We’re back to share some of what we’ve been listening to lately—and also what we’ve been viewing! David first, then Charles, and as always, some reading recommendations at the end.
Dave Loggins – “My Father’s Fiddle” (from Apprentice (in a Musical Workshop), 1974)
Singer-songwriter Dave Loggins died last week, at 76. His gentle-yet-restless “Please Come to Boston” peaked on both the Pop and Easy Listening charts right around this time of the summer in 1974 and remains one of the all-time soft rock ear worms. It was Loggins’ only solo hit, but as it would play out, “the number one fan of the man from Tennessee” was the mainstream country music scene. Most famously, Loggins’ songwriting and vocal attack was a key influence on Garth Brooks. Young Garth routinely performed Loggins songs at the start of his career in Stillwater and made a point, on “Every Time That It Rains” from his debut, to tip his Resistol to his hero: “I played ‘Please Come to Boston’ on the jukebox / She said, ‘Hey, that's my favorite song’.” More concretely, Loggins became a hugely successful country songwriter. Alabama took three Dave Loggins numbers—“Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler),” “She and I,” and “Forty Hour Week (for a Livin’)”—to the top of the country charts. He also wrote No. 1 hits for Wynonna (“She Is His Only Need”), Reba (“Love Will Find Its Way to You” and “One Promise Too Late), and Don Williams “(Heartbeat in the Darkness”) and contributed more major radio hits to Tanya Tucker, Doug Stone, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, among others. Country was where he’d come in—as he made plain on an autobiographical tune from the same album that included his signature hit. “My Father’s Fiddle” is a lovely slice of post-Sweetheart of the Rodeo hippie country, starring Weldon Myrick on pedal steel and Johnny Gimble sawing the titular instrument. Loggins, straining effectively at the top of his range, recalls singing along to the good old country songs his dad played when he was a child and “family unity” was strong. Now those days are as long gone as his dad, but the songs live on. R.I.P., David Allen Loggins. –DC
Purple Disco Machine and Benjamin Ingrosso (featuring Nile Rodgers and Shenseea) – “Honey Boy” (single, 2024)
Purple Disco Machine is German producer and DJ Tino Piontek and the guest vocalists here are Benjamin Ingrosso, a Swedish pop singer, and Shenseea, a Jamaican dancehall star. But the reason I checked this one out, and the reason I’ve been playing it nearly every day for the last few months, is featured guest Nile Rodgers, who’s rhythm guitar work moves the crowd like a catchier iteration of his Daft Punk collab “Get Lucky.” I also dig the way Ingrosso and Shenseea blend on the chorus, like if ABBA joined a glee club. There will be dancing tonight. – DC
No Place Like Home: The Struggle Against Hate in Kansas (2022)
This all-too necessary documentary is directed by Kevin Willmott (of C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America fame, plus Spike Lee’s screenwriting partner for Da 5 Bloods and BlacKkKlansman), and it was based on the book by our friend and my former editor CJ Janovy (she also produced the film). CJ’s 2018 book, No Place Like Home: Lessons in LGBT Activism in Kansas, covered the rise of legislated homophobia in Kansas—and the people who fought back. The film covers the more recent but related rise of transphobia in the state. Distressing stuff for distressing times but the doc is also, make no mistake, empowering and hopeful—in part because it’s based in sympathy for those who choose to stay where they’re not wanted and make the place a better home. That’s an urgent and ongoing project, and not just in Kansas, so please take an hour and check it out now that the film makers have shared it on YouTube. You can also hear Willmott and Janovy chatting a bit about the project here. And please share. – DC
Remi Wolf – “Frog Rock” (from Big Ideas, 2024)
Remi Wolf is one of those brilliant young pop artists who seems to have good ideas spilling out of her faster than she can attach them to the polyglot earworms that fill her growing catalog. Her new album is driven by the can’t-miss single “Cinderella,” but there are some shiny, and quirky, gems deeper inside. My current favorite is “Frog Rock,” a jagged break-up song that owns its ambivalence – “I wish you well, but I don’t want you to be okay” – in both its visceral imagery and the beautiful chaos of its clattering pop. Wolf sings with the appropriate mix of vulnerability and defiance, climbing up and down across her wide vocal range as her self-provided background vocals layer around her lead. I count three separate hooks in this song, four if you count the subtle synth riff throughout. And I count myself lucky to be living in a moment when this artist is making such vibrant and exciting music. – CH
Danae Hays – “Dick in My Nightstand” (single, 2024)
It’s one joke, but it’s a really good one. From Alabama by way of Nashville, comedian and occasional recording artist Danae Hays uses the sonic trappings of contemporary country and its longer lyrical focus on independence and self-reliance to craft an ode to the little friend keeping her from feeling either lonely or unfulfilled. Even as good as that one joke is, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective if not for a hook that’s just as reliable and rechargeable as the title object. It’s too much to imagine that this would ever make country radio, but I can imagine that it might light up more than one backyard party during the rest of this long, hot summer. Turn it up, and turn it on. – CH
Shonna Tucker – “Hollywood Nights” (from Silver Bullet Bluegrass, 2024)
The new bluegrass Bob Seger tribute album is a pleasure, with a group of artists (mostly from around Muscle Shoals, where Seger cut many of his classics and where this album was recorded) exploring both the ruminative and rowdy parts of his catalog in a fully acoustic context. Best of all is the contribution from former Drive-By Truckers bassist and singer Shonna Tucker, who turns “Hollywood Nights” into a banjo-and-fiddle-driven rush and finds a new and effective sonic context for Seger’s tale of love found and lost in the big city. It’s a commanding performance from Tucker, matching Seger’s plainspoken grit on the verses and then soaring into the high-lonesome chorus with a command that makes you wonder why she doesn’t make a whole record that sounds like this. (I hope she does.) It turns out that there’s bluegrass in those Hollywood hills, too. – CH
Sault – “Acts of Faith 0.0” (2024)
The anonymous U.K. collective Sault has been making some of the best and most interesting music of the last few years, dropping new albums into the world unexpectedly and then taking them away with just as little notice. I love them even at their weirdest, but their newest release – the 32-minute song suite “Acts of Faith 0.0” – is a reminder of how effectively the group engages with the R&B, funk, and jazz that have been its creative center. From the bubbling opening through the swooning, string-driven finale, the movements on “Acts of Faith” are, as the title suggests, a meditation on commitment and belief, whether to a higher power, the person next to you, the world around us, or all of the above. Musical themes emerge too, circling around the graceful piano or stalwart interplay between bass and drums as three main singers (or maybe it’s four?) move from solo to unison to harmony to call and response. This is music to survive whatever’s coming next, which – for each of us and all of us – might be a whole helluva lot. The download is gone already, apparently, but hopefully it will return. (They do that sometimes.) Find it if you can. – CH
Shelly Duvall, creator, producer, and host – Faerie Tale Theatre (1982-1987)
Shelley Duvall died last week. Her movie work is remarkable, from her more famous performances to the ones that us devoteés can’t stop talking about. (If you haven’t seen Three Women, go do so immediately.) But, for me, she’ll always first be the creator, producer, and host of the 1980s anthology show Faerie Tale Theatre. Dramatizing stories from the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, One Thousand and One Nights, and other traditions, Faerie Tale Theatre is a varied and compelling series of stand-alone films – some funny, some scary, some moving, many all at once – with an astonishing roster of actors and directors bespeaking Duvall’s industry connections and ambitious creativity. I’m one of those kids who watched Faerie Tale Theatre episodes on rented videos and PBS re-runs, and I’ve become one of those adults who realizes just how remarkable Duvall’s accomplishment was, especially after the supposed end of her professional glory days. (I’m struck, for example, by how many Duvall obituaries spend more time talking about Stanley Kubrick being an ass than they do about this Peabody Award-winning series.) If you want individual episodes, I’d recommend “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” and “Pinocchio,” for starters. But they’re all worth checking out, especially with our dearly departed welcoming us at the beginning of every episode. – CH
Recommended readings:
-Steacy Easton on Jake Xerxes Fussell’s When I’m Called, for Bluegrass Situation
-Bill Friskics-Warren on the late Joe Bonsall of the Oak Ridge Boys, for New York Times
-Jewly Hight on the birth of Black Opry Records, for WPLN.org
-Danyel Smith on Diddy, for New York Times Magazine
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