The 500 - #302 - Fear Of A Black Planet - Public Enemy

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 302

Album Title: Fear Of A Black Planet

Artist: Public Enemy

Genre: Hip-Hop, East Coast Hip-Hop, Political Rap

Recorded: Two Studios, near Long Island, New York

Released: April, 1990

My age at release: 24

How familiar was I with it before this week: A little

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, 176 (Moving up 126 spots)

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Fight The Power

In the eighties, in the almost exclusively white suburbs of London, Ontario, exposure to hip-hop music for most came from only two sources -- music television and contemporary film soundtracks. (Canada's equivalent to MTV, Music Television, is a station called MuchMusic.)

Weekly, MuchMusic aired a segment entitled RapCity, hosted by the only black Video Jockey (VJ) on the station, Michael Williams. Williams would present videos from Canadian and American hip-hop artists during his one-hour program and provide commentary and biographical information during the breaks. I wasn't an ardent fan of the genre, but I listened and learned a few things.

Williams (right) beside musician Corey Hart (middle) 
and J.D. Roberts - better known to American audiences
as a CNN and FOX News correspondent.

Contemporary hip-hop was also prevalent in the soundtracks to popular films. In a time before streaming networks and downloadable content, movie theatres were packed and my girlfriend (now wife) and I went weekly. In the summer of 1989, we saw Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee's groundbreaking and critically lauded film that focuses on racial tensions in the Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Sty) neighbourhood of Brooklyn during one incredibly hot summer day.

The opening credit sequence features the stunning Rosie Perez performing an aggressive, athletic and sexy dance as the song Fight The Power by this week's artist Public Enemy, plays in the background.

Rosie Perez in a screen capture from the opening credits to
Do The Right Thing

Public Enemy are an American hip-hop and political action collective formed in Long Island, New York, in 1985. The group has gone through many line-up changes through their career, with founders Chuck D (Carlton Douglas Ridenhour) and Flavor Flav (William Jonathan Drayton Jr.) being the only consistent members.

Flavor Flav (left) and Chuck D (early 90s)

Released in 1990, Fear Of A Black Planet is the third studio record and the first of two on The 500 list. Their second record, 1988's It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is positioned at #48 on the 2012 list. (It moved up to #15 on the revised 2020 list.)

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back album cover

On the accompanying episode of The 500 Podcast, guest, comedian and actor Tony Rock, who was raised in Bed-Sty said:

"Growing up, we didn't learn a lot in school about our race. Chuck D was 'Professor' Chuck D of African studies to us...he was the black newspaper for us...he told us about so many black people we had never heard about and Public Enemy wasn't just a band, it was a movement." 

Comedian Tony Rock

Meanwhile, 900 km away in London, Ontario, I was also "getting the news" from films like Do The Right Thing and the undeniably powerful lyrics of Public Enemy. When I first heard Chuck D deliver the line, "I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped / Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps", I began to appreciate better that safe, middle-class suburban reality I lived was markedly different from the world being experienced by those living in an inner-city. This was further amplified when the video for 911 Is A Joke began to find airtime on RapCity and the regular MuchMusic rotation. I mentally wrestled with the idea that the emergency service institutions that I trusted unquestioningly to keep me safe might not offer that same level of protection in a lower income neighbourhood.

It would be disingenuous to suggest that a handful of films and some socially-charged lyrics led to a great awakening in me. However, those experiences did put me on a road toward greater empathy for the quality of life of others. It informed my professional development as an educator of children from diverse backgrounds. London is no longer "almost exclusively white" and, throughout my career, I have worked to embrace a culturally responsive pedagogy to maximize the learning environment of every student.

Culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centred approach to teaching in which the cultural strengths of students are identified and nurtured to promote achievement and a sense of well-being.

Listening to this record in its entirety, and learning more about the meaning behind the lyrics (particularly the song Welcome To The Terrordome and the horrific murder of 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins) reminded me again that appreciating the experiences of others before making judgments is paramount in the role of any educator.

Newspaper headline following the
racially motivated murder of 16 year old
Yusuf Hawkins in 1989.

 

The 500 - #303 - John Wesley Harding - Bob Dylan

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 303

Album Title: John Wesley Harding

Artist: Bob Dylan

Genre: Folk-Rock, Country-Rock

Recorded: Over three sessions in the late fall,1967

Released: December, 1967

My age at release: 2

How familiar was I with it before this week: One song

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, 337 (Dropping 24 spots)

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest

John Wesley Harding is the eighth studio record by American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Bob Dylan. It is also the third of 11 Dylan records on The 500 list. I wrote about Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind (#411) in August, 2020,and Love And Theft (#385)in January, 2021. It was written and recorded about a year after Dylan’s motorcycle accident and just before the birth of his fourth child, Jakob Dylan – who would rise to fame in the early 90s as the guitarist and singer for the band, The Wallflowers.

Jakob Dylan (front) with his band The Wallflowers

I don't want to be "treading trodden trails" here, so I will skip the biographical information included in those previous posts. I will simply say, John Wesley Harding really grew on me and my respect and appreciation for Dylan continues to grow as I learn to get the "it" of Bob Dylan -- an intangible quality that makes so many fans passionate about this celebrated talent.

Dylan, around the time of this record's recording.

Several months ago, my Facebook feed displayed a public message board posting on a site called If You Grew Up in London (Ontario) by an individual identified by the pseudonym Various Artists.

Homepage for the "If You Grew Up in London" Facebook group

Various Artists hosts a website, blog and podcast under the banner, My Life In Concerts. It is a multi-media diary of experiences attending concerts in the Southwestern Ontario region between 1975 and the present. From reading the blogs, it became apparent the author and I have much in common. We are both Londoners of about the same age, with a love of music who have (independently of each other) chosen to chronicle our interest through blogging and podcasting.

The current My Life In Concert Webpage

Two weeks ago, I had the chance to dig a little deeper into the content on the My Life In Concert website and was really impressed. He (Various Artists) is a skilled writer and dynamic orator. His first podcast detailed his experiences at the same Roxy Music show that a guest blogger, pal Dougie, wrote about on this blog site last year. (See Album #374, Siren).

A partial ticket from that Roxy Music performance in London

Two weeks ago, I contacted Various Artists and discussed our mutual online projects. He was, as I expected after hearing his podcasts and reading his posts, good-natured and agreeable to email conversation about our musical undertakings. Surprisingly, he volunteered to read all of my posts -- nearly 200 of them!

Over the past two weeks, he has done exactly that, while I have been listening to his podcast. We have agreed that, as young adults, our discordant music tastes would likely have made us adversaries rather than friends.

When he saw, through my social media post, that John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan was next on my list he wrote:

"One of his very best. In my Dylan Top 10, maybe Top 5. This album along with The Band's Music From Big Pink (#34 on The 500) played a big part in launching the roots music movement at the end of the 60s. I love Dylan's stark simplicity and songwriting on John Wesley Harding. A third album that was a key cornerstone to the fledging roots movement of the late 60s was The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo (#120). It certainly wasn't a commercial success in its time, but it influenced the right people and truly launched Gram Parsons career and his second and final record Grievous Angel (#425)."

As a recent convert to the music of Bob Dylan, I have to say that this is my favourite of the three records I've reviewed so far. As I indicated in that first Dylan post two years ago...I am starting to get "it". Gleaning tidbits of information from a fan like Various Artists is certainly helpful in my journey. Perhaps I can entice him to guest-blog or participate in a cross-over event one day.

The 500 - #304 - Grace - Jeff Buckley

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 304

Album Title: Grace

Artist: Jeff Buckley

Genre: Alternative Rock, Folk-Rock

Recorded: Bearsville Studios, Woodstock, New York

Released: August, 1994

My age at release: 29

How familiar was I with it before this week: One song

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, 147 (Up 157 spots)

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Last Goodbye

Bono, famed humanitarian, activist and singer for the Irish band U2 once said "Jeff Buckley was a pure drop in an ocean of noise".

To me, the quote is also "a drop in an ocean of praise" for the singer, songwriter and guitarist who released only one record, Grace, in the summer of 1994. He is highly regarded by a lengthy list of musicians and artists who, collectively, have dozens of records on The 500 list.

Born November 17, 1966, in Anaheim, California, he was raised by his mother, Mary Guibert, and step-father Ron Moorhead and went by the name Scott Moorhead through his youth. His father, folk singer turned avant-garde musician Tim Buckley, had divorced Jeff's mother just a month before he was born.

Jeff's father, Tim Buckley, performing in 1968

Jeff Buckley was brought up around music. Not only was his father a well-respected musician, his mother was a classically trained pianist and cellist and his step-father introduced him to the classic rock sounds of the 60s and 70s -- Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Who and Pink Floyd. By the time he was 12, he had decided to become a musician and got his first electric guitar. He also developed a love for the same kind of music I loved, Progressive Rock.

Buckley, who was born one year after me, cited Rush, Genesis and Yes as his favourite bands during high school -- we could easily have been friends. It was around this time that he began to go by his first name with his biological father's surname.

Jeff Buckley (Scott Moorhead) in the early 80s

After working as a session guitarist on other musicians’ projects for a decade, Buckley moved to Manhattan to work on his own material while playing at clubs, mainly in the East Village. This included the legendary Sin-é, an Irish music venue well-known for helping launch the careers of many notable writers, musicians and artists, including  Sinéad O'Connor, Marianne Faithful. The Hothouse Flowers, and  Alan Ginsberg.

Grace was lauded by critics but sold poorly, resulting in Buckley embarking on a long international, promotional tour to pay the bills.

In 1996, he began working on his second record which was tentatively titled, My Sweetheart The Drunk. On the evening of May 29, 1997, he was awaiting his bandmates' arrival in Memphis, Tennessee, to join him in the studio. He decided to go for a dip, fully clothed, in the Wolf River Harbour -- a slack water channel of the Mississippi River. He was accompanied by a road crew member who remained on shore.  At one point a tugboat passed by, and Buckley disappeared in the wake. Rescue efforts that night and the next day were futile. His body was found on June 4, tangled in some branches on the shoulder of the river.

The Memphis Suspension Railway Bridge over Wolf River
where Buckley was last seen alive

Grace re-entered the charts in 2007, a decade after Buckley's death and 13 years after its release, finally finding a commercial audience. It has since been certified platinum (over a million units sold in the United States) and has sold a further two million units sold internationally. His legacy thrives by continuing to be celebrated  by a host of musicians and artists who gather annually to perform his songs. A tribute to his short, impactful life.

Poster from the 22nd Annual Tribute Performance

Postscript: Buckley's rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah was released as a single in 2007, resulting in a posthumous surge in popularity for Buckley. The song became ubiquitous in television and film soundtracks over the next few years.

My wife and I have been Cohen fans for decades and adored both Buckley's version and the performance of it by k.d. lang at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. We were also fortunate to see lang perform it live at The Grand Theatre in London the following year.

lang performs Hallelujah-2010 Winter Olympic Closing Ceremonies

Hallelujah has been covered by over 300 artists. I wondered: Which version do people like best? Using my social media platforms (Twitter and Facebook), I conducted an impromptu poll. The question generated lively discussion in those threads for three days as the poll ran. The results are from Twitter are below.

Cohen's original version narrowly surpassed lang's Olympic rendition, with Buckley receiving 29 out of 136 votes. The responses to the option of "another version" were varied indeed. Respondents suggested versions from Rufus Wainright, Pentatonix, Justin Timberlake, John Cale, Damian Rice, Bono, Andrea Bocelli, The Canadian Tenors, Il Divo, Susan Boyle. Lesser known versions from local and YouTube artists were also suggested including this heavy metal version, this version from Three Talented Girls and one from Laura Gagnon, who hails from my hometown of London, Ontario.

Single album cover for Hallelujah by Cohen

In a 2009 interview on CBC radio, Cohen found the number of covers of his song "amusing and ironic", given that his record label initially refused to release it when it was written. He later added, after learning it was used in a romantic scene in the comic book film The Watchmen, Cohen suggested a moratorium on its use, saying; "It's a good song, but I think too many people sing it."

I can understand his point. This week, as I became a robust fan of Buckley's Grace, I found myself more enamoured by the deeper cuts, including Last Goodbye, Lilac Wine, Lover You Should Come Over, and the title track.

Bono was correct, Buckley is "a pure drop in an ocean of noise". His four octave tenor voice matched that of famed opera singer Luciano Pavorotti. He was able to effortlessly sing everything from gentle ballads to powerful rock. A great tragedy is that we did not get to see where his musical journey would take him. He would still be in his mid-fifties if alive today.

The 500 - #305 - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 305

Album Title: Car Wheels On A Gravel Road

Artist: Lucinda Williams

Genre: Alternative Country, Americana

Recorded: Two studios - Nashville and Los Angeles

Released: June, 1998

My age at release: 32

How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, 98 (Up 207 spots)

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Drunken Angel

I suspect most cities have a dive joint -- that small, unglamorous bar with dim lighting, dated decor and cheap drinks. It is typically frequented by an eclectic group of regulars who come from all walks of life and, if they are lucky, it features live music seven nights a week.

In London, Ontario, for over 150 years, that bar was The Brunswick Hotel, affectionately called "The Wick". Built in 1855, it sat on a downtown corner until it was, under dubious circumstances, demolished in 2008 -- just as efforts to make it a protected heritage building were underway.

Crystal Lake Ice Truck outside The Brunswick Hotel (1912)

One Sunday night in 1998, after a lucrative serving shift at nearby Garlic's Restaurant, my coworker and now dear friend, Rob Nicholson, turned to me and said; "We should go to The Wick, have a beer and catch The Garrett".

"The Garrett" referred to the Sunday night house band, Sweet Leaf Garrett -- a clever name that referenced both a Black Sabbath song about marijuana, Sweet Leaf, and a 70s pop-star, and teen idol, Leif Garrett.

Leif Garrett on the cover of a 70s teeny-bopper magazine

Sweet Leaf Garrett were not just cleverly named, they were also incredibly talented and Rob and I stayed until last call, and a Sunday night tradition began. SLG played an entertaining mix of familiar songs from multiple genres -- rock, heavy metal, punk, blues and country. The members are, Jeff Bialkowski (guitar & vocals). Steve Crew (drums). Shaun Sanders (guitar & vocals) and Jeff "Stan" Fountain (bass)

Sweet Leaf Garrett at The Brunswick Hotel (2003)

The setlist varied from week-to-week, but there were some standards that they played consistently. Among them was a handful of songs by Lucinda Williams. In fact, it was lead singer Sanders' rendition of Drunken Angel that led me to ask him who wrote the original. A few days later I owned Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. Thanks, Shaun!

Lucinda Williams

Singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Lucinda Gayle Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1953. She achieved critical acclaim in 1988 when she released her self-titled, third record. However, it was Gravel Road that gave her mainstream commercial success. It won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album and was her first record to be certified gold.

Williams accepting her Grammy in 1999

I was thrilled to discover that a Deluxe Version was released in 2006. It includes 13 live tracks from a show Williams performed at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia on July 11, 1998 -- which was also my 33rd birthday.

Williams performing at Penn's Landing (1998)

Sweet Leaf Garrett continued to perform at other local watering holes after a wrecking ball turned The Wick into a parking lot. However, the magic of those Sunday night performances in the early 2000s were never re-captured for me and for many of my friends.

Check out Shaun Sanders' solo, acoustic version of William's Drunken Angel here, from his Instagram page. He is still performing live music as the front-man with the Led Zeppelin tribute band, Zed, around Ontario and beyond.