Song ID Blog

“Pena” (1969) – Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band * Written by Don Van Vliet * LP: Trout Mask Replica * Produced by Frank Zappa * Label: Straight

In his 1998 memoir Lunar Notes: Zoot Horn Rollo’s Captain Beefheart Experience, Magic Band guitarist Bill Harkleroad gives a song-by-song overview of the Trout Mask Replica album that probably ought to be considered by anyone who’s about to write the next indictment of the divisive sixties-rock milestone. It will, at very least, remove a few layers of fog. His words about “Pena” have a lingering effect in that they discuss contributions by guitarist Jeff Cotton (aka Antennae Jimmy Semens). He was the adroit slide guitarist who would quit the band after getting his ribs broken in one of the band’s many Beefheart-manipulated melees (and who would later recover with Merrell Fankhauser’s sun-streaked band Mu). “Pena” is among the rare recitations not handled by the gravelly-voiced Captain himself. It’s Cotton we hear, who—after some preliminary “fast and bulbous” words by Beefheart and Victor Hayden (aka The Mascara Snake)—also does the disturbing background shrieks. “It hurt [Cotton’s] voice so bad he’d be in tears at the end of making whatever that sound was,” writes Harkleroad. “He had barely made it and was almost choking by the end” (p. 44).

“Ballade sur la lagune” (1983) – African Virtuoses * LP: Nanibali/Ballade sur la lagune * Label: Jaz

Although the Guinea-based African Virtuoses included four Diabate brothers—Abdoulaye, Sire, Sekou, and Papa—only the first three appear on this cool breeze of an album (Nanibali/Ballade sur la lagune). The term “virtuoso” usually suggests an athletic approach to music that ends up taxing the ear, but it applies here in terms of sheer artistry. The final song is “Ballade sur la lagune,” and it’s the one you imagine them playing while getting their picture taken for the cover, their melodies trailing off over the water. A 2007 CD called The Classic Guinean Group includes this entire album plus two extra tracks: one from 1970 (featuring Papa) and another from 1975.

“Parisienne Walkways” (1978) – Gary Moore * Written by Phil Lynott and Gary Moore (Kenny Dorham uncredited) * 45: “Parisienne Walkways” / “Fanatical Fascists” * LP: Back on the Streets * Produced by Chris Tsangarides and Gary Moore * Label: MCA * Charts: UK singles (#8)

The most famous song by late Irish guitar hero Gary Moore had a central melodic hook that had been written by jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham as “Blue Bossa” and first released only twelve years previous. Somehow it’s managed to avoid any publicly known legal hubbub. If there were a case, Moore’s legal team likely would have defended it according to the Rod Stewart Principle (see “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” and “Wrong Side of the River”), wherein musical arrangements receive no protection under copyright law while lyrical content and vocalized melodies do. “Parisienne Walkays” also contains passages sung with original words by Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott, which also likely helped Moore tapdance past an argument. Still, would it have hurt so terribly much to have given credit where it was due? Aside from that, we can remember “Parisienne Walkways” as a recording by an Irishman about France using a melody written by an African American to evoke Brazil.

 

“Neanderthal Man” (1970) – Hotlegs * Written by Kevin Godley, Lol Creme, and Eric Stewart * 45: “Neanderthal Man” / “You Didn’t Like It, Because You Didn’t Think of It” * LP: Hotlegs Thinks School Stinks (1971) * Produced by Hotlegs * Label: Fontana (UK) / Capitol (US) * Charts: UK singles (#2); Billboard (#22)

George Tremlett’s The 10cc Story (1976) recounts how Kevin Godley, Lol Creme, and Eric Stewart recorded “Neanderthal Man” as a drum sound test, after which Fontana label owner Dick Leahy told them that the strange-sounding track with the muted vocals struck him as a surefire hit. His hunch paid off, and the UK #2 single served as a precursor to the smart borderline-novelty offerings in which the Hotlegs threesome’s future group 10cc would specialize. “Neanderthal Man” sounds in retrospect like a record that pokes fun at the folk-chant love-in sound that John Lennon had brought to Top 40 radio with “Give Peace a Chance,” and which Hotlegs rephrases for the sexually preoccupied seventies. The original Fontana label for the UK single instructs all listeners to “Please Play Louder.”

Among the stacks of albums Venezuelan cuatro 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 cuatro, 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?).

By the way, a cuatro differs from a bandola in terms of string texture and tuning, but the obvious difference is in shape: cuatros take the curvy shape of a guitar while bandolas, as you’ve gathered from the above, resemble pears.

“Tender” (1999) – Blur * Written by Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon * 45: “Tender” / “All We Want” * LP: 13 * Produced by William Orbit * Label: Food (UK)/Virgin (US) * Charts: UK singles (#2)

In their final days as a steady hit single machine, the Britpop quartet Blur rolled out a seven-minute hippie throwback hymn backed by the London Community Gospel Choir. Lyrical distinctions, though, set it apart as a Gen X affair. The words in sixties folk-chant hits like John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” or Delaney and Bonnie’s “Never Ending Song of Love” expressed a parent’s sentiments of giving, while this one’s “demons,” “ghosts,” and “screwing up my life” expressed a dependent’s sentiments of needing.

“Back to the Bridge” (1994) – Asie Payton * Trad. arrangement by Asie Payton * CD: Just Do Me Right (2002) * Recorded by Matthew Johnson * Label: Fat Possum

In the 2002 documentary You See Me Laughin’, Fat Possum Record owner Matthew Johnson explains how he’d need to wait for rainy weather to persuade Asie Payton of Holly Springs, Mississippi, to get off of his tractor long enough to make some recordings. In 1994, three years before Payton would die of a heart attack, Johnson was able to round up enough tracks for two posthumous CDs: Worried (1999) and Just Do Me Right (2002). On certain songs, such as “Back to the Bridge,” Payton has a way of digging into a groove that tunnels through his own Delta dirt straight into the earth’s fiery core. The track drips with originality, but the album notes credit it (and all the others) as a traditional arrangement. Maybe that’s just a matter of headache relief. All songs, after all, are carried by “Big Legal Mess Publishing,” which is probably as truthful as a company title can get. The last song on the Just Do Me Right album is a worthy remix of “Back to the Bridge”—maybe Beck listened to it before doing “E-Pro.” 

“Opera Star” (1981) – Neil Young and Crazy Horse * Written by Neil Young * LP: Reactor * Produced by David Briggs, Tim Mulligan, and Neil Young with Jerry Napier * Label: Reprise

If you’ve listened to Neil Young’s 1981 “Opera Star” more than once, the odds are that the phrase “some things never change, they stay the way they are” plays through your brain at appropriate moments. Also ready for recall, in all likelihood, is this one: “you were born to rock, you’ll never be an opera star.” The song presents itself almost like a knucklehead rocker’s manifesto, but Young’s ’80s output, with its drastic stylistic changes, indicates that “Opera Star,” and possibly the entire Reactor album—which Rolling Stone had classified as “bozo rock”—was a razz on a certain type of audience, the type who would hear opera music and imitate it just like the guys in Crazy Horse: “oh-oh-oh-ohhh-oh-OHHH!”

“Balaké” (2015) – Amadou Balaké * Traditional * LP: In Conclusion * Produced by Florent Mazzoleni * Label: Sterns Africa

The online bios all recycle the story of how the late Burkina Faso legend Amadou Traore named himself after a hit song called “Balaké,” which translates to “porcupine” in the mandika language. If he did record such a thing, good luck finding it—perhaps he made it with another group shortly before 1975, when his records started billing him as “Traore Amadou dit Ballaké.” Or maybe he adopted the name simply because “Balaké” is actually a traditional song that was already familiar to West Africans. In any case, Balaké, who passed away in 2014, left a legacy of diverse sounds incorporating upbeat warba and Mandé dance music, Cuban son montuno, charanga, and salsa. Adding him to playlists in today’s bubble-world climate would be good principle. His final recordings appeared in 2015 on an album called In Conclusion assembled by the Sterns Africa label, and among them, lo and behold, is a beautiful late-life rendering of “Balaké,” featuring voice, guitar, and ngoni, with nothing else.