Mixtapes #3: Edd Hurt
The best of lists that pop up at the end of the year are often hobbled by chronology or genre. It suggests that listening begins in January and ends in December or that people are experts in only one kind of music. People never really only listened to that which was made in one year, and the modern rock crit area was birthed by professional nostalgists and crate diggers. In asking a variety of professionals to mark what they were really listening to while maintaining the concept of an annual I didn’t want to engage in that act of crate digging, but I really did want to get a sense of what people were listening to. Think of it as the games people play with mix tapes, if mix tapes where really about what people listened to in 2006. The entries, comments (if offered) and biographies (if offered) are written by the critics (with their own eccentricities) themselves and they are arranged by their arrival in my inbox.
Edd Hurt
Songs:
- 1. Aretha Franklin, "Pullin," (1970, from Spirit in the Dark, Atlantic)
- 2. P.F. Sloan, "Above and Beyond the Call of Duty" (1968, from Measure of Pleasure, Atco; reissued 2007 by Collectors Choice)
- 3. Nara Leão, "Tique Taque Do Meu Coracão" (from Nara '67, recorded 1967; reissued 2006 by Él)
- 4. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, "Tradicão" (from Tropicália 2, 1994, Elektra Nonesuch)
- 5. Andy Fairweather Low, "Spider Jiving" (recorded 1974; reissued 2004 by Raven on Wide Eyed and Legless: 1974-1997)
- 6. Gale Garnett and the Gentle Reign, "My Mind's Own" (from Sausalito Heliport, 1969; reissued 2006 by Columbia)
- 7. Chris Kenner, "Fumigate Funky Broadway" (recorded mid-'60s; reissued by Valiant on 32 Greatest Hits from New Orleans)
- 8. Kid Creole and the Coconuts, "With a Girl Like Mimi" (from Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, 1981, Zé)
- 9. Grant McLennan, "Race Day Rag" (from Horsebreaker Star, 1995, Beggars Banquet/Atlantic)
- 10. Rosco Gordon, "Jesse James" (Jamada single; year unknown)
CDs:
- 1. Rogério Duprat, A Banda Tropicalista Do Duprat (rel. 1968; reissued 2006 by Universal)
- 2. Gale Garnett, Sausalito Heliport (rel. 1969; reissued 2006 by Columbia [Japan]).
- 3. Clyde McPhatter, A Shot of Rhythm and Blues (rec. 1965-1967; reissued by Sundazed)
- 4. Terry Manning, Home Sweet Home (rel. 1970; reissued 2006 by Sunbeam)
- 5. All Star Jazz Quartets: Washboards (rec. 1927-1935; reissued by JSP)
- 6. Stoney Edwards, Mississippi You're on My Mind (collection of country singles and album tracks rel. 1975 by Capitol; currently out of print)
- 7. Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places (rel. 1981; available on CD)
- 8. Chris Kenner, 32 Greatest Hits from New Orleans (rec. 1950s-1960s; reissued by Valiant; year unknown)
- 9. Gene Clark, With the Gosdin Brothers (rel. 1966; reissued by CBS Special Products in 1990)
- 10. Charlotte Hatherley, Grey Will Fade (rel. 2004;)
Comments:
Gale Garnett showed up sexy on a Scopitone compilation a friend burned for me. She showed up later in 1969 in a Sausalito commune--the single of "My Mind's Own Morning" I include in my singles list is the '60s becalmed, still unsure about its folkie madonnas, at this late date, the dream already over even if John Lennon never got to fuck Gale Garnett. Clearly, Garnett could've been Cher, and already was all those husky-voiced ex-folkies who never quite over the ricky-tick, even in the California houseboat acid trips.
It was that kind of year, fascinated by the detritus of the pop-music movement, and the year my mother died. And it was the year that Grant McLennan died. He and I are near-contemporaries, and this year I realized I'd underrated the Go-Betweens, listened hard to them, watched video footage, picked up his Horsebreaker Star, and realized how much inner turmoil was tamed by the craft of McLennan and Robert Forster. Oceans Apart became my record of choice as things turned darker late last summer, and the McLennan track I include here suggests, among other things, just how deeply the pair felt about America and American music, and how they felt about travel, which is probably life's greatest gift. (He recorded most of Horsebreaker in Athens, Georgia, down South.)
Speaking of down south, I still have, in an old "personal organizer," Memphis pianist and singer's Roscoe Gordon's phone number in Queens. I never called him, and then he died. Nothing I know in rock and roll is wilder than the 1966 "Jesse James," with backing vocals, if I read this right, by Dee Dee Warwick. "Jesse James" is a dance, but mainly it's about some kind of exuberance in a windswept place where everyone hurries to a location where perhaps people dance, or they just gather, and Roscoe calls them to it. Anyway, what the hell would a dance based on the real Jesse James (who, I'm sorry to say, probably was more of an out-and-out criminal than he was Folk Hero--but myths die hard) look like? This is bedrock conviction in the face of all odds, one of the greatest pieces of rock and roll I've ever heard, hysterical and controlled.
