Bobby Vee

Robert Veline was born in Fargo, North Dakota. That probably doesn't mean anything to you, but we Dakotans don't have a lot of artists we can brag about.

My musical memories go back a long way, but frankly Bobby Vee was my older sisters' teen heartthrob, not mine. Nevertheless, when I was a young child I was certainly exposed to his music, by way of 45 RPM records spun on what we called then a "record player". I of course didn't know the story of how the day after the music died, when Buddy Holly and his fellow winter dance party members were supposed to perform a show in Moorhead, Minnesota, but tragically perished in a frozen field in Iowa, fifteen-year-old Bobby stepped up to the mic after a call went out for local talent to fill the bill. I didn't know that this last-minute fill-in led to a recording contract with Liberty Records. I didn't know that a guy named Robert Zimmerman played sloppy piano in Vee's band and called himself Elston Gunn. Elston later changed his name to Bob Dylan. In 2013 Dylan announced during one of his sets, “I’ve played with everybody from Mick Jagger to Madonna, but the most beautiful person I’ve ever been on stage with is Bobby Vee."

I saw Bobby Vee once in concert. Well, "concert" is kind of a stretch. It was the nineteen seventies, and a local nightclub; a tiny basement bar, really, would book national acts, mostly those who were ten years or so past their charting days. I didn't have kids yet, so I could afford the luxury of catching a show on a Friday night. I saw the Vogues and others I honestly can't remember, but I do remember Bobby Vee. He was playing in a dank cellar, but his personality sparkled. One would swear he was actually having fun, and I think he was. I think he loved performing.

The late fifties/early sixties were a time in music I have trouble relating to. Everything was tightly controlled -- artists were told what songs they'd record and those songs were manufactured somewhere in a secret song factory by writers who knew how to connect the right dots to spew out a hit. The only distinction, to my mind, is that some artists were better than others. If Fabian (I think his name was) had recorded the same songs that Bobby Vee ultimately lent his voice to, teenage girls wouldn't have screamed quite so loud. Talent talks.

Some of Bobby's hits struck me as kind of lame; cheesy. Like:

In Bobby's defense, the background girl singers pretty much ruined the recording.

However, he had some GOOD recordings. Like this one:

And this one:

This: 

As a kid, I recoiled from this song, simply because of its title. I was steeped in Wednesday catechism, so anything referencing the devil was bad; evil. But this is a good song. Listen:

It may sound weird, but Bobby's phrasing is quintessential North Dakotan. It sounds like home. Every place no doubt has its own sound and one only recognizes it if they're from that place. Listening to him sing, I could pick Bobby Vee out as a Dakotan even if I didn't know he was one. Maybe that's the pull. I really like him because he was a home boy.

Bobby was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2011. Alzheimer's is a son of a bitch -- it robs a person of their "self". It robs their families, too. My dad died from Alzheimer's. My dad was a unique soul. And then, just like that, Dad as we knew him was gone.

So, I have a couple of connections to Bobby Vee -- North Dakota and the sad descent of a cruel ruin.

Bobby Vee, nee Robert Veline, passed away on October 24, 2016. He was seventy-three years of age. I agree with Dylan: He was a beautiful person.

2016 Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees -- FRED FOSTER

The first time I ever saw Fred Foster's name was on the back of a Dolly Parton album:

Dolly was new. I possessed next-to-no knowledge of country music, but my new best friend Alice had her finger on the pulse and I was a fast learner. Album covers were treasures one held in their hands while the music played. They had heft -- they weren't tiny squares like CD jewel cases; they certainly weren't impossible-to-read like cassette cases. No, album covers were like giant books; books we studied. We read the names of the studio musicians, we learned who wrote each song, and we saw the name of the producer; in this case, Fred Foster. 

I, of course, didn't know what a producer did. He was most certainly the man in charge of the whole outfit, but what he did? In my twelve-year-old mind, he was the one who put the magic together. Ironically, all these years later, I find I was right.

Did you ever sit and listen as a songwriter strummed his newest song on an acoustic guitar and sang? You might think, well, that song has potential -- it could be something with some good sounds surrounding it. As is, though, it's nice but forgettable. I've been there and I've been her. I've written songs I think possess a certain spark, but if one was to listen to me plunk them out on my guitar, they would say, that's the worst thing I've ever heard. I've said that when I listened to a playback of me and my out-of-tune guitar busting out the song. Then my producer sprinkles something akin to fairy dust on it and suddenly it's damn good (it's also not necessarily my song anymore, but I'm so enamored with the final product that I feel righteous claiming credit for it).

That's what a producer does.

Fred Foster was that.

Here's what he did for Dolly:

Little did I know, or maybe I just forgot, that Fred Foster produced the most glorious tracks of all time. I might be a bit biased, but I don't think so. In the pantheon of "voices", this voice, and this sound, is exquisite:

And Fred Foster produced the penultimate rock and roll song:

Mercy.

For a country producer, Fred did rock just right.

If Roy Orbison was alive, he would be inducting Fred Foster into the hall of fame. I hope Dolly does it. I hope Dolly and Ray Stevens and Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson show up that night to do it right. 

Fred Foster made magic, like great producers do; music that will live forever.

God bless you, Fred Foster. Thank you for the sounds of heaven.

 

 

 

 

2016 Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees - CHARLIE DANIELS

I saw the movie Urban Cowboy with my mom. In one's twenties, in an earlier era, it was embarrassing to go to movies with one's mom, because inevitably there would be scenes that moms and daughters didn't care to talk about. "How did you like the movie?" "Um, fine. The music was good." Urban Cowboy was nothing compared to seeing Saturday Night Fever with Mom. Apparently we both liked John Travolta, because those are the only two movies I remember going to with my mom. My dad, on the other hand, practically wept during "Ordinary People" when I saw it with him, and we both knew exactly why, but that's a whole other story that has nothing to do with Charlie Daniels.

My point, which I've apparently lost while I was busy reminiscing, is that the first time I became aware of Charlie Daniels was when I saw Urban Cowboy. My older sister, shortly thereafter, came from Texas for a visit and was agog over the Charlie Daniels song featured in the movie. I could get my sister's point -- the song had an aura of danger and a Catholic girl's sensation of dread...ending in an upbeat hoedown -- which, I'm sure, is how God intended the world to work. I, however, could not deny the sublime fiddling. 

It's only fitting that in honor of Mom, I feature this clip from Urban Cowboy:

I subsequently purchased the Charlie Daniels Band's album, which I don't remember the name, but I found that Charlie was more than devils. I understand there's a whole mystique centered around southern rock. It wasn't something that was on my radar -- the Allman Brothers and other brothers and who knows who -- Marshall Tucker who heard it in a love song (which I'd heard as "pretty little love song"). Maybe one had to be from the south to appreciate southern rock's allure, but I sure as hell love this song:

That's about all I know about Charlie Daniels, other than that he is a patriot. But I like him; he's real. And he's real talented.

I'm good with whoever the Hall of Fame wants to induct. It's time we settle some scores -- remember artists who deserve to be remembered.

And my sister, no doubt, is thinking she was right all along.

2016 Country Music Hall of Fame Inductees - RANDY TRAVIS

When I rediscovered country music in the late nineteen eighties, after a long, tough drought, I found that I'd missed a few things. Wasn't it just like country music to become good again after I went away? I've written before about the wonders I discovered when I came back -- George Strait, Dwight Yoakam, The Judds; actual country music. It seemed it took some new blood to look around and say, Hey, does anybody remember country? What's with all these remakes of pop hits? Who's this "Sylvia"? What the hell happened to Charley Pride's musical taste? Likely there were some new producers hitting Nashville who actually liked country music and set out to find artists to match their longing for an authentic sound. Lucky for us; me. These producers understood that times had changed -- Chet Atkins wasn't in control anymore, and bless him, Chet was a treasure, but he'd held the reins tight on whatever sound came out of Nashville, and it was watered-down broth; nothing to upset the taste buds of listeners who liked their country with an airy chime of the Anita Kerr Singers and the steel guitar and drums mixed down so quietly they were essentially nonexistent.

The nineteen eighties, however, were a time for boldness. We were feeling pretty damn good about ourselves -- we had a president who'd restored our self-worth; things were looking up, and it was time to stop settling for crap. We wanted to go out and two-step; we wanted to shove the volume on our car radios to nine, roll down the windows and sing along. We just needed a reason to do that.

This song was a reason. This song killed me and it still does -- one of the best country songs of all time (I included it in my all-time top twenty). Its awesomeness takes my breath away:

As if that song alone wasn't enough, there was this one, also from 1985:

That voice. 

I looked up country music in my handy thesaurus app and one of the suggestions was Randy Travis. Okay, not really, but it should be.

There are certain things, outside our family, that we cherish; things that bring us comfort. Things that make us feel warm, cozy, secure. For me obviously it's music. I like a lot of music, but I treasure only a few specific voices -- John Lennon's, Roy Orbison's, Randy Travis's.

Here is more:

I have a couple of lesser-known favorites by Randy, and since this is my blog, I get to share them (sorry; all the official videos of this song are unembeddable, so this is the best I could find):

This one doesn't even have a live performance that I could find, but it's so good:

Everybody knows what's happened to Randy in the last few years -- his troubles, his stroke. Life is a series of troubles with some good times in between. When I watched him in the Hall of Fame video, my heart ached.

My parents dragged me to a Randy Travis concert when I was still clinging to the vestiges of Phil Collins and Prince and Robert Palmer; before I'd allowed myself to believe that country music would ever, ever come back. I didn't know who this guy was. I sort of knew, but I wasn't succumbing to that trickery; no. Country music had sucked me in once before and then it had tossed me aside like garbage. So as I sat in the upper reaches of the auditorium, I crossed my arms and tossed my head and tsk-tsked over the display on stage below me. But after a while I started to squirm with embarrassment in my seat, because this guy was good.

And boy, was he good. 

Crying

I guess this is the 50th anniversary of the CMA awards.

A bit about me:  I was a "countryholic" most of my life (thus the title of this blog), until country music changed and left me behind. I remember settling in, cross-legged, in front of our big living room TV when I was thirteen or so, devouring the CMA's. I rooted for my favorites to win -- I was even geeky enough to join the Country Music Association under false pretenses. (In those days one could claim to be anyone in the music industry and send in their fifteen dollar money order and become a voting member.)

Around the year 2000, things got wacky, as they say. The final nail in my country music coffin was Faith Hill, who had a single on the charts -- something to do with breathing -- and I said, what the hell? This isn't my country anymore!

I'm not ragging on Faith Hill; she was just the catalyst. There was lots of bad country music that year. So I gave up; removed the preset from my car radio, essentially stopped listening to music all together. Where was I going to go? To classic rock? I hate that stuff. And one can only hear the same oldies about a thousand times before they want to plummet off a cliff. Occasionally I would purchase the latest George Strait or Dwight Yoakam CD. Marty Stuart was my redemption angel. I grieved for country music, though -- the country I'd lost. I immersed myself in other interests -- mostly stupid politics, which, for someone like me is a losing game (trust me).

I found Twitter and became addicted. And on a whim, I decided to follow George Strait. That's where I found this video. For wont of anything better to do, I clicked on it.

I didn't plan to cry.

I never even liked some of these artists that much -- Charley Pride was okay; Dolly, too, was fine. I loved her duets with Porter. Randy I loved, yes. And seeing him sitting there, solitary; knowing the ravages he'd suffered, remembering the vibrancy of his stage presence the one time I'd seen him in concert -- well, that started the tears.

Then there was Ronnie Milsap. George, of course. Reba. Martina. Trisha. Brooks and Dunn. My man Alan. Glorious Vince. Even Rascal Flatts.

I don't even know who some of the artists in this video are. But when they started singing, "I Will Always Love You", I thought, hold on. You guys can't do this song -- not without Dolly.

Then there she was.

Dang, I am embarrassed for crying. I shouldn't be. It's good to mourn. And to celebrate, even if what's lost hurts a little.

I have my quibbles with the video -- artists who were left out and shouldn't have been. But shoot, I wasn't in charge.

I'm just thankful somebody actually remembered.

Google Ate My Blog

Please don't ever try contacting Google. Oh, they claim to have a contact page -- it doesn't work. I somehow finagled an email address and Google was quick to reply. Except they gave me two very contradictory "solutions". One said to go to www.blahblahblah and renewal would be quick as a snap! The other said I owed them $500,000.00 or so, because my account as in arrears. Alas, neither of these options worked (and boy, do I miss my $500,000.00!)

In desperation, I "Googled" (yes) a blog forum, and posted my plea for help. The Google folks were eager to point me in the right direction, which led to a black hole.

Somehow, tipsy, I found my site again. It works today. I don't know what tomorrow may bring.

So if you're wondering what happened to me, let me tell you, it's been an unnerving quest. Google has always been there for me -- until now. No offense, Google, but what the hell?

But for now I shall bask in the glow of Rich Farmers being back.

And I missed you guys.

Editing

Music will have to wait a week or so. I'm currently editing. I decided to, what the heck, pretty up my first manuscript and publish it as the second April Tompkins novel. If it sells as well as RADIO CRAZY, I'm going to be flush with a sprinkling of pennies!

But that's what we do -- and by "we", I mean quixotic strivers.

Maybe I need to advertise - tweets aren't working well. But I have no budget. I edited RADIO CRAZY, designed the cover, converted it to the proper format, uploaded it to Amazon -- all at a cost of $0.00.

All one can do is try.