Artists: Bread
Album: On the Waters
Song: "Blue Satin Pillow"
I'm posting this fine example of firm rock for my friend Josh. During a recent brunch at Langer's Deli, he expressed his desire to hear Bread rocking out harder than their classic singles would allow. Josh mentioned scouring the blogs for concert bootlegs where he rightly expected the band to get fuzzier and wilder. But I think "Blue Satin Pillow" off of Bread's sophomore platter is downright thunderous make-out music.
Artist: Wayne Parker
Album: Oklahoma Twilight
Song: "This Van's for Sale"
Boogie vans crisscrossed America in the 1970s. The shaggy occupants searched for another breathtaking sunset, keg party, or airbrush competition. These rectangular steeds with their shag interiors were the first hybrid vehicles, running on a mixture of gas, grass, or ass. That last ingredient surely sparked many impromptu romances and road trips. The great Sammy Johns memorialized this bellbottomed era with his classic "Chevy Van." But what happened when the gas tank of love hit "E" and there were no more tokes to be had on the romance roach? Wayne Parker gives us the tragic answer song.
Artists: Black Grass
Album: Black Grass
Song: "Lock, Stock, and Barrel"
For someone whose patron saint of losers and unrequited love is Paul Westerberg, the soaring beauty of "Lock, Stock and Barrel" hits like the surprise of finding a $50 bill on the ground. My soundtrack for desperate yearning has always been hoarse, bleary-eyed, and coated in stubble, but Black Grass offers a compelling flipside that shows even wallflowers can stand elegant and proud.
Artist: Johnny Cash
Album: The Sound of Johnny Cash
Song: "Mr. Lonesome"
The forgotten outlaw, Tompall Glaser, penned this dark tune—a sharpened dagger to the yearning soul. Songwriting this plainspoken is as timeless as the emotion it personifies. Add the heavy echo to Johnny Cash's iconic voice and behold an audible frown. You almost need to put your hands in jacket pockets to withstand the discernible cold.
Artist: Little David Wilkins
Album: Little David Wilkins
Song: "Makin' Love in Waltz Time"
1-2-3, 1-2-3.
Of all the dance steps I learned during my brief time as Arthur Murray's 6' 5" tower of cash, the waltz proved to be my favorite.
1-2-3, 1-2-3.
That simple box step resonates with an almost-forgotten elegance. Man and woman locked arm in arm, a safe but tantalizing space between them.
1-2-3, 1-2-3.
I champion the modern-day grind, but that roots you to the floor. The waltz allows you to glide around the room, like a golden leaf carried upward and away by a cool fall wind.
1-2-3, 1-2-3.
Perhaps the attraction is sentimental. Even the older students—retirees, widows, and widowers—shied away from this old-fashioned step in favor of the hip-shaking and exciting cha-cha-cha and merengue.
1-2-3, 1-2-3.
Perhaps these interests met at a dance crossroad: the elders preferring steps with more vitality, while I enjoyed a chance to step back in time. When romance ruled over sex.
1-2-3, 1-2-3.
Artists: Ben Dover & Tennessee Tucker
Album: Carpetbaggers
Song: "Road to Norfolk"
An excerpt from Ed Buryn's Vagabonding in America:
Just as travel is a dramatization of life, so hitchhiking is a dramatization of travel. It breaks down even deeper norms and releases even more energy. Hitchhikers, like all adventurers, vibrate with this energy. It makes them sensitive and alive to their experiences, and attracts others to them. Of course, handling this energy is difficult: The more that things are random and unexpected, the more you need to improvise, the more you fully use all of yourself in the business of being. But then one day on the road, you suddenly realize that you're having the time of your life. You feel the energy of the universe flowing right thru you. It's the dream come true.
Artists: Lindisfarne
Album: Dingly Dell
Song: "Dingly Dell"
This LP's cover kept me from giving up on the record: five scuzzy hippies camped out in a forest, two even slouching in a psychedelic hammock. There had to be some gem hiding among the political screeds. I was reaching for the tone arm when the album's final track began to shapeshift, devolving into a primal pagan chant. I began to imagine those same hippies circling a campfire, encircled by a wall of tall trees. Arms and smoke stretch into a starry night sky, and voices wobble in a crescendo of stark desperation.
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