David Bowie (1967)
Before he was Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's first album featured a quirky mix of songs like this Anthony Newley knock-off. (Pizzicato strings! A triangle!) Insurance, just in case the rock-and-roll thing didn't pan out, you know...

2. "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" / The Walker Brothers
From Portrait (1966)
A trio from California, none of them really brothers, who found success by moving to the UK in 1965 -- payback for the British Invasion, I guess. Their first hit was Bacharach & David's "Make It Easy On Yourself" (remember the Jerry Butler version?); this single got a little more airplay in the States and cracked the top 20. I love how they copied that Righteous Brothers white-soul sound perfectly, all echo and back-up choirs and manly harmonies. "The sun ain't gonna shine anymore / The moon ain't gonna rise in the skies / The tears are always clouding your eyes" -- tear those heart-strings!

3. "You're Telling Me" / Alan Price
From Between Today and Yesterday (1974)
After O Lucky Man!, where could Alan Price go? Well, it took him a while -- the record company rejected his first try, Savaloy Dip (a long-lost album, until my friend Tony discovered a carton of 8-track tapes in a record warehouse's dumpster). But undaunted, Price bounced back with this masterpiece LP, perhaps best known for the UK hit "Jarrow Song." This song is the highlight of side 2, the "today" side, where Price finally unleashes the brooding, bluesy organ riffs we've been waiting for. "My friends all tell me, 'you should be happy, / You have more than many others in this town.' / But I can see now, just what they mean now, / They're my friends until my money lets them down." Yup, that's the cynical Alan Price we know and love.

4. "He's Evil" / The Kinks
From Preservation Act 2 (1974)
Another favorite album from 1974 -- totally different, of course, with Ray Davies leading the Kinks deep into campy musical theater. Dig the finger-wagging back-up choir in this snappy character sketch of dastardly Mr. Flash, the villain of this dystopian fable. Over and over, building to the finish, "He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil, he's evil, he's evil." Get the picture? Yes, we see.

5. "What Good Am I Without You?" / Kim Weston & Marvin Gaye
From Take Two (1966)
Classic Motown duet -- what a groove these two hit together. . . .

6. "Am I Wrong" / Keb' Mo'
From Keb' Mo (1994)
Just Keb' and his steel guitar, with handclaps and a few grunts providing snappy percussion -- and it's divine. How can he be wrong, falling in love with her, when her other man was out there cheatin' and lyin' and steppin' all over her? Sexiest line: "Just want to make a home for you, baby / And all of your children too."

7. "You Are What You Love" / Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
From Rabbit Fur Coat (2005)
Jenny's spunky, tuneful first solo album, her breakaway from Rilo Kiley, was so good. . . .what's happened since?

8. "Ain't That Loving You" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (2000 -- compilation)
South Side Chicago blues, filtered through Texas. You may know this old chestnut by Deadric Malone -- alias Houston black record producer Don Robey -- from the Grateful Dead's version, or Buddy Guy's. (Elvis Presley's was a different song -- man, this stuff gets confusing.) But man oh man, did Doug Sahm have a great voice -- I could listen to him sing the Yellow Pages and I'd be happy.

9. "These Roads Don't Move" / Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard
From Big Sur (2009)
Wonder what Kerouac would've thought of Jay and Ben turning his prose into Americana music?

10. "What Is Wrong, What Is Right?" / Herman's Hermits
From Very Best of Herman's Hermits (compilation)
This 1966 B-side proves that there was more to Herman's Hermits than the teen fan mags ever let us know -- just as I always suspected!

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Getting this in by the skin of my teeth -- 11:59 E.D.T. -- but so long as I'm starting it on Wednesday....

1. "Muswell Hillbilly" / Tim O'Brien
From This Is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies (2002)
This is what I get for buying every single Kinks tribute album that's ever been releasaed. But I do love O'Brien's totally country rendition of this title track to my all-time favorite Kinks album -- tons of fiddle and banjo, just like Ray imagined it in the first place. It's a totally credible country track: "They're gonna make me study elocution / Because they say my accent isn't right / Well, they may try to change my way of living / But they're never gonna kill my Cockney pride" -- you tell 'em, Brother Ray!

2. "More Than Sorry" / Ben Harper
From Both Sides of the Gun (2006)
I've seen this guy live a couple of times, and he always brings down the house. His sound is a little too chameleon-like -- the downside of being such a versatile talent -- I'm always surprised when it comes up and I check to see that it's Ben Harper singing. He's not rocking out so much on this one -- it's more acoustic and folky, which suits Harper's Cat Stevens-like voice. Tryin' SO hard to get that girl to accept his apology...

3. "Don't Disappear Now" / Marshall Crenshaw
From Life's Too Short (1991)
"We didn't stop making love for thirty-one days" -- that deeply sexy line always ambushes me in this superb MC track, tucked away on yet another neglected album. Crunchy guitars, smackin' drums, and Marshall's pleading vocals -- pure rock and roll, in its finest distilled form.

4. "Shout" / The Isley Brothers
From Instant Party Disc Regular Strength (compilation)
Every once in a while it's instructive to hear a vintage track like this -- 1959 fer crissakes! -- and realize that we have invented nothing in the past 50 years. Tempo changes, call and response, maniac whoops and hollers, and best of all, the "Little bit softer now part" where the whole thing dwindles down to a whisper, only to come whomping back full force -- "A little bit louder now!" Who can hear this without getting out on that dance floor?

5. "Santa Bring My Baby Back" / Marshall Crenshaw
From MC Rarities (compilation)
Okay, now you know what a Marshall Crenshaw geek I am. Some other Crenhead sent me this compilation of odds and sods, and the whole bit went straight onto my iTunes. But come on, you gotta love a track like this -- the sort of Christmas novelty tune that every band used to record way back when. Marshall's just having loads of fun, speeding through this peppy holiday tune -- and you can't help having fun with him.

6. "Solid Air" / John Martyn
From Solid Air (1973)
If I hadn't been reviewing records for my college newspaper, I'd never have discovered the amazing English folk-jazz virtuoso John Martyn. Hard to believe that I got this record for free, way back when. Talk about timeless music -- you can sink right into the plush environment of guitar + keyboards + sax and get lost in Martyn's vocal ramblings. Where is it going? Who cares?

7. "When I Was King" / Graham Parker
From Struck By Lightning (1991)
C'mon -- you just have to laugh, and then marvel over the songwriting abilities of Mr. Graham Parker. I can't even tell you how many amazing turns of phrase Graham stuffs into this sharp satiric number, along with a compelling guitar riff and infectious reggae rhythm. Exhibit X in the case for naming Graham Parker Neglected Genius of the Year.

8. "Give It Up" / Amos Lee
From Amos Lee (2005)
This is how you update Philly soul for the indie crowd. That funky organ and chunky guitar, topped off with Amos Lee's mellifluous vocals. "But I would give it all up for you / Yes I would give it up, settle down, stop fuckin' round." Sounds like a contract worth signing.

9. "She's About a Mover" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From The Complete Mercury Masters (compilation)
Well, hell -- it's 1965, and all the kids seem to be listening to these British Invasion Bands, so why not toss out a loveable little tune "in the style of"? Doug Sahm was really from Texas, not Liverpool -- but if that's the sound you want, the insanely versatile Sahm could turn it out, with a side note of grunge and psychedelia.

10. "Mixed Greens" / Jim Ford
From The Sounds of Our Time (compilation)
Okay, so I bought this record just because Nick Lowe said Jim Ford was one of his musical heroes. What really matters is how much I loved it once I owned it. Loungey 1970s country-soul with a particularly laidback, loose vibe -- nobody nailed this better than Jim Ford. Another neglected genius.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Today's blog is dedicated to Rafaela Filippi, a fellow Kinks fan, who just passed away Monday night. So what if the shuffle isn't all Kinks music? That wouldn't have bothered Raf. With her generous smile and open heart, she was a music lover of wide enthusiasm. I'll miss you!

1. "Yakety Yak" / Phantom Planet
From The Mumford Soundtrack (1999)
When I was a kid, we inherited a box of 45s from our older cousins, one of which was the original 1958 "Yakety Yak" by the Coasters (written by Leiber and Stoller, I now learn). How cool, then, to find it covered on this excellent soundtrack to a sweet little 1999 indie film, and by Phantom Planet, one of my favorite alt bands. Back then, Phantom Planet had only one album out and Jason Schwartzman (yes, that adorable indie actor, one and the same) was still their drummer. I love how Phantom Planet stays true to that old platter's charm, including the cheeky sax and the stern baritone retort to "Yakety yak!" -- "Don't talk back."

2. "The Wreck of the Barbie Ferrari" / John Hiatt
From Perfectly Good Guitar (1993)
My pink plastic Barbie Sportscar wasn't a Ferrari, but I get the picture. "It ain't the end of the world, it's just the wreck of the Barbie Ferrari" -- Hiatt plays it for comedy, with the frustrated family man opening fire on a box full of toys while the wife and kids are off at church. Still, underneath that satire lies a lot of repressed rage -- a LOT. I love Hiatt, our great rock chronicler of the ebbs and flows of family life, but this song misses the mark for me.

3. "A-Punk" / Vampire Weekend
From Vampire Weekend (2008)
I guess there are words to this song, but I never catch more than a word here and there. The main thing is the tight collage of sounds, a frantic ukelele-like strum alternating with a surge of synths, dense as cotton-wool, punctuated with Ezra Koenig yelping "Ay! Ay! Ay!" It doesn't sound like it should work, but somehow, magnetically, it does.

4. "Next Time You See Me" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (2000 compilation)
A CD I picked up for $1 on a binge in a used-record store in Amherst -- and I'll never regret it. (Do we ever really regret those bargain-bin splurges?) In my opinion, Doug Sahm could do whatever he damn well pleased, and here we find various incarnations of his band whipping out note-perfect covers of old soul classics, with a lazy funky groove that just does not quit. On this track, they work their magic on a 1957 Junior Parker classic that's been covered by everybody from Frankie Lymon to the Grateful Dead.

5. "Western Union Man" / Al Kooper
From I Stand Alone (1968)
Must be Soul Covers Night. This was one of my most-played LPs in college, and I loved this track long before I ever heard Jerry Butler's honey-dripping original. In the grand old tradition of Letter Songs, this one's too urgent for standard delivery -- no, we gotta reach that girl now, and damn the cost. (Somehow a text message just doesn't have the same flair.) Al punches it up a little, but it's still a loose-limbed seduction, underlaid with a funky bass and steamy horns. My favorite part: When the back-up singers and Al rat-tat-tat, in offbeat staccato: "Send a tel-e-gram, send a tel-e-gram!"

6. "I Worry 'Bout You Baby" / Brinsley Schwarz
From What IS So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding? (1973)
Ah, the Brinsleys, bringing their conception of a lazy Nashville stroll to the pubs of North London -- blissfully genial and more than a bit stoned. This track is totally, and I mean totally, derivative, but it is nevertheless feel-good music of the highest quality.

7. "All In Good Time" / Ron Sexsmith
From Time Being (2006)
I highly recommend this album for times of trouble. Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith has a knack for philosophizing without sounding preachy, especially on this album -- a gently rocking meditation on mortality and acceptance. A perfect song for me to hear tonight.

8. "Both Ends Burning" / Richard Thompson
From Hand of Kindness (1983)
I love how Thompson grafts together bluegrass, Cajun swamp, and Celtic folk song in this rollicking two-step, a shaggy dog tale -- or rather shaggy horse tale, about a broken-down nag turned racehorse. The story's just a pretext, though, for this spicy gumbo of sassy guitar licks, chipper accordion, and finger-wagging sax.

9. "Man of a Fool" / Nick Lowe
From The Abominable Showman (1983)
Nick Lowe's commentary on the battle of the sexes: "For every woman who ever made a fool of a man / There's a woman made a man of a fool." If Nick hadn't yet gone full country, there's still a certain Nashvillian snappiness to this track. A forgettable Nick track, from an odd mishmash of an album -- but it's still a pretty fab, fun bit o' music.

10. "May You Never" / John Martyn
From Solid Air (1973)
Another album I played the grooves off of in college, and especially this jazzy acoustic track, Martyn's rueful take on a traditional Celtic blessing. "May you never lay your head down / Without a hand to hold / And may you never make your bed out in the cold." Words of wry wisdom, and a fitting benediction in memory of a dear friend lost.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 51-55

Hovering here at the middle of my list are a curious bunch of songs, each one testing the boundaries of its era's shifting musical tastes -- American bands aping the British Invasion sound, Philly soul artists updating their streetwise groove, or a girl group trying to stand out from the pack. Usually I detest calculated hits -- but here are five songs too clever and fun to resist.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

51. "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet" / The Blues Magoos (1967)
In 1967 every major band in London was dropping acid and trying to express the psychedelic experience. As it turns out, the template was laid down by this upstart bunch of kids from New York City.

52. "She's About A Mover" / Sir Douglas Quintet (1965)
The late great Doug Sahm recorded under many names over the years -- it was almost impossible to keep up with them -- but when this early ensemble scored his first nationwide hit, the name sure fooled me into thinking they were another British band. Dig this video -- there's nothing about it to suggest that these long-haired guys in their skinny suits were from Texas, at least not until Trini Lopez spills the beans at the end. This stripped-down little rocker even has that sort of primitive Mersey sound, with its offbeat Farfisa chords, clangy guitars, and mumbled bluesy vocals. The lyrics are minimal -- mostly a lot of things like "Whoa, yeah, what I say, / Hey, hey!" and, for a chorus, "She's about a mover!" repeated over and over, toggling back and forth between two notes. (What is a "mover," anyhow? Inquiring minds want to know.) The thing has like four chords total, so it's no surprise that every garage band I knew included this in their repertoire -- once they'd mastered the Shadows of Knight's "Gloria," that is. But there's an art to making a record this ecstatic and fun, and Doug Sahm had that art down cold. Every time this song came on the radio we'd yelp with joy and turn the volume up. Years later, I still do the same whenever I hear any Doug Sahm record. A sorely neglected genius.

53. "98.6" / Keith (1967)
Every time I take my temperature, I think of this song. Don’t you? Honestly, without this song for a mnemonic, how did previous generations ever remember what a normal temperature should be? It’s the only hit that Keith (real name James Barry Keefer) ever had, but he certainly hit the jackpot with it. The central conceit is dead simple: The singer’s temperature is back to normal now that he’s happy in love (“Your lovin’ is the medicine that saved me / Oh, I love my baby”). What could have been a formulaic pop song, however, turned out to be anything but. It was written by the Brill Building team of composer George Fischoff and lyricist Tony Powers, who also wrote Spanky and Our Gang’s “Lazy Day” (hear the resemblance?). Fischoff’s bouncy melody, with its skipalong beat, was perfectly suited to Keefer’s suave Philly-soul voice, but the real key to success was Powers’ lyrics, which tapped into the hippie era's madcap flower-child giddiness. “Good morning sun, I say it’s good to see you shinin’,” Keith begins exuberantly, “I know my baby brought you to-oo-oo-oo me / She kissed me yesterday, hello you silver lining / Got spring and summer running throo-oo-oo-ough me.” (Notice how compression jazzes up those familiar nature images.) There’s a wonderful contrast between the good-timey sound of the verses, with their jubilant horns and softshoe tempo, and the hushed chorus, tautly confined to a few notes and a heartbeat pulse, as he checks his temperature again (“Hey, ninety-eight point six, it’s good to have you back again…).” My favorite line, though, comes in the second verse, where Keith proclaims, “You know she got me on another kind of highway / I want to go-oo where it ta-aa-aa-akes me!” Is that sexy or what?

54. "One on One" / Daryl Hall and John Oates (1983)
I suppose I could blame MTV for hooking me on these 80s groovemeisters, with their well-groomed shag haircuts and big-shouldered pastel suits. But the real history is a bit more complicated . . .

55. "Leader of the Pack" / The Shangri-Las (1964)
I know there were classier girl group songs -- the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" for one, or the Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," or the Exciters' "Tell Him." But I was too young in the early 1960s, and probably too white, to be a serious girl group aficionado. By the time "Leader of the Pack" vroomed into the charts, however, Beatlemania had transformed me into a voracious pop music fan, gobbling it all up. Among the East Coast girl groups, the Shangri-Las specialized in a tough-girl image; this romance about star-crossed love with a biker (I pictured him as a James Dean hottie) was right up their gritty alley. With all the sound effects -- the revving motorcycle, the screeching tires, the shattering glass -- it verged on being a novelty song, though that wouldn't have bothered me; it riveted me with its themes of death and breaking class barriers (I think this was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase "the wrong side of the tracks"). But more than anything else I was sucked in by its narrative technique. We overhear the girls chatting on the sidewalk:

"Is she really going out with him?"
"Well, there she is. Let's ask her."
"Betty, is that Jimmy's ring you're wearing?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Gee, it must be great riding with him. Is he picking you up after school today?"
"Unh-unh."

Real dramatic irony in a pop song! And then Betty takes center stage to wail her tale of woe: "I met him at the candy store / He turned around and smiled at me / You get the picture?" to which her girlfriends, nodding, reply, "Yes, we see." (That conversational set-up was another Shangri-La trademark.) A few months later, though, when a band called the Detergents released a parody called "Leader of the Laundromat," I was ready to laugh at the melodrama of "Leader of the Pack." Ah, how fickle the public can be!

"Houston Chicks" / Doug Sahm & The Tex Mex Trip

Eeyow. Just finished meeting a copy deadline on my next book, and I've got an hour here before I have to be somewhere else. Should I run to the gym and exercise, or should I do a blog post?

No contest.

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, but my life has been clogged with crap lately, so many low-grade hassles coming at me from every direction that it's been impossible to think straight. I've been needing a shot of tequila 'n Tecate -- or, failing that, some tunes from the late great Doug Sahm.

Long ago I owned the Sir Douglas Quintet single "She's About a Mover," their biggest early hit and least typical track (some liner notes I just read referred to this as Sahm's turn at British Invasion pop, which probably explains why I loved it so much). Then a couple years ago, I got me a Sir Douglas Quintet album called Soul Jam that's a perfect marvel -- but completely different, which piqued my curiosity big-time. For some reason or other, though, I kept getting distracted and did not follow up properly. (Memo to self: Stop getting distracted.) So last week, who knows why, in the middle of all that crap-wading I decided just to download some Doug Sahm tracks and be done with it. I still can't figure out what his "typical" sound is, but who cares? The guy could do just about anything, and with snarky humor to boot. I think of him as a sort of cross between Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (for the stoner wit) and Joe "King" Carrasco (for the Mexicali dance hall energy). Add a dash of Joe Tex for the soul, and you've got Doug Sahm. What's not to love?

This track comes from a nifty little 1974 outing called Groover's Paradise, which saw Sahm teaming up with the rhythm section from Creedence Clearwater Revival. And yes, it's just as tasty as that sounds. Even though I didn't know about this album in 1974, listening to it sends me right back to those mellowed-out years, fumes and all. "Houston Chicks" is a lasciviously slow bluesy stroll with lots of organ and bass; it keeps circling around to a moaned "Whoa-o-o-o-o-o, Houston, Texas." In "California Girls" style, it begins by acknowledging "Love girls all over the country / Even met a few around the world," but you know already that the hometown girls are gonna win out.

"Worked the clubs in Galveston," he ruminates in verse two, "Couldn't have been more than 15 / When one of those boarding-house mothers / Said 'Little boy, come on down to Houston with me." "Boarding-house mother"? Yeah, um-hmm, I can see the flimsy chiffon wrapper she's wearing right now.

I hear this a song as a companion piece to "House of the Rising Sun" (the brilliant organ work helps -- who's playing here? Now I wish I had the physical album, damn it.) But whereas "Rising Sun" is saturated with warning and regret, "Houston Chicks" is like one long lazy stretch of sexual satisfaction. In the bridge, he rouses himself on one elbow to declare "Houston chicks / Get their kicks / Out of / Taking care, care, care / Of the man that they love," with long drawn-out pauses between phrases to give you plenty of time to read between the lines.

In the last verse, he sums it all up: "If I live my life over / Don't you know where I wanna be / Somewhere, somewhere, out on the outskirts of Houston / Houston girl take care of me." The band joins in to "whoa-o-o-o" away, the organ builds, and in the fade I can just see Doug stubbing out that post-coital cigarette, then sinking back into the pillows for another go-round.

Houston Chicks sample