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| Marshall Crenshaw, the living embodiment of Buddy Holly |
In my previous post, I sang the praises of the country cats—Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, and Eddie Cochran—who
started off as country artists before the “Sun Revolution” of 1955-1956 but
quickly crossed over and achieved success in the fledgling rockabilly
genre. But another major
stream/influence on the emerging rock idiom was not just jump blues/R&B or
country, it was pop. Elvis himself was influenced heavily by
pop superstars like Dean Martin and
other pop vocalists of that same ilk.
Indeed, “I Don’t Care if the Sun Don’t Shine”, written by Tin Pan
Alley’s Mack David but popularized
by the recently deceased Patti Page
in 1950 and covered by Martin in the 1953 movie “Scared Stiff”, was the B-side
to his second single, “Good Rockin’ Tonight”.
“Harbor Lights”, which is reputed to have been recorded at Presley’s
first official session at Sun on July 5th, 1954, is another pop
standard, made popular by Bing Crosby,
but Presley’s version was never released as a single.
Buddy Holly, who
followed Elvis, could cut loose and rock with the best of them, but his
staggering talent for writing sweet, catchy songs brought rock into a whole new
era. Elvis rarely wrote his own
material, choosing instead to cover songs by a wide range of vocal stylists;
Holly, on the other hand, was an outstanding and prolific writer who greatly
expanded the sonic vocabulary of rock.
Even on his first single, 1956’s “Blue Days, Black Nights”, Holly was
crafting a smoother hybrid of pop rock than Elvis managed with his covers. But his flood of amazing, jangly, melodic
singles that followed—“Words of Love”, the catchy, simple B-side to his second
single, “That’ll Be The Day”; the positively exquisite confection “Everyday”,
which was the B-side to “Peggy Sue”, which may be one of the sweetest, most
marvelous songs ever recorded; and 1958’s “Look At Me”, which was never
released as a single but was on Holly’s second long-playing album—hinted at the
unbelievable talent of this young man and of his ability to fuse the energy
with nascent rock with the sweet harmonies of pop vocals.
The king of rock crooners, of course, was Roy Orbison, who first hit the big time
with his single “Ooby Dooby” with Sun in 1957.
Orbison’s voice was as soaring and sweet as his own appearance was
bizarre; a childhood bout with jaundice had left him sallow, and he had
notoriously horrible eyesight, forcing him to wear thick glasses (which he hid
by wearing prescription sunglasses). But
on songs like the almost surreal “Only the Lonely” (Orbison hits a note that
almost no other human seems capable of hitting at the denouement), “Blue
Angel”, “I’m Hurtin’”, “Crying”, and “In Dreams”, Orbison brought the lush,
orchestral production of classic pop vocal songs of the 50’s to rock. In doing so, there’s no doubt that he (and
many, many others) tamed much of the original fire and passion out of rock. Ultimately this would lead to rock’s “death”
in the late 50’s and early 60’s (until the
Beatles and the British Invasion revived it) as rock became progressively
more watered down and safe. Bobby Darin would ride this safer,
family friendly form of rock (that was miles from the deep south gutbucket
quality of Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis) to a series of ever-blander hits
like “Splish Splash”, “Dream Lover”, “Beyond the Sea”, and the execrable “Mack
the Knife”.
Orbison would undergo one of the most astounding
renaissances of any of the original rockabilly pioneers. A spate of successful covers (both Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris and
the metal pioneers Nazareth covered
“Love Hurts”; Linda Ronstadt covered “Blue Bayou”; Don
Maclean covered “Crying”; Van Halen
covered “Pretty Woman”) brought his music once again into public consciousness
in the 70’s and 80’s. In the 80’s
Orbison also achieved considerable success with movie soundtracks; David
Lynch’s 1988 classic gothic film “Blue Velvet” used “In Dreams” as a
centerpiece to the plot, and the next year Orbison teamed with former Misfit Glenn Danzig (of all people!) to write two songs for the soundtrack
to the movie version of Bret Easton
Ellis’ classic 80’s excess tale “Less Than Zero”, the transcendent “Life
Fades Away”, on which Orbison hits a
note at the end that almost tops his high note from “Only the Lonely”, and the
title track, which was performed by Danzig.
I was a HUGE fan of the book “Less Than Zero” and raced into the theater
to see the movie, only to be bitterly disappointed at the weak, “Just Say No”
moralizing of the plot, which is light years from Ellis’ classic cautionary
example, but I did buy the soundtrack (it was one of the last albums I bought
in record form) and I really, really liked both of those songs.
1987 also was the year that Orbison teamed up with ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty to form the Traveling Wilburys; their
subsequent album was a massive worldwide hit, and Orbison’s contributions to
songs like “Handle With Care” and “Not Alone Anymore” stood out even in such
storied company. Lynne then produced
Orbison’s new album, and the results were another smash success, with the song
“You Got It” becoming a major hit, though a sadly posthumous one when Orbison
died in 1988 at the far-too-young age of 52.
The 80’s saw a revival in the interest in classic, simple
pop rock songs. Initially this grew out
of the new wave/powerpop movement and the desire to return to the simplicity of
earlier forms of rock that flowed out of the punk scene. One of the best, and least appreciated, artist
of this era was Marshall Crenshaw. Crenshaw’s music was a sublime combination of
Buddy Holly-like simplicity, Beatlesque harmonies and melodies
(Crenshaw first achieved fame playing John
Lennon in the traveling company of “Beatlemania”. When I was 9 or 10, my parents took me to see
this great theatrical production at the Shubert Theater in Century City, so I’m
proud to say I actually have seen Crenshaw in concert), and well-crafted “angry
young man” new wave lyrics in the same vein as Elvis Costello (to whom he is often compared, due both to their
similar musical leanings and their geeky, bespectacled appearances). His self-titled 1982 debut album was probably
the apogee of his career, a magnificent melding of his influences and one of
the best albums of the decade—sweeter than Costello’s work, but meatier than
other powerpop releases, it hit that perfect sonic sweet spot. “I’ll Do Anything” is groovy (the bass here
is particularly thumping) and melodic, and Crenshaw’s distinctive voice rings
like a clarion through this song, which to me hints at what Buddy Holly might have achieved had he
lived until and undergone a revival of his career in the 80’s similar to Orbison’s. “Rockin’ Around NYC” is more up-tempo and has
that energy and nervous edge of most new wave from that era. “Cynical Girl” is more of a late 50’s
throwback, despite the thoroughly contemporary lyrics (that evoke to me the
biting work of Tonio K), and is jangly
and sweet; Tom Petty often hinted at
songs like this as he traversed the 80’s (think “Free Fallin’”) but as much as
I love Tom, his voice is too gravelly to pull off the sweetness needed
here. “Mary Anne” is another phenomenal
track, hailing to the classic 50’s/60’s tradition of writing pining, sweet
songs with a girl’s name in the title.
But the standout track, and indeed Crenshaw’s only
flirtation with widespread success, is the jaunty, fun “Someday, Someway”. No song of the past 55 years since Holly’s
death has come even remotely close to evoking his spirit and musical vision
more than this song; indeed, many people still are fooled into thinking this is
a Holly song they don’t remember. This
song is simply fantastic, perfectly capturing Holly’s style without sounding
like an imitation. Crenshaw clearly
loved and respected Holly; he even covers “Rave On” on this album so perfectly,
with just his voice and electric guitar, that you’d swear Holly survived the
crash that took his life. Crenshaw’s
singing and acting ability, along with his skinny frame and glasses, led to him
playing Holly in the Richie Valens
biopic “La Bamba” (former Stray Cat
Brian Setzer plays Eddie Cochran,
giving this movie a pretty talented and highly credible musical cast).
Crenshaw’s followup, 1983’s Field Day, suffered from over-production that bleached out some of
the vibrancy of his debut. The songs
here are uniformly solid but few stand out with the sparkle of the work on his
first album. I like “One Day With You”
because of its Beatlesque harmonies
(it actually reminds me more than a little of first-run powerpop songs by bands
like the Raspberries and Big Star) and the rocking “Monday
Morning Rock”, another track that evokes (though much less than “Someday”) the
work of Holly. On 1985’s Downtown, Crenshaw completed his highly
regarded early trifecta, but like Field
Day, it fails to capture the lightning in a bottle his debut was able to
grab. But two highlights stick out: the jaunty, Holly-influenced “(We’re Gonna)
Shake Up Their Minds” and the rocking rave-up “Right Now” (which reminds me of
some of John Fogerty’s early solo
work, like Centerfield).
For the past 30 years, Crenshaw has continued to release
albums hewing to his own vision. My
favorite songs are the twangy “Someplace Where Love Can’t Find Me” off 1989’s Good Evening; “What Do You Dream Of?”
off 1996’s Miracle of Science (this
song reminds me of some of the work Tommy
Tutone did on his third album, National
Emotion); “Television Light” and the sweet, Wilbury-esque “TMD” off 1999’s #447.
One of Crenshaw’s earliest singles, “Something’s Gonna
Happen”, evoked another ballad singing 50’s pretty boy who pushed rock toward
pop: Ricky Nelson. Nelson of course even covered a Gershwin standard, “Summertime”. His pop rock classics “Hello Marylou”, “Poor
Little Fool”, “Everlovin’”, and “You Are the Only One” were smooth, sweet slow
dance numbers (though Nelson could also rock with the best of them,
particularly when his guitarist James
Burton cut loose) calculated to appeal to the teenybopper girls who swooned
over his handsome face.
Speaking of handsome faces, I’ve said in previous posts that
I consider Chris Isaak to be one of
the best musicians of the last thirty years.
Starting with his early work with his proto-rockabilly group Silvertone, Isaak began crafting songs
that pulled on a variety of early rock influences, everything from the wild
rave-up work of the early Sun artists to the sweet rockabilly pop of Holly,
Orbison, et al., to the early 60’s groove of artists like Neil Diamond. But more than
anything Isaak is the contemporary embodiment of Ricky Nelson—his pretty boy looks, his acting success, and his
emphasis on crooning ballads have caused many people to dismiss him as a
musical lightweight, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Recently I’ve been really getting in to his 1985 debut, Silvertone. I can remember seeing the video for “Dancin’”
back in the day on the video/dance show MV3 and liking the slinky, sexy
moodiness of this song. This song was a
minor hit on the college/independent circuit and rightly so, it should actually
have been an even bigger hit than it was.
But it’s not even my favorite song on this album: currently I’m obsessed
with “Livin’ For Your Lover” and it’s shimmering guitars and peppy, strolling
rhythm that evokes the best of both Buddy
Holly and Roy Orbison (Chris
even hits a few killer high notes like Roy here). I also love how the happy, upbeat feel of
this song is punctuated and occasionally even counterpointed by James Calvin Wilsey’s twangy stabs of
rockabilly guitar. This is very much one
of my favorite songs right now. “Talk To
Me” and “Voodoo” have more of that ominous, moody feel of “Dancin’”, while
“Tears” has a kind of Johnny Cash
lite feel to it, while “Gone Ridin’” and “Western Stars” have more of a
country/western feel.
Isaak’s self-titled
1986 sophomore effort continued in the same vein but often got a little
too bogged down in the mopey crooners. I
love his Elvis update “Blue Hotel”,
which evokes the King without being
mawkish. His cover of the Yardbirds” “Heart Full of Soul”
gives a rockabilly twist to this psychedelic blues classic, while “Lover’s
Game” and it’s weird up-and-down chorus is another good track. “Fade Away” is classic Orbison again but the guitar here almost brings to mind some of Johnny Marr’s work in the early Smiths.
Isaak hit the big time with his single “Wicked Game”, off
his 1989 album Heart Shaped World. I remember when this album came out and
became a huge hit; it was in the heyday of grunge but Isaak and Wilsey crafted
a moody, melancholy masterpiece that struck a chord in a lot of people
(including me), but it isn’t my favorite song on this album. My faves are the title track and its brooding
reverb and relentless beat; the Everly
Brothers-influenced “I’m Not Waiting”; the funky, groovy “Don’t Make Me
Dream About You”; the twangy country flourishes on “Wrong To Love You”. But my favorites are two complete
opposites: the slow, ominous “Nothing’s
Changed” and the bouncy up-tempo rocker “Diddley Daddy” and its Bo Diddley beat.
His followup, 1993’s San
Francisco Days, was a little bit of a letdown. After the pure crystalline sonic vision and
broodiness of Heart Shaped World,
his attempts to expand his sound into the early 60’s by adding organ and moving
beyond his lonesome crooner image seemed a trifle forced. Nevertheless, some songs hit the mark, most
notably “Two Hearts” a sweet perky confection with classic Isaak/Orbison unreachable high notes works;
here the light organ accompaniment underscores rather than dominates the
melody. The echoey, reverbed “Waiting” is
another gem. “I Want Your Love” has some
wild, trilling organ, but mostly this song evokes the manic energy of Jerry Lee Lewis, and Isaak plays this
often in concert. His cover of Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man” is solid
though I love the original too much to fall too hard for a cover.
1995’s Forever Blue
also had some noteworthy cuts. One of my
favorite Isaak songs of all time is the Orbison-esque
“Somebody’s Crying”, with its sweetly jangling guitar and driving drum line
married to Isaak’s masterful falsetto croon. James Wilsey left Isaak’s band after San Francisco Days and newcomer Hershel Yatovitz ably stepped into his
(substantial) shoes on this song and on songs like the shimmery “Things Go Wrong” and the jaunty “There She
Goes”. “Goin’ Nowhere” is a twangy
rocker with less mood and more texture than previous efforts in this regard,
particularly on the slashing whammy bar guitar sections, which to me evokes the
very antithesis of Isaak, the Cramps
(most notably “New Kind of Kick”). “I
Believe” is a optimistic and upbeat, while “End of Everything” has that ambling
horse rhythm of a Gene Autry song
married to the falsetto of classic Roy
Orbison.
To me Isaak’s best album, and one of the best albums of all
time, is 1996’s Baja Sessions. Here Isaak mostly covers songs by other
artists and re-records some of his own work, many of which evoke lyrically or
thematically breezy, summery, and/or tropical themes in line with the album
title. The album wasn’t actually
recorded in Baja, but thanks to the magnificent production and
south-of-the-border themes it has an almost timeless warm weather feel to
it. Very often at this time of the year
we start to get some truly warm (but not hot), marvelous spring days, and it’s
on those days that I’m most likely to throw this entire album on and let it
play through. I have hundreds of happy
memories of pleasant warm days filled with Mexican beer, white wine, tank tops
and warm breezes that this album is the soundtrack to.
Most notably, the tone on this album is unbelievable. Tone is an amazing and evanescent thing,
difficult to capture, but when it is captured it’s like magic. Most of the early Sun recordings of Elvis and Carl Perkins had a full sound and tone, even with just three
instruments, that still sounds incredible today. Many of the great classic albums of the 70’s
by people like Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac (especially their albums
recorded at Sound City in the Valley) had an incredible tone to them that still
rings out today. Here the tone is lush,
warm, but mellow—it really DOES sound like Isaak and his bandmates are lounging
in patio furniture wearing linen pants, noodling on some old faves while
someone snaps on a tape recorder. Every
track here sounds fantastic but the standouts to me are his re-interpretation
of his own “Pretty Girls Don’t Cry” from his debut album, which was good but
too staccato and slickly produced; this new version is smooth and organic and
Yatovitz’s guitar sounds absolutely AMAZING, especially when he rips off some exuberant
rockabilly licks after each chorus.
Isaak’s cover of Orbison’s
“Only the Lonely” seems overdue but here it’s given a soft, Spanish feel that
fits perfectly with the Latin timbre of the album. Similarly, his cover of Gene Autry’s “South of the Border” is another gem, as are his
covers of “Yellow Bird” and Bing
Crosby’s “Sweet Leilani”. “I Wonder”
has some incredible guitar sound too, and its mix of optimistic and pessimistic
lyrics give it a lilting feel. But album
closer “Think of Tomorrow” is yet another personal favorite, a final blast of
sweet pure guitar tone that leaves the listener feeling very satisfied.
Isaak has continued to release excellent albums, but one of
my last favorites by him is 1998’s Speak
of the Devil (“Walk Slow” is another personal favorite song, especially
when Chris hits those great high notes at the end). I did recently download some of his songs
from his Sun Records album, mostly his covers of Elvis and Carl Perkins
classics like “Dixie Fried” and “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. But to me Baja
Sessions was the pinnacle of his career; few artists will ever match the
breezy pleasure and warm inviting tone of this album. The thing is, I don’t even know who the
producer was on this album, a shame considering I consider this to be one of
the best production jobs of all time.
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