Sunday Musical Magic Celebrating the 2023 Birthday of John Hiatt, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Gilbert Moorer, and Sky Saxon
by Robert Wilkinson
We continue our fantastic musical feast celebrating the birthday of the great John Hiatt as well as one of the all-time greatest pedal steel pickers, Sneaky Pete Kleinow. We also celebrate the Esquires and the legendary Sky Saxon and the Seeds! We have swamp rock, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Chicago Soul, and original LA grunge.
We lead off with the singular talent of John Hiatt (August 20, 1952), a thoroughly awesome American singer-songwriter. One of my favorites for years, he’s won numerous Grammys and played with the best of the best. He’s done 21 albums, and had his songs covered by the biggest stars in the world, from BB King and Eric Clapton to Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt. He’s generally considered one of the best in the world at what he does, so if you haven’t had the privilege of listening to his amazing music, get ready to enjoy a treat!
From 1987 in Germany, here’s John Hiatt, Sonny Landreth, and the Goners playing “Radio Girl”
From the same gig, “Memphis in the Meantime”
An amazing live performance by John and Sonny doing John’s tune “Riding With the King”
John, Sonny, and the Goners doing the very psychedelic tune from The Tiki Bar is Open, “Farther Stars”
Now some treats from "Little Village," featuring John, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and John Keltner! First, a live performance of "She Runs Hot," and from the same concert, "Don't Bug Me When I'm Working." Here Little Village rocks out in 1992 Dusseldorf on "Thing Called Love."
From the BBC Late Show in Feb 1992, Little Village doing three great ones! "The Action,” “Fool Who Knows,” and “Don’t Think About Her”
Last year I had a great 1993 live show titled John Hiatt Live in Holland but this year it’s disappeared. Instead, here’s a 54 minute show from 1997! John Hiatt Live at Loreley
From 1993 in Holland, here’s John live performing “The River Knows Your Name”
From his great album The Tiki Bar is Open, the studio version of “My Old Friend”
Also from that great album, one of the most beautiful, haunting, and surrealistic love songs I’ve ever heard! “I’ll Never Get Over You.” Here’s a slower, more acoustic version of “I’ll Never Get Over You”
From the album Walk On, one of my all-time favorites! It’s one of the best hard rock songs ever written. Harrowing lyrics, and it rocks hard! “As Good As She Could Be.” From the same album, “Dust Down A Country Road” and “You Must Go”
Here’s John live, solo, and unplugged performing one of my favorites, the driving “Cry Love.”
From 2012 in Madrid, a mainly acoustic gentle version of “Dust Down A Country Road” (This performance reminded me of The Band.)
Live on a German game show, “Dust Down A Country Road”
From Rockpalast in 1997, a great electric version of “Cry Love”
From Farm Aid 2000, Bonnie Raitt and John performing “Thing Called Love”
Live in 2010 at Salt Lake City, John performing “Wrote it Down and Burned It”
From the same gig, “The Tiki Bar is Open,” followed by “Open Road” and “Master of Disaster”
Here’s a recent 1 hour 15 minute show by John! John Hiatt Live at the 2014 Milwaukee Summerfest
Here are a few of his tunes made into hits by other bands. Live in 1974, here are Three Dog Night doing John’s tune “Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here”
Live via satellite for the 1986 Farm Aid concert, the great Bob Dylan performing John’s “Across the Borderline”
From 1990, a very grainy video performance by Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Brown of “Across the Borderline”
Here’s the music video that won a Grammy in 2000! Featuring the great BB King and Eric Clapton, here’s the very grooved out performance of John’s iconic tune “Riding With the King”
We’ll close this brief birthday tribute with John performing one of my favorites! “Shredding the Document”
Here's a great "in the studio" interview and performance with Jody Denberg of KUT in Austin. John is joined with Lyle Lovett, and the music begins about 7 minutes in. John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett live in the Austin KUT Studios
Our first encore comes live on Letterman in 2010 with John giving us another of his classic swamp rock tunes, “The Open Road”
For our second encore, also live on Letterman with Sonny Landreth on slide, here’s John cranking out the rocking “Slow Turning”
May you have many more years of rocking out, Mister John Hiatt! You’re cranking out some of the best music ever made!!
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And now, a short set of Chicago soul celebrating the life and work of Gilbert Moorer (born Gilbert Moorer, Jr., August 20, 1941-August 28, 2008) founder of the Esquires, an R&B group who had one gigantic hit in the ‘60s! “Get On Up” made it to #11 on the pop charts, and #3 on the R&B charts in 1967, and was on the radio several times a day for months!
“Get On Up” with “And Get Away”
They never made much of an impact besides these two songs, but here’s a clip which will autoload several tunes they did, showcasing their style. They playlist begins with “Everybody’s Laughing” and goes from there. Enjoy!
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Our third set features an obscure legend in LA 60s psychedelic garage rock who gave us two memorable tunes when he fronted for the Seeds, Sky “Sunlight” Saxon (August 20, 1937 – June 25, 2009). From Wikipedia, “The music on the Seeds 1966 albums “The Seeds” and “A Web of Sound” have been described as ‘weird psychotic blues highlighting Sky's demented, vocal sermonizing.’”
Their first hit in 1965! Here’s a live lip synched television performance of “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”
By way of contrast, here’s a “live in the studio” version stripped of the artificial audience track of “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”
Now, from 1966, the one everybody remembers! Here’s a great early video on Shebang, Casey Kasem’s television show where the Seeds lip-synch to their biggest hit, voted in Rolling Stone as “one of the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.” For your amazement, the seminal “Pushin’ Too Hard”
Also from Shebang at another time, the Seeds performing their 1966 follow-up”Mr. Farmer.”
Next, a very strange video from the 1969 sitcom The Mothers In Law, where Sky and the Seeds perform their biggest hit, “Pushin’ Too Hard” (“We think it’s gassy.” 60s television could be ridiculous at times....)
For a glimpse of the LA psychedelic scene in 1966, here’s the Seeds’ first album. The Seeds This album and A Web of Sound are some of the first protorypical garage rock made by anyone.
Also from 1967, their second studio album A Web of Sound
And here’s their third album, also from 1967, the psychedelic experiment titled Future
From November 1967, here’s an album by the Sky Saxon Blues Band, accompanied by members of Muddy Waters’ band! A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues
We now cut to their 1968 “live in the studio” album The Seeds - Raw & Alive in concert at Merlin's Music Box, with the whole show in order of the set list. Here’s the very “live” sound of Sky Saxon and the Seeds!
“Mr. Farmer”“No Escape”“Satisfy You”“Night Time Girl”“Up In Her Room”“Gypsy Plays his Drums”“Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”“Mumble and Bumble”“Forest Outside Your Door”“900 Million People Daily All Making Love”“Pushin’ Too Hard”For our closer, two live sets! First, 39 minutes of the Seeds live in Anaheim! The Seeds Live at the Melodyland Theater 1968,, which we’ll follow with a 38 minute radio show on KBLA in 1967 (their manager was the DJ of that “flower power” music show). The Seeds Live on KBLA - 1967
For the encore, a performance at the legendary Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival on June 11 1967, just days before Monterey Pop! Here are the Seeds ripping themselves off performing something that sounds like “Son of Pushing Too Hard,” “A Thousand Shadows”
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Our final set of the night features one of the best steel guitar players ever to pick a note! Peter E. "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow (August 20, 1934 – January 6, 2007) was a pedal steel guitar master, as well as a songwriter and motion picture special effects artist. While I don’t have the time to do a complete tribute this year, he is known for his work with the biggest of the big. For now, a few!
First, live on television in 1971, the Burritos cranking out one of the all time trucking tunes! “Been taking’ little white pills and my eyes are open wide..." Dancing with major attitude! For your enjoyment, the Flying Burrito Brothers giving us “Six Days on the Road”
Also on television in the early days with Gram Parsons, here are the Burritos live performing “Christine’s Tune (Devil in Disguise)”
Here’s an extraordinary live video of the Burritos at the legendary "Festival Express" playing “Lazy Days”
From 1969, a full concert of 1 hour 11 minutes live at the Avalon Ballroom featuring the steel magic of Sneaky Pete, The Flying Burrito Brothers Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969
Also from 1969, here’s a full 1 hour 16 minutes of The Flying Burrito Brothers at the 1969 Seattle Pop Festival
For our third show from 1969, an hour and 34 of The Flying Burrito Brothers Live at the Palomino 1969
From 1970, 41 minutes of the Burritos live! The Flying Burrito Brothers Live at Ellis Auditorium
We’ll close with a smokin’ audio-only concert from November 1970! The Flying Burrito Brothers at the Fillmore East 1970
For the encore, a real audio only treat! Here’s an hour and 20 of history! The Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds at the Whisky in LA - 1970
Thanks for the memories, Pete. In rock and roll heaven they truly have one helluva band!
© Copyright 2023 Robert Wilkinson
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