Happy 2021 Birthday to Stephen Foster, Blind Owl Wilson, and US Independence
by Robert Wilkinson
Our musical July 4 celebration kicks off in a big way with 3 birthdays! With all respects to Mister Chuck, "And we'll be rockin' in Westwood, at UCLA, all the way to Jakarta, and the Bay of Biscay, straight up to Manchester, up in the UK, everyone be rockin' right here today!"
Today we have two musical birthdays to celebrate, and I’ve thrown in a few more to commemorate what America at its best means to me. Because these tunes represent some of the greatest songs in history, kick back and enjoy pure American music!
First, July 4 is the birthday of one of America’s greatest songwriters, Mister Stephen Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864). While this “Father of American music” is mostly forgotten today, his songs live forever and are still part of the Great American Songbook.
In his very short life he wrote over 200 songs, two of which have become official state songs, and one was the anthem of the California Gold Rush (“Oh Susanna.”). Among his best known tunes are “Oh Susanna” (1848-49), “Camptown Races” (1850), “Old Folks at Home” (aka “Suwannee River” 1851), “My Old Kentucky Home” (1853), “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair” (1854), “Old Black Joe” (1853), and “Beautiful Dreamer” (published after his death in 1864.)
A historical note: he made a deliberate decision in his songwriting to take the highest road possible with his lyrics. While these were done in minstrel shows, he never “wrote down” to the people of his day.
From wiki: “Many of Foster's songs were of the blackface minstrel show tradition popular at the time. Foster sought, in his own words, to "build up taste ... among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order." Many of his songs had Southern themes, yet Foster never lived in the South and visited it only once in 1852, by riverboat voyage on his honeymoon on his brother Dunning's steamboat the Millinger, which took him down the Mississippi to New Orleans.”
For your enjoyment, several of the best known songs of the “all American” music man, Mister Stephen Foster!
First, the classic version of “Oh Susanna," which we'll follow with a live performance by James Taylor and Johnny Cash of “Oh Susanna” I also found what has become my favorite adaptation of the original! Neil added a new set of lyrics, and is backed by Crazy Horse in this very electric version of “Oh Susanna”
We now move into a clip from the Bell Tell Hour television show in 1959 featuring a great live performance by Johnny Cash of “Camptown Races” Then there’s this immortal scene from “Blazing Saddles,” still funny to this day! “Camptown Ladies”
Here’s another Foster tune done by Tom Roush, with the original lyrics, featuring a great banjo version of “Old Folks at Home” (aka “Suwannee River”)
We’ll move and groove into the great 1957 Ray Charles’ version of “Suwannee River Rock” and close this tune with a great live video performance by the legendary Fats Domino of “Suwannee River Boogie”
Here's the classic version of another famous Stephen Foster tune! This rendition features the bass of the legendary Paul Robeson. For your enjoyment, “My Old Kentucky Home.” Here's another performance faithful to the original, a gem from John Prine delivering up “My Old Kentucky Home”
Featuring Mister Louie Armstrong, here’s his N’Awlins Jazz Band version from 1964! “My Old Kentucky Home”
Now for the modern reinterpretation of the tune, with raucous lyrics written by the great Randy Newman. Here's his tongue in cheek cynical look at Kentucky "culture," backed by Ry Cooder, Clarence White, and Jim Gordon, also titled “My Old Kentucky Home.” Here's a great live performance in 1974 by Randy of "Old Kentucky Home - Good Night!"
I also found Johnny Cash’s studio version of Randy Newman's arrangement of “My Old Kentucky Home.” We'll close this song with the first time I heard it done with Randy’s lyrics. It’s a great version by the Beau Brummels from their Summer of 1967 album Triangle of “My Old Kentucky Home”
Slowing it down, here's a great piano version by Tom Roush of “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair”
I found a 1934 version offered up by opera star John McCormack of "(I Dream of) Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair."
Here’s a beautiful version by Sam Cooke! For your enjoyment, “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair”
I found it again! For your enjoyment, Tom Roush’s banjo and fiddle version of Stephen’s 1847 tune “Lou’siana Belle.” Here’s the 1934-35 Sons of the Pioneers version of “Louisiana Belle” Yes, Roy Rogers was still in the group and took lead vocals on another Stephen Foster classic, “Old Black Joe”
For another classic offering of this song, here’s the legendary Paul Robeson offering up “Old Black Joe”
Stripping the song of sentimentality, from the 1980 European tour, here’s Jerry Lee Lewis pounding out “Old Black Joe”
Another one by Tom Roush, written in 1860 by Stephen. "Virginia Belle"
Originally written in 1849, here’s Charles Szabo’s piano version of “Nelly Was A Lady”
Here’s a 1917 recording by Alma Gluck of “Nelly Was A Lady”
From 1851, “Old Dog Tray”
We’ll close this tribute with one by Jonathan Guyot Smith, with piano accompaniment. Said to be the last song he wrote before he died, here's “Beautiful Dreamer,” which we'll follow with Roy Orbison’s 1963 version of “Beautiful Dreamer.” We'll finish this trifecta with something recorded in Jan 1963 for Live at the BBC for the Saturday Club with Sir Paul on lead vocals fronting the Beatles’ rocking live version of “Beautiful Dreamer”
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We now move to our second birthday boy, the great Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson (July 4, 1943 – September 3, 1970), the co-founder, leader, and primary composer for the Canned Heat Blues Band. He was another who shook the music world when he died of an OD of downers at 27, two weeks before Jimi and four weeks before Janis.
Extraordinarily blind without his glasses, he was said to be one of the greatest blues guitarists and harp players ever to hit the stage. From wiki: “On the double album Hooker ‘N Heat,, John Lee Hooker is heard wondering how Wilson is capable of following Hooker's guitar playing so well. Hooker was known to be a difficult performer to accompany, partly because of his disregard of song form. Yet Wilson seemed to have no trouble at all following him on this album. Hooker concludes that ‘you [Wilson] musta been listenin' to my records all your life.’ Hooker is also known to have stated ‘Wilson is the greatest harmonica player ever.’”
Without further ado, the July 4th music of the great “Blind Owl” Wilson and Canned Heat!
From the legendary Monterey Pop Festival in the 1967 Summer of Love, here’s Canned Heat in their live performance cranking out “Rollin’ and Tumblin’.” Also from that legendary show, here’s their audio-only version of “Bullfrog Blues”
Here’s a great Beat Club video performance from 1968 of their mega-hit “On the Road Again”
Also from the Beat Club, this time 1969, their huge hit “Goin’ Up The Country”
From their amazing set at Woodstock in the Summer of 1969, here’s a bunch of video performances caught on film for all time!
“Goin’ Up The Country” (If you’re offended because there are some "nekkid butts" swimming in the movie you might want to find another clip...)
The video’s gone, but here’s the audio from Woodstock. “I’m Her Man”
We’ll close their Woodstock set with 10 minutes and 46 second of awesome! Here’s the video of their smash hit with extended leads taking it places the album never knew, “On the Road Again”
From 1969 on Beat Beat Beat, one of their biggest! “Let’s Work Together” and here’s the studio version! “Let’s Work Together”
Here’s a great audio-only live version in January 1970 of “London Blues”
Here’s yet another Beat Club performance in 1970 with CH getting down live cranking out “Move On Down The Road.”
We’ll close this set out with the lead clip to the entire studio album Hooker ‘N Heat” “Messin’ With the Hook” (There are 17 videos available in order of the album list at this site)
For our encore, recorded in 1966-67, here’s the full album titled Live at the Topanga Corral
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While I don’t have time to do a tribute this year, I want to acknowledge it’s the birthday of the legendary Bill Withers. I'll include some of his work next year.
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We’ll close the dance with a few that celebrate this country!
First, the song that should be our national anthem. Written by America’s second Poet Laureate, here’s Woody Guthrie’s original recording of “This Land is Your Land”. And here’s a beautiful offering of the song by the Boss! “This Land Is Your Land” Our third offering of this song comes from the Peter, Paul, and Mary 50th anniversary show, featuring the power of the voice of Mary Travers! “This Land is Your Land” And we'll close this with a stirring finale from the 1987 Farm Aid concert, featuring Arlo Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Kris Kristofferson, and more! Here's OUR song! "This Land is Your Land."
Live on The Dick Cavett Show in 1972, the immortal Ray Charles giving us his version of another song that many believe should be the national anthem! “America the Beautiful.” From 1991, another version by Ray of “America the Beautiful” and from 1999, another offering of “America the Beautiful.” We’ll close this song with the version sung by John Legend at the 2015 Super bowl! “America the Beautiful”
We’ll close the show with a tribute by Rock and Roll America for a better Rock and Roll World!
America = rock and roll. Rock and Roll = Mister Chuck Berry! First, live on Shindig! in 1965, backed by the Shindogs and the Blossoms, Mister Chuck Berry doing a classic live performance of his masterpiece “Back in the USA.” From a few years later, here’s another great live performance from Hail Hail Rock and Roll where we have Keef Richards, Robert Cray, Linda Ronstadt, and the Master cranking out “Back in the USA.”
Chuck also gave us a quintessential travelogue of America written in jail, the iconic “The Promised Land,” also covered a few thousand times by the Grateful Dead! Here’s a great video from New Year’s Eve 1977 with them taking us places with “The Promised Land.” To close this trifecta, no collection of this song would be complete without James Burton and the TCB band cranking it up behind the King’s version of “The Promised Land.”
Speaking of dancing across America, “They're really rockin' in Boston, In Pittsburgh, PA, Deep in the heart of Texas And 'round the ‘Frisco Bay, All over St. Louis And down in New Orleans All the cats wanna dance with “Sweet Little Sixteen.” Then Brian Wilson cribbed Chuck’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” substituting different surfing locations to give us the surfing anthem “Surfin’ USA”
There are a lot of different takes on this country! We have John Mellancamp in his rousing “R.O.C.K. in the USA,” Neil Diamond’s bombast and drama in The Jazz Singer belting out “Coming To America,” and the scathing indictment of our war machine in “Born in the USA.”
We also have the classic by Steve Miller, “Livin’ in the USA” as the King of Soul belts out “Living in America.”
This song was a Canadian band’s take on our nation back in 1968. Here’s the original studio version by the Guess Who of "American Woman," followed by a live version on television from back in the day of "American Woman," and close with a 14 minute live version of "American Woman."
We now go to an immortal tune from Broadway! Here’s Chita Rivera, Bette Midler, and Rita Moreno doing the tune from West Side Story, “America”
From Hullabaloo in 1965, a performance of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller's iconic tune, a somewhat scathingly satiric commentary on the lack of civil rights at the time. Here's Jay and the Americans in a “live” performance of “Only in America.” (Originally written for the Drifters, it is not the tune "America" from West Side Story. From Songfacts: The song was written at a time before integration, and the lyrics were originally about racism. It had the following chorus: "Only in America, land of opportunity, can they save a seat in the back of the bus just for me. Only in America, Where they preach the Golden Rule, will they start to march when my kids go to school." Atlantic Records had a problem with the lyrics, so the songwriters changed them to be a satiric message of patriotism.)
And of course, no tribute to America would be complete without at least one performance of this song! I found this live solo performance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1974 by Paul Simon of the beautiful “American Tune”, and here's an incredible performance in Central Park at the Simon and Garfunkel reunion of “American Tune”
And for our finale, the ultimate version of the national anthem, done at Woodstock in 1969 by the Guitar Master himself! “The Star Spangled Banner” by Jimi Hendrix.
Happy unbirthday to the United States of America! Hooray for independence!
© Copyright 2021 Robert Wilkinson
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