Demystifying a dynamic duo

What made Lennon-McCartney click?  Slate correspondent Joshua Wolf Shenk has taken a revealing look at the fermentation process that yielded the greatest songwriting duo of our time.

Today's assignment:  Click on this link and start reading Creative Pairs: Why Two is the Magic Number. To get you jumpstarted here's an inviting passage from Part One:

When they were writing "I Saw Her Standing There," Paul offered this opening verse:

"She was just seventeen
Never been a beauty queen."

"You're joking about that line," John shot back, "aren't you?" He offered this revision:

"She was just seventeen
You know what I mean"

There it is: Innocence meets sin—an inviting, simple image takes a lusty, poetic leap.

Biting off more than we can chew

Some people take this stuff more seriously than we do. Or maybe they're just trying to help our tight little fraternity gain deeper meaning and perspective.  Take for example Tom in Colorado Springs, who was duty bound to decipher the lyrics to "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)" long before we mentioned the Hollies' 1972 hit in yesterday's post.

We know Tom took his job seriously from what he wrote at songfacts.com:

You know, I've scoured about every site containing the lyrics to [Long Cool Woman] and there are some parts that no matter how hard I try to hear the accepted lyrics, they just don't match with what I'm hearing. So...in contention with what everyone says the lyrics are, I am proposing my version of the lyrics. These lyrics are acquired by taking the mp3 file of the song and playing it back in an editing program and slowing the tempo down while maintaining the pitch. I slowed the speed down to 60% which made the lyrics much clearer...then in the parts that were still a little unsure I slowed it down to 50%. I'm 99.99% positive these are the actual words to this song. Most are the same as the accepted versions but there are some differences. I suggest, printing my lyrics and reading them along as you listen to the song. Anyway...this isn't meant to cause an argument, I'm just proposing this version after a long time analyzing the words. Here we go:

(Paste this link into a new window if you want to try follow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0LTRPMpOVM)

Saturday night I was downtown
Workin' for the FBI
Sittin' in a nest of bad men
Whiskey bottles pilin' high

Bootleggin' boozers on my left side
All the people who are doin' wrong
Just about to call up the DA man
When I heard this woman sing a song

A pair of 45's, baby, or pull my knives
My temperature started to rise
She was a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a 5-9 beautiful tall

The first two verses were working OK for us, then ... a pair of 45's, baby?  We've had enough!  Our previous regard for "Long Cool Woman" is diminished somewhat, but we hold Tom in Colorado Springs in highest regard.We  believe he's ready to tackle "Louie Louie."

Even if we don't know the lyrics

Here was Billboard's Top 5 heading into September 1972:

1. Brandy (You're a Fine Girl), Looking Glass
2. Alone Again (Naturally), Gilbert O'Sullivan
3. Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress), Hollies
4. I'm Still in Love With You, Al Green
5. Hold Your Head Up, Argent

One of the great songs of that year, "Long Cool Woman" never made it No. 1, falling just short (although it did top the Cashbox chart). And that's a shame. For Allan Clarke, who had just left the Hollies to consider a solo career. For the Hollies, who never notched a Billboard No. 1. And for the state of rock 'n' roll.  A peek at Billboard's year-ending Top 10 is telling:

1. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Roberta Flack
2. Alone Again (Naturally), Gilbert O'Sullivan
3. American Pie, Don McLean
4. Without You, Nilsson
5. Candy Man, Sammy Davis Jr.
6. I Gotcha, Joe Tex
7. Lean On Me, Bill Withers
8. Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me, Mac Davis
9. Brand New Key, Melanie
10. Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast, Wayne Newton

Wayne Newton?  Meanwhile, "Long Cool Woman," with its great guitar hook and some indecipherable lyrics, finished at No. 24, just ahead of Mouth & MacNeal's "How Do You Do." Of course these rankings mean nothing, but still.  "Long Cool Woman" is the one you want to hear when you're rocking down the highway, not "Candy Man"!  The song doesn't track with the video above, but we love it just the same. As someone commented on YouTube:

"If you don't like this song you suck."

Hang loose today, Mr. N

Be careful out there today Graham Nash, wherever you are. According to the schedule you're supposed to be in Cleveland on the CSN tour with bandmates David Crosby and Stephen Stills.  So good luck, and God speed!

September 13 has not been kind to Nash.  On this day in 1963, he was checking the door of his touring van to see if it was locked.  It was not. Nash fell out of the vehicle, which was clipping along at 40 mph.  He was unhurt, and the future of the Hollies -- not to mention CSN and even Y -- remained on course.

On this same day in 1999, Nash broke both legs in a boating accident off the coast of Hawaii. He was waylayed for a spell with casts on both legs, but recovered in time for the big CSNY2K tour in 2000.

It's a reminder that we still haven't picked up Nash's 3-CD boxed set Reflections (Rhino), which includes 64 tracks recorded with the Hollies, CSNY, Crosby and of course his solo work. Surrounded by immense talent much of his career, Nash has not always received his due.  But you need only listen to "Our House" or "Teach Your Children" again -- or even "Carousel" from those early Hollies days -- to be reminded of his greatness as an artist and songwriter.

Just don't break a leg tonight, man.

Trash talk

By Wayne Shelor

Open in a new window: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mujNA7CRk

I'm gonna tell you a tale this Sunday morning -- and every word's the gospel truth -- about a peculiar song from 1961 that the singer pulled out of the trash can and turned into the top song on the charts. Perhaps the most interesting part of the tale is that this song was largely responsible for introducing church music to the rock 'n’ roll masses.

Ernest Kador, who performed as Ernie K-Doe, was signed to Minit Records, a small label whose artists and repertoire man was Allen Toussaint, a songwriter, session piano player and producer who later found lasting fame as a performer.

Ernie was hanging out at Toussaint's New Orlean’s house one day when he found a funky song in the trash can; it was an unflattering song about the proverbial problems with "the worst person I know," as the lyric described a man's wife's mother.

Ernie wanted to record the song, so he and Toussaint went into the studio where Toussaint built the song along a praiseworthy spine of gospel-structured piano, and the bass-throated Benny Spellman added the great "mother-in-law" lyrical hook.

For reasons inexplicable, the nation's too-young-to-be-married teenagers bought the song in record numbers, making "Mother-in-Law" the Number One song in America the third week of May 1961. But it would be a mistake to dismiss this song as a curiosity or a novelty: Listen to the simple piano break … those 16 bars changed the way a lot of music was made.

It may not seem very special today, but in 1961 Toussaint's distinctive New Orleans-style gospel piano progression caught the ear of musicians and fans alike, and it was the precursor to similar piano signatures in songs throughout the '60s. Just ask Detroit’s Little Stevie Wonder ... or anyone who recorded in Memphis, Muscle Shoals or Macon.

So you see, this "Mother-in-Law" -- like so many others -- changed the way things were done.

A brief history of the Beatles

Paste this link a new window and read on:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQEAkg2-Jo8

Years before it became a base camp for the masterminds of 9/11 (or lucky bastards, depending on your view), Hamburg was a city that helped spawn the Beatles. The lads spent two years, off and on, honing their performance skills at clubs in the German city. It wasn't pretty, but it was a gig.

To get a glimpse of what the band was peforming, check out this set list from the Star-Club in 1962.  Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney had been writing songs since the late Fifties, these performances consisted mainly of covers, including a few memorable ones that would be recorded later and put on vinyl.  (Lead vocals are in parentheses):

"I Saw Her Standing There" (McCartney)
"Roll Over Beethoven" (Harrison)
"Hippy Hippy Shake" (McCartney)
"Sweet Little Sixteen" (Lennon)
"Lend Me Your Comb" (Lennon)
"Your Feet's Too Big" (McCartney)
"Red Sails in the Sunset" (McCartney)
"Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" (Harrison)
"Matchbox" (Lennon)
"Talkin' 'Bout You" (Lennon)
"Shimmy Shimmy" (McCartney)
"Long Tall Sally" (McCartney)
"I Remember You" (McCartney)
"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)" (Lennon)
"Where Have You Been All My Life" (Lennon)

"Twist and Shout" (Lennon)
"Mr. Moonlight" (Lennon)
"A Taste of Honey" (McCartney)
"Besame Mucho" (McCartney)
"Reminiscing" (Harrison)
"Kansas City" (McCartney)
"Nothin' Shakin' But the Leaves On a Tree" (Harrison)
"To Know Her is to Love Her" (Harrison or Lennon)
"Little Queenie" (McCartney)
"Falling in Love Again" (McCartney)
"Ask Me Why" (Lennon)
"Hallelujah I Love Her So" (club manager Horst Fascher)
"Be-Bop-A-Lula" (Fred Fascher, Horst's brother)
"Till There Was You" (McCartney)
"Sheila" (Harrison)

The group's first recording as a backing band, "My Bonnie," was made in Germany and put on the Polydor label as Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers, with Pete Best on drums. A year later -- on this very date in 1962 -- the boys were back in London nailing down a final cut of "Love Me Do" as the Beatles, with session drummer Andy White behind the kit and Ringo playing tambourine. Or so the story goes.

It would take nearly two years for the song to hit No. 1 in America, and was the Beatles' fourth chart-topper here following "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You" and "Can't Buy Me Love."

BP was a gas

We never bought into "The Fifth Beatle" title bestowed on Billy Preston, even if the idea came from John Lennon. The Beatles, by this time in 1969, were not long for the world.  As Paul McCartney noted: The band was going bad enough with just four members.

That doesn't mean we didn't appreciate BP's contributions to the group or more broadly to the music world in which he contributed greatly. Two of his R&B songs were crossover No. 1s on the Billboard pop chart: "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing From Nothing."

And Preston's presence in the Let It Be sessions may have saved the day for the fractious Beatles, whose infighting was threatening to keep the record from becoming reality.

The clip we'd like to share with you today, however, is from the George Harrison tribute concert at Royal Albert Hall in 2002 on the anniversary of Harrison's death.  Preston and Harrison were good buds, and Preston handles "My Sweet Lord" with sweet style and grace. Click here to check it out as we hoist a tall one to members of today's Birthday Band:

Otis Redding (1941-1967): Singer
(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay

Inez Foxx (1942): Singer
Mockingbird (with brother Charlie)

Dee Dee Sharp (1945): Singer
Mashed Potato Time, Do the Bird, Slow Twistin’ (with Chubby Checker)

Doug Ingle (1946): Keyboards, Iron Butterfly
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Billy Preston (1946-2006): Singer, keyboards
Will It Go Round in Circles, Nothing from Nothing, Get Back (with Beatles)

Freddy Weller (1947): Guitar, Paul Revere and the Raiders
Kicks, Just Like Me, Hungry

David Stewart (1952): Guitar/keyboards, Eurythmics
Sweet Dreams, Who’s That Girl, Right by Your Side