Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Three) Johnny Thunders' So Alone

Johnny Thunders would have turned sixty years old today. In tribute to one of my major musical heroes, I am re-posting this look at his greatest album that I wrote in the early days of Moon in the Gutter.


Memory is a strange thing, specifically what we remember. I have over 3,000 records and cds. I've been collecting, passionately, since I was in my early teens. I have had girlfriends that I can't even remotely remember anything about but I can pretty much pull any of my records, or discs out, and recall not only where where I got them but what was going on in my life at the time. I couldn't tell you what I was doing last week but I could tell you my first 45 was Blondie's "The Tide Is High" and that my first lp was Elvis Gold Records Vol. 5. I mention this because, even though I remember these things clearly, certain albums seem to be almost part of my DNA...while I remember the first time with them, I can't imagine ever really being without them.
I found Johnny Thunders then out of print solo debut, SO ALONE, on vinyl in a tiny Manhattan record store in 1992. I had discovered JT at the perfect age of 16 when I bought the first New York Dolls record and even though his guitar playing had been copied a million times over at that point there was still a freshness and raw energy that made it totally unique and unbelievably compelling to me.
Southern Indiana in the late 80s early 90s was not the most ideal spot for finding Johnny Thunders solo records; so for several years it was just those Doll sides, some scattered live recordings and articles that I found in old music magazines.
I'll never forget getting the news that JT had died my senior year of high school. My friend Ryan coming into the cafeteria and simply saying, 'Johnny died'.
A year or so later my father took me up to Queens to see Johnny's grave, by that point Jerry Nolan was gone also and the groundskeeper was very helpful in helping us locating both markers. Johnny's grave was covered with stuff fans had brought...I added a pack of Lucky Strikes..
It was on that same visit that I found SO ALONE, a near mint original British pressing with the insert sleeve. The original Rolling Stone review was entitled 'The Promise Of Rock and Roll' and all these years later that still seems fitting. It's not only one of the great rock albums but it's an album that's in love with the idea of rock itself. It's because of this record that when I think of Johnny I don't think of drugs, his early death or any of that shit, I just think of the passion and humanity that he injects on SO ALONE'S 10 tracks. Humanity might seem an odd word to use in describing Johnny but like the line goes in "Great Big Kiss", "Bad but not evil". Hell, even the notorious Sex Pistols put down "London Boys" has a certain honor to it...like a kid talking trash on the playground because he's been insulted in front of his friends.
The album open with what sounds like a call to arms with Thunders storming version of the classic instrumental "Pipeline". What other 'punk' album would have worn it's heart on its sleeve so much? Johnny on this album right up to his final work COPYCATS would always, at heart, be that kid who grew up listening to rock in the 50s and 60s. One of the main things that always separated the New York punk scene from the British one was New York's willingness to tip their hat to what had inspired them. A lot of the British bands from the time seemed to take this holier than thou attitude that they were doing something new, when of course they had all been influenced by the same stuff the NY scene had. While Joe Strummer was singing 'No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones' Patti Smith was covering "Jailhouse Rock" and Richard Hell was doing "Ventilator Blues". It all works out though, and the influences that punk carried are more and more known. I think it might even get to the point where I can say no one was more punk than Elvis in '55 or The Who in '66 and not be looked at like I was crazy.
SO ALONE includes a mixture of covers, originals and a few older redone Dolls tracks and yet it feels completely cohesive. "You Can't Put Your Arm Around A Memory" is the most famous and probably rightly so, but listen to the way he sings David Johansen's incredible lyrics to "Subway Train" or that cover of the Otis Blackwell penned "Daddy Rolling Stone". It sounds like a greatest hits album to me and if the closing late period Dolls track "Downtown" doesn't make you miss what used to be New York City, nothing will.
A lot has been written about Johnny Thunders, highly recommended is Nina Antonia's bio 'In Cold Blood' (plus her work on The Dolls) and books like 'From The Velvets to The Voidoids' and 'Please Kill Me' are essential. For newcomers, I would recommend three things over any of those: The first Dolls album, SO ALONE and an essay Richard Hell wrote after Johnny died called 'Johnny Thunders and The Endless Party'. It's available in Hell's must have 'Hot and Cold' book. There isn't a finer piece of writing on a rocker that's ever been written. The most famous quote comes when Hell describes him as the 'the rock and roll Dean Martin of Heroin' which is of course dead on but it's his description of Thunders as a guy who wanted to be 'as good as Frank Sinatra and Elvis' that really gets me. After reading that I saw that guy staring at me from that isolated corner on the cover of SO ALONE differently. He was no longer that doomed rock and roll loser that everyone is so quick to cast him off as. He was just a kid who grew up wishing he could wear a great suit, play music that he loved so much and be as good as good ever got. Through the ten tracks on SO ALONE Johnny Thunders got his wish.

...

Barbara McNair: 1934-2007

I was saddened to hear that actress/singer Barbara McNair had passed away Sunday, losing a long battle with throat cancer.
Outside of being a fine singer who cut some great albums for Motown in the sixties, a terrific double cd retrospective is available, she also costarred not only in one of my Jess Franco's best films, but also one of my favorite Elvis Presley films.
1969 saw the American release of both Franco's Venus In Furs and Elvis' final film, Change of Habit. McNair was unforgettable in both. She was especially effective as the stunning nightclub singer Rita in Franco's film opposite James Darren. Her singing of the theme song is an incredibly memorable moment and her voice echoes throughout the film each time Maria Rohm enacts her revenge.
Change of Habit is a lesser film compared to Venus In Furs but it is still a personal favorite. Elvis had never been more beautiful and his final film would be a total break from the formula pictures he had been doing. Mcnair and Elvis share several really nice moments for, future X-Files director, William Graham. Mcnair and Elvis got along well off the set and she would later remember him fondly as a supportive friend in several documentaries after his death.
McNair appeared in many films and tv shows, as well as her own variety show, including They Call Me Mr. Tibbs and a great guest spot on The Mod Squad.
Her albums are well wortrh searching out and two, as well as the double disc anthology, are in print on cd. She gave one of the definitive readings of the sublime Bacharach tune Here I Am and had a big hit with You Could Never Love Him.
She will be greatly missed.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Six)

Frank Sinatra, for all of his greatness, could never be completely convincing singing pop songs in the sixties. He can't hide his contempt of the material that he layed down on albums like That's Life, My Way and Strangers In The Night, and these album's worst moments are the most shallow items in the great mans catalogue. Dean Martin, on the other hand, could sing any song in any genre and give it a warmth and relaxed reading that Sinatra could never match.
Dean Martin's reprise catalogue in the sixties is one of the most underrated in all of popular music. Time has buried just how popular these records were and listening to them now we are able to hear some of the most revitalizing music of the period. Dean, like Elvis, could sing anything and make it a Dean Martin song. Give him a Jimmy Webb song like By The time I Get To Phoenix and he'll nail it, King Of The Road and he'll make it seem like he is singing his autobiography. He could inject the most tragic songs with hope and add an elation to happier tunes that no one could match.
Choosing a favorite Dino album from the Reprise period is near impossible, from the sublime Dream With Dean to the nostalgic Once In A While we are given hundreds of quality performances by a man whose reputation would tell you that he didn't give a damn, we know now that Dean Martin was a lot more complicated than people could have ever imagined.
Houston would be an important album in any one's oeuvre for just two tracks alone, the stunning pair of singles in the title track and I Will, but add on ten more country rock infused classics and you've got a masterpiece.
The Lee Hazelwood penned opening title track is one of the sixties great moments with Dean giving one of his all-time great performances. Never has a man at the end of his rope sounded so defiantly relaxed. He knocks Hazelwood's ultimate ode to a loner trying to get home completely out of the park and by the time Sun legend Billy Lee Riley comes in on the harmonica we already have one of the great singles of the sixties.
Side one's brassy energetic feel is laced with sweet remembrances of love and it ends on the lovely Down Home which returns us to the loner of the title track. The album's underlying story is that of a man who stepped out just a little too much but can still get salvation, if he can just get home. Get back to where you belong indeed.
Side Two opens with the legendary I Will, one of Dino's biggest hits, and its wonderfully mournful string section gives side two a different feel. I defy anyone to not be moved when Dean sings, "I don't want to be the one who loves you babe but I will". It's a heartfelt performance that does the deceptively simple thing of making you believe him.
Side Two is, over all, a little more mellow and lush than the first but by the time Dean's character is thrown into jail in the great Detour we realize that the loner from Side one is still with us. The album closes with You're The Reason I'm In Love and we have are character resolving to perhaps finally stay but not without reservations, when Dean sings "Some may doubt that I believe" he seems to be answering not only his critics but also a generation that never gave him enough credit.
Houston also features one of the great sleeve designs, this is why LPs were made, from the terrific montage of photos on the front to the hilarious back comparing Dean to the city of Houston.
Dean Martin remains one of the most underrated and under-appreciated performers in popular music. His place in rock history is particularly in need of attention as he is the connecting point between Bing Crosby's revolutionizing the art of singing to the emergence of Elvis Presley. Had he come to prominence just one or two decades later he would have been one of the great rock icons. His complex relaxed style can be seen in everyone from Bryan Ferry to Jarvis Cocker. For a man who supposedly didn't give a damn, I'd say he did more than just all right.

Swedish Born, World Class

Ann-Margret's 66th birthday is approaching and I can't believe that as I type it. I just saw her a year ago live and she is still as beautiful, vibrant and hipper than any woman half her age. Since I posted the Once A Thief Spanish mini card I thought I would share the rest I have. These all date from the mid sixties and are from Spain. Elvis loved her, you should too.

The Great Ones Vol.1 (Side A Track 6)

Glancing at the roles Tuesday Weld turned down throughout her career reads like a list of someone hell bent on not succeeding. She was quoted as saying that she turned down Bonnie and Clyde because, "I don't ever want to be a huge star, do you think I want to be a success?", other roles she turned down included Lolita, Rosemary's Baby, True Grit, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bob Carole Ted and Alice, Cactus Flower, Performance, The Stepford Wives, The Great Gatsby, Chinatown and Frances. Rumor has it that one of the reasons that Truffaut didn't direct Bonnie and Clyde was because she wouldn't play Bonnie, Beatty would continue to pursue her finally settling on Faye Dunaway who built her entire career from that role.
I found out about Tuesday Weld fairly young after seeing her with Elvis in 1961's Wild In The Country. Even in that early performance at just 18 she had a electrically charged weariness that most actors even after years of performing couldn't equal. The late 50's and early 60's would see her working a lot in TV and films of varying quality. Her role as Thalia Menninger on Dobie Gillis made her a major teen idol and this would be exploited in many of her earlier youth oriented films.
Things started to turn for her in 1963's Soldier In The Rain where she more than held her own with Steve Mcqueen and Jackie Gleason. It would be another Steve Mcqueen film two years later that would see her first really great performance, this as Christian in 65's The Cincinnati Kid. Her bad girl persona had been stripped away with this role, Ann-Margret handled that for the film, and she brings an uncommon sweetness to Christian. Mcqueen turns in some of his finest work feeding off Weld which makes it all the more regrettable that she didn't appear in Thomas Crown with him a few years later.
1966 was her major breakthrough with George Axelrod's jaw dropping satire, Lord Love A Duck. One of the major American films of the 1960's and a major disaster upon release although even its critics hailed Tuesday's work as the destined to be lost college student Barbara Ann Greene. Her favorite of all her roles would grow as the film would in stature each year. It's one of the few American films of the period that is the equal to the European cinema that would dominate the decade.
Ongoing personal problems began to dismantle Weld after this and she only worked in TV for the next two years losing much of the momentum that Lord Love A Duck created but by the time she made 68's Pretty Poison many critics were aware that they were dealing with one of the best actresses in the country. Although she has always despised the film her intense work as the monstrous SueAnn in Pretty Poison might be her greatest performance. Rarely has a sociopath been portrayed with so many dimensions. This would also mark her first appearance with another famously self destructive talent, Anthony Perkins.
She would take another two years off but would return in 1970 giving a trio of performances that rank alongside any great actors work in any period. Starting with 1970's I Walk The Line through to 71's A Safe Place and concluding with 72's Play It As It Lays we find Weld going for broke in a trilogy of films that all failed upon initial release and are all ripe for rediscovery.
Shortly before it's release I Walk The Line was taken away from great director John Frankenheimer and recut, shortened and re scored. I believe if his original cut ever surfaces it will play as one of the great films of the early 70s, as it stands even in it's tampered form it is still an uncommonly powerful film. Shot on location in Gainsboro Tennessee and telling the tale of a small town sheriff, wonderfully played by Gregory Peck, falling for and ultimately being destroyed by the daughter of a family of bootleggers. Weld's Alma is one of her most complex characterizations, even in the film's haunting last scenes we still aren't totally sure of her motivations. It's a bravura performance that feels totally authentic, something that is usually missing from interpretations of the South. Watching Weld's work in this and the two films following I am struck by the line in Johnny Cash's theme song, "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine". These performances, even at their most almost embarrassingly open moments, are ultimately very mysterious, hidden and guarded much like the woman portraying them.
Henry Jaglom was an actor in the 1960s who had befriended Weld as well as Orson Welles and Jack Nicholson, when he somehow got a major studio to back his first film A Safe Place all three would appear in it. Attempting to recount the plot of A Safe Place would be about the most foolish thing one could attempt to do, it's a film to be experienced and not talked about. It is also the hardest to find major film that Tuesday Weld ever made, grey market copies are all that are in circulation of this film that was a critical and commercial disaster upon release. In my eyes it's one of the great films of the seventies, a truly uncompromising personal vision made by a group of artists who knew ultimately that time would have to catch up with their film, it still hasn't.
Weld's final great starring role would come in Frank Perry's Joan Didion adaption Play It As It Lays, a film that would divide critics but a role that finally granted Weld universal acclaim. She would receive a Golden Globe nomination but was controversially ignored come Oscar time. It's a difficult film to watch and it's probably the best portrayal of someone having a complete mental breakdown ever filmed. Weld seems to bring all of her personal demons out for this role, her costar was once again Anthony Perkins and he also seems to bring more than just his acting tools to the part. This is cinema as deep therapy with the audience ultimately being as exhausted as the cast by the end of it.
Play It As It Lays would act as Tuesday Weld's Raging Bull. Like De Niro she would never again be as beautiful or as transcendent in a role. There would be great work after, her oscar nominated turn in Looking For Mr Goodbar, Michael Mann's Thief opposite James Caan and especially Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America with De Niro himself but she would never again open that window she had early in her career. Much like her character Noah at the end of A Safe Place, she would seemingly just disappear.
The mere mention of her name for some evokes wonderful long thought lost dreams of adolescence, for others it recalls the greatest fuck up of the 1960's. A woman who could have controlled the most legendary of all decades but ultimately couldn't be bothered. Either way her films continue to become more and more available and more and more people see them. Who knows in 20 years perhaps the list of roles she turned down will seem less and less important and maybe films like Lord Love A Duck and A Safe Place will be required watching for young film students. I almost hope not, I'd hate to lose her to the thing she hated so much in the first place. She remains like Axelrod's, punk before punk, description of Lord Love A Duck:
"This motion picture
is against
teenagers...
their parents...
beach movies....
cars...schools...
and several hundred
other things.
An Act of Pure Aggression."
or
to paraphrase a song in another film of hers, she remains a rose grown wild.

Deep Soul Silenced

Woke up this Christmas morning to the news that the mighty James Brown had died. I can't think of a worse Christmas present than losing one of the last true great authentic geniuses of popular culture.
The keyword is authentic, watching the clips that have played of James today on the news it was that word that kept coming to me. It's something that we are losing rapidly, that authenticity that so many of our disappearing great performers were possessed by.
James Brown leaves behind a monument of great recordings in the studio and a towering collection of live recordings. It's, of course, his demonically charismatic and impassioned live work that everyone always mentions. That shouldn't overpower his accomplishments in the recording studio. Listen to the 2disc compilation The Big Payback which collects his finest and most brutal funk from the late 60s and early 70s. One can imagine that, like Presley, his work in the studio probably resembled a live performance. It wasn't that he just wanted to entertain but something in his very nature demanded it. It's impossible to imagine that James Brown was capable of giving less than his all and even in his later inferior recordings he still possessed more passion than any of his contemporaries.
We've lost a flawed, gifted man who knew how to turn his demons into something that we could all groove to. We won't feel a fire like that again.