Patti Smith Group - "Because The Night" (1978)

Another really great clip from The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Patti Smith at the peak of her powers and prowess!

Suck on that Natalie Merchant!

Dean Martin - "The Door is Still Open to My Heart" (1964)

Hello Friends,

Here's Dino performing one of his hit songs on the Bob Hope Show in 1964.

Jeez... is it me or does his voice just want to make you drink a highball?

Enjoy!

The door is still open to my heart...

Dean Martin - "The Door Is Still Open To My Heart" (1964) - Reprise Records

Hello Friends,

Its a boozy Saturday night here on Vinyl in the Valley and we've got some boozy Dean Martin on the ol' turntable.  Martinis be flowin'.

In the 50's and 60's, Dino had a sort of alter-ego in Dean "Tex" Martin where he would get away from the American Songbook-type standards and would instead croon some cowpoke-style tunes.  

Now, this isn't stripped-down, shit-kickin', rural honky tonk music, but very lush, over-produced and orchestrated easy listening/lounge music.  The stuff your parents and/or grandparents (depending on your age) would put on their living room console turntables on a Saturday night while mixing highballs or pitchers of watered-down martinis.  

And watered-down is a pretty apt description of what's going on.

Not that its a bad record, by any means!  Sure its big on sentiment, but its all very safe, very saccharine, very uninspired.  

Three songs from this record-- "I'm Gonna Change Everything", the Sheb Wooley-penned (yes, that Sheb Wooley) "The Middle of the Night is My Cryin' Time" & "My Sugar's Gone"-- were directly lifted Dean's 1963 record entitled Dean "Tex" Martin Rides Again.  #lazy.

The great title track and the song, "You're Nobody Until Somebody Loves You" were pretty big hits for Martin.  Other highlights include the cha-cha-shuffle of "In The Misty Moonlight" (originally written by Cindy Walker), the fantastically lush "Every Minute, Every Hour", the sappy "Always Together", the muted guitar work on "Take Me" and the epic kiss-off of a closer "So Long Baby".

Honestly, there's not a bad song in the bunch!  Its a great LP for gathering around the record player, drink in hand and washing down the problems and realities of the working week.  There's no due dates, or bills due, or tax forms, or clients, or traffic jams or yelling bosses.  Just you, your girl, a dimly-lit tiki bar and a half-empty bottle of rye whiskey!

RATING:  4 so long baby's you better go now out of 5

Chuck Berry - "Johnny B. Goode" (1958)

Okay, okay.  This is the last Chuck Berry post for now!

Happy Friday Friends & Enjoy!

Chuck Berry - "Sweet Little Sixteen" (1958)

Hello Friends,

Still mourning the loss of a rock n roll titan.

Here's a great clip of Berry performing his iconic song, "Sweet Little Sixteen" on the second episode of Dick Clark's "Saturday Night Beechnut Show".

Enjoy!

Chuck Berry - "School Days" (Live 1972)

Hello Friends,

Here's a great clip of the late Chuck Berry performing his early, epic hit "School Days" in 1972.

Was there anything about Chuck Berry that wasn't rock & roll?

After School Session... also a well-timed RIP

Chuck Berry - "After School Session" (1957) - Chess Records

Editors Note: We were spinning this record on Saturday evening just a couple of hours before we heard the news that Chuck Berry had died!  No shit! Hope we had nothing to do with it! 

Hello Friends,

John Lennon once famously said, "If you tried to give rock n roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry!"  Sounds silly, but we really couldn't agree more.  Chuck Berry is and always will be the George Washington-Christopher Columbus-Neil Armstrong of rock & roll. 

Which means that rock & roll pretty much starts with this here record, friends.  After School Session is Chuck Berry's first LP, the second release on the fledgling Chess Records, and effectively the shot heard round the world!

Produced by the Chess brothers (Leonard & Phil), the album features all original material by rock n roll's original guitar god.

Things get kicked off with the epic, "School Days", with Berry triumphantly proclaiming in the song's fifth and final verse, "Hail, hail Rock & Roll / Deliver me from the days of old!" Geez, if that's not a call to arms, we're not sure what is!

And that guitar playing!!  

Can you imagine how many pimply-faced, awkward kids had their collective minds blown hearing this for the first time?  How many teenage boys saved up to buy some crappy guitar from their local Woolworth's that summer?

Legend has it that a young Keith Richards struck up a conversation with a young Mick Jagger at the Dartford Train Station in East London because the latter was holding two records, one by Muddy Waters and "Rockin' at Hops" by Chuck Berry.

The rest of the album is great as well.  Featuring some good ol' fashioned blue-collar rockabilly ("Too Much Monkey Business", "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", "Downbound Train"), some overly-descriptive talking blues ("No Money Down"), some Louis Jordan-inspired R&B ballads ("Wee Wee Hours", "Together", "Drifting Heart"), a sparse calypso-meets-Buddy Holly-sounding tune ("Havana Moon") and some blistering guitar-driven instrumentals ("Deep Feeling", "Roly Poly", "Berry Pickin'").

Not bad for a debut record!

RIP Chuck Berry... your career speaks for itself!  A legend, an inventor, an explorer, a tortured soul and our very first guitar god.

Our favorite Chuck Berry-related quote comes from Jerry Lee Lewis's mother who famously said to her son: "You and Elvis are good, son-- but you're no Chuck Berry.  Chuck Berry is rock 'n' roll from his head to his toes!"

Amen!

RATING: 5 teachers teaching the golden rule out of 5

Pogues - "Dirty Old Town" (1986)

Happy St Patrick's Day Friends!

Mississippi John Hurt - "You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley" (1966)

Happy Friday Friends,

Here's the legendary MIssissippi John Hurt taking us into the weekend.

This is from a performance (episode 36) of Pete Seeger's short-lived folk-centric music program, "Rainbow Quest", which aired originally on New Jersey's own UHF channel 47 (WNJU-TV) in '65 & '66.

We're not sure if this is actually Hurt's last television performance, but its definitely one of his last as he would die of a heart attack in November 1966.

Don't die til you're dead, kids!