People always ask me if I’ll ever do another installment of my “Report From The Country” series from a few years back. “More Connie Eaton,” they say. “More ‘Pass The Biscuits, Please.’” I guess I’ve been dragging my heels because the artist I want to honor is getting along in years, and I don’t want to jinx him right into the ground. But it’s almost criminal that Jim Ed Brown’s solo albums remain out of print, so I’ve decided to take my chances.

Despite lavish reissues devoted to his early work in The Browns with his sisters Bonnie & Maxine, and easy access to his duets with Helen Cornelius, Jim Ed Brown’s steady stream of solo albums from the late sixties and early seventies remains elusive to all but the most patient of Usenet users. One of two have shown up on the occasional share blog, but the majority are still out of reach.

The Browns were one of the first country artists to enjoy cross-over success, helping to define country music’s space in the mainstream. Hits like “Scarlet Ribbons,” The Old Lamplighter” and their smash folk-pop version of Edith Piaf’s “The Three Bells” were just as popular on college campuses as they were in Nashville. As a solo, Jim Ed Brown was a regular on the Grand Ole Opry, and even hosted his own syndicated television program for a few years. In 1967, his cheerful anthem to alcoholism, “Pop A Top,” became an instant classic.

After that, the hits were harder to come by. Unfortunately for Jim, he recorded for RCA-Victor and was often assigned to mainstay Elvis Presley producer, Felton Jarvis. Like Elvis, Jim’s records were suffused with the bland surface gloss that marks most of that label’s country fodder from the period. Just as they did with Elvis, RCA was content to churn out collection after faceless collection of commercial filler, overexposing the artist and bleeding his fans until the revenue stream dried up. But also like Elvis, Jim rose above the limitations of his output. The effect of Jim’s smooth control and sweet tone wedded to the wistful dark material provided for him produced unearthly performances of an odd ambivalence that sometimes borders on the surreal.

But don’t let my perverse assessment put you off these great records. The gems are plentiful and offer deep rewards. Even if all you ever hear is “Sunday In The Country,” “Barroom Pals and Good Time Gals,” or the essential “Ginger Is Gentle And Waiting For Me,” you’ll be better prepared to face the world. But if you want to mainline a full-on Jim Ed Brown overdose, you’ve found the right place.



(thanks to the LP Discography site for the cover scans.)

My old assistant was really into “affiliate programs.” He’d grab a bunch of info from Wikipedia about, say, Stevia, publish it to an ad-laden “blog,” and use all the SEO techniques he could think of. Naturally, since he was just out of his teens and still living with his parents, he thought he was making “good money.” He never understood why I don’t populate Bostworld with ads. Apparently, he saw no contradiction in profiting from the uncompensated work of others.

I like to hope this site trades in forms of capital that are in some ways more valuable than actual money. Obviously, we derive great pleasure from helping keep alive work by Les Humphries, Butterscotch and other forgotten artists. But it’s also about making connections. Fans aren’t the only ones who enjoy our posts about the Golddiggers or Love Workshop — so have the artists themselves. We’ve received nice notes from members of the Doodletown Pipers, The Going Thing, the Young Americans, as well as Michael Lloyd, Joe Scott and even Wonderful Russ himself. We’ve also heard from family members eager both to share memories of lost loved ones and to connect with fans who help them celebrate those memories.

And now we come to “Grazing in The Grass” by the Adam Ross Reeds. It’s a great album, certainly well worth the quarter we paid for it almost two decades ago. It’s a marvelously breezy souvenir from the late sixties, rendering such contemporary classics as “Summer Samba,” “Music To Watch Girls By,” ” Watermelon Man” and “The Theme From Black Orpheus” in eclectic up-tempo arrangements sure to please fans of the “turned on” big band discotheque jazz idiom. But as for Mr. Reed himself, we know nothing about him – never heard of him before this album. The liner notes confess that he worked on “The Donald O’Connor Show” and “Allan Ludden’s Gallery,” but let’s face it: that’s not much help. So, until we hear from Adam Jr., this is the best we can do.

DOWNLOAD

When I was growing up, nobody could explain my grandfather’s job to me. Even when I was an adult, my mom couldn’t really tell me what he did for a living. I knew he was a Shriner, because I saw his hats. I knew he liked to collect restaurant menus, because I saw the blog posts. Beyond that, all I ever knew was he had an office downtown. Last month, I finally learned the truth.

Turns out, my grandmother was a regular fangirl when it came to her husband. From the 1930s right up through the mid-sixties, she kept a huge scrapbook about my grandfather, tirelessly collecting hundreds of photos and newspaper clippings documenting the ups and downs of his career. And while my grandfather was no Frank Sinatra or Mikey Mantle, he was quite a superstar in his own right.

The story begins shortly after my grandparents’ marriage and finds my grandfather working for a liberal newspaper in Syracuse, Nebraska. In 1936, the Otoe County Democrats elected him the youngest party chairman in the nation.

In short order, he was formally swept into the local bureaucracy, first as Assistant County Clerk, then as a trucking inspector for the Nebraska Railway Commission. Thanks to his ties to the newspaper business, or maybe just due to his basic inherent interestingness, my grandfather collected boatloads of ink throughout his career. He gathered tribute every time he climbed the ladder, garnering praise and support from peers and politicians. Along the way, he signed off on major issues of the day, and contributed “humorous” human-interest filler that would be considered inappropriate today.

Alas, despite Nebraska’s deep roots of progressive populism (or maybe because of it), the state couldn’t sustain a consistent majority for FDR. In the spring of 1940, my grandfather managed the Democratic candidate in a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of a sitting senator. The Republicans campaigned against the New Deal and won by a landslide. Later that year, after Nebraska awarded its electoral votes to Wendell Wilkie, my grandfather found himself out of power and planning his return to the private sector. He soon relocated to Minneapolis, reinvented himself as a successful businessman, immersed himself in the Chamber of Commerce, and continued to generate column inches in the local newspapers.

Around this time, his media visibility expanded and took an unexpected turn. During the war, my grandfather began appearing as a model for print advertisements. (An earlier accident kept him out of the service.) Significantly, the roles he adopted charted both his own trajectory and the country’s — out of the Depression and the war, and into the boom of the late Forties and early Fifties. The earliest of these ads portray him as an overall-clad working class hero putting his back into the war effort. Later, he’s an upwardly mobile everyman in a hurry to claim his slice of postwar prosperity. Finally, he’s a successful self-made man, living the model suburban dream.

After the war, my grandfather owned several successful businesses before he finally moved out west and joined CIT Corporation (yes, the very same CIT that’s been struggling for its life lately). As the vice president in charge of the Phoenix office, he doled out financing for many of the construction companies that built the modern Arizona. Here, he finally becomes recognizable to me as the man who became my grandfather — the guy with the carving utensils, serving up the holiday meals with a gruff efficiency and a policy of zero tolerance for tom-foolery at the dinner table. While these later years tend to strike me as anticlimactic, this period certainly brought him his greatest rewards. Like so many of the men of his generation who saw his country through the crises of the day, he was glad to take his place in line when it was time to reap the rewards he deserved.

And yet, my grandfather lived long enough to watch his country become unrecognizable to him. He saw the Democratic party fall apart during the Sixties, prey to both its own hubris and events beyond its control. Unable to corral its own disparate elements, the party splintered. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) Eventually my grandfather switched sympathies. But if he found any real satisfaction in the party of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, he never said anything to me about it.

In the end, extreme age and deteriorating health telescoped his life into a series of restless nights and passing days. I got to know him a little better once I got older, and he always impressed me as a serious, savvy son-of-a-gun. To hear him tell it, he never knew a fool that he suffered gladly. As his photos clearly show, he was a good-old-boy to the core, even as a young man — a true big fish in a small pond. And though I might not have believed it when I was younger, nowadays I can’t help but see a little bit of him staring back at me in the mirror. I’m glad I finally found out what he did for a living.

These days, the songwriting/production team of Chris Arnold, David Martin and Geoff Morrow is probably best known for giving us Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You,” and for bubblegum singles like Edison Lighthouse’s “It’s Up To You Petula” and Domino’s “Have You Had A Little Happiness Lately” (featuring Tony Burrows). They also wrote for Elvis (“This Is The Story,” “A Little Bit Of Green,” “Change Of Habit”). The trio released a few singles under their own names, but their only full-length album was 1970′s “Don’t You Know Butterscotch.”

I’ve been looking for this record for over a decade. I actually held it in my hands once, but I didn’t know what I had, balked at the price (probably under ten dollars) and foolishly let it go. Since then, I’ve never seen it for sale for anything less than 40 bucks, and only from obscure overseas dealers. But my most recent online search finally hit pay dirt. And I’m happy to say, the wait was worth it.

“Don’t You Know Butterscotch” is a kind of bridge from Petula to Barry, coming off almost like an early Bread album. The kiddie pop tracks released as singles are all here (“Don’t You Know,” “Surprise Surprise,” “Things I Do For You”), but it’s the “adult contemporary” cuts (“Us,” “Bye For Now,” “Cows”) that really balance out the program and add a depth never found on your average bubblegum album.

I found this album via Demonoid, so you can get it that way if you want. The torrent file includes the full album in the FLAC format, all the sheet music included in the original release, and a generous selection of singles. Or, you can just grab all tracks as MP3s, plus the album art:


DOWNLOAD

TORRENT

Say what you will about the convenience of the cloud, there are still some people who prefer the greater perceived permanence of a piece of plastic that they can stick on their shelf, toss in the back seat of their car or stash in the back of their closet. Those folks will relish the following piece of news: the Love Workshop Box Set is finally a reality!

Yep, Andy Olsen at Radio Free Phoenix has finally put final touches on his six-disk compilation of KDKB’s legendary comedy program from 1976. And now, he’s offering this labor of love to the public for less than what you’d pay for a tank of gas these days. Andy and his shopping cart and standing by right now, waiting for your purchase:

http://radiofreephoenix.com/loveworkshopcd.html

Whether this makes the shows archived here, at WFMU’s Beware Of The Blog and at Archive Dot Org more or less of a valued public service depends, I suppose, on how you stand on this whole getting-your-entertainment-for free-from-the-Internet issue. It’s moot point to me, since I received my copy for free anyway (I was, after all, a contributor). But if I hadn’t, I’m sure I’d buy one just the same.

Be sure to visit the Bostworld “Love Workshop” tribute pages for more info on this great program, including audio from the show, articles from the period and a lengthy exclusive interview with one half of the “Love Workshop” creative team, Russ “Wonderful Russ” Shaw.

(Now, if someone would come forward with recordings of “Bunkhouse Capers…”)

Last year, the best “new year’s resolution” I could think of was “make better pictures.” I don’t know if I succeeded or not, but I had a new camera last year, so it seemed like the obvious choice. But this year, I’m back to my old tricks. The average person might announce, “I promise to lose ten pounds and keep it off at least until mid-November,” or ” I hereby resolve to finally begin and hopefully complete that tedious home improvement project that’s been haunting the bottom of my to-do list,” But I’m more inclined to redouble my efforts to shed attachments and cultivate acceptance of the inevitable. A lofty goal perhaps, but not exactly productive.

When I look at the world around me, I start to think this is less of a cop-out than it seems. More than ever, our entire physical, social, economical and political landscape seems ready to just fall away. What’s the point of announcing, “this year, I resolve to separate my recyclables more carefully and think twice before I use my car to drive up to the corner,” when it’s so clear that decades of distancing ourselves from responsibility has left this country all but circling the drain? Why try to delay the inevitable? And besides, it’s unlikely that when the boss up in Washington starts getting the itch to push that doomsday button of his, he probably won’t stop to remind himself that Derrick made a greater effort this year to print on both sides of the paper.

But these are all just excuses; better that I just say it and be done with it and get on with my life: “this year, I resolve to make a greater effort to do things that will make my life a better one to live.” Of course, what I really mean is “my best chance of making it out of this year in one piece is to lower expectations.” Either way, it’s all about sacrifice.

And now, we party:

“Love To Be Your Man” – The 13th Power
“Niagara Vizeses” – Tabanyi Mihaly Es Szolistai
“Young Girl” – The Raymonde Singers, Etcetera
“McCloud” – John Gregory Orchestra
“Yes I Understand” – The Flying Machine
“Rosemary’s Baby” – The Brass Ring
“If This Isn’t Love” – Dean Martin & The Hi Lo’s
“Tell Me What You Want” – Armada Orchestra
“The New Generation” – Sqibb Pharmaceuticals
“Glide Time” – High Llamas


Click here to subscribe to “Your Favorite Little Podcast.”

Add “Your Favorite Little Podcast” to your iTunes library.

I made my first visits to New York City as a touring musician, but my experiences were of a no less hayseed variety: getting lost looking for a public restroom, getting lost trying to follow directions after dark (“go east after exiting the subway…”), and my greatest moment: waking up in the back of the van, thinking I was in Buffalo and getting lost.

Eventually, I graduated from the back of a van to an actual hotel bed, as my career elevated me from the notorious CBGBs men’s room to the posh washrooms of mid town. My band-mates and I would bounce from one office building to the next, discussing the poor quality of our music with the record company, the poor quality of our finances with the accountants, and the poor quality of our contracts with the lawyers. In between, we got to partake of some mighty fancy restaurants (all charged to the band, no doubt).

Now that I’ve returned to civilian life, my visits to The City are much less frequent. So I supplement my experiences vicariously, using visual aids. In addition to books and videos, I’ve also got the family postcard collection. And while I doubt there’s little I can add to the vast plethora of Manhattania already available on the web, here they are anyway:



I don’t know if all the players in these clips remain in Damon’s good graces or not, but he managed to coax terrific performances from all of them. Michael Block’s droll commentary in “The American Eating Show,” is charming to the extreme, but I confess I have no idea what’s going on with the hallucinatory visual effects Damon has added. The two gentlemen in “About Five Minutes” do an acceptable job with Damon’s convoluted script, though they sound like they could have used more rehearsal time. Regardless, if nothing else, this piece succeeds in making my wife very nervous.

My brother has created a lot of music in his life. He started and disbanded more groups than I’ll ever be able to remember. He’s even produced music for the City of Tucson as well as a couple of churches. Just this last weekend, he joined the Unitarian Church Choir for a performance of a couple of his pieces at a service commemorating the installation of their new minister. And while everyone was very proud of him (especially his parents), in my heart, it will never supplant “About Five Minutes.”



I haven’t been to Chicago in over a dozen years, but I still have my memories. Unfortunately, most of them involve trying driving around the club trying to find safe legal parking for two vans and a trailer. So the next best thing for me are these postcards from my grandfather’s collection, some of which date back a hundred years, to the 1893 World’s Exposition.

Aside from the postcards, the closest I’ve been to Chicago recently has been through a book and DVD by “This American Life” host Ira Glass and illustrator Chris Ware, “Lost Buildings.” The DVD tells the story of a kid who’s love for the work of architect Louis Sullivan led him into the orbit of photographer Richard Nickel. Forty years ago, Nickel traced an ever-shrinking circuit, documenting the progress of urban renewal as it consigned more and more of Sullivan’s buildings to the wrecking ball. Increasingly frustrated by the loss of these historic monuments, Nickel finally met his end inside the old Chicago Stock Exchange building. Seems he’d been trying to rescue an ornate specimen of staircase railing from demolition when the floor above him collapsed.

No doubt, many of the older subjects of these postcards are long gone as well, and the ones remaining are not long for this world. Who knows? One day, I might actually get back to Chicago, create a circuit of my own, and find out.