Single Song Sunday -Lost Highway

 

Now that the Sunday Highway Songs series has run out of tarmac I thought it would be appropriate to do a Single Song Sunday  of the song which inspired the series namely Lost Highway. I've been given permission from the great man himself who has even offered up a contribution or two.

I always thought that the song had been written by Hank Williams, the man who made the song famous, but it turns out that it was  in fact written by Leon Payne. Therefore it is only fair to feature Leon first with Hank a close second.

The version by Billy Bob Thornton,  from an Uncut compilation, inspired the series and featured on the first of the thirteen posts. In the interest of completeness you are getting it again.

The next one I thought of was the version by The Mekons from their Fear and Whiskey album although the one I downloaded is taken from the Rough Trade Shops Country 1 compilation.

I also had versions by Johnny Horton and Jason & the Scorchers which I added to the folder before looking further afield.

A quick Google or two threw up  further versions by The Handsome Family, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Townes Van Zandt.

Ernie then offered up a version by German band The Dad Horse Experience and provided a little bit of info about them

I also asked if he could offer up a Mandatory Reggae Version (MRV). Sadly he was unable to do so on this occasion but as a very acceptable alternative he provided a song by the same name from Guinea act Duuda.

For a life of sin we've paid the cost.

Leon Payne - Lost Highway

Hank Williams - Lost Highway

Billy Bob Thornton - Lost Highway

The Mekons - Lost Highway

Johnny Horton - Lost Highway

Jason & the Scorchers - Lost Highway

The Handsome Family -Lost Highway

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Lost Highway

Townes Van Zandt - Lost Highway

The Dad Horse Experience - Lost Highway

Saturday Shuffle 59

 

We kick off this week's shuffle of with The Men They Couldn't Hang and The Colours. They also recently appeared on SS53 with Ironmasters  such is the vagaries of the Shuffle. Whilst doing my homework for this piece(hard to believe but there you go) I noticed that Ironmasters had also appeared on SS3. Apologies.

I think this is the first time we have had a doubler but probably not the last. I try and check but clearly I don't always get it right.

Our cover stars Dexys Midnight Runners have also appeared here before but not with Burn it Down from the great Searching for the Young Soul Rebels. At least I don't think they have.

Well over a year in and somewhat criminally the great Glen Campbell is finally making his shuffle debut which were he still alive would have  undoubtedly  been one of the highlights of his long and illustrious career. Although not one of the three big hitters Where's The Playground Susie is yet another brilliant song by Jimmy Webb effortlessly delivered by Glen. This version is taken from the three CD Cherry Red Compilation - I See You Live on Love Street - Music from Laurel Canyon 1967 - 1975.

More random music from canyons and elsewhere next Saturday.

The Men They Couldn't Hang - The Colours

Dexys Midnight Runners - Burn It Down

Glen Campbell - Where's the Playground Susie

Stray

 

2024 Charity Shop Purchases # 44  - Aztec Camera - Stray

Such was the brilliance of Aztec Camera's 1983 debut album High Land, Hard Rain it proved a hard act to follow. The second album 1984's Knife is pretty good but it is generally accepted that their third one 1987's Love was pretty poor.

Their 4th album Stray from 1990 on WEA was generally regarded as a return to form . It is the one which features Mick Jones on Good Morning Britain. The story goes that Roddy Frame wrote it in 45 minutes in the canteen of a rehearsal studio that both Aztec Camera and Big Audio Dynamite were using.

And according to Wiki In an August 2014 radio interview, Frame elaborated further, stating that at the time he wrote the song, Jones lived near his London home; Frame visited Jones after recording the song and said to the Clash guitarist, "You'll either sing on it, or you'll want to sue me", as Frame believed the song was so similar to Jones' previous work

Hopefully it is an apt track as we wake up this morning to the Election results.

Whereas that track alone would have been worth the pound I played the  rest of the album is not too shabby. 

Aztec Camera (ft Mick Jones) - Good Morning Britain

Aztec Camera - Notting Hill Blues

Good Riddance

 

Voting today will see the end of 14 years of Tory Mis-Rule .This twitter post by Jonathan Pie neatly sums up their "achievements" (not fit for work obviously).

Any sane person will be glad to see the back of them but yet I am finding it hard to get too excited. I mean what is the alternative? Labour under Tory - Lite Sir Keir Starmer a man with zero personality  who writes for the Sun and refuses to denounce Brexit as the disaster it clearly is? He has also indicated that he would be willing to engage with the French Right whilst refusing to engage with the Scottish Government on a number of key issues.

To be honest I'm pretty disillusioned with the lot of them. Whereas it will be good to see them go The Tories are pretty much irrelevant in Scotland and virtually no-one here would be stupid enough to line Farage's red trousers by voting for Reform PLC.

That pretty much leaves the Lib Dems (as a protest vote)  Labour or the SNP. The Greens here may previously have got my vote on occasions but seem to have forgotten what they are meant to stand for.

The SNP have been in power for too long without an effective opposition and have lost their way in terms of key priorities such as housing and Social Care but we currently have no tuition fees, free personal care for the elderly and no prescription charges amongst a number of other things. Would the Labour branch office be allowed to honour these when Westminster is pulling the strings?

I have rarely been so disillusioned but I will hold my nose and vote. After all, people have died to enable us to do so.

I wonder if the Bloggers Party will be on the ballot paper?

Billy Bragg - All You Fascists Bound to Lose (Blokes Version)

Carter USM - I Blame the Government

Jamie Wednesday - Vote for Love

This Sweet Old World

 

2024 Charity Shop Purchases # 43 - Lucinda Williams - This Sweet Old World

A couple of Saturdays ago we found ourselves at Clarkston Toll on the South Side of Glasgow. We were pushed for time as we had to get back for an appointment but I managed to quickly pop into Oxfam for a quick browse.

Someone had handed in a few CDs of the more recent Lucinda Williams albums which is something that you don't see every day. I thought I had them all but was wondering why Sweet Old World was under a different cover. It was only on the way home that I remembered that in 2017 she had re-released an updated version in 2017 as This Sweet Old World.I went back up on the Sunday and fortunately it was still there.

It is interesting to her the difference in her voice between 1992 when Sweet Old World was released as her 4th album and 2017 with This Sweet Old World being her 13th album.

It received universal acclaim scoring 86/100 on the Metacritic Aggregator and it got me thinking whether she would have continued this project re-recording subsequent albums had Covid and her stroke not intervened. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road would have been next.

It's time to compare and contrast. 

Lucinda Williams - Six Blocks Away (1992)

Lucinda Williams -Six Blocks Away (2017)

Lucinda Williams -Something About What Happens When We Talk (1992)

Lucinda Williams - Something About What Happens When We Talk (2017)

On Your Bike - Khayem's Lap of Honour

 

Just when you thought that all things bike had been exhausted Khayem has pitched in with a lap of honour.

Take it away K

As the series reaches it’s last gasp (actually, that’s just me being chronically unfit…) I’ve found a few more round the back of the bike shed that I’d like to offer up.

Firstly, Madness got tired of driving their car and decided to rewrite the song as a paean to the pushbike on the 12” B-side back in 1982.

Unfortunately, Amy of Amyl & The Sniffers was less fortunate as someone nicked hers, but at least it inspired a short sharp rant on their Giddy Up EP in 2016.

Lurking around the corner and trying not to look suspicious are Peter Hook and David Potts, better known here as Monaco, with this B-side of 1997 single What Do You Want From Me? that doesn’t at all like New Order, honest.

Lastly, Rol previously delivered Pink Floyd’s original and definitive version of their song Bike. Not an obvious one to cover, unless you’re electronic duo Fortran 5 in 1991. Not just any old cover version though, this one painstakingly cut and spliced a comedy legend’s dialogues from numerous Carry On films to create a word - if not note - perfect reproduction of the lyrics. Sid Sings Syd indeed. With apologies to CC listeners everywhere and C in particular!

Madness -Riding on My Bike

Amyl & the Sniffers - Stole My Push Bike

Monaco - Bicycle Thief

Fortran 5 - Bike (Sid sings Syd) ft Sid James

Thanks Khayem.

A reminder that we move on to two wheeled motorised transport  next Tuesday. Ernie has already pitched in with sone excellent suggestions and a title for the series CC revs the CC's

Frontejas

 

I know what you are thinking. Why is he featuring Tish Hinojosa yet again when she appeared here only 18 days ago with her album Homeland?

There is a very simple explanation. Ernie had a copy of  her 1995 album Frontejas,  on the great Rounder Records label, which was in his charity pile. Rather than that he very kindly gifted it to me when we met up in Newcastle. Such is the generosity of the man given that it has a median value of £3.11 on Discogs

Dangerous Dave provides a helpful review on Amazon explaining the rationale behind a Spanish only album, The  CD helpfully gives the song titles and lyrics in both Spanish and English.  DD, as I like to call him, writes that the songs themselves vary from up-tempo tex-mex polka with guitar, drums and accordion to ballads, sometimes with minimal accompaniment but others with piano and horns.

He likes the ballads but I am more of a tex-mex polka man myself. I think I have counted at least 6 six accordionists on the album. I've gone for track one Pajarillo Barranqueño (Little Riverside Bird) featuring Santiago Jiminez Jr and Déjame Llorar (Let Me Weep) featuring the mighty Flaco Jiminez.

Thanks very much for this Ernie but I still can't quite fathom why you considered letting it go.

Tish Hinojosa - Pajarillo Barranqueno

Tish Hinojosa - Dejame Llorar