Left Coast Cowboys

I’m late, but you didn’t think I’d let this day slip by without mention — a day that would have been Johnny Cash’s 78th birthday. I heard fans are paying homage by wearing black, but there has only ever been one and never will be another Man in Black. It’s sad that there is a perception among kids today that Johnny Cash was a Country singer. Yes, he was, but then so much more.

From June 7, 1969 to March 31, 1971, The Johnny Cash Show aired on ABC. I can’t even draw an equivalent with any other show today. It was a show that everyone from young kids (my brother and myself), our babysitters (who were tuning in, turning on and dropping out) and my father (a military officer) all planned our week around.  You never knew who would show up as a guest on Johnny Cash’s show — everyone from Louis Armstrong to Bob Dylan to Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Neil Young. Many young singers say they got their first serious airplay when Johnny Cash went to bat for them and had them on the show. The range of music covered was astounding. Judy Collins came on and sang two Jacques Brel songs. Eric Clapton, Carl Perkins and Johnny traded guitar licks with Eric coming out behind in my humble opinion. (I write more extensively about The Johnny Cash Show and include that clip here.)

Kids today. I don't think they understand how influential and generous Johnny Cash was in fostering new artists.

For an idea of Johnny Cash’s wide-ranging influence on musicians, you’d have to have read the tribute issue of Rolling Stone in the week after he died. Artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Bono, Wyclef Jean and various rappers listed him as an important influence. It’s not that they aspired to be Country singers, but that they all recognized in Johnny Cash a singer of unparalleled integrity: he sang his truth as he knew it. (Rolling Stone Online has a sampling of remembrances here.)

He was also the old style American Christian I wish we had more of. He recognized his frailties, once saying, “Some people know just how to go straight to Heaven. I’m someone who has to get there one half mile a day.” He had a strong faith, but never waved it in anyone’s face or forced it on anyone. He just lived it. And that was inspiration enough. When he sang, with the voice of an Old Testament Prophet, you just had to sit up and listen. Rick Rubin, his last producer and a Jew, tells how Johnny once asked if he could take his hand and pray with him. It became a ritual with the two of them, even during telephone conversations. Rubin says he felt blessed to be so honored by a man of faith and included in that faith, even if it wasn’t his own.

If any of the Old Testament Prophets had had a recording contract, they would have sounded like Johnny Cash.

It’s also worth remembering, that at a time when established stars like Frank Sinatra, etc., were ignoring the turmoil of the Sixties, Johnny Cash was visiting college campuses — and being embraced by students who were also listening to The Byrds, The Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix. “The Man in Black” and “What is Truth?” came out of his concern that the issues being protested by Sixties youth weren’t being given proper attention.

Then there are Native Americans, who at that time, before the American Indian Movement, had no real voice in America. Johnny was embraced as one of their own, even though it turned out he was mistaken in thinking he had Cherokee blood. Didn’t matter. He was the first major star to foster the career of Native American singer Buffy Saint-Marie, he made a movie about The Trail of Tears, his wrote the immortal Ballad of Ira Hayes and he gave many concerts to enthusiastic Native audiences.

Of course, his work and concerts in prisons are the stuff of legend. Based on that, I’ve heard some call Johnny “the original Punk”. But he wasn’t — at least if you define a Punk as a nihilistic criminal. Johnny’s lyrics always packed an Old Testament wallop. In a Johnny Cash song, you could break the law, but you paid the price. You might “shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die” but then you’d have to acknowledge “I know I had it comin’, I know I can’t be free”. You could “be in the arms of your best friend’s wife” but then you’d get hung and your paramour would have to “walk these hills in a long black veil”. There was no free lunch and no Gangsta Life in Johnny Cash’s world. And he stood up as the premier example of a man who’d had to pay for his sins.

This attitude is probably one of the reasons no less an authority than Bob Dylan said of Cash: “Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by him.”

And did we mention the music? Kick ass!

Thanks, Johnny, and Happy Birthday up in Heaven. There will never be another like you.

No one has yet mounted a credible challenge to my assertion that I have the world’s largest, most eclectic and eccentric Christmas music collection. So I still hold the crown, and I’m uniquely qualified to steer you away from the tried and true, the boring and overplayed to the fresh, the different and the undiscovered in holiday music. So far I brought you a cross-genre selection of undiscovered gems, a full shaker’s worth of songs for Christmas cocktails and Christmas: The Dance Edition. Today is a complete change of pace, bringing you full circle and back to the beginning. Yes, it’s religious and spiritual Christmas songs. Even if you are a professed agnostic, you can’t deny the power of the story. And c’mon, you know you get all choked up in The Charlie Brown Christmas Special when Linus recites the Bible passage about Jesus’s birth to tell Charlie Brown the meaning of Christmas. So park your skepticism. These picks aren’t your standard boring hymns. These artists sing out loud and proud and sincerely enough to get even as famous an atheist as Bill Maher testifying.

As an added bonus, each of these songs comes from an album of gems just as magnificent. Don’t stop at ten song recommendations, buy all ten CDs.

So open your mind and heart and get reacquainted with the spiritual Christmas classics — but performed better, more uniquely and in a more heart-felt manner than you’ve probably ever heard them done before:

1. Walk In Jerusalem by Mahalia Jackson from Christmas with Mahalia Jackson

Not ready to come to Jesus? Mahalia will get you there. Even Jewish and atheist friends have said her voice is powerful enough to convert. This song was also a surprise addition to my Christmas Dance Party Edition one year, because no one can get you moving like Mahalia Jackson, arguably the greatest Gospel Singer EVER. Oh, she’ll get you moving all right. Maybe swinging your hands over your head Southern Baptist style and movin’ down to the creek for a good ol’ Baptizing. Yes, she’s that powerful.

2. Shout for Joy by Odetta from Christmas Spirituals

Just an aside here, if I ever joined a church fulltime it would have to be an African American church. Hands down, they have the best music. If you don’t know the great Odetta, voice of The Civil Rights Movement and the folk singer who influenced Dylan, Baez, Carly Simon and so many others, read this and believe. Here, Odetta gives a Gospel classic a Jazzy/Bluesy turn, helped by her Bass player Bill Lee (Spike’s dad).

3. Beautiful Star of Bethlehem by Emmylou Harris from Light of the Stable

This lovely Appalachian folk carol is given a soaring treatment by Emmylou’s crystalline soprano. Pals Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton often show up uncredited on Emmylou’s albums and I suspect theirs are the backing and counterpoint vocals here. The fiddle, dulcimer and guitars add the perfect touch of homespun authenticity.

4. Who Kept the Sheep by Johnny Cash from The Christmas Spirit

There are only a handful of singers I can name with as authentic an American voice as Johnny Cash (and most of them appear on this list). This gentle song uses almost the tone of a children’s song to point out one of the smaller miracles of the Christmas story. Johnny softens his rough-hewn voice to ask the listener, who kept the sheep from harm when the shepherds left to witness the birth of Christ. A beautiful parable in song sung by a man with the voice of an Old Testament prophet…by way of Arkansas.

5. Hark the Herald Angels Sing by Kathleen Battle from Kathleen Battle: A Christmas Celebration

I know you’ve heard this song a million times, but you’ve NEVER heard it like this. Great coloratura soprano Kathleen Battle sings out with a full chorus and orchestra including horns that you’ll swear are being blown by those Herald Angels. In fact, I highly recommend the album this came from as a source for many wonderful Christmas songs, some are spirituals, some are well-known carols, many are from other countries. All are wonderful.

6. Gaudete by the King’s Singers from King’s Singers: A Little Christmas Music

As long as we’re getting back to fundamentals, how about a ringing carol in Latin? You won’t think it’s a dead language when you hear this great group from Cambridge England belt out this Medieval crowd pleaser, complete with the ringing trumpets of the London Sinfonia Brass Quintet. They sure knew how to get people on their feet in Merrie Olde England back in the day!

7. Hosanna in Excelsis by Placido Domingo from The Greatest Christmas Show On Earth

I probably shouldn’t even tell you that this ringing Latin number is from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem. Yes, that Andrew Lloyd Webber and, yes, I find him insufferable, too. But when I first heard this, I thought it was an undiscovered Medieval masterpiece. Maybe it’s Placido Domingo who puts it across. I can’t vouch for the rest of the Requiem. I got this off a compilation album.

8. A Star in the East by Harry Belafonte from To Wish You a Merry Christmas

I featured another song from this album, Mary’s Boy Child, on my Undiscovered Gems list. I wish I could include every song because this album is that good. Only once in a while does an artist produce a Christmas album that isn’t just a retread of a bunch of holiday numbers, but really redefines Christmas songs through their own particular musical lens. Harry Belafonte does that. Many of the songs are spirituals done with his particular Bahamian lilt. But even European standards such as Silent Night or old English carols such as “Christmas is Coming” are given such a personal stamp that, after hearing them, you’ll never think they’re done quite right when done by other artists. The song I’ve chosen here is a traditional spiritual given a bluesy, Caribbean Belafonte spin.

9. Es Hat Sich Heut Eroffnet by The Trapp Family Singers from The Sound of Christmas

Yes, that Trapp Family. They didn’t have Julie Andrews, but they did have a lovely traditional choral sound. And the Germans really gave us what we think of as Christmas when German Prince Albert brought all his traditions such as trees and Santa with him to his marriage to Queen Victoria. So the Trapps are Austrian. Close enough. It’s not really a traditional Christmas without some Germanic singing. Make those singers a famous ski lodge owning singing family and all the better. All the songs on the CD are traditional; not all of them are German. In fact, they do a beautiful version of the Spanish carol A La Nanita. After years of searching, I finally discovered this in a bargain CD bin. So good luck finding it.

10. Angels We Have Heard on High by The Brian Setzer Orchestra from Christmas Rocks!

Just because a song is about Jesus, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to rock out to it. Here Brian infuses a classic with that Big Band Sound, ringing Christmas bells, plus a generous dollop of Rockabilly and a full chorus. The results are magical. You’ll never want to hear this song played any other way.

Can’t find YouTube video of the song I’m recommending for this playlist. But check out how Brian Setzer rocks Christmas:

Merry Christmas, keep the faith and buy these CDs!

Painting at top of post: Titian’s Holy Family with Shepherd from the website of the National Gallery London.

My friends will tell you that I have — bar none — the largest collection of Christmas music ever amassed on three iPods. Christmas music season starts in my house right after the Thanksgiving turkey leftovers are wrapped in foil. In fact, to my husband’s chagrin, I’ve been known to fire up the Christmas music in July, just to keep in practice. My Christmas collection is great not only in its size, but in its diversity. My point is: I’m eminently qualified to make this list. In fact, I could make several lists and sublists just of Christmas songs. Wait, I have over my years of blogging and you can bet I’ll be recycling them this month!

But for today’s purposes, this list focuses specifically on undiscovered gems. No tired retreads of “Frosty the Snowman” or that most obnoxious tune of all “Winter Wonderland”. With a few rare exceptions, these ten songs are Christmas songs you may never have heard. Or you may never have heard them quite this way. They’re songs you must get in your holiday collection if you are going to counteract yet another screeching Celine Dion rendition of “Oh, Holy Night.”

Note these undiscovered and underplayed gems are listed in no particular order:

1. “Silver Bells”, Elvis Presley

I know I promised no retreads, but this song is more than just a cover of a fairly familiar holiday song. With appologies to Johnny Mathis, who made it a hit, I think Elvis has the definitive version. If you listen to the lyrics, this song always sounds as if it’s sung from the point of view of a wide-eyed rube. An unsophisticated country boy who is experiencing a City Christmas for the first time. Well, no one is more the epitome of the white trash country boy making the big time than Elvis. I imagine him singing this on his first day up from Tupelo. He sees the bright lights of Memphis. And the rest is history.

2. “What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin’)”, Louis Prima

Staying in the South, how about a great swingin’ holiday song from that New Orleans bandmaster Louis Prima? You can’t have too much Louis Prima. And the background chorus of Sam Butera and the Witnesses adds that extra dash of peppermint.

3. “Christmas Time in Harlem”, Louis Armstrong

Everything you would expect from a Louis Armstrong song including great lines like, “Cats are sleepin’ warm as toast”, “We’ll be all lit up like a Christmas tree” and “Hydee, Hydee, Hydee Ho. It’s Christmas time in Harlem.” Plus some great Satchmo trumpet solos.

4. “We Are the Shepherds”, Johnny Cash

Here’s a real change of pace and not an upbeat one. Because, well. . .it’s Johnny Cash. So you’re just relieved that no one’s shooting anyone in Reno just to watch him die. Actually this is noteworthy because Johnny pens a Christmas carol to the old cowboy tune, The Streets of Laredo, that gentle ditty about a cowboy lying in the streets ’cause “he’s shot in the breast and [he's] dyin’ today.” Only Johnny Cash could see the Christmas spirit in that.

5. “Welcome Christmas”, The Whos

Yes, those Whos. The ones whose Christmas the Grinch couldn’t steal. If you are like me and get choked up annually when the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes in one day, you’ll love a song that includes lyrics like “Fa-whoo For-ay, Da-whoo Dor-ay. Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer. Welcome Whos from far and near.” Even though the cartoon airs every year, this song never gets enough airplay.

6. “A Party for Santa Claus”, Lord Nelson

As long as we’re trying to bring things upbeat, I love this Carribean novelty song that calls for us to turn the tables and buy Santa Claus presents. Things like a “big car with a chauffeur”, “a new continental suit” and even “take him out to a night club with some fine chicks.”

7. “Mary’s Boy Child”, Harry Belafonte

This song is about the closest thing on this list to a real Christmas carol. But who can resist Harry Belafonte, especially singing in a gentle Island patois with lines such as “They find no place to born she child” and “Them see a bright new shining star.” Enough to make you reimagine the Nativity Scene on a Bahamian beach.

8. “The Christmas Blues”, Dean Martin

Call me a heretic, but, out of the Rat Pack, I’ve always preferred Dean to Frank. Here he does Frank’s schtick one better — I’m talking the sad guy at the end of the bar at 2AM closing with nowhere to go. This is definitely a Christmas song to sing after not getting the presents you wanted and downing a few too many lonely Martinis.

9. “Mele Kalikimaka”, Bette Midler

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters did an insufferable version of this that is played to death. Check out Bette’s hipper version complete with slack key guitar. Bette really did grow up in Hawaii. And what could be more fun to contemplate than Christmas on Oahu with the Divine Miss M? The fact that Bette is Jewish only gives it that important touch of Post Modern irony.

10. “Christmas Times a-Comin’” Emmylou Harris

With very few exceptions, country artists put out the absolute worst Christmas recordings — and I’m someone who likes country music. But this upbeat number with dulcimer, guitar, banjo and Emmylou’s beautiful soprano is a wonderful exception.

There you have it. A list guaranteed to put you in the mood — or counteract the 500th version of “Frosty the Snowman” you just heard at the mall.

Merry Christmas season and remember, Christmas music doesn’t have to be something you bear with gritted teeth. Just ask me for a playlist. I can put together anything: European Christmas, Punk Christmas, Country Christmas, Novelty Christmas, Spiritual Christmas, Jazz Christmas. . .

Now you have no excuse to be Grinch-like.

Let me first tell you something that may surprise long-time readers. I did not grow up in a Country music loving family. My parents’ extensive record collection was filled mostly with Classical records, soundtracks from the Broadway musicals they saw every chance they got and the obligatory Herb Alpert and Martin Denny exotica that was the standard soundtrack for cocktail parties in the Sixties. The only brushes we had with Country were two albums: Marty Robbins Sings Gunfighter Ballads and The Little Cowpoke’s Big Roundup of Songs. But that was really cowboy music, which we saw as something quite different from Country. Then one summer, it all changed. My father, a career military officer, was sent for a few months to some base in the South, maybe Texas, for some sort of short-term maneuvers or training thing. He came back with a suitcase full of Charlie Pride, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash albums. Things were never the same around our house again.

As my mother waged a losing battle to keep Burt Bacharach and Mozart front and center in the collection, my brother and I were increasingly influenced by the older kids in school. We were listening to  Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin.

Get this DVD set! You can buy it on Amazon.

But for some reason, when Johnny Cash got a variety music show on ABC in the Summer of 1969, everyone in the family would gather round the set. I don’t think my brother and I even saw Cash as Country. Now that I’ve seen The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show double DVD set that I ordered from Amazon, I see why. You can’t imagine the ecclectic line-up of guests Johnny managed to get up on Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium stage. You couldn’t do it today. He mixed old and new Country stars with artists of all types from Jazz great Louis Armstrong, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, Neil Diamond and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Famously on his first show, he hosted Bob Dylan. Perhaps my favorite surprise is seeing Eric Clapton — with his then band Derek and the Dominos — wailing out an old R&B standard. Then Johnny joins them, brings in Carl Perkins, and one of the best all-time guitar jams commences. Surprisingly, the very young Eric Clapton looks completely starstruck and a little intimidated. 

Another thing I’d forgotten or probably never even realized about the show, how controversial it was in subject matter. Johnny held forth on issues such as Indian rights and his Evangelical Christian beliefs. He demanded to include controversial folkie and Leftie Pete Seeger fresh off his infamous trip to North Vietnam and his anti-war bit on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. And as the war was raging, My Lai was uncovered and youth rebellion was at its height, he took part of the show to college campuses where he spoke honestly with students about drugs and politics. In fact, he wrote Man in Black after one of those campus forays.

How do I know that last little tid-bit? Because this 2-DVD set is filled with fascinating commentary by Johnny’s son, Kris Kristofferson, and some of the musicians, staff and the producer of the show. For instance, there’s that story told by the hairdresser and wardrobe person about when a very young Linda Ronstadt showed up for rehearsal without any underwear. I’ll only tell you that June Carter Cash took matters in hand. Get the DVD to learn the details.

Seriously, get this DVD set. One of the best things about it: you can skip through it chapter by chapter or song by song. So if you only want to show your Rocker or Blues loving friends how Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash wipe the floor with Eric Clapton, you can skip to that. Or you can replay that Linda Ronstadt song over and over and watch, as she struggles with an extremely skimpy mini-dress, and wonder if this was before or after June took over.

Okay, I know you don’t believe me about that Eric Clapton bit, so here it is:

Now go get this DVD set and rediscover The Man in Black yourself.

NOTE: Round these parts, we have a special version of one of Cash’s greatest hits:

I fell into a burning ring of terriers

I went down down down

And the terriers got scarier

And it burns burns burns

The ring of terriers

The ring of terriers

It never fails. When I post up something that hits Google with keywords like “cowboy”, “country music”, “Indians” or “Wild West”, Eastern Europe goes wild — judging from my stats. After yesterday’s post about taking my mother to an Indian Casino, there was hardly a soul east of the Elbe who wasn’t tuning in. However much of that traffic could be attributed to the fact that I served up some choice pre-surgery Kenny Rogers. Better yet, he was singing with the Muppets. I imagine the Internet cafes were buzzing as Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians and others sang along to “The Gambler”.

So since I’m on a roll here, let’s kick it up a notch.

How about the greatest Country singer ever. Johnny Cash. With the Muppets! You may say Miss Piggy is no Patsy Cline, but she gives June Carter Cash a run for her money, at least in attitude.

Hey Bosnia and Herzegovina, this one’s for YOU!

Thanks to dailymail.co.uk for the image of the guys in traditional Bavarian dress.

By the way, after failing miserably with February’s NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), I’m making the commitment for March.