The Smartest Book in the World

by Greg Proops

  MODERN SOUNDS IN COUNTRY AND WESTERN MUSIC

  Ray Charles, 1962

  Music is about the only thing left that people don’t fight over.

  —Ray Charles

  It isn’t enough that Ray Charles was born to abject poverty, lost his sight as a boy, lost his brother to drowning, and lost his mother when he was just fifteen. A horrific childhood, but he survived it with music. A prodigy who became mentored by a teenage Quincy Jones, Charles was hailed as a musical genius by thirty. He basically invented soul music but also became wildly influential in jazz, blues, R&B, rock, and gospel. He sold a jillion records and won awards in every decade, but he also had twelve children with nine different Women, got busted for heroin, and struggled with the drug for years. Most awesomely, the state of Georgia made a version of his “Georgia on My Mind” the official state song. But that just gets us to this story’s opening, as on top of all that, he reinvented country music and made it popular again in the early ’60s by making the swinging and heartfelt Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. A black man reinvigorated country music. By the way, he followed it up with Part Two a little later. He had the people at his label send him hundreds of country songs so he wouldn’t pick only ones he was familiar with. He listened to hours of music and then settled on these tracks. His soulful rendition of Don Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” made country music a factor again. He wails it like gospel blues with lush strings, lavish background vocals, and then invites them to “sing the song, children.” Willie Nelson said this album did more for country music than any one album has ever done. He took white people music and made it everybody people music. This is before blacks and whites could eat at the same restaurant together in many places in the USA. It is a statement, his homage to the South he grew up in, and a declaration that no song escapes his magnificent rendering. Ray Charles took Hank Williams and put a big band on it. A true giant making a giant record. Get it and open a beer. Have a handkerchief ready for the tears of joy. Then go out and obtain Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music 2.

  LIVE AT FOLSOM PRISON

  Johnny Cash, 1968

  I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.

  —Johnny Cash

  He wore black because other singers wore rhinestones. He took massive drugs and fought with record executives. He looked like hell from too much speed and smokes. He was trying to clean up. He had a novel idea. He had played prisons all through his career—why not make a live record in one? Bob Johnston at Columbia Records made the call. Folsom Prison answered first. Johnny Cash had a huge hit early in his career with “Folsom Prison Blues” that has the immortal line of darkness and despair that any gangster poet would be proud to have written: “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die/When I hear that whistle blowin’, I hang my head and cry.” The date was set and two shows planned. He brought his not-yet-wife and partner, June, and the whole Johnny Cash stage show, including rockabilly luminaries Carl Perkins and his brother Luther Perkins. June tamed the cons and read a poem. Think about making a record in a prison in the ’60s. People made live recordings at concert halls and nightclubs for nice people or at least unincarcerated people. Johnny Cash is a key voice for the underclass in American music. Murder and mayhem on the mainstream radio. The real world exposed in a train track shuffle. Guys take coke and shoot their girlfriends, men watch their own gallows being built, and then he sings a comedy song about a dog he hates, “Dirty Old Egg-Suckin’ Dog.” You hear cons being hailed on the PA system. He coughs, he clears his throat, he whoops and shouts off-key. The band finishes songs at various times. The crowd of prisoners is ecstatic—someone cares enough to come and sing about them. In an astounding moment, he sings “Greystone Chapel,” a song by Glen Sherley, a lifetime criminal and one of the cons in the audience. He did not know that Cash had been given the song by the prison chaplain and had learned it the night before. In a tragic postscript, Sherley was helped by Cash and let out of prison and joined the band, but was too damaged to play well with others. The stint with Cash was short; he ended up taking his own life years later. This album is a thrilling document of an outrageous gig.

  POETRY XII

  Emily Dickinson

  (1830–1886)

  Today, Emily Dickinson is acknowledged and venerated, but in her lifetime she published only a handful of poems. Reclusive at best, in later life she spoke to people through doors. Nonetheless, she is a prolific poet and on her passing left forty notebooks with thousands of poems. An enthusiastic gardener and botanist, she kept a garden of exotic flowers at her family home in Amherst. She often included flowers with her verse in her correspondence. In death she has found the renown she could not have hoped to ask for in life. We are all for hope, and Miss Dickinson clung to it with something close to fervency. She is our light in the hour of darkness.

  “Hope” is the thing with feathers

  “Hope” is the thing with feathers—

  That perches in the soul—

  And sings the tune without the words—

  And never stops—at all—

  And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—

  And sore must be the storm—

  That could abash the little Bird

  That kept so many warm—

  I’ve heard it in the chillest land—

  And on the strangest Sea—

  Yet, never, in Extremity,

  It asked a crumb—of Me.

  MUSIC VI

  Rock and Reggae

  Rock has always been around the edges of country and rhythm & blues. Mix in some vaudeville and sex and pow, it’s a hit. The music the kids had been waiting for.

  Reggae started up in Jamaica, landed in England, and had gone through many incarnations such as rocksteady and ska long before we heard it stateside. Then Bob Marley became the poster child but with an agenda and poetry, and we couldn’t get enough.

  THE BAND

  The Band, 1969

  They were a teenage bar band in Canada called the Hawks. The leader was a transplanted American rocker named Ronnie Hawkins who promised the boys “no money but more pussy than Sinatra.” They played all night and rehearsed the rest of the night. The Hawk was strict, and they couldn’t bring girlfriends to gigs as it would cut down on the willing chicks in the crowd. They could drink and pill, but he hated pot, afraid they would get done by the Mounties. Eventually, they split him and formed their own group. Dylan caught them and took them on tour. It was Dylan’s after-folk electric tour, and they got booed every night by devoted folkies. Levon Helm, the drummer, split and worked on an oil rig. But he finally succumbed and came back to play and make the record. They rented a house in upstate New York and made a sprawling album with Dylan called Music from Big Pink. The Band had a unique attack with three lead singers, Levon, Richard Manuel, and Rick Danko. The organist, Garth Hudson, was an accomplished musician and had to be paid ten bucks extra a week when he joined so his family wouldn’t be disappointed by him joining a rock band. Together they had a studied, shambly sound with little of the then-current psychedelic information most bands were doing. They played all sorts of instruments when recording, switching off for unusual sounds. A bit rustic, countryish, and definitely historical, they wailed a ballad about the Civil War called “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and had “King Harvest” about unionizing sharecroppers in the 1920s. This was not your typical rock band. George Harrison loved them, and Eric Clapton wanted to join them. They are white soul. Go there and find a cabin to dwell in.

  ARE YOU EXPERIENCED?

  The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1967

  He had put time in with the Isley Brothers band and the U.S. Air Force. He left for England and evidently they knew what they had. Jimi
Hendrix is the shaman of psychedelic rock and a virtuoso who made all the English guys ashamed to be guitar heroes. A left-hander who played a right-hand guitar upside down for starters and the peacock of groovy gear, Hendrix played better, more inventively, and was better looking than anyone. This album asks many questions, and they almost all have to do with drugs. Hendrix’s sound is still a tidal wave of feedback, squalling, and rhythm & blues. Paul McCartney recommended him for Monterey Pop, where D. A. Pennebaker was making a documentary, and Jimi lit the place up. “Purple Haze,” “Foxey Lady,” “Hey Joe,” and “The Wind Cries Mary” do a lot of the lifting. Hendrix is so seductive and majestic as a singer, it is hard to believe he was shy about his singing in the studio. Apparently there were girls everywhere he went, what a surprise. Jimi Hendrix may be the greatest rock star and this album is why. One measure of a new sound is whether it still seems sonic after grunge, techno, postpunk, etc. This album is still, as they would have said then, “Heavy.”

  THE HARDER THEY COME

  Various Artists, 1972

  Reggae has its own constitution written on wax. The Harder They Come is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. A low-budget but realistic picture about pot, bicycles, music rip-offs, and how rough the ghettoes of Kingston are. No one had seen poor people shoot at each other riding Vespas at the movies before. It was a sensation. Jimmy Cliff is the star, but the record is a compilation of late ’60s and early ’70s seminal reggae singles such as “Pressure Drop” by Toots and the Maytals and “Israelites” by Desmond Dekker & the Aces. This record made reggae go worldwide. Jamaica had been churning out this music for ages, but it took this record to go global. This album was de rigueur for all hipsters to have on their shelves in the ’70s. Bob Marley may end up being the most amazing star reggae produced, but this album has it all. Thrills, chills, and run-ins with the cops. Jimmy Cliff has a beautiful, soaring voice and a lovely message of positive thinking, but the final word has got to go to Desmond Dekker: “I don’t want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.” Warning: this album may require that you spark a massive spliff for max enjoyment.

  POETRY XIII

  Carl Sandburg

  (1878–1967)

  Born to Swedish parents, young Carl started hauling milk at thirteen. He was a bricklayer, farmhand, soldier, journalist, biographer, historian, collector of folklore, socialist, civil rights activist, keeper of Lincoln, and undeniable, irreplaceable American. He was a journalist in Chicago, and once upon a time in America, we were all taught this poem. In these less literate times, we all don’t learn it now. So here goes:

  Chicago

  Hog Butcher for the World,

  Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

  Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;

  Stormy, husky, brawling,

  City of the Big Shoulders:

  They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

  And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

  And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

  And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

  Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

  Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

  Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

  Bareheaded,

  Shoveling,

  Wrecking,

  Planning,

  Building, breaking, rebuilding,

  Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

  Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

  Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

  Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

  Laughing!

  Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

  MUSIC VII

  Jazz

  You need to get hip to jazz. If it seems dissonant and complex, it surely can be. It also swings and is lilting and romantic. Do not be afraid of jazz, little one. Dive right in. Jazz requires your attention for several reasons: it is the only indigenous American art form combining brass band, blues, slave shouts, and Caribbean music with classical European instruments like saxophone and bass. This music was born in bars and houses of ill repute. Pour a drink and light a smoke and spin some wax, cat.

  BIRTH OF THE COOL

  Miles Davis, 1957

  Jazz morphed into swing when white radio got ahold of it, and then the big bands were born. Benny Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, and a million others. Bands were huge with dozens of players and even a few girl singers. After the second ugly war, big band had to give way to bop as it was blacker and faster with Charlie Parker blowing more notes than anyone. In 1948, a bunch of cool cats met at the great jazz pianist Gil Evans’s tiny crib behind a Chinese laundry. These meetings led to the Miles Davis Nonet, or nine. Miles had spent time in Charlie Parker’s band after Dizzy split. They decided to harmonize, slow down the tempo, and generally shift big-band arrangements to a more arty form. They got a gig opening for Count Basie at the Royal Roost, and that’s where Capitol Records heard them and offered them a chance to put it all on wax. Basie had dug the nine, though he thought it was more classical than jazz. They made the record on what was called 78 rpm and all the songs are about three minutes long. Gil Evans and Miles would make more records, but this one starts a whole movement called cool jazz. It is called this because it is cool. It sounds sad and feels cool. The musicians wear dark suits and take their craft very seriously while letting the music snake out like magic. You must attempt to be cool. Put on shades, pour a drink, light something even if it is a candle, and see if this record does not delight you. Birth of the Cool was recorded in 1949 and 1950, but the squares at the label sat on it till Miles was worldwide. By 1957, we had rock ’n’ roll and On the Road. The time was right. The riff was ripe.

  THE COMPLETE ELLA FITZGERALD SONG BOOKS

  Ella Fitzgerald, 1956–1964

  I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them.

  —Ira Gershwin

  Jazz and Ella are the swingin’est four-letter words you need to know. All the great American composers get made better over the course of these eight magisterial albums. Pop music in the Jazz Age was the music of George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern and all; the people who wrote musicals for the stage and screen were the pop hit songwriters of the day. These albums were arranged and packaged to showcase the songwriters’ work by one of the great vocalists of all time. It is a perfect meeting of top-notch material, great arrangements, and the ultimate interpreter. Norman Granz was the owner of the legendary Verve label and Ella’s manager. He was a visionary in terms of how his black acts were treated: he allowed no gigs in segregated places and demanded equal treatment in hotels and restaurants. He also had the creativity and wherewithal to get the best arrangers for this epic set. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn arranged all the songs for their Songbook. It spanned eight years, but Ella conquered this mountain of American Standards, and now you have something exquisite to spin while you light candles for that dinner with someone special.

  THIS IS ELLA ON MARILYN MONROE. SOMETHING COOL YOU DIDN’T KNOW.

  “I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt,” Ella later said. “It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the ’50s. She personally calle
d the owner of the Mocambo and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him—and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status—that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman—a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.”

  WINTER IN AMERICA

  Gil Scott-Heron, 1974

  No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.

  —Gil Scott-Heron

  He is called the “godfather of rap music” for his driving poetry and social content. He has been sampled a zillion times by rappers. But they don’t always have his power. Gil Scott-Heron wrote “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” The message was humorous and radical and to the moment. Gil Scott-Heron’s father was a professional footballer, the first black man to play for Celtic in Glasgow. Gil grew up being raised by his mother in Tennessee and later in New York. While attending university, he took time off to write two novels, The Vulture and The Nigger Factory. This is before he became the musician and educator of America for a generation; he can safely be called an overachiever. His poetry is revealing and always honest, his voice deep and delightful. His collaborator on many of his records was Brian Jackson, whom he met in college. This album has “The Bottle,” an infectious beat, and is a devastating indictment of the destructive power of drink, a Woman’s right to choose, and prison. It was also a catchy hit, and he described it in his usual frank way, “Pop music doesn’t necessarily have to be shit.” No, it does not, and everyone from Public Enemy to Kanye West has taken it on board. You will dance and learn.