Category: 1990-1994

“Tennessee Stud” (1993) – Johnny Cash * Written by Jimmy Driftwood * Produced by Rick Rubin * LP: American Recordings* Label: American Recordings

Rightfully celebrated for providing the overdue bare-bones presentation Johnny Cash’s legend demanded, the Rick Rubin-produced American Recordings album also had a bone-dry sound of sonic disinfection, which risks coming off as disaffection (if you’re not Johnny Cash). It’s a trend in solo acoustic recordings of the ’90s, like Bob Dylan’s Good as I Been to You (1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), both of which sounded as if all involved wore hazmat suits. The overwhelming backdrop silence plays counter to the very trueness the recording philosophy espoused.

Cash’s recording of “Tennessee Stud,” then, stands out because it happens at the Viper room on Sunset Strip in front of a crowd of giddy and supportive invite-only attendees. So there’s the kind of human-contact atmosphere that served his beloved At Folsom Prison album so well. The nature of the audience doesn’t matter so much. As Tony Tost writes in his 33 ⅓ treatment of the album, they “cackle and hoot like refugees from the Hee Haw cornfield,” but their responses to the song echo the responses you’re supposed have.

First recorded in 1959 by the one-man folk song factory Jimmy Driftwood, “Tennessee Stud” became a staple in the repertoires of Doc Watson and many others. The song recounts the exploits of a rounder who slips out of dangerous situations on his “long and lean” horse who’s got nerve and “the blood.” His adventures begin with confrontations between him and his sweetheart’s kin, and end with him straightening it all out by whipping her brother and pa.

The crowd whoops it up during this last section and you realize that you’re listening to the ultimate version of the song. You’re hearing the intimidating man depicted on the American Recordings album cover, who confirms he has just arrived to whip somebody. And when you—yes, you—later reach the inevitable times in life when you’re called upon to whip the proverbial pa, you’ll draw your resolve from Johnny Cash’s 1993 version of “Tennessee Stud.”

Media uses/misuses: Jackie Brown (1997)

“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (live)” (1994) – Bob Dylan * Written by Bob Dylan * LP: MTV Unplugged (1995) * Label: Columbia

MTV’s still-extant Unplugged franchise, with its “hey what would it sound like” premise, now seems a little quaint, but during its ’90s heyday it rolled out a lot more keeper versions of tracks, hit singles, and platinum albums than you may remember. Bob Dylan did two tapings for the series in 1994, then culled tracks for a single disc with quickie cover art that appeared the following year. It captures him right after an insular trad-folk phase on the way to a new creative awakening in 1997, and is more worthwhile than its used CD bin veneer wants you to believe. His stinging anti-war rarity “John Brown” makes you wonder if the Iraqi Kurdish confict had gotten seriously under his skin. “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (on the European edition) hijacks “If Not for You,” and “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” preserves for posterity the comically garbled and hurried delivery he’d been treating live audiences to (“theyllstoneyou-abblablloo”). With “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” he reclaims the 1973 original from the realm of the maddeningly rote cover exercise. He changes up vocal cadences and brings its conflicted essence back to the fore, even adding words to the refrain, “knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door, just like so many times before” in a weary way that reminds his prospective interpreters that to be on heaven’s door is to be, in fact, almost dead.

“Leisibatxu Zuria Dozu” (1992) – Txomin Artola and Amaia Zubiria * Traditional Arrangement by Txomin Artola and Amaia Zubiria * CD: Folk-Lore-Sorta-2 * Label: Elkar

The preeminent Basque folk singers Txomin Artola and Amaia Zubiria released three volumes of their Folk–Lore–Sorta (folk lore dimensions) series in the early 1990s and are well worth searching out. Many of the songs come from the Basque priest and pioneering linguist Resurreción María Azkue’s folk song collection Cancionero Popular Vasco, published circa 1922. My Basque resources, so far, have yet to provide a confident translation of the word “leisibatxu” in the title, but this enchanting track evidently tells the story of a husband who dresses up as a confessional-cabinet priest to gain insight into his estranged wife’s fidelity.

“Dreams Burn Down” (1990) – Ride * Written by Ride * CD: Nowhere * Produced by Mark Waterman * Label: Creation

On Nowhere, their first full-length CD, Ride presented themselves as Lords of the Storms, setting up—perhaps unknowingly—a ready-to-market neosurf niche for themselves that might have led them paradoxically into a more adventurous and coherent direction had they embraced it. Imagine a reinvented British surf music scene that drew endless inspiration from the moody Atlantic ocean. The surfing industry wouldn’t need actual songs about boards to attach itself to such music. The Nowhere album is now a prompt for the term “shoegaze,” but songs like “Dreams Burn Down” show too much command and panoramic vision for the term. Album number two should have kept going with the ocean-view concept, but it went instead for a face with peeled cucumbers blocking its vision.

Among the stacks of albums Venezuelan cuarto master Cheo Hurtada has appeared on, only one of these was billed to “Bandolas de Venezuela.” This was a quartet that included, along with Hurtada, three bandola players: Javier Sosa on bandola central (8 doubled-up strings, triangular pear-shaped) Gerson Garcia on bandola llanera (4 strings, traditional pear shape), and Ricardo Sandoval on bandola oriental (8 doubled-up strings, pear-shaped with squared-off corners at the top). Hurtada, in addition to cuarto, plays bandola guayanese (almost identical to the bandola central). The title of this particular specimen of organic energy translates to “little bird scrambled” (scrambled egg?).

“Coldness of the Water” (1992) – Kurtis Gross * Written by Errol Duke (The Growler) * CD: Sing De Chorus: Calypso from Trinidad and Tobago * (Executive) Produced by Amelia S. Haygood

Sing De Chorus is a Trinidadian stage show written by Rawle Gibbons and Simeon L. Sandiford, and it’s built around the songs of classic calypso composers and performers from the 1930s and 1940s, such as Lord Executor, The Roaring Lion, and The Growler. Musical director Desmond Waithe leads an ensemble whose acoustic sound is far too absent from modern day calypso. The liner notes don’t identify specific songs with singers, although a 2013 CD on the Faluma label that combines these Sing De Chorus tracks with another production called De Roaring 70s sorts it all out. (One of the featured singers is the late Brian Honore, who was a well-loved “Midnight Robber” in carnival performances.) Kurtis Gross does the vocal on “Coldness of the Water,” a version of a song written and recorded by The Growler (Errol Duke) in 1939, in which he seems to be lamenting his decision to get baptized because of the water’s low temperature. Alternate layers of meaning certainly apply. 

“Ouda” (1992) – Hamied El Shaeri * Written by Mostafa Amar and Sameh al-Agami * LP: Kawahel * Label: Rotana

A Libyan exile based in Cairo, Hamied El Shaeri (this spelling seems more common than the one on the cassette cover above) had been an outspoken voice of protest against the actions of Muammar Gadaffi at the expense of Libyan citizens. His music is essentially pop fare with romantic lyrics and Western influences, but coming from a land where non-native musical instruments were once piled up and burned, such a specialty rings with a certain political defiance. His gentle 1992 hit “Ouda” (return), with its whispery voices and acoustic guitars playing major 7th chords, has a way of wafting through listeners’ minds with universal appeal. Although El Shaeri has also developed a reputation as a songwriter, this one was written by the Egyptian musician and actor Mostafa Amar—who’s associated himself with Spanish guitar—along with lyricist Sameh al-Agami. (The album title Kawahel translates to “as a camel.”)

“Blame Mary Jane” (1990) – Lloyd Cole * Written by Lloyd Cole and Blair Cowan * CD single: “No Blue Skies” / “Blame Mary Jane” / “Witching Hour” * Produced by Lloyd Cole, Paul Hardiman, and Fred Maher * Label: Capitol

The first solo album for Scotsman Lloyd Cole showcases his expatriate New York-rocker persona, his good recording taste (including Robert Quine’s distinctive guitar work), and his urbane songwriting all gelled up into an enduring whole. Dylan Jones, in his Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music, depicts the 1990 Cole as a “troubled soul” with “unfulfilled promise” who spent his days shooting pool at blue-collar bars. This turned out to be just a phase, apparently, that Cole would write about in a 2001 song called “Tried to Rock.” Such forays into image, though, can keep resonating for audiences. Cole’s “Blame Mary Jane,” a B-side from that era, may as well have been the theme song for the man Jones was describing, but in the discouraging political present, its attitude and words are liable to run through one’s mind daily: “I’m gonna close my eyes to the morning papers / Shut my ears to the news / I’m gonna lose my soul in the lonesome afternoon.”

“Buzeqesh Goca” (1994) – Lavier Bariu * Trad. * Produced by Ben Mandelson and Kim Burton * CD: Songs from the City of Roses (1998) * Label: Globe Style

The late Albanian clarinetist Laver Bariu got first class treatment on this 1998 CD (recorded live to digital in 1994) called Songs from the City of Roses by Globestyle, back when that label actively bird-dogged music from all corners. UK musician and scholar Ben Mandelson, along with ethnomusicologist Kim Burton, recorded Bariu in Përmet, near the Greek border, capturing a bandleader with decades of hard work and discipline under his belt, rallying his men forward with his cascading melody lines. “Buzeqesh Goca” means “smile, Goca” (the name of a girl – rhymes with ‘boats-ah’), and will make you want to pick up any instrument nearby to try and play along. In 1978 Bariu appeared in a black and white Albanian film called Gjeneral Gramofoni, which is set in the 1930s.

“Art’s Plume (Sawt Elfan)” (1990) – Khalifa Ould Eide and Dimi Mint Abba * Written by Seymali Ould Hamad Vall and Ahmedou Ould Abdel Qader * Produced by Nick Gold and John Hadden * CD: Moorish Music from Mauritania * Label: World Circuit

The late Moorish singer Dimi Mint Abba’s clarion vocals relayed key cultural info in songs that stretched out like the sand-dune landscapes of her native Mauritania. Her 1990 album on the World Circuit label, a collaboration with Khalifa Ould Eide on the West African lute, gave her a boost in overseas recognition. This song features especially dextrous instrumentation and lyrics to live by: “Art’s plume is a balsam, a weapon and guide enlightening the spirit of men.”