Bill Wyman’s birthday yesterday makes it as good a time as any to get some earlier Stones stuff onto the blog. These are from Charlie Watts’ 70th birthday, June 2, 2011. I know nothing about playing the drums, but I always thought Charlie was the perfect drummer for the Rolling Stones — flexible, solid, content to be in the background. And he always seemed to have some sort of cool jazz or blues project going on the side.
Haiku powered by Charlie’s wattage
Today’s the birthday
Of Charlie Watts, Stones’ drummer
Renaissance beat man
Rock traces its roots
To folk, country, mostly blues
But how about jazz?
Jazz caught Charlie’s ear
“Flamingo” and “Walkin’ Shoes”
He lusted for drums
Before his first kit
He hacked off a banjo’s neck
Drummed on its body
Soon he played skiffle
‘Round London street corners, joined
Alexis Korner
Keith and Mick showed up
Blues Incorporated group
Morphed into the Stones
Whatever a song
Needed, Charlie knew the beat
Time was on his side
The Stones, the rolling
Circus, creative chaos
Charlie was the rock
Pick any Stones hit
Listen to Charlie’s drumming
It will be just right
For instance, it’s there
On “19th Nervous Breakdown”:
Sticks, cymbals, big toms
He didn’t forget
His first love, either, once formed
A jazz orchestra
Boogie-woogie lived,
Too, in his great pickup group
Rocket 88
With Stones and without,
He’s played it all, and he marks
One more year on time
And on “Moonlight Mile”
Charlie Watts proved he drums to
A different dancer
Bill Wyman’s birthday yesterday makes it as good a time as any to get past Stones stuff onto the blog. From the anniversary of the release of a great album.
May 12, 2011, haiku
Exile on Main Street
Released 39 years back
On a dark May day
The Stones were exiled
To France and LA, fleeing
Britain’s back taxes
Music deep in blues
Vocals buried in mixes
Murky, layered, drugged
Country, calypso
And soul sank into the songs
Blurring the picture
Musicians drifted
In and out, heroin shot
Through Keith Richards’ veins
The dissolution
And delays bugged unstoned Stones —
Mick, Bill and Charlie
Despite everything
The beast was corraled, not tamed,
Baffling to many
Dice tumbled, joints were
Ripped, hips shaken, a light shined
And Keith got happy
A time of excess,
Restless music, “more is more”
Captured brilliantly
And the Voice critic
Robert Christgau got it right:
“Fagged-out masterpiece”
Jeff Porter’s birthday
A musician’s musician
Playing them his way
He’s a working stiff
“Just” an American dad
Chasing a dollar
But words from his heart
And music from his fingers
Fill in his story
Singing uncle spun
Melodies, pilot dad traced
Vapor trails for him
Mystery and beauty
Fleeting fame, lasting longings,
Hearts like birds take wing
His down to earth songs
Sketch laugh-out-loud flaws, foibles,
Spankin’-good romance
Magic each Wednesday
Gigs with his pals Bob and Norm
Always some surprise
Folk, rock and reggae
A little country — he can
Sing and play it all
Newest Rainmaker
Helps Bob, Rich, Pat get it right,
Fåvang to St. Cloud
A fine guitarist
Knockout keyboard player, too
That’s our Jeffy Lee
Happy birthday, Jeff
Your fans are blessed to know you
Friends, luckier still
P.S. If you aren’t already familiar with Jeff’s music, you should be. His “15 Miles” CD is available at Amazon and iTunes, ditto the “No Abandon” CD with Bob Walkenhorst, which includes “Hey Bird.” Amazon also has “Norway No Abandon,” a great DVD from Bob and Jeff’s 2010 Norway tour. Jeff’s also the lead guitarist on the Rainmakers’ 2011 release, “25 On.” And come to the Record Bar in Westport almost any Wednesday; Jeff and Bob, usually with Norm, hold court from 7 to 9. Heck, they’ll even let you buy ’em a beer — and I think the above mentioned products usually are available, too, at the sound board.
The Rainmakers have a new video out. I thought there might be one or two people reading this who haven’t seen it. So there it is. It’s also a good excuse to post some more semi-related pre-blog stuff. Again, chances are good if you’re reading this you know the Rainmakers were a 1980s and ’90s band from Kansas City that got back together this year, 25 years after their first album, and cut another great album, “25 On,” pretty much in five days. (Get it here: http://tinyurl.com/655s34s.)
Anyway, as I get older it’s inspiring and heartening to see people my age and older doing amazing things, and to feel that I’ve never been quite so alive and capable and creative. Thus, “Old Guys” haiku, from March 16:
Old guys have the chops
Rainmakers “25 On”
Better than ever
Old guys really rock
Neil Young, like a hurricane,
Still blows us away
Old guys have the goods
Neil Young showed the way, out-grunged
Every new grunge band
Old guys have Mojo
Like Tom Petty cranking out
His 15th album
Old guys have the touch
Land a plane on the Hudson?
Sully was no kid
Old guys have vision
Frank Lloyd Wright in his 60s
Dreamed Fallingwater
Old guys have the ear
Janacek wrote his classics
At 70-plus
Old guys kick your ass
Then effortlessly drink you
Under the table
Old guys keep going
They were just born to outlast
Punks and pretenders
Old guys do it all
At least the ones who really
Could in the first place
The only thing that
Really gets old is people
Hung up about age
And here’s a little Rainmakers addendum, from April 13, reference to Hendrix’s saying, “Oh no, I’m out of tune again; well, only cowboys stay in tune.”
“Tuning’s for cowboys,”
Jimi said; Rainmakers say,
“Rehearsing’s for kids”
Let’s wrap up these often somber re-postings with some from a gloriously happy weekend.
Greg's Hack-u 