Gotta Love the Marimba!

Not long ago I posted some thoughts about the use of an ocarina as a solo instrument in pop music. (see 5/05/10: An Ocarina?) I admit the subject might have been a little bit lame to blog about, and so I apologize to anyone who thought I was being a tad harsh at best, or, at worst, terribly boring. (Just for the record, I don’t really think it was that bad of a subject, but hey, I can take a little constructive criticism from time to time.)

So allow me now to write on a more positive note about yet another instrument you don’t hear used much in pop music, at least not as a solo instrument: the marimba. Yes, that’s right – the marimba. (You know, that xylophoney-looking thing with metal tubes protruding down from down under the keys.) The marimba is known for its mellow lower register, and frequently used to create an “island” kind of mood, sounding a little like a muted version of steel drums.

Now, the marimba has been used a few times as a solo instrument in pop music, namely in the Rolling Stones’ Under My Thumb and Elton John’s Island Girl. But, without a doubt, the all-time standout marimba solo appears in the song Moonlight Feels Right (1976) by the Atlanta-based band, Starbuck – a group formed in 1974 by keyboardist and vocalist Bruce Blackman and marimba player Bo Wagner. (Yes, they’re the two guys up and to the right, dressed in those suave and sofisticated outfits, reminding us of why the chic styles of the 70s didn’t last!)

Given the fact that one of the band’s founding members was a marimba player, it’s no wonder that a 16-bar solo works its way into the middle of the song, giving Wagner a chance to show off his mallet chops while wowing his fans with sixteenth note triplets and chromatic scales. (Okay, too technical? Did I mention I was a percussion major for a big part of my college career?)

Anyway, the song made it all the way to #3 on the Billboard charts in 1976, and was the only real hit Starbuck ever had. Maybe the marimba just doesn’t appeal to a wide enough audience… Ya think?

Stairway to Heaven

Few songs generate fonder memories of my early teenage years than Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, a tune that has been covered by dozens of artists, all the way from Dolly Parton to Mary J. Blige. Written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and appearing on the album Led Zeppelin IV (1971), the song consistently ranks high among the top rock songs of all time.

Back in the fall of 1971 I was in the ninth grade, and from the first time I heard Stairway to Heaven, I remember immediately liking the song – its soft, arpeggiated acoustic guitar intro, its mystical and enchanting lyrics, and, most especially, Plant’s screaming vocals at the end.

During my high school years the song was a staple at parties, coffee houses and school dances. And, I’m pretty sure we did a cover version in the band I played with at the time, along with songs by groups like The Doors, Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

But my favorite high school memory surrounding Stairway to Heaven is playing it as an instrumental guitar prelude in church one Sunday with one of my best friends, Doug. Our church (of the large, downtown, Presbyterian variety) must have been fairly liberal for the day – not that there’s anything wrong with that – because members of our youth group regularly played guitars and sang during worship, entertaining the old guard with classics like Blowing in the Wind and One Tin Soldier. I can still recall playing on that particular Sunday, the two of us sitting on the steps that led up to the chancel area, with Doug plucking out the melody and me putting the chords underneath, as the congregation sat in silence and listened, politely intrigued. "Pretty cool," I thought at the time. Still do.

On a related note, a year or two after playing Stairway to Heaven in church, three of my friends and I played a prelude of a different sort, this time offering up a medley of Duke Ellington tunes. You should have seen the three ministers sauntering down the aisle to the strains of Take the "A" Train….

An Ocarina?

Okay, I’ll admit it: back in the mid-1970s I actually owned a Captain & Tennille album. There, I said it. I gladly lay it right out there on the table and own it. Not a problem.

The album was Love Will Keep Us Together, and not only was the title track pretty good, but I also liked some of the other cuts, as well – like the group’s cover version of The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows, and the Bruce Johnston classic, Disney Girls.

The duo released several other albums in the late 70s (I didn’t buy any of those!), and while it’s relatively easy to poke fun at The Captain & Tennille for a myriad of reasons (not the least of which is the hokey nautical captain’s hat worn by Daryl Dragon – alright, I know he was “the captain”), I really must take issue with Dragon’s choice of an ocarina as the solo instrument on one of the group’s more popular songs, Do That to Me One More Time, which appeared on their 1979 album, Make Your Move. I can’t for the life of me figure out what made him choose that instrument over some others. (An ocarina is a flute-type of instrument that looks sort of like a potato with holes in it.)

Daryl Dragon was, after all, one of the early users of the synthesizer in pop music (not that Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman had anything to worry about), using it in a particularly creative way on the song Muskrat Love. So, why not use a synthesizer for the solo verse in Do That to Me One More Time? (Something other than the sound of two muskrats mating might be nice, however!) Why in the world choose an ocarina? Goodness! An ocarina? The instrument (also known as a “sweet potato” – which should be a pretty good clue as to what a looser instrument it is!) sounds really out-of-place to me, and way “not cool.” How about a guitar? Or a trumpet, even? Almost anything would have been better than the “doot-doot-doot-doot-doot” of an ocarina. I don’t know, as a solo instrument, it just sounds really hokey to me.

Other than that, however, I sort of like the song – even though its title does have a romantic subtlety rivaled only by The Starland Vocal Band’s Afternoon Delight.

You Take My Breath Away!

Remember the name Rex Smith? If you don’t, I’m not surprised. Rex Smith was sort of a teen idol back in the late 70s, having really only one hit song, the romantic ballad You Take My Breath Away, which briefly hit the top ten in 1979. I collected 45 hit singles back then, and I remember Smith’s glossy black and white headshot on the front of the record’s dust cover.

Anyway, I have to admit – although I really don’t want to! – I kind of liked the song when it came out. (I guess I’m just a sucker for a whiny ballad.) These days, however, I can’t for the life of me remember why I liked the song – in fact, when I hear it now (it’s frequently played on the Sirius/XM Jukebox of Cheese) I think, “What a piece of useless fluff! How could I possibly have liked that song?”

Back in 1979, though, I liked the song well enough to actually write an arrangement of it for the wedding band I played in at the time – a band I like to refer to as “Four White Guys in Ruffled Shirts and Cheesy Tuxedoes.” I grimace now when I think about some young newlywed couple taking their spot on the dance floor for that very special first dance, and me seated behind my drum set crooning out lyrics like, “You, you smile and it’s okay; I don’t know what to say; you take my breath away; you take my breath a-waaaaay!” Yikes!

Rex Smith did go on to achieve some success in his career, including a platinum-selling album, Sooner or Later, acting roles on and off Broadway, and guest appearances on TV shows like The Love Boat, Baywatch, and As the World Turns. Clearly, the guy has some talent.

When all is said and done, Rex Smith’s You Take My Breath Away ranks right up there with other schlocky classics of the era, like John Travolta’s Let Her In (1976), Kenny Nolan’s I Like Dreamin’ (1977), and Dr. Hook’s Sharing’ the Night Together (1978) – all of which, at the time, I also thought were pretty good tunes. What was I thinking?

Whistle a Happy Tune!

I don’t hear very much whistling in pop music. I wonder why that is. I guess it has to do with the fact that it’s hard to whistle well, and that there’s a fine line between really good whistling (you know, whistling with a nice tone and just the right amount of vibrato) and really bad whistling (that is, whistling characterized by the combination of a shrill tone and a vibrato you could drive a truck through – a style I not-so-respectfully refer to as “old man” whistling).

When I think back to the music of my youth, two songs featuring someone whistling come to mind: Georgy Girl and Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay. It also occurs to me that while the whistling used in both these songs helps establish an upbeat and carefree kind of mood, at the same time that mood sits in stark contrast to the overall depressing theme of the songs themselves.

The song Georgy Girl was made popular by The Seekers back in 1962. And even though I was only five years old at the time, I remember hearing it on the radio with its bubbly, bouncy, four-bar whistling introduction and thinking, “Boy, that’s kind of different. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody whistling on a pop tune before! That sounds sort of fun and happy!” But then, despite its cheery introduction, the song goes on to describe a depressed and lonely young girl who lives in a dream world and runs away from reality. The lyrics even urge Georgy “not to be scared of changing,” and to “jump down from the shelf a little bit.” (I have to wonder if it’s ever a good idea to tell a depressed person to go find something to jump off of! Yikes!) Then, to make matters even worse, the words of the last verse encourage her to look for “another Georgy deep down inside” – suggesting that not only is this poor girl depressed, but apparently she also suffers from what’s known clinically as dissociative identity disorder, (a.k.a multiple personalities). Oh well, so much for my happy, cheery, bouncing little song. It’s sort of a downer, actually.

In Otis Redding’s Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay (1968), the whistling comes at the end of the song – and as the music fades out softly and slowly, the listener can imagine Otis rising from his seat on the dock, and happily and contentedly strolling off down some little road that runs along the bay. And that would be a great image, except for the fact that the lyrics speak of a man who, among other things, feels like “nothing’s gonna come my way,” “has nothing to live for,” suffers from a “loneliness that won’t leave me alone,” and is pathetically prepared to spend the rest of his wretched life “wasting time.” Wow! So much for the image of him happily strolling off into the sunset!

Hey, whatever happened to whistling a happy tune?

Woman Woman!

My mother loved the music of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, especially the song Woman Woman, which hit the charts in November of 1967. I remember her buying the 45 rpm single, and then playing it repeatedly (and literally ad nauseum!) on our family’s Sylvania stereo system, which enjoyed a place of prominence in our living room. (Stereo record players were still quite a novelty back then!)

As you probably know, Gary Puckett is the artist who brought us at least two other great hits: Young Girl and This Girl is a Woman Now – two songs that go wonderfully hand in hand, and together suggest that while it’s inappropriate for a man to pursue a young girl (as it most certainly is – even if she has led him to believe she’s “old enough to give him love”), once that young girl becomes a woman, well, she’s pretty much fair game for just about any middle-aged pop singer who comes down the pike dressed in a Union civil war uniform with a desire to “change her world.”

Yet, I digress. As I think back on my mother playing that record, Woman Woman, I find myself now, years later, wondering, What was my mom thinking? And, more to the point, just what was there about those lyrics that was so exciting to her? The song is, after all, about a woman who has “cheating on her mind,” and who Puckett describes as having “a certain look when she is on the move.” Did those lyrics express some secret fantasy my mother harbored in her own mind? Could my mother have had cheating on her mind? Yikes! Not my mom! And gosh, could it be I was blind to the fact that she wore some certain look when she was on the move? Eek, I don’t even want to go there!

Of course, it is possible (and, in fact, likely), that maybe my mom just simply liked the song – you know, like it had a good beat and you could dance to it – and that there were no other thoughts on her mind… er…well, you know what I mean.

Thoughts? Comments?

James Brown and Gordon Lightfoot

So, what do James Brown’s Sex Machine and Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald have in common? Give up? Not even a guess? Well, they’re absolutely two of the most repetitive, monotonous (not literally, but almost), banal and boring songs I’ve ever heard! I listened to them back-to-back on the radio the other day, and I could hardly stand it.

For starters, Brown’s Sex Machine (or, more accurately, Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine – a much better title, ya think?) uses the same one chord guitar lick over and over again (126 times to be exact!) – taking a break only to insert a 16-bar bridge in the middle of the song, which, frankly, is terribly monotonous, as well. Worse still, are the lyrics, which pretty much consist of Brown repeating ad nauseam the phrase, “Get up… stay on the scene… like a sex machine.” (In true James Brown fashion, of course, this is pronounced Get up-uh! Stay on the scene-uh! Like a sex machine-uh!) Finally, to make matters even worse, the song goes on for over five minutes, causing the monotony to stretch into what seems like an eternity! Argh!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love James Brown – and songs like Hot Pants, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag and Living in America – all great tunes. In fact, when I was a teenager the song I Feel Good was one of my favorites. (Still is, by the way!) But Sex Machine, well, not so much.

I like Gordon Lightfoot, too, and without a doubt hits like If You Could Read My Mind and Sundown are classics. But I’ve wondered for years why in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald he had to shove essentially the same eight bars down our throats for six and a half minutes, without at least a little variation. (Okay, there’s a little interlude in there, but that doesn’t count any more than the bridge in Sex Machine!) Maybe instead of concentrating on the music, Lightfoot was focusing all his compositional energies on creating intriguing rhymes like “…when the skies of November turn gloomy” and “...the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee.” That might explain it.

I don’t know… Do you think I’m being too hard on these guys? Leave a comment!