I've enjoyed putting together compilations of various types since I first really got into listening to music back in college. My first compliations were done on cassette tape, so they were basically what were called "mix tapes", though I didn't know the term at the time. In one of the first entries on this blog I talked about one of the best ones I did in college, my compilation of music from the psychedelic rock era. After I came to Taiwan, I eventually started listening to the local pop music, and a friend (one who I later started dating and eventually married) gave me a mix tape of some of the pop music she liked, mostly by singer-songwriters as opposed to pop idols. Through her and my own listening, I eventually got to know enough Taiwanese pop music to start thinking about
making my own Taiwanese pop music compilations. In fact it was in part my attempts to put together compilations in approximate chronological order and featuring the original recorded versions of the songs that impelled me to begin doing my own research and start collecting the original records with the recordings I wanted. My first Taiwanese pop music compilation I did on cassette tape, but not long after I switched to CD. I did two compilations on CD, with the second being by far the lengthier and more comprehensive, though now I can't help but feel it is missing a lot. After all it's been something like 20 years since I put together, so even for the period it covers (approximately 1973 to 1995) I have since acquired a lot of music which would be worthy of inclusion in an updated compilation (and in at least one case, the song "美麗島" ("Formosa") on the first CD, I would now put on the earlier but never formally released recording by Yang Zujun and Hu Defu, which is vastly superior to the one by Yang Zujun alone). There are also some minor chronological issues, such as the placement of the song "Pitiful Luckless Man", which was actually released in 1981. Nevertheless, I thought it might be interesting to post some of it here. To start with, I'm just posting the tracklists for the first four CDs out of the 18 that make up the complete set. I'll post the others at some point in the future. I should note that while I have including the romanizations of the vocalists' names, I haven't included translations of all the song titles, as I haven't had the time to translate all of them.
第一集 Volume 1 (1973-1979)
1愛之旅Love's Travels 洪小喬Hong Xiaoqiao 3:18
2不要告別Don't Say Farewell 李金鈴Li Jinling 3:13
3我的歌My Song 洪小喬Hong Xiaoqiao 2:19
4雲河River of Clouds 黃鶯鶯Huang Yingying 3:11
5民歌手Folk Singer 楊弦Yang Xian （女聲Female Voice：徐可欣Xu Kexin） 3:51
6迴旋曲Rondo 楊弦Yang Xian 4:21
7歌Song 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia （男聲Male Voice：劉文正Liu Wenzheng） 2:55
8小雨打在我身上The Rain Falls on Me 劉文正Liu Wenzheng 3:42
9我是一片雲I Am a Cloud 鳳飛飛Feng Feifei 3:40
10好了歌Won Done Song 吳楚楚Wu Chuchu 2:43
11美麗島Formosa 楊祖珺Yang Zujun 2:54
12如果If 邰肇玫Tai Zhaomei&施碧梧Shi Biwu 2:41
13惜別Reluctant Parting 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia 3:21
14牛背上的小孩Child on Ox Back 胡德夫Hu Defu 2:47
15再別康橋Farewell Cambridge 范廣慧Fan Guanghui 3:18
16小雨中的回憶Memories in the Rain 劉宗立Liu Zongli、曾佩媛Zeng Peiyuan、陳淑惠Chen Shuhui 3:38
17姑娘的酒窩The Girl's Dimples 高凌風Gao Lingfeng 3:03
18閃亮的日子Brilliant Days 劉文正Liu Wenzheng 3:44
19橄欖樹Olive Tree 齊豫Qi Yu 3:46
20鄉間的小路Little Road in the Country 葉佳修Ye Jiaxiu 3:19
21歡顏Joyful Countenance 齊豫Qi Yu 3:49
22走在雨中Walking in the Rain 齊豫Qi Yu 3:46
第二集 Volume 2 (1979-1981)
1風兒輕輕吹The Wind Blows Gently 劉文正Liu Wenzheng 3:12
2廟會Temple Festival 王夢麟Wang Menglin 3:03
3雨中即景Scenes in the Rain 王夢麟Wang Menglin 3:09
4情奔 Rush of Passion 劉文正Liu Wenzheng 3:42
5恰似你的溫柔Like Your Tenderness 蔡琴Cai Qin 4:01
6曠野寄情Wilderness Abandonment 李建復Li Jianfu 3:31
7歸去來兮 李建復Li Jianfu 3:58
8出塞曲 蔡琴Cai Qin 2:57
9抉擇Decision 蔡琴Cai Qin 3:30
10也許Maybe 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia 4:01
11我們曾經年輕We Were Once Young 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia 2:01
12今山古道 黃大城Huang Dacheng 2:56
13偈 王海玲Wang Hailing 3:29
14童年Childhood 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia 3:41
15光陰的故事The Story of Time 張艾嘉Zhang Aijia 3:01
16月琴Yueqin 鄭怡Zheng Yi 3:57
17秋蟬Autumn Cicada 楊芳儀Yang Fangyi、徐曉菁Xu Xiaoqing 3:44
18拜訪春天Paying a Visit to Springtime 施孝榮Shi Xiaorong 3:15
19柴拉可汗Chaila Khan 李建復Li Jianfu 4:11
20變色的長城 費玉清Fei Yuqing 4:16
21一千個春天A Thousand Springs 蔡琴Cai Qin、李建復Li Jianfu 4:13
第三集 Volume 3 (1982-1983)
1鹿港小鎮Little Town of Lugang 羅大佑Luo Dayou 4:45
2戀曲1980Love Song 1980 羅大佑Luo Dayou 3:22
3就在今夜Tonight's the Night 丘丘合唱團Qiuqiu Band 3:08
4為何夢見他Why Do I Dream of Him 丘丘合唱團Qiuqiu Band 3:40
5之乎者也Pedantry 羅大佑Luo Dayou 4:06
6將進酒 羅大佑Luo Dayou 4:23
7天天天藍Blue Skies Every Day 潘越雲Pan Yueyun 3:37
8守著陽光守著你 潘越雲Pan Yueyun 4:50
9心事誰人知Who Understands My Heart 沈文程Shen Wencheng 3:28
10可憐的落魄人 Pitiful Luckless Man 陳明仁Chen Mingren 3:21
11散場電影 木吉他合唱團Wooden Guitars 3:56
12但願人長久 鄧麗君Deng Lijun 4:06
13思君 鄧麗君Deng Lijun 3:46
14心情 潘越雲Pan Yueyun 3:26
15野白合也有春天Spring Comes to the Wild Lily 潘越雲Pan Yueyun 3:16
16你是我所有的回憶You Are All I Recall 齊豫Qi Yu 5:12
17三月的風March Wind 齊豫Qi Yu 4:25
18小雨來得正是時候When The Rain Comes Is the Time 鄭怡Zheng Yi 3:20
19結束Ending 鄭怡Zheng Yi & 李宗盛Li Zongsheng 3:53
第四集 Volume 4 (1983-1984)
1一樣的月光The Same Moonlight 蘇芮Su Rui 5:46
2是否Is It True Or Not 蘇芮Su Rui 3:36
3告別Farewell 唐曉詩 & 李泰祥 5:31
4酒干倘賣無Any Old Bottles For Sale? 蘇芮Su Rui 4:39
5變Changes 蘇芮Su Rui 4:45
6亞細亞的孤兒The Orphan of Asia 羅大佑Luo Dayou 5:52
7現象七十二變72 Phenomena 羅大佑Luo Dayou 3:53
8愛的箴言Admonitions of Love 潘越雲Pan Yueyun 3:58
9未來的主人翁Masters of the Future 羅大佑Luo Dayou 7:32
10海洋之歌Song of the Ocean 陳淑樺Chen Shuhua 3:21
11無言的歌Song of No Words 潘越雲Pan Yueyun 4:45
12只有分離 黃鶯鶯Huang Yingying 5:12
13夢駝鈴 費玉清Fei Yuqing 3:39
14天使之戀Romance of the Angels 黃鶯鶯Huang Yingying 6:16
15搖滾舞台Rock Stage 薛岳Xue Yue 3:21
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Aboriginal Music Exhibition
Once again I haven't found time to write any new essays/posts on music, though I do have some fairly good excuses, and music-related ones at that. My weekly radio show has continued to take up a fair amount of my time. I did a talk/show in Changbin north of Taidong just a few days ago similar to the others I've done in the past, i.e. I talked about and played aboriginal music records and recordings from the latter half of the 20th century. I was down in the Taidong area for several days before and after the show, and spent quite a bit of time talking about music with various singers and musicians. Finally, over the early part of the month I was helping to prepare for an exhibition of aboriginal music, mostly featuring my own collection, that is opening on February 9 at the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung. This exhibition had to be put together in a fairly short time frame, so there will no doubt be things left out that shouldn't have been, and in any case it isn't as comprehensive as I might prefer - though I'll also admit to a certain reluctance to surrender too much of my collection to be exhibited for over a year in any case. Nevertheless, I think it will provide a good introduction to a neglected aspect of music in Taiwan to those who go to check it out. I may post more about it once it opens.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
Some Thoughts on Great Album Tracks
It's very difficult for even the most talented music artists to consistently put out great material. Music history is filled with one-hit wonders, and even quite successful artists have released singles that flop or had hits that despite their commercial success were at best unmemorable. And for most artists their singles are their best material. In the early days of rock and roll, albums were mostly filler, artistically secondary to the singles which were the artist's most important releases. Even in later days, many artists' only really essential songs are their hits. However, for many other artists this is not at all the case. The best artists were (or are) able to produce albums where most or all the songs are excellent. In some cases, regardless of how consistent the artist's material is overall, album tracks may be superior to singles from the same album. In the 1970s, the era of album oriented rock, many artists didn't even bother with singles, a famous example being Led Zeppelin (they only released a few singles in the US, and their most famous song, "Stairway to Heaven", was never released as a single), and for many that did, singles were secondary in the same way that albums had been in the early rock and roll era had been, Pink Floyd being a good example of this. But even for artists who had mostly excellent singles that were promoted fairly heavily, such as Elton John, the Eagles or the Rolling Stones, there are examples of album tracks that are as good as or even better than many of their hit singles. I would rank Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and the Eagles' "The Last Resort" among those artists' best five songs, but neither was a single.
I have thought about doing a series of articles on excellent album tracks by different favorite artists. A similar but slightly different approach would be to focus on songs that are genuinely obscure parts of the artist's catalogue, as songs that are technically album tracks, like the abovementioned "Stairway to Heaven", nevertheless have just as high a profile as any single release. Of course I would be more or less forced to mainly focus on artists whose catalogue I am exceptionally familiar with. There are many artists whose work I enjoy a great deal without knowing much beyond their hits, and others for whom my collection is limited to only one or two albums. This is a source of some regret, as I know that in many cases even the most comprehensive compilation can hardly do justice to the artist's career. But since both my time and my money is limited (not to mention the space I have available to keep all these albums in), there are always going to be gaps like this in both my collection and my musical knowledge. Anyway, getting back to the point, there are only a few arists for whom I could do a proper review of their album tracks, B sides, or otherwise less well known material. One obvious example is the Beatles. But in their case the sheer volume of good songs becomes an issue. If we're talking about the early albums, the problem is less pronounced. For instance, on the first album, Please Please Me, "I Saw Her Standing There" is an obvious example of a superior album track, one that in my opinion not only outshines all the other album tracks (even the excellent cover of "Twist and Shout", though not by much) but also the single "Love Me Do", with only "Please Please Me" itself being more or less its equal. A similar example on With the Beatles is "All My Loving" - though one could also argue that while this and "I Saw Her Standing There" are technically album tracks, neither is exactly obscure. In any case, while the quality of the material varied noticeably on some of the early albums, when it comes to albums like Revolver, every track is excellent, even though only two appeared as a single, and none of the songs on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were singles, making the entire album a collection of good to great album tracks. While I wouldn't rate all the songs on these albums or on the White Album, Abbey Road, etc. equally, it is still pretty much impossible to pick just one or two songs as outstanding album tracks.
Another possibility is the Police, though in their case they generally did a very good job picking their singles, so that there are only a few album tracks that compare with the singles from their respective albums. The same is mostly true of Sting, with a few exceptions, mostly on particularly strong albums like Ten Summoner's Tales. For Genesis, the biggest issue is that in the 1970s, they were very much an AOR band, with singles largely remaining an afterthought. It was only beginning in the 1980s (well, actually from 1978's And Then There Were Three) that there was a notable contrast between the high profile singles and the less well known album tracks. In this era there are certainly a number of prime examples of great album tracks that were the equal of or even superior to the singles, including "Dodo/Lurker", "Home By the Sea", "Silver Rainbow", "Domino", "Driving the Last Spike" and more, not to mention some excellent B-sides that never even made it onto an album. But while I may indeed write something specifically focusing on these and other frequently overlooked Genesis tracks from the latter half of their career, there are other ways of covering such material; in fact some of it is referred to in my articles on the various individual members of the band and in my reviews of the compilation R-Kive (available here and here.
Perhaps the best target for an article about excellent album tracks is Queen. They generally made very good choices for singles, and for a few albums in the mid to late 1970s they present a problem similar to that for the Beatles, i.e., most of the album tracks are also very good. Still, for many of their albums there are certainly songs that I consider to stand out even among otherwise good material on their respective albums and in some cases to even be marginally superior to the singles from the album. One prime example from late in their career is "Was It All Worth It", which is probably my favorite track on The Miracle and indeed one of the band's best songs from that period. But whether I ever get around to exploring standout album tracks by Queen or anyone else in detail, one thing all of the above examples serve to show is that if it all possible we should avoid judging any major artist solely by their singles, as many if not most of them will have at least a few less played album tracks that are equal to and sometimes better than the hits.
I have thought about doing a series of articles on excellent album tracks by different favorite artists. A similar but slightly different approach would be to focus on songs that are genuinely obscure parts of the artist's catalogue, as songs that are technically album tracks, like the abovementioned "Stairway to Heaven", nevertheless have just as high a profile as any single release. Of course I would be more or less forced to mainly focus on artists whose catalogue I am exceptionally familiar with. There are many artists whose work I enjoy a great deal without knowing much beyond their hits, and others for whom my collection is limited to only one or two albums. This is a source of some regret, as I know that in many cases even the most comprehensive compilation can hardly do justice to the artist's career. But since both my time and my money is limited (not to mention the space I have available to keep all these albums in), there are always going to be gaps like this in both my collection and my musical knowledge. Anyway, getting back to the point, there are only a few arists for whom I could do a proper review of their album tracks, B sides, or otherwise less well known material. One obvious example is the Beatles. But in their case the sheer volume of good songs becomes an issue. If we're talking about the early albums, the problem is less pronounced. For instance, on the first album, Please Please Me, "I Saw Her Standing There" is an obvious example of a superior album track, one that in my opinion not only outshines all the other album tracks (even the excellent cover of "Twist and Shout", though not by much) but also the single "Love Me Do", with only "Please Please Me" itself being more or less its equal. A similar example on With the Beatles is "All My Loving" - though one could also argue that while this and "I Saw Her Standing There" are technically album tracks, neither is exactly obscure. In any case, while the quality of the material varied noticeably on some of the early albums, when it comes to albums like Revolver, every track is excellent, even though only two appeared as a single, and none of the songs on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were singles, making the entire album a collection of good to great album tracks. While I wouldn't rate all the songs on these albums or on the White Album, Abbey Road, etc. equally, it is still pretty much impossible to pick just one or two songs as outstanding album tracks.
Another possibility is the Police, though in their case they generally did a very good job picking their singles, so that there are only a few album tracks that compare with the singles from their respective albums. The same is mostly true of Sting, with a few exceptions, mostly on particularly strong albums like Ten Summoner's Tales. For Genesis, the biggest issue is that in the 1970s, they were very much an AOR band, with singles largely remaining an afterthought. It was only beginning in the 1980s (well, actually from 1978's And Then There Were Three) that there was a notable contrast between the high profile singles and the less well known album tracks. In this era there are certainly a number of prime examples of great album tracks that were the equal of or even superior to the singles, including "Dodo/Lurker", "Home By the Sea", "Silver Rainbow", "Domino", "Driving the Last Spike" and more, not to mention some excellent B-sides that never even made it onto an album. But while I may indeed write something specifically focusing on these and other frequently overlooked Genesis tracks from the latter half of their career, there are other ways of covering such material; in fact some of it is referred to in my articles on the various individual members of the band and in my reviews of the compilation R-Kive (available here and here.
Perhaps the best target for an article about excellent album tracks is Queen. They generally made very good choices for singles, and for a few albums in the mid to late 1970s they present a problem similar to that for the Beatles, i.e., most of the album tracks are also very good. Still, for many of their albums there are certainly songs that I consider to stand out even among otherwise good material on their respective albums and in some cases to even be marginally superior to the singles from the album. One prime example from late in their career is "Was It All Worth It", which is probably my favorite track on The Miracle and indeed one of the band's best songs from that period. But whether I ever get around to exploring standout album tracks by Queen or anyone else in detail, one thing all of the above examples serve to show is that if it all possible we should avoid judging any major artist solely by their singles, as many if not most of them will have at least a few less played album tracks that are equal to and sometimes better than the hits.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
Old Article: Taiwanese Popular Music from the End of World War II through the 1960s
As I hinted at in the introduction to a previous post, the link to my article "Taiwanese Popular Music from the End of World War II through the 1960s" on the Taiwan Culture Portal seems to be dead (indeed, the Taiwan Culture Portal doesn't seem to exist anymore, at least not in its original format - the original web address now appears to be that of the main website for the Ministry of Culture, though I didn't explore it in any depth). Since I was far to busy to write anything new for November (in fact this post was backdated a few days to ensure I had something online for that month, as I didn't really post it until a few days into December), this seemed like a good time to post the original article here, though with the caveat that it is now over ten years old, and could use some serious updating in light of things I've learned since. I did make a few minor changes, but not as many as I would have if I had more time.
Sixty years ago, Taiwan's music scene was dramatically different from what it is today. In the years immediately after World War II, the music industry hit a commercial low point beside which today's moribund industry seems prosperous. Of course, the reasons for the industry's problems in the late 1940s and early 1950s were completely different from those of today. The primary problem was simply that Taiwan, its infrastructure damaged and its economy severly disrupted by the war, was very poor. The few records that were produced were of much lower quality than those that had been released in the 1930s, due to material shortages and the need to keep costs down. Since there were few records and relatively few could afford stereo equipment anyway, live performances were a major source of music for many people. The chief venues for music were what were known as geting (歌廳), which translates as music hall. In the first few years after the war, there were open-air geting along the riverside in Taipei, though soon these were replaced by cabaret-style venues, which remained popular into the 1970s. Larger scale performances were occasionally held in the large hall which had recently been renamed Zhongshan Hall (中山堂). Performances here or in the more expensive music halls were by big bands, of which there were several prominent in the 1950s. On the opposite end of the scale, in the streets there were itinerant musicians of all sorts. Another source of music was radio broadcasts. Many of the prominent musicians, composers and performers of the time did shows on the radio or worked full time for radio stations. Another opportunity for performing was at shows put on by the military for entertaining soldiers.
Though relatively few records were produced in the first decade or so after the war, quite a few songs that are now considered classics were released in this period. A few of them were recorded in this era, though others seem not to have been released record until some years later. One of the most prominent composers of the late 1940s and 1950s was Yang Sanlang (楊三郎), who was also founder and leader of the Black Cat Big Band (黑貓歌舞團). Working with lyricists like Nakano (那卡諾), who also played drums in the Black Cat Big Band, and Zhou Tianweng (周添旺), who had written lyrics for many classics of the Japanese era, Yang wrote "Hoping You Come Home Soon" (望你早歸), "Song of Bitter Romance" (苦戀歌), "Love's Lonely Flower" (孤戀花), "A Rainy Night at the Port" (港都夜雨), "Autumn Wind on a Rainy Night" (秋風夜雨) and many more. Another composer and bandleader in this era was Xu Shi (許石), who also established one of the first postwar record companies. His best-known songs included "Anping Nostalgic Melody [Remembering Anping]" (安平追想曲) and "When the Gong Is Sounded" (鑼聲若響). Other classics from the first decade or so after the war included two songs by Zhang Qiu Dongsong (張邱冬松), "Old Glass Bottles" (收酒矸) and "Hot Rice Dumplings" (燒肉粽); "Mending a Broken Net" (補破網), written by lyricist Li Linqiu (李臨秋) and composer Wang Yunfeng (王雲峰), both of whom were prominent songwriters in the Japanese era; and "You Can't Raise Goldfish In a Wineglass (Bottoms Up)" (杯底不可飼金魚) by classical-trained composer Lu Quansheng (呂泉生). These songs vividly reflected the times in which they were written, as did songs like "Miss Lottery Ticket" (獎券小姐), which referred to a very popular government lottery of the 1950s.
All of the abovementioned songs were in Hoklo (also called Minnan or Taiwanese), the language of Taiwan's largest ethnic group. Though Mandarin speakers began coming to Taiwan after 1945 and there was a huge influx of them in 1949 when China fell to the Communists and the KMT moved its government and what remained of its army to Taiwan, performance catering to this group consisted almost entirely of older Mandarin songs from Shanghai like "Night Blossom [Tuberose]" (夜來香) or new Mandarin hits produced in Hong Kong (where most of the Shanghai entertainment industry moved after 1949). Performances and records of such songs were popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s (and even in more recent decades). Many singers who made a name for themselves performing in music halls in Taiwan did so singing oldies from Shanghai and even English songs. Some of these early singers included Gao Manli (高曼麗), the sisters Shuanghua (霜華) and Xuehua (雪華), Ziwei (紫薇), and Painana (派娜娜) [Note: Painana was a Taiwanese aborigine from the Alishan area, the daughter of Gao Yisheng (高一生), an intellectual, composer, local leader and victim of the White Terror, in which many intellectuals and dissidents were arrested and executed by the KMT government]. While cover songs predominated, however, there were two Mandarin songs of note which came out of Taiwan in the first decade after the war. The first of these was the aboriginal-flavored "High Green Mountain" (高山青) from the first movie produced in Taiwan after the war, The Transformation of Alishan (阿里山風雲). The second was "Green Island Serenade" (綠島小夜曲), which will be discussed below.
By the late 1950s, records were becoming more common, as were Taiwanese films, which often included new songs in their soundtracks or were inspired by and named after classic songs or recent hits. On the negative side, however, many record companies prefered to keep costs down by copying foreign songs (international copyrights were not an issue in those days) and having Hoklo lyrics added to them, thus avoiding having to pay local songwriters to write original melodies (in many cases, even the arrangements were copied). The vast majority of the foreign songs copied in Taiwan in this period were from Japan, since, having grown up under the Japanese, many Taiwanese had a taste for Japanese melodies, particularly for the melancholy Japanese song form called enka. These Japanese songs with Hoklo lyrics were known as "mixed-blood" or "translated" songs. One of the most popular singers of the late 1950s and 1960s was Wen Xia (文夏), the vocalist on well-known songs such as "Hometown At Dusk" (黃昏的故鄉), "Mama, Please Take Care of Yourself" (媽媽請你也保重), and "The Stars Understand My Heart" (星星知我心), which were songs which he directly translated from Japanese. Among the many other popular songs of this type were "Dusk on the Mountain Range" (黃昏嶺), sung by Ji Luxia (紀露霞), one of the most popular singers of the era; "The Orphan's Wish" (孤女的願望) and "Happily Going Sailing" (快樂的出帆), sung by Chen Fenlan (陳芬蘭), a child star who continued her singing career into adulthood; "Handsome Guy on the Mountain Top" (山頂的黑狗兄) and "Pitiful Flower, Goodbye" (可憐戀花!再會吧), sung by Hong Yifeng (洪一峰); "Village Boy" (田庄兄哥), sung by Huang Xitain (黃西田); and "Sulan's Getting Married" (素蘭小姐要出嫁), sung by Huang Sanyuan (黃三元). The lyricist on many of these songs was Ye Junlin (葉俊麟), who wrote thousands of lyrics for Japanese melodies in this period.
Songs adapted from Japanese did not completely dominate the Hoklo music scene. The aforementioned Hong Yifeng, one of the most popular singers of the era, composed a number of very popular songs with lyrics by Ye Junlin, including "Memories of an Old Love" (舊情綿綿), "Twilight in Danshui" (淡水暮色), "The One I Miss" (思慕的人) and "Formosa Mambo" (寶島曼波), all of which were released in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Another successful singer-songwriter was Wu Jinhuai (吳晉淮), who had spent many years performing in Japan before returning to Taiwan. His biggest hits were "Gloomy Moon" (暗淡的月) and "Guan-a-nia Romance" (關仔嶺之戀). Guo Dacheng (郭大誠) was a singer-songwriter who emerged a few years after Hong and Wu. Many of his songs, some of which had original melodies and others of which were adaptations of Japanese songs, were humourous, with titles like "The Muddled Tailor" (糊塗裁縫師), "The Wandering Medicine Man" (流浪拳頭師), and "Pitiful Wino" (可憐燒酒仙). He also wrote the lyrics for "Going to the Graveyard" (墓仔埔也敢去), a song originally popularized by Ye Qitian (葉啟田) and more recently by rocker Wu Bai, as well as "The Oyster Picker's Wife" (青蚵仔嫂), which has also been covered by many artists (the melodies for these songs were originally Japanese and a folk song from Hengchun in south Taiwan, respectively).
Despite the efforts of people like Hong Yifeng, Wu Jinhuai, Guo Dacheng and others, Hoklo songs saw a steep decline in the 1960s. One reason for this was the previously mentioned preference among record companies for using Japanese songs, which eventually forced many local songwriters to turn to other jobs to make a living. But another reason was government policy and changes in the society. In the 1960s, the government began heavily promoting the use of Mandarin over local languages like Hoklo. Among the steps they took was severely restricting the number of "dialect" (i.e., non-Mandarin) songs that could be played on the radio. Also, in 1962, Taiwan's first television station, Taiwan Television (TTV), began broadcasting. This soon became one of the main vehicles for promoting new songs, as more and more Taiwanese watched the numerous variety shows which were shown. But, as with radio, the broadcast of Hoklo songs on television was heavily restricted. So by the mid-1960s, the main way in which Hoklo songs could be promoted was through movies. Even these began to decline in number, and by the end of the 1960s, Mandarin songs completely dominated the popular music scene.
As mentioned above, there were very few original Mandarin songs written in Taiwan in the decade after the war. The man most responsible for changing that was composer and arranger Zhou Lanping (周藍萍). Zhou, originally from Hunan in China, came to Taiwan in the late 1940s (he worked on the film The Transformation of Alishan as music director and may have helped write "High Green Mountain", though the film's director is usually credited with the melody for the song). In the early 1950s, he composed the music for "Green Island Serenade", which was recorded by Ziwei, the first truly popular singer of Mandarin songs in Taiwan. Actually, "Green Island Serenade" was not popular when it was first released. However, it slowly spread among the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, gradually growing in popularity, and after several years became a hit back in Taiwan itself, where it is now considered a classic. Zhou composed music for a number of other original Mandarin songs which appeared in movie soundtracks in the late 1950s, often working with the lyricist Zhuang Nu (莊奴), who would go on to write lyrics for many hit songs. However, it was "Recalling the Past" (回想曲), recorded in 1961 by Ziwei (紫薇) with both music and lyrics by Zhou, that many consider the first really big Mandarin hit in Taiwan (even "Green Island Serenade" supposedly only peaked in popularity in its wake). Zhou also wrote a number of other well-known songs such as "Beautiful Formosa" (美麗的寶島) and "Bilan Village Girl" (碧蘭村的姑娘); even more successfully, he composed the music for the huangmei opera film The Love Eterne (梁山伯與祝英台), which shattered box office records in Taiwan in 1963.
Unfortunately, Zhou moved to Hong Kong to work on movies, depriving Taiwan of its premier composer of Mandarin songs. So instead, record companies producing Mandarin records did the same thing that those producing Hoklo records did -- they used songs from Japan and other foreign countries. "Unforgettable Memory" (意難忘), recorded in 1963 by Meidai (美黛), was a massively popular Mandarin hit, perhaps the first to successfully outsell the Hoklo songs of the time. This song was a Japanese melody to which lyricist Shenzhi (慎芝) added Mandarin lyrics, as was "I'm Beside You" (我在你左右), another hit for Meidai, and "Heartless Person" (負心的人), a big hit for Yao Surong (姚蘇蓉) which was later banned because it was onsidered "unhealthy". Shenzhi also wrote lyrics to an old Taiwanese song for "A Glass Full of Bitter Brew" (苦酒滿杯), popularized by Xie Lei (謝雷), and to a Korean song for "Crying Flower" (淚的小花), popularized by Qing Shan (青山). However, new composers of Mandarin songs did finally begin to emerge in the late 1960s. The most successful of these was Zuo Hongyuan (左宏元), who worked frequently with Zhuang Nu. Together they wrote a number of hits for Yao Surong and others. Zuo also wrote the music for Yao's huge hit "I'm Not Going Home Today" (今天不回家), another song that was later banned (in fact many of Yao's hits were banned), and for "Jingjing" (晶晶), a theme song which was an early hit for Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; also known as Teresa Teng).
Though first Hoklo and then Mandarin songs dominated Taiwan's mainstream popular music scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwan's other ethnic groups, the Hakka and the various aboriginal peoples, still had their own music in this period. Hakka music was still mostly traditional music such as "mountain songs", but singers like Lai Bixia (賴碧霞) and Lu Jinshou (呂金守), who recorded under the name Minglang (明朗), did record some popular songs in Hakka. However, these were primarily adaptations of songs that had been hits in other languages. As for aboriginal songs, Puyuma songwriters Baliwakes (陸森寶; Lu Senbao) and PangTer (陳實; Chen Shi) wrote a number of original songs in this period, including Lu's "Beautiful Rice Grains" (美麗的稻穗) and "Praising The Ancestors" (頌祭祖先) and Chen's "Ocean" (海洋). Many records of aboriginal songs were released in the 1960s, mostly by Ring Ring Records (鈴鈴唱片; pinyin: Lingling), which also released numerous Hakka records as well as Mandarin and Hoklo ones. It was also in the 1960s that Amis singer Lu Jingzi (盧靜子), the first aboriginal star, emerged. Though she wasn't well known among Han Chinese listeners, she was popular in all the aboriginal communities and even performed overseas in Japan and Southeast Asia. She performed many songs that were extremely popular among aboriginal audiences; her versions of the songs are still often the ones aboriginal people are most familiar with, even when she wasn't the original vocalist. Most of these songs were however virtually unknown among non-aboriginal audiences, one exception being "Malan Romance" (馬蘭之戀), which was turned into a hit song in Mandarin and Hoklo and was covered by many popular singers, with Lai Bixia even doing a Hakka version.
Still, for most music listeners in Taiwan, by the end of the 1960s, Taiwan's music scene was dominated by Mandarin songs popularized on television (a second station, China Television [CTV] began broadcasting in 1969). Some of these songs were composed by local songwriters, but many were still adaptations of foreign hits. Lyrically, many were overly sentimental and shallow love songs which had limited appeal for the educated youth of the time, who turned instead to Western music (see box). It was this background which set the scene for the transformation of Taiwan's music scene in the 1970s.
Sixty years ago, Taiwan's music scene was dramatically different from what it is today. In the years immediately after World War II, the music industry hit a commercial low point beside which today's moribund industry seems prosperous. Of course, the reasons for the industry's problems in the late 1940s and early 1950s were completely different from those of today. The primary problem was simply that Taiwan, its infrastructure damaged and its economy severly disrupted by the war, was very poor. The few records that were produced were of much lower quality than those that had been released in the 1930s, due to material shortages and the need to keep costs down. Since there were few records and relatively few could afford stereo equipment anyway, live performances were a major source of music for many people. The chief venues for music were what were known as geting (歌廳), which translates as music hall. In the first few years after the war, there were open-air geting along the riverside in Taipei, though soon these were replaced by cabaret-style venues, which remained popular into the 1970s. Larger scale performances were occasionally held in the large hall which had recently been renamed Zhongshan Hall (中山堂). Performances here or in the more expensive music halls were by big bands, of which there were several prominent in the 1950s. On the opposite end of the scale, in the streets there were itinerant musicians of all sorts. Another source of music was radio broadcasts. Many of the prominent musicians, composers and performers of the time did shows on the radio or worked full time for radio stations. Another opportunity for performing was at shows put on by the military for entertaining soldiers.
Though relatively few records were produced in the first decade or so after the war, quite a few songs that are now considered classics were released in this period. A few of them were recorded in this era, though others seem not to have been released record until some years later. One of the most prominent composers of the late 1940s and 1950s was Yang Sanlang (楊三郎), who was also founder and leader of the Black Cat Big Band (黑貓歌舞團). Working with lyricists like Nakano (那卡諾), who also played drums in the Black Cat Big Band, and Zhou Tianweng (周添旺), who had written lyrics for many classics of the Japanese era, Yang wrote "Hoping You Come Home Soon" (望你早歸), "Song of Bitter Romance" (苦戀歌), "Love's Lonely Flower" (孤戀花), "A Rainy Night at the Port" (港都夜雨), "Autumn Wind on a Rainy Night" (秋風夜雨) and many more. Another composer and bandleader in this era was Xu Shi (許石), who also established one of the first postwar record companies. His best-known songs included "Anping Nostalgic Melody [Remembering Anping]" (安平追想曲) and "When the Gong Is Sounded" (鑼聲若響). Other classics from the first decade or so after the war included two songs by Zhang Qiu Dongsong (張邱冬松), "Old Glass Bottles" (收酒矸) and "Hot Rice Dumplings" (燒肉粽); "Mending a Broken Net" (補破網), written by lyricist Li Linqiu (李臨秋) and composer Wang Yunfeng (王雲峰), both of whom were prominent songwriters in the Japanese era; and "You Can't Raise Goldfish In a Wineglass (Bottoms Up)" (杯底不可飼金魚) by classical-trained composer Lu Quansheng (呂泉生). These songs vividly reflected the times in which they were written, as did songs like "Miss Lottery Ticket" (獎券小姐), which referred to a very popular government lottery of the 1950s.
All of the abovementioned songs were in Hoklo (also called Minnan or Taiwanese), the language of Taiwan's largest ethnic group. Though Mandarin speakers began coming to Taiwan after 1945 and there was a huge influx of them in 1949 when China fell to the Communists and the KMT moved its government and what remained of its army to Taiwan, performance catering to this group consisted almost entirely of older Mandarin songs from Shanghai like "Night Blossom [Tuberose]" (夜來香) or new Mandarin hits produced in Hong Kong (where most of the Shanghai entertainment industry moved after 1949). Performances and records of such songs were popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s (and even in more recent decades). Many singers who made a name for themselves performing in music halls in Taiwan did so singing oldies from Shanghai and even English songs. Some of these early singers included Gao Manli (高曼麗), the sisters Shuanghua (霜華) and Xuehua (雪華), Ziwei (紫薇), and Painana (派娜娜) [Note: Painana was a Taiwanese aborigine from the Alishan area, the daughter of Gao Yisheng (高一生), an intellectual, composer, local leader and victim of the White Terror, in which many intellectuals and dissidents were arrested and executed by the KMT government]. While cover songs predominated, however, there were two Mandarin songs of note which came out of Taiwan in the first decade after the war. The first of these was the aboriginal-flavored "High Green Mountain" (高山青) from the first movie produced in Taiwan after the war, The Transformation of Alishan (阿里山風雲). The second was "Green Island Serenade" (綠島小夜曲), which will be discussed below.
By the late 1950s, records were becoming more common, as were Taiwanese films, which often included new songs in their soundtracks or were inspired by and named after classic songs or recent hits. On the negative side, however, many record companies prefered to keep costs down by copying foreign songs (international copyrights were not an issue in those days) and having Hoklo lyrics added to them, thus avoiding having to pay local songwriters to write original melodies (in many cases, even the arrangements were copied). The vast majority of the foreign songs copied in Taiwan in this period were from Japan, since, having grown up under the Japanese, many Taiwanese had a taste for Japanese melodies, particularly for the melancholy Japanese song form called enka. These Japanese songs with Hoklo lyrics were known as "mixed-blood" or "translated" songs. One of the most popular singers of the late 1950s and 1960s was Wen Xia (文夏), the vocalist on well-known songs such as "Hometown At Dusk" (黃昏的故鄉), "Mama, Please Take Care of Yourself" (媽媽請你也保重), and "The Stars Understand My Heart" (星星知我心), which were songs which he directly translated from Japanese. Among the many other popular songs of this type were "Dusk on the Mountain Range" (黃昏嶺), sung by Ji Luxia (紀露霞), one of the most popular singers of the era; "The Orphan's Wish" (孤女的願望) and "Happily Going Sailing" (快樂的出帆), sung by Chen Fenlan (陳芬蘭), a child star who continued her singing career into adulthood; "Handsome Guy on the Mountain Top" (山頂的黑狗兄) and "Pitiful Flower, Goodbye" (可憐戀花!再會吧), sung by Hong Yifeng (洪一峰); "Village Boy" (田庄兄哥), sung by Huang Xitain (黃西田); and "Sulan's Getting Married" (素蘭小姐要出嫁), sung by Huang Sanyuan (黃三元). The lyricist on many of these songs was Ye Junlin (葉俊麟), who wrote thousands of lyrics for Japanese melodies in this period.
Songs adapted from Japanese did not completely dominate the Hoklo music scene. The aforementioned Hong Yifeng, one of the most popular singers of the era, composed a number of very popular songs with lyrics by Ye Junlin, including "Memories of an Old Love" (舊情綿綿), "Twilight in Danshui" (淡水暮色), "The One I Miss" (思慕的人) and "Formosa Mambo" (寶島曼波), all of which were released in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Another successful singer-songwriter was Wu Jinhuai (吳晉淮), who had spent many years performing in Japan before returning to Taiwan. His biggest hits were "Gloomy Moon" (暗淡的月) and "Guan-a-nia Romance" (關仔嶺之戀). Guo Dacheng (郭大誠) was a singer-songwriter who emerged a few years after Hong and Wu. Many of his songs, some of which had original melodies and others of which were adaptations of Japanese songs, were humourous, with titles like "The Muddled Tailor" (糊塗裁縫師), "The Wandering Medicine Man" (流浪拳頭師), and "Pitiful Wino" (可憐燒酒仙). He also wrote the lyrics for "Going to the Graveyard" (墓仔埔也敢去), a song originally popularized by Ye Qitian (葉啟田) and more recently by rocker Wu Bai, as well as "The Oyster Picker's Wife" (青蚵仔嫂), which has also been covered by many artists (the melodies for these songs were originally Japanese and a folk song from Hengchun in south Taiwan, respectively).
Despite the efforts of people like Hong Yifeng, Wu Jinhuai, Guo Dacheng and others, Hoklo songs saw a steep decline in the 1960s. One reason for this was the previously mentioned preference among record companies for using Japanese songs, which eventually forced many local songwriters to turn to other jobs to make a living. But another reason was government policy and changes in the society. In the 1960s, the government began heavily promoting the use of Mandarin over local languages like Hoklo. Among the steps they took was severely restricting the number of "dialect" (i.e., non-Mandarin) songs that could be played on the radio. Also, in 1962, Taiwan's first television station, Taiwan Television (TTV), began broadcasting. This soon became one of the main vehicles for promoting new songs, as more and more Taiwanese watched the numerous variety shows which were shown. But, as with radio, the broadcast of Hoklo songs on television was heavily restricted. So by the mid-1960s, the main way in which Hoklo songs could be promoted was through movies. Even these began to decline in number, and by the end of the 1960s, Mandarin songs completely dominated the popular music scene.
As mentioned above, there were very few original Mandarin songs written in Taiwan in the decade after the war. The man most responsible for changing that was composer and arranger Zhou Lanping (周藍萍). Zhou, originally from Hunan in China, came to Taiwan in the late 1940s (he worked on the film The Transformation of Alishan as music director and may have helped write "High Green Mountain", though the film's director is usually credited with the melody for the song). In the early 1950s, he composed the music for "Green Island Serenade", which was recorded by Ziwei, the first truly popular singer of Mandarin songs in Taiwan. Actually, "Green Island Serenade" was not popular when it was first released. However, it slowly spread among the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, gradually growing in popularity, and after several years became a hit back in Taiwan itself, where it is now considered a classic. Zhou composed music for a number of other original Mandarin songs which appeared in movie soundtracks in the late 1950s, often working with the lyricist Zhuang Nu (莊奴), who would go on to write lyrics for many hit songs. However, it was "Recalling the Past" (回想曲), recorded in 1961 by Ziwei (紫薇) with both music and lyrics by Zhou, that many consider the first really big Mandarin hit in Taiwan (even "Green Island Serenade" supposedly only peaked in popularity in its wake). Zhou also wrote a number of other well-known songs such as "Beautiful Formosa" (美麗的寶島) and "Bilan Village Girl" (碧蘭村的姑娘); even more successfully, he composed the music for the huangmei opera film The Love Eterne (梁山伯與祝英台), which shattered box office records in Taiwan in 1963.
Unfortunately, Zhou moved to Hong Kong to work on movies, depriving Taiwan of its premier composer of Mandarin songs. So instead, record companies producing Mandarin records did the same thing that those producing Hoklo records did -- they used songs from Japan and other foreign countries. "Unforgettable Memory" (意難忘), recorded in 1963 by Meidai (美黛), was a massively popular Mandarin hit, perhaps the first to successfully outsell the Hoklo songs of the time. This song was a Japanese melody to which lyricist Shenzhi (慎芝) added Mandarin lyrics, as was "I'm Beside You" (我在你左右), another hit for Meidai, and "Heartless Person" (負心的人), a big hit for Yao Surong (姚蘇蓉) which was later banned because it was onsidered "unhealthy". Shenzhi also wrote lyrics to an old Taiwanese song for "A Glass Full of Bitter Brew" (苦酒滿杯), popularized by Xie Lei (謝雷), and to a Korean song for "Crying Flower" (淚的小花), popularized by Qing Shan (青山). However, new composers of Mandarin songs did finally begin to emerge in the late 1960s. The most successful of these was Zuo Hongyuan (左宏元), who worked frequently with Zhuang Nu. Together they wrote a number of hits for Yao Surong and others. Zuo also wrote the music for Yao's huge hit "I'm Not Going Home Today" (今天不回家), another song that was later banned (in fact many of Yao's hits were banned), and for "Jingjing" (晶晶), a theme song which was an early hit for Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; also known as Teresa Teng).
Though first Hoklo and then Mandarin songs dominated Taiwan's mainstream popular music scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwan's other ethnic groups, the Hakka and the various aboriginal peoples, still had their own music in this period. Hakka music was still mostly traditional music such as "mountain songs", but singers like Lai Bixia (賴碧霞) and Lu Jinshou (呂金守), who recorded under the name Minglang (明朗), did record some popular songs in Hakka. However, these were primarily adaptations of songs that had been hits in other languages. As for aboriginal songs, Puyuma songwriters Baliwakes (陸森寶; Lu Senbao) and PangTer (陳實; Chen Shi) wrote a number of original songs in this period, including Lu's "Beautiful Rice Grains" (美麗的稻穗) and "Praising The Ancestors" (頌祭祖先) and Chen's "Ocean" (海洋). Many records of aboriginal songs were released in the 1960s, mostly by Ring Ring Records (鈴鈴唱片; pinyin: Lingling), which also released numerous Hakka records as well as Mandarin and Hoklo ones. It was also in the 1960s that Amis singer Lu Jingzi (盧靜子), the first aboriginal star, emerged. Though she wasn't well known among Han Chinese listeners, she was popular in all the aboriginal communities and even performed overseas in Japan and Southeast Asia. She performed many songs that were extremely popular among aboriginal audiences; her versions of the songs are still often the ones aboriginal people are most familiar with, even when she wasn't the original vocalist. Most of these songs were however virtually unknown among non-aboriginal audiences, one exception being "Malan Romance" (馬蘭之戀), which was turned into a hit song in Mandarin and Hoklo and was covered by many popular singers, with Lai Bixia even doing a Hakka version.
Still, for most music listeners in Taiwan, by the end of the 1960s, Taiwan's music scene was dominated by Mandarin songs popularized on television (a second station, China Television [CTV] began broadcasting in 1969). Some of these songs were composed by local songwriters, but many were still adaptations of foreign hits. Lyrically, many were overly sentimental and shallow love songs which had limited appeal for the educated youth of the time, who turned instead to Western music (see box). It was this background which set the scene for the transformation of Taiwan's music scene in the 1970s.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Reflections on Fats Domino, Tom Petty and the Traveling Wilburys
While 2017 has not matched 2016 in terms of unexpected deaths of major rock artists, it has already seen a few significant ones, including Chuck Berry. This past month two more big names were added to the list, Tom Petty and Fats Domino. Fats Domino's death, like Chuck Berry's, can't be considered untimely like so many from last year, as he was 89 years old, but it is still a
major loss, and Petty's death has to be considered somewhat premature, as he was only in his sixties. In both cases, I only own a "best of" compliation, so I can't really do a comprehensive overview of their careers. Instead, I'll briefly note some of my favorites among their hits, and a few less well known tracks or side projects from each that I also like.
I started off my 3 CD rock and roll compilation from many years back with a Fats Domino song, "The Fat Man". This is considered one of the foundational tracks for rock and roll, with good reason (though the song it was based on, "Junker's Blues", is great too, and has arguably even more entertaining lyrics). Other tracks I included were "Goin' Home", "Ain't That A Shame", "I'm In Love Again", "Blueberry Hill", "Blue Monday", "I'm Ready", and "Walking to New Orleans". In fact, only Chuck Berry had more songs on that set. I'd probably pick "Ain't That A Shame" as the greatest of his original songs, though "I'm In Love Again", "Blue Monday", "I'm Ready" and "Walking to New Orleans" (largely the work of Robert Charles Guidry aka Bobby Charles) are all strong contenders ("Blueberry Hill", a favorite of many fans, is actually a cover of a song dating to 1940, though Domino's version is now pretty universally considered definitive). Most of his original songs were collaborations, mostly with his producer Dave Bartholomew, but he was given sole credit for a few songs, including the early hits "Every Night About This Time" and "Please Don't Leave Me", as well as the later "I Want to Walk You Home", all excellent pieces of work. Domino also played a vital role in the Lloyd Price classic "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", on which he played piano (the song itself was based on "Junker's Blues" via Domino's "The Fat Man"). As for Domino's later career, I don't know much from it, but I am a big fan of his covers of two songs by favorite artists of mine. One is the Beatles' "Lady Madonna", which Domino covered not long after it first came out (it was his last chart hit). Paul McCartney wrote the song largely as a tribute to Domino, so it's not surprising that his version sounds great. The other is Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby", a song which is also very well suited to Domino and his rollicking piano. His version of the song is great, possibly even better than Ringo Starr's somewhat later but perhaps better known version, though I'd have trouble choosing between them. Of course Domino's influence on the music that came after him is also reflected in all the covers of his classic songs that have been performed since, though few of them can match the originals.
Among the Tom Petty songs (most released with his band the Heartbreakers, though a few were in his name alone) that I'm particularly fond of are "Breakdown", "I Need to Know", "Refugee", "Don't Do Me Like That", "Don't Come Around Here No More", "I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down a Dream", "Free Fallin'", "Learning to Fly", "Into the Great Wide Open" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance". His duet with Stevie Nicks, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", is pretty good too. A highlight of Petty's career was his participation in the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that originally came together to record a George Harrison B-side; the record company, in this case quite wisely, decided that the resulting "Handle with Care" was much to good to waste as a mere B-side, so a whole album was recorded. Petty's most notable contribution was "Last Night", which he sang lead on and probably was the main writer of. Another track he seems to have been the main writer for was "Margarita", which he and Bob Dylan sang lead on. If I were to put together my own Tom Petty compilation, I'd probably put these two songs, or at least "Last Night", on it.
It's amazing to think that of the five Wilburys, only Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne are still alive now; Roy Orbison of course being the first to die, just after the release of the first Wilburys album (his guitar stood in for him in the video for the second single, "End of the Line"). After Petty died, I thought it might be interesting to put together some sort of Wilburys compilation
or list. Unfortunately, since I don't have the second Wilburys album, I would have trouble doing it properly. But it occurred to me that a comprehensive retrospective on the Traveling Wilburys could be expanded beyond the two albums released by the supergroup to include Wilbury related tracks that weren't released under the group name. Of course each individual Wilbury had a huge catalog of classic songs, so it would be hardly be practical to include all of their solo careers. But in the years around the time the group was in existence, there were many songs written or recorded by two or more members of the group that appeared on their solo albums from that period. Petty in particular had quite a few such tracks, because Lynne co-produced two albums of his, playing on all the tracks and co-writing a bunch of the songs, including the aforementioned "I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down a Dream", "Free Fallin'", "Learning to Fly" and "Into the Great Wide Open". "I Won't Back Down" in particular was practically a Wilbury song, as George Harrison played guitar and sang backing vocals on it. Other Wilbury crossovers include the George Harrison album Cloud Nine, which Lynne co-produced and played on; two singles from the album, "This Is Love" (the song that "Handle With Care" was originally intended as a B-side to) and the brilliant "When We Was Fab", were co-written by Harrison and Lynne. Another Harrison track which involved multiple Wilburys was "Cheer Down". Lynne co-produced and played on the track, and Petty helped Harrison write the lyrics, though he didn't play on it. Several tracks from Roy Orbison's posthumous album Mystery Girl also involved two or more Wilburys. Lynne produced three songs on the album; one was co-written by Orbison and Lynne, and two ("You Got It" and "California Blue") by Orbison, Lynne and Petty, with all three playing on them. While I haven't heard "California Blue", "You Got It" was a hit and there's a video (apparently from a special on the Wilburys) with narration from Tom Petty showing clips from the recording of the song. Depending on how broadly you define a Traveling Wilbury related track - for instance
whether it's enough for two of the group to have written and recorded the song together, or whether there should be three of them involved - you could have either several great bonus tracks or an entire extra album of Traveling Wilbury music to go alongside the recordings they released as a group.
major loss, and Petty's death has to be considered somewhat premature, as he was only in his sixties. In both cases, I only own a "best of" compliation, so I can't really do a comprehensive overview of their careers. Instead, I'll briefly note some of my favorites among their hits, and a few less well known tracks or side projects from each that I also like.
I started off my 3 CD rock and roll compilation from many years back with a Fats Domino song, "The Fat Man". This is considered one of the foundational tracks for rock and roll, with good reason (though the song it was based on, "Junker's Blues", is great too, and has arguably even more entertaining lyrics). Other tracks I included were "Goin' Home", "Ain't That A Shame", "I'm In Love Again", "Blueberry Hill", "Blue Monday", "I'm Ready", and "Walking to New Orleans". In fact, only Chuck Berry had more songs on that set. I'd probably pick "Ain't That A Shame" as the greatest of his original songs, though "I'm In Love Again", "Blue Monday", "I'm Ready" and "Walking to New Orleans" (largely the work of Robert Charles Guidry aka Bobby Charles) are all strong contenders ("Blueberry Hill", a favorite of many fans, is actually a cover of a song dating to 1940, though Domino's version is now pretty universally considered definitive). Most of his original songs were collaborations, mostly with his producer Dave Bartholomew, but he was given sole credit for a few songs, including the early hits "Every Night About This Time" and "Please Don't Leave Me", as well as the later "I Want to Walk You Home", all excellent pieces of work. Domino also played a vital role in the Lloyd Price classic "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", on which he played piano (the song itself was based on "Junker's Blues" via Domino's "The Fat Man"). As for Domino's later career, I don't know much from it, but I am a big fan of his covers of two songs by favorite artists of mine. One is the Beatles' "Lady Madonna", which Domino covered not long after it first came out (it was his last chart hit). Paul McCartney wrote the song largely as a tribute to Domino, so it's not surprising that his version sounds great. The other is Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby", a song which is also very well suited to Domino and his rollicking piano. His version of the song is great, possibly even better than Ringo Starr's somewhat later but perhaps better known version, though I'd have trouble choosing between them. Of course Domino's influence on the music that came after him is also reflected in all the covers of his classic songs that have been performed since, though few of them can match the originals.
Among the Tom Petty songs (most released with his band the Heartbreakers, though a few were in his name alone) that I'm particularly fond of are "Breakdown", "I Need to Know", "Refugee", "Don't Do Me Like That", "Don't Come Around Here No More", "I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down a Dream", "Free Fallin'", "Learning to Fly", "Into the Great Wide Open" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance". His duet with Stevie Nicks, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", is pretty good too. A highlight of Petty's career was his participation in the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that originally came together to record a George Harrison B-side; the record company, in this case quite wisely, decided that the resulting "Handle with Care" was much to good to waste as a mere B-side, so a whole album was recorded. Petty's most notable contribution was "Last Night", which he sang lead on and probably was the main writer of. Another track he seems to have been the main writer for was "Margarita", which he and Bob Dylan sang lead on. If I were to put together my own Tom Petty compilation, I'd probably put these two songs, or at least "Last Night", on it.
It's amazing to think that of the five Wilburys, only Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne are still alive now; Roy Orbison of course being the first to die, just after the release of the first Wilburys album (his guitar stood in for him in the video for the second single, "End of the Line"). After Petty died, I thought it might be interesting to put together some sort of Wilburys compilation
or list. Unfortunately, since I don't have the second Wilburys album, I would have trouble doing it properly. But it occurred to me that a comprehensive retrospective on the Traveling Wilburys could be expanded beyond the two albums released by the supergroup to include Wilbury related tracks that weren't released under the group name. Of course each individual Wilbury had a huge catalog of classic songs, so it would be hardly be practical to include all of their solo careers. But in the years around the time the group was in existence, there were many songs written or recorded by two or more members of the group that appeared on their solo albums from that period. Petty in particular had quite a few such tracks, because Lynne co-produced two albums of his, playing on all the tracks and co-writing a bunch of the songs, including the aforementioned "I Won't Back Down", "Runnin' Down a Dream", "Free Fallin'", "Learning to Fly" and "Into the Great Wide Open". "I Won't Back Down" in particular was practically a Wilbury song, as George Harrison played guitar and sang backing vocals on it. Other Wilbury crossovers include the George Harrison album Cloud Nine, which Lynne co-produced and played on; two singles from the album, "This Is Love" (the song that "Handle With Care" was originally intended as a B-side to) and the brilliant "When We Was Fab", were co-written by Harrison and Lynne. Another Harrison track which involved multiple Wilburys was "Cheer Down". Lynne co-produced and played on the track, and Petty helped Harrison write the lyrics, though he didn't play on it. Several tracks from Roy Orbison's posthumous album Mystery Girl also involved two or more Wilburys. Lynne produced three songs on the album; one was co-written by Orbison and Lynne, and two ("You Got It" and "California Blue") by Orbison, Lynne and Petty, with all three playing on them. While I haven't heard "California Blue", "You Got It" was a hit and there's a video (apparently from a special on the Wilburys) with narration from Tom Petty showing clips from the recording of the song. Depending on how broadly you define a Traveling Wilbury related track - for instance
whether it's enough for two of the group to have written and recorded the song together, or whether there should be three of them involved - you could have either several great bonus tracks or an entire extra album of Traveling Wilbury music to go alongside the recordings they released as a group.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Old Article: "Hit Music" (熱門音樂) - Taiwanese cover bands in the 1960s
The following is a brief article I wrote for the December 2007 issue of Fountain, a magazine on Taiwan culture published by a government agency. That issue focused on Taiwanese popular music, and I wrote several articles for it, including one on Taiwanese aboriginal pop and one on Taiwanese popular music from WWII to the end of the 1960s (I'm not sure if the latter article is still online, so I may repost it here in the future). I've done a fair amount of research on these Taiwanese cover bands, a very few of which did make records (one even made a record of original songs in Mandarin) and someday I hope to publish a much more lengthy and up-to-date article on the subject. I have added a very brief list of a few key bands from the period in question, though a comprehensive list would be many times longer. Note: In Fountain, the article was titled "Rock and Roll Cover Bands".
Though mainstream Taiwanese popular music in the 1960s was worlds away from the rock and roll sounds of Elvis and the Beatles which dominated the West at the time, the latter did not go unheard among Taiwan's youth. As early as the late 1950s, several groups were formed by young people in Taiwan to perform Western songs. In Chinese, these Western pop songs were called "remen yinyue" (熱門音樂, literally "trendy music" or "hot music"), here translated as "hit music", and the whole scene became known by that name. In terms of hit records or immediate impact on Chinese-language pop in Taiwan, "hit music" had little obvious influence. Though many young Taiwanese formed groups in the sixties and early seventies and performed in hotels, nightclubs and other live venues, few of them made records, and most performed covers of English songs exclusively. But "hit music" was actually quite influential in the long run, for two reasons. The first was that the interest of young people in Western pop during this period was a direct precursor of the "modern folk song movement" of the seventies. The second was that many of the songwriters, musicians, and performers who dominated Taiwan pop in the seventies and eighties got their start in "hit music".
One major factor in the growth of the "hit music" scene was the presence of American soldiers in Taiwan. The clubs and nightspots frequented by American soldiers and the hotels used by American visitors provided venues for "hit music" singers and groups. Of course Americans were by no means the only audience for "hit music"; its fans were predominantly Taiwanese youth, especially in Taipei but also in the central and southern parts of Taiwan, and frequent concerts aimed entirely at Taiwanese young people were held involving multiple artists. But the foreign presence played an important role financially, and the chief goal for most groups was to get a position as the resident band at some international hotel.
The "hit music" scene peaked in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, after which "campus folk songs" surpassed it in popularity among Taiwan's youth. But it left behind a legacy in the folk song movement itself, which started largely as a reaction to "hit music", and in singers and musicians like Huang Yingying (黃鶯鶯), Su Rui (蘇芮), Chen Zhiyuan (陳志遠), Weng Xiaoliang (翁孝良), Wu Shengzhi (吳盛智) and Luo Dayou (羅大佑), all of whom began their music careers performing "hit music".
Some key "hit music" groups from the late 1960s and early 1970s:
雷蒙合唱團 The Ritmos Combo
電星樂隊 The Telstars Combo
陽光合唱團 The Sunshine
石器時代的人類合唱團 Stone Agers
愛克遜合唱團 Action
雷鳥合唱團 Thunderbird
Though mainstream Taiwanese popular music in the 1960s was worlds away from the rock and roll sounds of Elvis and the Beatles which dominated the West at the time, the latter did not go unheard among Taiwan's youth. As early as the late 1950s, several groups were formed by young people in Taiwan to perform Western songs. In Chinese, these Western pop songs were called "remen yinyue" (熱門音樂, literally "trendy music" or "hot music"), here translated as "hit music", and the whole scene became known by that name. In terms of hit records or immediate impact on Chinese-language pop in Taiwan, "hit music" had little obvious influence. Though many young Taiwanese formed groups in the sixties and early seventies and performed in hotels, nightclubs and other live venues, few of them made records, and most performed covers of English songs exclusively. But "hit music" was actually quite influential in the long run, for two reasons. The first was that the interest of young people in Western pop during this period was a direct precursor of the "modern folk song movement" of the seventies. The second was that many of the songwriters, musicians, and performers who dominated Taiwan pop in the seventies and eighties got their start in "hit music".
One major factor in the growth of the "hit music" scene was the presence of American soldiers in Taiwan. The clubs and nightspots frequented by American soldiers and the hotels used by American visitors provided venues for "hit music" singers and groups. Of course Americans were by no means the only audience for "hit music"; its fans were predominantly Taiwanese youth, especially in Taipei but also in the central and southern parts of Taiwan, and frequent concerts aimed entirely at Taiwanese young people were held involving multiple artists. But the foreign presence played an important role financially, and the chief goal for most groups was to get a position as the resident band at some international hotel.
The "hit music" scene peaked in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, after which "campus folk songs" surpassed it in popularity among Taiwan's youth. But it left behind a legacy in the folk song movement itself, which started largely as a reaction to "hit music", and in singers and musicians like Huang Yingying (黃鶯鶯), Su Rui (蘇芮), Chen Zhiyuan (陳志遠), Weng Xiaoliang (翁孝良), Wu Shengzhi (吳盛智) and Luo Dayou (羅大佑), all of whom began their music careers performing "hit music".
Some key "hit music" groups from the late 1960s and early 1970s:
雷蒙合唱團 The Ritmos Combo
電星樂隊 The Telstars Combo
陽光合唱團 The Sunshine
石器時代的人類合唱團 Stone Agers
愛克遜合唱團 Action
雷鳥合唱團 Thunderbird
Thursday, August 31, 2017
The Robert Johnson Legacy: A Compilation
This month, as with many other months lately, I haven't had time to do any substantial new music writing. One excuse I have this month is my new radio show. Since it's weekly and I have to do at least some of the recording myself (basically for the last few shows I've been recording my spoken parts and the songs, but someone else is taking care of the final editing and mixing), it's been taking up a fair amount of time, and of course I still have my regular parttime job and have had many other things going on, including giving a talk on censorship of Taiwanese popular music in the past century at a coffee shop and going to Taidong (Taitung) on the east coast to do more research on the popular music of the Taiwanese aboriginal people. I thought about posting lists of the songs I played on my radio show over the past month, but I'm more inclined to set up a separate avenue for doing that, as this is mostly an English-language blog and most of the songs I play are in one of the various Chinese languages (mostly Mandarin, sometimes Hoklo/Minnan, and occasionally Hakka) and even the songs in aboriginal languages, which make up a large proportion, often have only Chinese titles, since tradtionally aboriginal songs didn't have set names and the record companies would just give them titles in Chinese. I could theoretically translate the titles, but I don't have time to do that. So instead I'm doing what I've done more than once before and pulling out an old compilation that I did many years ago and just posting its tracklist here. This one is at least fairly appropriate, because as it happens in my radio show for this week and next (the latter has already been recorded), I played covers of classic Taiwanese songs, mostly aboriginal but also some non-aboriginal, by contemporary artists, then played original or early versions of the same songs from decades earlier for comparison. This particular composition of songs by legendary bluesman Robert Johnson is organized similarly, in this case with his version coming first, followed by a much later recording of the same song by a well known artist.
Of course some of Johnson's most famous admirers are present here, such as Eric Clapton (on his own and with Cream and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers) and the Rolling Stones, along with later blues artists like Muddy Waters and B.B. King (the later doing a song that was reworked and popularized by fellow bluesman Elmore James), but also more suprising artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (doing the atypical Johnson song "They're Red Hot"). While Cream's version of "Crossroads" is the best known cover here, there are a lot of other interesting ones, and each artist has a completely different take on Johnson's songs. The compilation also included a couple of Johnson songs without corresponding cover versions (the final one, "Terraplane Blues", is said to be the one regional hit song Johnson had in his brief lifetime), plus three extra tracks by Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe and Lead Belly, all three also being songs that have well known versions by other artists. The Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe song of course was covered by Led Zeppelin. The Lead Belly songs were not original to him, having been around since at least the beginning of the 20th century. The first, also known as "In the Pines", was most prominently covered by Nirvana, who was apparently largely following Lead Belly's version. The second is best known as "The House of the Rising Sun" and has been covered by numerous artists under that title and others.
I've included the orginial track details (and a brief list of additional Johnson covers) that I wrote back when I put this together, with a few edits. I wrote them under the assumption that the readers actually had the CD to listen to, and recognized the songs. While I can't make that assumption here, I imagine most of these tracks can be heard on YouTube (my apologies for not having time to provide links).
The Robert Johnson Legacy
1 Cross Road Blues Robert Johnson 2:40
2 Crossroads Cream 4:15
3 Kind Hearted Woman Blues Robert Johnson 2:51
4 Kind Hearted Woman Muddy Waters 2:37
5 Ramblin' On My Mind Robert Johnson 2:52
6 Ramblin' On My Mind John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers 3:08
7 I Believe I'll Dust My Broom Robert Johnson 2:59
8 Dust My Broom B.B. King 3:21
9 Traveling Riverside Blues Robert Johnson 2:46
10 Travelling Riverside Blues Led Zeppelin 5:12
11 Walkin' Blues Robert Johnson 2:30
12 Walkin' Blues Eric Clapton 3:37
13 Love In Vain Robert Johnson 2:25
14 Love In Vain The Rolling Stones 4:22
15 Last Fair Deal Gone Down Robert Johnson 2:37
16 Last Fair Deal Gone Down Taj Mahal 2:39
17 Malted Milk Robert Johnson 2:22
18 Malted Milk Eric Clapton 3:36
19 They're Red Hot Robert Johnson 2:58
20 They're Red Hot Red Hot Chili Peppers 1:11
21 Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil) Robert Johnson 2:51
22 Terraplane Blues Robert Johnson 3:00
Bonus Tracks:
23 When The Levee Breaks Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe 3:11
24 Where Did You Sleep Last Night Lead Belly 3:02
25 New Orleans Lead Belly 3:17
Cross Road Blues
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by the Allman Brothers Band
Crossroads
From Wheels of Fire (1968)
Also contains lines from "Traveling Riverside Blues"
Kind Hearted Woman Blues
Recorded November 23, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by Johnny Winter and Eric Clapton
Kind Hearted Woman
Recorded in the late 1940s
From More Real Folk Blues (1967)
Ramblin' On My Mind
Recorded November 23, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Note the train sound effect
Ramblin' On My Mind
From Blues Breakers John Mayall with Eric Clapton (1966)
This is Eric Clapton's first lead vocal on record
I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Recorded November 23, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, ZZ Top and many other bluesmen
Dust My Broom
Arranged by Elmore James
From B.B. King The Collection
Traveling Riverside Blues
Recorded June 20, 1937, Dallas, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Travelling Riverside Blues
Recorded June 24, 1969
From BBC Sessions
A studio version is available on the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set
This version contains several lines from "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"
This song was clearly the inspiration for Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song"
Walkin' Blues
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by Bonnie Raitt on her eponymous 1971 album
Walkin' Blues
From Unplugged (1992)
Love In Vain
Recorded June 20, 1937, Dallas, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Love In Vain
From Let It Bleed (1969)
Last Fair Deal Gone Down
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Last Fair Deal Gone Down
Recorded December 3, 1965
From Mojo Workin' - Blues for the Next Genenration
Malted Milk
Recorded June 20, 1937, Dallas, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Malted Milk
From Unplugged (1992)
They're Red Hot
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
They're Red Hot
From Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
This song has some of Johnson's fanciest guitar playing
Terraplane Blues
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
This was Johnson's most successful record in his lifetime,
selling several thousand copies
All songs written by Robert Johnson
Other covers of Robert Johnson songs:
Sweet Home Chicago (as "Baby Don't You Want to Go?") Tommy McClennan
(this was aupposedly the first Johnson cover, recorded in 1939)
When You've Got A Good Friend Johnny Winter
From Four Until Late Cream (from Fresh Cream)
Stop Breaking Down The Rolling Stones (from Exile on Main Street)
Come On In My Kitchen Allman Brothers Band
I'm A Steady Rolling Man Eric Clapton (from 461 Ocean Boulevard)
Bonus Tracks:
When The Levee Breaks (J. McCoy[Kansas Joe]/M. McCoy [Memphis Minnie])
Recorded June 29, 1929
From Mojo Workin' - Blues for the Next Genenration
Covered by a certain famous hard rock band
(though they did alter it a great deal)
Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Huddie Ledbetter [Actual authorship unknown, though it certainly predates Lead Belly])
Recorded February 17, 1944
From Goodnight, Irene
Covered by Nirvana and Kyle
New Orleans (J. Lomax/A. Lomax/G. Turner [Actual authorship unknown, though it definitely wasn't written by
John Lomax and his son Alan, who somehow got credited on Lead Belly's version])
From Goodnight, Irene
Covered by lots of people (mostly under another name, of course)
Of course some of Johnson's most famous admirers are present here, such as Eric Clapton (on his own and with Cream and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers) and the Rolling Stones, along with later blues artists like Muddy Waters and B.B. King (the later doing a song that was reworked and popularized by fellow bluesman Elmore James), but also more suprising artists like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (doing the atypical Johnson song "They're Red Hot"). While Cream's version of "Crossroads" is the best known cover here, there are a lot of other interesting ones, and each artist has a completely different take on Johnson's songs. The compilation also included a couple of Johnson songs without corresponding cover versions (the final one, "Terraplane Blues", is said to be the one regional hit song Johnson had in his brief lifetime), plus three extra tracks by Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe and Lead Belly, all three also being songs that have well known versions by other artists. The Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe song of course was covered by Led Zeppelin. The Lead Belly songs were not original to him, having been around since at least the beginning of the 20th century. The first, also known as "In the Pines", was most prominently covered by Nirvana, who was apparently largely following Lead Belly's version. The second is best known as "The House of the Rising Sun" and has been covered by numerous artists under that title and others.
I've included the orginial track details (and a brief list of additional Johnson covers) that I wrote back when I put this together, with a few edits. I wrote them under the assumption that the readers actually had the CD to listen to, and recognized the songs. While I can't make that assumption here, I imagine most of these tracks can be heard on YouTube (my apologies for not having time to provide links).
The Robert Johnson Legacy
1 Cross Road Blues Robert Johnson 2:40
2 Crossroads Cream 4:15
3 Kind Hearted Woman Blues Robert Johnson 2:51
4 Kind Hearted Woman Muddy Waters 2:37
5 Ramblin' On My Mind Robert Johnson 2:52
6 Ramblin' On My Mind John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers 3:08
7 I Believe I'll Dust My Broom Robert Johnson 2:59
8 Dust My Broom B.B. King 3:21
9 Traveling Riverside Blues Robert Johnson 2:46
10 Travelling Riverside Blues Led Zeppelin 5:12
11 Walkin' Blues Robert Johnson 2:30
12 Walkin' Blues Eric Clapton 3:37
13 Love In Vain Robert Johnson 2:25
14 Love In Vain The Rolling Stones 4:22
15 Last Fair Deal Gone Down Robert Johnson 2:37
16 Last Fair Deal Gone Down Taj Mahal 2:39
17 Malted Milk Robert Johnson 2:22
18 Malted Milk Eric Clapton 3:36
19 They're Red Hot Robert Johnson 2:58
20 They're Red Hot Red Hot Chili Peppers 1:11
21 Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil) Robert Johnson 2:51
22 Terraplane Blues Robert Johnson 3:00
Bonus Tracks:
23 When The Levee Breaks Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe 3:11
24 Where Did You Sleep Last Night Lead Belly 3:02
25 New Orleans Lead Belly 3:17
Cross Road Blues
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by the Allman Brothers Band
Crossroads
From Wheels of Fire (1968)
Also contains lines from "Traveling Riverside Blues"
Kind Hearted Woman Blues
Recorded November 23, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by Johnny Winter and Eric Clapton
Kind Hearted Woman
Recorded in the late 1940s
From More Real Folk Blues (1967)
Ramblin' On My Mind
Recorded November 23, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Note the train sound effect
Ramblin' On My Mind
From Blues Breakers John Mayall with Eric Clapton (1966)
This is Eric Clapton's first lead vocal on record
I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Recorded November 23, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, ZZ Top and many other bluesmen
Dust My Broom
Arranged by Elmore James
From B.B. King The Collection
Traveling Riverside Blues
Recorded June 20, 1937, Dallas, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Travelling Riverside Blues
Recorded June 24, 1969
From BBC Sessions
A studio version is available on the Led Zeppelin Boxed Set
This version contains several lines from "Kind Hearted Woman Blues"
This song was clearly the inspiration for Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song"
Walkin' Blues
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Also covered by Bonnie Raitt on her eponymous 1971 album
Walkin' Blues
From Unplugged (1992)
Love In Vain
Recorded June 20, 1937, Dallas, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Love In Vain
From Let It Bleed (1969)
Last Fair Deal Gone Down
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Last Fair Deal Gone Down
Recorded December 3, 1965
From Mojo Workin' - Blues for the Next Genenration
Malted Milk
Recorded June 20, 1937, Dallas, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
Malted Milk
From Unplugged (1992)
They're Red Hot
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
They're Red Hot
From Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
This song has some of Johnson's fanciest guitar playing
Terraplane Blues
Recorded November 27, 1936, San Antonio, TX
From King of the Delta Blues
This was Johnson's most successful record in his lifetime,
selling several thousand copies
All songs written by Robert Johnson
Other covers of Robert Johnson songs:
Sweet Home Chicago (as "Baby Don't You Want to Go?") Tommy McClennan
(this was aupposedly the first Johnson cover, recorded in 1939)
When You've Got A Good Friend Johnny Winter
From Four Until Late Cream (from Fresh Cream)
Stop Breaking Down The Rolling Stones (from Exile on Main Street)
Come On In My Kitchen Allman Brothers Band
I'm A Steady Rolling Man Eric Clapton (from 461 Ocean Boulevard)
Bonus Tracks:
When The Levee Breaks (J. McCoy[Kansas Joe]/M. McCoy [Memphis Minnie])
Recorded June 29, 1929
From Mojo Workin' - Blues for the Next Genenration
Covered by a certain famous hard rock band
(though they did alter it a great deal)
Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Huddie Ledbetter [Actual authorship unknown, though it certainly predates Lead Belly])
Recorded February 17, 1944
From Goodnight, Irene
Covered by Nirvana and Kyle
New Orleans (J. Lomax/A. Lomax/G. Turner [Actual authorship unknown, though it definitely wasn't written by
John Lomax and his son Alan, who somehow got credited on Lead Belly's version])
From Goodnight, Irene
Covered by lots of people (mostly under another name, of course)
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