LikeTheDew.com

One of our readers, going by the name of herc_takes_five, enjoyed the piece on Piano Red in a recent Southern Song Of The Day posting.  On that day we featured “Mr. Moonlight,” certainly not a critics’ favorite. However, our reader herc takes issue with the opinion that “Mr. Moonlight” might be The Beatles’ worst recording. He says he can think of a dozen worse Beatles songs. That seems a stretch, given The Beatles’ high standards.  But we would like to know which ones make herc’s dirty dozen.

Tom Poland, one of our top contributors, says he likes “Mr. Moonlight,” associating it with a time we will not likely see again.  Fair enough, but it’s likely there was a Beatles song that Tom would lift the tone arm before it played.  Which one?  Let us know, Tom.  In fact we invite all our readers to weigh in. Let us know what you think is The Beatles’ worst recording,  And we can also be positive, so tell us which Beatles recording you think is best. There’s room below for comments, so join in the fun.

For ten years, beginning in 1969, Piano Red  was a fixture at Muhlenbrink’s Saloon in Underground Atlanta.  In 1970, Red, paid tribute to that entertainment district with a song he co-wrote with “hillbilly bopper” Louis Innis.  Piano Red’s recording of “Underground Atlanta” is full tilt rhythm and blues.  Issued on King Records, the performance is lively and raucous, a notch louder and far more boisterous than most of the songs usually associated with Red. However, it was well established that Red could shout-it with the best of them, including his King Records label-mate, James Brown.  On this hard-to-find recording, he definitely gives Underground Atlanta a shout-out.

Piano Red’s ten-year run at Muhlenbrink’s stirs many fond memories for the club’s co-owner Jack Tarver, Jr.  Some of Tarver’s other memories take him above ground and a few miles north on Piedmont Road, where in the mid ’70s, he was also a co-owner of The Great Southeast Music Hall.  Now it’s hard to imagine taking the ten-minute ride from one place to the other, seeing both Piano Red and Lightnin’ Hopkins in the same night, but such nights were once possible, and for awhile seemed routine.

In a way, The Great Southeast Music Hall served as the city’s cultural learning center.  Spend a month in town and one could see for little more than $5 nightly such artists as Jimmy Buffett, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Roger McGuinn, Gary Burton, The New Riders of The Purple Sage and Melanie.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band were regulars too. They loved the Music Hall. Over five years, they made many appearances, giving two shows nightly for most of a week.  The packed crowds would see the group perform their hits “Mr. Bojangles” and “House At Pooh Corner” but would also give lessons in what we now call Americana music.

Founding Dirt Band member John McEuen, known as the “string wizard” for his skills on the guitar, banjo and fiddle has always been a favorite of Tarver’s.  McEuen is not only one of the country’s finest musicians, he also possesses a great sense of humor.  Given that McEuen has known Steve Martin since high school, that shouldn’t be surprising.  Tarver remembers that McEuen always wore 2 mismatched socks.  Asked about it, McEuen declared he had another pair just like them at home.

Then there was the time The Dirt Band was in town and McEuen needed to see Tarver.  Having some time to spare, McEuen went over to Tarver’s house.  Jack was not in but his son, Jack #3, made McEuen feel right at home as they played on the floor with the toys in his room.  Finally back home, Tarver found McEuen sprawled on the floor having a good time at being a kid again.  Toys were scattered all over.  McEuen told Tarver, “You know, my mother would never let me keep my room like this.”

Note: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for the agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of LikeTheDew.com. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click here to report a violation.

9 Responses to “Rhythm & Dews: Notes on Southern music, etc.”

1. Tom Poland says:

   October 18, 2009 at 7:03 pm

   Jeff, you are correct. I could never get through “Revolution No. 9.” I realize it was more of an artistic experiment than a song but still …. it occupied valuable grooves on my LP. Several of my Beatles era friends don’t care for “Yellow Submarine,” although I always liked to see Ringo get a little mic time. Some would say the worst Beatle songs were better than a lot of the British Invasion’s best … Herman Hermit’s “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” comes to mind. And my worst song of all time? Captain and Tennille’s “Muskrat Love.”

   Reply
2. herc_takes_five says:

   October 20, 2009 at 2:02 pm

   as a beatles fan, i can listen to any of these, but here’s a dozen that don’t call me back too often. most were intended as filler, crumbs tossed to ringo and george in the early days, or later druggy bits made by rich rock stars with tape recorders and too much spare time.

   1. chains 2. boys 3. devil in her heart 4. roll over beethoven (great song but their version is nothing special) 5. i’m down (not the live version which is fun to watch — i like it when paul rocks, but this one gets old fast; really just a short, little richard jam, and he doesn’t sound all that “down”) 6. what goes on 7. within you without you 8. flying 9. glass onion (popular, but just an annoying rehash) 10. long, long, long 11. it’s all too much 12. dig it (i didn’t)

   and if you happen to like a few of those, here’s another handful you can substitute in order to make a dozen:
   13. matchbox (love ol’ carl but this is the least of their perkins’ covers) 14. dig a pony 15. maxwell’s silver hammer (many fans love it; i’m not one of them) 15. the inner light 16. revolution no. 9 (see previous post) 17. you know my name (look up the number)

   Reply
3. Cliff Green says:

   October 20, 2009 at 9:30 pm

   Tom: No! No! No! The worst song of all time is “Elusive Butterfly.”
   “If you wake up some morning…” and remember “the canyons of your mind”? Oh God, just shoot me!

   Reply
4. Janet says:

   October 26, 2009 at 4:41 pm

   Cliff, If you’re gonna disparage the song, at least disparage it correctly. It’s “You might wake up some morning to the sound of something moving past your window in the wind…” Really, really, really bad. But I would like to offer Paul Anka’s “Having My Baby” for consideration.

   As for the Great Southeast Music Hall, I saw a very young Steve Martin opening for a very young Jimmy Buffett many years ago. After the show, Martin was hanging on to one of those trees that was in the big pots around the front entrance doing a post-show show in the parking lot. Really cool.

   I’ve been told that there was a double bill featuring Barry Manilow and Country Joe and the Fish. Damn, I wish I’d been there!

   Reply
5. Jeff Cochran says:

   October 26, 2009 at 5:00 pm

   I was at the Country Joe/Manilow show. This was a few months before he hit it big with “Mandy.” Amazingly Manilow’s performance went over quite well with the crowd. People got a kick out of his commercial jingles (“Be A Pepper,” “You Deserve A Break Today”). Actually, everything he did for the next 30 plus years was a commercial jingle, so…………….

   Country Joe gave a very fine bluesy performance. He was very nice to the audience. Not only did he refrain from saying any bad words, he didn’t spell any either.

   Reply
6. Cliff Green says:

   October 26, 2009 at 8:53 pm

   Sorry, Janet. I tried to put those lyrics out of my mind, and I apparently succeeded. At least you agree with me that it was really bad, no matter how you remember it.

   Reply
7. Janet Ward says:

   October 27, 2009 at 9:25 pm

   Oh, yeah, it was bad: And if you’re quick enough to rise, you’ll catch the fleeting glimpse of someone’s fading shadow. Don’t be concerned. It will not harm you. It’s only me pursuing something I’m not sure of. Across my dreams with nets of wonder, I chase the bright, elusive butterfly of love.

   Scary thing: I knew that by heart.

   Reply
8. Tom Baynham says:

   January 14, 2010 at 4:41 pm

   I almost feel like I grew up at the Great Southeast Music Hall in the old Broadview Plaza. My favorite memory was the night when we called the information line at the Music Hall to find out who was playing. The recording said something about 350 pounds of the best Chicago blues. So a bunch of us drove into town and got tickets. We were too late for the 8:00 show, but went downstairs to the bowling alley and bowled a few games before the 10:30 show. I remember a friend put “Down South Jukin” by Lynnerd Skynnerd on and someone pulled the plug on the jukebox after the fourth or fifth time it played. Later we went upstairs and listened to Gove Skrivenner play with his dog on stage, followed by some of the best blues played by Willie Dixon and his band. The crowd was so small that we went up front and all shook hands with the band afterward. Willie had huge hands and they wrapped around yours twice.

   Reply
9. Tom Baynham says:

   January 14, 2010 at 4:44 pm

   I saw the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band play at the Music Hall several times. They were great. One of my favorite bands. I also saw Doug Kershaw, Emmy Lou Harris, Thermos Greenwood, Savoy Brown, Gregg Allman, Cowboy, Steve Martin and Martin Mull, B B King, and numerous other bands that I can’t remember. There was nothing like sitting on the pad on the floor and drinking beer out of a metal bucket or sipping wine from a glass carafe and eating soft pretzels. That was real live music.

   Reply

Leave a Comment

Click here to cancel reply.

What is CAPTCHA and why do I have to enter it to post a comment?

Quick answer: Look at the picture (below) that contains letters. Type those letters in the CAPTCHA Code box.

Longer explanation: Our comment system now requires a CAPTCHA test (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" for all comments (unless you have registered and are logged-in). CAPTCHA is an image of letters that is dynamically generated (click the speaker icon to hear it or the arrows to load another test that may be easier to read). The letters, because they're part of an image and not text (e.g. text that you could cut and paste), are difficult for a spambot or other computer program to read. Yet, a person has little trouble reading the letters in a captcha image and then typing them into the form. Using a captcha test on our website is a great way to ensure, for instance, that a person and not a spambot is filling out a web form (we used to get 100 or so spam comments every day which our volunteers had to wade through). Also, a captcha can make it difficult for a person to continuously resubmit form information and overwhelm our comment function. If you hate CAPTCHA, just register on LikeTheDew.com and login (registration is on the bottom left of our home page) and you won't be stopped by CAPTCHA.

CAPTCHA Code

You can add images to your comment by clicking here.

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website