The Vinyl Dialogues Blog

Stories behind memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists

Month: August 2014

If you’re going to cover Hall & Oates on their home turf, know all the words to ‘Sara Smile’

By

On August 31, 2014

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Daryl Hall, along with John Oates, wrote the classic H&O song "Sara Smile."

Daryl Hall, along with John Oates, wrote the classic H&O song “Sara Smile.”

If you’re going to be a cover band that plays in Montgomery County, PA, and you’re going to include a Hall & Oates song in your set list, then at the very least you ought to know all the words to the song.

See, Montgomery County – north and west of Philadelphia – is the sweet spot for Hall & Oates. John was raised in North Wales, PA, and Daryl grew up near Pottstown, PA, just 15 or so miles further west. Both are in Montgomery County.

It’s the home turf if ever there was a home turf for the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.

When I moved to Pennsylvania in 2000, I lived in Royersford, PA, a little closer to the Hall family homestead than the Oates territory. In fact, my house was only a few miles from the final resting place of the “abandoned luncheonette,” the one that graces the cover of the 1973 Hall & Oates album of the same name. The structure itself was long gone by the time I got here, having been destroyed in a controlled burn by the township in the early 1980s. (Daryl and John talked extensively in separate interviews about the making of “Abandoned Luncheonette” in “The Vinyl Dialogues.”)

Several years later, I moved to Montgomeryville, PA, but my mailing address is North Wales, PA, the same place where Oates’ parents still reside to this day.

Outside of this area, the rest of the world knows Hall & Oates as Philly guys. But for those of us who call Montgomery County home, they’re our guys.

So as it often does, Saturday Night Date Night this week included dinner and a local show. My wife and I are supporters of local musicians and we enjoy the artists that grace the Philly music scene.

I’m not going to name the venue – although it was smack dab in the middle between Oates’ North Wales and Hall’s Pottstown. We’ve enjoyed several good bands there over the years. And although I should, I’m not going to name the band, because I respect the effort that it takes to put oneself out there in front of people and create music that is going to entertain them. It’s not as easy task for any number of reasons.

But if you’re going to cover a Hall & Oates song in Montgomery County, PA, the lead singer should at the very least know all the words to the song the band is covering. Did I mention it’s the very heart of H&O territory?

So when the four-piece group broke into the opening of “Sara Smile,” my wife and I looked at each other and smiled. We love Hall & Oates and we love that song. It’s arguably one of the most – if not the most – recognizable songs in the vast H&O library of great songs.

(In fact, I wanted to name by first daughter Sara Smile, but it was a different decade, a different wife and a different set of circumstances. She’s 26 years old now, and her name isn’t Sara Smile, but she knows that story. And just last year she and I went to a Hall & Oates concert in Atlantic City, N.J. When they played “Sara Smile,” she laid her head on my shoulder for the entire song. It’s a quaint little family story and it provided us with a special father-daughter moment.)

But this local cover band absolutely butchered the song. They butchered the music, they butchered the lyrics and they butchered the moment, for at least two of us in the audience. Hey, we know all the words to the song, we could have sat in with the band on vocals for this one. And neither my wife nor I can carry a tune in a dump truck, a backhoe, a wheel barrow, on a stretcher or in a bucket.

As it became painfully apparent that this version of “Sara Smile” was going to fall far short of our expectations, I leaned over and whispered in my wife’s ear.

“These guys really shit the bed on this song,” I said, trying to prevent my beer from shooting out of my nose and into her ear, further ruining the moment even more.

“Ya, they’re not very good,” she whispered back.

So we left. It was just too much for our Hall & Oates sensibilities. It was so bad that we yukked it up all the way home.

While writing this, I mentioned to my wife that I couldn’t think of an appropriate ending for this story.

How about “They sucked,” she said.

You know, if you want to be free, all you got to do is say so.

CCR provides an unexpected and wonderful memory

By

On August 24, 2014

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Doug "Cosmo" Clifford, original drummer for Creedence Clearwater Revival, is still rocking with Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

Doug “Cosmo” Clifford, original drummer for Creedence Clearwater Revival, is still rocking with Creedence Clearwater Revisited.

It was a long drive, negotiating traffic in some of the major metropolitan areas on the East Coast – Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia – all in the same day, just to see one of my favorite bands.

But oh my, what a sweet and memorable payoff.

We had taken our daughter to the nation’s capital to start her college career at Catholic University (Motto: Don’t Even Think About Drinking a Beer on This Campus). It was a highly emotional couple of days, as these things tend to be when one sends a child away to college. Two-and-half days of orientation, priests dressed like the San Diego Padres mascot and me threatening any young man who dared cast a leery eye in our direction (My motto: If You Even Think About Laying A Hand on My Daughter, I Will Snap Your Arm Clean Off Your Body and Shove It in Your Ear.)

Getaway day from D.C. proved to be the same day that Creedence Clearwater Revisited – which includes original Creedence Clearwater Revival band members Doug “Cosmo” Clifford on drums and Stu Cook on bass – was performing at the Tropicana in Atlantic City that evening.

An interview with Clifford about the music and the making of the 1970 CCR album “Cosmo’s Factory,” Clifford’s namesake album, is included in The Vinyl Dialogues. So I wanted to see the show and meet Doug and hopefully Stu at the meet-and-greet before the show.

Now it sounds like a long way from Washington, D.C. to Atlantic City, N.J. and it is a couple hundred miles. Add in the concentration of people along the route – through Baltimore and Philly – and it became an even more challenging drive to make it in time for the meet-and-greet before the show.

But we negotiated the trip successfully, despite getting late word that the before the show meet-and-greet had been canceled by the Tropicana (Casino motto: Let’s See if We Can Make Mike Drive All This Way in The Rain and Traffic to Not Meet His Favorite Musicians and Still Get Him to Drop A Few Bucks in the Slot Machines.)

Disappointment, but no worries. We still had the show.

And what a show it was. Doug and Stu still got it and they’re still having fun, 53 years after they first met. They were 13 years old then, and they’re both now 69 and they look fabulous. They play even better.

Not only that, but they’ve surrounded themselves with other great musicians as well, including lead singer John Tristao (that guy can sing), lead guitarist Kurt Griffey (that guy just flat-out jams) and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Steve Gunner (that guy does it all). (Motto: We Don’t Need John Fogerty.)

(Editor’s note: No disrespect to John Fogerty. He wrote a lot of great songs during the CCR era.)

Coming off an emotional few days with that whole college thing, my wife and I were ready to just relax and listen to some great music. Revisited played all the hits, including some of my favorites like “Hey Tonight,” “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” “Down on the Corner,” “Who’ll Stop The Rain” and “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”

And, of course, “Proud Mary.” That’s when it hit, all of a sudden out of nowhere, and tears started streaming down my face. “Proud Mary” doesn’t strike me as a particularly emotional song, but it was one of my parents’ favorite songs. My dad couldn’t carry a tune in a wheel barrow, but I remember him singing that song in the car along with the radio. (Dad’s motto: I Don’t Care That I Can’t Sing for Shit, I’m Singing Along With This Song Because it’s Just That Good.)

I recall my parents dancing to that song every time it was played by cover bands in the early 1970s at the Moose Lodge in Pekin, Illinois, where we’d go on Friday nights because it was catfish dinner night at the lodge and my folks loved to dance and eat catfish.

My dad died in 2006. But I called my mom the next day and told her about the show, and she reminded me of the Moose Lodge story. She remembered dancing to “Proud Mary,” too. (Mom’s motto: I Still Love Catfish and CCR.)

We did get a chance after the show to go to the dressing room and meet Doug and Stu. They are class acts and everything you’d want your musical heroes to be when you get the privilege of meeting them. Friendly, down-to-earth and engaging.

Thanks Creedence Clearwater Revisited. That was worth the long drive, right there, that memory and those tears.

And it reminded me, once again, that I truly am the fortunate son.

Southside Johnny at The Stone Pony: A real rock and roll show

By

On August 3, 2014

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Southside Johnny rocks the summer stage.

Southside Johnny rocks the summer stage.

The famous Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J.

The famous Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a theory that had at least the hint of possibly coming true.

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes were scheduled to play a July 3, 2014, show at the famous Stone Pony is Asbury Park, N.J. The venue is, as many music fans know, the place where Bruce Springsteen got his start. As did Southside Johnny – John Lyon – and his band the Asbury Jukes.

There’s a chapter in The Vinyl Dialogues, featuring an interview with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Steven Van Zandt of Springsteen’s E Street Band, that details the evolution of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in the mid-1970s, the influence of Springsteen on the band and the development of what we now know at the Jersey Shore Sound.

Over the years, it has not been uncommon for both Springsteen and Van Zandt to join Southside on stage, especially when the band is playing in or around Asbury Park or specifically, at the Stone Pony.

There’s a lot of rock and roll history that’s been made at the Stone Pony. So when I saw that Southside and the Jukes were scheduled to perform at the venue’s summer stage on July 3, I said to myself, “Hmmm. I wonder . . . .”

Let me state upfront that I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band or Southside Johnny perform live. I know, I know, shame on me. My only excuse is that I grew up in the Midwest having no idea about anything New Jersey. So I came very late to the Springsteen-Van Zandt-Southside party. (I’m still not at the Jon Bon Jovi party yet.)

The point now is that I’m all-in with everything Springsteen. I’m listening and learning and enjoying all the music that I missed the first time around, starting with the early Springsteen and Southside stuff from the 1970s.

So the plan for the Southside concert was a no brainer: Seeing Southside Johnny for the first time at the historic Stone Pony. I wouldn’t want to have seen him at any other venue the first time. (John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, from “Eddie & The Cruisers” fame, was the opener.)

But in the back of my mind, I wondered: July 3 was on a Thursday, the start of a long Fourth of July four-day weekend. Maybe, just maybe, Bruce – who had finished his 2014 tour – would be hanging around Asbury Park with the family. Or maybe Van Zandt was in the neighborhood. And maybe they both didn’t have anything else to do that evening. Would it be possible that one or both of them would stop by and do a few songs with Southside in their old stomping grounds?

It had happened before at the Stone Pony. The odds seemed, at the very least, plausible.

And then Mother Nature interfered, the ratfink. It rained like hell on July 3, so much so that the Stone Pony management canceled the show since it was at the club’s outdoor summer stage, which offers no protection from the elements.

Fortunately, the show was rescheduled for Aug. 2, a date that was open on the schedule. Once again, Mother Nature threatened to interrupt the proceedings with a lot of threatening skies, but the rain held off.

The Stone Pony itself is old and it needs some work. It’s a club, not Radio City Music Hall. The ceiling is half falling down in places and people still spill beer on its floor. The summer stage outside is a general admission ticket and fans have to stand for the shows. Fortunately, you can pay an extra fee and sit in a small grandstand, which we did because my wife and I have determined that the days of standing through entire concerts has long since passed for our knees and hips.

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at the Stone Pony – a real rock and roll show. It was excellent and just what I hoped the entire experience would be.

Oh, neither Springsteen nor Van Zandt showed up. I was looking for them when Southside started singing “I Don’t Want to Go Home.” That would have been some serious gravy had they popped up on the stage at that point, huh?

But Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes had this one. It was homefield advantage all the way for them. And it was just that cool, even without those other two guys.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén