Top Ten Of The Week-10 Decades Of Tunes

Here at the Crabb Top Ten Of The Week, we take great pride in trying to seek out the music that nobody else would play or know about.  Even though music may have been around as early as the early 1900s (the original Aughts) most of the tunes you know about you hear from the CCC network.  Back in the original aughts we were introduced to the one sided 78 to which they sold for 98 cents at the local Woolworth's (just guessing here since I wasn't around back then)  But in the 1920s, jazz and blues begin to take hold over the classical stuff or John Phillip Sousa who recorded for Victor in the aughts.

Basically the Crabb Top Ten has only been around for one decade and time will tell if we ever made a dent in preserving the forgotten oldie.  To which our early years focused around AM radio on KWWL in 1968 to which my best friend's brother made a comment about how that must have been the dark ages.  It wasn't, there was more chances to hear regional hits rather than the Clear Channel/Cumulus playlist of limited songs.  I'm still learning all the time of the forgotten singles that are preserved on You Tube.  And have returned to my roots of scratchy 45s from a collection that I should have taken better care of.  The past couple years I been scouring the junk stores, EBAY, specialty record stores to find the 45's of my youth and still fight the others on EBAY to outbid on a 45 nobody else knows about except seasoned collectors.  And they're out there, I've seen them.

While Ron, my BFF's brother may have looked at that past years of my youth Big Band era, I had to remind him that was the only way to hear music.  That we had no access to FM and if we did the old stereo didn't bring the signal in very well but we survived on KWWL AM or KIOA or KCRG/KLWW or WIRL.  I mean we did well with what was played, from British Invasion to R and B to rock and yes even Herb Alpert and The Carpenters, Ron's favorite band of that time.  It wasn't the dark ages, we went outside and played till dusk and tried to get home before the boogie man got us, or an angry mom.  And then go home and play records till Mom said one more before bed and then put on a long 7 minute song like MacArthur Park or Hey Jude.

We live by music and I'm sure I'll die by music in one way or another.  Or throwing suggestions left and right to drive the most knowledgeable up the wall and unfriend you on Facebook when they host their Saturday Night showcase.  Which means we basically on our own in preserving the forgotten tunes.  For me my best years of music were the late 60s and 70s and the second coming of the 1990s till Limp Bizkit and Universal killed music and Clear Channel and Cumulus took advantage of lax laws to buy up all the radio stations we known to make them sound all the same.
 
But then again, the 50s took hold since my folks had ample 45s and I still remain faithful to a fault of music the new Millennium up to 2012 although it's a losing battle.  At some point there'll be a end to this but music will go on.  Whatever I put up is merely suggestions.  We'll never be well known to have our own Public Radio station since we're not associated with any second rate blues band or will never be in the Iowa Rock Hall Of Fame but rest assured that this is one alternative to whats' out there.  If we failed we can at least said we tried and as long as blogspot stays up, there'll be one reference for the world to see.

So let's go through the decade one song at a time per decade and see what we come up with eh?

1.  Crazy Blues-Mamie Smith  1920  This is probably the earliest recording that I have in my collection and it came from Blues Story.  This is where the story starts, it's an early ragtime blues number.  Back in the era to which Louis Armstrong was in his prime and Jelly Roll Morton was doing ragtime jazz, but this is what is considered to be the very first true blues recording. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6473116

2.  Honey In The Bee Ball-Louis Jordan 1938    Back in 1981, Joe Jackson recorded a album of jump blues in the style of Louis Jordan called Jumpin' Jive  to which opened the floodgates for me to listen to music before Elvis.  Jackson at that time was making new wave punk music and after the failure of Beat Crazy, Jackson retired that band and did a tribute album to music that his folks listen to.  Fats Waller and Louis Jordan played a big role in that but upon further research that Louis Jordan wasn't only the forefather of rock and roll but also had a hand in rappin, him an Cab Calloway were good at that known as jive.  Jordan's glory years was in the 40s and by the time rock and roll did take hold in 54, Jordan was just about forgotten although he still made some decent sides for Aladdin and Mercury (he had Mickey Baker playing guitar and Quincy Jones producing by then).  If you really want to know who started the rock and roll thing, you need some Louis Jordan in your collection.  And Big Joe Turner too.

3.  Do Re Mi-Woody Guthrie 1940  Woody would have turned 100 this year had he lived and he was ahead of his time too, his Dust Bowl Ballads remains one of the all time best folk albums ever and of course that would influence another folkie named Bob Dylan.  Back then Guthrie was labeled a Communist by the ones that were too narrowed minded to see the truth, kinda like the GOP of today.  I'm sure if Woody was still alive Mittens Romney would have have him tried for treason or deported. Although Woody sang this 70 years ago, the lyrics still ring true today.
 

4.  The House Of Blue Lights-Chuck Miller 1955  I'm not sure who or where I heard this from at first; never did hear the Ella Mae Morse original till I got the CD,  played it one time and then traded it in to which it still remains at Half Priced Books which disappoints me.  I'm sure somebody would have picked it up by now but anyway. Maybe George Thorogood or Chuck Berry but my favorite version is Chuck's version to which it made number 9 on the charts in 55.  Some of the most crazed piano playing this side of Jerry Lee Lewis.  It came out on a rockabilly comp that K Tel put out in the 80s and later on Polygram put it on Rock n Roll Relix, to which is home to The Eagles (the black r n b band, not Henley and company), Crew Cuts, Georgia Gibbs, The Platters and more.  I have a scratchy 45 reference copy but did see somebody donated a 78 of this song to the Salvation Army the other day.

5.  All I Really Want To Do-Bob Dylan 1964  Among the biggest question back then is how long would Bob Dylan would last in the folk age.  I don't think anybody would have guessed that Bob would still be around 50 years after the first album was made and Bob went from Woody Guthrie's folk replacement to going electric and embracing rock and roll at Newport and introducing Scarlet Rivera to the world the next decade.  Of course The Byrds covered this for a top 50 single and so did Cher but the definite version is Bob, having fun yodeling and cracking up at the punch line chorus all I really want to dooooooooooooooo, is maybe be friends with you.  While the Freewheeling Bob Dylan  gets more kudos and praises I tend to enjoy Another Side Of Bob Dylan more, simply of the fact that Bob sounds more into and having fun. And this album does tend to nod toward the direction of rock and roll although it's mostly Bob and guitar.

6.  I Can't Move No Mountains-Blood, Sweat & Tears 1972  This is the song that got me criticized for not following protocol at Besides It's A B Side, a Facebook outlet for obscure b sides and forgotten singles.  Jerry Fisher replaced David Clayton Thomas and the album was called New Blood.  I think the DJ dude at Progression played this one night at the old OLD GOLD 107.9 station, and it may gotten airplay in bigger cities.  Never did find the single till Saturday when I went to Salvation Army and found a good copy of the 45 and unleashed it to the world on B Sides.  And got reminded that it didn't fit the criteria of B sides, since it was a A side and even though it didn't chart at all, it was a A side.  They did that me one time before on another lesser known hit.  Told the dude that's twice you jumped my ass on posting tunes, there's not going to be a third.  From here on out, whatever I find, I'll just post on my site.  Good music, it's all the same regardless if it was a Flop hit, album cut or A side that didn't chart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1PJO6dPITk



7.  Big Big Sky-The Screaming Blue Messiahs 1989  They had minor hits with Wild Blue Yonder and I Wanna Be A Flintstone and the late great Vic Maile produced their first two albums but I didn't like the first album and the second one I never did around reviewing and really didn't know what compelled me into buying Totality Religious (Maile passed away before sessions began) but that album remains my fave.  Howard Gray and Rob Stevens throws gobs and gobs of echo on the drums.  This song got some airplay on KRUI which may have enticed me into buying the CD. By then Elektra dropped them. The link below explains the rest of the story (as well as the beginning)  http://www.screamingbluemessiahs.com/band.htm

8.  Please Read The Letter-Robert Plant & Jimmy Page 1998  Not a lot good things were said about The Page and Plant Walking Into Clarkdale  which went on too long, and Steve Albini stuck an ugly mix that didn't help things much either but some of the songs held up over time, to a point that Plant redid this song with Alison Krauss on his Raising Sand comeback album.  There was supposed to be a second album but things fell apart and Plant moved on with Band Of Joy which featured Nancy Griffith who critics to love but her A&M album did nothing for me.  Plant ended up marrying Griffith last year.  If your lucky you can find Nancy and Robert peaking through records at your local record store should they come into your neck of the woods to play.

9.  Punkrocker-Teddy Bears with Iggy Pop 2006  I'm not much into dance music of today, too much autotuner and the likes of Jessie J and Nicki No Talent Minaj makes me forever the old crabb fart that yells at the teens to get off my yard and my old folks blog ha ha.  I can't tell you what processed me to buy The Teddy Bears Soft Machine album, unless it was their tribute to the old prog rock band but most of this is dance music with some rappers and reggae rappers to beats and bass but actually this is a very good album with nods to Kraftwerk, Can and Neu on the lesser tracks not destined for the radio.  Iggy Pop appears on this rocking track and while it's not as memorable as Cobrastyle with Mad Cobra rapping away or the Nenah Cherry cameo Yours To Keep, it still rock and roll to me.  Although I'm sure Teddy Bears would deny that.



10.  Six To One-New Riders Of The Purple Sage 2012  And here we are, the tenth song from ten decades of music and we pick one from the reunified New Riders and off their latest 17 Pine Avenue.  They always have had a uneven music career, liked their first album okay, Gypsy Cowboy not so much and Powerglide somewhere in between.  Their MCA years even more uneven and the A&M album a waste of time.  Never heard any of the Relix albums but surprise surprise, Where I Came From reinvented them as Boogie Grateful Dead.  Helps when you have Robert Hunter helping out with the lyrics too. 17 Pine Avenue continues that trend.  The hippies are getting old but they can still rock it out when they get the urge to do so.

And here you go.  You're back in the present again.