Written in 1968, today’s selection was purposely excluded from Ralph McTell’s debut album, “Eight Frames a Second” as he feared that listeners would find it too depressing.  It was recorded in one acoustic take the following year, however, and included on his second album, Spiral Staircase” although (except for in the Netherlands) it met with little acclaim.  It wasn’t until 1974 that McTell’s finest song was re-recorded and finally released as a single.

Born as Ralph May in Farnborough, Kent in 1944 and raised in Croydon, his given name was in honor of English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, for whom the newborn’s soldier-father had been a gardener prior to the war.  But after being demobilized the old gardener abandoned his family, leaving his wife, Winifred, to support her young sons on her own. She once recounted, “I remember Ralph (then aged four) saying to me quite soon after Frank left us, “I’ll look after you Mummy.”

Despite the family’s destitution, Ralph, who discovered his love for music early-on when his grandfather taught him to play harmonica, had (by all accounts) a happy childhood. In his teens he was given a ukulele and (yes) a copy of “The George Formby Method” and soon became captivated by Skiffle and Rock’n’Roll.

Eventually he acquired a guitar and modeled his playing after such Blues greats as Blind Blake, Robert Johnson and (significantly) Blind Willie McTell, from whom he took his professional surname.  That’s Skiffle, Rock’n’Roll and Blues, quite a start for an international folk legend whose peers include: Tom Paxton, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention.

McTell’s finest song, of course, is “The Streets of London” but oddly enough it was actually inspired by his early experiences as a busker in Paris.  The vignettes of the homeless, the lonely and the elderly were written about actual Parisians.  As a matter of fact, the song was originally called “Streets of Paris” but McTell changed the name upon his return to England and despite his initial wariness (today’s) 1974 version reached Number 2 on the UK Singles Chart, at one point selling 90,000 copies a day, and has since been covered by more than 200 recording artists.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Thursday 17 May

The Streets of London

 Have you seen the old man

In the closed-down market

Kicking up the paper

With his worn out shoes?

In his eyes you see no pride

Hand held loosely at his side

Yesterday’s paper telling yesterday’s news

So how can you tell me you’re lonely

And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London

I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

Have you seen the old girl

Who walks the streets of London

Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags?

She’s no time for talking

She just keeps right on walking

Carrying her home in two carrier bags

So how can you tell me you’re lonely

And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London

I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

In the all night cafe

At a quarter past eleven

Same old man is sitting there on his own

Looking at the world

Over the rim of his tea-cup

Each tea last an hour

Then he wanders home alone

So how can you tell me you’re lonely

And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London

I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

 And have you seen the old man

Outside the seaman’s mission

Memory fading with

The medal ribbons that he wears

In our winter city

The rain cries a little pity

For one more forgotten hero

And a world that doesn’t care

 So how can you tell me you’re lonely

And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London

I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

Israel has a way of hauling out your inner-romantic.  Once, about 30 years ago, I found myself on the outskirts of Nazareth with some friends.  I was at the wheel of yet another beat-up, rented Peugeot and it didn’t take long to realize that what we had here was a magnificent opportunity. So I dug through my cardboard tape-cassette box and cued up this song. Of course I did…wouldn’t you?

It was an especially stifling, sticky day.  All the windows were rolled down and before the end of the first stanza we were teetering on the abyss of an epic traffic jam.  The grand moment was quickly being lost in the haze of red tail lights and you can imagine our annoyance when the Arab taxi driver in front of us began to lean on his horn with one vexatious BEEEEEEEP!

But then he became my hero. Still leaning on his horn, he pulled out of the jam and proceeded to drive up the wrong side of the street for an entire city block, making his escape at the next intersection.

By now we were at the bit in the song where “Crazy Chester followed me…” and despite the loud protestations of my friends I went with the impulse, located my horn and did – the – same – thing.  It remains one of the few times in my life that I’ve actually gotten away with such a stunt and before the song had even ended we had discovered a more leisurely route out of town.

Written by Robbie Robertson (and named by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll”) The Weight was first released on The Band’s 1968 debut album, Music From Big Pink. And it wasn’t until much later that I learned that the song actually references Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where C.F. Martin & Company has manufactured guitars since 1833.

I guess if I’d known that then, you wouldn’t have this rather fond memory to accompany today’s selection now.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Wednesday 16 May

The Weight

 I pulled into Nazareth

Was feelin’ about half past dead

I just need some place where I can lay my head

“Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?”

He just grinned and shook my hand

“No”, was all he said

 Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free

Take a load off Fanny

And (and) (and) you put the load right on me

I picked up my bag

I went lookin’ for a place to hide

When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin’ side by side

I said, “Hey, Carmen, come on, let’s go downtown.”

She said, “I gotta go, but my friend can stick around”

Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free

Take a load off Fanny

And (and) (and) you put the load right on me

 Go down, Miss Moses

There’s nothin’ you can say

It’s just ol’ Luke

And Luke’s waitin’ on the Judgement Day

Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?”

He said, “Do me a favor, son

Won’t stay an’ keep Anna Lee company?”

Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free

Take a load off Fanny

And (and) (and) you put the load right on me

Crazy Chester followed me

And he caught me in the fog

He said, “I will fix your rack, if you’ll take Jack, my dog”

I said, “Wait a minute, Chester, you know I’m a peaceful man”

He said, “That’s okay, boy

Won’t you feed him when you can”

Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free

Take a load off Fanny

And (and) (and) you put the load right on me

Catch a cannon ball now

To take me down the line

My bag is sinkin’ low and I do believe it’s time

To get back to Miss Fanny

You know she’s the only one

Who sent me here with her regards for everyone

Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free

Take a load off Fanny

And (and) (and) you put the load right on me

Back in the ‘70s there was a regionally popular group called the Pousette-Dart Band (aka PDB), formed by singer/song writer Jon Pousette-Dart here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The group’s self-titled debut album “Pousette-Dart Band” was released in 1976 and by the time their next album, “Amnesia” was released in ‘77 they had quite a following, with popular singles such as “Amnesia” (how can you forget that one?), “Fall on Me” and “County Line”

Perhaps you remember them, in which case you too may have wondered about that unusual name. Well,  it’s a name freighted with history, as Jon is the son of Richard Pousette-Dart an avant-garde artist who was hugely popular in the 1940s.  With collections now found in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as Washington’s Smithsonian Museum and the National Gallery, not to mention dozens of other major museums (including Boston’s MFA), he was rather a celebrated member of the Abstract Expressionist School of painting.

In fact the family maintains an artistic tradition as Richard’s daughter (and Jon’s sister) Joanna Pousette-Dart is a highly regarded abstract painter with exhibits in a broad array of contemporary museums and galleries. All very interesting, but it still doesn’t explain the name.

So imagine my surprise to discover that Richard was the son of Nathaniel Jermund Pousette-Dart, who was also an important painter (and art writer),  known for his “progressively modern” and slightly “impressionistic” landscapes (that were still considered “sane and conservative”).  The son of Swedish immigrants, Algot and Mathilda Pousette, Nathaniel had married a girl named Flora Louise Dart in St. Paul, Minnesota.

But Flora‘s ideas about marriage were fairly progressive and believing that a marriage should be based on mutual esteem, she refused to use the conventional “love, honor cherish and obey” vows and insisted upon writing her own.  When they were married in 1913, Nathaniel and Flora combined their names, and that’s the origin of the Pousette-Dart name.

Not long after releasing its fifth album, their grandson’s group called it quits in 1981, although Jon Pousette-Dart still maintains an active touring schedule, which sometimes includes the other members of the band.  And today’s bittersweet selection from the “Amnesia” album remains a favorite.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 15 May

 Yaicha

I love to watch you smile

And Yaicha

You’re the reason you’re mama smiles

And Yaicha

You are a candle beneath the falling the rain

You are the child in which the love still remains

Oh unbroken

You shine amidst the pain

And unspoken

You understand just the same

You are a candle beneath the falling the rain

You are the child in which the love still remains

Oh Yaicha

I love to watch you smile…

Glad beginnings abound…as do sad endings from time to time.  Take Harry Edward Nilsson, a fine songwriter with a splendid singing voice (for which he won two Grammy Awards), who had achieved great peaks in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, without ever going on tour or performing in a major concert for that matter.

In 1968, while the Beatles were forming Apple Records, John Lennon was asked who his favorite American artist was and he replied “Nilsson” The press then turned to Paul McCartney and asked the same question.  His response was…“Nilsson.”

Leap forward to 1973; Harry Nilsson was living in Southern California and Lennon, who had recently separated from Yoko Ono, happened to bump into him at a club.  Before long the two were inseparable, with Lennon fully committed to producing Nilsson’s next album. Unfortunately, theirs was a time of excessive drinking and drugging in a very public way, including heckling at (and being thrown out of) others’ performances, trashing of guestrooms and near misses with bottles thrown from upper level hotel windows.

Even worse, Nilsson ruptured a vocal cord while recording the album that Lennon was producing for him (the woeful “Pussy Cats”).  It was only the fact that Lennon accompanied his pal to the record company negotiations and made an (unfulfilled) intimation that he and Ringo Starr might wish to sign with RCA after their Apple Record contracts expired, that they agreed to re-sign Nilsson and release the album.

By the onset of the 1980s Harry Nilsson’s best years were behind him.  Then he fell into dire straits after his financial advisor had embezzled all the funds he had ever made as a recording artist, leaving him and his family in serious debt (while the financial advisor served less than two years in prison without having to make restitution).

By the onset of the 1990s his entire career was behind him, with a final public singing appearance made at Caesar’s Palace in 1992.  That’s when Nilsson joined Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band to sing “Without You” and Todd Rundgren handled the high notes. The following year Harry Nilsson survived a massive heart attack (at the age of 52) and began to press RCA, his old label, to release a boxed-set retrospective of his career while attempting to record another album…which was never completed as he died at his home in early 1994.

Take heart, you who have made it this far, because that’s not the story’s end.  In 1995, a tribute album, “For the Love of Harry” was released consisting of popular artists singing many of Nilsson’s songs, including today’s selection sung by Richmond, Virginia native, Aimee Mann.

First made famous by Three Dog Night in 1969 (their cover reached Number 5 on the Billboard Chart), the song was first included on Nilsson’s third album in 1968, “Aerial Ballet”.  “One” was written after Nilsson had called someone on the phone and got a busy signal.  The “beep, beep, beep, beep…” tone became the opening notes to his song.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Monday 14 May

One

One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do

Two can be as bad as one

It’s the loneliest number since the number one

No is the saddest experience you’ll ever know

Yes it’s the saddest experience you’ll ever know

Because one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do

One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever know

It’s just no good anymore since you went away

Now I spend my time

Just making rhymes of yesterday

Because one is the loneliest number

That you’ll ever do

One is the loneliest number

That you’ll ever know

One is the loneliest number

One is the loneliest number

One is the loneliest number

That you’ll ever do

One is the loneliest number

Much, much worse than two

One is the number divided by two

One………..

One is the loneliest number

“Light” and “Moon” those were our son and daughter’s very first words, respectively. So what were your child’s/children’s first words? I’ll bet, like my dear wife (and mother of our children), you warmly remember them; and here’s an especial salutation to you mothers, and a light hearted wish for a very Happy Mother’s Day.

Today’s selection by Broadway composer/musicologist Maury Yeston and Broadway lyricist/actress, Christine Andreas was chosen especially for you, as performed by Mimi Bessette…

Wha’? Never heard of her?  Well then, here’s a snippet from her resume:  “Dark Brown Hair, Dark Brown Eyes, 5’4”, 125 lbs., SAG – AFTRE – AEA, Plays Piano, Guitar, Mandolin, Dulcimer, Double Bass & Cello; Fencing & Unarmed Combat (American & British Certification with honors), Tennis, Swimming, Ice Skating, Horseback Riding, Dialects & Munchkin voices.”

Now that you’re more familiar with Mimi I can tell you that “New Words” was included on her album, “Lullabies of Broadway” which won the Parent’s Choice Award for Best Children’s Album of 1991 (coincidentally the same year our son was born). But before we get to the “New Words” here are a few old ones:

“Everyone can keep house better than her mother, till she trieth.”  ~ Thomas Fuller

“Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.”  ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

“For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” ~ William Ross Wallace

“What is Home without at Mother?” ~ Alice Hawthorne

“I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad” ~ William Dillon

“Her children arise up and call her blessed.” ~ Proverbs 31:28

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Mother’s Day, 13 May

NEW WORDS

Look up there, high above us

In a sky of blackest silk

See how round, like a cookie

See how white, as white as milk

Call it the moon, my son, say “moon”

Sounds like your spoon, my son, can you say it

New word today, say “moon”

Near the moon, brightly turning

See the shining sparks of light

Each one new, each one burning

Through the darkness of the night

We call them stars, my son, say “stars”

That one is Mars, my son, can you say it

New word today, say “stars”

As they blink all around us

Playing starry-eyed games

Who would think it astounds us

Simply naming their names

Turn your eyes from the skies now

Turn around and look at me

There’s a light in my eyes now

And a word for what you see

We call it love, my son, say “love”

So hard to say, my son, it gets harder

New words today, we’ll learn to say

Learn moon, learn stars, learn love

Commonly associated with Hawaii, and with a Polynesian name that roughly means “jumping flea” due to the jumpy finger movements required to play its strings, the ukulele was developed in the 1880s with a design similar to that of both the cavaquinho and the raja, a couple of small guitars that had made their way to the islands with a shipload of Portuguese immigrants from Madeira and Cape Verde.

One of these newcomers, a cabinetmaker by trade, began to churn out this hybrid instrument within weeks of his arrival, to the vast delight the locals.   When Hawaiian King Kalākaua, a steadfast patron of the arts, heard the new instrument he roundly supported its usage at royal gatherings and by the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco a ukulele ensemble headlined the Hawaiian Pavilion.

The ensemble was such a mainland hit that Tin Pan Alley and Vaudeville took note and a fad for Hawaiian-themed songs soon worked its way throughout the country.   Within a few years the portable, inexpensive ukulele, which now commonly comes in four sizes (soprano, concert, tenor, baritone) would gain world renown as one of the icons of the Jazz Age.

Born a half century later in Honolulu, in 1976, Jake Shimabukuro (whose mother gave him his first uke at the age of four) is a ukulele virtuoso who plays a custom-made four-string tenor model.  Having participated with a number of ensembles, Shimabukuro (who has experimented with myriad innovations including effect pedals) made his initial mark with the release of an instructional DVD called Play Loud Ukulele, which was soon followed by scoring credits for a Japanese film Hula Girls. 

A spokesman for “Music is Good Medicine” (promoting music, arts and the importance of a healthy life) Shimabukuro went on to perform on stage with Jimmy Buffett  and accompanied fellow Hawaiian-born Bette Midler at The Royal Variety Performance before the Queen.

Today’s (ukulele) selection is “Me and Shirley T” and lest you worry that we’ve dug up another moppet-ode to Shirley Temple, let me assure you that the song is dedicated to another star that first saw the light of day in the mid-’30s at Chasen’s, an old school Beverly Hills restauraut opened by Three-Stooges fill-in Dave Chasen.

Best remembered for its chili, Chasen’s was a favored haunt of Hollywood celebrities including the young Shirley Temple who had requested a non-alcoholic cocktail. So an anonymous bartender mixed up a concoction made up of two parts Sprite, one part cherry juice, a splash of grenadine, all topped off with a maraschino cherry.

The mixture was a hit, not only with the spritely starlet, but with generations of kids, including (at some point) a very young Jake  Shimabukuro, who wrote “Me and Shirley T”  in honor of his affinity for the Shirley Temple Cocktail.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Saturday 12 May

Mr. Smith cites the Beatles as an influence, but then so does nearly everyone who has written a popular song within the last 50 years. Nick Drake is also near the top of the list …that’s interesting.

Other influences? Jimi Hendrix, Thin Lizzy, Buzzcocks and Joy Division.  Perhaps you think you know where this is going, especially when he throws in Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd who…“shine on you crazy diamond”…succumbed to psychedelics and mental illness early on.

But then he rounds out his list with the doo-wopping (pre-War) Ink Spots and the Country n’ Gospel Statler Brothers.  So what musical genre do you suppose our Mr. Smith is best known for?  Would you believe Goth Rock?

Born in Blackpool in 1959, Robert James Smith has served as lead singer, guitar player, principal songwriter and sole constant for The Cure since it’s formation in West Sussex in 1976.  That was a time when he also (concurrently and energetically) played his flanging guitar for the punk/post-punk Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Still touring with The Cure to this day and (at age 53) still sporting the trademark “look” that he pioneered, with black eyeliner, teased hair, black clothes, pale skin and smudged red lipstick, Robert Smith has shepherded his band through the post-Punk and New Wave eras of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and has held a lantern through the valley of the dark and tormented Goth scene, prior to helping The Cure to find a slightly more upbeat sound as an Alternative Rock Band with songs like “Lovesong”, “Just Like Heaven” and today’s approbation of one of the finest days of the week.

Surely the journey has been worth it as the group has sold nearly 30 million copies of their releases, including thirteen studio albums, ten EPs and more than 20 singles, of which “Friday I’m in Love” tops the list, peaking at Number 18 on the Billboard Charts and Number 6 on the UK Chart in 1992.

Having written the song, Smith was convinced that he had inadvertently stolen the chord progression from somewhere else, very much echoing what happened when Paul McCartney first came up with “Yesterday”.  And like McCartney, Smith grew downright paranoid, asking all and sundry if they had ever played or even heard the song before.  Happily in both cases no one had, and in both cases the mysterious melody became (arguably) the artist’s best song.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 11 May

Friday I’m in Love

 I don’t care if Monday’s blue

Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too

Thursday I don’t care about you

It’s Friday, I’m in love

 Monday you can fall apart

Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart

Oh, Thursday doesn’t even start

It’s Friday I’m in love

 Saturday, wait

And Sunday always comes too late

But Friday, never hesitate…

 I don’t care if Mondays black

Tuesday, Wednesday – heart attack

Thursday, never looking back

It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday, you can hold your head

Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed

Or Thursday – watch the walls instead

It’s Friday, I’m in love

Saturday, wait

And Sunday always comes too late

But Friday, never hesitate…

Dressed up to the eyes

It’s a wonderful surprise

To see your shoes and your spirits rise

Throwing out your frown

And just smiling at the sound

And as sleek as a sheik

Spinning round and round

Always take a big bite

It’s such a gorgeous sight

To see you eat in the middle of the night

You can never get enough

Enough of this stuff

It’s Friday, I’m in love

 I don’t care if Monday’s blue

Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too

Thursday I don’t care about you

It’s Friday, I’m in love

 Monday you can fall apart

Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart

Thursday doesn’t even start

It’s Friday I’m in love

When asked about the rumor, John Power, bassist for the English band, The La’s, said “I don’t know. Truth is, I don’t wanna’ know. Drugs and madness go hand in hand. People who you’ve known all your life… they’re steady, then they’re not. But you can’t ponder, ’cause it kills you, la.”

Conversely, lead-guitarist John Byrne, vigorously denied the rumor and added “It’s just a love song about a girl that you like but never talk to.”

That’s a whole lot of ruminating over a song so simple that it contains no verses and has only a single chorus, repeated four times with a bridge…“There She Goes”  That it borrows heavily from The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again” is certainly no surprise, nor is the speculation that it’s a short deliberation on heroin intoxication.

I prefer to hold with the “love song about a girl” camp but the “drugs and madness” crowd do have a compelling point about the connotations that leap to mind with lyrics like “racing through my brain” and “pulsing through my veins.”

Written by La’s front man, Lee Mavers, an initial version of There She Goes was released as a single in 1988 and failed to chart, but a remix was included on the group’s eponymous debut album, The La’s, in 1990, reaching Number 13 on the UK charts and Number 49 on the U.S. Billboard charts.

Today’s selection is a cover by Sixpence None the Richer, that was included on their eponymous (love that word) third album, Sixpence None the Richer in 1997, peaking at Number 7 on the U.S. Billboard charts.

Formed in the early 1990s and with clear Christian leanings, Six Pence None the Richer is a Texas band whose name is derived from a story found in C.S. Lewis’ theological tome, Mere Christianity.  I’m sure you’ll agree that when lead singer, Leigh Nash sings it at least, “There She Goes” is all about the girl.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Thursday 10 May

There She Goes

There she goes

There she goes again

Racing through my brain

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes

There she goes again

Pulsing through my veins

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes (there she goes again)

There she goes again (there she goes again)

Racing through my brain (there she goes again)

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes

There she goes again

She calls my name

Pulls my train

No one else could heal my pain

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes (she calls my name)

There she goes again (she calls my name)

Chasing down my lane (she calls my name)

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes (there she goes again)

There she goes (there she goes again)

There she goes

As a radio format, Easy Listening first emerged in the post-Big Band Era ’50s and is now a rather broad category that can include anything from Lounge and “Light” Music to Soft-Rock, “Nu-Jazz” and Space Age Pop (look for an Esquivel selection, coming soon, straight from a bachelor pad near you).

Although it has its detractors and, let’s face it, too much of anything is too much, there are times when a little dab of the easy stuff is just the thing, and with his mellow baritone and trademark (Andy Griffith-like) whistle, you don’t get much easier than Roger Whittaker.

A true Anglo-Kenyan Colonialist (born in 1936 when Kenya was still a Crown Colony), my own favorite memory of the man was in 1982, when he was “victim” on the British version of “This is Your Life,” where every week Eamonn Andrews, the presenter, would surprise a featured subject and revisit his/her life in pictures and with stories and testimonials from old friends and family members, some of whom would be flown in from afar. The show stopped live broadcasting the following year, by the way, when another of the “victims,” a retired professional boxer, couldn’t stop swearing.

What was memorable about the Roger Whittaker episode was that one of the surprise “friends” was a London Bobby who had once stopped him for speeding around Trafalgar Square.  When Whittaker tried to pretend he didn’t speak English by answering in Swahili, he soon realized that he was speaking to the only policeman on the entire London Police Department who spoke Swahili. The cop gave him a ticket that day and now here he was,with Eamonn Andrews pronouncing,  “Roger Whittaker, this is your life!”

Of course, old Eamonn had already covered some of the other basics, observing how Roger was born in Nairobi to Edward and Viola Whitaker, who had moved from England to a farm in Kenya for the warmer climate.   How he’d spent two years in the Kenya Regiment after being drafted into National Service and how he ultimately landed in Britain where he hoped to pursue a teaching career, while (where have we heard this before?) singing in local pubs and clubs, eventually being discovered and landing a record deal in 1962.

Written, recorded and released by Whittaker in 1969, “Durham Town (The Leavin’)” was his first big hit in the UK, reaching Number 12 on the charts.  It was quickly followed by (the slightly more saccharine)“The Last Farewell” and “New World in the Morning,” which would hit it big on the U.S. Billboard Easy Listening charts and help to provide the mellow (except when behind the wheel) Roger Whittaker with the easygoing worldwide audience he has enjoyed ever since.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Wednesday 9 May

Durham Town (The Leavin’)

 I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me down

 Back in nineteen forty-four

I remember Daddy walking out the door

Mama told me he was going to war

He was leaving

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…me

 Now, I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me down

 When I was a boy, I spent my time

Sitting on the banks of the River Tyne

Watching all the ships going down the line

They were leaving

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…me

Now, I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me down

Last week Mama passed away

Good-bye, son, was all she’d say

There’s no cause for me to stay,

So I’m leaving

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…free

Now, I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me…

 I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me…

It’s easy to imagine that Levon Helm, drummer and frequent lead vocalist for ‘The Band’ has served as a huge inspiration to many a musician.  Take for example Max Weinberg, Bruce Springsteen’s long-standing drummer who displayed his percussion and vocal versatility with “The Weight” (made famous by Helm) when auditioning for the E Street Band.

Arkansas born and bred, Helm, who died recently at the age of 71, was also the inspiration for today’s selection, composed by one Reginald Kenneth Dwight, just past his days with Bluesology, the late ‘60s supporting band for blues singer, Long John Baldry.

As the story goes, Dwight (based in Middlesex, England) was an exceptional composer who needed help with the words if he was going to find any success with his own melodies. When a recording studio manager handed him a stack of lyrics that had been submitted through the mail by an unknown writer, he quickly turned each of them into a creditable song. And so began a partnership that still continues.

The next step was for Dwight to adopt a new stage name, which he did by taking Baldry’s given name as a surname and combining it with ex-band mate, Elton Dean’s given name as…well, a given name, to form a pleasing new moniker. And in 1969, with a new pile of songs written with his new lyricist, Bernie Taupin, Elton John recorded his debut album, Empty Sky.

‘The Band’ was known to be a huge favorite of both men and you can see the group’s influences in Elton John’s third studio album, Tumbleweed Connection in 1970.  Not many musical acts strike the kinds of heights Elton and Bernie hit that year, with three consecutive gold records in three consecutive months (Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection and the soundtrack album, Friends), followed by the release of a live album (17-11-70) the month after that.

With a title track that had been slated for release on Tumbleweed Connection, the fourth studio album, Madman Across the Water served as a natural “next step” when it was recorded a leisurely six months later and (by far) the album’s best track had a natural tie-in to Levon Helm.  That’s because the song was named after him, although “Levon” (the song’s main character) is entirely fictional, as is the main character’s son (named “Jesus”) and his father, “Alvin Tosig.”

“Levon” peaked at Number 24 on the Billboard charts in early 1971 and Madman Across the Water became Elton John’s lowest charting album in the UK since his debut album, reaching a “lowly” Number 41 on the UK Charts.  It did hit Number 8 on the Billboard Charts in the U.S. however, thereby becoming Elton John’s fourth gold record in the space of a year.

Meanwhile, Levon lives on…on record and in person, as Elton John and his civil partner, David Furnish had a son, who (‘though hardly a “pauper to a pawn”) was born on Christmas Day 2010; his name, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John.  To the rest of us, quite simply, he shall be Levon.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 8 May

Levon

Levon wears his war wound like a crown

He calls his child Jesus

‘Cause he likes the name

And he sends him to the finest school in town

 Levon, Levon likes his money

He makes a lot they say

Spends his days counting

In a garage by the motorway

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said, “God is dead

And the war’s begun, Alvin Tostig has a son today”

 And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

 Levon sells cartoon balloons in town

His family business thrives

Jesus blows up balloons all day

Sits on the porch swing watching them fly

 And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus

Leaving Levon far behind

Take a balloon and go sailing

While Levon, Levon slowly dies

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said, “God is dead

And the war’s begun, Alvin Tostig has a son today”

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

 And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon