Fifty musicians and composers made up the late Paste magazine’s list of the top 100 songwriters, essentially in the past 50 years. Published in 2006, this list came to my attention only a few days ago.
This is bound to drive just about anyone else crazy, because music is subjective to the core, which they firmly state in the opening article before the list. Their criteria was that those who selected “were encouraged to vote for the songwriters they treasured the most, not the ones with the highest sales, the biggest impact on culture or even the greatest influence on other songwriters.”
For me, I don’t capishe some of their choices, such as Patti Smith being No. 95 while Tom Petty is No. 29, or Allen Toussaint at No. 68 and then putting David Bowie at No. 16. Sure, there are some they got right (remember, this is my subjective opinion), like Michael Jackson down at No. 49, and Chuck Berry way up at No. 25 (though I would have put him much higher).
What I find most significant is the lack of artists on the list, such as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, both of whom are still very alive. The Ramones could have been added, with Tommy and Marky still standing. Yeah, their songs were simplistic, but the music they wrote and produced was exciting, and they electrified the world. What about John Lydon, who wrote some incredible lyrics?
It is leaving out Ellie Greenwich, who died after the list was formulated, that is just criminal (for just a starters, she wrote or co-wrote ”Leader of the Pack,” "(Today I Met) The Boy I'm Gonna Marry,” "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts?" "Be My Baby," "Baby, I Love You," "Then He Kissed Me," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Not Too Young To Get Married," "Hanky Panky", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Chapel of Love,” "I Wanna Love Him So Bad", “I Can Hear Music," "River Deep, Mountain High"… well, you get my drift? To me, it just shows sheer ignorance on those who chose.
Here is Paste’s top 10: 10. Prince 9. Joni Mitchell 8. Elvis Costello 7. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys) 6. Leonard Cohen 5. Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings) 4. Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan 3. Bruce Springsteen 2. Neil Young (Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) 1. Bob Dylan
With the exception of No 5 (Paul McCartney above Lennon-McCartney, who aren’t even on the list? Ha!), I don’t really have a problem with it.
But the thing is, though, that nearly all of these listed are pretty major players, despite the “favorite” label. However, there are so many other musicians who are under the radar who consistently write incredible songs. For example (in no particular order) there is Mary Gatchell, Tamara Hey, Maria McKee, Ruth Gerson, Harriet Shock (who has won awards for her tunes), Margo Hennebach, Adrienne Jones, Anne Lorre, Carrie Catherine, Kim Delmhorst… Oh, there are so many others.
My guess is that Paste’s selectors of the list have never heard of many – if any – of these powerful songwriters, because of their lack of numerous chart hits. You may have noticed that all the ones I have selected are women. Why? Because the Paste list has only 11: Patti Smith, Victoria Williams (No. 89), Julie Miller (No. 73), Dolly Parton (No. 55), Aimee Mann (No. 54), Gillian Welch (No. 48), Loretta Lynn (42), Carole King (No 31; one ahead of Leiber & Stoller), Lucinda Williams (No 22), Patty Griffin (No. 19), and Joni Mitchell (No. 9). They all deserve to be there, but that’s only 11 percent.
These kinds of lists are bad ideas. They draw in the readers, sure, and it’s those numbers that drive the magazine biz, but most of them are insufficient and have wide gaps. It’s part of the reason I usually don’t do “Best Of the Year” articles. Personally, I believe that these “greatest ever” things are made up just to get people riled and write angry letters, which can then be published to show everyone, “Look! People read us!” Guess it didn’t help Paste though, as they can no longer be listed in the 100 best existing magazines.
This tape was created for a very long drive from New York to Nova Scotia. It was the last tape I made before switching to mixed CDs. As always, I have tried to find the original release of the song as it appears on the tape, and if that’s not possible, a live version. However, much of the music I listen to is indie stuff, so it’s kind of hard to find. SIDE ONE
Mary Lou Lord – His Indie World This was off her first EP, arguably one of the strongest of her releases, on SubPop. She recorded in Seattle (before being famously chased off by an off-center rocker rival), but comes from Boston, with a history of busking on the subways there. In this tune she complains that her boyfriend wants to listen to said indie music while she’s more interested in “my Joni (Mitchell), my Nick (Drake), Neil (Young) and Bob (Dylan), you can keep your Tsunami, your Slant 6 and Smog.” In this song, she mentions a ton of bands, most of who went on to further fame: “I said ‘What’s the story?’ / He said ‘Butterglory’ / I said, ‘What’s the news?’ / He said ‘The Silver Jews’”). Check out the lyrics on the Web, they’re quite fun.
The Good – Judy Bernie Kugel redid the song when he was in Mystic Eyes, but way before that, his original band, the Good, did a lower-fi version for Tommy Calandra’s BCMK Records (that’s Buffalo College of Musical Knowledge). The swirling keyboards take the listener on one of Bernie’s many great pop garage tunes of the era. While we’re still waiting for “Mail on Sundays” to come out, I am happy with this cut. Both versions of this song are great, but this one, being the one I heard and learned to love first, holds a warm spot in my heart.
The Byrds – Eight Miles High As someone who is not into hallucinogenics (though the band seemed to have been from the video I’ve seen of them doing this song live on German TV, they’re so obviously stoned), I still find this song to be powerful. McGuinn’s 12-string just sings in this classic. Yeah, Husker Du did a decent version, but cannot compete with this one. Usually, long songs with solos are not my speed, but this one is different. Yet, my fave Byrds song remains “Child of the Universe,” their theme song to the film Candy (I have it on another tape).
Blues Magoos – (We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” This is one of those iconic guitar-and-keyboards songs from the late ‘60s, with a pounding, dum-dum-da-dum rhythm. You hear any part of this song, it’s instantly recognizable. One of the first hit self-bragging songs I know of (“You know we’ve got what it takes / But we ain’t got nothin’ yet.). Couldn’t copy the song, so here’s the link: youtube.com/watch?v=GOGRTLn2uKY
John Otway – Josephine I’ve been a fan of Otway since the late ‘70s, when his Stiff Records were released. Teamed with fellow guitarist Wild Willy Barrett, he was just insane, but after they split, John started his second stage, which allowed him to do more serious songs, such as this one. The topic is of a local harvest festival, and the teen that is chosen to lead it (“And the crowd screams “Josephine / Our May Day eyes are on you”). Otway has a unique voice, both phrasing and style, and he always seems to be enjoying himself. There is a greatest hits package of his, and I highly recommend it.
Phil Ochs – The Highwayman One of many songs based on the Alfred Noyes poem (actually, John Otway has one, as well); this is probably the best known. It’s a long piece (and a longer poem), but Phil keeps the interest high as “Bess the landlord’s daughter” makes a futile sacrifice for her highwayman lover. It’s a romantic piece, for sure, but the title character’s actions at the end seem to nullify. And yet, it remains a beautiful song. The video is a wilted, live version, rather than the feisty recorded one.
3 Days Grace – I Hate Everything About You This song came to me by way of a three-song give-away disk at some store. I was instantly entranced by the emotion of it. At the time, I mentioned it to a friend, Vonny, and she said that she didn’t like the singer’s voice. Thing is, she’s actually right. Yes, I still like this song, but every other thing I’ve heard from the band has left me cold. Good call, Vonny! My one amusing story about this band is when I was in an Ontario Zeller’s, and this song came over the PA. Seemed like an odd choice, even if the band is from Canada. There’s an official music video to this, but it’s verbally edited, so here is this one.
Linda Ronstadt – I Can’t Help It The original Hank William’s one is arguably superior, but I don’t own any of his material on CD (the source for the rest of the songs), so I went for the Linda R one instead. I run hot and cold with Ronstadt: her ‘60s stuff (such as “Different Drum”) and Heart Like a Wheel country material are enjoyable, but I find the period after that and on (covers of Buddy Holly, etc.) kind of flat. This song shows some of her range.
Linda Ronstadt – Keep Me From Blowing Away This sad, wistful song has a country feel, but it’s more modern country pop. And yet, again, I like it a lot. There have been many times I’ve felt like this song, wanting some kind of anchor, something solid in my life, to keep me grounded. She emotes well here, that feeling of restlessness.
Kris Delmhorst – Hurricane This remains my favorite Kris Delmhorst song (so far). She equates a hurricane to the volatile relationship to which she’s currently involved (“I’ve always kept the company of clouds / I like my lightning bright, my thunder loud / I was never one for bluer skies / All that bright sun droning in my eyes / So blow me down, blow me down and leave me lying in your wake”). She’s still early on in her career, so there’s bound to be more great music to come. This is a live video, which is a bit distorted, but the sense is there.
Contraband – Hard Life Howard Bowler and his brother David, of the Marbles in the heady CBGBs days, lead this folk / country / rock / jazz band, and now have at least three full length CDs out. A Howard original, this song is almost oppressive in its negative charge, with dissonant notes and pressed lyrics (“The sun is shining / And all I get is rain / Comin’ down so hard / It’s drivin’ me insane”). It’s actually a powerful song, and Howard’s vocals shine with just the right unflinching tip of bitterness. Like the blues, it’s in your face, and yet somehow makes the listener feel better.
Dusty Springfield – The Look of Love Has anyone ever done a sexier version of this song than Dusty? Can they? I mean, she has a sultry voice to begin with, but this is one of her finest in this romantic mode. She practically whispers in your ear. Even her phrasing with pausing between words keeps you on your seat. Herb Albert’s horn also stands out here, with a couple of interesting false endings. This song just lulls me, from the first time I heard it in the ‘60s version of Casino Royale (as Ursula Andress seduces Peter Sellers).
Bob Crewe Generation – Peter Gunn This makes me think more of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse more than Peter Gunn, but it’s a great iconic television theme song from the golden era of television; a classic noir in aural form.
SIDE TWO
The BKE – TBD Can’t talk about these two demos yet, but there are gonna be a lot of happy fans out there.
Margo Hennebach – After All There are two versions of this song, one on Margo’s second collection, Big Love, and one with her trio, Mad Agnes, Live at UH. This one is from the former, but they’re both done excellently, and I tend to listen to them both; I just had this one when I made the tape, though. Margo is one of my favorite modern singer-songwriters in the journeymyn tradition. With a hint of the Celtic, her songs are strongly supported by guitar and piano (both hers). I interviewed her the day of Woodstock II, just across the Hudson River from it, in fact. It was an enjoyable day, sitting on her porch and talking music (that interview can be read at this blog, dated October 26, 2008).
CSNY – Suite: Judy Blue Eyes My cousin Ken’s favorite song, but I didn’t know that when I put this tape together. While CSNY were one of those groups that annoyed the crap out of me in the early ‘70s (along with Yes, Kansas, America, and all those other bands that it seems everyone listened to when I was in college before punk hit), but someone gave me a greatest hits CD, and this one grew on me. It’s a long ode to Judy Collins (from Stephen Stills), but it changes often (hence the “suite”), and is not cloying.
Maria McKee – You Gotta Sin to Get Saved It was not Lone Justice that got me interested in Maria McKee, but an appearance on a TV show called Night Music, singing “Breathe” from her first solo release. Love at first hear. While there is a lot of subtly in Maria’s voice, damn she can belt them out good. This live in the studio recording from her record by the same name, is a bluesy, ballsy gospelly number that is nearly the female side of “Lightenin’ Strikes.” She tells her boyfriend “I could never shame you / Honey, you’re by pride and joy / But what’s a girl to do, now, daddy / I’m drowning in a sea of boys.” She further explains that “If I make an honest vow / To someday where a dress of white / ‘Cause scarlet’s what I’m wearing now.” Great song with a fun call-and-response chorus.
Al Yankovic – The Saga Begins A freakin’ brilliant cover of “American Pie,” but with lyrics reflecting the fourth Star Wars film, Chapter 1. Weird Al tells the entire story here, in his usual witty way, using similar rhyme patterns to the original (“Oh my, my this here Anakin guy / May be Vader someday later / Now he's just a small fry / He left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye / Sayin' ‘Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi’”). I laughed all the way through it the first time I heard the song. It still bemuses me.
David Wilcox – The Kind of Love You Never Recover From Off a sampler CD (two songs each from 5 albums), this was part of a tribute release for Christine Lavin, who wrote the songs. Wilcox’s reading is very spare, and full of emotion. The song is about wishing you had said something – the right thing – before your lover leaves (“At times like this when the moon is right / When the air is foggy like it is tonight / She'll think about what might have been / If she had just held on to him.”). It’s a sad song, but as with just about everything Lavin writes, it has a strong heart.
Barbara Kessler – Attainable Love Another Christine Lavin-er from the same sampler, this time the topic is being in love with someone who is commitment phobic, wishing she could change someone unchangeable (“Add me to the list of women / Who think you'll be different with me / Add me to the list of fools / Who flatly refuse to see / That just like me....”).
Susan McKeown – Winter King A strong Celtic tune from someone deeply associated with the genre. However, in this piece, McKeown also modernizes the arrangement to make it something else. Not with a disco-like beat some Celtic artists seem to have added (since those annoying dance-track Gregorian Chants), this is more rockish. I was going to put the next song from the CD, her killer version of “Aud Lange Syne,” but decided against it.
Leonard Cohen – Take This Longing Gotta say, the opening guitar chord to this song is not my favorite. It’s clanky and annoying, but once the listener gets past that, the song unfolds. Unfortunately, I found after listening to this tape on the road that I had to crank the volume all the way up, because the car noise was drowning out Cohen’s soft voice. Still a great song, though (“Take this longing from my tongue / All the useless things these hands have done / Let me see your beauty broken down / Like you would do for one you love”). Yes, the man is more than just “Suzanne” and “Hallelujah.”
The Dictators – Next Big Thing “I didn’t have to be here you know. I didn’t have to show up here. With my vast, financial holdings, I coulda be basking in the sun in Florida. This just a hobby for me. Nothin’, y’hear? A hobby!” With that, the opening cut to the ‘Tator’s first album starts strong and doesn’t let up. As they say later on in the tune, “We knocked ‘em dead in Dallas / And we didn’t pay our dues / Yeah, we knocked ‘em dead in Dallas / They didn’t know we were Jews.” Ah, the boys from the Bronx. I say again, DFFD. The video is a live version, without the intro, unfortunately. s
This is the fifth part of a series of articles or interviews that have been published before in magazines that no longer exist. This one was originally published in Oculus Magazine, January/February 1995; an update follows.
Have you Ever Heard an Angel?
Mad Agnes: Margo Hennebach, Mark Saunders, Adrienne Jones
It was sunny when I traveled up to Cold Springs, New York. Woodstock II was happening just across the Hudson. The first Woodstock was a celebration of both rock and folk music. Since the second was only rock (if you want to call that rock), I went to the folk. I interviewed Margo Hennebach.
We sat on her porch having salad culled from her own garden and talked about her recent self-titled album, released on the 1-800-PRIME-CD label. As the interview officially started, Margo picked up her guitar and quietly strummed away (when not running off for the ringing phone). Playing music for relaxation is nothing new for her: she possesses a Masters in Music Therapy from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in England.
Margo Hennebach, 1994 Music was an early love for Margo, a native of Queens, New York. She is an accomplished pianist, guitarist, and vocalist, who has performed publicly since the age of seven. Classically trained, her attraction to the folk genre began while studying at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, where she became involved in a folk music club. “They were way into Celtic music,” she recalled. After moving to England for two years, she became further familiar with traditional songs by joining in the national pastime of hanging out in pubs. “I think I’ve always known how to sing it, I just didn’t realize it.”
Michaelean, 1996 Bringing her training to the traditional sounds brought further appreciation of its appeal: “It’s sort of wailing, and sort of crying and singing all at the same time. It’s interesting inflections with the voice that sometimes reaches high in the chest voice, sometimes in the head voice. Melodically, it seems very ornamented sometimes, but other times it seems very simple and pure. I also like harmonically moving in the modal areas. We might be going from a D chord to a C chord and back again. And I like the drive. I like the rhythm.”
Possessing an eclectic music background that includes classical, opera, Mariachi, and Tex-Mex, Margo is not tied down to one style of folk, which is evident in her CD. The songs are folk-based, but clearly there are outside influences evident in her work. “We’re still using this term ‘folk music,’ even though we’ve already pushed the envelope of what that actually means.” When asked if the category should be widened to include World Music, as it has at many folk festivals, Margo contemplates, “Sometimes, as songwriters, we like to call it contemporary acoustic music. I don’t think too much about what to call it; I just make it.” And make it she does. Her CD is an assortment of stories of life – some hers, some others.
Big Love, 1998 A somewhat introspective, bittersweet look at life, the collection contains some potential breakthrough pieces, such as “Have You Ever Seen an Angel,” thoughtfully about he loss of someone close, or “Winter Snows,” which examines a relationship from intimacy to break-up. “I like to say that there are not more happy love songs out there because when someone is happy and in love, they’re not in their boudoir writing songs,” Margo says with a big smile. “We just want to be happy when we’re happy. We don’t want to think about ‘what is the process of being happy?’ We just want to jump into someone’s arms. Whereas when we’ve broken up with someone, when we’ve lost someone close to us in our lives, that’s when it’s easier for us to contemplate. That’s a place that I find a lot of my material.”
Comfort and Joy The recording is overall very emotional. Stepping into the Western corner of folk, one song that stands out is “Fool’s Gold Paradise.” I tell Margo how touched I was by the lines, “I am grateful for you hands/I love them so/You know they understand/The sounding of my soul.” Actually, nearly all the songs stand out, which is quite impressive. I query Margo about her songwriting processes: “I’m not a facile writer,” she confesses. “So, to start to try to write some of those things that mean so much to me is like transforming this thing into words. Sometimes it doesn’t seem possible.” And just what makes a song a complete entity? “Bob Dylan sets a poem to music and sometimes the music is almost a little incidental to the words that he’s trying to say. For me, there needs to be like a marriage of the music and the words, otherwise I lose interest. Later in life I discovered that a song is a perfect art form: just to try to bring that sort of otherworldliness of the music to something very practical that has the kind of limitations of it that language has. The songs that I know that are what I consider perfect, I think that’s just incredible.”
One of those songs is covered on the CD, the lilting “Caledonia,” by Doug MacLean, which she recorded before hearing the original version. “I had heard Rod MacDonald perform it. I got some of the words sort of different from the original. I guess that is sort of the process. I float it a little more (than Doug); I make it a little more ethereal.
Live at UH, 2002 The whole process of folk music is based on an oral tradition, so many versions of the songs abound. Margo appreciates that. “In classical music…you would not think of altering a note. ‘This is how Mozart wrote it, this is how you play it.’ In the folk tradition…it’s only natural that things would get changed, like my version of ‘Caledonia.’ Some of the words are different because I learned that through the folk tradition, through someone else doing their rendition. Meanwhile, people are learning my rendition and that’s making them spin off other ways of singing it. You don’t know if that is getting further and further way from Dougie’s song, or in a way maybe it’s closer because it means that we all have a personal relationship with it. I find that really exciting. A different artist is going to make you see something a little different than others.”
Magic Hour, 2003 Margo has a personal philosophy about other performers’ and writers’ songs: “As an artist, I’ll never want to cover a tune the way I’ve heard it done. I’m too rebellious by nature. The only reason why I’d wanna cover it is that I can lend something else to it; I can really involve myself in it. Even if that means doing ‘Oh, Suzanna’ and sticking in a little whistling part.”
“Oh, Suzanna” is a reference to a performance by Madwomen in the Attic a few weeks before this interview at Maxwells, in her old neighborhood of Hoboken, New Jersey. Madwoman in the Attic is a trio consisting of Margo and two other Connecticut-based folkers, Diane Chodkowski and Adrienne Jones, who use the group to try out songs and to just have fun with folk “oldies” and newer covers (e.g., by Richard Schindel).
Who's Mad Agnes?, 2005 DVD With a solo album out, appearances on numerous compilation albums, and a new album due out early next year, Margo is happy to see folk music spread its wings. “The Hoboken people are now working on our second batch of tapes, albums and demos. The stakes are a little higher, so there’s a lot more attention and care. And I think the music is getting better and better all the time. I would love to see there be a movement, and it’s happening. Music is taking place all over, with people in their own backyards making music, opening up their homes and are bringing people in to have home concerts; sort of taking control of the music a little more. People are deciding, ‘Well, we don’t need to go to a club to make music. We’re just gonna do it ourselves.’ And eventually a community is formed and created around that. Then a coffeehouse exists and that moves perhaps to a theater. It keeps getting bigger and bigger as more and more people get drawn to it. I’m amazed at all these places I can go to, and people will hear music. They won’t know who I am, they won’t know any of the performers who come through, but they learn to trust that people come to their towns and make music for them. I think there’s going to be a maturity in the music that I already hear happening now. And I think that’s going to keep happening.”
Revenants, 2006 After our lunch and talk, Margo gives me a tour of an ancient cemetery and then directs me to the train. On the walk back, it starts to pour. Reassuringly, I was just as drenched as those at Woodstock II, except for me, it was in the name of folk. A good tradition.
Currently living in Saskatoon (email at RBF55@msn.com for address). From 1977-88, I used to publish a print version of a music magazine in New York called FFanzeen, which dealt with the wide-ranging independent music scene. I also photographed many bands from the period (and since). Now I write this blog. And the beat goes on.
”One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor”
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