Great Guitar Solos, #6: Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My"

My oldest and deepest Neil Young association comes from 'mid-80s television ads (for the local chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters) which featured "I Am a Child." The song was soft and melodic, easy on the ears, perfect for an organization dedicated to nurturing and growing young people. To me, "I Am a Child" evoked a rustic setting - a shack in a clearing in the boonies, a man on the porch with an acoustic guitar playing his heart out because there's nothing else he'd rather be doing.  

Many of the other Neil Young songs I was familiar with at the time ("Heart of Gold," "Sugar Mountain," "Old Man") were in this vein. The classic rock radio staples like "Cinnamon Girl" which were electric guitar-based didn't alter my first impression. I thought of Neil primarily as a country-folk artist until I acquired a cassette tape of "Ragged Glory" in the early '90s. 

"Ragged Glory" is chock full of ballsy guitar rock. The opener, "Country Home," is a seven-minute rocker which features extensive, sprawling jams filled with Les Paul distortion, milky bends, pinch harmonics, and tasty leads which play off the main melody. "Fuckin' Up"--a song we can all relate to--goes six minutes, propelled by an

infectious main theme and colossal waves of guitar noise. "Love and Only Love" runs to ten minutes thanks to numerous jam segues which feature squeals, whelps, and big swells of prehistoric feedback.  

As one would expect, Neil's guitar voice is an extension of Neil the artist:  it isn't pretty, but it is beautiful. He isn't a virtuoso who plays fast, fluid runs or spends ten hours at a stretch in his bedroom mastering obscure modes and scales. Like Neil's eternally unkempt, rugged appearance, his playing is raw, emotional, direct. 

The video below, "Hey Hey, My My" from the "Ragged Glory" tour, captures Neil's six-string spirit in full flower. There's much to love, from the yellow Elvis t-shirt (nothing says rock 'n' roll like Elvis) to his spastic abandon as he lurches around the stage to the excitement of the audience. 

Today, as Neil Young turns 68, I must once again express gratitude for Canada's finest musical export. 

Other "Truth and Beauty" guitar hero essays:

Click here for "The Second Coming:  Stevie Ray Vaughan," a first-hand account of Vaughan's final concert

here for "Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar - The Six-String Wizardry of Frank Zappa, Part II"

here for "It was 70 years ago today:  an appreciation of Jimi Hendrix"

                         here for "Link Wray's 'Rumble'"                            

here for Great Guitar Solos, #1:  Eddie Hazel (Funkadelic)

here for Great Guitar Solos, #2:  Frank Zappa

here for Great Guitar Solos, #3:  Hiram Bullock 

here for Great Guitar Solos, #4: Dweezil Zappa Nails "Eruption"

here for Great Guitar Solos, #5:  Alvin Lee

There must be something in the water: the magic of "Muscle Shoals"

In the early 19th Century, a tribe of Euchee Indians lived contentedly along the Tennessee River, near Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The Euchees considered the Tennessee sacred; they believed that a goddess dwelled there who protected the tribe from harm and sang to them in the whispering tones of the river. 

Forced off their land in the 1830s by the white man, the indigenous Euchees moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma. The new landscape was fallow; with no spiritual connection to the land, the Euchees were unable to perform their rituals. 

Hungering for the singing river, a young Euchee woman (Tehlanay) began a journey back to the Tennessee River which took five years. Tehlanay's spirit lives on in the woods surrounding Muscle Shoals in an arresting stone memorial erected by her great-great grandson, Tom Hendrix, whose masterwork made its way into the Library of Congress.   

This is one of the many stories which feed the mystery at the heart of "Muscle Shoals," a

wondrous new music documentary from first-time director Greg "Freddy" Camalier.  

What is it about certain locations and eras that produces timeless music? 

One expects to find musical history in cosmopolitan hubs like New York, London, or Los Angeles, but how is it that a remote Alabama town of five thousand people contributed a panoply of the most soulful '60s and '70s tracks pressed onto wax?

The mystique of Muscle Shoals is implied with nature documentary-like camera work which is seamlessly woven into a lively mix of interviews and archival footage. At various points the slow-moving camera eye lingers on deep swamp, a purling stream, a bright field of daisies, water washing over riverbed rock. 

The actualization of the Muscle Shoals sound is conveyed through the anecdotes of rock 'n' soul royalty (Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Steve Winwood, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Bono) and the largely unknown studio musicians who backed the stars. 

And then there's Rick Hall - engineer, producer, entrepreneur, protagonist. The son of a mill worker, Hall grew up poor in a

Rick Hall with Otis Redding

shack with a dirt floor and no bathroom; he slept on a bed of straw. Beset by grim personal tragedies that could have come from a Faulkner novel, the resilient Hall dedicated his life to music, the one thing that gave him solace.  

Hall's father taught him that "good isn't good enough." Rick had to be the best at whatever he pursued. 

After being fired from his first studio engineering job  (because he was considered too driven and too serious about his work), Hall opened Fame Recording Studios in a converted tobacco warehouse, in 1959. Hall knew he had to produce hits to keep the studio in business; he first struck it big in 1961 with "You Better Move On" by Arthur Alexander, a local bellhop.

With the money from "You Better Move On," Hall opened a new-and-improved studio which operates to this day. To support the vocalists who recorded at Fame, Hall recruited a group of Muscle Shoals area teenagers--later nicknamed "The Swampers"--as his house band. Hall christened the new studio with "Steal Away," a ballad by local resident Jimmy Hughes which reached #17 on the Billboard charts.  

The notoriety from this hit brought business to Muscle Shoals. In time, Hall became so busy that an overflow studio, Norala Sound Studio, was opened in nearby Sheffield. In 1966, Percy Sledge, an orderly at the Sheffield hospital, recorded "When a Man Loves a Woman" with The Swampers at Norala. After the single was cut, Hall contacted Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, who helped with distribution and marketing, making it a monster hit.

The connection to Wexler and Atlantic brought soul star Wilson Pickett to Muscle Shoals. Upon his arrival at the studio, Pickett was aghast at the sight of cotton fields, a symbol of the contrast between the world outside Fame Sound Studios and the world inside. 

Outside was the Deep South of George Wallace, which was largely hostile to civil rights.

Black and white members of the Fame collective were liable to draw dirty looks when they dined together in public, and as Clarence Carter recounted, African-Americans were expected to address whites as "Mr." or "Ms." 

Inside the studio, where everyone was on a first-name basis, a rhythm section of white country boys supported by a biracial horn accompaniment backed black soul singers. The Muscle Shoals sound was so integrated that Paul Simon called Al Bell and asked to record with the black musicians who'd played on the Bell-penned "I'll Take You There," not knowing that The Swampers had been the backing band. According to the lore, Bell said, "That can happen, but these guys are mighty pale." 

Pickett and The Swampers recorded three big hits ("Land of a 1000 Dances," "Mustang Sally," and "Funky Broadway"). The success of these sessions helped Rick Hall score his next big coup.

At the time, Aretha Franklin had been under contract with Columbia Records, which had wasted her interpretive talents on ill-fitting arrangements and then dropped her from the label. 

Jerry Wexler signed Aretha to Atlantic Records and sent her down to Fame, despite some misgivings about the Muscle Shoals method. At Atlantic's New York studios, arrangements were fully composed in advance and trained studio musicians played off of charts, but in Muscle Shoals the recording process was more of an organic, collaborative effort. Aretha and the backup band had "head sessions." She threw out ideas and the band constructed a song piece by piece, together. As Wilson Pickett said, "They'd find the groove." 

One result of this process was "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Loved You)," a number one hit which launched the Queen of Soul. 

Also recorded with the Swampers were the big hits "Chain of Fools," "Think," "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," and "Respect." 

***

In 1969, just as Rick Hall was signing a lucrative contract with Capitol Records, the Swampers went into business for themselves, opening the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio across town. This studio went on to incredible success, hosting Bob Dylan, Traffic, Rod Stewart, Bob Seger, Boz Scaggs, and the Rolling Stones, who cut three classic tracks there ("Wild Horses," "Brown Sugar," and the nitty gritty "You Gotta Move") in just two days. 

Unbowed, Rick Hall replaced The Swampers with a new group of studio musicians (The Fame Gang) and continued on without a hitch, eventually becoming the Billboard Producer of the Year in 1971.

Among Hall's big finds was Duane Allman. In the beginning, Hall didn't let Allman into the Fame rotation, because he wasn't yet a known quantity. According to Gregg Allman, since they had "all the time in the world," he convinced his brother to go horseback riding. Duane wasn't hot on the idea, but he went along with it, only to fall off the horse and injure his elbow.

Wilson Pickett and Duane Allman

Unable to play guitar, Duane holed up in his apartment and refused to talk to Gregg.

Eager to get back in his older brother's good graces, Gregg left a gift-wrapped copy of the then-new Taj Mahal album (which included crafty slide guitar work from Jesse "Ed" Davis) and a bottle of Coricidin pills on Duane's porch. He rang the bell and fled.

Two hours later, Duane called Gregg up and asked him to come over. When Gregg arrived, he found that Duane had dumped the pills out and begun playing slide guitar with the Coricidin bottle. Within the next couple years Duane would become one of the most renowned rock 'n' blues slide players ever.

Such tales of happenstance inspiration make "Muscle Shoals" a rich and uplifting way to spend 111 minutes. The movie is a big, juicy slice of Americana which reflects the unique power of music to bind us together through our common humanity. Coming soon to a theater near you.

                                                 Other "Truth and Beauty" film reviews:

                                                                         "Inequality for All"

                                                                   "A spoiler-free review of 'Mud'"        

 "Truth is in the Eye of the Interpreter:  a Review of 'Room 237'"

"No!"

"Searching for Sugar Man"

"Honest Abe Makes Sausage" (about "Lincoln")

"First Glance:  'The Master'"

"Errol Morris Strikes Again" (about "Tabloid")

"Do not go gentle into that good night"

The other day at lunch a friend mentioned the imminent passing of a relative who was coming up on 100 years old. 

From this unfortunate news we branched off to a discussion of aging and mortality. My friend said he didn't want to live to be that old, considering the low quality of life for most nonagenarians.

I respected his view--one I've heard many times before--and offered my own, namely the theory that for most of us, our physical erosion is so gradual that we can adapt to working with less. Old age is a long way out in the future; barring an unforeseen illness, I see myself sticking around as long as I can.

Which brought to mind one of my favorite poems these past several decades, a poem that followed me from a dramatic reading in college prep English to a prominent pushpinned spot on my dot.com era cubicle wall to this very moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dylan Thomas.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"Inequality for All" and the elephant in the room

I paid $12.50 for my ticket to "Inequality for All," a new documentary about income inequality in America. The ticket, popcorn, and soda were upwards of $25. 

Ponying up for the occasional night out is no big deal, but it illustrates one of the major points of "Inequality for All":  as my wage remains flat, everything around me gets more expensive. I can handle this type of small extravagance because I'm childless with no debt, but for working families with children, family movie night could be economically problematic.

"Inequality for All" was playing at San Francisco's Metreon, a local multiplex. As people filled screening rooms to see forgettable fare such as "Runner, Runner" and "Baggage Claim," the audience for "Inequality for All"--a film of substance and import--was small. I walked in a few minutes before showtime and had my choice of seats. Most of the forty or so people spread around were academic-looking Bay Area Baby Boomers who already knew the score - I imagined trees falling in a forest.

It's easy to see why escapism rules the day. Evil never sleeps, as Paul Krassner once said, and most political documentaries are exercises in impotent rage. Many people, particularly those working a stressful full-time job, would rather lose themselves in spectacle than "take their medicine" at the movie theater. 

"Inequality for All" tries a different approach. The movie contains depressing information,

but its story is told through the warm, engaging presence of Robert Reich, the first Labor Department secretary and conscience of the Clinton Administration. Though dead serious about income inequality (he has studied and written about the subject for decades), Reich is mild-mannered, with a good sense of humor and an underlying humanism.

In a lecture in front of a big "Wealth and Poverty" class at UC-Berkeley, speeches at a Berkeley rally and a union meeting, and snippets from a one-on-one interview, Reich explains the history and causes of economic inequality without taking partisan shots.

Reich is a committed capitalist who acknowledges that some degree of inequality is inevitable to reward hard work and ingenuity. But income inequality in the United States is extreme. The U.S. has the most inequality in the developed world, an income gap between rich and poor comparable to that found in Uruguay, Jamaica, and Cameroon.

Americans work more hours than anyone else in the first world, and though their productivity has steadily increased over the years, wages for most have stagnated due to the

decline of unions and the downward pressure on pay scales brought by globalization. In 1978, the top 1% of Americans made $390,000 annually, while the average worker earned $48,000 (in today's dollars). By 2010, the average worker made just $34,000, while the median one-percenter had an income in excess of a million dollars. And the 400 richest Americans today have more money than the bottom 50%.  
Reich shows direct correlations between excessive CEO compensation and both inequality and economic stagnation for average Americans. The movie profiles a handful of struggling families to put a human face on the ways in which working Americans fall behind as the cost of housing, healthcare, education, and childcare rise faster than incomes. 

Technological change plays a role in the sluggish job market. Though Amazon.com clears a huge volume of product, it has just 60,000 employees. If Amazon's merchandise was sold merchant-by-merchant, 10-15 times that many people could be employed. Also, with capital flowing so freely across borders, opportunistic U.S. companies outsource jobs to the lowest bidder, to countries with cheap labor costs and lax regulations, in a race to the bottom. 

But technology isn't the only culprit; income inequality in the United States is to a large degree man-made. As Reich points out, there's no such thing as a pure free market. Every country regulates certain sectors of the economy and deregulates other areas. 

The question becomes: what rules are made, and whom do those rules benefit? 

Over the past 35 years, the rules have shifted greatly in favor of the wealthy and business interests, to the detriment of society at large. Due to loopholes and tax

breaks on investor income, many of the 1%--such as presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose tax rate was under 14%--pay effectively lower rates than working-class Americans. Despite the stark contrast in job growth after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich (21,000,000 new jobs) and George W. Bush lowered taxes on the rich (-646,000 jobs), the right continues to claim that increasing taxes on the wealthy (the "job creators") will hurt economic growth.    

Nick Hanauer, a wildly successful and civic-minded entrepreneur, begs to differ. According to Hanauer, customers are the major job creators, as consumer spending is 70% of the economy. While a representative member of the 1% has 30 times the income of the average American, they often own just one or two cars, one or two houses, etc. The bulk of their money doesn't generate any economic activity; it sits in investment accounts, what Hanauer refers to as "underutilized capacity." 

The American economy grows from the middle out, not the top down. When Americans are

employed, they have money. When they have money, they buy goods. When they buy goods, jobs are created to meet consumer demand. When jobs are created, those new employees spend money too. The heightened economic activity increases tax revenue, which enables the government to invest in education, producing a better-educated, higher-paid job force, and so on, in a virtuous cycle.

Government policy in '50s America provides a sharp contrast to our Social Darwinist present and a glimpse at how things could be with the right political leadership and governing priorities. 

During that decade--the high point of America's middle class--unionization was at its peak (a third of American workers were unionized); most workers had stable jobs and wages and the ability to support a family with one income. The federal government invested heavily in education, which generated a marked increase in Americans with degrees; by the late '50s, the U.S. had the best-educated workforce in the world. And Republican Dwight Eisenhower kept tax rates on the richest Americans at 91%. The 1% did fine, but so did most other Americans. How times have changed.

***

"Inequality for All" is informative and accessible, but avoids the elephant in the room:  the

Occupy - Portland

direct and aggressive role the Republican Party and its benefactors have played in magnifying all of the ugly trends identified in the movie.

The film mentions that UC-Berkeley, where Reich teaches, had free tuition in the '60s, tuition of just $700 (in today's dollars) in the '70s, and now has tuition of $15,000 for in-state students. This fact is wheeled out, but the reasons for the skyrocketing tuition (decades of cuts to education spending initiated by state and federal Republican politicians and activists) go unmentioned. 

The effect of inequality and economic stagnation on social polarization--as reflected by Occupy on the left and the Tea Party on the right--comes up, but no contrast is drawn between these movements. The viewer could easily presume that both are grassroots in nature, with equally valid grievances. No attempt is made to explain how the corporate-funded Tea Party has benefited some of the very same economic elites who contributed to the 2008 crash and continue to make working Americans' lives so difficult. 

Due to an insistence on being non-threatening to a broad audience, "Inequality for All" leaves us short of realistic political strategies for reducing economic inequality. While explaining how floods of campaign cash, low tax rates on the wealthy, austerity policies, and the disintegration of unions have driven economic inequality to record highs, the filmmakers fail to provide the simple and essential context that one party and one side of the political spectrum are overwhelmingly to blame for these developments and show no signs of reversing course. Lacking a diagnosis of the cancer that ravages our political system, "Inequality" offers no clear prescription for curing what ails us. 

Despite these man-made challenges, Reich is optimistic about the future. Progressive

change is hard to come by in the United States due to checks and balances and entrenched interests, but dark (or just plain uneventful) stretches of American history have been interrupted every few decades by periods of reform, from the Progressive era to the '30s to the '60s to January 1, 2014, when the United States will take the first step toward universal healthcare coverage.

As Winston Churchill said, "Americans always do the right thing eventually - after they've exhausted all other possibilities."

***

                                                 Other "Truth and Beauty" film reviews:

                                                                  "A spoiler-free review of 'Mud'"        

 "Truth is in the Eye of the Interpreter:  a Review of 'Room 237'"

"No!"

"Searching for Sugar Man"

"Honest Abe Makes Sausage" (about "Lincoln")

"First Glance:  'The Master'"

"Errol Morris Strikes Again" (about "Tabloid")

On a clear day you can see forever.

Mark Twain is rumored to have said "the coldest winter I spent was a summer in San Francisco." There's no hard evidence that Twain actually said this, but it's a claim that's easy to believe when you live here. As in years past, the skies were cloudy and the temperatures mild through much of July and August.   

In September, we suddenly got some true summer weather, as the sun and heat came out of hiding. Monday I headed out with my camera to take advantage. 

I started at the bottom of Hill Street, one of the sharper inclines in San Francisco,

steep enough to merit a warning sign.

At the top of the hill I happened on 

a fitting image for one of humanity's highest ideals

(Click on photo to enlarge)

  and got a nice look at Noe Valley and Diamond Heights.

                                                                                       Perspective.

                                                

                                          As I walked around the streets near the top of  the hill, 
                                                      this stately Victorian caught my attention,
                                                       

                                                     
                                                         as did this vista view on 21st Street, 
                                                            overlooking the Mission District.
                                                                         

A classic Oldsmobile Jetstar 88 was parked 

a few blocks west, at Castro and Hill Street.

Here is the front,  

the profile,

the inside. 

A nearby mirror

reflected the corner house across the way.

I continued west through the Castro District. 

A few blocks from Market Street I saw this cylindrical bay window, 

a common design in San Francisco which always makes me

think of the canisters my dad put his deposit slips in 

at drive-through banks many years back.

When I peered more closely through the blinding mid-day sun, 

I saw this very important message.

On a clear day you can see forever. 

At the top of Market Street one finds this fishbowl view of 

the Castro, Mission, and South of Market districts, as well as

the southern stretch of the downtown skyline

and a hint of the bay.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

          

Crossing into the Haight-Ashbury district, I saw this magical house in Ashbury Heights.

A friendly chap who passed by while walking his pooch said that the house had been the Japanese or Chinese consulate before World War II.  Or was it the German consulate?

He wasn't sure, but told me one of the residents was an interior designer and

                                           recommended that I come back on Halloween, 

                                       Thanksgiving, or Christmas for the special displays. 

(Click on photo to enlarge)

The long view.

From the Haight I went two miles west  

to St. Anne of the Sunset Catholic Church.

St. Anne's is 

the only pink church I've ever seen.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

As I snapped photos,

fog started to roll in from the ocean.

I went to a nearby Jamba Juice to refuel, 

took in the traffic and people traversing

 the busy 9th and Irving intersection, and

did a free write on the prompt "FILL IN," 

since I was writing around a few notes (in red) 

that I'd scribbled on the page some time back.

(Click on photo to enlarge)

After filling the page and slurping an orange sherbet smoothie I went back to St. Anne's. 

It wasn't even 2:30, but the church--and the neighborhood--had been completely overtaken by fog, a common occurrence in the not-so-aptly named Sunset District and

a good example of San Francisco's micro climates. 

Just a few blocks away, at 6th Avenue, 

it was cloudy behind me, facing the ocean,

even as it was sunny heading east, toward the Haight.

As luck would have it, 

against the gray gloom of fog 

the 6th Street intersection was blessed with 

this red star pole,

this pretty yellow swing,

and a winking sun.

Trying to beat the fog, I rode through the Haight District 

down sleepy, scenic Page Street, where

I was passed by a man and dog. 

At Broderick and Page, the fog was still moving east

though blue sky greeted me ahead.

As I made way through the Castro a few minutes later, 

I came upon this silver Mustang 

with parallel black stripes down front and back.

Five blocks on I encountered a challenging hill at Sanchez Street. 

Here's a view from the top.

Further south I found this

watermelon-colored entry in Noe Valley where

(Click on photo to enlarge)

watery shadows of wind-whipped trees

pooled in ever-shifting forms 

on house and sidewalk.

Continuing southwest, 

at the lip of Diamond Heights,

I saw Noe Valley on the left and

Bernal Heights Hill on the right.

I coasted down from on high to the Church Street corridor, 

home of one Daniel Caballero,

who left a helpful message 

for the Parking Nazis.

As the fog invaded Noe, I continued to chase blue skies

and discovered this graffiti artist at 26th and Mission.

Tools of the trade.

Bear woman full-blown,

up close.

Not a stone's throw away was Lilac Street.

It doesn't look like much from this angle,

and the grit was dialed up by the invading fog,

but beauty can exist in the least likely places, with

eyes like marbles and 

hearts of steel.  

Other "Truth and Beauty" photo essays:

"Gone but not Forgotten" is a tribute to a friend who left this world all too soon 

"Random San Francisco" has 46 photos which range from 

ornate architecture to street scenes to vistas to murals

"A Sunny* Monday in San Francisco" is a day tour of the city, 

from Mission Street to the Pacific Ocean

"California in November" captures deep fall natural splendor

"The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the Marin Headlands" 

                 "Vintage Cars" is an evening tour of old automobiles in the Mission District