This post is going to be in striking contrast to yesterday's item about GG Allin, but whatever. Looking back, there was always music in our home when I was growing up. Even before I discovered Kiss and started pilfering choice selections my older sister's collection, there were plenty of records in the house that I was into. My parents routinely played a steady rotation of singer/songwriter-types like Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Carole King and bands like Abba and The Beatles (although I believe Sgt. Pepper's was the jumping off point for them -- no fans of lysergic weirdness they). I can't remember if they were my mom's records or my step-father's, but there was some groovier fare on offer as well, notably by the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Ray Charles, Sergio Mendes' Brazil `66 ("Mas Que Nada" is the fuckin' jam!), Herb Alpert and The Baja Marimba Band, an instrumental mob who wore ridiculous sombreros and vaguely offensive comedy-mustaches. On top of those, there were piles of soundtrack albums (I was inexplicably stricken with the original cast recording of "Camelot" as a young lad) and quirky comedy LPs by guys like Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones (the original ala "Cocktails for Two," not the director) and Bob Newhart. All these great platters of physically substantial vinyl came sheathed in heavy cardboard sleeves, often with ornate gatefolds. Even though these records were largely bereft of power-chords and/or cries for violent insurrection, I immersed myself in them the same way I would with my favorite rock albums a few short years later. My imagination was still fired by them, and ultimately they acted as the "gateway drug," if you will, for my since-lifelong music obsession.
My grandparents' record collection was also rife with favorites. They lived nearby when my sister and I were still young children, and we'd routinely plunder through their LPs, mostly comprised of "old people music" like Jerry Vale, Perry Como and Edith Piaf (my grandmother's favorite). But they had some decent stuff as well. My personal favorite was a bizarre little record called Battle Stereo, which augmented a series of predictable battle anthems with sound effects like blasting canons and firing muskets. Sure, it sounds incredibly cheesy now, but to my eight-year-old ears, it was pretty damn cool.
There was another record of my grandparents that we came to absolutely cherish, so much so that we appropriated it from their collection and took it home (I'm not sure if we informed them of this pilferage or not, to be honest). Hidden amongst their selection of calypso albums was this strange little record by some guy named Blind Blake. There's a actually revered Chicago blues guitarist named Blind Blake, but this was a different dude. This Blind Blake hailed from the Bahamas. Evidently, during one of my grandparents' trips down to the islands sometime in the 50s or 60s, they'd seen this guy play at their hotel and -- as was their habit -- they picked up his record. Said habit explained the staggering amount of unlistenable tripe in their collection, but as far as we were concerned, the Blind Blake record was freakin' gold. Playing a strange, mutant hybrid of calypso-ragtime-blues, Blind Blake played goofy little numbers like "J.P. Morgan," "My Pigeon Gone Wild" and the endearingly bawdy (though we didn't know it at the time) "Lord, Got Tomatoes," all sang with folksy charm in a strange Bahaman accent. I can't imagine how many times we played that record and giggled like little idiots. The music itself was pretty damn great as well, featuring a fat guitar sound, a stand-up bass and Blake himself, I gather, playing banjo (I think) over the top. It was just different from anything my sister and I had ever heard, but we completely dug it.
Sometime shortly afterwards, my sister Vicky and I started getting into contemporary rock and pop. A friend of Vick's gave her a copy of Queen's then-new A Night at the Opera for her birthday, and that quickly blew everything else away. Then Vicky bought a copy of Mothership Connection by Parliament. Not to be outdone, I saved my paltry allowance up and bought Dressed to Kill by Kiss -- the first LP I ever bought. We'd both been bitten by the bug, and we were hooked. The vintage soundtrack albums, ancient bossa-nova records and, yes, even Blind Blake got shoved to the back of the shelf. A couple of years later, my dad sent my sister and I a big box of promo records while he was stationed in England as the London correspondent for Forbes magazine. There were loads of titles in there, but I vividly remember Pure Mania by the Vibrators, the first Boston album and the first record by The Clash. In short order, Vicky and I were becoming nascent music snobs, and routinely punishing the rest of the household with our increasingly-polar tastes. If I recall correctly, the first time I ever heard my step-father utter the word "bullshit" was in response to hearing me blast "Reach Out" by Cheap Trick -- off the soundtrack to to Heavy Metal: The Motion Picture -- out of our living room stereo one Saturday afternoon (I believe the full quote was "what is this stupid bullshit you're listening to?") Ah yes, good times.
Time passed. My parents got divorced. Victoria went off to prep school. We moved house. Lots of shuffling ensued. My grandfather passed away by the time I was a senior in college. My grandmother followed a couple of short years later. Life sped up. In a short span of years, I was a bona fide working professional and insufferable music geek attempting to pass as a legitimate "music journalist." I tried to play myself off as having very varied tastes, but I still largely clung to "that which rocked," opining derisively on music that failed to fit my narrow litmus test. I remember getting actually angry at my good friend Sean's fervent discovery of some vintage performer called "Ukulele Ike." I wanted him to appreciate the crap I was digging at the time like Pantera, The Wildhearts and _______ (insert name of frowny, 90's indie rock also-ran here), but Sean just liked what he liked. I believe I called his newfound Ukulele Ike appreciation a "pretentious affectation," but he (wisely) just laughed me off.
Then it happened. Some time in 1996, I was randomly rummaging through a second-hand book & record store on West 18th Street and I stumbled upon it; a pristine 10" record of good ol' Bahaman Blind Blake. The cover art was identical to my grandparents' copy, but the colors and track-listing were different. It all came rushing back to me. Without hesitation, I bought that sturdy slab of vinyl on the spot, suddenly hugely eager to hear those endearingly goofy songs from my now-distant childhood. Trouble was, I no longer owned a turntable. The record sat unplayed on my shelves for the next five or so years until I eventually moved all my vinyl records into storage. I finally owned another Blind Blake record, but to this day haven't been able to spin it.
The internet's a funny thing, though. I periodically searched for stuff of Blake's out there, but rarely found much information. That changed a couple of weeks ago. I discovered an authoritative discography of Bahaman Blind Blake's work, which in turn brought me to this page, wherein another avid collector was offering home-burned CD compilations. I ponied up my eleven bucks and bought one. In all candor, that disc arrived the same day as the Killing Joke live box set I'd been anxiously awaiting. Guess which one I listened to first? That's right -- Blind Blake. Despite having not heard these songs since I was -- I don't know -- no older than eleven or twelve years old, it still all came rushing back to me. I remembered giggling in my grandparents' den out in Long Island on hot summer afternoons, hearing my grandfather singing along in the kitchen. And these songs still sound as great today as they did back then. Is my testament of affection for Blind Blake's vintage calypso music a "pretentious affectation"? Maybe, but at the end of the day, music is music. You either appreciate it or you don't. And for a variety of reasons, I sincerely appreciate this stuff.
Under normal circumstances, I'd have ripped a track from the CD and put an embedded MOG player (see these posts), but MOG is evidently going through some structural changes, so I can't. However, I did manage to find a track from that original LP on YouTube, of all places, so you can sample of taste of what I'm talking about. Here's "Lord Got Tomatoes." Enjoy.
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Exhuming Blind Blake
This post is going to be in striking contrast to yesterday's item about GG Allin, but whatever. Looking back, there was always music in our home when I was growing up. Even before I discovered Kiss and started pilfering choice selections my older sister's collection, there were plenty of records in the house that I was into. My parents routinely played a steady rotation of singer/songwriter-types like Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Carole King and bands like Abba and The Beatles (although I believe Sgt. Pepper's was the jumping off point for them -- no fans of lysergic weirdness they). I can't remember if they were my mom's records or my step-father's, but there was some groovier fare on offer as well, notably by the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Ray Charles, Sergio Mendes' Brazil `66 ("Mas Que Nada" is the fuckin' jam!), Herb Alpert and The Baja Marimba Band, an instrumental mob who wore ridiculous sombreros and vaguely offensive comedy-mustaches. On top of those, there were piles of soundtrack albums (I was inexplicably stricken with the original cast recording of "Camelot" as a young lad) and quirky comedy LPs by guys like Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, Spike Jones (the original ala "Cocktails for Two," not the director) and Bob Newhart. All these great platters of physically substantial vinyl came sheathed in heavy cardboard sleeves, often with ornate gatefolds. Even though these records were largely bereft of power-chords and/or cries for violent insurrection, I immersed myself in them the same way I would with my favorite rock albums a few short years later. My imagination was still fired by them, and ultimately they acted as the "gateway drug," if you will, for my since-lifelong music obsession.
My grandparents' record collection was also rife with favorites. They lived nearby when my sister and I were still young children, and we'd routinely plunder through their LPs, mostly comprised of "old people music" like Jerry Vale, Perry Como and Edith Piaf (my grandmother's favorite). But they had some decent stuff as well. My personal favorite was a bizarre little record called Battle Stereo, which augmented a series of predictable battle anthems with sound effects like blasting canons and firing muskets. Sure, it sounds incredibly cheesy now, but to my eight-year-old ears, it was pretty damn cool.
There was another record of my grandparents that we came to absolutely cherish, so much so that we appropriated it from their collection and took it home (I'm not sure if we informed them of this pilferage or not, to be honest). Hidden amongst their selection of calypso albums was this strange little record by some guy named Blind Blake. There's a actually revered Chicago blues guitarist named Blind Blake, but this was a different dude. This Blind Blake hailed from the Bahamas. Evidently, during one of my grandparents' trips down to the islands sometime in the 50s or 60s, they'd seen this guy play at their hotel and -- as was their habit -- they picked up his record. Said habit explained the staggering amount of unlistenable tripe in their collection, but as far as we were concerned, the Blind Blake record was freakin' gold. Playing a strange, mutant hybrid of calypso-ragtime-blues, Blind Blake played goofy little numbers like "J.P. Morgan," "My Pigeon Gone Wild" and the endearingly bawdy (though we didn't know it at the time) "Lord, Got Tomatoes," all sang with folksy charm in a strange Bahaman accent. I can't imagine how many times we played that record and giggled like little idiots. The music itself was pretty damn great as well, featuring a fat guitar sound, a stand-up bass and Blake himself, I gather, playing banjo (I think) over the top. It was just different from anything my sister and I had ever heard, but we completely dug it.
Sometime shortly afterwards, my sister Vicky and I started getting into contemporary rock and pop. A friend of Vick's gave her a copy of Queen's then-new A Night at the Opera for her birthday, and that quickly blew everything else away. Then Vicky bought a copy of Mothership Connection by Parliament. Not to be outdone, I saved my paltry allowance up and bought Dressed to Kill by Kiss -- the first LP I ever bought. We'd both been bitten by the bug, and we were hooked. The vintage soundtrack albums, ancient bossa-nova records and, yes, even Blind Blake got shoved to the back of the shelf. A couple of years later, my dad sent my sister and I a big box of promo records while he was stationed in England as the London correspondent for Forbes magazine. There were loads of titles in there, but I vividly remember Pure Mania by the Vibrators, the first Boston album and the first record by The Clash. In short order, Vicky and I were becoming nascent music snobs, and routinely punishing the rest of the household with our increasingly-polar tastes. If I recall correctly, the first time I ever heard my step-father utter the word "bullshit" was in response to hearing me blast "Reach Out" by Cheap Trick -- off the soundtrack to to Heavy Metal: The Motion Picture -- out of our living room stereo one Saturday afternoon (I believe the full quote was "what is this stupid bullshit you're listening to?") Ah yes, good times.
Time passed. My parents got divorced. Victoria went off to prep school. We moved house. Lots of shuffling ensued. My grandfather passed away by the time I was a senior in college. My grandmother followed a couple of short years later. Life sped up. In a short span of years, I was a bona fide working professional and insufferable music geek attempting to pass as a legitimate "music journalist." I tried to play myself off as having very varied tastes, but I still largely clung to "that which rocked," opining derisively on music that failed to fit my narrow litmus test. I remember getting actually angry at my good friend Sean's fervent discovery of some vintage performer called "Ukulele Ike." I wanted him to appreciate the crap I was digging at the time like Pantera, The Wildhearts and _______ (insert name of frowny, 90's indie rock also-ran here), but Sean just liked what he liked. I believe I called his newfound Ukulele Ike appreciation a "pretentious affectation," but he (wisely) just laughed me off.
Then it happened. Some time in 1996, I was randomly rummaging through a second-hand book & record store on West 18th Street and I stumbled upon it; a pristine 10" record of good ol' Bahaman Blind Blake. The cover art was identical to my grandparents' copy, but the colors and track-listing were different. It all came rushing back to me. Without hesitation, I bought that sturdy slab of vinyl on the spot, suddenly hugely eager to hear those endearingly goofy songs from my now-distant childhood. Trouble was, I no longer owned a turntable. The record sat unplayed on my shelves for the next five or so years until I eventually moved all my vinyl records into storage. I finally owned another Blind Blake record, but to this day haven't been able to spin it.
The internet's a funny thing, though. I periodically searched for stuff of Blake's out there, but rarely found much information. That changed a couple of weeks ago. I discovered an authoritative discography of Bahaman Blind Blake's work, which in turn brought me to this page, wherein another avid collector was offering home-burned CD compilations. I ponied up my eleven bucks and bought one. In all candor, that disc arrived the same day as the Killing Joke live box set I'd been anxiously awaiting. Guess which one I listened to first? That's right -- Blind Blake. Despite having not heard these songs since I was -- I don't know -- no older than eleven or twelve years old, it still all came rushing back to me. I remembered giggling in my grandparents' den out in Long Island on hot summer afternoons, hearing my grandfather singing along in the kitchen. And these songs still sound as great today as they did back then. Is my testament of affection for Blind Blake's vintage calypso music a "pretentious affectation"? Maybe, but at the end of the day, music is music. You either appreciate it or you don't. And for a variety of reasons, I sincerely appreciate this stuff.
Under normal circumstances, I'd have ripped a track from the CD and put an embedded MOG player (see these posts), but MOG is evidently going through some structural changes, so I can't. However, I did manage to find a track from that original LP on YouTube, of all places, so you can sample of taste of what I'm talking about. Here's "Lord Got Tomatoes." Enjoy.
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